Hear My Voice in the Morning

Born in Morocco, Freyha bat Abraham Bar-Adiba fled to Tunisia with her father and brother, probably in the 1730s. A learned woman with a vast library, she wrote Hebrew poetry and prose and was greatly respected for her learning; some even considered her a saint. However, only two of her poems have survived. In 1756, her father and brother fled the Algerian invasion, leaving Freyha behind, and all trace of her was lost. Her father built a synagogue in her honor on the site of their former home in Tunis—the ark was located where her library had stood and the mikveh on the site of her bedroom—which became a place of pilgrimage. Freyha’s two surviving poems testify to her extensive learning, command of Jewish sources, and ability to combine the personal and communal levels. One describes the suffering of the Jewish people and her family’s particular tribulations, while the other, a prayer to be said at dawn, expresses a yearning for redemption, return to the land of Israel, and forgiveness.