Gender in the Shtetl: Boundaries and Interactions Between Jewish Boys and Girls in the Nineteenth Century

In the traditional Jewish society, the child was surrounded by the signs of gender boundaries immediately after birth. It started as early as on the eighth day of the baby’s life when boys were circumcised, while girls not. From that moment on, social markers of gender accompanied Jewish children all the way to the maturity (and obviously after that as well).

We tend to assume that the rules dictated by the gender as well as gender roles in the premodern Jewish society were clear-cut and strict. They defined the expectations of girls and boys and shaped their self-understanding. Boys were expected to study Torah, while girls were told to concentrate on more practical knowledge. Boys played soldiers, and girls were amused by dolls. Boys had very few household duties, and girls had plenty of them. The lives and occupations of boys and girls seemed completely different, even nonintersecting.

However, when looking closer, it turns out that the picture was much more complex and ambiguous. Were the gender roles indeed so strict that all the childhood activities were clearly divided into the ones suitable for boys and the others suitable for girls? Did children enjoy almost no communication with the opposite sex and experience complete gender separation? And last, but not least — were the children happy with their gender roles or did they make attempts to transgress gender boundaries?

The paper is going to answer those questions and explore how the gender paradigm in respect to children functioned in the Jewish society of the Russian Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It reveals the complexity of gender constructions and their astatic and flexible character, which allowed them to respond to the different life situations and to adapt to the changing reality.