ARTS&LIFE
BOOK REVIEW
T

he field of history has its 
own history. Not long ago, 
historians took as their sub-
jects “kings and their wars.
” What 
great men accomplished became 
the subject of the history books; 
children, women and even most 
men appeared in history books 
as objects, acted upon by the true 
figures of history, the leaders. A few 
reigning queens and exceptional 
female leaders also counted as actors 
on the stage of history. 
Historians, nearly all of them 
male, wrote that history. And then 
a group of historians, most of them 
female, focused on those great 
female leaders who deserved more 
attention.
A little later, historians became 
interested in the lives of the rest of 
us: The everyday life of ordinary 
families in historic times seemed 
as rich and important a study as 
the decisions of potentates. At the 
same time, gender studies seemed 
consequential. Historians wanted to 
understand how different societies 
attempted to regulate gender roles, 
and how individuals made history 
as they navigated their lives, con-
forming to or rebelling against the 
norms of their societies.
All of this set the stage for recon-
sidering the role of Jewish women in 
history. In 1991, Judith Baskin edit-
ed a vast survey of the topic, Jewish 
Women in Historical Perspective 
(Wayne State University Press; 
second edition 1998), covering the 
entire span from the biblical text 

through the most modern develop-
ments. Since that publication, the 
field of Jewish women’s studies has 
mushroomed. Scholars have found 
new sources and new perspectives 
on old sources. Newly found mate-
rials from various locales and times 
overturn the assumption that no 
records exist of women’s lives. 
Now Frederica Francesconi, pro-
fessor and head of Jewish studies at 
the State University of New York at 
Albany, and Rebecca-Lynn Winer, 
associate professor at Villanova 
University, have brought under-
standing of the history of Jewish 
women up to date, gathering essays 
by an impressive range of scholars 
in Jewish Women’s History from 
Antiquity to the Present (Wayne 
State University Press, 2021). 
In chronological order, each essay 
addresses Jewish women at the next 
period and in another geographic 
area. Together, the essays provide 
new insights into the lives of Jewish 
women throughout history. The 
essays form not a complete history 
of Jewish women but highlights 
from nearly all periods of that his-
tory. 

A SAMPLING OF 
THE CONTENTS
In an opening essay, Rachel 
Adelman, associate professor of 
Hebrew Bible at Hebrew College in 
Boston, surveys approaches to the 
roles of women as presented in the 
Hebrew Bible. The legal material 
generally assumes a patriarchal 

New WSU book offers essays 
about the role of women in 
Jewish history. 

A Fuller Story

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

46 | DECEMBER 9 • 2021 

Federica Francesconi
Rebecca Lynn Winer

