Title Page of the Register of a Jewish Midwife

1794

Manuscript page with two columns of writing in Yiddish and Hebrew and a decorated border.
This detailed bilingual Hebrew-Yiddish register kept by Roza, a Jewish midwife in the Jewish community of the Dutch city of Groningen in the years from 1794 to 1832, provides basic information about the households she served, in turn shedding light on the social structure of the Jewish community in the Netherlands at the time and on the vital role played by midwives in Jewish society. Roza served both Jewish and non-Jewish women and their families, and produced a register of births in Dutch as well, documenting her work among non-Jews, an indication of a long-standing tradition of Jewish midwives working across communal boundaries as well as evidence of Jewish midwives’ literacy, status, and level of education. (This latter register in Dutch does not seem to have survived).

Credits

Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, Special Collections of the University of Amsterdam.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 6.

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