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January 10, 2022

Turning to Tkhines: Voices in the Vernacular

Ms. Dalia Wolfson

Ms. Dalia Wolfson

Dalia Wolfson is a doctoral candidate in the Comparative Literature department at Harvard University. She is Texts & Translations editor at In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies and is a 2021 Translation Fellow at the Yiddish Book Center. 

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What are tkhines, and what can they tell us about the daily rhythms, religious aspirations and private hopes of those who recited them? In this shiur, we’ll explore the role that these para-liturgical Yiddish prayers played in Jewish women’s lives in early modern Ashkenaz. Moving across time and into the modern age, we’ll consider how tkhines—written at times by men, at times by women—shaped new possibilities for popular piety and self-expression. Finally, we’ll discuss how the portable, personal nature of tkhines persists today.

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This class was part of Night Seder for Winter Zman 2021-22.

- 01/04/2022

Source Sheet

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Presentation

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