Why Aren&39t Jeish Women Circumcised Gender and Covenant in Judaism [Hardcover]

Why aren't Jewish women circumcised? This improbable question, first advanced by anti-Jewish Christian polemicists, is the point of departure for this wide-ranging exploration of gender and Jewishness in Jewish thought. With a lively command of a wide range of Jewish sourcesfrom the Bible and the Talmud to the legal and philosophical writings of the Middle Ages to Enlightenment thinkers and modern scholarsShaye J. D. Cohen considers the varied responses to this provocative question and in the process provides the fullest cultural history of Jewish circumcision available.

Shaye J. D. Cohenis Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy at Harvard University. He is the author ofThe Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties(California, 1999),From the Maccabees to the Mishnah(1987), andJosephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as a Historian(1979).

List of Illustrations
Preface

Part One. Jewish Circumcision and Christian Polemics
1. A Canonical History of Jewish Circumcision
2. Were Jewish Women Ever Circumcised?
3. Christian Questions, Christian Responses
4. From Reticence to Polemic

Part Two. Why Arent Jewish Women Circumcised? Four Responses
5. The Celebration of Manhood
6. The Reduction of Lust and the Unmanning of Men
7. True Faith and the Exemption of Women
8. The Celebration of Womanhood
Part Three.
Conclusion: Challenges to the Circumcision of Jewish Men

Notes
Bibliography
Index

This book represents engaged scholarship at its very best. Cohen presents the vast range of texts at his command with brevity and wit. Elegantly written, this is a very stimulating book that is sure to provoke admiration, discussion, and controversy. David Biale, author ofCultures of the Jews

A distinguished and wide-ranging work of scholarship. Cohens deflS(