ormented by their
wives. One, we are told, refused to cook for her husband, and another,
day after day, prepared a certain dish, knowing that he would not touch
it.

But this is pleasantry. It would betray total ignorance of the Talmud
and the rabbis to impute to them the scorn of woman prevalent at that
time. The Talmud and its sages never weary of singing the praise of
women, and at every occasion inculcate respect for them, and devotion to
their service. The compiler of the Jerusalem Talmud, Rabbi Jochanan,
whose life is crowned with the aureole of romance, pays a delicate
tribute to woman by the question: "Who directed the first prayer of
thanksgiving to God? A woman, Leah, when she cried out in the fulness of
her joy: 'Now again will I praise the Lord.'"

Under the influence of such ideal views, and in obedience to such
standards, Jewish woman led a modest, retired life of domestic activity,
the help-meet and solace of her husband, the joy of his age, the
treasure of his liberty, his comforter in sorrow. For, when the
portentous catastrophe overwhelmed the Jewish nation, when Jerusalem and
the Temple lay in ruins, when the noblest of the people were slain, and
the remnant of Israel was made to wander forth out of his land into a
hostile world, to fulfil his mission as a witness to the truth of
monotheism, then Jewish woman, too, was found ready to assume the
burdens imposed by distressful days.

Israel, broken up into unresisting fragments, began his two thousand
years' journey through the desert of time, despoiled of all possessions
except his Law and his family. Of these treasures Titus and his legions
could not rob him. From the ruins of the Jewish state blossomed forth
the spirit of Jewish life and law in vigorous renewal. Judaism rose
rejuvenated on the crumbling temples of Jupiter, immaculate in doctrine,
incorruptible in practice. Israel's spiritual guides realized that
adherence to the Law is the only safeguard against annihilation and
oblivion. From that time forth, the men became the guardians of the
_Law_, the women the guardians of the purity of _life_, both working
harmoniously for the preservation of Judaism.

The muse of history recorded no names of Jewish women from the
destruction of the Temple to the eleventh century. Yet the student
cannot fail to assign the remarkable preservation of the race to
woman's gentle, quiet, though paramount influence by the side of the
earnest tenacity of men. Am