TY - JOUR
TI - Privacy, Literacy, and Gender in Early Modern Jewish Letters from Prague (1619)
AU - Diemling, Maria
TI - Privacy, Literacy, and Gender in Early Modern Jewish Letters from Prague (1619)
AB - 
	How private were Jewish letters in the early modern period? This article discusses Jewish epistolary culture and notions of privacy by examining an extraordinary cache of Jewish letters that were mostly written on a single day— 22 November 1619—in a single city, Prague, and sent to a single destination, Vienna. The letters never arrived and ended up in the archives where they were preserved for posterity. These letters allow us a glimpse into the lives of ordinary Jews in politically tumultuous times in which privacy and confidentiality could never be taken for granted. This article pays particular attention to gendered communication and privacy. It has been argued that in epistolary culture women are afforded a voice and speak for themselves. The evidence suggests that collaborative forms of writing that involved more than one writer were still common in early seventeenth-century Jewish correspondence, indicating zones of “privileged confidentiality” within larger family networks.
VL - 2023
IS - Issue 2 (52)
PY - 2023
SN - 1506-9729
C1 - 2450-0100
SP - 401
EP - 433
DO - 10.4467/24500100STJ.23.017.18943
UR - https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/studia-judaica/article/privacy-literacy-and-gender-in-early-modern-jewish-letters-from-prague-1619
KW - Jewish letters
KW - Jewish epistolary culture
KW - privacy
KW - gender
KW - literacy