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Faculty of Divinity Lightfoot Room
Faculty of Divinity, Sidgwick Site, off West Road, Cambridge CB3 9BSThe first published book written by a Jewish woman was a work of ethics: Meneket Rivkah (1609 CE). Guest speaker Ranana Dine (Chicago) puts these ideas in dialogue with contemporary women writing works of Jewish ethics. A supplementary seminar chaired by Dr Giles Waller.
Aged tombstone with Hebrew engraving, next to which a modern sign captioned “Rivkah Tiktiner, zemit 1605”. Photograph by Ranana Dine.
About
Abstract
The Meneket Rivkah, a text written by Rivkah bat Me’ir Tiktiner, and first published posthumously in Prague in 1609, is notable as the first published book written by a Jewish woman. The book is a work of musar (personal character) ethics, enjoining Ashkenazi Jewish women of the period to improve their character and religious observance, as well as their relationships with their families, communities, and servants.
The book is a fascinating window into the daily lives and relationships of Ashkenazi Jewish women in the early modern period. In this paper, however, I take Rivkah bat Me’ir seriously as an ethical thinker and put her ideas in dialogue with contemporary women writing works of Jewish ethics. In particular I focus on her conceptualization of the female body as a source of religious meaning and wisdom.
Rivkah bat Me’ir divides Jewish women’s moral work into two domains: “wisdom of the body” and “wisdom of the soul.” I investigate what is meant by women’s wisdom regarding their own bodies, and how Rivkah bat Me’ir conceptualizes the female body as a site for the development of feminine expertise, moral goodness, and the fulfillment of obligations.
I contextualize Rivkah bat Me'ir's understanding of the female body alongside her Christian female contemporaries who considered the role of the body in mystical theological experience.
Although Rivkah bat Me’ir’s work is not a proto-feminist text, her stress on the role of women’s bodies in their moral lives has echoes in the scholarship of contemporary Jewish feminist ethics, including in the work of Mara Benjamin and Michal Rauscher. We should include the work of Rivkah bat Me’ir, and her thinking about the feminine body, as we develop a religious ethics more attentive to gendered experience, embodiment, and the history of women.
About the speaker
Dr Ranana L Dine is Assistant Professor of Catholic–Jewish Studies, Crown–Ryan Chair in Jewish Studies and Director of the Catholic–Jewish Studies Program at the Catholic Theological Union, Chicago.
Dine joined the CTU faculty in 2025 after finishing her PhD at the University of Chicago Divinity School in religious ethics. Prior to enrolling in the PhD at the University of Chicago, she studied religion and art at Williams College and completed two master’s degrees in Christian theology and medical humanities respectively at the University of Cambridge. She also has experience in clinical ethics from the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago.
Originally from the Washington DC area, Ranana attended local Jewish day schools and has studied Jewish texts and Hebrew language at the Drisha Institute, Hadar Institute, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Her research interests include modern Jewish thought and ethics, Jewish feminist thought, bioethics, and religion and visual culture.
Background to this event
Dr Dine is visiting Cambridge briefly during February 2026. This addition to the regular seminar series is co-hosted by Dr Giles Waller and Professor Daniel Weiss.