I need a favor from those of you with children in your family [or not] to write a review of "Rashi’s Daughter: Secret Scholar." The Amazon website for my YA novel has only two reviews and they're both pretty lame. One, in fact, is from an adult who bought the book by mistake, thinking it was Book III in the adult trilogy. Not many kids write reviews on Amazon on their own, so I need to drum up some volunteers. But since young readers probably don't have their own Amazon account, they need to do it with an adult who does. Here’s the link.
As a reward, and for Hanukah fun, here’s a link to a couple of cute websites. First, the animated menorah where you click on each candle to hear its part, or the shamash to hear them all together.
I also recommend YouTube’s Oy Holy Night. Besides the soprano’s lovely voice, I agree with the humorous and perhaps subtle message – there’s nothing you can do about your gay children, except love them, but if you’re unhappy with their non-Jewish partners, examine your own deeds. And have a Happy Hanukah.
After last week’s entry, I got several emails asking when exactly when the ‘modern’ tallit was invented. As far as I can tell, nobody knows exactly when tzitzit stopped being attached to normal garments [typically a square mantle/cloak worn over one's indoor clothes] and the special prayer shawl came into use. It appears both men and women regularly attached that tzitzit to their cloaks in Talmudic times, but this custom fell out of general use in the Diaspora.
According to "Jewish Life in the Middle Ages: Illuminated Hebrew Manuscripts" by Therese and Mendel Metzger [Chartwell, 1982] – a beautiful book by the way - tzitzit were not generally worn until the 13th century. The earliest depiction of a man reciting prayers in synagogue wearing a tallit appears in Italy at the end of the 13th century. Ashkenaz illustrations of early 14th century show the service leader wearing one, but not members of the congregation. In Spain, we see the same situation in the second half of the 14th century. Only in the 15th century do we see representations of synagogues where everyone has a tallit, including one from Italy where women appear to be wearing them as well.
A reader emailed me about the various portraits of Rashi in circulation, and asked if any of them were accurate. Of course, nobody painted Rashi’s portrait in the 11th century, or anyone else’s for that matter. But it appears that the earliest one they could find for Wikipedia is from the 16th century, and the others are perhaps from the 19th century at the earliest. Frankly, I have no idea who drew the image on my website which is probably the most popular. The only portrait whose origin is certain is the modern version created for the French stamp issued in honor of Rashi’s 900th yartzeit.
But none of these reflect Rashi as I imagine him – young, tanned and buff from outdoor work in the vineyard, certainly not wearing a tallit [not invented yet] or a long white beard [medieval Frenchmen, Jews and non-Jews alike, all had short beards]. And definitely with a twinkle in his eye.
I am finally home after all my travels. I still haven’t heard back from my editor at Plume, but my freelance editor reported back with five pages of additional changes for RACHEL, most of them minor. Despite all the people checking this book, each new reading finds more typos that the others missed. I’ve written drafts for the Afterword [what’s real and what’s not, where to find the Talmud discussions] and Epilogue [what happened to Rashi’s family and French Jews after Book III ends]. But I still need to come up with a Prologue, Epigraph, Timeline, and Family Tree, plus find a nice map of medieval Europe. I also have to decide whom RACHEL will be dedicated to and which Talmud passage will go on the front cover. The art department at Plume is busy trying to discover the right woman for the cover, and I can’t wait to see what painting they choose.
