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Miriam bat Benayah

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Miriam bat Benayah (late 15th-century - early 16th-century) was a Jewish Safra (scribe) in Yemen.[1][2]

Bat Benayah was the daughter of scribe Benayah ben Sa'adiah ben Zekhariah, and worked with her father and her brothers David and Joseph.[3][4] They are credited with copying 400 books together, including prayer books, collections of haftarot, and copies of the Torah. It was highly uncommon for a woman to have the profession of scribe in the culture, time and place in which she was active.[5]

In one scroll of the Pentateuch which she had written, she added the statement: "Please be indulgent of the shortcomings of this volume; I copied it while nursing a baby."[4]

References

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  1. ^ The JPS Guide to Jewish Women: 600 B.C.E.to 1900 C.E.
  2. ^ Hardach, Sophie (2021-01-07). Languages Are Good for Us. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78954-394-0.
  3. ^ Avrin, Leila (2010). Scribes, Script, and Books: The Book Arts from Antiquity to the Renaissance. American Library Association. ISBN 978-0-8389-1038-2.
  4. ^ a b Goitein, S. D. (1970). "Nicknames as Family Names". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 90 (4): 517–524. doi:10.2307/598824. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 598824.
  5. ^ Riegler, Michael; Baskin, Judith R. (2008). ""May the Writer Be Strong": Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts Copied by and for Women". Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues (16): 9–28. doi:10.2979/nas.2008.-.16.9. ISSN 0793-8934. JSTOR 10.2979/nas.2008.-.16.9. S2CID 161946788.

Sources

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