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The Shrew, the Femme Fatale, the Prima Donna & the Whore: Four Talmudic Heroines

Hosted By: Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program ("CSP")

What possessed Yalta to smash 400 bottles of her husband’s wine? How does the newly widowed Homa get herself driven out of town? And why must R. Hiyya’s wife dress up as a prostitute to show her husband who she really is? Women in the Talmud are usually secondary characters – mothers, daughters, or wives of the male heroes. On the rare occasion when a woman does star in her own story, she generally appears as an anti-feminist stereotype, a critical portrayal of a bad woman.

Reading these texts carefully and between the lines, we will discover there’s a lot more to the stories than initially meets the eye; that the Talmudic heroines are far more complex then they first seem; and that the rabbis had rather surprising – so as not to say proto-feminist – views of marriage, childbirth, female power, and sex. In working to redeem the women of the Talmud, there’s a great deal we can learn, both about how to read the characters of a text and, ultimately, how to regard the characters in our lives.

This 4-part series meets at 10 a.m. Pacific/ 1 p.m. Eastern. There is no class on May 18.

The event listed here is hosted by a third party. My Jewish Learning/70 Faces Media is not responsible for its content or for errors in the listing.

Teacher

Gila Fine

Gila Fine is a lecturer of rabbinic literature at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, exploring the tales of the Talmud through philosophy, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and pop culture. She serves on the faculties of the Nachshon Project, Amudim Seminary, the Tikvah Scholars Program, the London School of Jewish Studies, the Community Scholar Program, and WebYeshiva, and has taught thousands of students at conferences, campuses, and communities across the Jewish world. As editor-in-chief of Maggid Books, Gila worked closely with such leading scholars as Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, publishing over 100 titles of contemporary Jewish thought, including several bestsellers and eight National Jewish Book Award winners. She is also the former editor of Azure: Ideas for the Jewish Nation. Her work has been featured in the BBC, Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, The Jerusalem Report, Tradition Journal, Jewish News, and The Jewish Chronicle (which selected her as one of the ten most influential Brits in Israel). Haaretz has called her “a young woman on her way to becoming one of the more outstanding Jewish thinkers of the next generation.
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Host

Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program ("CSP")

The Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program (“CSP”) is a program offering adult Jewish education and family Jewish celebrations.
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Female Personalities in the Babylonian Talmud

Ultimately, these women’s stories are used to supplement the narratives about the men around them.

Ketubot 65

One cup of wine is good for a woman.

Eruvin 100

The curses of Eve.

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