In Delivering Knowledge, Jordan Katz offers a new perspective on Jewish history by exploring the experiences of Jewish midwives in the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War. As cities across northern and central Europe developed new systems for regulating healthcare and childbirth, Jewish midwives found themselves at the center of profound changes in both Jewish communities and the Christian municipalities around them.

Drawing on previously untapped archival sources, Katz reveals how these women crossed boundaries of gender, religion, and class through their work caring for pregnant women and newborns. Their experiences also illuminate previously overlooked relationships between Jewish communities and Christian civic authorities, as well as the growing role of medical bureaucracies and record-keeping.

Join author Jordan Katz for a conversation about Delivering Knowledge and what the history of Jewish midwives can teach us about women's healing practices, Jewish-Christian relations, and Jewish communal life in early modern Europe. The conversation will be moderated by Iris Idelson-Shein.

About the Speakers
Jordan Katz is an assistant professor in the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her work emphasizes the interplay between healthcare, civic life, Jewish communities, and gender in early modern Europe.

Iris Idelson-Shein is an associate professor in the Department of Jewish History at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and currently a visiting professor at the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU.