Avodah Zarah 38a-b (compiled 500 CE)
“A [Jewish] woman may set a pot on a stove, and have a gentile woman come and stir it until she returns from the bathhouse or synagogue, and she [the Jewish woman] has no reason to be concerned.”

Vayikra Rabbah 9:9 (400-600 CE)
“R. Meir used to deliver discourses on Sabbath evenings. There was a woman there in the habit of listening to him...”

Acts 17:1-4 (mid-first century)
On his journey, Paul and followers went “to Philippi, the first of the cities of the Macedonian province, and it is an independent city, and we dwelt in the city for a number of days. And on the Sabbath we went out of the city to the banks of the river, where there was a place of prayer, as was their custom, and we sat there and we spoke to the women who were gathered there.”

According to Josephus, War 2, 560, pagan women in Damascus were attracted to Judaism. Lee Levine suggests that this indicates women’s regular attendance and participation in services; “otherwise, it would be hard to imagine how this attraction would have been effected, expressed, and maintained” (473).

Babylonion Talmud Sotah 22a (compiled 500 CE)
“A certain widow had a synagogue in her neighbourhood, yet she used to come daily to the House of Study of Rabbi Yohanan and pray there. He said to her, ‘My daughter, is there not a synagogue in your neighbourhood?’ She answered him: ‘Rabbi, but have I not reward for the steps [for the extra distance I walked to attend the services]?’”

John Chrysostom (Christian, Diaspora, end of 4th century) claimed that synagogues were places of abomination because men and women prayed there together. He also wrote that some of the women in the congregation were judaizers (Christians who observed some or all mitzvot), an indication that they regularly attended the synagogue (Levine 474).

2.  Mechitzot: When did they become a regular part of synagogue architecture?

a.    Biblical Period

Deuteronomy 31:10-12
“And Moses reminded them as follows: ‘Every seventh year, the year set for remission (shemitah), at the Feast of Booths (Sukkot), when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place that He will choose, you shall read this Torah aloud in the presence of all Israel. Gather the people- men, women, children, and the strangers in your communities—that they may hear and so learn to revere the Lord your God and to observe faithfully every word of this Torah.’”

Nehemiah 8:1-2
“The entire people assembled as one man in the square before the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the scroll of the Torah of Moses with which the Lord had charged Israel. On the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the Torah before the congregation, men and women and all who could listen with understanding.”

b.    Second Temple

The Second Temple had a section called Ezrat Nashim, The Women’s Court. However, one had to pass through this section in order to access other parts of the Temple. Therefore, this section was not only for women. In addition, there is no source that explicitly prevents women from venturing forth into other chambers of the Temple. In fact, if women wanted to offer a sacrifice or bring the first fruits, they were required to enter. (See attached diagram)

The Book of Judith 4:11-12 (4th century BCE, included in Septuagint but not in our canon)
“All the Israelite men, women, and children prostrated themselves before the Temple and put ashes on their heads and spread out their sackcloth before the Lord... and with one voice they cried out to the God of Israel.”

Mishnah Masechet Sukkah 5:1
“Anyone who has not witnessed the Water Drawing festivities has never seen rejoicing in life.”

Tosefta Sukkah 4:1
“At first, when they witnessed the Water Drawing festivities, the men would see it from the inside and the women from the outside. When the rabbinic courts observed that they engaged in frivolous behaviour, they made three balconies in the court, in which women sat on three sides, and saw the Water Drawing festivities without mingling [with the men].”

Maimonides, the Meiri, the Rosh, Rabbi Ovadiah of Bertinoro, and the Tiferet Yisrael all agree that these balconies were only erected during this water-drawing ceremony.

c.    Ancient Synagogues

Recent meticulous analyses of ancient synagogue remains indicate that if there were separate chambers for men and women, they were rare. Archaeologists noted that most designs lacked the structural integrity to support a second-floor balcony and adding a mechitza would disturb the floor mosaic decoration.

Inscriptions in ancient synagogues praise members of the community for making donations and describe how they are lauded. Both men and women receive attention on such inscriptions. For example:
Inscription on synagogue of Phocaea (modern-day Turkey), 2nd or 3rd century
“Tation, the daughter of Straton, son of Emphedon, built out of her own [money] the synagogue building and the colonnade of the courtyard, and gave them to the Jews. The community of Jews has honoured Tation, daughter of Straton, son of Emphedon, with a gold crown and a front seat [in the synagogue].

d.    Medieval and Later Rulings
Seder Eliyahu Rabba (end of Geonic Period, ca. 1038. First source of this nature)
“Nor should a man stand among women and pray, because he is likely to be distracted by the presence of women.”

An 11th-century Genizah fragment from Fostat, Egypt is the first source to explicitly mention a separate women’s section.

Thirteenth-century Spanish and German sources mention a partition or women’s section.

“The explicit obligation to separate the sexes in the synagogue through a partition or women’s section appears for the first time in halakhic sources at the end of the nineteenth century” (Goldberg 17).

Sources:

Goldberg, Monique Susskind. To Learn and to Teach: Study Booklets Regarding Women in Jewish
    Law: The Mechitzah in the Synagogue. Trans. Diana Vikka. Jerusalem: Schechter Press,
2004.
Levine, Lee. The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years. New Haven: Yale University
    Press, 2000.

Compiled by Shira Wallach

back to educational resources