Review
“Anton delivers a tour de force . . . [Readers] will fly through the pages and come away wishing for more.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“A compelling combination of drama, suspense, and romance.”—Lilith magazine
From the Author
"Rashi's Daughters" is the story of the three daughters of the great Talmudic authority Salomon ben Isaac, a.k.a. Rashi, who lived in 11th century Troyes, France and had no sons. At a time when most women were illiterate and the rare educated woman was one who could read the Bible, Rashi's daughters studied Talmud. They were also vintners, merchants and mothers of the next generation of Talmudic scholars.Built on seven years of exhaustive historical research and ten years of Talmud study, "Rashi's Daughters" explores what might have been, weaving actual events, as described in responsa literature and Talmud commentaries, into an account of the lives of these amazing women. Talmud is an integral part of these novels; readers will learn along with Rashi's daughters as he explains selected texts. This is also the story of the medieval French Jewish community, how they lived, loved, worked, ate, prayed and interacted with their non-Jewish neighbors. A wealth of material about Jewish women's daily lives is provided, including how they observed life cycle events and holidays.
I wrote this book because I wanted to share my research into Jewish women's lives in medieval France, how the prosperity and tolerance they enjoyed differed from the negative stereotypes usually associated with the Middle Ages. In addition, I wished to encourage women to study Talmud, the foundation of Jewish Law that, until very recently, women have been unable to access. I hoped to share the excitement and pleasure Talmud study can engender.
From the Inside Flap
Praise for RASHI'S DAUGHTERS: JOHEVED Recently, a new book titled Rashi's Daughters, written by Maggie Anton, has taken the torch from Anita Diamant, while using more research to explain the phenomenon that is Rashi and his daughters. - The Jewish Newsweekly of Northern California
Anton does for the time of Rashi what Milton Steinberg did for the Tannaim in As a Driver Leaf ... This historical novel will especially appeal to Jewish women, but it teems with information that I certainly did not know before ... Anton's enthusiasm for her subject is infectious, and I came to care about the characters, as well as the relevant application of Talmudic argument. - Rabbi Laurence Edwards, CCAR Newsletter
Joheved, the eldest of Rashi's three daughters, has a secret wish, something that is strictly forbidden to Jewish women in 11th-century France: she seeks to study the Talmud. For years, Joheved has watched enviously as her father, the great scholar Rashi, teaches the Talmud to male students ... Like a mirror held up to the past, this first volume in a trilogy draws readers into the lives of medieval French Jewish women; much like Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, it delves into the rituals of women who were forgotten by history and marginalized by society. - Library Journal
One can begin to wonder if Anton was a fly on the wall, so realistic are her characterizations. Rashi's Daughters was written in celebration of the 900th anniversary of the yahrzeit of the great talmid chacham, who was known in his time to have taught Talmud to members of his family -- his daughters! ... Anton not only recreates a medieval French community but is faithful to many little-known details of Jewish ritual, including marital relations, childbirth, life-cycle events and holidays. In Rashi's time, a daughter was "chattel" and had only a choice of refusal to a marriage, but Yocheved was strong-willed and intellectual. So she was allowed to choose decidedly unfeminine studies, as well as marriage to a young man who wanted his intellectual match, not merely a betrothed servant to bear his young... Anton spent years on her own Talmud study that has enabled her to craft a beautiful story that captures the essence of the times and lives of her protagonists ... For us -- hours of enjoyable reading. - The Jewish Press
Anton takes on a formidable task in her novel Rashi's Daughters. She spent seven years gathering research and it shows. The immersion into the world of 11th-century Troyes, France, is complete. She describes the politics of counts, the making of parchment, the hand soap made from mutton fat and the use of moss instead of toilet paper ... I am particularly grateful for Anton's vivid and careful research into the winemaking profession, which throws a fascinating light on the everyday life of Rashi and his family. - World Jewish Digest
A labor of love by new author Maggie Anton brings the world of medieval French Jewry to life, touching upon everything from parchment-making and Tallmudic discourse to midwifery and grape harvests. ... Anton creates characters who engage us with their ideas and their struggles. In the tradition of Diamont's The Red Tent, this is historical fiction that brings our heritage as Jewish women closer to home. Rashi himself leaps off the margins of the Talmud page to take shape as son, husband, father and grandfather. With a compelling combination of drama, suspense and romance, Anton takes her readers on a journey to Troyes, France during the eleventh century. While frequent reference to ghosts, amulets and magic potions remind us that we're in the medieval world, the characters also experience timeless concerns: pre-wedding jitters, a grandmother's dementia, problems of religious coexistence, and the struggle to balance individual goals and family needs. - Lilith Magazine
I just finished reading Maggie's wonderful book over Shabbat and enjoyed it immensely. I also learned a great deal. She really painted a wonderful scene of Jewish life in medieval France and I loved the characters. Congratulations - it's a wonderfully imaginative and informative book. - Devorah Zlochower Director of Programs, Drisha Institute, NY
With her crisp and straightforward language, Maggie Anton quickly transports her reader into 11th-century France and the female-dominated household of Rashi, the respected Talmud scholar ... Rashi's Daughters is an engaging read on many levels and will appeal to a variety of audiences ... Fans of The Year of Wonder will find many similarities and readers of The Red Tent will be intrigued by the story. - Atlanta Jewish Times
Rashi's Daughters offers readers a glimpse into a fascinating world - a Jewish community in medieval France - and explores the lives of a famous scholar and his (unfortunately) not-so-famous daughters. Anton's extensive research and her imagination combine to retrieve the lives of Jewish women in a way that is both realistic and captivating. This book is a must-read for Jewish women and others seeking to better understand women's religious lives. - Dvora Weisberg, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Rabbinics, HUC-JIR
For those of us who study the classic texts of the Jewish tradition, Bible and Talmud, Rashi's commentary is the indispensable guide. But we tend to forget that this eleventh century French scholar is more than a name on the printed page. He was also a husband, father, grandfather and entrepreneur who lived during one of the most fascinating periods in medieval Jewish history, and who had feelings, frustrations and hopes much like ours today. In her novel, Ms. Anton has brought this man, his family, his century and his entire social setting to life in a vivid and colorful way. No one who reads this novel will ever read Rashi's writings in the same way. This is a stunning accomplishment!
- Dr. Neil Gillman is Professor of Jewish Philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary
From the Back Cover
Perhaps the greatest of all Jewish scholars, whose commentaries are at the centre of every student's intellectual life, was Solomon ben Isaac of medieval France (or Rashi for short). He fathered only daughters, and it has long been rumoured that he taught them Talmud (going against strong opposing views on this, common in the 11th century, and before, and since), possibly even teaching them to lay tefillin and pray regularly, which were not considered obligations for the female sex. The once secular, now religious and scholarly author recognized the gold mine which lay behind this seemingly minor factoid of Jewish history: what was it like to be a woman, a millennium ago? A Jewish woman? What was it like for an intelligent young Jewish girl to be caught up in such a patriarchal faith, with its rigid laws about sexuality, marriage, and more? Or to be a brilliant scholar with no son to study with or inspire? This is the background for the trilogy by American novelist Maggie Anton, "Rashi's Daughters" (Book I: Joheved; Book II: Miriam). The author has done something both admirable and remarkable: she has immersed herself in Jewish medieval history and the Talmud, and sprinkles both heavily through the first two books of her planned trilogy of novels, so that the reader, like each of Rashi's daughters, finds him/herself studying Jewish thought in greater depth than most people do in their lifetime. So, half-way through Joheved, we read from the Mishna, "Women, slaves, and minors are exempt from reciting the Shema and from laying tefillin ..." The author goes on, "This didn't sound right. She and Miriam both said the Shema at night as protection against demons; every Jew did. Papa, why are women exempt from these mitzvot?"
Lovers of erotica (and Judaism) may be thrilled to read of the marriage night between Joheved and her beloved groom, which is one of the most beautifully and voluptuously depicted sex scenes ever captured in print. (It's also, not unintentionally, one of the greatest advertisements for saving oneself for marriage, and for the keeping of the laws of niddah, or separation during and after a woman's monthly period.) And those of us who have questioned the seemingly anti-life and anti-pleasure attitudes toward sexuality in the other major Abrahamic faiths (the covering of women from head to toe by burkas in several Muslim lands; the linking of sex with the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden in Christianity, along with the glorification of virginity), will be delighted to read such sympathetic lines from other Jewish texts as "You should delay your climax until your wife has her climax first, and then she will conceive sons." Sexist, perhaps, but please advise me of other faiths which express any interest whatsoever in women's satisfaction from sexual congress.
Rashi's Daughters is a most welcome addition to modern Jewish writing. And a daring one, as well: in Miriam, the second of the series, her husband is filled with longing toward his own gender. (The author is nothing if not controversial in her topics and plots). Are these books Great Art; Literature? I don't think so: they are an inspired concept, deeply researched and well presented. The books lack the authority, power, beauty and depth of quality writing, and too often appear to be study guides to the Talmud, or James A. Michener-type histories (remember Hawaii, Alaska, Poland?) of medieval Judaism. There is often an awkwardness to Ms. Anton's prose, as if she feels obliged to explain all these strange, exotic Jewish beliefs and rituals to non-Jewish (and Jewish!) readers. She is no Saul Bellow or Phillip Roth or Cynthia Ozick, but that's fine; she has set out to write several novels of "Love and The Talmud in Medieval France" as the paperback covers announce proudly, and she is a talented, if limited writer. I am glad that I read the first two volumes of Rashi's Daughters , and I certainly look forward to Anton's final novel. I've certainly never encountered a better depiction of what it was like to be a Jew in Christian Europe, nearly a thousand years ago. Or what it was like to be a thoughtful, devout, yet wise young woman, either.
-- Allan Gould, Kolel: Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning, Toronto
About the Author
Maggie Anton was born Margaret Antonofsky in Los Angeles, California. Raised in a secular, socialist household, she reached adulthood with little knowledge of her Jewish religion. All that changed when David Parkhurst, who was to become her husband, entered her life, and they both discovered Judaism as adults. In the early 1990's, Anton began studying Talmud in a class for women taught by Rachel Adler, now a professor at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles.
She became intrigued with the idea that Rashi, one of the greatest Jewish scholars ever, had no sons, only three daughters. Slowly but surely, she began to research the family and the time in which they lived. Legend has it that Rashi's daughters were learned in a time when women were traditionally forbidden to study the sacred texts. These forgotten women seemed ripe for rediscovery, and the idea of a book about them was born.
Thus came about the award-winning trilogy, Rashi's Daughters, was born, to be followed by National Jewish Book Award finalist, Rav Hisda's Daughter: Apprentice and its sequel, Enchantress. Then she switched to nonfiction, winning the Gold Ben Franklin Award in the religion category for Fifty Shades of Talmud: What the First Rabbis Had to Say about You-Know What, a lighthearted in-depth tour of sexuality within the Talmud. Her latest work is The Choice: A Novel of Love, Faith and the Talmud, a fair-use transformative derivative of Chaim Potok's early novels.
Since 2005, Anton has lectured about the research behind her books at hundreds of venues throughout North America, Europe and Israel. She still studies women and Talmud, albeit mostly online. Her favorite Talmud learning sites are Daf Shevui and Mishna Yomit, provided daily via email by the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
