Available From UC Press

Trans Talmud places eunuchs and androgynes at the center of rabbinic literature and asks what we can learn from them about Judaism and the project of transgender history. Rather than treating these figures as anomalies to be justified or explained away, Max K. Strassfeld argues that they profoundly shaped ideas about law, as the rabbis constructed intricate taxonomies of gender across dozens of texts to understand an array of cultural tensions. Showing how rabbis employed eunuchs and androgynes to define proper forms of masculinity, Strassfeld emphasizes the unique potential of these figures to not only establish the boundary of law but exceed and transform it. Trans Talmud challenges how we understand gender in Judaism and demonstrates that acknowledging nonbinary gender prompts a reassessment of Jewish literature and law.

 

“Refreshingly self-reflective, this project represents an entirely new way of writing rabbinics scholarship. One of the first texts I’ve read in years that stands to be a genuine ‘field-shaking’ book.”—Rachel Rafael Neis, Jean and Samuel Frankel Associate Professor of Rabbinics, University of Michigan, and author of The Sense of Sight in Rabbinic Culture: Jewish Ways of Seeing in Late Antiquity
 
“This book is a thrilling achievement, sure to be a touchstone for years and likely decades to come. Max Strassfeld makes an immense contribution to the study of rabbinic texts, the ancient world, and gender, sexual, and embodied variability, so much so that a rather wide range of audiences will benefit tremendously from this theoretically informed yet engagingly indispensable book.”—Joseph Marchal, Professor of Religious Studies, Ball State University, and author of Appalling Bodies: Queer Figures Before and After Paul’s Letters