“At ‘Amen Meals’ It’s Me and God” Religion and Gender: A New Jewish Women’s Ritual

New ritual practices performed by Jewish women can serve as test cases for an examination of the phenomenon of the creation of religious rituals by women. These food-related rituals, which have been termed ‘‘amen meals’’ were developed in Israel beginning in the year 2000 and subsequently spread to Jewish women in Europe and the United States. This study employs a qualitative-ethnographic methodology grounded in participant-observation and in-depth interviews to describe these nonobligatory, extra-halakhic rituals. What makes these rituals stand out is the women’s sense that through these rituals they experience a direct con- nection to God and, thus, can change reality, i.e., bring about jobs, marriages, children, health, and salvation for friends and loved ones. The ‘‘amen’’ rituals also create an open, inclusive woman’s space imbued with strong spiritual–emotional energies that counter the women’s religious marginality. Finally, the purposes and functions of these rituals, including identity building and displays of cultural capital, are considered within a theoretical framework that views ‘‘doing gender’’ and ‘‘doing religion’’ as an integrated experience

Decidual-tissue-resident memory T cells protect against nonprimary human cytomegalovirus infection at the maternal-fetal interface

Summary: Congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) is the most common intrauterine infection, leading to infant neurodevelopmental disabilities. An improved knowledge of correlates of protection against cCMV is needed to guide prevention strategies. Here, we employ an ex vivo model of human CMV (HCMV) infection in decidual tissues of women with and without preconception immunity against CMV, recapitulating nonprimary vs. primary infection at the authentic maternofetal transmission site. We show that decidual tissues of women with preconception immunity against CMV exhibit intrinsic resistance to HCMV, mounting a rapid activation of tissue-resident memory CD8+ and CD4+ T cells upon HCMV reinfection. We further reveal the role of HCMV-specific decidual-tissue-resident CD8+ T cells in local protection against nonprimary HCMV infection. The findings could inform the development of a vaccine against cCMV and provide insights for further studies of the integrity of immune defense against HCMV and other pathogens at the human maternal-fetal interface