Queering the Text: Biblical, Medieval, and Modern Jewish Stories

Front Cover
Lethe Press, 2010 - Religion - 254 pages
"Andrew Ramer's new book, Queering the Text: Biblical, Medieval, and Modern Jewish Stories , grapples with traditional midrashim, plays with homoerotic love poems from medieval Spain, and envisions alternate versions of the present. Inspired by the pioneering work of Jewish feminists, using the same narrative tools as the rabbis of old, Ramer has crafted stories that anchor LGBT lives in the three thousand year old history of the Jewish people. "The universe is made up of stories, not atoms," wrote poet Muriel Ruckeyser. The stories in this book will transport you to a new universe - the one we are striving to create, right here and now"--Page 4 of cover.
 

Selected pages

Contents

Let There Be Life ב
4
The Seeker ג
6
The Makers of Beauty ד
8
The Messenger ה
10
The Cave of Pleasure ו
14
On Bended Knee ז
18
Healing Hands ח
22
The Tent of Miriam ט
26
Before Arvit
96
The Vizier
100
In the Marketplace
106
The Hidden Mirror
110
Before there was Law
116
My Forsaken Garden
118
The Christian
120
The Commandments
124

And They Made Sacred י
30
The Academy of Women כ
34
Tossed by Wind ל
36
An Altar in the Sand מ
40
The Wooden Box נ
44
The Holy One ס
46
The Chariot of Flames ע
50
The Secret of the Text פ
52
In the Vineyard of Dreams צ
56
From a Shelf on the 613th Floor ק
60
In the Heart of the Heart of the Palace ר
64
The World to Come ש
68
The Messiahs Study ת
70
A l A n d a l u s TALES OF AN IMAGINARY SPAIN
72
Remembering Spain
74
Reading Shemot
78
In Granada
82
The Rabbi and the Court Physician
86
Erev Shabbat
92
Twice a Heretic
128
Toledo in Winter
134
The Tutor
136
The Dreamer and the Dream
140
The Street of Butchers
144
While Praying
148
The Rabbis Dilemma
152
In the Domed Hall
156
Before the Expulsion
162
A v o d a h DIVINE SERVICE
170
Shacharit Light in the Tree
172
Musaf Pink Izzy
188
Mincha Gazing out of a Window
204
Maariv The Return of the Hebrew Bedouin
220
A f t e r wo r d RABBI CAMILLE SHIRA ANGELand RABBI DEV NOILY
240
Acknowledgments
248
A Note from the Text Designer
252
About the Author
256
Copyright

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