Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, Volume 18: Jewish Women in Eastern Europe

So much of what many of us know or think we know about East European foremothers is traditional wisdom at best, characterized by unfounded generalizations or created nostalgia. This volume is the first collection of essays devoted to the study of the experiences of Jewish women in Eastern Europe. The introduction by editors Paula Hyman and Chae Ran Freeze summarizes the major academic research in this area and points to crucial gaps. A fascinating piece by Moshe Rosman explores the relationship between the lives of women and men in the Early Modern period. Shulamit Magnus analyzes the famous memoir of Paula Wengeroff, “Memoirs of a Jewish Grandmother”. The volume includes essays on the important question of the level and types of education of women on Eastern Europe, which help us to understand the background to the decision of Beis Ya’acov founder Sara Schenirer to devote herself to the education of girls in a religious context. Two essays deal with the issue of Jewish women’s conversion to Christianity, and the piece by Rachel Manekin makes clear why in particular there was an impetus for Jewish girls from small villages to convert, since in contrast to the cities, there were no real Jewish communities or support mechanisms in the villages, and “the Jewish world was confined to family life”. Tova Cohen, in her contribution on the maskilot (the fact that the term sounds strange to us as opposed to maskil as used for a man of the Enlightenment or Haskalah movement is evidence of her point that women writers have not received attention by scholars), argues persuasively to restore these female writers to their rightful place in the history of both the Haskalah movement and modern Hebrew literature. The book contains an extremely useful annotated bibliography relating to the lives of Jewish women in Eastern Europe including many memoirs, in different languages.