then are a continual source of encouragement and inspiration. I thank her for
her generosity and constant support.
Outside Israel, I have been blessed with supporting teachers and colleagues,
and I owe a great deal to them as well. My greatest thanks goes to David Rud-
erman, who invited me to the University of Pennsylvania and generously pro-
vided ideal conditions for research and teaching both at the Center for Ad-
vanced Judaic Studies and on campus. His enthusiastic interest in and support
of this project helped make its completion possible. The Alice Paul Center for
Women and Gender Studies at the University of Pennsylvania provided me
with a room of my own during the second year of my stay in Philadelphia, and
I thank Dana Barron, Demi Kurz, and Luz Marin for their generous hospital-
ity and friendship during this period. The two years I spent in the United States
allowed meetings with colleagues at a variety of institutions. Presentations of
part of this book at Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, and the University
of Pennsylvania during 2000/2001 allowed me to reexamine my ideas and re-
vise my thinking. Discussions with Caroline Bynum, E. Ann Matter, and
Haym Soloveitchik during the time spent in the United States and afterward
contributed to this book. A special thanks goes to Ivan Marcus whose advice
and criticism have been a tremendous help and from whom I have learned
much.
My fellow graduate students in Jerusalem and elsewhere have been critical
readers as well as faithful partners for ongoing discussion in and out of the Ju-
daica Reading Room. I thank Adam Shear, Aviad Hacohen, Daniella Talmon-
Heller, Dena Ordan, Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, Jennifer Harris, Kimmy Cap-
lan and Richelle Budd Caplan, Nils Roemer, Oren Falk, Rami Reiner, Roni
Weinstein, Sharon Koren, Yehuda Galinsky, Yochi Fisher-Yinon, and espe-
cially Ze’ev Elkin and Rachel Greenblatt for their help. My students at the He-
brew University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Bar Ilan University have
criticized my ideas and argued with me, helping me understand what it was I
wanted to say, and I have learned much from them. Nevertheless, all mistakes
remain mine alone.
A special thanks to Brigitta van Rheinberg at Princeton University Press for
her enthusiasm and support of this project, and to the editors of this series. I
also wish to thank Deborah Tegarden and Alison Kalett, the production edi-
tors, for their infinite patience and for their continuous help through out the
period of our work together. The readers for the Press offered helpful and
thought-provoking comments on the manuscript and I thank them for their
criticism and suggestions. I also wish to acknowledge Jackie Feldman, a scholar
in his own right, who improved the manuscript and helped smooth the transi-
tion of my work from Hebrew into English. Chapter 2 of this book appears in
a condensed form in the collection: Elizabeth Mark, (ed.). The Covenant of
Circumcision: New Perspectives on an Ancient Jewish Ritual, 2003. Brandeis
University Press; reprinted by permission, University Press of New England.
xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS