Jane Kanarek, "Beyond Brutality: Reclaiming Female Presence in Bavli Sotah" (Brandeis UP, 2025)

About this episode

Jane Kanarek discusses her book 'Beyond Brutality', which examines the representation of women in the Bavli Sotah of the Babylonian Talmud.

Beyond Brutality: Reclaiming Female Presence in Bavli Sotah (Brandeis University Press, 2025) draws on feminist analysis and gender studies to examine tractate Sotah of the Babylonian Talmud as a literary unit. By interrogating how, why, and where women are invisible within Bavli Sotah, Jane Kanarek brings to light a ubiquitous female presence throughout the text. Despite the brutality of the sotah ritual—in which the woman accused of adultery is put through a divine ordeal intended to reveal her innocence or her guilt—this book demonstrates that Bavli Sotah is not primarily concerned with describing the sotah ritual or establishing male control over women. Instead, Bavli Sotah becomes a pedagogical text in which the sotah is secondary to moral and sinning men. As the sotah herself fades into the background, the sotah ritual nevertheless overflows its boundaries and weaves its way through a range of other topics within the tractate. In the process, Bavli Sotah teaches its audience who transmits and how one transmits rabbinic culture. Dr. Rabbi Jane Kanarek is Professor of Rabbinics at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, Newton, MA. Dr. Rabbi Rachel Adelman, Professor of…

People in this episode

Guest: Jane Kanarek

Topics covered

• feminist analysis
• gender studies
• Babylonian Talmud
• female presence
• sotah ritual
• rabbinic culture

Keywords

• Bavli Sotah
• feminism
• gender studies
• Talmud
• sotah ritual
• rabbinic culture
• female presence

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Brandeis University Press

Books & works: Bavli Sotah

Places: Newton, MA

More episodes of New Books in Women's History

• Sarah McNamara, "Ybor City: Crucible of the Latina South" (UNC Press, 2023) · June 11, 2026 · 1h 20m
• Michael Staudenmaier, "White, Black, Brown: Becoming Puerto Rican in Chicago" (UNC Press, 2026) · June 10, 2026 · 59 min
• Bruce Dearstyne, "Revolutionary New York: 250 Years of Social Change" (SUNY Press, 2026) · June 8, 2026 · 31 min
• Ginger Dellenbaugh, "Maria Callas's Lyric and Coloratura Arias" (Bloomsbury, 2021) · June 6, 2026 · 57 min
• Lauren Duval, "The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence" (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2025) · June 3, 2026 · 59 min
• Kenna Neitch, "A Praxis of Persistence: Central American Feminist Testimony and Sustainable Activism" (SUNY Press, 2026) · June 1, 2026 · 46 min