Ritual returns

Rich-Joseph Facun / Staff
Rabbi Yossie Shemtov stands above the women's mikveh at Congregation Young Israel; an older community bath will be renewed.

Jeffry Scott / Staff Rabbi Israel Becker in the still-under-construction mikveh at Chofetz Chayim. How to help * Two unrelated mikveh projects are accepting community donations: Donations to renovate the old community mikveh at the Orthodox Congregation Young Israel, 2443 E. Fourth St., should be made to: Mikveh Fund, c/o The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, 3822 E. River Road, Suite 100, Tucson, AZ, 85718. Donations to build a separate community mikveh at the Orthodox Congregation Chofetz Chayim should go to: Congregation Chofetz Chayim, Mikveh Project, 5150 E. Fifth St., Tucson, AZ, 85711.

Jewish cleansing baths being renovated or built

A ritual bath for Jews that once fell out of favor is making a return. Or as Jewish worshippers would say: The mikveh is back.

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is raising money to renovate what was once Tucson's only community mikveh, another such community ritual bath was completed last year, and a third is now under construction and expected to open in September.

"People are looking for more of a spirituality that can connect them to God and connect them to themselves,'' said Rabbi Israel Becker of the Orthodox Congregation Chofetz Chayim, 5051 E. Fifth St., explaining the surge of interest.

A bath that typically contains a carefully measured balance of regular water and rainwater, mikvehs are part of a purification ritual that married Jewish women use after each monthly menstrual cycle as a way of cleansing and purifying in order to resume sexual relations with her husband - an occasion during which Jewish people believe God is present.

Other uses for the mikveh can include the immersion of a bride before her wedding day, immersing dishes and utensils for use in a kosher kitchen, and immersion of people converting to Judaism. In Tucson, Jewish conversions are only handled at the 45-year-old Clara Levkowicz Community Mikveh, 2443 E. Fourth St.

"The mikveh is about a certain spiritual awakening for the whole family. It's beautiful,'' said Esther Becker, who is the rabbi's wife and also director of the local Women's Academy for Jewish Studies.

The Beckers are building a new community mikveh for women that they hope to open by September. The ritual bath is for the Tucson Jewish community, not just for Orthodox Jews. The project, which will include a second separate "kaylim" mikveh for cooking utensils, has been seven years in the making, they said, pointing to intricate building and engineering plans that had to be approved by a rabbinical mikveh expert.

In his 1959 book, "This Is My God: The Jewish Way of Life," Herman Wouk wrote that the dilapidated mikvehs in the United States combined with much-improved bathtubs and showers in homes turned many postwar European immigrants away from the tradition.

Others say feminism had an effect on the use of the ritual baths by arguing that the tradition suggests women, unlike men, are impure. Others say speculation is unnecessary.

The Beckers' mikveh is separate and separately funded from Tucson's other two mikvehs - one recently constructed community mikveh for women only at Congregation Young Israel, 2443 E. Fourth St., and the 45-year-old Clara Levkowitz Community Mikveh, also at Congregation Young Israel, which is in need of repair.

Jewish people across the world are reviving the mikveh tradition, said Rabbi Yossie Shemtov of the Orthodox Congregation Young Israel and Congregation Chabad-Lubavitch.

Shemtov, a Hasidic Jew, said it's particularly satisfying that mikvehs are now popping up in Russia, where his own grandfather was arrested and sent to Siberia for building mikvehs in the 1920s. But the tradition of the mikveh was so important to her faith that Shemtov's grandmother risked her own arrest to use a mikveh every month.

According to a letter signed by seven Tucson rabbis - five of them Reform rabbis - the renovation cost of the old mikveh at Congregation Young Israel is $72,000, $15,000 of which already has been provided by the local Jewish Federation.

* Contact reporter Stephanie Innes at (520) 573-4134 or at sinnes@azstarnet.com.