Here's a quick update on my earlier post.
Who would have guessed that al-Kifl, site of Ezekiel's tomb and what was once the Babylonia Talmud academy of Sura, would have its own article in the New York Times just last month? I was on book tour and missed it. They have a nice map of the area, plus a slideshow and video. This is probably the closest I'll ever get to visiting Sura.
I try to post weekly, but I'm trying to spend every free moment writing, so as to make my deadline of 3 chapters and a synopsis by Thanksgiving. I'm up to 2700 words into Chapter 3 now, with synopsis, plus chapters 1 and 2, written so I think I can take a break for quick blog post.
My latest challenge has been to figure out where exactly my story takes place. Everyone agrees that Rashi lived in Troyes, France, which is still located exactly where it was in the 11th century. Anyone can visit the town and walk the exact streets that Rashi and his daughters walked on.
However, most Babylonian cities mentioned in the Talmud cannot be found on a modern map of Iraq [at least the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are the same]. Some can be matched with their Persian counterparts, such as Mechoza and Ctesiphon, the Persian capital, and thus their location ascertained to be the same as modern Baghdad. Others are so well described in the Talmud that scholars are fairly certain where they were; for example Nehardea was located on the Euphrates River, near its confluence with the King's Canal, near today's Fallujah.
Unfortunately for me, Kafri and Sura, the two Babylonia cities that feature in the first volume of RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER, seem to have little consensus at to their locations. I've seen 5 different maps of what purports to be Jewish settlements and rabbinic academies in Babylonia, none of which agree on where Kafri and Sura were located. Yet Sura was home to one of the four great Talmud schools, the other three being Pumbedita, Nehardea, and Mechoza.
Everyone agrees that Sura was north of Kafri and south of Nehardea, and that Sura and Kafri were less than 30 miles from each other. But some maps place Sura on the Euphrates proper and Kafri on one of its peripheral canals, while some show Kafri on the Euphrates and Sura on a canal. Others have both cities on canals rather than directly on the Euphrates. To confuse matters further, both the names and location of these various canals are even more uncertain, with some flowing southeast and some southwest from the main river.
I was almost ready to assign them arbitrary locations, for who could say I was wrong, when I read that the Talmud mentions that the ancient synagogue of Ezekiel the Prophet was located between Kafri and Sura. Apparently this synagogue was built next to Ezekiel's tomb and it contained a Torah scroll written by Ezekiel himself. A place of Jewish pilgrimage for a thousand years, visited in 1170 by Benjamin of Tudela, who describes its location on the Euphrates River.
A quick google search for Ezekiel's synagogue in Iraq turned up a fascinating website that not only has photos of Ezekiel's Synagogue, at least of a synagogue built on the ancient site, but shows its exact location in present day al-Kifl. Better yet, the town's Jewish inhabitants, most of whom now live in Israel, say that the great Talmud academy of Sura was once located there.
So who cares what Talmud scholars say? The Jews of al-Kifl, Iraq, whose families have probably lived there for over 2000 years, know where Sura was. And I believe them.
Just learned about a recent conference in Jerusalem about The Persian Talmud. To quote from the article, "The gathering, together with the publication of a volume titled The Talmud in its Iranian Context, underscores one of the most exciting developments in Jewish scholarship: the effort to put the 'Babylonia' back into the Babylonian Talmud." This new field of study is fascinating, particularly in light of the tremendous amount of research into Jewish life in Roman Palestine compared with the dearth of interest in Jewish life in Sasanian Persia. Yet it is the Bavli that informs Judaism today, not the Yerushalmi.
I am excited to be researching this exact subject for my next historical novel, and to know that so many Jewish and Iranian scholars are as well. I am particularly proud that quite a few of these scholars have responded to my emails and been helpful as I flesh out what Jewish life, especially the lives of women, was like in 3rd-4th century Babylonia. Thanks to Yaacov Elman, Richard Kalmin, Geoffrey Herman, Shai Secunda - all mentioned in this article.
That's enough for this blog post; I want you to read the article more than what I have to say about it.
November is National Novel Writing Month , as well as Jewish Book Month. I can't say I'm celebrating either one, but I am finally 'writing' my next novel. Last night I finished the first draft of Chapter One, and a draft synopsis the week before that. Writing a synopsis is an alien task for me, it being over fifteen years since my last [and first] one, which I wrote as an enticement for literary agents to ask for the whole manuscript of RASHI'S DAUGHTERS: BOOK I - JOHEVED. Penguin bought the second and third volumes on the basis on the first one's success, so I never needed to write synopses for them.
However, my contract gives them an option on any future novels, which they can accept or reject on the basis of a synopsis and the first three chapters. Since I intend for my agent to submit them to Penguin by Thanksgiving, I am inadvertently observing National Novel Writing Month. Oddly, what I'm writing now is completely different from my usual procedure. Novels are supposed to "show, don't tell," but a synopsis is the complete opposite. No description, cut those adjectives and adverbs, just say what happens - ideally in five to seven pages.
Meanwhile, my previous process for writing was to prepare an outline and then write a first draft of the entire novel in chronological order. That is, I start with Chapter One and end with "the end." But my first draft, which I never show anyone, is solely for the purpose of getting the story down. Minimal description, dialogue is "she said" rather than whispered, shouted, etc. and some scenes don't even have a location. I force myself to keep writing; don't stop to find the right word, the best phrasing. Don't even think about consulting a thesaurus. Just finish the story. Don't waste time on detailed scenes that might end up cut once I see the final product.
But I can't write like that now. These first three chapters have to shine, have to make Penguin think RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER will be a huge bestseller. And so I labor to conjure up the perfect words. Words that paint the exact verbal picture I want my readers to see, words that make them share my heroine's feelings, and most important, the words that will make them keep reading all the way to "the end."