Female Homosexuality in Judaism



Reprinted with permission from
The Jewish Quarterly
, Autumn 1993 (40:3).

Interestingly, sexual intimacy between women was not mentioned at all in Jewish texts until 1,500 years ago. When we turn to the first source of Jewish teaching, the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, redacted either as early as the tenth century or as late as the fifth century BCE, we find that the sections which outline prohibited sexual unions (Leviticus 18 and 20) do not include a single word about lesbianism. Leviticus 18:22, addressing the individual male, states clearly: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abhorrence” (to’evah). And Leviticus 20:13 adds: “And a man who lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abhorrence: They shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” 

The context of each verse is a lengthy statement detailing prohibited sexual unions; the operating rationale is the separation of Israel from the peoples around them, and their consecration to God. And it is here, right at the beginning of the story of homosexuality and Judaism, that we find a clue to the assumptions underlying Jewish teaching on lesbianism which emerged centuries later: women are included in the texts of Leviticus 18 and 20, of course, but with the exception of the case of bestiality (Lev. 18:23), women are the objects, not the subjects, of the different types of sexual union, and there is no mention at all of women in relation to one another.

The first fleeting allusion to sexual contact between women is made by the rabbinic sages in Sifra (Acharei Mot 9:8), a work of halakhic midrash (that is, rabbinic exegesis of legal biblical material) which comments on the book of Leviticus and was edited no earlier than the end of the fourth century CE (when the Jerusalem Talmud was completed). Here, referring to the “laws” of Egypt and Canaan which the Israelites are prohibited from following (Lev. 18:3), the text cites as an example that “a man would marry [nosei] a man, and a woman a woman”—a clear reference not only to same-sex intimate acts, but also to on‑going relationships between same‑sex partners.


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