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"Web of Life is a brilliant study that makes an ancient text relevant to the modern reader. . . . Hasan-Rokem demonstrates not only a thorough scholarly knowledge of folklore and Jewish studies, but also a familiarity with current theoretical trends in literary analysis and interpretation."--Dan Ben-Amos, University of Pennsylvania
"Hasan-Rokem provides a deeply suggestive analysis of the poignant midrashic text, Lamentations Rabbah, employing and blending folkloristic techniques, structural analysis of mythologies, feminist theory, cultural criticism and other theoretical trends in literary analysis and interpretive techniques. . . . This is an engaging and enlightening book."--Religious Studies Review
About the author
Galit Hasan-Rokem is Max and Margarethe Grunwald Professor of Folklore at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her most recent publication is Untying the Knot: On Riddles and Other Enigmatic Modes (co-editor).
Summary
This work weaves its interpretation of Jewish culture in the Palestine of late antiquity on the warp of a singular rabbinic text "Lamentations Rabbah". The textual analyses that form the core of the book are informed by a range of theoretical paradigms rarely brought to bear on rabbinic literature.
Additional text
"Lamentations Rabbah presents Jewish society in its daily, but not mundane, actions. It is a literature of disaster, of personal and collective tragedy that leaves the reader pondering the meaning of life. The breadth of folklore enables Hasan-Rokem to explore these tales in a multifaceted analysis that situates them in the their textual, historical and comparative contexts and that transcends them all by presenting narratives and riddles as a search for meaning."
