Chava Weissler

Chava Weissler is Philip and Muriel Berman Professor of Jewish Civilization in the Religion Studies Department of Lehigh University. She is the author of Voices of the Matriarchs: Listening to the Prayers of Early Modern Jewish Women, and Making Judaism Meaningful: Ambivalence and Tradition in a Havurah Community. She teaches courses on women in Jewish history, Jewish folklore, classical Jewish texts, and Jewish and American popular religion.

Articles by this author

Cover of the Tkhine of the Matriarchs for the New Moon of Elul, a personal prayerbook in Yiddish.

Tkhines

Tkhines were collections of prayers published in Yiddish, often specifically for women, across Europe from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The prayers addressed many themes of domestic and family life, although some also suggested women ought to be allowed into traditionally male spaces.

Leah Horowitz

Leah Horowitz was a Ukrainian scholar who wrote extensively about what she thought the role of women should be in Judaism. She emphasized the importance of women’s prayer and drew from the stories of the Hebrew matriarchs to argue that women’s work should be acknowledged and that they have power beyond their marriages.
Text of Tkhine shloyshe sheorim (The Tkhine of Three Gates) by Sarah Bas Tovim, early 18th century

Sarah Bas Tovim

Sarah bas Tovim was an elusive figure, and the difficulty of documenting her life has led to doubts about her very existence. She is the author, or more precisely the composer, of two works published in the eighteenth century: Tkhine shaar ha-yikhed al oylemes (The Tkhine of the Gate of Unification concerning the Aeons) and Tkhine shloyshe sheorim (The Tkhine of Three Gates).

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How to cite this page

Jewish Women's Archive. "Chava Weissler." (Viewed on April 16, 2024) <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/author/weissler-chava>.