Publisher's Synopsis
Tractate Gittin of the Mishnah (the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions, known as the 'Oral Torah') is located in the section of the Mishnah called the Order of Women. It discusses divorce proceedings. Chapters 4 and 5 of the Tractate address a specific topic - "the improvement of the world" - and list a number of rules (most of them devoted to women and gender issues) which were enacted so as to improve a certain undesirable condition. This volume provides a feminist commentary on these gender-relevant mishnaic texts, and on the commentary of the Babylonian Talmud on them. The Babylonian commentary includes an extended literary unit that describes and comments on the conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple. Anat Israeli and Tal Ilan address the gendered issues that arise from this literary unit and raise the question of women's place (and victimhood) in the male economy of war.
