A woman’s work never stops. Especially that of a Jewish woman, as at least half this readership might agree. As early as the 16th century the Yiddish writer Rivkah Tiktiner observed that “a woman is responsible for everything: for her husband, for her children, and for her servants”.
Her sentiment provides the title of this seminal exploration of Jewish women in history by academics Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach. The pair have exhaustively trawled the archives, exploring letters, communal records, divorce agreements, wills and more, to paint a picture of how Ashkenazi Jewish women lived, worked, worshipped and raised families in 16th, 17th and 18th-century Mainz, Altona, Prague and beyond. (Sephardi women are not covered; a similar book on their lives would make a welcome addition.)
It’s a treasure trove of quirky detail and unexpected stories. Who knew, for example, that rabbis during this period gave pregnant women amulets to ensure safe birth? Or that wedding prep once involved a hair-braiding ceremony? How envious I am that because Jewish women often locked away their possessions, their clothes were designed with pockets for the keys. Modern designers, take note.
The societal nuances are equally fascinating. The question of how Jewish servants were treated, the attitudes of communities toward outsiders who could represent a financial burden, the importance of dowries and what happened to them when a spouse died: all are featured. Plenty an episode could be a novel in its own right: in one case, a sick woman was betrothed to a servant so her father could be sure she’d be cared for, only for the father to renege on the dowry when she recovered – and the two to then defy him and marry anyway.
First-born children might not have inherited the estate as in Christian circles, but birth order determined how much money parents were expected to guarantee for their children to be allowed to marry. Given that marriage is a mitzvah, it’s striking to see how many hoops our ancestors once made community members jump through. Then there’s the immense privilege enjoyed by certain women; not simply shtetl Jews, but court Jews and everything in between.
In many cases they were just like us. One matriarch used her will to lecture her daughters and daughters in law: “Don’t let my grandchildren go around looking sloppy, keep them well bred.” A report from a marital dispute observed that “Meir Weil and his wife came before the Bet Din because of various arguments and quarrels between them. Meir contended that his wife caused all the quarrels, and his wife said it was he.” It emerges the breastfeeding wars have long roots, albeit involving wet nurses rather than formula: Tiktiner admonished mothers who were “so undutiful that they do not want to suffer any pain, and let the child be nursed by another woman”.
Nothing is off the table, from the role women played in burial societies back then (active, it turns out), to periods, miscarriage and abusive husbands. There’s even an anecdote about Jewish women being accused of witchcraft (gratifyingly, they were defended by the community). And at a time when divorce was not open to Christian women, Jewish women both benefited and suffered from the ability of the rabbinic courts to end marriages.
This is, primarily, an academic book. Sentences such as “we discuss tasks that were usually performed by women because that type of work was gendered female” might alienate a more casual readership. And while much is known about certain sources, such as Tiktiner, many characters are sparsely referred to: “the wife of Hayim”, or “Reichla, daughter of Judah Leyb of Lissa”. But this is not the authors’ fault. Indeed, the fact we know even as much as this is testament to the value Jews have placed on educating not just men but women over the centuries. Thanks to high literacy rates Jewish women throughout history could read, write and record at least some of their experiences.
A writer of historical fiction might well bring these women to life in more vivid and accessible colour. Regardless, it’s an extraordinary work of academic scholarship, uncovering the enormous contribution to building Jewish life over the centuries made by women whose stories would otherwise remain forgotten.
A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe
By Debra Kaplan and Elisheva Carlebach
Princeton University Press
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