Women in Judaism

There is something odd about isolating a separate subject category devoted to women in Judaism, as women have always constituted roughly half of the Jewish population. But men have always been the “default” in discussions of Jews and their history, and the status and positions of women have been neglected. Hence the need for a devoted subject category. 

Remarkably, the rare materials in our collections, which preserve traces of the real lives of Jews (and not the ideal or officially authorized), reveal an abundance of evidence concerning the lives of Jewish women—how they dressed, the languages they spoke, the level of their education, whether or not they recited canonical prayers, how they felt about being women, and more. In the materials we have gathered in this category, you will discover many surprising realities, some of which demand that we revise what we have imagined about the lives of Jewish women through the ages.