A Woman Rabbi in Saragossa?

The fact that it was international women’s week last week prompts me to pass on a story about a very little known woman who might just be the first woman Rabbi in the world. Her name was Ceti, she lived in Saragossa in the 14th century. What we know about her is confined to a correspondence with the Prince of Aragon. The Infant Alfonso issued a letter at the request of Ceti, who is described as, ‘Jewess,’ and ‘Rabbess’ of the female Jews of the major synagogue of Zaragosa.

She wrote to Alfonso that she had ‘worked in the office of the Rabbinate’ for the past 20 years, but now, a Jew was trying maliciously to evict her, despite the fact that all the women who attend the synagogue, as well as the leaders of the synagogue want her, and no one else to exercise that function.

The Prince wrote to the synagogue leaders saying, ‘If it is your desire and the desire of the said Jewish women that Ceti continue in said office, and that she can exercise it better than everyone else, you should not allow anyone to eject her.’

What is this ‘office of the Rabbinate’? Is it the role of a Rabbi? It would seem so. She describes herself in Spanish as Rabbess – a term, that usually denotes, wife of a Rabbi. But there is no Rabbi here, he would have been mentioned otherwise. Ceti clearly ministered to the women – possibly led them in prayers upstairs in the synagogue, while the men did their own thing down below. Maybe she acted as Shamash in the women’s section, maybe she supervised the Mikvah. The likelihood, also, is that women came to her for advice.

But in the absence of any mention of a male Rabbi – was her office of the Rabbinate rather more than this? The problem is we know so little about Jewish women in our history, and what we do know has been interpreted by the largely male scholars who study them. They start from the assumption that women couldn’t do these things and then conclude therefore that women did not do these things. A circular argument if ever there was one.

I am sure there were many women who took on the role of a male Rabbi in the past. International Women’s Week is an appropriate time to acknowledge all those women in Judaism who have done the work of men – and never been recognised for it.