Temple Emanu-El lecture features medieval Jewish women’s autonomy

As Jewish women take on duties once reserved for men, there’s growing interest in the history of gender norms. When past rabbinic leaders guided their local communities, how much initiative and responsibility did they give to women?  What can we learn about their deliberations – and what women actually did to help us understand the changes now?

Professor Elisheva Baumgarten is an expert in medieval Jewish society and religion, and she will speak in Providence on these questions.  She will focus on women in northern Europe giving tzedakah (charity), especially independently of their husbands’ wishes.

Part of her work is simply finding evidence of what ordinary women did, since few women left records. She draws on direct evidence, such as tzedakah records with women’s names and women’s tombstones that mention their giving. But also important are rabbinic writings, especially the many commentaries of the period.

The biblical story of Abigail, in 1 Samuel 25, is especially fruitful. After her foolish husband refuses to give the future King David the protection “gift” he demands, Abigail goes behind his back to pay David. How did the medieval rabbis respond to the story of a woman disobeying her husband, especially related to money? With a close reading of these commentaries and other sources, Baumgarten traces an interesting development over time. There was more variation in women’s autonomy than we might think.

In studying these changing norms, she follows the lead of earlier historians such as Prof. Judith Romney-Wegner, who wrote about the complex status of women in the earlier Talmudic period. Romney-Wegner was a longtime congregant of Temple Emanu-El, and Baumgarten will be giving the 2017 installment of the annual lecture that the temple endowed on her behalf.

Baumgarten teaches at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but this year is a resident scholar at the Institute of Advanced Study in New Jersey. She is the author of “Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz: Men, Women, and Everyday Religious Observance;” and “Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe.”

Her talk, “Yours, Mine or Ours: Understanding Women’s Authority over Married Property,” will be on Dec. 10.  Brunch at 10:30 a.m. will be followed by the lecture at 11.  Temple Emanu-El is at 99 Taft Ave. in Providence.  The event is free and open to the public.

JOHN LANDRY lives in Providence and serves on Temple Emanu-El’s adult education committee.