# Jane Kanarek, "Beyond Brutality: Reclaiming Female Presence in Bavli Sotah" (Brandeis UP, 2025)

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-religion-42803/jane-kanarek-beyond-brutality-reclaiming-female-presence-in-bavli-sotah-brandeis-up-2025
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-religion-42803/jane-kanarek-beyond-brutality-reclaiming-female-presence-in-bavli-sotah-brandeis-up-2025.md
Podcast: [New Books in Religion](https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-religion-42803)
Published: 2026-06-06T08:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK2547575341.mp3
Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK2547575341.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-religion-42803/episodes/jane-kanarek-beyond-brutality-reclaiming-female-presence-in-bavli-sotah-brandeis-up-2025
Duration seconds: 3808

## Resource

Beyond Brutality: Reclaiming Female Presence in Bavli Sotah (Brandeis University Press, 2025) draws on feminist analysis and gender studies to examine tractate Sotah of the Babylonian Talmud as a literary unit. By interrogating how, why, and where women are invisible within Bavli Sotah, Jane Kanarek brings to light a ubiquitous female presence throughout the text. Despite the brutality of the sotah ritual—in which the woman accused of adultery is put through a divine ordeal intended to reveal her innocence or her guilt—this book demonstrates that Bavli Sotah is not primarily concerned with describing the sotah ritual or establishing male control over women. Instead, Bavli Sotah becomes a pedagogical text in which the sotah is secondary to moral and sinning men. As the sotah herself fades into the background, the sotah ritual nevertheless overflows its boundaries and weaves its way through a range of other topics within the tractate. In the process, Bavli Sotah teaches its audience who transmits and how one transmits rabbinic culture. Dr. Rabbi Jane Kanarek is Professor of Rabbinics at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, Newton, MA. Dr. Rabbi Rachel Adelman, Professor of Bible at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College, Newton, MA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-religion-42803/episodes/jane-kanarek-beyond-brutality-reclaiming-female-presence-in-bavli-sotah-brandeis-up-2025/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-religion-42803/jane-kanarek-beyond-brutality-reclaiming-female-presence-in-bavli-sotah-brandeis-up-2025.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.