Current Issue: Volume 16, Number 1 (2025) Dirshuni: Seeking Feminist Textual Reasoning

Introduction

This issue of the Journal of Textual Reasoning celebrates the 2022 publication of Dirshuni: Contemporary Women’s Midrash. This book is an adaptation of a two-volume set published in Israel, known as דרשוני: מדרשי נשים. Compiled by Tamar Biala and Nehama Weingarten-Mintz, these volumes feature an extensive collection of midrashim authored by women that draw on the style and language of classical midrash. The English publication of Dirshuni features a selection of fifty midrashim from the Hebrew volumes that have been translated by Yehuda Mirsky. Dirshuni goes beyond translation, however, by introducing a layer of commentary authored by Biala and translated by Ilana Kurshan. This commentary expands the deeply sedimented layers of meaning—so characteristic of classical midrash—that comprise these women’s midrashim, providing context, unpacking some of the hermeneutic moves of the midrashists, and articulating aspects of their hiddushim (innovative contributions). In its translation and commentary, Dirshuni makes the rich and creative texts of women midrashists accessible to an anglophone audience. Its publication marks an opening of possibilities—for religious and academic study alike. We at the Journal of Textual Reasoning are incredibly excited to present the following journal issue in which scholars of different disciplines reflect on the value and contributions of the Dirshuni project as a whole.

Essays

Book Review