Ritual Improvisation in the Face of Disability: Israeli Reform Rabbis and the Creation of Accessible Jewish Life-Cycle Ceremonies

In recent years, the discourse on the inclusion of people with disabilities has gained momentum. In the religious world, often grounded in traditional perceptions, this task is frequently challenging and reflects the inherent tension between innovation and preservation. This article examines how Reform rabbis in Israel narrate, negotiate, and improvise accessible ritual practices in encounters with people with disabilities. As liberal, non-Orthodox religious leaders who advocate pluralism, creativity, and religious flexibility in a changing reality, many of them conduct specialized life-cycle ceremonies for individuals with various disabilities and face diverse ritual dilemmas. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews with them, we examine how they perform these rituals and how they create an adapted and accessible performance responsive to the evolving needs of people with disabilities. The findings indicate that rabbis introduce ritual modifications in relation to written texts, bodily gestures, and the prayer space. Rabbis describe placing individuals—their needs, cognitive abilities, and physical capacities—at the center of the ritual, thereby reshaping its form and practice. We interpret these practices as revealing ritual space as a site in which religious norms, accessibility, and inclusion are negotiated. The rabbis’ accounts contribute to expanding the limited scholarly knowledge on the intersection of religion and disability. While rabbis often frame inclusion as enabling disabled participants to participate “like everyone else,” this aspiration may reproduce normative assumptions about what legitimate ritual participation looks like. At the same time, some adaptations do more than accommodate difference; they generate alternative ritual norms and expand the boundaries of Jewish practice.