The 2006 Early Modern Workshop on the topic of “Gender, Family, and Social Structures” addressed a spectrum of topics about the transformation of the concept and form of family in general, and of Jewish family in particular in the early modern period. The topic of family and social structure has been touched only minimally in studies of Jewish history in the early modern age. While studies of the Jewish women and family in the Middle Ages have been done (e.g. works by Kenneth Stow, Elisheva Baumgarten, Avraham Grossman, Ariel Toaff, Howard Adelman) and the nineteenth-century has also received treatment (e.g. Marion Kaplan, and essays on the Jewish family in The Jewish Family , ed. David Kraemer), little has been studied about the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Despite the research on this topic, especially in general early modern history, there still exist many preconceptions concerning the size and makeup of pre-modern families, and their role in public life.

The workshop took up questions of: marriage rituals, as represented by early modern (Elisheva Baumgarten) and Christians (Jacob Deutsch), and marriage contracts (Ruth Lamdan), responsibilities of the Jewish community to women and out-of-wedlock children (Elisheva Carlebach), challenges to marriage and marital propriety (Debra Kaplan on rabbinic responses to Jewish women’s encounters with Christian men; David Malkiel and Kenneth Stow on loss of virginity and young women’s honor, Adam Teller on marital problems of an eastern European Jewish man, and Lois Dubin on a Jewish woman seeking divorce on the eve of modernity), sexuality and Kabbalah (Lawrence Fine), marriage and economic networking (Claudia Ulbrich, Bernard Cooperman, Moshe Rosman), youth and juveniles (Roni Weinstein), and Jewish-Christian marriages (Magda Teter).

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Schedule
2006
Monday, August 21st
5:00 PM

EMW 2006: Gender, Family, and Social Structures

EMW 2006

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM

6:00 PM

Welcome Address at EMW 2006

Magda Teter, Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

6:00 PM - 6:10 PM

6:15 PM

Keynote Address: Marriage and the Family in Early Modern Europe

Merry Wiesner-Hanks, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

6:15 PM - 7:15 PM

Tuesday, August 22nd
9:00 AM

Ordering Early Modern Marriage

Elisheva Baumgarten, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

9:00 AM

10:00 AM

Jewish Marriage in Christian Eyes

Yaacov Deutsch, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

10:00 AM

11:00 AM

Pinkas Shamash Altona (1766-1767)

Elisheva Carlebach, Columbia University

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

11:00 AM

12:00 PM

How Family Wealth and Power Are Organized

Moshe Rosman, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

12:00 PM

2:00 PM

Marriage and Networkbuilding

Claudia Ulbrich, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

2:00 PM

3:00 PM

Family Ties & Political Structure in Pisa and Livorno

Bernard D. Cooperman, University of Maryland - College Park

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

3:00 PM

4:00 PM

An Early 17th Century Ketubah from Sefer Tikun Sofrim by Rabbi Itzhak Zabakh

Ruth Lamdan, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

4:00 PM

5:00 PM

Unequal Opportunities The Economic Possibilities Open to Jewish Women in 18th Century Poland-Lithuania

Adam Teller, Brown University

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

5:00 PM

Wednesday, August 23rd
9:00 AM

Jewish Women and Economic Encounters with Christians

Debra Kaplan, Yeshiva University

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

9:00 AM

10:00 AM

The Woodstruck Deed The Documentation of Accidental Defloration among the Jews of Early Modern Italy

David Malkiel, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

10:00 AM

11:00 AM

“The first duty of nature is to preserve life” A Jewish Woman’s Plea for Divorce in Late 18th-century Trieste

Lois Dubin, Smith College

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

11:00 AM

1:00 PM

The Role of Marriage and Marital Sexuality in Lurianic Kabbalah

Lawrence Fine, Mount Holyoke College

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

1:00 PM

2:00 PM

Juveniles in Early Modern Jewish-Italian communities Between Family Control and Kabbalistic Piety

Roni Weinstein, University of Pisa, Italy

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

2:00 PM

4:00 PM

Two Cases of Apostasy in Dubno in 1716 Jews, Christians, and Family Life

Magda Teter, Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

4:00 PM

5:00 PM

A Challenge to Sexual and Marital Propriety and Communal Reaction

Kenneth Stow, Haifa University, Israel

Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

5:00 PM