Midwives on the Margins: Jewish Women and Civic Medicine in Early Modern Europe

media release: Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies lecture by Jordan Rebekah Katz, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

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This talk examines the role of Jewish midwives in early modern Europe, focusing primarily on Amsterdam in the early to mid eighteenth century. Tracing the story of Roza Salomons—a Jewish midwife who commissioned a Yiddish translation of a Dutch midwifery treatise in 1709—the presentation investigates how Jewish midwives navigated between municipal medical regulations and Jewish communal standards, shaping the institutions with which they engaged in the process. Archival materials from communal logbooks, delivery registers, and municipal records demonstrate that while Jewish midwives were influenced by burgeoning civic norms, this process was selective and was often met with deep tensions.