People of the Body

Howard Eilberg-Schwartz is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University. He is the author of The Savage in Judaism: An Anthology of Israelite Religion and Ancient Judaism (winner of a 1990 American Academy Award for Academic Excellence) as well as The Human Will in Judaism.

• Acknowledgments Introduction: People of the Body 1. The Problem of the Body for the People of the BookHoward Eilberg-Schwartz 2. The Garden of Eden and Sexuality in Early JudaismGary Anderson 3. The Great Fat Massacre: Sex, Death, and the Grotesque Body in the TalmudDaniel Boyarin 4. Mizvot Built into the Body: Tkhines for Niddah, Pregnancy, and ChildbirthChava Weissler 5. Purifying the Body in the Name of the Soul: The Problem of the Body in Sixteenth-Century KabbalahLawrence Fine 6. Images of God's Feet: Some Observations on the Divine Body in JudaismElliot R. Wolfson 7. God's Body: Theological and Ritual Roles of Shi'ur KomahNaomi Janowitz 8. The Body Never Lies: The Body in Medieval Jewish Folk NarrativesEli Yasif 9. The Jewish Body: A Foot-noteSander Gilman 10. (G)nos(e)ology: The Cultural Construction of the OtherJay Geller 11. Zionism as an Erotic RevolutionDavid Biale 12. Menstruation and Identity: The Meaning of Niddah for Moroccan Women Immigrants to IsraelRahel Wasserfall 13. Why Jewish Princesses Don't Sweat: Desire and Consumption in Postwar American Jewish CultureRiv-Ellen Prell 14. Challenging Male/Female Complementarity: Jewish Lesbians and the Jewish TraditionRebecca Alpert Contributors Index

"The greatest strength of the book is the issue it poses: the notion that Jews are not simply a people of the book but also a people of the body. This is a dimension of Jewish experience that has been sorely neglected and that the book puts on the agenda of Jewish studies through its consideration of a number of dimensions of the embodiedness of Jewish life." — Judith Plaskow, Manhattan College"Eilberg-Schwartz has identified an overlooked area of inquiry and has gathered together a collection of essays that in the aggregate suggests the riches awaiting further inquiry. This is the kind of book which will be cited frequently as a turning point in the development of a crucial research agenda." — Martin S. Jaffee, University of Washington