Closing the Gap between the Ideal and the Actual: Elegies and Prayer, a Geniza Study

Abstract

This thesis discusses documents from the Cairo Geniza. It explores Jewish Women's Religious lives through an analysis of both literary and documentary Geniza sources. The thesis has two sections. First, the thesis explores elegies. Second, the thesis explores prayer. The thesis argues that women's personal religiosity significant to society at large through the trade system. This scholarship challenges previous notions of female participation in society and modes of scholarly analysis. The appendix the scholar's own transcriptions and translations of primary sources of both Hebrew and Judeo Arabic.