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The bride's henna ritual was the principal rite of passage for women in Yemen. This ritual was an important stage in preparing the bride for her new life, as she changed from a girl-youth into a man's wife, became separated from her family, and went to live in her husband's home. It expressed a rigid gender separation and a non-egalitarian system in which femininity was shackled in structural inferiority.
After immigrating to Israel and becoming exposed to a western society with egalitarian messages, Yemenite women became less dependent and subservient and more empowered. However, they also maintained traditional thought patterns. The change in their status, as well as the mixed trends towards change and preservation in communal tradition, influenced the performance of the henna ritual in Israel, and it became syncretic.
During the last few decades, as part of the process of Mizrahi young people return to their roots, the custom of holding a henna ritual has been revived among young Yemenite Jews in Israel, mainly as a symbol ot their ethnic identity. Today, however, the ritual is characterized by a breaking of the social order and hierarchy. It is focused on the couple, and its importance as a female rite of passage has diminished.
INTRODUCTION
The ritual is a planned event, with rules, accompanied by symbols that transmit recognized meanings. It presents us in a concentrated manner with the sociocultural experience, diverse relationships, and social hierarchy that characterize the context within which it takes place, and with the participants' beliefs and ideologies.1 Two intertwined dimensions exist in every ritual. On the one hand, it comprises a means for maintaining social order, increasing social cohesion, and strengthening the main values of the society, and it legitimizes statuses and roles on the basis of those values. On the other hand, via collaborative social consent, it enables the introduction of new elements that are appropriate to changing circumstances.2
Wedding ceremonies, in which members of a couple are transformed from being unmarried to being married, are rites of passage,1 rituals by which people pass from one status to another. They become aware of their new obligations and rights and obtain approval for their new identity. Van Gennep discerned three principal stages in the rite of passage: separation...