From Sister to Sister: Gella Sänger’s Guide on Jewish Law for Women

ABSTRACT Starting in the 1980s, Orthodox female scholars have adopted and adapted various genres to discuss the intricacies of Jewish tradition from halakhic perspectives. Earlier precedents of women writing (about) halakhah from the first half of the twentieth century are forgotten forebears of these books. One of them is Gella Sänger, who authored the handbook Ishah El Aḥotah. Published in German in 1927, it is a practical guide for observing Jewish law for women and girls. While it seems to have achieved some popularity just after its publication, it has fallen into oblivion, much like Gella Sänger herself, remaining unacknowledged within halakhic history and the history of Jewish women writers. This is even though Gella Sänger appears to be the first woman to have authored a handbook on Jewish law in a vernacular language. This article explores her rendering of halakhah and musings on her identity and agency as a woman writing (about) Jewish law and highlights the continuities and discontinuities of women’s halakhic writings. Gella Sänger, much like female authors writing (about) halakhah in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, sought to look at Jewish law and tradition in light of previously neglected women’s experiences within Jewish society.