On the Approach of Childbirth

The German-language writer Fanny Neuda (née Schmiedl) was born into a rabbinic family in Moravia (now the Czech Republic). She married the liberal rabbi Abraham Neuda and moved with him to Loštice, Moravia. After her husband died, Neuda wrote the first Jewish prayer book composed for women by a woman, Stunden der Andacht (Hours of Devotion; 1855), an updated version of the women’s prayers known as tkhines. The book was immensely popular in Eastern Europe and was translated into English in 1866. Neuda also wrote fiction inspired by Jewish domestic life.