ABOUT THIS BOOK

Jews, women, and animals have been notoriously considered in Western thought as antithetical to the “civilized,” and therefore parallel. The trope of the womanized Jewish man has been widely recognized as a staple in otherizing portrayals of European Jews, as well as their self-perception. Similarly, ecofeminist critique has addressed the ubiquitous depiction of the animalized woman throughout history. Yet, the interconnection between the effeminization of Jews and the animalization of women has been overlooked.

The Jew, the Beauty, and the Beast critically explores the tangled interplay between Jewishness, gender, and animality and its manifestation in modernist Hebrew fiction. Through interdiscursive analysis and close readings, the effeminate Jew is examined vis-à-vis the animalized woman. Intertwining cutting-edge theoretical frameworks of posthumanism and animal studies with established scholarship of Hebrew literature, Jewish studies, and gender studies, Naama Harel offers new Hebrew literary historiography and innovative perspectives on canonical works by Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Devorah Baron, Micha Yosef Berdichevsky, Yosef Haim Brenner, Uri Nissan Gnessin, and David Vogel.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

NAAMA HAREL is the director of the Hebrew Program at Columbia University and the cochair of Columbia University Seminar on Human-Animal Studies. She is the author of Kafka’s Zoopoetics: Beyond the Human-Animal Barrier.

REVIEWS

"A comprehensive examination of the triangular relationship between Jewishness, gender, and animality in modernist Hebrew fiction. . . . From biblical and midrashic texts to the modernist works themselves, her careful attention to textual detail builds the foundation for the book's broader interpretive claims."

— Bulletin of Higher Hebrew Education

"Harel's copiously researched and erudite book deftly examines the interrelation of Jewishness and animality in Modernist Hebrew literature. What emerges from her weaving together of ancient Judaic sources and contemporary gender and human-animal studies is a wonderfully syncretic and innovative analysis that elegantly, and importantly, fills a gap in this scholarship."— Russell Samolsky, associate professor in the Department of English, University of California, Santa Barbara

"For anyone who has wondered why it's always men tending meat on the grill, Harel provides an answer. Animals—in the slaughterhouse, on the table, in the house, and on the streets—define gender roles in modernist Hebrew literature. Riding a thrilling new wave of animal studies, Harel brilliantly reveals the hidden links among Jews, genders, and animals."— Beth A. Berkowitz, author of Animals and Animality in the Babylonian Talmud

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Introduction: Animalized Women, Effeminate Jews

Part I Transgressing Predator-Prey Dynamics

1 Of Non-Predators and Men: The Talush'sCarnal and Carnivorous Abstinence

2 Of Predators and Women: The Fatal Maneater

3 Of Cocks and Men: The Gever between Virility and Vulnerability

Part II The Shared Oppression of Women and Animals in Devorah Baron's Work

4 Of Dogs and Women: Devorah Baron's Feminist Canine Tales

5 Of Cows and Women: Devorah Baron's Bovinized Heroines

Conclusion

Acknowledgments
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Introduction: Animalized Women,
Effeminate Jews 1
Part I Transgressing Predator-Prey
Dynamics
1 Of Nonpredators and Men: The Talush’s Carnal and
Carnivorous Abstinence 13
2 Of Predators and Women:
The Fatal Man-Eater
35
3 Of Cocks and Men: The Gever between Virility and
Vulnerability 56
Part II The Shared Oppression of Women
and Animals
in Devorah Baron’s Work
4 Of Dogs and Women:
Devorah Baron’s Feminist
Canine Tales 77
5 Of Cows and Women:
Devorah Baron’s Bovinized
Heroines 98
Conclusion 117
Acknowledgments
121
Notes 123
Works Cited 139
Index 000