Jewish-American woman's sexual revolution

Amy Spiro, Times of Israel/MSN, April 1st; Sheldon S., A. Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

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This Israeli-American "Bohemian Balabusta" seeks a religious sexual revolution

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Malka Chana Amichai wants us to talk about sex. The Jewish yogini headscarf-wearing Israeli-American religious mother of four has devoted much of her career to focusing on women’s reproductive health.

And in recent years – through her website and on Instagram – she has focused on breaking down taboos against publicly discussing such issues in many Orthodox circles.

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Drawing on her experience as a doula for labor and postpartum, her training as a “kallah teacher” – one who instructs religious brides on family purity laws – as well as a prenatal yoga instructor and Lamaze educator, Amichai aims to get religious Jewish women talking about their bodies.

Amichai didn’t even own a smartphone for much of her life, but after opening an Instagram account for the first time in November 2020 she racked up 5,000 followers within the first year. Today she has close to 57,000 followers from all around the world.

“I’m a religious, Orthodox, Jewish woman who covers her hair [like a modern Muslim or old-time Catholic], and I’m speaking openly about sexuality and menstruation and birthing -- that’s super taboo stuff,” she said in a recent interview with The Times of Israel.

“I think it’s probably what I represent that is intriguing to a lot of people and normalizing it. Because I’m not a show. I’m going through all the same things.”

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Calling herself the “Bohemian Balabusta” [Ball Buster?], a Yiddish word that generally means "homemaker," Amichai, 34, has pivoted in recent years from active work as a doula and women's coach to become an influencer, with digital workshops, seminars, workbooks, even a coloring book of the female anatomy titled “Sacred Womanhood.”

Amichai, who lives with her family in the Etzion Bloc [of internationally-illegally occupied Palestine], said she sees all of her work in women’s health leading her, as it were, backwards.

This Israeli-American Bohemian Balabusta seeks a religious sexual revolution

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Shortly after she was married, she trained as a postpartum doula, coaching new mothers and families through their adjustment.

While she enjoyed the work, “I just kept feeling like I had to get to this woman sooner,” she said, before she was “depleted and not feeling supported.”

She then trained as a birth doula, “but the same thing – I felt like I had to get to them sooner.”

Coloring in her Sacred Womanhood (Chava Abrams/Simple Wonders/The Times of Israel).

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She became a prenatal yoga teacher then trained as a childbirth educator and took a course to become a kallah teacher.

“It seemed like an organic, great fit: I’ve worked with women. Let’s keep getting to them sooner so that they’re already starting these lifecycle journeys from an empowered place.” More

• American JewBu: Jews, Buddhists, and Religious Change (Emily Sigalow)
• Times of Israel: Bohemian Balabusta's sexual revolution