Jewish Women in Enlightenment Berlin

National Jewish Book Awards Finalistfor the Barbara Dobkin Award for Women's Studies, 2013.The encounter of Jewswith the Enlightenment has so far been considered almost entirely from amasculine perspective. In shifting the focus to a group of educated Jewishwomen in Berlin, this engaging study makes an important contribution to GermanJewish history as well as to gender studies. NatalieNaimark-Goldberg's study of these women's letters, literary activities, andsocial life reveals them as cultivated members of the European public. Theircorrespondence allowed them not only to demonstrate their intellectual talentsbut also to widen their horizons and acquire knowledge-a key concern of womenseeking empowerment. Her descriptions of their involvement in the publicsphere, a key feature of Enlightenment culture, offer important new insights:social gatherings in their homes served the purpose of intellectualadvancement, while the newly fashionable spas gave them the opportunity toexpand their contacts with men as well as with other women, and with non-Jewsas well as Jews, right across Europe. As avid readers andcritical writers, these women reflected the secular world-view that was thenbeginning to spread among Jews. Imbued with enlightened ideas and values and anew feminine awareness, they began to seek independence and freedom, to theextent of challenging the institution of marriage and traditional familyframeworks. A finalchapter discusses the relationship of the women to Judaism and to religion ingeneral, including their attitude to conversion to Christianity-the route thatso many ultimately took.'A major contribution to GermanJewish history and to gender studies . . . It becomes clear that . . . Jewishwomen participated in the European Enlightenment as well, although usually in adifferent and unique way . . . [Naimark-Goldberg] enhances our view of thehistory of German Jewry and Jewish women, the processes of modernization andsecularization, and the cultural history of the Jews at the onset of moderntimes.' Shmuel Feiner, Bar Ilan University'This book is of great interest and significance.Dr Naimark-Goldberg's approach is part of a newer historiographical traditionin the study of women and culture. Her book takes a new angle of research andmakes a significant contribution to understanding Jewish women's history andJewish culture as a whole.' Shulamit Magnus, Oberlin College