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Female Jewish Spirituality, Experience, and Being Kosher in Early Modern Europe

This essay highlights the roles, experiences, and kosher practices of early modern Jewish women and their families.

Published onApr 26, 2023
Female Jewish Spirituality, Experience, and Being Kosher in Early Modern Europe
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Often when studying religion within early modern European history, we are immediately drawn to think of the Protestant Reformation, particularly looking at the conflict between sects of newly formed Protestant religions and Catholicism. Within these broad boundaries of religion, we can identify a cross-section between religion and the female experience in early modern Europe. However, a scope that solely focuses on the experiences of Catholic and Protestant women leaves out those of Jewish women, who were a part of a wider Jewish diaspora that not only pre-dated the spread of Catholicism but was also present throughout all of Europe. This essay intends to explore early modern European religious movements, particularly as they relate to the Protestant Reformation, to highlight the roles, experiences, and kosher practices of early modern Jewish women and their families. We will first begin by exploring what it meant to be a Jewish woman in early modern Europe through looking at prayers and spiritual habits of these women, literary works and letters written by early modern Jewish women, as well identifying what it meant to live as a Kosher Jew through a broad history of Kosher practices in the period, as well as by examining Jewish household cookbooks.

The female role within traditional rabbinic and Chasidic Judaism, which were the most prominently practiced forms of Judaism in early modern Europe, is one that shares both similarities and differences with other religions of the time, such as Catholicism and the varying Protestant sects. Like Protestant religions, there is no place for women within clerical roles, and women are expected to be pious homemakers and birth givers, and are quite literally known as akeret habayit (“mainstay” of the home)1 in Hebrew. This contrasts with Catholicism, where women can become—mind you, celibate—nuns. However, traditional forms of Judaism greatly differ from Protestantism and Catholicism as a result of their accessibility to scripture and other certain materials. Women and men in both Catholicism and Protestantism have the ability, and are encouraged, to further enrich their souls through reading scripture and attending mass.

A 17th-century Ashkenaz Torah Scroll, of Germanic origin, from the British Library.

However, Jewish women were not permitted to read foundational documents of the religion such as the Torah (first five books of the Bible), Talmud (rabbinic commentary on the Torah), and the Mishnah (the so-called oral Torah), nor were they allowed to attend shul, or synagogue. Additionally, women were unlikely to read Hebrew, which was the language in which these documents were written. However, this is not to say that women had no access to spirituality, as they were permitted to read religious books and writings that men had written based on their studies. Further, and most importantly, women prayed, and records of female prayers from this period have been recorded and translated from Yiddish to English, allowing us a window into the female Jewish experience.

Female prayers in Judaism were often recited in Yiddish, the language of many Ashkenazic and Eastern European Jews, and are known as tkhines.2

Text of Tkhine shloyshe sheorim (The Tkhine of Three Gates) by Sarah Bas Tovim, early 18th century. From a prayerbook published in Vilna in 1850. Courtesy of Aharon Varady and the Open Siddur Project.  

These Yiddish prayers are the subject of Chava Weissler’s book Voices of the Matriarchs, where she explores how these prayers can provide a more complete view of the Ashkenazic female experience in early modern Europe.3 Weissler notes that tkhines were written for women and were intended to “…structure women’s devotional lives by defining a range of topics considered suitable for women,”4 such as tkhines to be said when lighting Shabbat candles, emerging from the ritual bath or mikveh, or on Yom Kippur.5 Further, the prayers often include references to prominent matriarchs within the Bible, who served in role model-like positions for pious Jewish women.6 Nonetheless, tkhines of all kinds allow us to understand the role that Judaism and spirituality played within the lives of early modern Ashkenazic women. With the inability to read Torah or Talmud, women were permitted to express their spirituality and celebrate their Judaism through such prayers. For example, we can look at a tkhine that was said upon emergence from the mikveh, which is a ritual bath that Jewish women are to complete following menstruation as a means to repurify oneself. The prayer states, “Great God! Through water You have performed great miracles…May You also perform your miracle today…through water to bear a son who will be completely righteous…”7 Through this example of a prayer pleading to God, women are not only demonstrating their vast sense of spirituality, but also confirming their responsibility as birth givers and duty in raising their children. Further, many tkhines were written by men for women, which can be seen in the specific plea for a son. Despite possible masculine influence in thkines, one can see their popularity amongst Jewish women as evidence of a fervent spiritual life and sense amongst Ashkenazic females.

We can further engage with Jewish women’s experience through literary works created by early modern Jewish women in Europe. First, we can examine poetry of Jewish women from all across Europe to further understand female spiritual life in Judaism of the period. Included in Jewish Women’s Spirituality: A Sourcebook are poems written by an Italian Jewish woman named Rachel Luzzato Morpurgo who was born in 1790, but who’s work was officially published in the 19th century.8 Within the poems there are clear sentiments of awaiting the coming of the Messiah, which is a foundational aspect of the Jewish religion. Further, this time period is marked by ideals of the Jewish Enlightenment, or Haskalah, that effectively changed the future of the Jewish religion. Rachel writes in Untitled Poem, “How long till our redemption’s Star shall come,”9 effectively asking how long until the Messiah will come to reunite Jews across the world. Further, we can see this enlightened shift in Judaism in another one of her poems, where she includes a verse from Genesis at the head of the poem.10 This inclusion of a Torah, while seemingly simple, can allow us to understand that Judaism had undergone change, as women would previously not have been allowed to read any excerpt from the Torah. Chava Weissler further mentions in a different article, as previously discussed, the window into the religious lives of Jewish women is extremely limited due to texts being not just written by men for men, but also that these texts were written in Hebrew or Aramaic, which were languages unknown to early modern Ashkenazic women.11 We can connect this previous linguistic inaccessability to the the Jewish Enlightenment, which allowed for strides to take place regarding the female role in Judaism. Most prominently, the haskalah began a marks a period in which Jews began to turn away from traditional, rabbinic Judaism in favor of a more enlightened version that could occupy a place within the modern world. Hence, even though these poems were written during the 19th century, they show us that the roles of women changed with the adaptation and development of Judaism following the turn away from rabbinic traditions.

Sefer netivot ha-Shalom, A first edition of Moses Mendelssohn’s translation of the Pentateuch. The British Library.

With this movement came further accessibility to the sacred texts of Judaism, the most prominent being the translation of the Torah into German (but using Hebrew characters) by Moses Mendelssohn.12 With this translation into a digestible form for the majority of the German population who spoke Yiddish, women could now feasibly (especially with the turn away from rabbinic Judaism) read Torah.13

Painting of Glikl bas Judah Leib

Additionally, we can look to Glikl, an early modern German Jewish woman who wrote Memoirs, which was an account of her life to be passed to her children. This work included stories of her life before the death of her husband (in which she mentions her husband including her in his business dealings), after the death of her husband (in which she herself takes on a position of authority as the matriarch of her family), as well as moral stories. While Glikl’s writings do not mention much of her explicit religious practices, Glikl very frequently mentions God in her writings, as well as continually pleads to God that her husband’s soul is at rest each time she brings him up.14 Further, we hear of Glikl’s travel to places such as Amsterdam and other locations in Central Europe, which while seemingly close together now, would have marked multiple-week journeys before arrival.15 These long journeys not only can demonstrate Glikl’s socioeconomic status, but also a window into religious devotion. These journeys would have required Glikl to plan a route that would permit her to stop at Jewish households and businesses, both to ensure kosher eating as well as have a place to stay on Shabbat.

Glikl: Memoires 1691-1719 [Glückel of Hameln; Zikhroynes Glikl Hamel] [In Hebrew and Yiddish], front cover.

Glikl’s involvement in business allows us to understand marriage dynamics of the time, in which we can understand that women, regardless of religion as we saw within the genesis of scientific revolutions in class, played active roles within the trade of their husband.16 Glikl’s work confirms this notion within the bounds of the Jewish household as well.

Finally, exploration of the domestic space itself can offer us insight into the lives of Jewish women, as well as the entire early modern Jewish household. In order to do this, we can look at the food-ways and recipes of these households, specifically through understanding through a Kosher lens. In the Torah, the Book of Deuteronomy lays out specific guidelines that Jews must follow regarding the types of animals that are permissible to eat, as well as how these animals must be slaughtered.17 This came to known as Kosher, and while less frequently followed in modern times, this Jewish command was strictly adhered to for much of Judaism’s history, including Judaism early modern Europe. To relate this ancient teaching to the early modern period, we can look to the article “Fish and Tsimmes,” where author Elliott Horowitz details an account from a work called Schmaltz, where it is said that “all rituals and ingredients ‘as well as the’ social and familial rituals that accompanied each food came to him by way of his beloved grandmother.”18 Similar to other early modern European households, Kosher and other Jewish familial recipes were passed down from generation to generation.

Further, historians Debra Kaplan and Verena Kasper-Marienberg offer insight into foods that were commonly cooked within the Jewish quarter or ghetto (not like the ghettos seen in the Holocaust), such as soup, noodles, and even pancakes.19 Additionally, they importantly mention cooking on Shabbat, which is the Jewish Sabbath that lasts from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, in which no cooking is permitted.20 Here, we can understand the need to have established recipes to ensure that food is cooked accurately prior to the start of Shabbat as well as certain practiced ways to keep food warm, as no labor can be done on Shabbat.21 Further, the article explains communal spaces for the Jewish community, of which certain spaces were created to house ovens for the community so that food could remain hot on Shabbat.22 These spaces were known as Garküche,23 and were open to all members of the community. Eventually, these spaces further developed and became places to share meals amongst travelers, as well as acted almost as a soup kitchen for the homeless.24 Interestingly, we can see strong connection between food, religious celebrations, and the community. Initially just a place for communal use, these spaces eventually had a wider grasp across the entire community of diaspora Jews. Through opening its doors to Jews who may not be a part of the community, we see this connection and desire to live and celebrate together as Jews, regardless of nation. Despite the religious, cultural, and permitted food differences, we can further recognize that Jewish families created similar dishes to their Christian counterparts as well, and further see that generational passing of food knowledge was not uniquely Christian but rather a practice that was common amongst other religious and cultural sects within early modern Europe.

Works Cited

A 17th-century Ashkenaz Torah Scroll, of Germanic origin, from the British Library.

Ashton, Dianne and Ellen M. Umansky. Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality: A Sourcebook. Lebanon, NH: The University Press of New England, 2009.

Breger, Jennifer. “Rachel Morpurgo.” Jewish Women's Archive. Accessed April 25, 2023. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/morpurgo-rachel.

Glikl: Memoires 1691-1719 [Glückel of Hameln; Zikhroynes Glikl Hamel] [In Hebrew and Yiddish], front cover.

“Glikl: Memoirs, 1691-1719: Reading Resources.” Yiddish Book Center. Accessed April 25, 2023. https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-literature-culture/great-jewish-book-club/glikl-memoirs-1691-1719-reading-resources.

Glueckel, Sara Friedman, and Chava Turniansky. Glikl Memoirs 1691-1719. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2019.

Guren Klirs, Tracy. The Merit of Our Mothers: A Bilingual Anthology of Jewish Women’s Prayers. New York: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992.

Horowitz, Elliott. “Remembering the Fish and Making Tsimmes: Jewish Food, Jewish Identity, and Jewish Memory.” Jewish Quarterly Review 104, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 57-79. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/article/537091/pdf.

“Kashrut:  Jewish Dietary Laws.” Kashrut:  Jewish Dietary Laws / Torah 101 / Mechon Mamre. Accessed April 25, 2023. https://mechon-mamre.org/jewfaq/kashrut.htm.

Kasper-Marienberg, Verena and Debra Kaplan. "Nourishing a Community: Food, Hospitality, and Jewish Communal Spaces in Early Modern Frankfurt." Association for Jewish Studies.AJS Review 45, no. 2 (11, 2021): 302-333. https://wake.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/nourishing-community-food-hospitality-jewish/docview/2594476233/se-2.

“Moses Mendelssohn’s Pentateuch Translation.” British Library. Accessed April 25, 2023. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/moses-mendelssohns-pentateuch-translation.

Sefer netivot ha-Shalom, A first edition of Moses Mendelssohn’s translation of the Pentateuch. British Library. Accessed April 25, 2023. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/moses-mendelssohns-pentateuch-translation.

Text of Tkhine shloyshe sheorim (The Tkhine of Three Gates) by Sarah Bas Tovim, early 18th century. From a prayerbook published in Vilna in 1850. Courtesy of Aharon Varady and the Open Siddur Project.  

Weissler, Chava. “Tkhines.” Jewish Women's Archive. Accessed April 25, 2023. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/tkhines.

Weissler, Chava. Voices of the Matriarchs: Listening to the Prayers of Early Modern Jewish Women. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998.

“What Is the Role of the Woman in Judaism? - Chabad.org.” Accessed April 25, 2023. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1802936/jewish/Woman-in-Judaism.htm.

          

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