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Jewish Stories
Jewish stories, created over centuries of discriminatory treatment and ghettoization, developed in a different way. In Jewish stories, independent wives are often seen as Shrews or Wise Women. The compliant Good Woman is rarely present in Jewish stories. Jewish men on the other hand tend to be manipulated Puppets or Tolerant Men. Few, if any, Jewish folktale husbands are the Boss.
An example is the story "The Woman Who Helped Her Husband."
| A young, inept rabbi wanted a good post and let his wife do the negotiating for it. She succeeded, and he took over a fine
congregation. In his new position, he became arrogant and boastful. His wife put him in his place by saying that he became a successful rabbi because of her, and not vice versa.
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Given the fact that the Jewish people lived in and were influenced by many European and Near Eastern cultures in which patriarchal
values prevailed, and that the Jewish heritage contains its own share of patriarchal teachings, these folktale images of strong women and non-controlling men need further explanation.
The Jewish people, forced into exile by the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in the first century A.D., became an uprooted and wandering population. Their history was one of settlement, expulsion, and resettlement, over two thousand years. Often without land or citizenship rights, they became largely an urban population of artisans and traders, remaining loyal to their religious faith, and dedicated to worship and
study.
Without the usual patriarchal symbols of male status-land ownership, military prowess, political power-Jewish men saw the essence of their masculinity in their achievements in the house of study and of
worship. As traders, many traveled widely, often leaving their wives to care for both home and
business. Over the centuries, many Jewish wives were active both in the home and in the working world. In addition, women had to be ready to pack and move, unpack and resettle, if conditions became untenable for the family where they were. Many
religious men preferred to leave the details of daily life to their wives while they devoted themselves to spiritual matters, an activity considered more lofty and more desirable.
In the folkstories, we usually find the wife as the one who runs things and who often tells her husband what to do; and the husband, as a Tolerant Man or a Puppet, is accepting though not always satisfied with the resulting situation. Patriarchal attitudes may cast the active wife negatively, but the realities of living forced the husband generally to adjust to the
situation.
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