Padnos Public Engagement on Jewish Learning Lecture: “When Patronage was ‘Matronage’: How Jewish Women’s Money Supported the Early Jesus Movement”

The Stuart and Barbara Padnos Foundation has provided a gift to the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies to establish the Padnos Engagement on Jewish Learning fund. The initiative, which commenced last year, will facilitate annual public educational activities in Jewish Studies throughout the State of Michigan with a focus on the western part of the state.

The Padnos Public Engagement on Jewish Learning Event, to take place on November 17 at 7 pm, will feature Dr. Shayna Sheinfeld, Frankel Institute Fellow, University of Michigan, and Honorary Research Fellow, Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies (SIIBS). Dr. Sheinfeld will present a lecture called “When Patronage was ‘Matronage’: How Jewish Women’s Money Supported the Early Jesus Movement” at the Loosemore Auditorium at the Richard M. Devos Center on Grand Valley State University’s Campus. The event will also be virtually simulcast. Immediately following the lecture at approximately 8:30 there will be a light reception in the adjacent Lubbers Exhibition Hall.

Dr. Sheinfeld prefaces her discussion: “From the beginning of his ministry, women were followers of Jesus. While his followers came from every strata of life, women were essential for the financial and social support that this early Jewish movement saw. The Gospel of Mark mentions Mary Magdalene and Salome who provided for Jesus; Luke talks about Martha who hosts Jesus and his disciples in her home; in Acts, Lydia welcomes the apostle Paul and his cohort to her home where they stay while in Thyatira. These women were not unusual, however, in their active financial and social support of causes they were committed to. This talk will explore and contextualize these women among other Jewish women as possessors of capital and as active actors in the social, political, and religious world in which they lived.”