Judith Z. Abrams (–2014)

I appreciate what R'Abrams is trying to do: show Judaism as a more flexible religion, in which decisions were made as much for historical reasons as religious ones. But this book is kind of a literary failure. R'Abrams gets so deep in her movie analogies (most of which didn't age well), that I had to google movies I'd never seen to understand her point at times. I found them jarring, unignorable and completely disruptive to the flow.

Looking past the bulky cinematic digressions, The Other Talmud also struggles with just being a massive stretch at times. R'Abrams argues the Yerushalmi had more roles for women and was in general more liberal, but I think she's cherry-picking. I haven't read much of Bavli: just daf yomi for ~6 months, so 1/15th of it, but I could find lines from the Bavli, too, to make many of the same points. I think this was a good idea, poorly executed. 2.5 stars.… (más)