Women’s Initiative for Jewish Studies (WIJS) at Young Israel of New Rochelle is proud to present Dr. Sarah Ifft-Decker on Wednesday, November 6 at 8:15 p.m. (ET) on Zoom. Ifft-Decker will be the second speaker of the 2024-2025 season in the monthly scholarly programming offered by WIJS at YINR.
Dr. Ifft-Decker will speak on the topic “Fighting with Contracts: Jewish Women’s Weaponization of Christian Legal Culture in the Late Medieval Mediterranean.” Medieval Jewish women were disempowered in the legal systems of both their own community and the Christian majority. Yet they were not passive victims; Jewish women in the late medieval Mediterranean used the Christian legal system to secure their assets. Jewish men also turned to Christian legal culture to protect their wives and daughters. Often, the battles that took place on the pages of Latin contracts, drawn up by Christian legal professionals, were fought between Jews. This talk draws on case studies related to Jewish inheritance, marriage and divorce, found in the archives of Spain, Italy and Southern France, to explore how Jewish women used Christian contracts to fight their legal battles.
Dr. Sarah Ifft Decker is assistant professor of history at Rhodes College. She received her BA from Swarthmore College, her MA in medieval Jewish studies from The Jewish Theological Seminary, and her PhD in history from Yale University. Her work focuses on intersections between gender and religious difference in the late medieval Mediterranean. She is the author of “Jewish Women in the Medieval World, 500-1500” (Routledge, 2022) and “The Fruit of Her Hands: Jewish and Christian Women’s Work in Medieval Catalan Cities” (Penn State University Press, 2022).
All WIJS programming is open to women and men. Please visit https://www.yinr.org/wijs.html to view the complete WIJS 2024-25 schedule. For more information, to be added to the WIJS email list, or for Zoom information, please call 914-636-2215 or email: [email protected]. Individuals on the WIJS mailing list will automatically receive the Zoom information.
