Abstract
RABBINIC LITERATURE is a cultural production in which social identities are negotiated and renegotiated. In part, this body of literature reflects the varying circumstances of its creation, spanning the period between the third and the sixth centuries and including texts from both Palestine and Babylonia. Whether viewed as an "arena in which society struggles for its identity" or as an "ethnographic practice," the rabbinic corpus does not present completely formed and finalized cultural identities. 1 Quite the opposite: rabbinic texts offer us a glimpse into the process of identity construction, and, by the same token, they reveal the precarious grounds on which distinct identities are imagined. [End Page 375]
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