Description
Book SynopsisIn Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in the Middle Ages, Elisheva Baumgarten seeks a point of entry into the everyday existence of people who did not belong to the learned elite, and who therefore left no written records of their lives. She does so by turning to the Bible as it was read, reinterpreted, and seen by the Jews of medieval Ashkenaz. In the tellings, retellings, and illustrations of biblical stories, and especially of those centered around women, Baumgarten writes, we can find explanations and validations for the practices that structured birth, marriage, and death; women''s inclusion in the liturgy and synagogue; and the roles of women as community leaders, givers of charity, and keepers of the household.
Each of the book''s chapters concentrates on a single figure or a cluster of biblical women—Eve, the Matriarchs, Deborah, Yael, Abigail, and Jephthah''s daughter—to explore aspects of the domestic and communal lives of Northern French and Germ
Trade Review
"Ingenious scholarship...Much of Biblical Women will likely resonate with modern readers, including for the ways it illuminates some of our own concerns...Baumgarten’s clear-eyed and painstaking attention to her subjects is an act of true kindness for these long-vanished people. Her book [helps readers] care about them, their lives, and their moral imaginations purely for their own sakes, as all good social history should." * Jewish Review of Books *
