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LRDG Seminar: Threads of Knowledge: the rabbi's wife, the Hebrew mourning-embroidery, and transmission of Jewish identity

Date: 22 April 2008 Time: 1.00 - 2.00 pm

Threads of Knowledge: the rabbi's wife, the Hebrew mourning-embroidery, and transmission of Jewish identity

Fiona Frank

What at first glance looks like a simple Hebrew sampler made by a 23 year old rabbi's wife in 1885 and passed down through her family could actually be seen as a declaration of 'women's private knowledge'. Hidden within the embroidered text - an original poem, written in Hebrew in honour of her dead father in law, with many Biblical references - are dates, names and a signature. We will discuss Gematria (the art of using numbers within Hebrew writing); look at acrostics in this and other Hebrew texts; and show how, by making and framing this particular piece of embroidery, Sophia Hoppenstein was claiming a more public showing of the importance of women's Jewish learning.