House of Secrets: The Hidden World of the Mikveh

The first inside look at the experiences of women who visit traditional mikvehs
For Orthodox Jews, immersion in the mikveh is the cornerstone of family life. Jewish women must visit this ritual bath before marriage and monthly after menstruation before resuming marital relations. Yet women from across the Jewish spectrum frequent the mikveh, often for surprising personal reasons. Roused by her own immersion experience, for years Varda Polak-Sahm, a secular Jew, patiently observed and interviewed women at the mikveh, gaining unprecedented access to this hidden world of purity, sexuality, and fertility. Her uncensored firsthand account of an experience that is for some holy and for others coercive illuminates the power of ritual immersion for the growing number of women reclaiming this practice.