A01=Nathaniel Deutsch
Author_Nathaniel Deutsch
biography
Category=DNBH
Category=JBSR
Category=NHD
Category=QRJ
charismatic leader
community
conversion
diaspora
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
europe
feminism
gender
gender roles
gender studies
hasidic
hasidism
historical women
holy women
immigration
jewish
jewish feminism
jewish history
jewish mysticism
jewish women
judaica
judaism
kabbalah
ludmir
maiden
maiden of ludmir
marriage
martyr
migration
modernity
mysticism
nonfiction
ottoman empire
palestine
prophecy
rebbe
religion
religious leaders
religious women
russia
sexuality
visions
women and religion
womens issues
yiddishkeit
Product details
- ISBN 9780520231917
- Weight: 635g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 06 Oct 2003
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Hannah Rochel Verbermacher, a Hasidic holy woman known as the Maiden of Ludmir, was born in early-nineteenth-century Russia and became famous as the only woman in the three-hundred-year history of Hasidism to function as a rebbe - or charismatic leader - in her own right. Nathaniel Deutsch follows the traces left by the Maiden in both history and legend to fully explore her fascinating story for the first time. "The Maiden of Ludmir" offers powerful insights into the Jewish mystical tradition, into the Maiden's place within it, and into the remarkable Jewish community of Ludmir. Her biography ultimately becomes a provocative meditation on the complex relationships between history and memory, Judaism and modernity. History first finds the Maiden in the eastern European town of Ludmir, venerated by her followers as a master of the Kabbalah, teacher, and visionary, and accused by her detractors of being possessed by a dybbuk, or evil spirit. Deutsch traces the Maiden's steps from Ludmir to Ottoman Palestine, where she eventually immigrated and re-established herself as a holy woman.
While the Maiden's story - including her adamant refusal to marry - recalls the lives of holy women in other traditions, it also brings to light the largely unwritten history of early-modern Jewish women. To this day, her transgressive behavior, a challenge to traditional Jewish views of gender and sexuality, continues to inspire debate and, sometimes, censorship within the Jewish community.
Nathaniel Deutsch is Professor of Literature and History at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of Guardians of the Gate: Angelic Vice Regency in Late Antiquity (1999) and The Gnostic Imagination: Gnosticism, Mandaeism, and Merkabah Mysticism (1995), and the coeditor with Y. Chireau, of Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with Judaism (2000).
