The reading for Wednesday is "Jewish Women in the Ottoman Empire," by Pamela Dorn Sezgin.
Answer two of these questions.
1. What were the two spheres of men’s and women’s activities in the Middle Eastern world in the premodern era?
2. What were the lives of elite Jewish women like in the 16th century Ottoman Empire?
3. What did girlhood consist of? What education did girls receive, and from whom?
4. What kinds of occupations did women engage in?
5. What were women’s religious practices and how did they learn about them? What religious beliefs did Jewish women hold?
What kinds of occupations did women engage in?
ReplyDeleteThe occupations that Jewish women engaged in during the time of the Ottoman Empire varied, depending on social class. The wealthier women had the better jobs, while the poorer women didn’t end up with such good jobs. Some of the elite women practiced commerce. They sold luxury goods to other women of the same social class. They mostly sold jewelry and silks. Other elite women worked in real estate. Some women made embroidery, linen towels, tablecloths, lace, handkerchiefs, and items like those in family businesses. If they weren’t producing these things, they also offered cleaning or pressing them for the wealthier members of society. They may have also worked with silk, spinning and looming textiles. Lastly, the poorest Jewish women were usually servants for wealthier families. Many Jewish families were shopkeepers and had their own small businesses.
What did girlhood consist of? What education did girls receive, and from whom?
Most women didn’t go to school or receive actual educations. Some wealthy families had Rabbis or cantors tutor their daughters at home or else the parents just taught their daughters themselves. Women’s husbands received a formal education of the language, religious training, and such things. These women were usually illiterate and never were able to expand their knowledge because of the small circle they lived in Jewish women weren’t trained religiously and only knew Judeo-Spanish.. In fact, women were the main transmitters of Judeo- Spanish. Before the twentieth century, this was the only language women spoke. This excludes the elite women who knew other languages, including Turkish. Most women only knew the domestic qualities of Judaism, such as running a Jewish household. This included keeping kosher, preparation for Jewish holidays, brit millahs, mikvahs, and purity requirements.
-Hannah Wolinsky
3.
ReplyDeleteAt first, most women didn't receive formal education, though occasional wealthy families might have hired a tutor to teach their daughters. Most women were illiterate and spoke vernacularly. There was no formal religious education for women until the 19th century and most of what women learned came from their mothers. The Alliance, a French Jewish organization devoted to maintaining Eastern Jewry, developed for the first time in history women's Jewish education. This was pretty widely accepted into Jewish culture at the time as families believed it could raise the marriage prospects of their daughters. Most schools were segregated, but some in small villages were not.
5.
Throughout most of the Ottoman Empire, Jewish girls did not receive formal Jewish education and therefore what they knew about Judaism had more to do with its domestic properties, as women were expected to run the home. This included holidays as well as traditions such as births, marriages, and funerals. Daughters of rabbis sometimes were a little more educated as they would hear their father and brothers debating the Talmud and other Jewish themes. Women often combined traditional Sephardic Judaism with Middle Eastern and Mediterranean folk tradition, which meant they believed in the evil eye and amulet wearing for example. Most folk religious practices focused on health concerns.