HIST 385/JS 371 Women and Early Modern Courts of Law

The Art of the Ketubbah includes high-quality color photographs that document the rich variety of decorating and calligraphic styles used by Jewish communities to enhance the ancient text formulas they shared. These contracts reveal social customs, family relationships, economic situations, and a community's interactions with the world around it, spanning thirty-seven countries on four continents from the 10th through the 21st centuries. The catalogue includes 472 full entries, plus two addenda -- one of 50 more recently acquired ketubbot and the other of 45 ketubbot from the Cairo Genizah. About one-third of the ketubbot in the collection originate from Italy. The remaining two-thirds include those from elsewhere in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the United States. The earliest ketubbah in the catalogue is from Fustat, Egypt, dated 1023, while the latest is from New York, 2012. The high-quality color photographs, comprehensive indexes, and detailed scholarly commentary on each ketubbah in the collection make this catalog valuable to scholars and the general public alike.

"The custom of illuminating the traditional Jewish marriage contract, the ketubbah, developed over the last four centuries into a rich and varied form of Jewish folk art. This book offers a broad selection from one of the outstanding collections of ketubbot, representing Jewish communities from the Near East to Northern Europe. It focuses particularly on the ketubbot of Italy, where the art of the illuminated ketubbah found its most beautiful expression during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, under the influence of Renaissance and Baroque art." "Co-produced with the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, home to one of the largest collections of ketubbot, this book also offers a fascinating account of Jewish marriage customs and a vivid picture of diverse Jewish communities."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Epstein, Louis M. The Jewish Marriage Contract: A Study in the Status of the Woman in Jewish Law. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1927. xvii, 316 pp. Reprint available December, 2004 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. 1-58477-464-9. Cloth. $85. * A cogent and compelling examination of the history and significance of the Jewish marriage contract, the Ketubah, with extensive notes in Hebrew and English. As Epstein notes in the preface, the Ketubah offers an excellent introduction to the character of Jewish marriage because it is not a sentimental, rhetorical or subjective text. Instead, it is "a legal document embodying the essential points agreed upon by the parties and sanctioned by the law as to the manner of their living together as husband and wife" [2]. This work will interest those concerned with property rights, family, divorce, and the evolution of betrothal and marriage.

How has a legal tradition determined by men affected the lives of women? What are the traditional Jewish views of marriage, divorce, sexuality, contraception, abortion? Women and Jewish Law gives contemporary readers access to the central texts of the Jewish religious tradition on issues of special concern to women. Combining a historical overview with a thoughtful feminist critique, this pathbreaking study points the way for "informed change" in the status of women in Jewish life.

Begun in 1690, this diary of a forty-four-year-old German Jewish widow, mother of fourteen children, tells how she guided the financial and personal destinies of her children, how she engaged in trade, ran her own factory, and promoted the welfare of her large family. Her memoir, a rare account of an ordinary woman, enlightens not just her children, for whom she wrote it, but all posterity about her life and community. Gluckel speaks to us with determination and humor from the seventeenth century. She tells of war, plague, pirates, soldiers, the hysteria of the false messiah Sabbtai Zevi, murder, bankruptcy, wedding feasts, births, deaths, in fact, of all the human events that befell her during her lifetime. She writes in a matter of fact way of the frightening and precarious situation under which the Jews of northern Germany lived. Accepting this situation as given, she boldly and fearlessly promotes her business, her family and her faith. This memoir is a document in the history of women and of life in the seventeenth century.

The historical biography of a true Jewish heroine in her day, Gracia Mendes. Born in 1510 in Portugal, the book details this woman's extraordinary personality until her death in 1569 in Constantinople (today's Istanbul). Her life exemplified a perseverance by the Jewish culture to survive and triumph even in the worst of conditions. As a young girl, Gracia secretly married successful Jewish spice trader, Francisco Mendes. But at age 27 she became a widow, yet she went on to raise her children and run the family business all on her own. Her travels led her through Antwerp, Venice, Ferrara, Ragusa, and finally to Constantinople, from where the Ottoman Empire dominated former Byzantium territories and offered shelter for battered Conversos (converted Jews). The text recounting the last fifteen years of Gracia's life at the center of the Empire is particularly revealing. Birnbaum's biography has the unique distinction of being the first among many studies to pay tribute to a woman during this period. It is also one of the first titles to pay equal attention to the lives of the Conversos in Christian West Europe and in the Muslim East.

Rahel Varnhagen (1777-1833) lived during the crucial period of assimilation in Germany, when it seemed imperative for Jews to escape their Jewishness.

This collection of previously untranslated court documents, testimonials, and letters portrays the Spanish Inquisition in vivid detail, offering fresh perspectives on such topics as the Inquisition's persecution of Jews and Muslims, the role of women in Spanish religious culture, the Inquisition's construction and persecution of witchcraft, daily life inside an Inquisition prison, and the relationship between the Inquisition and the Spanish monarchy. Headnotes introduce the selections, and a general introduction provides historical, political, and legal context. A map and index are included.