Beth A Berkowitz
Biographic Data
| ID | 1459657 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Beth A Berkowitz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Beth A |
| FAMILY NAME | Berkowitz |
| SIGNATURE | BERKOWITZ B A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Barnard College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3961-4259 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven
Udders, Queer Nests, and Animal Family Trees
How might kinship help us think about animals in the Bible, and, conversely, how can the Bible help us think about animal kinship? I propose that the concept of kinship can help us take next steps in Animal Studies in the Bible. After defining kinship and reviewing work on human-animal studies, I turn to animal-animal kinship, the “mutuality of being” that animals share not with humans but with each other. I focus on the four “animal family” laws…
Birds as Dads, Babysitters, and Hats
The commandment to send the mother bird from her nest before taking her eggs or chicks, known in Jewish tradition as shiluach hakan , is found in Deuteronomy 22:6–7. This essay addresses dominant perspectives on the mother bird mitzvah—its association with good luck, bad luck, and compassion—before showcasing rabbinic texts from Mishnah and Babylonian Talmud Hullin Chapter 12 that evince interest in birds as ingenious builders, as fathers and not…
Animals and Animality in the Babylonian Talmud
Animals and Animality in the Babylonian Talmud selects key themes in animal studies - animal intelligence, morality, sexuality, suffering, danger, personhood - and explores their development in the Babylonian Talmud. Beth A. Berkowitz demonstrates that distinctive features of the Talmud - the new literary genre, the convergence of Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian cultures, the Talmud's remove from Temple-centered biblical Israel - led to unprec…
A Short History of the People Israel from the Patriarchs to the Messiah
Defining Jewish Difference
Reclaiming Halakhah
Bialik may have protested in “halakhah and aggadah” that aggadah had become too dominant in his day, but for countless generations it was halakhah that possessed greater gravitas, thanks to the geonim and their successors. Bialik was onto something, however, since even he succumbed to the power of aggadah—his most popular work was Sefer Ha-Aggadah. In the contemporary academy, aggadah continues to flourish. The encounter between midrash and liter…
Allegory and Ambiguity
Philo's construction of collective identities-Jewish, Egyptian, Greek, Roman-has garnered interest recently among scholars, giving him a place in contemporary conversations about Jewish minority identity within the Roman Empire. Some scholars point to an obstacle to such study of Philo, however, and that is the exegetical framework of much of Philo's work. While some scholars have emphasised Philo's exegetical orientation, much work remains to be…
"The Limits of "Their Laws
Neutralization is a productive way to think about how some early rabbis attempted to build and to bound Jewish identity. A neutralization strategy of the kind Moshe Halbertal has associated with Mishnah Avodah Zarah can be found in a passage from the Sifra (a third-century rabbinic legal compilation) that interprets Leviticus 18:3's injunction against following "their laws." The logic of neutralization for the Sifra is that legal significance is …
Decapitation and the discourse of antisyncretism in the Babylonian Talmud
Journal Article Decapitation and the discourse of antisyncretism in the Babylonian Talmud Get access BA Berkowitz BA Berkowitz Postdoctoral Fellow, Judaic Studies Program, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8287, USA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 70, Issue 4, December 2002, Pages 743–770, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaar/70.4.743 Published: 01 December 20…
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Decapitation and the discourse of antisyncretism in the Babylonian Talmud
Journal Article Decapitation and the discourse of antisyncretism in the Babylonian Talmud Get access BA Berkowitz BA Berkowitz Postdoctoral Fellow, Judaic Studies Program, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8287, USA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 70, Issue 4, December 2002, Pages 743–770, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaar/70.4.743 Published: 01 December 20…
"The Limits of "Their Laws
Neutralization is a productive way to think about how some early rabbis attempted to build and to bound Jewish identity. A neutralization strategy of the kind Moshe Halbertal has associated with Mishnah Avodah Zarah can be found in a passage from the Sifra (a third-century rabbinic legal compilation) that interprets Leviticus 18:3's injunction against following "their laws." The logic of neutralization for the Sifra is that legal significance is …
Allegory and Ambiguity
Philo's construction of collective identities-Jewish, Egyptian, Greek, Roman-has garnered interest recently among scholars, giving him a place in contemporary conversations about Jewish minority identity within the Roman Empire. Some scholars point to an obstacle to such study of Philo, however, and that is the exegetical framework of much of Philo's work. While some scholars have emphasised Philo's exegetical orientation, much work remains to be…
Reclaiming Halakhah
Bialik may have protested in “halakhah and aggadah” that aggadah had become too dominant in his day, but for countless generations it was halakhah that possessed greater gravitas, thanks to the geonim and their successors. Bialik was onto something, however, since even he succumbed to the power of aggadah—his most popular work was Sefer Ha-Aggadah. In the contemporary academy, aggadah continues to flourish. The encounter between midrash and liter…
A Short History of the People Israel from the Patriarchs to the Messiah
Defining Jewish Difference
Animals and Animality in the Babylonian Talmud
Animals and Animality in the Babylonian Talmud selects key themes in animal studies - animal intelligence, morality, sexuality, suffering, danger, personhood - and explores their development in the Babylonian Talmud. Beth A. Berkowitz demonstrates that distinctive features of the Talmud - the new literary genre, the convergence of Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian cultures, the Talmud's remove from Temple-centered biblical Israel - led to unprec…
Birds as Dads, Babysitters, and Hats
The commandment to send the mother bird from her nest before taking her eggs or chicks, known in Jewish tradition as shiluach hakan , is found in Deuteronomy 22:6–7. This essay addresses dominant perspectives on the mother bird mitzvah—its association with good luck, bad luck, and compassion—before showcasing rabbinic texts from Mishnah and Babylonian Talmud Hullin Chapter 12 that evince interest in birds as ingenious builders, as fathers and not…
Udders, Queer Nests, and Animal Family Trees
How might kinship help us think about animals in the Bible, and, conversely, how can the Bible help us think about animal kinship? I propose that the concept of kinship can help us take next steps in Animal Studies in the Bible. After defining kinship and reviewing work on human-animal studies, I turn to animal-animal kinship, the “mutuality of being” that animals share not with humans but with each other. I focus on the four “animal family” laws…
When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven
History (8 works) · Judaism (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Theology (8 works) · Biblical Studies and Interpretation (7 works) · Archaeology and Historical Studies (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · Art (5 works) · Literature (5 works) · Sociology (5 works)