Thank you, everyone, for helping me to clarify my statement.  In truth, I
cannot understand, from the run of it , WHAT I was getting at.
     Of course I understand why gentiles would contribute lavishly to a
synagogue.  I understand why gentile women might become great donors to the
synagogue.  I also subscribe to Bernadette Brooten's findings on women
leaders in the synagogues.  (Well, at this late date that's hardly a daring
stand to take.)
     I certainly never meant to imply that gentile women who were large donors
to synagogues might have been Jewish in practice.  Roman times were as
religiously dilettantish as our own, but I am for trusting that people's
declared affilliations are as they say, until a weight of evidence cannot be
ignored.  Sorry if I was opaque.
Sheila Shiki y Michaels

In a message dated 3/30/00 5:33:20 PM Eastern Standard Time,
SheMichael@... writes:

<<   I'm not quite sure why the Ostia site claims that a number of gentile
  women were large donors to the synagogue there.  (I didn't look into it.)  I
  suppose they did not change their prior affiliations.  But, wouldn't it have
  been easy for them to have dual affiliations?
  Sheila Shiki y Michaels
   >>


Sheila

Thank you again for all your past work.


At 09:24 2000-03-31 -0500, you wrote:
>    Yesterday I closed subscriptions to the old Anahita list and removed all
>subscribers but the archives are still in place and accessible via the
>Anahita link at Diotima (http://www.uky.edu/AS/Classics/gender.html), where
>you will also now find links to the archives and subscription information
>for the present list.
>
>    cheers, Ross
Lucie DuFresne
Co-ordinator, Divina et Femina III Conference, May 18-21 2000
Canadian Centre for Research on Women and Religion
University of Ottawa, 70 Laurier Ave East, Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 6N5 Canada
(613) 562-5714   FAX (613) 562-5991
divinaco@...

Yesterday I closed subscriptions to the old Anahita list and removed all
subscribers but the archives are still in place and accessible via the
Anahita link at Diotima (http://www.uky.edu/AS/Classics/gender.html), where
you will also now find links to the archives and subscription information
for the present list.

     cheers, Ross

One of the temptations of Judaism (besides the brisket at the seder, of
course), was that the Romans honored Judaism as an old religion, and thus
generally left Jews alone in the empire.  Christianity, however, was a new
religion and was not respected.  It would be safer for women to join the
older monotheistic religion.

Jay Bisno
Culver City
(already planning the brisket)

>    I'm not quite sure why the Ostia site claims that a number of gentile
>women were large donors to the synagogue there.  (I didn't look into it.)  I
>suppose they did not change their prior affiliations.  But, wouldn't it have
>been easy for them to have dual affiliations?

Quite a few histories of early Christianity speak of what Tertullian called
"the Jewish temptation" -- a strong attraction of Judaism. Prelates
lamented that many christians were converting to Judaism, and they heavily
pressured Roman authorities (after   Constantine) to put a stop to it. They
clearly felt threatened. This was especially true in Syria, as the
anti-Semitic sermons of John Chrysostom indicate, and in Spain, as in the
padres' scoldings at the council of Elvira and elsewhere re attendance at
synagogue and Jewish events, socializing, intermarriage and so on.

Max Dashu    Suppressed Histories Archives
  <maxdashu@...>

I'm not quite sure why the Ostia site claims that a number of gentile
women were large donors to the synagogue there.  (I didn't look into it.)  I
suppose they did not change their prior affiliations.  But, wouldn't it have
been easy for them to have dual affiliations?
Sheila Shiki y Michaels

In a message dated 3/30/00 8:02:02 AM Eastern Standard Time,
AZILA@... writes:

<< about women who claimed to be Jewish, but were not...
  there is a methodological problem with your querry.
  At that time there was not a "systematic program" for conversion.
  At the early centuries before and after the turning of the Common
  Era, many women accepted themselves as Jewish if they adopted
  monotheist world-view. If men wanted to do be considered Jewish they
  had to have circumcision - and therefore they joint the synagogues
  as: God Fearers rather than as Jews. But for women it was easier to
  join - as there was no particular physical mark to distinguished
  themselves as Jewish - their numbers were great.
  Under these circumstances one can easily find women who considered
  themselves Jewish...
  Az >>


Sheila

Hello Don,
about women who claimed to be Jewish, but were not...
there is a methodological problem with your querry.
At that time there was not a "systematic program" for conversion.
At the early centuries before and after the turning of the Common
Era, many women accepted themselves as Jewish if they adopted
monotheist world-view. If men wanted to do be considered Jewish they
had to have circumcision - and therefore they joint the synagogues
as: God Fearers rather than as Jews. But for women it was easier to
join - as there was no particular physical mark to distinguished
themselves as Jewish - their numbers were great.
Under these circumstances one can easily find women who considered
themselves Jewish...
Azila



From: katzeff@...

Interesting question.  Why do you ask?  Have you found evidence of
such behavior?
Virginia Katzeff
--- In Anahita-l@onelist.com, "Don Bloom" <don-bloom@B...> wrote:
> Can anyone suggest any material or social advantage for
Greek/Roman/other nonJewish women claiming to be Jewish or to live as
Jews in the 1st Century CE in the Mediterranean diaspora. I can think
of a few but I would like to hear other opinions.
> Don Bloom


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Dr. Azila Talit Reisenberger
Hebrew & Jewish Studies
University of Cape Town
Phone: 27 21 - 650 2948                               *************
Fax:   27 21 - 438 2662                                    P E A C E
                                                                       
*************
Internet: Azila@...             S H A L O M
**********************************************************************

Interesting question.  Why do you ask?  Have you found evidence of
such behavior?
Virginia Katzeff
--- In Anahita-l@onelist.com, "Don Bloom" <don-bloom@B...> wrote:
> Can anyone suggest any material or social advantage for
Greek/Roman/other nonJewish women claiming to be Jewish or to live as
Jews in the 1st Century CE in the Mediterranean diaspora. I can think
of a few but I would like to hear other opinions.
> Don Bloom

Don Bloom wrote:

From: "Don Bloom" <don-bloom@...>
 Can anyone suggest any material or social advantage for Greek/Roman/other nonJewish women claiming to be Jewish or to live as Jews in the 1st Century CE in the Mediterranean diaspora. I can think of a few but I would like to hear other opinions.Don Bloom

---

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Hi Group,
In a message dated 3/29/00 1:13:04 AM Pacific Standard Time,
AZILA@... writes:

<< in Hebrew is the same consonants (we don't have vowels in
  Hebrew so in fact  the word, Male, to remember deep in your heart and
  offspring (one's memory) are one and the same.
  it becomes clear when we understand that the lineage of the
  family went through the father, i.e. children were the memory he left
  in this world. >>

How ironic that the language appears to subscribe to male lineage, when
today's Jews believe that "being Jewish" requires a Jewish *MOTHER* ie linege
is passed through the female.  My young frined is training/studying for *her*
basmitza (forgive the spelling) and will have to "sign papers" (her phrase)
in order to *become* (ie convert) to Judisam because only her father is
Jewish, her mother is not.

janis anton

Hello,
The word ZACHAR, (or ZAKAR) meaning Male appears often in the Bible,
the association to Dakar (Dagger) , stick in carries further, because
to keep in your heart, to remember etc is also ZACHAR / ZAKAR.
I find it interesting to take it further: a memory for a person, in
other words, his children which will keep his memory is ZECHER /
ZEKER which in Hebrew is the same consonants (we don't have vowels in
Hebrew so in fact  the word, Male, to remember deep in your heart and
offspring (one's memory) are one and the same.
it becomes clear when we understand that the lineage of the
family went through the father, i.e. children were the memory he left
in this world.
If the question is about the other languages I can not pinpoint exact
time but if one knows the era of Akadian, it can jhelp because Male
in Akadian is ZIKARU or ZIKRU,  in Aramaic d'KAR  d'CHRA / d'IKRA
(the d' in this case sounds shrp almost like TH, or TS, TZ. etc  and
in Arabic is similar as well.

regards,
Azila


I hope there's more than one word for "female".  And when do you think that
came into the language?  I don't question the roots of the words, but it
doesn't sound like they're paired.
Sheila Shiki y Michaels

<< From: "Azila Reisenberger"

  a point of interest about terminology in ancient languages:
  In Hebrew the word for FEMALE is 'nekeva' which literaly means a
  hole, ( in a sense of Cavern ).
  MALE  is 'zachar' which comes from the word dager i.e. a small sword,
  knife to 'stick in'...
  how crude and how picturesque.

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Dr. Azila Talit Reisenberger
Hebrew & Jewish Studies
University of Cape Town
Phone: 27 21 - 650 2948                               *************
Fax:   27 21 - 438 2662                                    P E A C E
                                                                       
*************
Internet: Azila@...             S H A L O M
**********************************************************************

I hope there's more than one word for "female".  And when do you think that
came into the language?  I don't question the roots of the words, but it
doesn't sound like they're paired.
Sheila Shiki y Michaels

<< From: "Azila Reisenberger"

  a point of interest about terminology in ancient languages:
  In Hebrew the word for FEMALE is 'nekeva' which literaly means a
  hole, ( in a sense of Cavern ).
  MALE  is 'zachar' which comes from the word dager i.e. a small sword,
  knife to 'stick in'...
  how crude and how picturesque.

There are a lot of problems in attempting to understand how the Sumerians
constructed sexuality. Classical scholars are much further along; however,
there are several works which deal with Sumerian erotic literature at a more
serious level than Wolkstein.

G. Leick, _Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature_, Routledge, 1994. A
general discussion of cuneiform erotic literature written for general
readers.
Y. Sefati, _ Love Songs in Sumerian Literature_, Bar-Ilan Univ. Press, 1998.
A critical edition of Dumuzi-Inanna songs with full scholarly apparatus.
J. Cooper, "Magic and M(is)use:Poetic Promiscuity in Mesopotamian Ritual" in
_Mesopotamian Poetic Language: Sumerian and Akkadian_, ed. M. E. Vogelzang
and H. Vanstiphout, Styx Publications, 1996, pp. 47-53. The author attempts
to go beyond pure philology and make something of this difficult material.

-----------------------
Marc Cooper - History
Southwest Missouri State University
mac566f@...
http://courses.smsu.edu/mac566f/index.htm



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Deborah Ferber [mailto:arilyan@...]
> Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2000 8:01 PM
> To: anahita-l@onelist.com
> Subject: [Anahita-l] early agriculture & Sumerian myth
>
>
> From: Deborah Ferber <arilyan@...>
>
> I hesitated to respond to Virginia Katzeff's question about early
> agricultural terms for female genitalia because I thought the
> Sumerian myth
> of the courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi would be too obvious.
> Since no else
> has mentioned it, I will quote the translation by Samuel Kramer/Diane
> Wolkstein in "Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth, Her stories
> and hymns from
> Sumer":
>
> "As for me, Inanna
> Who will plow my vulva
> Who will plow my high field?
> Who will plow my wet ground?
>
> "As for me, Inanna
> Who will plow my vulva?
> Who will station the ox there?
> Who will plow my vulva?"
>
> (and the story goes on from there. . .)
>
> I wish I knew the etymology of the word vulva, and whether
> the Sumerians,
> for example, used any of the above terms for female genitalia.  A
> specialist's area, I would suppose.
>
>
> Deborah Ferber
> Seattle, Washinton
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
> You have a voice mail message waiting for you at iHello.com:
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>
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>
>
>
>

Just a note about something I thought folks should know about a
recent change at Onelist.  Onelist has added a 'family filter' with a
default setting of 'on'.  For those who want to turn the filter off,
go to:

http://www.onelist.com

Login (if you haven't done so before). You should get a page which
has on it 'Join a Group'.  Below this there's a phrase that says
'family filter on'.  Click on it, uncheck the box, and the filter
will be turned off.

If you have any problems, please let me know.

Sally

Thanks for putting me back on Anahita. I'm on a couple of onelist.com-run
lists already and it does seem to be a good system!

Perfect timing for an announcement: The 6th Gender and Archaeology
Conference (the sixth time this has been held, not an exploration of
cultural systems with more than five gender categories) will be held
October 6 - 8 at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. We have extended
the deadline for Abstracts to April 15 because our website's "alias" proved
opaque to some ISP systems. The call for papers and lots of information is
available to most of you at:
www2.nau.edu/gender2000
but if your browser can't find that, try the links posted on my home page at
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~kah2
or the anthropology dept. here at
http://www.nau.edu/~anthro

I can already tell you we have enough papers for sessions on: Old World
archaeology, especially the Mediterranean area, alternative genders, women
and violence/conflict in the past, Southwest archaeology, and archaeology
and the Goddess in the old world (most of these seem to support the work of
Gimbutas, and I would personally still like to see some submissions
critiquing her approach to get some balance here). We will still accept
papers in these and other topics as space in the program allows. I can't
promise to fit everything in, but will try. Certainly, it will be full
program with lots of viewpoints and geographic areas represented, and I
hope many list members will be able to attend.

cheers,
Kelley Hays-Gilpin
Dept. of Anthropology
Northern Arizona University
Box 15200
Flagstaff AZ 86011-5200

kelley.hays-gilpin@...

a point of interest about terminology in ancient languages:
In Hebrew the word for FEMALE is 'nekeva' which literaly means a
hole, ( in a sense of Cavern ).
MALE  is 'zachar' which comes from the word dager i.e. a small sword,
knife to 'stick in'...
how crude and how picturesque.

Azila


Dr. Azila Talit Reisenberger
Hebrew & Jewish Studies
University of Cape Town
Phone: 27 21 - 650 2948                               *************
Fax:   27 21 - 438 2662                                    P E A C E
                                                                       
*************
Internet: Azila@...             S H A L O M
**********************************************************************

While we're on the subject of early agriculture, has anyone read
a book by Colin Tudge, a science writer and zoologist by training,
entitled "How Agriculture Really Began" published by Yale U. Press
last year.

His theory is that large scale agriculture began in
the fertile crescent 10,000 ago, but he asserts that long before
that neanderthals in Europe were using plants and cultigens on a
smaller scale.

I haven't read the book yet, so I can't explain
the theory in detail.  Does anyone on the list familiar with the book or
have an opinion about Tudge's theory?

Allison Nies
calvideo@...

I hesitated to respond to Virginia Katzeff's question about early
agricultural terms for female genitalia because I thought the Sumerian myth
of the courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi would be too obvious.  Since no else
has mentioned it, I will quote the translation by Samuel Kramer/Diane
Wolkstein in "Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth, Her stories and hymns from
Sumer":

"As for me, Inanna
Who will plow my vulva
Who will plow my high field?
Who will plow my wet ground?

"As for me, Inanna
Who will plow my vulva?
Who will station the ox there?
Who will plow my vulva?"

(and the story goes on from there. . .)

I wish I knew the etymology of the word vulva, and whether the Sumerians,
for example, used any of the above terms for female genitalia.  A
specialist's area, I would suppose.


Deborah Ferber
Seattle, Washinton

Just so you know ...

The ONElist Web site will be offline for scheduled
maintenance from 6 PM until 7 PM Pacific Standard Time on
Sunday, March 26, 2000. Any mail posted to a group during
this time will not be processed until after 7 PM Pacific
Standard Time.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you or
your subscribers. Please notify your subscribers of this
scheduled downtime.
Thank you in advance for your patience.

Surprise! University and college servers also use cookies if any of
their courses are taught online.  In order to utilize WebBoard
technology, your computer must be set to accept cookies. Also, you
can set your computer to notify you when a website wants to employ a
cookie, but that's very annoying, and if you refuse the cookie, you
don't get to see the information.
Since our big move, did anyone else come up with an answer to my
question about agricultural terms (in ancient languages) applied to
female genitalia?
Virginia Katzeff
http://www.lakeland.cc.il.us/~mkatzeff  with a cookie

Thanks, David and Sally, for taking this project on!
Marcia Halio

That sounds like a darned good idea ... I'll implement it shortly.

regards,

dm

At 08:21 PM 3/21/00 -0500, you wrote:
>From: "Ross Scaife" <scaife@...>
>
>Your call, but I'd like to have the URL for Diotima continue to appear in
>the "useful addresses" section of the footer for messages in the new list
>(as was previously the case).  The quid pro quo is that I can repoint the
>Anahita link at Diotima to this list.
>
>Thanks, Ross
>
>
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Your call, but I'd like to have the URL for Diotima continue to appear in
the "useful addresses" section of the footer for messages in the new list
(as was previously the case).  The quid pro quo is that I can repoint the
Anahita link at Diotima to this list.

Thanks, Ross

Greetings,

It would appear that the transfer did go rather smoothly (rather more
smoothly than even I expected, even if there was a bit of a delay in
getting all the names up). In any event,  as of about half an hour ago, we
have 417 members and I have a pile of change of
address/subscribe/unsubscribe messages to wade through (which I'll get to
in the next couple of days).

In other words, welcome to Anahita-l and thanks for sticking around!

David Meadows
Sally Winchester
(co-listowners)

This is the second test (SW should get this one too!)

dm

Just a test