The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-04-19
THE JEWISH WOMAN.
The Position of the Wife and Mother in the
Hebrew Family.

Rabbi Sonnens chem, of st. Louis, who recent
ly delivered two lectures here, spoke before the
Woman Suffrage Convention, in that city, the
other evening on the status of the Hebrew
woman of old and the Jewess of to-day. 'Little
as the Christian world knows of the Jew, said
the doctor, lit knows still loss of the Jewish
woman. The gentle ranks the Jew of old with
the barbarian of the Orient; believes that the
wlfes position in the tents and cities of her race
was little removed from slavery, but this is not
true. The Hebrew compared her in her self
sacrifice and sweetness to God, in her loving
care and purity to the Father of all, and the
grandest of all the prophets and poets sang
of her and paid her homage in her God-like at
tributes. The family life is the cornerstone of
| national life. In the Jewish and old Hebrew
home the wife is the idol of her husband, the
children his care and pride. Even the gentle
foe admits the devotion of the Jew to his family,
his faithfulness to their comfort his pride in
their condition. One cause of the misconception
OF woman's position is the ignorance of idiomatic
Hebrew, evinced by translators--though in the
| main the St James Bible is correct--and which
| has given to Christianity the old story Of the
| fall OF man, who, lured by the woman was made
| not an equal, but partial sufferer with her. The
| Hebrews believed that without the helpmeet
man could never rise, could never climb the lad
der that led from earth to heaven; that his sci
iishness would forever have kept him as the
| beasts of the field. Had God not said: i will
elevate him out of his animal egotism ! will
give him woman Her mission is not to tempt,
but to Inclte him to noble efforts; to hold the
mirror of his faults before him, while he holds a
tiny looking-gl&ss that she, too, may see her
frailties, and thus benefiIing each other each
may help the other to rise.
1.-THE Hebrew believed in monogamy, and the
old Mosaic law was SO strict that Legitimate
child was known in all Israel. The weak maid
en- who fell had the right to appeal to the elders,
and her wrongs were righted. The faithless
wife had meteti out to her far severer punish
ment than the man who was her co-sinner, be-
cause she was looked upon as his superior, as
purer and better, therefore to be more cruelty
punished
'srhe first womans' rights association was es-
| tabished $500 years ago, in the desert, under
the shadows of Sinai, when five sisters of the
tribe OF Manassah went before the elders and
demanded that their dead fathers heritage come
to them, they being brotherless." Speaking Of
| the license given young men and maidens to
choose their mates, he told of the merry making
in the gardens of Jerusalem, when, as the even
ing of atonement day came on, the people sought
the spce-laden groves, and, under the stars,
young hearts often learned the first love
lesson this, the darkest fast-day of the Hebrew
year. The social and economic side of the Jewish
race shows that, even in the days of bitterest
persecution, the parents endcavored to educate
their children, and fit them for possibly exalted
stations, and to-day, NO matter how poor the
father, up to a certain age, mis- offspring must
attend the schools The first public school was
instituted 2,001 years ago by Rabbi. just be-
fore the scattering of the tribes, and from that
day to this ignorance is not tolerated no matter
how humble the household. 1t was not Gods
pity for man. but His adoring love for the eth
| ical purity, the exalted perseverance of the He
brew women, that led them out of the Egyptian
bondage. And though misunderstood in almost
all things, yet is it history that to the Jew be-
longs the credit of the first recognition of
RIGHTS