On Carnal Israel and the Consequences: Talmudic Studies since Foucault

Abstract

Ten years AGO, Naomi Seidman published a rather provocative re view essay about a number of works that had appeared in early nine ties and that were all devoted to Jewish body in one form or another, albeit in most cases male Jewish body.1 The essay, Carnal Knowl edge: Sex and Body in Jewish Studies,2 opened by observing that newly forming field ? consisting of five books at that point in time3 ? reflected a larger trend in humanities and social sciences, attributed by Seidman (and many others) to enormous influence of Michel Foucault 's work, especially on U.S. academic scene ? to which we may add influence of feminist movement of 1970s and 1980s and ensuing interest in gender studies. Concern with body had reasserted itself in humanities, in a turn against Western intel lectual tradition and its mind/body problem, according to which, as Peter Brooks put it, the body is other of soul or mind, and its place in life, while highly important, is not same as that of self.4 As has so