The first modern Hebrew writers were mostly young, educated, secular, European – and male. Yet despite the barriers of gender and education, a few women also published in Hebrew in Enlightenment journals. Their profile, however, was almost as different as could be from that of the men. Who were these female authors, and what became of them?

Stretching out in his armchair, the Jewish intellectual of the 1860s and 1870s pored over the latest Hebrew periodicals with relish. Arriving in the mail, or borrowed from a friend, Ha-melitz, Ha-maggid, Ha-boker Or, and Ha-ivri connected him with a tiny yet vibrant group of Jewish intellectuals scattered throughout eastern and central Europe.
If asked whether his Haskalah (Enlightenment) colleagues were men or women, he would likely have chosen the first option. But if he was keen-eyed, he would have noticed – here and there among the well-known male authors – a letter, article, or poem written by a woman.
Yeti Wallerner, Deborah Efrati, Rachel Morpurgo, Bertha Rabinovitch, and Taube Segal were among the female names that made little impression on the average male reader. That’s probably because these bylines were few and far between, and because the Enlightenment had thus far been very much a men’s club. Female Hebrew authors are barely mentioned in historical accounts of the period and its literature. In retrospect, though, it’s clear that a hundred fifty years ago, a revolution was taking place under scholars’ very noses.
No Girls Allowed
It wasn’t only in Jewish circles that women were generally excluded from cultural and literary discourse. In patriarchal societies everywhere, the economic and social obstacles in women’s way were almost insurmountable. As the English author Virginia Woolf put it, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” (A Room of One’s Own [London: Hogarth Press, 1929], p. 6). Yet when Jewish women began trying to make a literary contribution to the social and ideological upheaval ushered in by the Enlightenment in eastern and central Europe in the 19th century, the barriers facing them were exceptionally high.
Perhaps first and foremost, the study of “Torah” (Jewish canonical texts) by women was completely forbidden. Jewish law adopted Rabbi Eliezer’s comment that “Anyone who teaches his daughter Torah is as if he has taught her triviality” (Mishna Sota 3:4). Women therefore had no place in the intellectual and cultural institutions that were central to the development of Jewish life. The Talmudic academies (yeshivot) were closed to them, as was the heder where boys learned to read and translate sacred Hebrew texts. Girls taught to read at home were the exception, and usually their skills didn’t extend beyond Yiddish; Hebrew literacy was considered unnecessary for women.
In addition, not only was the public sphere reserved for men, but this segregation was enshrined by the Jewish laws of modesty. Because “All the glory of the King’s daughter is within” (Psalms 45:14), women were neither seen nor heard in the synagogue and played no role in the public rituals accompanying holidays and life-cycle events.

It wasn’t only in Jewish circles that women were generally excluded from cultural and literary discourse. In patriarchal societies everywhere, the economic and social obstacles in women’s way were almost insurmountable. As the English author Virginia Woolf put it, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction A Room of One’s Own London