Pauline Wengeroff’s Memoirs of a Grandmother: The Evolution of One Household Item and Its Metaphoric Value Through Generations

Abstract

Memoirs of a Grandmother: Scenes from the Cultural History of the Jews of Russia in the Nineteenth Century byPauline Wengeroff (published in 1908–1910 in Berlin) is a unique example of a Jewish autobiography written by a woman that depicts the Jewish traditional, preassimilation mode of life as the Golden Age. Reminiscing on the bygone times, the author also muses over her own, rather complicated relationship with the traditional and the modern. For her, the conflict between the two signifies the battle of sexes that was lost by women. A knife, described in some contexts as a household object, in others assumes a metaphorical value symbolizing the idyllic Jewish past and the dramatic changes undergone by the Jewish people, by Jewish women and by the memoirist herself. A woman with a knife, featured in the first volume as a symbol and a defender of the Jewish tradition, later morphs into a tragic figure, both a sacrifice and a sacrificer.