THE MANY LETTERS left behind by Jewish women who lived in Berlin at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth constitute, as we have seen, an important historical source for research into Jewish acculturation in Germany at the beginning of the modern era. They contain a great deal of information about the far-reaching social and cultural changes that occurred in their lives and in the lives of the German Jewish urban bourgeoisie during those crucial years of Jewish modernization. They also contain information on hitherto unexamined aspects of the process by which these women became integrated into non-Jewish European culture and society. One of the phenomena addressed in these sources that has not yet received sufficient attention is the practice of visiting spas.

Their letters tell us that these women often chose to spend the summer months at one of the spa centres of central Europe. These inland watering places, based around springs of mineral water reputed to have therapeutic properties, gained in popularity during the eighteenth century, especially in the latter decades, and began to attract an increasingly diverse clientele among the population in German lands, notably within the educated and the property-owning classes. As we will see, the spas offered many advantages alongside their original function as places of healing and recuperation: the semi-urban way of life which developed in these resorts over the course of the eighteenth century offered visitors a wide array of pastimes and enjoyments such as musical and theatrical performances, parties, and walks along the main boulevards and in more rural surroundings. For Jewish women in particular, the unique, liberated atmosphere of the spas offered a space in which they could widen their circle of acquaintances, integrate themselves into non-Jewish society, and take an active part in discussions on cultural and other issues. Thus the annual visit to one or more spas, which became a notable feature of bourgeois life, constituted an important component in the acculturation of the modernizing Jewish women discussed in this book. Visits to the spas indicated the adoption of modern concepts and values, such as the setting aside of a certain period in the year as dedicated to vacation and recuperation, to a change in daily routine, and to the care of body and soul.