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Description
In the late seventeenth century, Beila Perlhefter mourned her seven children in the introduction she wrote to a Yiddish ethical work written (at her urging, she tells her readers) by her husband, Ber. While the autobiographical information provided in the introduction is sparse indeed, it shares certain generic characteristics with other self-writing by early modern Jews from Prague, including Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller's "Megillat eivah." At the same time, each voice is a different voice, all the more so the rare instance of a woman's voice, and this short piece defies easy categorization.
This presentation is for the following text(s):
- Sefer Be'er Sheva (Book of Seven Springs, 1690s)
Event Website
http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/emw/emw2011/
Start Date
23-8-2011 1:00 PM
Location
University of Texas at Austin
Included in
Cultural History Commons, European History Commons, History of Gender Commons, History of Religion Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Women's History Commons
'My Happiness Overturned': Mourning, Memory and a Woman's Writing
University of Texas at Austin
In the late seventeenth century, Beila Perlhefter mourned her seven children in the introduction she wrote to a Yiddish ethical work written (at her urging, she tells her readers) by her husband, Ber. While the autobiographical information provided in the introduction is sparse indeed, it shares certain generic characteristics with other self-writing by early modern Jews from Prague, including Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller's "Megillat eivah." At the same time, each voice is a different voice, all the more so the rare instance of a woman's voice, and this short piece defies easy categorization.
This presentation is for the following text(s):
- Sefer Be'er Sheva (Book of Seven Springs, 1690s)
https://research.library.fordham.edu/emw/emw2011/emw2011/10
Comments
The Keynote Address and individual presentation audio files are also available through iTunes U.