Carefully arguing that many common assumptions about the traditional Jewish family are mistaken, this outstanding collection of essays--many previously unpublished--by thirteen leading scholars, explores the subject both in its historical reality and as it has been perceived and imagined by Jews over the centuries. Writing for a conference held at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America the contributors, including Robert Alter, Mordecai Friedman, Paula Hyman, and Moshe Idel, reveal the Jewish family to be a variegated, rich, and complicated institution that has adapted and responded to the...

Traditionally, the Talmud was read as law, that is, as the authoritative source for Jewish practice and obligations. To this end, it was studied at the level of its most minute details, with readers often ignoring the composite whole and attending only to final decisions. Methods of reading have shifted as more readers and students have turned to the Talmud for evidence of rabbinic history, religion, rhetoric, or anthropology; still, few have employed a genuinely literary approach. In Reading the Rabbis, Kraemer attempts to fill this gap. He uses the tools developed in the study of...