Rebecca bat Meir Tiktiner

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Rebecca bat Meir Tiktiner was a Yiddish writer, whose works include a treatise on Jewish ethics in line with the mussar movement and a poem about Simchat Torah. She lived in the 16th century and was buried in Prague; she died circa 1550.[1] She or her father probably resided in the northeast Poland town of Tykocin.^[1] According to the records of the Alteneushul, she was married someone with rabbinic training (ha-rav rabbi).^[2]

The ethical treatise, "Meneket Rivkah" (Prague, 1609. Cracow, 1618), is 36 folios long and organized by seven gates. The author focuses on the duties of a housewife in various relationships (e.g., to husband or guest) as well as a general ethical approach, dealing with niddah, health social practices (von Rohde, 2007b). The treatise includes stories from the Talmud and midrashic literature. Tiktiner differentiates between the wisdom of the body and of the soul (guf and nefesh). This practical guidelines "paint a vivid picture of Jewish women's daily lives in the early modern period." Von Rohde claims that this is "probably the first substantive published book in Yiddish written by a Jewish women." (von Rohde 2007b).

In the poem, Tiktiner provides 40 couplets that rhyme and end in hallelujah (von Rohden, 2007b). The poem provides a vernacular alternative to those who struggled reading the traditional Hebrew hymns (Zinberg 1975:51).

[edit] Bibliography

Kadari, Tamar. "Rebecca Tiktiner's Simhat Torah Poem" in Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues Fall 2007, No. 14:233-241
von Rohden, Frauke, ed. Rivkah bat Meir Tikotin, Meneket Rivkah: Introduction, Text and Translation 2007a
_______. "Rebecca bat Meir Tiktiner" in Encyclopedia Judaica v.17. Second ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007b. p136-137.
Zinberg, Israel. Old Yiddish Literature from Its Origins to the Haskalah Period. KTAV, 1975. ISBN 0870684655. On Rebecca bat Meir Tiktiner's Simchat Torah poem, see p.51ff.