The most valuable sources for exploring the names and lives of Jewish women in the past are tombstones, and what is often most significant is to see how the women are described. In many cases, honorifics such as isha hashuva (an important woman), or isha raka beshanim (a young woman, “soft” in years) are added to the names. Some inscriptions give even more information. A tombstone from thirteenth century Worms tells the following about a woman called “Urania, the daughter of the chief of the synagogue singers. His prayer for his people rose up to glory. And as for her, she, too, with sweet tunefulness officiated before the women to whom she sang the hymnal portions”.
While an examination of Hebrew books of the past will reveal few female writers, it will reveal many females names as copyists of manuscripts, as typesetters, printers and women who brought books to press, and women to whom the books are dedicated.
The names of the women who preceded us can be found in municipal registries, in wills and legal documents, and even in Inquisition records. But one of the most important sources of exploring and redeeming the names of Jewish women of the past are the inscriptions on donations, particularly of gifts to synagogues. In the mosaic floor from the synagogue dating from the second half of the fifth century at Hamman Lif in Tunisia, illustrated above, is inscribed the following: “Thy servant Juliana, at her own expense, paved with mosaic the holy synagogue of Naro for her salvation.” A synagogue in Apamea, Syria also has the names of numerous female donors preserved on its mosaic floor.
Many synagogue textiles bring to life those women who made them, paid for them or in whose honor they were donated. The parochet (Ark curtain), illustrated on the left, has inscribed on it the names of fourteen individual women from the Russo family who worked on its elaborate embroidery before it was donated to the Sephardi synagogue in Vienna in 1887. Perhaps the most moving items in the Precious Legacy Exhibit from Prague were two iron Ark curtain hooks mounted on simply painted wooden plaques with inscriptions on them. One painted inscription shows that it was donated by the “women of the synagogue” but the other actually gives the name of the donor of the second curtain hook – “the important and modest woman, Perl Kauffler”. In this way, even a woman who could not afford to make a lavish embroidery could be remembered by her modest but significant donation.