Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Genderissues Anddailylife: Tal Ilan
Genderissues Anddailylife: Tal Ilan
chapter 3
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GENDER ISSUES
A N D DA I LY L I F E
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tal ilan
Women constitute half of humanity, and consequently also half of the Jewish
people. Nevertheless, over the last four decades, feminist scholars have shown
that the authors of historical studies who use inclusive terminology usually have
the male half of the population in mind only (Ilan 2002b). Thus, for example,
S. Safrai, in his study on Jewish education in antiquity, wrote: ‘During the Second
Temple period and even more so after the destruction of Jerusalem and the
Temple in 70 ce the entire Jewish community, from its public institutions to
the individual families, developed into an education-centered society, which paid
particular attention to the education of children’ (Safrai, 1976: 946). In this
description he failed to notice that ‘children’ actually excluded half of the child
population, and the ‘entire Jewish community’ actually refers only to its males.
This phenomenon is endemic. When reviewing the new updated edition of Emil
Schürer’s, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (1973–87),
Margarete Schlüter showed how, even as late as the 1970s–1980s (when this new
edition was published), the issues of women and gender had not been revised
(Schlüter 1999).
Feminist scholars have labelled this approach ‘androcentric,’ that is, placing
the man at the centre of (scholarly) attention. Jewish sources, especially
written ones, not least among them the rabbinic corpus, are blatantly andro-
centric. As I have shown elsewhere, the rabbis only mention women when they
discuss an issue specifically concerning women; otherwise, their prime actor is
male (Ilan 1997: 54–5). Rabbinic literature views women’s role in society as
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methodological issues 49
1. C O R R E L AT I N G L I T E R A RY, E P I G R A P H I C ,
A N D A RC H A E O LO G I C A L S O U RC E S
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The major types of sources on Jewish women in Roman Palestine are the same
as those on men—rabbinic literature (and a few other literary compositions),
inscriptions, and papyri. The differences between these documents are evident—
literary sources are edited compositions, intended for posterity and intensely
theological and ideological. Papyri and inscriptions are short and formulaic, and
they can easily be misunderstood by future generations. Yet almost all of these
sources were composed by men, and thus, their worldview is highly androcentric.
Interestingly, at least among the papyri from the Judaean Desert, deposited in
caves by refugees of the Bar Kokhba revolt, two women’s archives were discovered
(Lewis 1989; Cotton 1995 and see also Ilan 2000). These include documents that
were written by men specifically for women, such as marriage contracts, deeds of
gift, and also court minutes of disputes over guardianship and property owner-
ship. Writing such documents forces the author to grapple with uniquely female
issues.
These papyri are legal documents. Most of rabbinic literature also consists
of legal material. One sixth of the Mishnah (Seder Nashim) is clearly devoted
to women and their legal status, although even in this case the Mishnah is
mostly interested in men when they come into contact with women. The
authors and editors envision the best methods to keep women under control
(see Neusner 1980). The Mishnah is, therefore, what feminists define as a
‘patriarchal’ document, imagining a hierarchical society in which a male head
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of a household has authority over his wife, his children, and in some cases, his
household slaves.
In assessing the relationship between the different types of source material at
our disposal, it should be remembered that the papyri and the Mishnah do not
represent one and the same legal system, and that the papyri are older than the
redaction of the Mishnah (traditionally assumed to have taken place around 200
ce). Therefore they should not be studied in the light of the Mishnah, but rather
the Mishnah on the basis of the papyri. Thus, if a papyrus was discovered which
indicates that Jewish women could divorce their husbands (Ilan 1999: 253–62),
and if the Mishnah definitively denies this, we need to understand this contra-
diction as a development in women’s status over time, and not as an error in the
reading of the document at hand (see Schremer 1998). In a gendered context it
should also be remembered that both the papyri and the Mishnah are prescriptive
documents. Although women’s daily lives are likely to have been influenced by
rabbinic prescriptions to some extent, rabbinic texts do not actually describe the
minutiae of these lives in a historiographic way. Thus, when reading these texts
for gender issues, one should approach them suspiciously, looking for contra-
dictions, slips of the pen, and references to women in incidental and roundabout
ways (see Ilan 2006a for examples).
2. T H E G R A E C O -R O M A N C O N T E XT
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Women, at least as much as men, were influenced by the Graeco-Roman
environment in which they lived. The issue is sometimes mentioned in passing
in the literature but has not merited a full-length study. Yet it is a fruitful field
of research. An example demonstrating the greater influence of the surrounding
Graeco-Roman culture on women than on men is the use of Graeco-Roman
names. Although our record of women’s names is much smaller than that of
men, it can be shown that the use of Greek and Latin names among women was
more common. While 17 per cent of the male population used Greek and Latin
names, among women the percentage was 24 per cent (Ilan 2002a: 54–5). This
phenomenon seems to have continued throughout Jewish history (Levine-
Melamed 1998: 129). It may indicate two things: (a) that there were fewer
names for women than for men recorded in the Hebrew Bible or, more likely,
(b) that women’s Jewishness was less valued and protected against foreign
influences. Women were required to preserve their Jewish identity less than
men were.
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methodological issues 51
3. P ROV I N C I A L A D M I N I S T R AT I O N / C O U RT S
A N D T H E J U D I C I A L S YS T E M
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Much has been said about the existence of parallel provincial and Jewish judicial
systems, where the former could be approached when the latter (which served
more in a capacity of arbitration) failed to satisfy the customer. Although many
feminist studies address Jewish women and their status within the halakhah (see
primarily Hauptman 1997), to date no comprehensive social-historical discussion
of women’s roles in the Palestinian rabbinic legal system exists.
Because rabbinic literature associates women with the private domain, their
presence in law courts is somewhat unexpected. At least one rabbinic maxim, albeit
found in the Babylonian Talmud, states categorically that a man does not wish his
wife to disgrace herself in a court of law (b. Ket. 74b). In papyri from the Judaean
Desert, which derive from the Roman provincial law courts, Babatha, the owner of
one archive, always appears in court accompanied by a guardian. Thus we may
suspect that women were not considered by these courts as fully fledged legal
entities (Cotton 1996). Yet they did appear before them and did make legal claims.
Rabbinic literature, too, is full of stories of Jewish women approaching the Jewish
law courts independently of their husbands, sometimes against them or their
family, and with no guardian (Valler 2000: 103–49. Note that this study does not
distinguish between Palestinian and Babylonian sources).
In most of these stories women are featured, and the issues they contest have to
do with specific gender-oriented legislation, but their historicity is doubtful.
Nevertheless, the fact that these stories portray women approaching the court
indicates that rabbis deemed such actions plausible. One Palestinian rabbinic
source even suggests that women could play off the Jewish against the provincial
law court. In this source a woman by the name of Tamar, who is displeased with
the verdict of the Jewish arbiter, takes her case to the governor’s court in Caesarea
(y. Meg. 3:2, 74a). The reason this story is told about a woman is because it ends
with a pun on her name, but the fact that it is told about a woman suggests that it
was considered plausible that women would act in such a way.
4. P O P U L AT I O N S T RU C T U R E A N D J EW I S H I D E N T I T Y
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For lack of a statistically valid database, assessing ancient demography is a very
risky task. In a conventional demographic study of the population of Roman
Palestine one is prone to inquire about its size and about its ethnic make-up. Of
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no less interest is its gender division. This is an important social factor, because if one
assumes empirically that the numbers of males and females born over the centuries
have not substantially changed, the question of the sex ratio for every given age group
can say something about childcare, health, nutrition, and historical catastrophes
such as outbreaks of endemic violence (and war). One may rightfully ask whether
daughters received the same childcare as sons. Did they receive the same nutrition?
What were the demographic effects of infant marriage, child pregnancies, death at
childbirth, etc? Did the Jews of Roman Palestine practise infanticide, and if so, were
daughters the objects of this practice more than sons (Schwartz 2004)? It would be of
interest to inquire to what extent Jewish society was similar to non-Jewish society
with regard to these issues. One particular source for such a demographic study are
skeletal remains. Jewish tombs are often easily identifiable, and some of their skeletal
remains have been investigated already. My study on the subject marked a beginning
(Ilan 1999: 195–214), but more aspects need to be investigated.
5. L A N G UAG E D I S T R I B U T I O N
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Altogether, Jewish society of Roman Palestine can be considered as trilingual, in
which Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek were used. Since only one of these languages
would have been spoken regularly at home, for individuals to acquire a passing
knowledge in all three, a special language education would have been necessary. It
may be assumed that, since no formal education for women existed, they were less
versed in all three, or even two, of these languages. This, however, remains an
assumption, because in discussions of these languages, the gender issue is never
addressed (see e.g. Schwartz 1995; Hezser 2001: 227–50 for general criteria to be
considered). Although the available evidence may be limited, a study devoted to
this issue is a desideratum.
Since the documents at our disposal were not written by women, their languages
cannot serve as evidence of the languages women knew or used. I confine myself to
the few hints strewn here and there on the topic. For example, one source in the
Babylonian Talmud describes two Galilean women speaking Aramaic, one to her
neighbour and one to a judge, but their speech is so garbled that the first inadver-
tently insults her friend, and the other is understood as being disrespectful to the
judge (b. Er. 53b). This story is intentionally gendered and presents the stereotype
of dumb women, who cannot even speak their native tongue properly. Yet it is
followed by a story about another woman—Rabbi Judah the Patriarch’s slave,
whose Aramaic is impeccable and very articulate. Elsewhere, the same woman is
presented as being exceptionally well-versed in Hebrew (e.g. y. Meg. 2:2, 73a). The
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methodological issues 53
purpose of this last story, however, is to hold this woman as an inimitable example.
It gives the impression that in the patriarch’s house all spoke Hebrew, even the
lowest of his female slaves.
A story told in the Palestinian Talmud relates that Rabbi Abbahu ruled that a
man is permitted to teach his daughter Greek because it is considered an ornament
for her (y. Shab. 6:1, 7d). He is then accused of ruling leniently on this matter
because he desired to teach his own daughter Greek. These stories, rather than
constituting evidence of women’s language competence, suggest that women can
serve as literary tools for the exploration of language proficiency, serving as
examples of extreme ignorance as well as high education.
It is therefore of some interest to note the following: the first document from late
antiquity that was written by a woman (some time in the Byzantine period: the
document is undated and hard to date palaeographcally), a papyrus sent by
a certain Harkan, apparently from Palestine, to her brother who migrated to
Egypt, is composed in Hebrew with a mixture of Aramaic vocabulary typical of
Palestine at the time (Mishor 2000–1).
6. T H E H O U S E H O L D
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The household is the central context in which women’s daily life can be examined.
Under this rubric many issues discussed in the present book can be read in relation
to gender. One chapter in this book is devoted to urbanization and another to
village life. From a gendered perspective, it is vital to inquire whether, and in what
regards, the Jewish household was different in these respective surroundings, and
how such differences would have influenced women’s lives. One chapter in this
book is devoted to crafts, manufacture and production, another to trade, com-
merce and consumption, and yet another to agriculture and animal husbandry.
The conventional assumption is that for ancient Jewish women all three types of
work were associated with the household economy and practised at home.
Rabbinic literature holds clear views about the household. There are tasks that
belong within it and others that belong outside, and while women do the former, men
do the latter. The rabbis have a whole range of occupations in mind when they make
such assumptions. For example, when the Mishnah describes how a person stands in
order to be examined for skin diseases, a man is described as holding a pick and
working in the field, while a woman is described as weaving and spinning (M. Neg.
2:4). When a midrash describes the typical utensils a woman would borrow from her
neighbour, these include a sieve and a pot, while a parallel story, concerning a man,
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records him borrowing cereal grain, or simply money (Lev. R. 5:8; 17:2). Numerous
texts describe women cooking, baking, cleaning the house, spinning and weaving
(e.g. M. Ket. 5:5). While it is clear that some of these labours were conducted for
the benefit of the woman’s own house, it is also obvious that many could produce
surplus which would supply additional income for the family. The rabbis themselves
imagine the relationship between husband and wife as an economic one. He provides
her with accommodation, clothing, and nourishment, while the surplus she produces
belongs to him. The amount she is expected to produce is clearly stated (M. Yeb. 5:9).
This gendered division of labour remains constant. It does not differentiate between
an urban or village context or between a higher- or lower-class household.
Describing the position of women in Jewish society in the light of these sources
is to replicate the rabbinic patriarchal ideology rather than faithfully represent daily
life. Yet rabbinic literature itself reveals gender differences occasionally. In an urban
context it often places the woman as selling merchandise in the marketplace
(M. Hal. 2:7), on her doorstep (T. B.Q. 11:7), or in a shop (M. Ket. 9:4). All of
these actions are done in a public context. In a village context, she is represented as
participating in grain harvest or olive-picking (M. Yeb. 16:2), as assisting her
husband in the field (a baraita in b. B.M. 12a) or as raising livestock, mostly poultry
(M. B.Q. 10:9; T. B.M. 4:24–25). Miriam Peskowitz’s study of women’s labour,
concentrating on the image of the weaving woman, contains a full catalogue of
these labours, together with a number of reading strategies for these texts which
overturn the dichotomist division of labour suggested by the dominant rabbinic
discourse. She shows that, just as field work was not professionally reserved to men,
so, too, weaving was not restricted to women (Peskowitz 1997: 49–76).
7. M OT H E R H O O D
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Motherhood is the only issue discussed in this chapter which is uniquely female
and does not involve comparing women’s lot to that of men. It begins with sex,
conception, pregnancy (with all its medical complication such as abortion or
miscarriage), childbirth (with its attendant dangers), nursing, child-raising, social-
ization, education, etc. Even with the passage of the child into maturity, mother-
hood (or parenthood) does not cease.
Many aspects of motherhood need to be explored with relation to Jewish
women. Sex is something that men and women do together but results in preg-
nancy only for women, and its consequences are quite often a woman’s problem.
Thus, for example, one rabbinic text describes women alone as disposing of the
foetus after a miscarriage (T. Oh 16:1). Motherhood is often described by rabbis in
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methodological issues 55
legal terms. A woman is obligated to raise a man’s children, but the children are his.
If he divorces her, he keeps the children. Although this is not expressly stated, we
learn it from a ruling that states that if she is divorced, she need not nurse his son
any more (T. Ket. 5:5) (see Labovitz 2000). Women are also often described as
present when children are still very small, tending to their needs (M. Shab. 18:2).
However, in texts which refer to older (especially male) children, they are usually
rendered invisible. Thus, for example, while women are exempt from residing in
the sukkah (Lehman 2006), a (probably male) child is required to reside in it once
he no longer needs his mother (M. Suk. 8:7). While women are exempt from
participating in pilgrimage, a (probably male) child is described as riding on his
father’s shoulder during such a journey (M. Hag. 1:1). Nevertheless, women are
described as mourning their sons much more than fathers (a baraita in b. Sanh.
104b). Jewish motherhood in late antiquity still awaits a serious feminist study.
8. P OV E RT Y A N D C H A R I T Y
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Feminist scholars have often emphasized that women in a patriarchal society are
more likely to suffer poverty than men, because a patriarchal environment makes
women less educated, less skilled, and strongly dependent on male relatives. Already
in the Hebrew Bible widows and orphans are identified as the weakest members of
society, most in need of charity. One may assume that this reality did not change in
rabbinic times. Sometimes the rabbis incidentally mention the widow and the female
orphan (yetomah) in the context of poverty (e.g. M. Ket. 6:5), but the issue is not so
pervasive. Poverty in rabbinic literature does not appear to be gendered. Much more
gendered is the identity of those dispensing charity. Many traditions identify women
in this role (e.g. y. Ter. 8:5, 45c; y. Hor. 3:7 48a; b. Shab. 156b; b. Taan 23b). One can
speculate on the reasons for this literary presentation, and on its reflection of a daily-
life reality, but a serious gender-sensitive analysis of these texts is required before
more substantial conclusions can be reached.
9. T H E B O DY A N D P U R I T Y
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After the destruction of the Temple most Jewish laws connected with purity were
no longer applicable. The one domain on which this event did not make a
difference is the issue of menstrual purity. The rabbis viewed women as unclean
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and able to defile men for as long as two weeks every month, and they took this
issue very seriously: an entire Mishnaic tractate (Niddah) is devoted to it. This is
the only tractate in Seder Toharot that has generated both a Babylonian and a
Palestinian commentary. A sensitive gender reading of the tractate and its com-
mentaries by Charlotte Fonrobert critiqued the male assumptions about gender
and the body embedded in these compositions (Fonrobert 2000). She denied the
usefulness of these texts for the recovery of women’s daily life, however.
Numerous installations which some scholars have identified as miqvaot, that is, ritual
baths, have been excavated in Israel (Reich 1997: 430–1). The importance of gender for
the issue of the miqvah seems to elude scholars. Even a gender-sensitive article like that
of Eric Meyers on domestic architecture in the town of Sepphoris, fails to deal with the
gendered aspects of ritual baths (Meyers 2002: 211–5). Sawicki, who does take note of
this issue, is sidetracking by concentrating on levitical and priestly purity and lineage
(Sawicki 1997). A gender-sensitive analysis of these finds, in connection with rabbinic
texts on women’s impurity in the post-70 ce era, is still a desideratum.
methodological issues 57
article on women as archivists among the refugees of the Bar Kokhba rebellion,
Peterson suggested that finding documents in the same bag with beads, raw wool and
a mirror proves that the archivists were women (Peterson 2000). Also, when a debate
erupted over the membership of women in the Dead Sea Sect, based on the skeletal
remains found in the cemetery, it was argued that the absence of jewellery on the site
was indication enough that the members of the sect were all (or mostly) males
(Magness 2002). Exposing these reading strategies is not necessarily meant to contest
their results but to reveal the gender assumptions of the writers.
12. D O M E S T I C A RC H I T E C T U R E
AND LIVING CONDITIONS
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Domestic architecture is an important area for gender analysis. If rabbinic litera-
ture imagined a segregated environment for women, to what extent does
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archaeology confirm or deny this assumption, and to what extent does a suspicious
reading of the rabbinic texts themselves lend itself to this conclusion? This is
exactly the topic explored by Cynthia Baker (2002). She shows that rabbinic
literature identifies a wife as a man’s house (e.g. M. Yoma 1:1), and imagines her
internal organs as architectural components (e.g. M. Nid. 2:5). Baker’s sophisticated
reading of such rabbinic texts, together with the archaeological evidence, suggests
that the issue is complex and surprising.
methodological issues 59
mentioned as nameless wives only or not at all. Only the investigation of the
skeletal remains shows that women are indeed buried in the tomb (Peleg 2002).
15. O R A L I T Y A N D W R I T I N G
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Since most studies of literacy in antiquity suggest that the vast majority of the
population was illiterate, it should come as no surprise that most women are
considered by modern scholars as belonging to this majority (e.g. Hezser 2001:
498). The explicit statement found on a document in Babatha’s archive, that the
owner of all these documents could not read, much less write them (and perhaps not
even sign her name), has only helped to confirm this assumption of a very low female
literacy rate. It is therefore necessary to stress that rabbis never state explicitly that
men should learn to read but women should not. On the contrary, such statements
as ‘All are qualified to write a divorce bill . . . a woman writes her own divorce bill’
(M. Git. 2:5) are taken for granted by rabbis and not contradicted. Therefore, rabbis
at least reckon with the possibility that women may be able to write.
One text in the Mishnah has raised special interest. In M. Qid. 4:13 we learn that
‘a woman may not teach scribes’. This is obviously a restrictive legal statement,
intended to limit the scope of activities a woman is allowed to pursue, but it
assumes that women could at least theoretically be professional scribes (Hezser
2001: 124). By stressing such an example I do not mean to suggest that literacy was
as widespread among women as amongst men. I only argue that, since literacy was
especially associated with professional scribes and with the elite, in such circles
gender must not necessarily have been a dividing factor. Thus, in Tosefta Megillah
(T. Meg. 3:11–12) we learn that a town may have only one literate person, and that
person may be a woman competent to read the Torah (Hezser 2001: 453). The
gendered ideology of the Tosefta is voiced by its ruling that the woman should not
read to the public, but obviously it recognizes the existence and proficiency of such
women, at the same time that it recognizes the illiteracy of many men.
methodological issues 61
methodological issues 63
Of special interest here is the celebration of Rosh Hodesh (New Moon). A late
Midrash (Pirke de R. Eliezer 45) states that women, more than men, observed this
festival. From the Palestinian Talmud (y. Taan. 1:6, 64c) it may be inferred that this
practice had late antique roots. Similarly, the Mishnah suggests that, at least during
Second Temple times, young women celebrated the 15th of Av by dancing in the
vineyards in pursuit of husbands (M. Taan. 4:8). Most scholars deny any historical
background to this event. However, the unconventional character of this descrip-
tion, which seems to contradict the patriarchal ethos of the Mishnah at least in
some regards, militates against dismissing it out of hand. These few and almost
marginal texts may lend support to the fact that women had perhaps an alternative
ritual time-cycle that they chose to observe, aside from the normative masculine
festival cycle, which aimed at limiting their participation and—from medieval
times onwards—sidetracked them off in the (‘woman’s section’) of the synagogue.
That these references are marginal and hardly raise any comments indicates to
what extent rabbinic literature is androcentric and requires careful reading against
the grain. A large research project is currently being conducted at the Free Univer-
sity Berlin which aims at creating a feminist commentary on the entire order of
Moed in the Mishnah and the Babylonian Talmud (Ilan 2007 and 2008 Valler
2009). It is hoped that such a commentary will lead to a more careful reading of
this order. Even if it does not increase our understanding of ancient Jewish
women’s actual lives, it may perhaps serve to deconstruct the usual dichotomist
picture of Jewish women and men in Jewish ritual practices.
eliminate them) as resulting from the fact that most women are witches (y. Sanh.
7:13, 25d). A further tradition identifies eighty women, mentioned in the Mishnah
as having been executed in one day (M. Sanh. 6:4), as witches (y. Sanh. 6:8, 23c).
The stereotypical world view of women as witches is no indication, of course,
that women, more than men, practised what might be identified in modern
scholarship as magic. Nevertheless, in many such practices, as evidenced by
rabbinic texts and archaeological finds, women were indeed involved. Thus,
T. Shab. ch. 6 and part of ch.7 are devoted to the ‘ways of the Emori’, a technical
term used by rabbis for ritual actions which they associate with pagan practices and
then reject. It includes thirty clauses, of which four (6:14, 15, 17, 18) are formulated
in the feminine form, probably indicating that they were more often practised by
women. Of the forty-two Jewish amulets I collected (the vast majority emanating
from Palestine), twenty-six were written for women (Ilan 2006b: 642).
The reason why women were often identified as witches derives perhaps from the
fact that they were often practitioners of folk medicine, which involved recipes that
appear similar to magic. Thus, in the Palestinian Talmud, a woman by the name of
Timtinis is described as healing Rabbi Yohanan with a recipe that to the modern
reader sounds suspiciously magical (y. Shab. 14:4, 14d). Another Jewish woman,
Salome, probably from Palestine, is cited by Galan as transmitting a similar sort of
medical recipe (Compositio Medicamentorum 2:7). Such recipes are frequently
found in medical and magical literature of late antiquity. Jewish women also served
as midwives, as many rabbinic sources indicate (e.g. M. Shab. 18:3; M. R.H. 2:5;
M. Hul. 4:3; M. Kel. 23:4; M. A.Z. 2:1). Perhaps they also performed circumcision, as
_
a critical reading of some texts (e.g. T. Shab. 16:8) may indicate. A comprehensive
study of women in these capacities, which would integrate archaeological and
literary sources, would be very welcome (for now see Ilan 2006a: 214–58).
19. B AT H H O U S E S / T H E AT R E S A S L O C AT I O N S
O F R O M A N C U LT U R E
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Briefly, Roman culture in Palestine is often identified in rabbinic literature with the
institutes of the bathhouse and the theatre. As such, it is perceived as pleasure-
seeking, corrupting, and alien. In patriarchal societies, such locations are also
perceived as sexually charged and threatening to women. Gender is an important
category for analysing entertainment culture in all historical settings, but it is
especially important in the Jewish context. To what extent did Jewish women
take part in the Roman bathhouse culture? How many mixed bathing establish-
ments existed in Roman Palestine? Would Jewish women have frequented them?
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methodological issues 65
Two rabbinic sources seem to contradict one another on this point. A baraita
discussing Gentile defilement of a Jewish house, incidentally and with no moral
evaluation, mentions a Jewish woman going to a bathhouse on the Sabbath eve
(b. A.Z. 38a–b). Another text, however, threatens a woman who attends bathhouses
together with men with divorce without compensation (T. Ket. 7:6). The various
issues involved in these texts have already been discussed to some extent by Jacobs
(1998a: 252–55).
The theatre constitutes a similar problem. Rabbis viewed not just the perfor-
mances themselves and the topics they raised as immoral, but they also considered
the surrounding activities as corrupting. A tradition transmitted in the Palestinian
Talmud calls a Jewish man a sinner because he was involved with the institution of
the theatre in some capacity. According to the narrative, when he detected a Jewish
woman in the vicinity of the theatre, he immediately suspected her to be a
prostitute (y. Taan 1:4, 64b; and see also Jacobs 1998a: 256; 1998b: 341–3). In the
same vein we should understand the midrash Ruth R. 2:22, where Naomi instructs
the new convert Ruth that as a Jewish woman she should not visit the theatre. These
sources, as well as others, obviously indicate that there is a gender aspect involved
in these institutions, which needs to be further investigated.
SUGGESTED READING
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The main studies of women’s everyday life, based on rabbinic literature and
the archaeological record, are Peskowitz 1997, which discusses women and labour,
and Baker 2002, which suggests a connection between space, architecture, rabbinic
texts and gender. Hasan-Rokem 2000 suggests folklore as a useful tool for the
reconstruction of women’s daily life. A general overview of the issue is provided in
Ilan 1995.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baker, C. M. (2002). Rebuilding the House of Israel: Architectures of Gender in Jewish
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