Preface
Introduction: Recovering a Repressed Past
Chapter One: The Rediscovery of Talmudic Stories
Chapter Two: Authority, Autonomy, and Interpersonal Relations: The Oven of Akhnai
Chapter Three: When Opposites Attract: Rabbi Yohanan and Resh Lakish
Chapter Four: Women and Torah Study: Beruria
Chapter Five: Eros Repressed and Restored: Rabbi Hiya Bar Ashi and Heruta
Chapter Six: An Ideal Marriage: Rabbi Akiva and the Daughter of Ben Calba Savua
Chapter Seven: Human Failings and National Destruction: Kamtza and Bar Kamtza
David C. Jacobson is Professor of Judaic Studies at Brown University. He is author of Modern Midrash: The Retelling of Traditional Jewish Narratives by Twentieth-Century Hebrew Writers (State University of New York Press, 1987); Does David Still Play Before You? Israeli Poetry and the Bible (Wayne State University Press, 1997); Creator, Are You Listening? Israeli Poets on God and Prayer (Indiana University Press, 2007); Beyond Political Messianism: The Poetry of Second-Generation Religious Zionist Settlers (Academic Studies Press, 2011); Israeli and Palestinian Identities in History and Literature, edited with Kamal Abdel-Malek (St. Martin's Press, 1999); and History and Literature: New Readings of Jewish Texts in Honor of Arnold J. Band, edited with William Cutter (Brown Judaic Studies, 2002).
“In his book, David Jacobson offers a wide range of Israeli
contemporary commentaries to Talmudic legends. With love,
knowledge, and profound commitment, Jacobson explores one of the
most fascinating revolutions in Jewish culture in recent decades:
the rediscovery of rabbinic literature by Israeli culture.”
*Ruhama Weiss, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion,
Jerusalem*
“The Zionist revolution and mainstream Israeli culture tried to
vault from the world of the Bible to a revolutionary present,
leaving the rabbis and their texts behind. Yet the break was never
that clean, and dogmatic secularism has come on hard times. Recent
years have seen the recovery and creative reinterpretation of
classic rabbinic texts by secular and religious readers, making for
one of the most fascinating currents in contemporary Israeli
culture. This pioneering study not only judiciously gathers and
synthesizes these new voices for scholarly readers while carefully
attending to the differences among them, but also places them in
the context of important but insufficiently-understood currents of
cultural and intellectual history. David Jacobson has, with his
customary learning, discernment, and deft literary taste, done a
great service to students of Israel, Talmud, literature, education,
and religion.”
*Yehudah Mirsky, Brandeis University*
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