Parush’s Reading Jewish Women page i Reading Jewish Women Parush’s Reading Jewish Women page ii blank Parush’s Reading Jewish Women page iii Marginality and Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Eastern European Reading Jewish Society Jewish Women IRIS PARUSH Translated by Saadya Sternberg Brandeis University Press Waltham, Massachusetts Published by University Press of New England Hanover and London Parush’s Reading Jewish Women page iv Brandeis University Press Published by University Press of New England, One Court Street, Lebanon, NH 03766 www.upne.com © 2004 by Brandeis University Press Printed in the United States of America 54321 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or me- chanical means, including storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Members of educational institutions and organizations wishing to photocopy any of the work for classroom use, or authors and publishers who would like to obtain permission for any of the material in the work, should contact Permissions, University Press of New England, One Court Street, Lebanon, NH 03766. Originally published in Hebrew as Nashim Korot: Yitronah Shel Shuliyut by Am Oved Publishers Ltd., Tel Aviv, 2001. This book was published with the generous support of the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, Inc., Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry through the support of the Valya and Robert Shapiro Endowment of Brandeis University, and the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute through the support of the Donna Sudarsky Memorial Fund. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Parush, Iris. [Nashim Korot. English.] Reading Jewish women : marginality and modernization in nineteenth-century Eastern European Jewish society / Iris Parush ; translated by Saadya Sternberg. p. cm. — (Brandeis series on Jewish women) (The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry series) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 1–58465–366–3 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 1–58465–367–1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Jewish women—Books and reading—Europe, Eastern—History—19th century. 2. Jewish women—Europe, Eastern—Intellectual life—19th century. 3. Women and literature—Europe, Eastern—History—19th century. 4. Literacy—Europe, Eastern—History—19th century. I. Title. II. Series. III. Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry series (Unnumbered) hq1172.p3713 2004 305.48'8924047'09034—dc22 2004001972 Parush’s Reading Jewish Women page v The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry Series Jehuda Reinharz, General Editor Sylvia Fuks Fried, Associate Editor The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry, established by a gift to Brandeis University from Dr. Laszlo N. Tauber, is dedicated to the memory of the victims of Nazi persecutions between 1933 and 1945. The Institute seeks to study the history and culture of European Jewry in the modern period. The Institute has a special interest in studying the causes, nature, and consequences of the European Jewish catastrophe within the contexts of modern European diplomatic, intellectual, political, and social history. Gerhard L. Weinberg, 1981 Joan G. Roland, 1989 World in the Balance: Jews in British India: Behind the Scenes of World War II Identity in a Colonial Era Richard Cobb, 1983 Avraham Barkai, 1989 French and Germans, Germans and French: From Boycott to Annihilation: A Personal Interpretation of France under Two The Economic Struggle of Occupations, 1914–1918/1940–1944 German Jews, 1933–1943 Eberhard Jäckel, 1984 Alexander Altmann, 1991 Hitler in History The Meaning of Jewish Existence: Theological Essays 1930–1939 Frances Malino and Bernard Wasserstein, editors, 1985 Magdalena Opalski and Israel Bartal, 1992 The Jews in Modern France Poles and Jews: A Failed Brotherhood Jehuda Reinharz and Walter Schatzberg, Richard Breitman, 1992 editors, 1985 The Architect of Genocide: The Jewish Response to German Culture: From Himmler and the Final Solution the Enlightenment to the Second World War George L. Mosse, 1993 Jacob Katz, 1986 Confronting the Nation: The Darker Side of Genius: Jewish and Western Nationalism Richard Wagner’s Anti-Semitism Daniel Carpi, 1994 Jehuda Reinharz, editor, 1987 Between Mussolini and Hitler: The Jews and the Living with Antisemitism: Italian Authorities in France and Tunisia Modern Jewish Responses Walter Laqueur and Richard Breitman, 1994 Michael R. Marrus, 1987 Breaking the Silence: The German Who Exposed The Holocaust in History the Final Solution Paul Mendes-Flohr, editor, 1987 Ismar Schorsch, 1994 The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig From Text to Context: The Turn to History in Modern Judaism Yisrael Gutman, Ezra Mendelsohn, Jehuda Reinharz, and Chone Shmeruk, Jacob Katz, 1995 editors, 1989 With My Own Eyes: The Jews of Poland between The Autobiography of an Historian Two World Wars Gideon Shimoni, 1995 The Zionist Ideology DES: okay to reorder within one year to better balance columns? Parush’s Reading Jewish Women page vi Moshe Prywes and Haim Chertok, 1996 Jehuda Reinharz, 2001 Prisoner of Hope Chaim Weizmann: The Making of a Zionist Leader János Nyiri, 1997 Battlefields and Playgrounds Jehuda Reinharz, 2001 Chaim Weizmann: Alan Mintz, editor, 1997 The Making of a Statesman The Boom in Contemporary Israeli Fiction ChaeRan Y. Freeze, 2002 Samuel Bak, paintings Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Lawrence L. Langer, essay and commentary, 1997 Imperial Russia Landscapes of Jewish Experience Mark A. Raider and Jeffrey Shandler and Beth S. Wenger, Miriam B. Raider-Roth, 2002 editors, 1997 The Plough Woman: Records of the Encounters with the “Holy Land”: Place, Past Pioneer Women of Palestine and Future in American Jewish Culture Ezra Mendelsohn, 2002 Simon Rawidowicz, 1998 Painting a People: Maurycy Gottlieb State of Israel, Diaspora, and Jewish Continuity: and Jewish Art Essays on the “Ever-Dying People” Alan Mintz, editor, 2002 Reading Hebrew Literature: Jacob Katz, 1998 Critical Discussions of Six Modern Texts A House Divided: Orthodoxy and Schism in Nineteenth-Century Central European Jewry Haim Be’er, 2002 The Pure Element of Time Elisheva Carlebach, John M. Efron, and David N. Myers, editors, 1998 Yehudit Hendel, 2002 Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Small Change: A Collection of Stories Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi Thomas C. Hubka, 2003 Shmuel Almog, Jehuda Reinharz, and Resplendent Synagogue: Anita Shapira, editors, 1998 Architecture and Worship in an Zionism and Religion Eighteenth-Century Polish Community Ben Halpern and Jehuda Reinharz, 2000 Uzi Rebhun and Chaim I. Waxman, 2003 Zionism and the Creation of a New Society Jews in Israel: Contemporary Social and Cultural Patterns Walter Laqueur, 2001 Generation Exodus: The Fate of Young Jewish Gideon Shimoni, 2003 Refugees from Nazi Germany Community and Conscience: The Jews in Apartheid South Africa Yigal Schwartz, 2001 Aharon Appelfeld: Iris Parush, 2004 From Individual Lament to Tribal Eternity Reading Jewish Women: Marginality and Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Renée Poznanski, 2001 European Jewish Society Jews in France during World War II Parush’s Reading Jewish Women page vii Brandeis Series on Jewish Women Shulamit Reinharz, General Editor Joyce Antler, Associate Editor Sylvia Barack Fishman, Associate Editor The Brandeis Series on Jewish Women is a distinctive book series created by the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. The series publishes a wide range of books by and about Jewish women in diverse contexts and time periods and scholarly books on topics re- lated to Jews and gender. The series fills a major gap in Jewish learning with books of interest to scholarly audiences and educated readers alike. Marjorie Agosín Elizabeth Wyner Mark, editor Uncertain Travelers: Conversations with Jewish The Covenant of Circumcision: New Perspectives Women Immigrants to America, 1999 on an Ancient Jewish Rite, 2003 Rahel R. Wasserfall, editor Kalpana Misra and Melanie S. Rich, editors Women and Water: Menstruation in Jewish Life Jewish Feminism in Israel: Some Contemporary and Law, 1999 Perspectives, 2003 Susan Starr Sered Farideh Goldin What Makes Women Sick? Militarism, Wedding Song: Memoirs of an Iranian Jewish Maternity, and Modesty in Israeli Society, 2000 Woman, 2003 Pamela S. Nadell and Jonathan D. Sarna, editors Rochelle L. Millen Women and American Judaism: Historical Women, Birth, and Death in Jewish Law and Perspectives, 2001 Practice, 2003 Ludmila Shtern Sylvia Barack Fishman Leaving Leningrad: The True Adventures of a Double or Nothing? Jewish Families and Mixed Soviet Émigré, 2001 Marriage, 2004 Jael Silliman Iris Parush Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames: Women’s Reading Jewish Women: Marginality and Narratives from a Diaspora of Hope, 2001 Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Eastern European Jewish Society, 2004 Judith R. Baskin Midrashic Women: Formations of the Feminine Tamar Ross in Rabbinic Literature, 2002 Expanding the Palace of Torah: Orthodoxy and Feminism, 2004 ChaeRan Y. Freeze Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia, 2002 Mark A. Raider and Miriam B. Raider-Roth, editors The Plough Woman: Records of the Pioneer Women of Palestine, 2002 Parush’s Reading Jewish Women page viii blank Parush’s Reading Jewish Women page ix For my parents Parush’s Reading Jewish Women page x blank Parush’s Reading Jewish Women page xi Contents Preface to the English Edition xiii Introduction Reading Women and the Spirit of Jewish