Nearly all of the Jewish scientists, poets and philosophers of the 11th-12th century Sephardic world resided in Andalusia, as opposed to the Arab scholars who lived throughout the Muslim world. I detail 7 men below [sorry, no women here], but there were many others I left out. One of the earliest [mid 11th century] and most influential philosophers [http://www.radicalacademy.com/adiphiljewish1.htm] was Solomon ibn Gabirol of Saragossa. A neo-Platonist, he composed treatises on ethics and on meta… Continue

Meanwhile, in the Muslim lands, all sorts of philosophical and scientific advances had been occurring for several hundred years, with the West slowly becoming aware of them. [http://www.al-bab.com/arab/science.htm]. Many of these scholars, Moor and Jew, lived in the Iberian Peninsula, during what has been called the “Golden Age of Spanish Jewry.” Whether one agrees with this description or not, it certainly wasn’t so golden a time for Jewish women, whose rabbis forbade them to study Torah or per… Continue

More about leaned Jewish women in the 11th-12th centuries. Rashi’s daughters weren’t the only women who studied Torah or carried on a profession. His granddaughters, Hannah, Miriam, and Alvina, were scholars as well. According to Shoshana Zolty’s “And All Your Children Shall Be Learned- Women and the Study of Toran in Jewish History,” other educated women of this time include: Miriam, wife of Rabbenu Tam [Joheved’s son]; Bella, sister of French scholar Isaac ben Menachem; the nameless wife of Fr… Continue

So now I’m going to talk about Jewish women’s high position in the 11th-12th centuries. For all practical purposes, this means Ashkenazi women [living under the Christians], since Sephardic women [living under the Muslims] don’t seem to have improved their status like their Western European sisters did. As I researched the religious lives of medieval Jewish women, in order to determine the truth of legends about Rashi’s daughters being learned and wearing tefillin, I found plenty of evidence tha… Continue

One of the fascinating things I discovered about the 12th Century Renaissance was the many women involved in it, as opposed to the later Italian Renaissance where women are pretty much nonexistent. In Judy Chicago’s monumental work of feminist art, The Dinner Party [http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/home.php], 39 prominent women, from
are represented at the table, 4 of whom lived in the 11th-12th centuries – historian Hrosvitha of Germany, physician Trotula of Salerno, Queen Elea… Continue