Abstract

Jewish midwives in premodern Europe played important roles as medical practitioners, as female professionals, and as communal employees. In addition to coordinating medical and nursing services for birthing mothers, midwives served the community as liaisons to guard the morals of women. Two eighteenth-century Dutch Jewish midwives’ registers discussed here testify not only to the broad social circles these women traversed and the religious and class boundaries they crossed but also to their professionalism and initiative in disseminating information about reproduction and maternal health.

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