Jewish Women in the Midwifery School of Vilna University
Pinchas Kon
1929
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, women did not participate in the free professions regularly because at that time institutes of higher education had not yet opened their doors to them. The only professional field in which women could involve themselves was in assisting births. Since the number of doctors was very limited in Lithuania in those days, midwives played a great role in providing hygienic care to people in general. Thus, the government made sure that midwives received appropriate training, and for that purpose established special schools for them. During the second half of the eighteenth century professional midwives were trained first at the medical school established by Mizenhoyz in Grodno, and later at Vilna University, where a special midwifery school was opened at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The Vilna Midwifery School was part of Vilna University; it was associated with the Faculty of Medicine and was run by its professors. Thus, there were two separate midwifery courses at the university at the same time: one for university students, and one for students of the Midwifery School. Some of the well-known professors who headed the Vilna Midwifery School at one time or another were professors Renie, Andrzej Matusewicz, Mikolai Mianowski, and others.
Although the Vilna Midwifery School had only a fairly limited number of students, Jewish women were among them almost from the day the school was founded.
In 1811, a certain Meir ben Rav Meir from Vilna, whose two daughters Golde and Reyze had just finished their studies at the Vilna Midwifery School, turned to the Jewish community with a request that they issue a “certificate of orderly conduct” for his two daughters. This certificate had to be presented to the authorities of Vilna University so that the two girls would be permitted to take the final examination. This is what the father wrote in his request to the Jewish community:
To the leaders of the Vilna Jewish Community From me, the undersigned Meir ben Rav Meir
A Request
My two daughters, one of them Golde and the other one called Reyze, have studied the medical profession called midwifery at the academy in Vilna and now the time has come for them to complete their studies and take the general examination. Therefore, according to the order of the university, they are required to submit a letter from the Jewish community providing evidence that their name and reputation in the community is immaculate and unblemished. That is why I ask the highly esteemed leaders to fulfill my request and issue a certificate for them, thereby confirming that my request has found favor in the Almighty’s eyes.
Meir ben Rav Meir
The second day of Cheshvan or 26 of October in the year 5572 (1811)
In the papers of the Vilna Jewish community this is the only such request submitted in 1811.
The archival material of the Jewish community of Vilna from subsequent years also contains information regarding Jewish girls who attended the Vilna Midwifery School; this time, however, the university approached the Jewish community directly in order to obtain the oath [shvue] from the Jewish girls that was necessary in order for them to graduate from the school as midwives. Thus, for instance, we find in 1819 a note in which the dean of the Vilna University’s Faculty of Medicine turns to the Jewish community and asks them to “obtain an oath” from the midwives Helena Heyman and Maria Pinias. A remark accompanying this note mentions that the oath was taken on the same day and they received their letters of attestation [from the Jewish community]. [ . . . ]
Maria Pinias received the exact same attestation, and both were signed by the heads of the Jewish community: Snifiski, Yofe, and Klatshko.
Helena Heyman was the daughter of the famous Vilna doctor Yakov Leyboshits and the wife of the banker Solomon Heyman. [ . . . ]
The first decades of the nineteenth century saw a struggle between the Jews and the magistrate regarding the prohibition that had existed in town from ancient times forbidding Jews to live in the streets leading from Ostrobros [Ostrobrama?] to Cathedral Square (i.e., today’s Ostrobros, Wide Street, and Castle Street), and from Troker Gate to the Jan Cloister (today’s Troker, Dominikaner, and Jan Street). During the years of upheaval in the eighteenth century, Jews managed to move into the forbidden main streets and the magistrate was adamant about banishing them from there. On behalf of the magistrate the case was conducted by the lawyer Zdankiewicz. This Zdankiewicz led the fight against the Jewish ghetto-breakers with great perseverance, utilizing any available means. He even made the effort to provide the general governor of Vilna with a detailed list of all the Jews who lived outside the ghetto, with precise instructions regarding each and every one of them.
Thus, a special investigative commission was formed whose task was to check on-site the veracity of the information provided by Zdankiewicz. In fact, on December 29, 1827, the investigators paid a visit to every designated house and compiled a list of all the “guilty” Jews and noted their suggestions in each individual case. On this list we find that in house number 429, Mrs. Meyerova’s house, located on the corner of Dominikaner and Glezer [today, Stikliu] Street, lived no fewer than six Jewish families, among them “the Jews Yoachim Pines whose occupation was making varnish, feathers, and other things.” The commission voiced its opinion according to which even though this was a corner house and Glezer Street was part of the Jewish ghetto, the six Jewish families were not permitted to live there because their apartments were on the side of Dominikaner Street. As a matter of fact, five Jewish families had to leave their apartments, but the sixth one, the Pines family, did not want to give in, so they went from one office to the other trying to negotiate. In one of his letters submitted to the civil governor of Vilna in 1828, in which he requested permission to stay in the apartment where he had lived until then, he declares that he was born in Königsberg and came to Vilna in 1794. He settled here and earns a living from making varnish and feathers. He has lived in Mrs. Meyerova’s house for the past twenty-eight years continuously. He has two daughters who are employed as midwives in the district, one in Ladoga and the other in Yakobshtat; his third daughter has already received permission to take the examination to become a teacher. (This is the first piece of information we have regarding a female Jewish teacher in Lithuania!) He also has a son who is in his fifth year of high school. Pines then mentions that he “does not wear clothes dictated by Jewish custom at all” and asks that he be permitted to continue to live in his current apartment due to his old age. The civil governor sent all materials over to the general governor (“military governor”), Rimsky-Korsakov, and suggested that Pines be granted the requested permission. We have no information about what happened to Pines in the end.
Credits
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 8.
