Hi all,

thank you for your feedback. In light of what people have said and the senate’s request, I am going to go with option #3 and make today completely asynchronous. 

Rafael had asked what were the big takeaways for today. I had three main things I wanted people to get out of today’s selections:

1. One of the primary types of literature written by Jews during this era are letters, and they are part of the rise of what Dierks and others call the “familiar letter” amongst the “middling sort.” they way people wrote was very much driven by convention and letter writing manuals such as this one. (Even schools for the poor during this era taught these manuals.) We saw women using letter writing conventions last week when Hannah Louzada wrote to the Mahamad asking for wood, but also we read letters to loved ones today from Rachel Pereire and Abraham da Costa Andrade. 
2. Primary sources by (and even about women) are scarce from this era and typically fall into what I have referred to as the “triangle of discontent”: either women are mentioned in passing with respect to life cycles, they have allegedly misbehaved, or they are requesting charity. What can we learn from these genres and how do they skew our understanding of women. You might also think about Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s famous comment that “well behaved women seldom make history.”
3. There were a variety of ways synagogues could establish their authority over people in their own ports and in other ports. Some were carrots (e.g. the Hannukiahs) some were sticks (see the adultery letter and the story of Rebecca Valverde Gomes).

I’d love it if people could post a comment/response to at least one of the posts on today’s readings by Hunter, Caitlin, or Jesse. Then come up with a creative response to one of today’s readings and post it as a blog post sometime between now and Monday. You are free to use your imagination, but if you get stuck, here are some ideas:

• Find a buddy in class and have one person pretend to be one of the women in the primary sources for today. Using zoom, record a brief interview with her in which you get at why she choose to “misbehave” and what pressures the Mahamad is trying to use to get her to comply. Or if you use the letter of Rachel Pereire you could be the son responding to his mother’s attempts to influence him from afar.
• Write a letter from Rebecca Valverde Gomes, Sarah Pardo, or Abraham da Costa Andrade to the Mahamad either begging for forgiveness or telling them your opinion of their attempts to control you. Or write a letter from Sarah back to Abraham. Or write a letter from the men of the Mahamad. You may want to use one of the letters in the Ladies Complete Letter Writer (1763) as a model to imitate or satirize. If you do use one as a model, make sure you take a snap shot of the letter you are imitating.
• Shortly after the incident with Rebecca Valverde Gomes, the Hazan who took part in censuring her came down with a venereal disease and was discovered to have impregnated one of the servants in the synagogue compound (he was married at the time). Moreover, then men castigating Rebecca almost all had children out of wedlock by women of color (including the president of the congregation). Write a letter to or from Rebecca that addresses the sexual double standard in the community. 
• Write a poem about or from the perspective of one of the women featured today.
• We don’t have any surviving portraits from these women. Using the style of ivory miniatures, make a fake portrait for one of the people in today’s readings.

Whatever you do, don’t obsess over it or spend more than you would have being in class. Also have fun!

If you want to talk about your ideas or any of the texts, I will be hanging out during class on the usual zoom link.

best,

Laura