Women’s Initiative for Jewish Studies (WIJS) at Young Israel of New Rochelle is proud to present Dr. Sarah Wolf on Wednesday, February 7 at 8:15 p.m. (ET) on Zoom. Wolf will be the sixth speaker of the 2023-2024 season in the monthly scholarly programming offered by WIJS at YINR.

The lecture is entitled “Between Her and Others: Jealousy and Gender in Ancient Jewish Law.” In her lecture Wolf will explore how, just as there are certain gender-based presumptions regarding emotionality in today’s society, such as “women are more sensitive than men” and “men are more likely to have anger issues,” Jews in antiquity had their own ideas about the relationship between gender and emotion. The discussion will trace the development of laws about suspected adultery from the Bible through the Babylonian Talmud. Changing beliefs about jealousy contributed to shaping the way these laws have been interpreted over time; this lecture will further consider how powerfully current ideas about gender and emotion shape our cultural world today.

Wolf is assistant professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary and a Fellow of the Kogod Research Center at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. Her research focuses on the legal and textual culture of rabbinic Judaism, and her current book project examines the construction of emotions as legal categories in rabbinic literature. Wolf received her PhD from Northwestern University and her BA in literature from Yale University.

All WIJS programming is open to women and men. Please visit www.yinr.org/wijs.html to view the complete 2023-24 schedule. For more information, to be added to the WIJS email list, or for Zoom information, please call 914-636-2215 or email: [email protected]. Individuals on the WIJS mailing list will automatically receive the Zoom information.