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A Novel of Love and the Talmud in Medieval France by Maggie Anton
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I will review this book in my sermon at Beth Yeshurun, Friday night, Jan. 29, 6 p.m.
Rashi (an acronym made from the first letters of his name, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki) has been and continues to be regarded as the greatest commentator on the Torah and Talmud in history. It is literally impossible to study either text without referring to his explanations and insights, and to say that he is venerated is an understatement.
Yet what is little mentioned is that Rashi was not only an extraordinary scholar, but a husband and father, and to not one but three daughters — Miriam, Joheved and Rachel — each of whom married Talmudic scholars.
While hardly any facts have survived about Rashi's daughters, many legends speak about their piety and, even more, about how they broke from conventional expectations (or lack of them) for 11th Century Jewish women.
What drew me to Maggie Anton's wonderful trilogy (a book on each daughter) is the way she describes what it must have been like to live in the French Jewish community of those days; to have had the great Rashi for a father; and what the day-to-day life of Jewish women must have been. Maggie Anton has beautifully blended everything she has learned about this period in Jewish history with a refreshingly original story that will interest and absorb every reader.
Anton is a remarkable writer, and this book of exceptional fiction has been widely praised in both Jewish and general circles. In recommending it to general libraries, Library Journal compares Rashi's Daughters with Anita Diamont's wonderful The Red Tent in the way "it delves into rituals of women who were forgotten by history and marginalized by society."
I loved Rashi's Daughters, and I truly believe you will, too. (Our Jewish Book Circle will only be reading Vol. 1, on Joheved; I am looking forward to reading the 2nd and 3rd parts of the trilogy as well on my own!)
I ended up reading all three books and enjoyed them very much. However, there is a section in the back of each book where the author talks about how much is fiction and how much is fact, and it is disheartening how little fact there is (it is not certain if Rashi had two or three daughters, for example.) I was also a little bemused by the relatively high ratio of Romance Novel to Jewish history.
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Rabbi Rosen, I want to thank you for starting this book club! It has caused me to read books I never would have otherwise which I very much enjoyed. My favorite of the series by far is the most recent, The Book Thief. I am very much looking for the next book in your series.
-DavidS-
Thank you! Our Jewish Book Circle is on hiatus right now. I am regrouping and hope to continue in the fall. All my best!
ReplyDeleteI miss it already and look forward to the next season. Susan
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