“I Too Speak the Words of God” A Jewish Learned Woman Faces an Early Modern Rabbinic Court

Abstract

This essay delves into a collection of previously overlooked seventeenth-century Hebrew letters from Italy, exchanged between Rica (Rivkah) Clava (Katzigin), a Jewish woman, and her husband, Shlomo Yo@hanan, addressed to Rabbi Yosef Ravenna of Alessandria. These letters document a financial dispute between the couple, revealing diverse interpretations of business documents and halakhic sources, alongside instances of spousal mockery and marital tension. They provide a rare case of confident articulation of halakhic matters by an educated Jewish Italian woman communicating in Hebrew. In these exchanges, the complexity of economic partnership within marriage and the potential for erudition among Jewish women are explored, shedding light on early modern perceptions of woman’s agency and on attempts by male counterparts to stifle their voices.

Against the backdrop of existing scholarship on Jewish Italy and early modern women, the essay emphasizes the significance of these letters in understanding the social and intellectual position of Jewish women in early modern Italy, the challenges they faced, and the different rhetorical paths they could take to cope with them.

in the nearly century-old quest to uncover the literary voices of early modern women, Italy has played an important role.¹ Historians have shown that as early as the fourteenth century, Italian women studied Latin and the European vernaculars as part of their involvement in trade.² The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries expanded the possibilities for Italian women’s education, paving the way for the participation of noblewomen in the contemporary literary and poetic realm. The opportunities for Italian women’s literary expression in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries further increased with the rise of private associations that at times accepted women.³

While the literary pursuits of Christian women have long been the focus of research, it is only recently that historians have attempted to uncover similar phenomena within the Jewish Italian communities of the era.⁴ As scholars of the Jewish past are painfully aware, however, the challenges facing historians of premodern Jewish women are particularly acute.⁵ In the particular context of women’s learning, historians of Christian Europe have the opportunity to analyze works authored by Christian women in institutions such as convents, which were practically led by women; European Jewry had no comparable institutions, nor are there any traces of institutional efforts to educate women until much later in history. There is, however, some evidence to suggest that Jewish women in early modern Italy studied Hebrew at home, primarily to facilitate reading legal documents. Letter collections from the time include some examples of Hebrew letters written by women discussing financial matters and reporting on everyday events.⁶ Shmuel Archivolti (ca. 1515–1611), a Venetian rabbi, even included a section for women in his work Ma‘ayan ganim (Venice, 1553), which contains sample letters for practical writing.⁷ An expectation that Jewish women could read Hebrew emerges also from Abraham Graziano’s (d. 1685) handwritten notes on the Shulḥan ‘arukh. Graziano discusses a Hebrew version of the Aramaic prayer “Yekum Purkan,” which was printed in Rome and addressed to Jewish women who were unable to read Aramaic.⁸

A litany of other sources testifies to a range of encounters between male writers and learned Jewish women. The venetian rabbi Leon Modena writes of his personal acquaintance with two women “very learned in Torah and Talmud.”⁹ Several other rabbinical authors, such as Graziano, Aaron Berachia Modena (1549–1639), and Benjamin Vitale (1651–1730), note in passing their having discussed halakhic matters with various educated women.¹⁰ Additional such reports concerning the scholarly ability of young women in the Yiddish-speaking communities of northern Italy were collected and analyzed by Chone Shmeruk and Chava Turniansky.¹¹ And yet these reports grant us only passing and indirect access to the voices of learned Jewish women in early modern Italy.

Of course, there are a few works authored by Italian Jewish women themselves, such as Devorà Ascarelli (ca. 1555–1608)¹² and Sara Copia Sullam (1592–1641).¹³ Drawing on these two outstanding examples, historians such as Howard Adelman have concluded that in Italy, Jewish women’s erudition was “unusual but not impossible.”¹⁴ Significantly, however, the works of Copia Sullam and Ascarelli were produced not in Hebrew but in Italian. They thus provide important evidence of Jewish women’s erudition but do not shed light on women’s participation in the realm of halakhic studies. In fact, virtually everything we know about Jewish Italian women’s halakhic learning is based on indirect documentation and anecdotal statements such as the aforementioned testimonies of Modena and Graziano. Although such indirect sources point to the existence of the phenomenon of Jewish women’s learning, they reveal little about these women’s self-perception, about how and when they used their knowledge in daily life, or about how they negotiated their knowledge with men.

This essay offers a first step toward answering some of these questions, by focusing on a hitherto unknown series of Hebrew letters from the seventeenth century, signed by a Jewish woman by the name of Rica (Rivkah) Clava (Katzigin), referred to also as Marat Rivkah, and her husband, Shlomo Yoḥanan, often referred to as Yonah. The letters were written to the rabbi Yosef Ravenna as part of a heated dispute between Rica and Yonah. offer a fascinating combination of differing interpretations of business documents and halakhic sources, as well as examples of spousal mockery and marital unrest. In their appeals to Ravenna, both directly and indirectly, the letters discuss the meanings of the economic partnership of a married couple, the possibility of Jewish women’s legal erudition (or lack thereof), and the nature and qualities of women’s wisdom and speech. Reflecting the dynamics of a learned married couple who handled business matters together, Rica’s letters offer an unprecedented encounter with the voice of an educated Jewish Italian woman (or perhaps, a representation of it, as discussed below) writing in the Hebrew language. The correspondence furthermore affords a glimpse at the difficulties such women faced and the ways their male interlocutors could attempt to silence them.

The katzigin correspondenge: a unique historical source

Between May 10 and 21, 1652, a series of eight Hebrew letters was sent from the Italian city of Casale Monferrato to Rabbi Yosef ben Michael Ravenna in Alessandria, a central city in the Piedmont region.¹⁵ Four of the letters carried the words of Rica Clava-Katzigin,¹⁶ who wished to initiate legal proceedings against her second husband, Shlomo Yoḥanan (Yonah) Katzigin.¹⁷ Yonah was a descendant of the powerful Ashkenazi Italian Katzigin family.¹⁸ Like many others in his family, he was educated in a yeshiva, as evidenced by the honorific “moreno ha-rav” with which he is designated in the community’s minute book.¹⁹ The Katzigins held central posts in Casale Monferrato, such as those of the local rabbi and scribe. Yonah himself was a prominent member of the community; according to the minute book, he was readily admitted to the community in 1634 and promptly assumed a number of official posts within it, including those of communal representative (mesharet) and lay arbiter.²⁰ In 1653, after the legal process described here was probably over, he represented the community in a tax dispute with the community of Alessandria.²¹ Christian historical records from the time indicate that he assisted the rulers of Casale in procuring wheat from Milanese territories and remained active in similar endeavors until at least 1688.²²

Although we have some information about Yonah, our knowledge about Rica is constrained to the extent that we are uncertain even of her maiden name, let alone her education, personal connections, or place of birth. The only available information is given in her letters, which indicates that, before her marriage to Yonah, she was married to a member of the Halperin family and had connections in the province of Padua. The fact that she was married twice to influential families may suggest that she was born into a prominent family herself. Rica’s charges against her husband revolved around an inheritance (‘izavon)²³ from Israel Halperin, her son from her previous marriage who died in 1636, which Yonah was supposed to collect for her from her relatives in Padua. The remaining four letters offer Yonah’s vehement denials of the charges.

From a legal perspective, what is at stake here is that both parties agree that a substantial sum of money, which belonged to Rica and not to Yonah, was assigned to her. However, they disagree on a simple factual matter: whether the couple acquired this money or not. As the letters progress, it becomes evident that the couple is in the process of divorcing, and that Rica is striving to assert her claim to a sum of money that she contends her husband acquired on her behalf but did not deliver to her. In their effort to establish their differing positions, the couple presents different narratives of the events preceding the correspondence. Their divergent accounts move the discussion beyond mere legalities to delve into specific events, marital dynamics, and gender tensions. They thus provide a unique opportunity to examine how these dynamics are portrayed by the parties themselves, shedding light on aspects beyond their legal arguments.

At first glance, apart from a minor scandal in a powerful family, nothing stands out as particularly notable about the case. As historians have shown, family disputes of all sorts were held in the rabbinic courts of the early modern period in Italy and elsewhere. Women were active agents in some of these disputes, and their arguments were heard in court and, in some cases, recorded for posterity.²⁴ Several such cases are discussed in Howard Adelman’s study of Jewish marriage in early modern Italy, which offers one of the most sensitive attempts to reconjure the voices of women in early modern Jewish courts. However, as Adelman notes, the testimonies recorded in these documents are always indirect.²⁵ The female voices that echo from responsa literature were penned by notaries (sofrim), who edited, abridged, and often translated from the spoken Italian into the written Hebrew.²⁶ They then organized the testimonies in a unified narrative form, purging them of inconsistencies, repetitions, ambiguity, improper language, and more.²⁷

Herein lies the distinctiveness of the present correspondence. A look into the structure of the codex in which the correspondence is found shows that we are dealing here with a different kind of historical source. Ravenna left more than five hundred folios of halakhic and legal responses in different codices.²⁸ Among his codices is one that holds rulings and documents that a contemporary editor of his writings clearly wanted to preserve for posterity.²⁹ This codex consists of selected material from other codices, all transcribed in one legible hand and assigned individual document numbers. It is organized into two parts: the main one contains responsa, primarily presenting untitled concise questions and their corresponding answers (mostly) by Ravenna, while the other supplementary and shorter section comprises copies of legal documents such as wills, agreements, legal correspondence, and testimonies, each given a title.³⁰

The verdict of the Katzigin case is found in the first section (n. 113), but it does not include the presentation of the case.³¹ In contrast, the correspondence between Yonah and Rica, which introduces the legal question, is placed in the second part (n. 132), along with various other letters, wills, and other copies of documents. It includes no reference to the verdict.³² It seems that the editor intentionally separated these two closely related documents, placing them in their designated sections according to their specific nature.

Interestingly, the Katzigin correspondence is positioned immediately after a copy of a summary detailing an interrogation in which a dispute between two individuals was resolved.³³ In this instance, the editor explicitly indicates that all the testimonies were given in person in front of the dayanim on the same day; thus, the different sections of the arguments by the parties lack the traditional greetings and salutations found in letters. In the case of the Katzigin letters, however, the text includes the exact date of each letter and the signature of the originating place, Casale. Also, the documents include all the customary Hebrew salutations and signatures. This underscores the difference between the two cases: neither is a responsum but a copy of legal documents; while the former is a document prepared by the bet din, the latter are legal pleas to the bet din, prepared, or at least signed and sent, by the claimants themselves.

Thus, the eight letters written to Ravenna by the Katzigin couple are different from the responsa examined by Adelman. They neither form part of a halakhic responsum nor constitute neatly summarized pleas. Rather, this long correspondence presents the parties’ arguments as formulated by them in exhaustive detail. Unlike the edited presentation of the arguing voices that usually characterizes responsa, the Katzigins’ letters are full of personal information, often repetitive and at times scornful. They give voice to the blistering emotions of their authors but also present lengthy halakhic debates.

Considering these texts not as part of a formal responsum but as letters expressing the voices of specific individuals raises a crucial question regarding how to attribute authorship to these letters. It is highly plausible that Yonah represented himself, possessing sufficient knowledge of Talmud and Hebrew to create such a text. The question of Rica’s authorship of the letters that appear under her name is more complex. Given the rarity of Jewish women’s writing in general, and in Hebrew in particular during this era, doubts can arise. Should her letters be viewed as her own independent work, representing a remarkable testament to some women’s education and intellectual engagement, or should they be seen as documents written under the name of a woman but containing argumentation formulated by someone else, perhaps a male relative or counsel?

It should be acknowledged in advance that this question cannot be answered in an ironclad way, not only regarding Rica’s letters but also with regard to other manuscript works—or, for the more devoted skeptic, even printed works—attributed to early modern women. Indeed, the possibility that the halakhic arguments found in Rica’s letters were formulated by a male author cannot be completely ruled out. At the same time, there are ample reasons to accept the texts’ self-presentation as having been originally composed by Rica.

First, although learned women writers were unusual in early modern Italy, they were not nonexistent. We have seen above the examples of Jewish women writing in Italian and other languages and so have witnessed indirect evidence that women’s Hebrew writing was an imaginable scenario for contemporaries. But more direct evidence is also available; a century before Rica formulated her letters, a young Jewish girl by the name of Leona-Leviah from Lugo wrote letters to her brother in Hebrew to show him her progress in “Torah and wisdom.” In passing she mentions that the talmudic opinion of Rav that “earthenware pots in which leavened bread was cooked during Passover should be broken” (bPes 30a) was not halakhically accepted, which is far beyond common knowledge.³⁴ In another letter, she mourns the departure of her private teacher who trained her “to participate in the battle of Torah.”³⁵ Thus, precedents are available, and further research will plausibly find more.

Further evidence that Rica wrote the letters herself rather than through a mediator or counselor is afforded by comparing the correspondence to other works in Ravenna’s archive. Although the Katzigins’ letters make no mention of using legal counsel, other documents from Ravenna’s court do explicitly note the use of such counsel.³⁶ Furthermore, as we shall presently see, Rica asserts her authorship in every one of the letters and takes pride in her halakhic knowledge. Throughout the correspondence, she actively strives to legitimize her opinions on halakhic matters, while Yonah attempts to downplay her understanding and challenges the very legitimacy of her speech. Thus, in response to Yonah’s claim that, as a woman, Rica could not possibly comprehend the talmudic material she discusses, she insists on her competence: “I too speak the words of God.”³⁷ Given the centrality of the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of feminine speech in the correspondence, it stands to reason that had Rica used a male author to make her case, such usage would have been trumpeted rather than concealed. Instead, Rica chose to assert her feminine voice in her letters, rather than hiding behind the authority of a male counsel.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, even if Rica did not author the letters herself, the correspondence still offers valuable insight into perceptions of female halakhic learning in the early modern Italianspeaking sphere. As Virginia Cox has argued, even entirely fictional female interlocutors in written dialogues of the time “have great value as records of how speech might be imagined, how possible intellectual communities might be fashioned, and possible models of communication essayed.”³⁸

In sum, while I contend that Rica’s letters afford a rare opportunity to engage directly with an early modern woman writing in Hebrew, this document holds broader historical and scholarly value beyond the question of authorship. Regardless of one’s stance on Rica as the main author, her letters provide valuable insights into the social and intellectual dynamics of the time, as I will now turn to examine.

Ma’alat ha-dayanim: the legal forum

In their plea, the Katzigin couple consistently employs the terms “trial” (mishpat) and “judgment” (din) to describe their case, and they address their letters to a forum they refer to as “rabbinic judges” (dayanim). As Robert Bonfil has observed, however, given the limited number of authorized Jewish legal forums in early modern Italy, references to courts in sources from Jewish Italy at the time should often be understood figuratively.³⁹ Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the forum and legal procedures relevant to this case.

Jewish legal systems in the early modern Italian-speaking realm were highly diverse. While certain communities, especially those that were smaller and institutionally fragile, regarded Jewish legal procedures primarily as arbitral processes, others advanced toward establishing more authoritative legal frameworks. These divergent trajectories unfolded against the backdrop of developments within Italian Christian society, where local authorities increasingly compelled disputing parties to opt for arbitration in a growing array of legal matters. In parallel, some Jewish communities were granted privileges by Christian rulers to establish Jewish arbitration systems, which the Christian authorities would assist in upholding. Moreover, several communities formulated communal enactments (takanot kehilah) that standardized the arbitration process and restricted the selection of arbitrators, directing the choice toward greater rabbinic influence.⁴⁰

Casale, the city where the Katzigins dwelled, and Alessandria, to which they turned for a verdict, offer a poignant reflection of the diversity of the Italian legal system. Despite their relative proximity (around thirty kilometers) and shared geographical region of Piedmont, the distinct political contexts of the two cities exerted significant influence over the Jewish populace. Casale fell under the dominion of the Gonzaga dukes of Mantua, who granted Jews permission to reside under their jurisdiction and actively encouraged the establishment of an autonomous legal framework.⁴¹ As demonstrated by Shlomo Simonsohn, in the seventeenth century, the Jews of Mantua operated a court (bet din) overseen by rabbis and lay arbitrators appointed by them, and they benefitted from cooperation with Christian authorities to enforce their rulings.⁴² Also in Casale, the second-largest Jewish community under the rule of the Gonzaga dukes, Jews were encouraged to address their internal legal affairs autonomously, with official support for the execution of their judgments. According to local takanot, every dispute about a sum of thirty scudi or more had to be addressed by a communityappointed forum that included at least one ordained rabbi.⁴³

Conversely, Alessandria was subject to the Sforza dukes of Milan, under Spanish control, and generally prohibited Jewish habitation, except for those who secured special privileges. From the late fifteenth century, the Vitale de Sacerdoti (Cohen) family obtained such privileges, and were entrusted with supervising the Jewish presence and upholding discipline. Thus, much relied on the local privilege holders. As Bonfil contends, wealthy Jews, some of whom were such privilege holders, sustained rabbis to educate their children and give halakhic counsel to them and to others.⁴⁴ During this period, Rabbi Ravenna assumed such a role, as evidenced by his advocating for fair remuneration and working conditions as a children’s teacher.⁴⁵ Moreover, Ravenna authored intricate halakhic arguments defending the privilege holder’s interests, particularly concerning the taxation of Jews from other regions possessing passports from the duchy of Milan, granting them access to the region for specific purposes.⁴⁶ From the many mentions in his writings of local Jews turning to the nonJewish court as a first choice, it is clear that he did not enjoy the power the house of Gonzaga ascribed to the Mantuan rabbis at the time.⁴⁷ And yet the correspondence between Ravenna and Yonah’s neighbor and relative Rabbi Simcha Katzigin reveals that the latter revered the former as his teacher and humbly sought his approval in different matters.⁴⁸

In summary, while Alessandria may not have possessed a fully evolved court structure akin to those found in other Jewish communities, it was home to a distinguished authority acquainted with the Mantuan system prevalent in Casale. Viewed thus, Yonah and Rica’s decision to refer to Ravenna (alone or with others, this remains unclear) as a “revered judge” (ma‘alat ha-dayanim) can be understood, even if it should not be taken in its full literal sense.

Rica’s rhetoric

The four letters penned by Rica present her account of the events and explain her views and motivation for suing her husband. The first letter, sent in April 1652, opens with the following:

I am the sad woman standing before you, the heads and leaders of Israel, those who support the poor and the weak, who with their wisdom provide for those who claim justly as I will do, as I sue my respected husband Yonah Katzigin [for] the dimissory document [dimisoria]⁴⁹ and the inheritance of my son Israel Halperin that amounts to a sum of seventyfour thousand lit’ [lira Tron],⁵⁰ as is evident from his letter in his own handwriting, written here in Casale in the month of June 1636, as well as some furniture [mobile] that are worth seven thousand lit’ and a list of books.⁵¹

Rica’s anger and grief are apparent already in these opening lines, as she demands that her husband deliver the inheritance her son had left her fifteen years earlier. Remarkably, Rica not only lays out the facts of the claim but almost immediately begins citing halakhic sources to substantiate it:

And this entire sum was received by my husband at different times, as shown by his letters that I can present before you. And their content cannot be denied, as it is said “the admission of a litigant is similar to that of one hundred witnesses” and as you, respected judges [dayanim], know well, a document signed by one and given with one’s own hand directly, cannot be downplayed as nonsensical speech. As the Maharashdam wrote [. . .]⁵²

Rica’s main argument can be summarized as follows: according to rabbinic law, “the admission of a litigant is similar to that of one hundred witnesses” (bKid 65b). Because Rica is in possession of private letters from Yonah addressed to her, in which he confirms that he received the sum on her behalf, the case, she argues, is as good as closed.

Having established this, Rica moves on to tackle two possible objections; the first hinges on the question of whether a statement made in a private correspondence may be considered an admission of guilt for legal purposes. To counter this possible objection, she cites a responsum confirming the admissibility of personal correspondence from Rabbi Samuel ben Moses de Medina (Maharashdam, 1505–89), an influential halakhic authority from Thessaloniki.⁵³ A second possible objection with which Rica is concerned is that Yonah may argue that, for some justifiable reason, his original admission was not sincere and thus cannot be used against him. Here, Rica is informed by a talmudic ruling that allows a woman to retract her renouncement of her husband’s commitments to her, even when it is official and documented, by arguing that she had only agreed in order to alleviate her situation at home.⁵⁴ Rica argues, however, that this rabbinic law only applies to women: “Why should a man please his wife? And as the sages said: ‘It is the way of the world that the man conquers, not the woman’ [bYev 65a],⁵⁵ and so it is clear that the man [Yonah] wrote the truth to the woman [Rica].”⁵⁶ Rica’s reference to Yevamot invokes a rabbinic saying often used to accentuate the differing halakhic and religious status between men and women. She uses the phrase to assert that, generally, men have the upper hand in matters concerning a couple’s joint property. Thus, according to Rica, a man who has control of all common property cannot use the claim that he tried to appease his wife to justify nullifying his previous admissions. Fascinatingly, drawing on multiple halakhic sources, Rica harnesses her halakhic and financial inferiority as a woman to promote her cause and to make Yonah’s admission to her legally binding.

Rica goes on to present further halakhic arguments to support her case, quoting a variety of sources, including Rabbi Asher (Rosh, 1250– 1327), Rabbi Jacob ben Asher (Tur, ca. 1269–1343), and Rabbi Yosef Kolon (Maharik, 1420–80). She then concludes the discussion with the following plea to the rabbinical court: “Please open your eyes and see whose benefit the law instructs, and moreover, please recognize and know in your discretion and wisdom of your hearts that my words are good and just.”⁵⁷ Rica distinguishes between her request for justice to be served and her wish that the judges see the legitimacy of her claims. Confident in her learned case, her rhetoric seeks reassurance for the value of her argumentation, regardless of the final verdict.

Yonah’s response to his wife’s letter is blunt; he denies her account in its entirety, claiming to have never collected the inheritance.⁵⁸ Furthermore, he argues that even if he had collected it and then lost it, he would not be liable because, according to halakhic rulings, a man who has handled his wife’s money irresponsibly is not required to reimburse her.⁵⁹ Yonah then goes on to counter Rica’s halakhic arguments in some detail. At this point, a rabbinic scribe would probably wrap up the different accounts through the lens of a halakhic formulation and would then copy the answer. But because, as noted above, this is no ordinary scribal account, the couple’s letters do not take the form of an ordinary halakhic legal document. Rather, they become increasingly heated, disclosing a great deal of information and emotion in the process.

Rica’s line of argumentation relies on more than just documentary evidence of Yonah’s debt to her. Her rhetoric, as presented below, also emphasizes her part in creating the family wealth. This can be better understood against the backdrop of contemporary social dynamics. As historians have shown, in Italy, local common law regarded women as distinct legal entities with restricted claims to their husband’s estates, including the dowry, which was meant to ensure a woman’s financial security for the future.⁶⁰ And yet, while the law ascribes to the women only a passive role in managing estates, the frequent use of dowries in the early modern market, conjoined with the growing phenomenon of educated women mastering Latin (or, in our case, Hebrew) for commercial usages, set the stage for greater degrees of women’s participation in the marketplace and new legal questions (and possible disputes) that came along with it.⁶¹ James Shaw and others have shown how the wife’s aid to her husband business while he was away contributed a sense of partnership. Shaw argues:

This sense of partnership was particularly strong among mercantile and artisan households, where wives could gain practical experience in managing the business along with their husbands, often continuing the activity as widows after their deaths. Among artisan families, in fact, it was typical for husbands to name their wives as their executors and heirs, recognizing them as partners in the household despite the theoretical separation of property rights.⁶²

This aspect of the socioeconomic reality in early modern Italy is well reflected in the couple’s correspondence.⁶³ The letters discuss Yonah’s financial difficulties, his use of Rica’s dowry as a readily available financial resource, the appearance of her name on his legal documents, and her continuous negotiations with his creditors, which she handled in Padua. Rica refers to these negotiations in order to present herself as an active and helpful participant in the family business and becomes offended when, in his responses, Yonah denies her contributions.

This denial is most evident in Rica’s second letter, in which she provides an account of a business trip she made to Padua in an effort to appease her husband’s creditors:

All of our neighbors know that all the money that was rescued [from the creditors] from the day he left Padua to the day I came back to Casale is ours [lanu hu’], and this was achieved using the money from my son.⁶⁴ My respected husband knows this very well and “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter”⁶⁵ [. . .] With my might and power I have created wealth for me and him, and saved the oppressed [Yonah] from his oppressors. Thank God that I have these letters as proof of his promises.⁶⁶

Rica portrays herself as a valuable business partner and links her investment in Yonah’s business matters to his responsibility to repay her and honor his promises. Her choice of language implies that her motivation for helping him in this matter hinged on these promises. This statement about his dependence on her seems important to her as part of her selfperception as an active participant in the family’s finances, a presentation Yonah unequivocally rejects.⁶⁷

Remarkably, even though Rica is the one responsible for revealing the couple’s marital difficulties to others, she insists on depicting herself as protecting her husband’s honor in the midst of what appears to be a charged marital dispute. At one point in the correspondence, she combines her (somewhat restrained) criticism of him with an apologetic selfjustification for her plea and the tone of her writing:

As I was in a helpless state, and they began to call me a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit [‘azuvah ve-‘atsuvat ruaḥ; after Isa 54.6], it is he who brought me to this state! To demand what is mine by arguing and quarreling [be-divre rivot ve-ta‘anot]!⁶⁸

Historians have noted that women authors often used a rhetoric of modesty in addressing a readership primarily made up of men. An apologetic tone, they believed, was necessary to make their voice better heard.⁶⁹ At the same time, such rhetoric could also be used to subvert prevailing stereotypes.⁷⁰ For example, when a woman writer repeatedly writes that her work cannot even be compared to that of men, she may be ironically implying that very comparison.⁷¹

The aforementioned Jewish Italian poet Sarra Copia Sullam used this strategy to defend herself from accusations of heresy in her manifesto of 1621. While engaging in a polemical public correspondence, Sarra asked her adversary, supposedly in a serious manner, whether he thought there was any point in disputing with a woman in matters of philosophy and theology. Even at the time, this was understood by some as mere rhetoric and a sophisticated form of arrogance.⁷² It is, perhaps, within this context that we should understand Rica’s mixed response to her husband’s letter. She agrees with Yonah that it is not appropriate for her to quarrel with him and share their dispute with others, but she simultaneously insists he is to blame for her taking this drastic step.

Further reading into the letters of both sides shows that the couple had a very different understanding of the events that had taken place in Padua and of the other’s contribution to their joint finances. Yonah’s reply to Rica’s second and more detailed letter is a repeated denial, stating that “all that I have is mine, and no strangers have any part in it [en le-zarim iti].”⁷³ In a later letter, Yonah admits that he promised, in writing, to give Rica her inheritance, but (as Rica had anticipated) he explains that he did so only to convince her to come back to Casale and to stop wasting money in Padua while taking care of business matters there. He also argues that he ensured that this false promise be made public to fool his creditors into thinking that the money was not his but his wife’s, so they would have no incentive to sue him. What Rica saw, then, as her salvaging of her husband’s property is described by Yonah as a process in which he was “putting words in her mouth, instructing her how to save my property.”⁷⁴ These two vastly different accounts are essential to the case. If Rica did not want to stay in Padua, Yonah’s claim that he had to convince her to return by making false promises does not make sense. And yet the rhetoric here reveals much more than an argument over the events of the past but a broader argument about the nature of the Katzigins’ marriage and joint enterprises.

Here, we reach a turning point in the case. Having now been discredited by Yonah and accused of wasting his money, in stark contrast to her self-perception as a valuable partner, Rica leaves her discretion behind and reveals the couple’s current living arrangements. Only in her third letter, in response to her husband’s derisive tone, does Rica allow herself to clarify what might not have been obvious thus far:

The fact that I did not demand what he promised me in the letters immediately, does not detract from my claim. When I saw he was peaceful with me, and we would lie together on the edge of a sword,⁷⁵ I said: what he has is mine and what I have is his, and did not demand anything. But now that he has sent me away from his house, of course this is why I am tearful, inspecting and inquiring [Aramaic: ‘al da ka bakhina ve-darishna ve-ḥakirna]⁷⁶ for the right way to get what is mine from under his hands.⁷⁷

Angrily, Rica finally discloses the reason for her interest in retrieving a sum owed to her from a transaction that took place fifteen years earlier: Yonah has now “sent her away from his house,” probably as a step toward a full divorce.

Yonah’s response, or women and words

As Rica’s rhetoric makes clear, she views herself as protesting an injustice done to her, and she uses her eloquence and erudition to do so. For a woman to express herself in such a way was uncommon at the time, and Rica was criticized by her husband not only for the content of her accusations but also for the written form these accusations took. In admonishing his wife, Yonah could rely on a rich and age-old tradition of tropes and widely held beliefs that targeted women’s presumed loquaciousness and literary agency.

The ancient tropes that associated women with excessive speech flourished in the early modern period, and the classic association between men and writing and women and wordiness expressed itself in an increasingly wide variety of cultural forms.⁷⁸ In the Jewish context, studies have shown how women’s wordiness occupied the authors of Yiddish literature, Hebrew medical works, and other genres.⁷⁹ Musar literature from the era reflects a similar trend; based on rabbinic literature or sometimes on Christian adaptations of classic literature,⁸⁰ the authors of early modern musar books emphasized the importance of moderating what they viewed as women’s natural verbosity.⁸¹

These associations between women and words form a recurring theme in Yonah’s letters. Already in his first letter, Yonah dismissively refers to his wife’s accusations as “repetitive” (ḥozeret ‘al ha-rishonot) and as a deliberate attempt to waste the court’s time (en devareha ele ela le-atruḥe dina bikhdi).⁸² In an attempt to distance himself from her supposedly distasteful verbosity, he writes courteously to the judges that to avoid being a burden on them (implying that this is in contradiction to Rica), he shall be brief, though he could say much more.⁸³

In her response, Rica expresses surprise at her husband’s dismissive tone. Leaning on the authority of “all the people in town who know that I have proven my case,” she presents herself as gathering courage and restates her case: “In order for it to be clear that I too speak the words of God [gam bi diber/devar El],⁸⁴ I will respond to my respected husband and will say that I reaffirm my words [. . .]”⁸⁵ In this sentence Rica quotes scripture, choosing the words Miriam uttered in her discussion with her brother, Aaron, in which she compared them both to Moses, arguing that all three of them are equally competent as prophets.⁸⁶ In direct contrast to her husband’s representation of her in his letters, she states that she is just as competent as he is to make her case before the court. In this exceptional statement she emphasizes not only the legitimacy of her claim but also the legitimacy of her participation in a halakhic debate, continuing to quote rabbinical sources in support of her arguments.

In his reply, Yonah discredits her eloquence as unnecessary loquaciousness: “The length of [her] speech is in proportion to its lack of truth and justice. Therefore, her words do not deserve a reply.”⁸⁷ He presents Rica’s claims as unworthy of an answer, not only dismissing their content but also making unfounded references to their protractedness, contrasting her words to his own. However, despite his stated commitment to brevity, Yonah’s letter is no shorter than Rica’s. Rica picks up on this discrepancy: “Who shall ascend the mountain of phraseology like my husband, and whose lingering speech can be compared to his?”⁸⁸ Not abandoning her habit of using her husband’s formal title (aluf ), here Rica decides to turn the tables on him and criticize his letter for its length, as he did hers. Not only does she distance herself from the negative image of the scolded woman, but she also counters her husband’s mockery. With this reversal, she carefully, if only momentarily, subverts the gendered dimensions of the trope.

However, Rica’s approach is not to be confused with an all-out rejection of the misogynistic motifs employed by her husband. In a later letter, she adopts a more appeasing tone:

I am different in this manner, I am not a verbose woman [lo ishah ba‘alat devarim anokhi]. Truly, I do not care for matters of rhetoric and expression but only for the truthfulness of matters [. . .] Now, if to answer every barb and barb [kots ve-kots]⁸⁹ from the words of my husband, this will take an eternity. And as increasing words invites sin, I will restrain myself and remain mostly silent.⁹⁰

Presenting herself again as a woman, but “not a verbose one,” she attempts to refute the charges of loquaciousness. Referring to Moshe’s humble description of himself as “not a man of words,”⁹¹ Rica also turns once again to the rhetoric of modesty, presenting herself as struggling with the difficult task of litigation.

The remaining letters in the correspondence continue this back and forth on brevity and verbosity, showing an increasing impatience on both ends of the debate. In Yonah’s third letter he abandons the hope that a short and dismissive denial will win him the judges’ favor. Briefly acknowledging Rica’s recent letter as “repeating the matter in different words” (kefel ha-‘inyan be-milim shonot), he proclaims that he will answer in detail, which he does, quoting an exhaustive list of sources while constantly mocking Rica’s interpretations of the halakhic sources she cites.⁹²

Rica’s reply assumes a more confident tone, suggesting a sense that she has succeeded in substantiating her case: “Why should I proceed with many words to show how his claims contradict each other?” she writes, taking on almost the same dismissive tone previously directed at her, “for my eyes are raised to the judges who know who should win this case.”⁹³ Yonah’s reply, the final letter in this correspondence, is also still preoccupied with the importance of brevity:

And since it fell upon her not to linger much longer, and make this her final word, I am no less than her and I will also be concise [. . .] and since she said that she concluded her complaints, I am as wise as her to have in my heart [gam li levav kamoha]⁹⁴ to ask you to solve our case.⁹⁵

Realizing that Rica has concluded her arguments, he tries not to fall behind and gives only short concluding remarks. The subject of the similarities and differences between men and women arises again clearly in this letter. Yonah states that he is “no less than her” in his ability to condense his writing and that he is “also wise to wait for the words of the judges.”⁹⁶ Referencing Job’s reminder to his comrades that he is wise as they are, this final note may be read as an understated acknowledgment of the skills his wife has shown by representing herself. Still, even this indirect acknowledgment is wedged among a litany of insults hurled at Rica by her husband, all of which concern the possibility (or lack thereof) of women’s wisdom.

Women and wisdom

As noted, Rica’s letters are remarkable for their frequent usage of halakhic sources, even when compared to similar letters written by men of the same locale and period. Yonah’s responses reflect his impatience with this line of halakhic argumentation, sharply attacking not only her specific claims but her very ability to understand both matters of finance and rabbinic sources. This particular discussion brings the gendered tensions underlying the correspondence in its entirety to a boil, giving rise to Yonah’s explicit reference to Rica’s gender. It is here that Yonah raises the larger question of women’s wisdom and rationality, a ubiquitous topic of discussion in renaissance Italy, and one on which he has a firm opinion:

Her [=Rica’s] suggestion that the convenzione [agreement] form we signed, stating that it does not cancel her claim to the dimisoria, is complete nonsense, as it is known to any schoolboy that even when such a document is signed, it is customary that the parties can still put forward arguments that vary from what is implied in the text of the agreement.⁹⁷ Thus, see, respected judges, can this signature really be viewed as an admission equal to one hundred witnesses?⁹⁸

Yonah does not deny the existence of a document ensuring that a later financial agreement between the couple will not invalidate her claim to her son’s inheritance, but he refers to the custom, “known even to schoolchildren”⁹⁹—though, he seems to slyly suggest, not to Rica—that such documents still permit a different argument to be presented in court.

In a smooth transition, Yonah further mocks his wife’s understanding of the context of the events in question. According to him, he made extraordinary efforts, at his own expense, to obtain Rica’s money. He adds that he did so despite the severe famine and political instability the region experienced during that time, which he sees as the reason for his failure.¹⁰⁰ His account portrays Rica as ungrateful and incapable of understanding the relevant circumstances.

In the same letter, Yonah furthermore attempts to discredit his wife’s reading comprehension. He claims to not see any evidence of financial promises made to her in the letters he sent her and restates his contention that she is exhausting and annoying him and the judges for naught. Assuming a tone of blistering irony, he writes:

After I read these letters twice and three times, I told myself: “a miracle had happened here!” because the words that Marat Rivkah bases her claims on had simply flown away from the paper into the air¹⁰¹ [. . .] This [Rica’s misreading of the letters] is supposed to be clear to any reader of these letters, and all the more so to you, respected judges who are both wise and God fearing.”¹⁰²

Continuing in the same tone and firmly denying any receipt of her money, he asserts his authority by invoking his lineage: “And heaven forbid that a man of my lineage will say something that can be revealed as untrue.”¹⁰³ By emphasizing his noble ancestry, he leverages social capital to reinforce the credibility of his words while dismissing hers as mere “nonsense.”

Yonah’s letters become most offensive when he refers to Rica’s readings of halakhic sources, accusing her throughout the correspondence of making misguided and inappropriate comparisons.:

And I was absolutely amazed by the proof she brought from Maharashdam and others, and her attempt to compare trading documents to letters between a man and wife. Anyone with a good understanding would recognize that these are incomparable.¹⁰⁴

At one point in the correspondence, Rica points out that Yonah is contradicting himself. Initially, she notes, he argued that he never made her any promises and that she is misreading his letters to her. But later he argues that his promises were made to trick her into coming home. “So,” Rica asks, “did he or did he not make a promise?” She then suggests, citing several halakhic sources, that the inconsistencies in Yonah’s account of the events should earn him the halakhic status of kafran (denier) and that he should accordingly lose his credibility before the court.¹⁰⁵ Yonah responds to this angrily, raising explicitly the question of women’s ability to understand halakhah:

It is true what they say, that women are easily impressionable [nashim da‘atan kalah] and she is in the manner of women [derekh nashim lah]¹⁰⁶ and thus she does not know how to interpret the laws and resolutions properly. Therefore, I will explain the matters to her [. . .] and really, these things are simple and require explanation only for schoolchildren.¹⁰⁷

Once again, Rica is compared to a schoolchild by her husband in an attempt to disqualify her from participation in this debate. The reason Yonah chooses the well-known rabbinic saying nashim da‘atan kalah to refute his wife’s halakhic reasoning is clear.¹⁰⁸ To invalidate her demands of him, he discredits her intelligence and comprehension by quoting a source often used to delegitimize women’s Torah study. It is worth noting that against the backdrop of the Jewish community in seventeenth-century Italy, Yonah may also be voicing his opinion concerning a wider debate that deeply occupied Italian Jews at the time. Scholars of Jewish thought and literature have identified significant Jewish participation in what is often referred to as the Querelle des femmes, that is, the humanist discussion of the nature of women and their intellectual and spiritual potential.¹⁰⁹ In the Jewish context, this discussion was enmeshed with the question of the propriety of women studying advanced religious sources, mostly meaning the Talmud and halakhah.

The seventeenth century saw various opinions on this question, and the rabbinic saying quoted by Yonah about women’s frivolity often featured in this debate. The aforementioned Venetian rabbi Shmuel Archivolti used the saying to describe most women’s unwillingness and inability to study Torah. And yet Archivolti was in favor of supporting the few women who differed in this regard.¹¹⁰ Another Venetian rabbi, Eliezer Nachman Foa (d. 1659) wrote, “Joyous is the man whose daughters behave as righteous sons, and are pious and wise so they can lay forward halakhic arguments such as Zelophechad’s daughters.”¹¹¹ Rabbi Azaria Figo (1579–1647) doubted that a woman could be both pious and learned but explicitly allowed for some exceptions.¹¹² Others, however, such as the Venetian dayan Rabbi Baruch Ibn Baruch (ca. 1540–ca. 1607), wrote that all women should stay away from Torah study.¹¹³ The preacher Yehuda del Bene (1618–1678) wrote against teaching women literacy in general,¹¹⁴ and the poet Immanuel Frances (1618–1708) wrote the poem “Me’alef Da‘at Elohim le-Tsviah” (One who teaches the divine law to a gazelle [= a woman]), which reflected some timely approaches to this question, while also offering a vulgar example of the close links between gendered, racial, and classist stereotypes:

The copulation of a woman’s thoughts in the deep thoughts of God is like a coupling of a black woman with a nobleman and the depth of the divine law inside her short mind can be compared to a well on a ship.¹¹⁵

Read against the context of this wider debate, Rica’s response to Yonah’s accusations offers an unusual view into the ways Jewish women dealt with the anxieties surrounding their literary and halakhic agency. Significantly, Rica responds not by directly refuting these concerns but by subverting them in sophisticated and somewhat ironic ways:

And if, as has been said, my knowledge is poor and my mind light and I am in the manner of women [derekh nashim li] and could not lay my case properly, I place my trust in the strong mind of the respected judges, that you will rule according to Tur Ḥoshen Mishpat sections 15, 65, and 99 and the responsa of Maharshdam n. 123 and the work of Rabbi Asher section 103 and you will see the truth.¹¹⁶

Rica’s reply to her husband’s continuous mockery of her understanding of the legal sources can be read as a form of contempt masked as modesty. She seemingly confirms the shortcomings with which her femininity has afflicted her legal reasoning, while at the same time citing a long list of halakhic sources, and urges the court to rule according to these sources to ensure that justice is served.

This can be easily read as an insistence on the legitimacy of her pleading in the halakhic language placed before the court, despite Yonah’s criticism. Yet, aware of the exceptionality of what she is doing, Rica seems to choose a modest form of self-presentation to minimize the defiance in her voice as she expresses herself.

The verdigt

After receiving the couple’s letters for two weeks, Ravenna prepared a verdict and probably sent it to Casale. His resolution glossed over the question of whether Yonah ever collected Rica’s inheritance. Instead, he began by stating, “It is a fundamental and everlasting rule that money is charged from the accused only when clear evidence is presented,”¹¹⁷ thus arguing that the evidence Rica presented was insufficient to compel Yonah to fulfill her request and pay her, regardless of what actually happened between them. Overall, the short passages of the verdict focus on why Yonah’s explanations for his dishonest promises to his wife are plausible enough to determine that no judicial intervention is appropriate.

However, Rica’s defeat at court was not total. At least two of her points were assented to by Rabbi Ravenna. First, as mentioned, Yonah was dismissive of her readings of even their personal correspondence in 1636 and claimed that the letters do not contain “even a hint” of admission by him. Rather, he argued that they contained only general promises he had made out of necessity, to encourage Rica to save his money from the creditors. Rica quotes a letter in which Yonah even “swore on his life that he will give her the dowry and the inheritance as soon as she will return home,”¹¹⁸ much more than a hint that he indeed received the inheritance. This was an embarrassing statement for Yonah, which he decided not to deny but to ignore. In his verdict, Ravenna mentions this specific letter as a possible reason to charge Yonah, thus agreeing with her case.¹¹⁹

Furthermore, Ravenna affirms Rica’s rationale on a more fundamental issue. The couple’s contrasting perceptions of the nature of their relationship during the management of their financial matters are distinctly evident in the varying halakhic formulations they employed in their correspondences. Yonah characterizes them dismissively as “letters between a man and his wife,” implying their lack of legal significance or binding authority. In contrast, Rica, who believes that Yonah owes her a debt she hadn’t previously claimed out of feelings of love and partnership, regards these letters as “letters between merchants” (’igrot soḥarim), which possess certain binding qualities.

On this matter, it seems that Rica may have had the upper hand. Ravenna, ignoring most of the halakhic discussions that feature in the couple’s letters, explained that these exchanges fall under the category of laws that regulate interactions between business partners (hilkhot shutafin), in which letters do possess legal power even without other legal indicators, thus using a formulation closer to Rica’s. And yet the rabbi determines that even though their correspondence might be somewhat binding, its context detracts from Rica’s claim. He highlights that the sum of money Rica demanded from Yonah was more than the amount he had at the time. In this case, the relevant rule is that one who gives all of his property to his wife as a gift has rendered her only a steward (epitrofeya), but she does not become the owner.¹²⁰ Furthermore, he points out that the content of the letters testifies that the parties themselves dismissed the legal power of the letters:

In our case, the letters on their own prove that he did not give them as evidence of his debt to her. Otherwise, why did he need to promise to give her proper documents later? Thus, there is not enough in these letters to take money from him, as he can explain why he said what he said.¹²¹

In short, though Rica’s case had merit, the verdict was not in her favor. The letters she relied on could have helped her case if the sum had been smaller, and if she had insisted during their correspondence that they would indeed count as legal documents. This reveals the limits of Yonah’s sophistication. It seems that he attempted to trick her with his promises without a proper understanding of the limits of what he can say without paying a price. His halakhic construction emphasizes his belief that he could choose to recant his promise to his wife, mentioning his creditors only briefly and in passing. Rabbi Ravenna saw this matter very differently and based his ruling on Yonah’s poor financial situation at the time of the original correspondence. To him, Yonah’s clear inability to pay such a sum at the time is the main reason to believe that he did not give a proper binding commitment to Rica back then.

We do not know whether this partial and indirect authoritative recognition of her arguments was of any significance for Rica. However, as mentioned at the end of her first letter and as generally expressed in the tone of her writing, in addition to her obvious interest in recouping the large sum she requested, Rica also asked the judges for an affirmation of her reasoning. While denying her the first request, they seem to have been convinced, at least to a certain degree, to grant her the second.

Conclusion

This essay offered a reading of a unique correspondence between a wellrespected and educated Jewish couple in early modern Italy. Our reading of the correspondence reveals the couple’s thoughts on feminine erudition and agency. Clearly, the Katzigins, and Rica in particular, represented only a narrow class of well-to-do Italian Jews. Their case can hardly be considered representative of the masses of early modern Europe Jewry, or even of Jewish women in the Italian-speaking realm.

And yet, for all their uniqueness, the Katzigins’ letters offer invaluable lessons about the gendered and economic dynamics that characterized early modern Jewish marriage and about the range of cultural possibilities—and impossibilities—Jews of the time faced. Rica’s letters offer an exceptional encounter with a learned and self-confident woman, convinced of her capacities and cause. The letters also reveal the ways men could respond to such women; as Yonah’s replies to his wife show, however confident they may have been, erudite women had to deal with a variety of derogatory tropes and stereotypes and were required to navigate through them carefully.

In recent decades, historians have identified a litany of novel arguments that were made in the early modern period concerning the intellectual abilities of women.¹²² In some outstanding cases, we find explicit and direct attacks on the prevailing social order, including concrete suggestions for reform in the education of women—clearly, this was not Rica’s case. But as Sarah Gwyneth Ross argues, we should be attentive not only to direct protofeminist argumentation in early modern sources but also to less direct forms of resistance to women’s marginalization.¹²³ For example, Ross mentions the “celebratory” rhetoric in which, by “emphasizing their particular status as scholars, undertaking various forms of self-writing (from prefatory self-fashioning to literal autobiography), and celebrating other learned women, female authors strengthened the new category ‘woman as intellect.’”¹²⁴ Ross also refers to a form of “participatory” (proto) feminism, in which, regardless of whether the woman writer explicitly compared her activities to those of men, “her participation in the world of letters made a case for the equality of the sexes in matters of the mind.”¹²⁵ This offers a particularly fruitful prism for understanding Rica’s response to her husband’s attacks. While she by no means challenged rabbinic authority or familial hierarchies, Rica made use of the discursive opportunities that were becoming gradually available to women, while stressing her knowledge and competence.

For all its revelatory power, Rica’s story remains incomplete. We may never know what happened with her inheritance, whether she saw any part of it, or how she reacted to the verdict. Did she accept it, or did she turn to the local non-Jewish court to appeal the result, as many other members of the Jewish community chose to do? We also do not know how her life was altered by this marital conflict, which must have confounded the sense of material security so difficult to sustain even in peaceful times, and may have also gnawed at her sense of agency and self-confidence. Although the full details of this specific incident will probably never come to light, future research on Jewish legal culture in its various contexts will undoubtedly recover other such voices, thus affording further glimpses into the lives and literatures of early modern Jewish women.