Review by Choice Review
What makes this such an interesting and valuable study of rabbinic attitudes toward sexuality is its combining of sophistication in contemporary literary analysis and feminist materials with real competance in rabbinic studies. In contradistinction to much current feminist scholarship, which cannot handle the rabbinic and related sources properly, Boyarin can do just this. As a consequence, his readings are informed, judicious, and, on the whole, persuasive. Though sensitive to contemporary concerns, and describing himself as a feminist, he does justice to the rabbis and to their distinctive understanding of the human body and sexual activity. In particular, he is concerned to defend the thesis that the sages of the Land of Israel and Babylonia held a different conception of the body and of sexuality from that held by Greek-speaking Jews, like Philo, and early Christianity. And he makes a good case for this position. The book is written in an accessible style and can be read with profit even by undergraduates. S. T. Katz; Cornell University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
