Religionists can quickly rattle off myriad global, historical sites of contested holy space. But there is still something deeply nauseating, unhomed, un-everything, about attacks on vulnerable human beings at prayer, or about to pray. We want to believe in religious spaces as safe dwellings, as sanctuaries in the most literal sense of the word—but they have also long been targets for Americans who fear change.
Jodi Eichler-Levine
Jodi Eichler-Levine is the Berman Professor of Jewish Civilization and associate professor of religion studies at Lehigh University. She is the author of Painted Pomegranates and Needlepoint Rabbis: How Jews Craft Resilience and Create Community and Suffer the Little Children: Uses of the Past in Jewish and African American Children’s Literature.
