Martin lecture to explore Jerusalem conflict from a feminist perspective

Exploring the centuries-old struggle over Jerusalem's sacred spaces from a femeinist perspective will be the topic of this year's Martin Lecture on Monday, March 24, to be delivered by Bonna Devora Haberman.

The lecture, titled ''Israel, A Palace in Space: Toward Feminist Re-Visions of Sacred Territory,'' will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Holman Room of Mary Lyon Hall. It is free and open to all.

Haberman is director of the Mistabra Institute for Jewish Textual Activism and resident scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. The Mistabra Institute integrates rigorous study of biblical, rabbinic, and hassidic texts with plastic arts and dramatic performance, using technological media as tools for social change.

Haberman also is the author of BEYOND THE WALL: FROM TEXT TO ACTION, a Jewish feminist liberation theology based on her work as the founder of Women of the Wall, a decade-strong Israeli movement promoting the religious rights of women.

She describes her lecture in these words: ''Competing claims to a finite earth and its sanctity are often formulated in terms of territoriality, entitlement, conquering, possession, and ownership. This lecture investigates the Jewish people's gendered relationship to sacred space, creating a corollary to Avraham Joshua Heschel's ''Palace in Time.'' Conceiving the fulfillment of the continuous longing for Israel as an ongoing and subtle process of consummating the divine covenant, I propose feminist analysis toward peacemaking.''