Unearthed Jewish Poetry Considers Matriarchs

FAYETTEVILLE — They were the wives and mothers of their day: Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, Rachel. Although women were considered less significant in their time — and many cultures since — history has not forgotten these women. They were the matriarchs of Israel as told in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament of the Christian faith.

“This doesn’t mean every chapter of the story has a happy ending,” said Laura Lieber. “But the children of the matriarchs are still around — which is kind of its own success.”

Lieber spoke Tuesday at the Fayetteville Public Library as a part of the “Beyond the Holocaust Series,” which is paid for by a grant from the Legacy Heritage Jewish Studies Project.

Lieber is a native of Fayetteville and graduate of the University of Arkansas. She is an associate professor of history at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and is assistant director of the Duke Center for Jewish Studies. She received ordination as a rabbi at Hebrew Union College and a doctorate in the history of Judaism from the University of Chicago.

Lieber studies piyyutim, ancient Jewish liturgical poems interpreting the writings in the Torah. These works were designed for singing or even acting in religious services.

“In liturgical poetry, the most richly developed character may be that of the people of Israel — both as they appear in the text and, more evocatively, as the listeners to these works who themselves star in the still-unfolding drama of Jewish history,” Lieber wrote in an email.

Today’s women bear little resemblance to the Biblical matriarchs, living in the Iron Age, Lieber said. However, women from the GrecoRoman period forward recognize the biblical women as strong and complicated.

“It is a terrific reminder for us that women were not passive, marginalized, silent figures,” Lieber said.

“Were there women in the ancient synagogues?” Lieber asked. “Yes, we know there were women in the synagogues because literary works tell us so.”

Evidence shows the first appearance of synagogues in the 3rd century B. C., Lieber explained. “And after 70 of the Common Era ( A. D.), every Roman city and town had one,” she said. “And they had tremendous diversity.”

A clearer understanding of women in the synagogue came with the discovery of the Cairo Genizah in the 1800s and its subsequent study in the 1900s, Lieber said.