What is it about?
The intellectual Jewish history of Lithuania centers on the world of the Yeshiva. But what about the women? This article traverses a new avenue of research: The inception and development of a Torah movement by women and for women only. Bet Jakob of Lithuania responded to the cerebral and ideological bent of the Yeshiva while carving a space for women's sensibilities and interests. Analysis of the print culture produced by Bet Jakob members unveils women's perspectives on Torah study, religious goals, and global politics, providing a window into the gendered experience of Orthodox women in Eastern Europe from 1931-1939.
Featured Image
Photo by Sandra Grünewald on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This work introduces gender to the Lithuanian Orthodox experience, shedding light on women's experiences in education, societal reach, and intellectual initiatives prior to the Holocaust.
Perspectives
It was a privilege to recover the voices of women whose life's work was buried in the rubble of the Holocaust. This work opens an avenue on the private lives and intellectual aspirations of Orthodox Jewish women in Lithuania the period between the two World Wars. These activisits and literary figures established both a society and a new way of being for Orthodox women, as they confronted modernity and reformed it through the lens of traditionalist Jewish thought.
Tzipora Weinberg
New York University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Toward a Modern Conception of Orthodox Womanhood: the Case of Lithuanian Bet Jakob, October 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004735415_008.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
