Description
Book SynopsisExplores representations of abandoned wives while tracing the demographic movements of Jews in the West. This book analyzes texts in Old Yiddish, German, Yiddish, and English at the intersection of disciplines to describe the dynamics of power between men and women in traditional communities and to elucidate the experiences abandoned women faced.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Prologue: Finally Out in the Open 1. Abandoned Wives in Jewish Family Law: An Introduction to the Agune 2. Doubly Exiled in Germany: Abandoned Wives in Glikl Hamel's Memoirs and Solomon Maimon's Autobiography 3. The Victims of Adventure: Abandoned Wives in Abramovitsh's Benjamin the Third and Sholem Aleykhem's Menakhem-Mendl 4. Agunes Disappearing in "A Gallery of Vanished Husbands": Retrieving the Voices of Abandoned Women and Children 5. An Autobiography of Turmoil: Abandoned Mother, Abandoned Daughter Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index
