Tag #124035 - Interview #102267 (Felicia Menzel)

Iasi had a very big Jewish community, with all sorts of functionaries, and synagogues, and the big temple, and mikves and so on. I don’t know exactly how many mikves were there, but I remember my mother told me, that when she was a young woman, before she married my father, she used to go to the mikveh with her mother, after her period. [Editor’s note: Married women go to the mikveh for ritual immersion after each period, after which they can again be with their husbands.] My mother told me that for the Orthodox Jews, a woman having her period was considered dirty, and the man didn’t touch her. [Editor's note: It is understood that a period signifies the loss of a potential life. A woman is not considered dirty, rather she is in a state of spiritual impurity during her period, after which she immerses in a mikveh to become spiritually pure again]. That’s why in the couple’s bedroom there used to be two beds, because the woman had to sleep alone when she had her period.