Jewish Ethics and Women's Work in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Arab-Islamic World

Abstract

SummaryIn this article, Moses Maimonides’interpretationof Jewish law on women and work – as reflected in hisMishneh Torah– is contrasted with the daily lives of Jewish working women as portrayed in the documents of the Cairo Geniza. Later rabbinic writings and European travel accounts are analysed to show how Jewish ethics of women and work were translated into social practice in the late medieval and early modern Arab-Islamic world, where Islamic law and the existence of separate worlds for men and women rather than the contrast between public and private spheres seem to have informed general ideas about women and work.