"Foreigners" in the Bedroom: Jewish Men, Slave Women and their Children

The nuclear Jewish family is the basic unit in the Jewish community, considered by scholars to be the foundation stone of Jewish ethnic-religious identity in the diaspora. Jewish couples married and had children, which they reared and educated to be members of the Jewish community, thus preserving the Jewish identity through the ages.

But what if the couple was religiously-mixed? What if the mother was not Jewish, but rather a `foreign`, non-Jewish female slave, whom a Jewish male took for himself without any official conversion ceremony?

In my talk I will focus on marriages or long-term relationships between Jews and their slaves, and espcially between Jewish males and their not-manumitted, not-converted female slaves. This phenomenon is attested to in quite a few Cairo geniza documents and contemporary responsa. How could such relationships develop and persist? What was the reaction of the community or the extended family? Were the children born out of such relations considered Jews? If so, how, and if not, what was their fate?

Using 12th century responsa and Cairo geniza documents, some yet unpublished, I will try to problematize the Jewish family by looking at cases which were exceptional, but by no means unheard of, and investigate the community`s attitude towards them. This way we might have a better understanding of the meaning of `Jewish identity` to the people of the geniza.