13 - Gender Differentiation and Education of the Jewish Woman in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Europe

Summary

An assessment of the role, function and extent of women's education in nineteenth-century East European Jewry requires a substantial effort to distinguish facts from images. Our picture of the past is affected, of course, by present-day attitudes and stereotypes but even at the time, the contemporary reality was seen in light of assumptions based on cultural postulates. There were a variety of images of the Jewish woman and her education - and they were not necessarily consistent. Therefore, pointing out the differences between the realities and the images not only adds to an understanding of women's education in Eastern Europe but also clarifies the value system of the Jewish community in the previous century. It will be necessary to consider the image of women's education as well as relevant quantitative and qualitative data in order to understand the realities of women's education, the way this education was integrated into broader gender classifications and the implications and consequences of women's education.

THE IMAGE AND FRAMEWORKS OF WOMEN's EDUCATION

There is a widely held misconception that, in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe, Jewish women were relatively ignorant from a Jewish point of view while many received a good general education. A classic expression of this view is that of Zvi Scharfstein who wrote a number of widely used studies on the history of Jewish education and who stated in the opening to a (short) chapter on the education of girls:

The education of the Hebrew daughter - if we measure education as the degree of knowledge of Torah and books - was on a very low level in our midst. So low as to be a disgrace for the people … The Hebrews held that women are just for children and the kitchen and that he who teaches his daughter Torah taught her worthlessness … Only the national revival saved the Hebrew daughter from the shame of her ignorance - ignorance from the point of view of Judaism.

A typical portrayal of sex differences in Jewish and general education is that of D. Flinker. While discussing education in Warsaw he noted that, compared with the education of boys, the education of girls was backward.