Hidden Labors: Early Modern Women Healers between Text and Reality
Zoom Webinar
Despite evidence that skews towards men, Jewish women frequently operated as healers in early modern Europe. In recent years, scholars have begun to unearth the contributions of women to the domains of healthcare and healing, showing that they were often the first practitioners whom patients sought out in the event of disease or misfortune. This talk explores the multifaceted role of Jewish women healers in early modern Europe, with an eye toward their engagement with Jewish communal authorities and rabbinic leaders.
Healing Women in Jewish History
New histories of medicine and the body offer a more direct vantage on women’s experiences than traditional approaches mediated through the sources and concerns of men. This series explores what we know about women as both practitioners and patients throughout Jewish history, and what we stand to learn from such scholarship about women’s lives more generally.
Featuring
Jordan Katz
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Jordan Katz is Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies at University of Massachusetts Amherst. Professor Katz has received fellowships from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture; the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine; the Center for Jewish History, and the Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School. This year, she will be a scholar-in-residence at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University, where she will complete her current book project: Delivering Knowledge: Jewish Midwives and Hidden Healing in Early Modern Europe.
Cosponsors
Katz Center public programming is supported by gifts from the Klatt Family and the Harry Stern Family Foundation.