Voices of the matriarchs
Subtitle: listening to the prayers of early modern Jewish women
By: Chava Weissler.
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Boston, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 269
Subjects: Tehinnot; Jewish women -- Prayer-books and devotions -- History and criticism; Jewish women -- Religious life; Women in Judaism
Description: Most studies of Judaism focus on sources produced by and for learned men - the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the Midrash, legal codes, and works of medieval philosophy, mysticism, and Hasidism. All these texts were written in Hebrew - a language seventeenth- through nineteenth-century Jewish women were not given the opportunity to learn.

With Voices of the Matriarchs, Chava Weissler restores balance to our knowledge of Judaism by providing the first look at non-Hebrew Jewish source materials: the vernacular women's devotional prayers called tkhines. In Weissler's hands, these Yiddish prayers open a window into early modern Ashkenazic women's lives, beliefs, devotion, and relationships with God.

In the last section of Voices of the Matriarchs Weissler looks at the changes the twentieth century wrought in the practice of writing and reciting tkhines.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-258) and index.