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Book jacket art: Israeli artist Andi Arnovitz's "Coat of the Agunot" (2010), a composition of hundreds of shredded marriage certificates. Image: Dr. Noa Shashar
May 14, 2025
12:30 pm EDT | Online
Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series
Cosponsored by The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry at Brandeis University
The Marital Knot, Agunot in the Ashkenazi Realm, 1648-1850 tells the family stories of men and women who lived hundreds of years ago. Focusing on agunot, literally “chained women,” who were often considered a marginal group, it sheds light on Jewish family life in the early modern era and on the activity of poskim, rabbis who gave Jewish legal rulings related to agunot.
Dr. Noa Shashar earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Jewish History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an M.A. in Jewish and Gender Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Shashar is a lecturer at the Sapir Academic College and the author of several volumes including Not on Bread Alone: The Krell Murachovski Family Histories.
The Marital Knot is a Brandeis University Press publication in the Brandeis Series on Gender, Culture, Religion, and Law, created under the auspices of HBI in conjunction with its Project on Gender, Culture, Religion, and the Law, and The Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry.
The Marital Knot is available from the Brandeis University Press, Amazon, Bookshop, and your local bookseller.