Texts for boys and for girls: concepts of childhood, gender and education in German Jewish society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Abstract

This article deals with the dynamics of change in concepts of gender and childhood in German Jewish culture between the late eighteenth and the mid-nineteenth century. The rise of literature for Jewish children attests to the spread of modern concepts of childhood in this culture, which pushed aside the traditional blurring of boundaries between children and adults, and encouraged Jewish educators and authors to create literature suitable for children. The differences between texts written for boys and those written for girls, in terms of content and language, signifies the ongoing predominance of traditional gender separation within Jewish culture during that period. Close inspection of these compositions shows that Jewish gender differentiation continued to play a major role in them, indicating the gradual and complex ways in which these childhood gender concepts were altered within German-Jewish culture at the time.