Books by Sara Ronis
Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Sara Ronis
Good Omens and the Bible, 2024
I would be happy to share a pdf of this piece. Please email me at sronis at stmarytx dot edu to r... more I would be happy to share a pdf of this piece. Please email me at sronis at stmarytx dot edu to request it.
JAAR, 2023
I would be happy to share a pdf of this piece. Please email me at sronis at stmarytx dot edu to r... more I would be happy to share a pdf of this piece. Please email me at sronis at stmarytx dot edu to request it.
Modern discussions of abortion in Jewish thought often invoke the Talmudic phrase “ubar yerekh imo,” the fetus is the thigh of its mother. This article examines the ten instances in which the phrase first appears in the Babylonian Talmud. I demonstrate that the rabbis of Late Antique Sasanian Babylonia deploy the phrase in two specific contexts: discussions of the sanctification, criminalization, or sale of non-human animal fetuses, and discussions of the sale and manumission of the fetuses of enslaved people. Drawing on insights from animal studies and studies of slavery, I argue that this phrase illuminates how the rabbis think with the fetus to value some lives over others in a world reliant on the exploitation of enslaved humans and animals, and compare this approach with that of the Roman jurist Ulpian. Ultimately, I shed light on ancient rabbinic anthropologies of the human body and the body politic.
Berit—Diatheke—Foedus—Covenant—Bund (Mohr Siebeck), 2023
I would be happy to share a pdf of this piece. Please email me at sronis at stmarytx dot edu to ... more I would be happy to share a pdf of this piece. Please email me at sronis at stmarytx dot edu to request it.
Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History, 2021
This article examines one trope of cross-cultural interaction in the Babylonian Talmud-stories of... more This article examines one trope of cross-cultural interaction in the Babylonian Talmud-stories of the rabbis' encounters with Arab Others-as an entrée into understanding rabbinic strategies of fashioning the self and the Other. In order to understand these stories and their place in the rabbinic imagination, this article first discusses a number of rich talmudic narratives that feature the Arab Other. It then lays out an interpretive framework built on postcolonial critical scholarship focused on the film trope of "the Magical Negro" to explore how this framework sheds light on these stories. I argue that the rabbis' construction of the Arab Other has important parallels to this modern cinematic trope that shed new light on rabbinic discursive choices. Finally, this article contextualizes the rabbis' discursive strategy within the broader world of Late Antique Babylonia, comparing the rabbinic depiction of the Arab to contemporaneous Christian depictions of this Other. It demonstrates that both Christian hagiographers and rabbinic Jews stereotype and instrumentalize Arabs, but they do so in very different ways. The rabbis are not alone in using other minorities as a foil to understand themselves, but their approach-as part of a broader understanding of Judaism's relationship to the world-is, in some ways, very modern. The rabbis' striking depiction of the Arab Other as a wise and magical guide centers the rabbis within their own narratives and constructs an imagined rabbinic hegemony in their cosmopolitan world. G lobalization is not an invention of the modern world. The rabbis of Late Antique Babylonia lived in a cosmopolitan world at the nexus of the Roman and Sasanian empires. These two empires were constantly in conflict while they also shared important texts, ideas, and peoples across borders. Their geographical
Journal of Jewish Identities, 2021
Wabash Center Journal on Teaching, 2020
A Companion to Jews and Judaism in the Late Antique World, 3rd Century BCE – 7th Century CE, edited by Naomi Koltun-Fromm and Gwynn Kessler (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell)., 2020
Association of Jewish Studies Review, 2019
This article examines a narrative about a seven-headed demon in Bavli Kiddushin 29b as an entry p... more This article examines a narrative about a seven-headed demon in Bavli Kiddushin 29b as an entry point into a much broader conversation about the Talmud's demonology. I first lay out the interpretive challenges of the story, then argue that B. Kiddushin's demonic discourse has more in common with ancient Near Eastern demonologies that it does with contemporaneous Zoroastrian materials. Two particular aspects of the rabbinic depiction of the demon in B. Kiddushin align with Mesopotamian characterizations of demons: (1) the physical description of the demon as a seven-headed serpent, and (2) his demonic nature. At the same time, the way that the rabbis describe the mode of the demon's defeat strongly parallels contemporaneous Syriac Christian modes of exorcism. This article demonstrates that the talmudic story exists at the intersection of more ancient and contemporary concerns and typifies rabbinic selectivity in adopting and adapting available discourses about demons. To conclude, I discuss some of the broader implications of this observation for our study of the Babylonian Talmud in its Sasanian cultural context.
The Aggada of the Babylonian Talmud and its Cultural World, edited by Geoffrey Herman and Jeffrey Rubenstein, 2018
Harvard Theological Review, 2017
The late antique world was filled with demons. These demons were constantly present and always at... more The late antique world was filled with demons. These demons were constantly present and always at the ready to attack unsuspecting humans. Like almost everyone else in late antiquity, the rabbis of Sasanian Babylonia were aware of demonic threats and took steps to protect themselves and their communities from harm. But while demons were a danger, they were also an opportunity for creativity, identity formation, and community building for the rabbis. In fact, some Babylonian rabbis "thought with" demons in order to organize their environment and imbue their world with larger spatial meanings.
Forthcoming by Sara Ronis
Medicine in Bible and Talmud, edited by Lennart Lehmhaus and Markham J. Geller (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming).
Book Reviews by Sara Ronis
RBL, 2022
The Babylonian Talmud is a notoriously complex text. This holistic, and in many ways, totalizing ... more The Babylonian Talmud is a notoriously complex text. This holistic, and in many ways, totalizing text compiled over the course of late antiquity, in multiple languages, with both named and anonymous contributors, has a steep barrier to entry, even before we take into account its religious and cultural significance, both in our own time, and over the course of the last fifteen hundred years. David Kraemer's A History of the Talmud is a very readable introduction to how some Jewish studies scholars make sense of this complex late antique text.
Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, 2018
Kathleen Gabriel's Creating the Path to Success in the Classroom is a clear, engaging, and practi... more Kathleen Gabriel's Creating the Path to Success in the Classroom is a clear, engaging, and practical book that will be of use to anyone teaching in a university or community-college classroom. In his forward to the book, Stephen Caroll praises Gabriel's "deep integration of theory and practice" (xiii). This integration is one of the book's major strengths. Gabriel introduces the reader to scholarship on barriers to student learning, student mindsets, and effective pedagogy. Extensively referenced and cited, Gabriel's book is thus a primer on classic and more recent scholarship of teaching and learning. After describing this scholarship, Gabriel then offers practical suggestions of classroom strategies designed to engage students effectively given the data. These range from one-time strategies-reading a particular article on growth mindsets as a class, doing an active-learning activity-to strategies that unfold over the course of an entire semester. Gabriel offers concrete scripts for welcoming students and setting a classroom tone, giving student feedback that encourages persistence and growth, creating and shuffling small groups, and much more. Gabriel not only suggests what to do and why, but also encourages faculty to make those reasons explicit to students, making students intentional partners in their own learning. Gabriel explores strategies for creating a positive classroom climate during the first days of class, engaging students during the first month of the semester, growth mindsets and mental toughness, creating interactive lectures, motivating students to read, think about, and discuss
Public Scholarship: Posts on Late Antique Judaism by Sara Ronis
The Jewish Book Council, 2023
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Books by Sara Ronis
Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Sara Ronis
Modern discussions of abortion in Jewish thought often invoke the Talmudic phrase “ubar yerekh imo,” the fetus is the thigh of its mother. This article examines the ten instances in which the phrase first appears in the Babylonian Talmud. I demonstrate that the rabbis of Late Antique Sasanian Babylonia deploy the phrase in two specific contexts: discussions of the sanctification, criminalization, or sale of non-human animal fetuses, and discussions of the sale and manumission of the fetuses of enslaved people. Drawing on insights from animal studies and studies of slavery, I argue that this phrase illuminates how the rabbis think with the fetus to value some lives over others in a world reliant on the exploitation of enslaved humans and animals, and compare this approach with that of the Roman jurist Ulpian. Ultimately, I shed light on ancient rabbinic anthropologies of the human body and the body politic.
Forthcoming by Sara Ronis
Book Reviews by Sara Ronis
Public Scholarship: Posts on Late Antique Judaism by Sara Ronis
Modern discussions of abortion in Jewish thought often invoke the Talmudic phrase “ubar yerekh imo,” the fetus is the thigh of its mother. This article examines the ten instances in which the phrase first appears in the Babylonian Talmud. I demonstrate that the rabbis of Late Antique Sasanian Babylonia deploy the phrase in two specific contexts: discussions of the sanctification, criminalization, or sale of non-human animal fetuses, and discussions of the sale and manumission of the fetuses of enslaved people. Drawing on insights from animal studies and studies of slavery, I argue that this phrase illuminates how the rabbis think with the fetus to value some lives over others in a world reliant on the exploitation of enslaved humans and animals, and compare this approach with that of the Roman jurist Ulpian. Ultimately, I shed light on ancient rabbinic anthropologies of the human body and the body politic.