Tkhines: Listening to the Prayers of 18th-19th Century Ashkenazi Women

Sunday June 29 4:00-6:00 PM Pacific

Our recent reading of S. Y. Abramovitsh's work, Fishke the Lame, introduced us to the 19th century world of Mendele the Bookseller, who traveled from shtetl to shtetl selling religious books, miscellaneous ritual merchandise, and, importantly, booklets of prayers in Yiddish written for and sold to women.

The Yiddish Shmoozers (In Translation) welcomes Dr. Chava Weissler, Emerita Professor of Religion, Culture, and Society at Lehigh University, on Sunday, June 29.

Chava Weissler is the foremost scholar of early modern women's prayers (tkhines) in Yiddish dating from the 16th century in Western Europe and the 18th and 19th centuries in Eastern Europe.

Given the stringent exclusion of women from Hebrew language learning and participation in formal prayer, the existence and study of tkhines provides insights into the spiritual lives of Jewish women, a topic that is absent from the classic literature by Abramovitsh, Rabinowitz (Sholem Aleichem), and even the proto-feminist Peretz.

Above: Text of Tkhine shloyshe sheorim (The Tkhine of Three Gates) by Sarah Bas Tovim, early 18th century. From a prayerbook published in Vilna in 1850. Courtesy of Aharon Varady and the Open Siddur Project.

Check back for selected readings by Dr. Weissler and a study guide for this presentation as the date approaches. - gf 5/3/25

Also read:

Rabbi Marna Sapsowitz & Sharon Power. Our Summer of Tkhines. In Geveb, Sep. 29, 2024

https://ingeveb.org/pedagogy/our-summer-of-tkhines

And view:

Our Summer of Tkhines (1 hr):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnYCVrSQq1w