Schol­ar­ship Panel

A Woman Is Respon­si­ble for Every­thing por­trays the lives, prac­tices, net­works, and writ­ings of the neglect­ed half of Ashke­naz­ic Jew­ry from the fif­teenth to the eigh­teenth cen­turies — name­ly, women. Debra Kaplan and Eli­she­va Car­lebach have assem­bled a wealth of sources drawn from com­mu­ni­ty records and archives across West­ern and Cen­tral Europe; per­son­al notes and laun­dry lists; prayers and cus­tom books; let­ters and mem­oirs; as well as a rich trove of stun­ning images depict­ing Jew­ish women immersed not only in their every­day activ­i­ties, but also in their hol­i­day prepa­ra­tions and festivities.

The book traces the chang­ing roles of Jew­ish women with­in fam­i­lies and Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties in the ear­ly mod­ern period.Its focus ranges from women on the mar­gins to those who assumed impor­tant com­mu­nal func­tions. By com­bin­ing many pre­vi­ous­ly unknown sto­ries with well-known works such as Glikl of Hameln’s mem­oir and Rivkah Tiktiner’s book of morals, the vol­ume illus­trates the diverse voic­es of Jew­ish women in their fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties, while also show­ing the ways in which their par­tic­i­pa­tion was often sub­ject to reg­u­la­tion and control.

These wom­en’s sto­ries — ​“tru­ly hid­ing in plain sight,” as the authors note — will change the way we study and under­stand this era of Jew­ish history.

Wom­en’s Stud­ies Panel

It’s well-known that Jew­ish women of the Ear­ly Mod­ern peri­od (1300 – 1600) did not sit qui­et­ly at the prover­bial foot­stools of their hus­bands; we knew they shaped the Jew­ish ambi­ence of their homes, influ­enced the Jew­ish­ness of their off­spring, prayed with devo­tion, rit­u­al­ly pre­pared bod­ies for bur­ial, enabled their hus­bands’ Torah learn­ing and lead­er­ship, and act­ed as mid­wives for the next gen­er­a­tions. But this book offers even more detail into the con­tri­bu­tions of Jew­ish women dur­ing this era: the wom­en’s hevrot they cre­at­ed and their sophis­ti­cat­ed dis­tri­b­u­tion of com­mu­nal resources to those in need; the val­ue they assigned to women’s lead­er­ship as they vot­ed for office and kept detailed archival records; how they repaired to the non-Jew­ish civ­il courts when the local beit din insuf­fi­cient­ly addressed their prop­er­ty rights, inher­i­tance, com­pen­sa­tion, or repair of a dam­aged rep­u­ta­tion. This work delves into women’s lit­er­ary and artis­tic his­to­ry, explor­ing the writ­ings they stud­ied, the books they com­mis­sioned, and the Torah scroll cov­ers and bimah tables they inscribed with names of female fam­i­ly mem­bers. Women trad­ed in open mar­kets, and were often con­sid­ered the face of Judaism in the eyes of their Chris­t­ian neigh­bors. They enact­ed busi­ness trans­ac­tions, and con­trolled mon­ey and real estate. 

How did authors Kaplan and Car­lebach present this new mate­r­i­al in such a sys­tem­at­ic and strate­gic man­ner? They combed pinkas­sim, the archival note­books and records that com­mu­ni­ties main­tained with great care and pride, many of which are now housed at major libraries around the world. The authors went beyond: they looked at every scrap of paper, made every con­nec­tion — scour­ing each list, will, court case, and tzedakah chart they could find — their research focused on inform­ing read­ers about wom­en’s roles and sta­tus in ear­ly mod­ern Euro­pean Jew­ish communities. 

Their final gift to the read­er appears in the con­clud­ing chap­ter, where the authors ana­lyze why so many of women’s par­al­lel lead­er­ship roles were lost in the final peri­od before Eman­ci­pa­tion. But we leave this to the read­er to explore. Suf­fice it to say that this book is a trea­sure of infor­ma­tion, analy­sis, and insight. It is also a work of jus­tice, reclaim­ing wom­en’s role in Jew­ish com­mu­nal life and cel­e­brat­ing it cen­turies later.