On the Goodreads Historical Fiction group, I recently saw a post asking how to deal with ascertaining the truth when various sources have different birth and death dates for historical characters. I wrote back that I've had the same problem with characters in Rav Hisda's Daughter, which is almost completely based on Talmudic sources, written by men for men over a period of several hundred years.
However once I started doing the math, I realized that the men who came up with biographies of the Talmudic sages never considered the fact that women in days before modern medicine don't give birth before age 12 or [Biblical matriarchs aside] after 45, or that men generally don't marry women many years their senior [although the reverse is common]. For example, Rav Hisda is said to have married at age 16, which meant his bride was around 14. They had nine children, which pretty much accounted for his wife’s entire childbearing years. If Rav Hisda was born in 310 CE, as many of these Talmudic biographies state, then his wife’s final child could not be born later than 260 CE. Yet Rava, who marries my heroine, is said to have been born ca 270 CE. Even if she was Hisda’s youngest child, surely she did not marry a man 10 or more years younger than her. So I "adjusted" Hisda’s birthday 20 years later, and that was one of several birthdays I had to recalculate to account for this kind of thing.
They don't call it "his-story" for nothing.
I just received my copy of Spring 2013 JOFA Journal, JOFA short for Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, of which I am a life member. While I don’t consider myself an Orthodox Jew, I greatly admire the women who are committed to promoting female scholarship, facilitating dialogue about issues of women and Orthodoxy, and advancing women’s participation in Orthodox communal life. I support these things as well, and I am well aware many serious female Talmud students/scholars come from the Orthodox world. So I was thrilled to see a very nice review of my new novel there, and I can’t resist sharing a few excerpts.
“I was enthralled by Maggie Anton’s Rav Hisda’s Daughter from the start. Here, finally, were the Amoraim in their study halls, at their Seders, stomping on dates to make date wine, and spending time with their families. The world first glimpsed in As a Driven Leaf did not end with the closing of the Mishna. Anton deftly weaves a novel full of characters in whom the reader finds herself invested, even those who are less likeable. The scope of time and geography is breathtaking.
Anton does particularly well at introducing us to the many tensions present throughout the Jewish Babylonian and Palestinian societies … Anton excels at the creativity inherent in historical fiction, and, as with her novels about “Rashi’s Daughters,” no one should mistake it for a sober or authoritative scholarly tome with academic apparatus—although a useful map, timeline, cast of characters, and glossary are included … a mesmerizing tale.
You can read the entire review online; just scroll to the almost last page to find it.
Hallelujah! I’m home from my Big Fat East Coast Book Tour. It was a great success and took me to places I doubt I’d ever visit otherwise, like Montgomery and Birmingham Alabama. While in New York City, I got a chance to be interviewed on The Jewish Channel for their “Week in Review.” The interview can be seen on this week’s show [May 10] on their website. In addition, you can watch the entire interview On Demand on your local cable station that carries The Jewish Channel. If you want to see me on this YouTube video, move the cursor to the 11.00 minute mark.
Those of you following my travels can understand why I haven’t been posting much recently. Right now I’m taking advantage of the excellent wifi and comfortable work-table seating on the Amtrak Acela express train as I head from Philadelphia to Baltimore to the second of two WLCJ regional conferences today: mid-Atlantic this morning and Seaboard this afternoon. Then tomorrow I have to fly [boo-hoo] to my next two events in Alabama [Montgomery and Birmingham].
In an extremely rare day when I had nothing scheduled I found myself in Philadelphia where an incredible exhibit was nearing its end at the Penn Museum of Archealogy, which I could easily reach by a local train from where I was staying. If you’ve read, or seen the cover of, “Rav Hisda’s Daughter, you know I’m intrigued by all the ancient mosaics found in the land of Israel, especially those of the Roman period. Imagine my delight to learn that one of the finest ever discovered was on display in the very city I was visiting.
Here’s what the Penn website has to say: More than 300 square feet and nearly 2,000 years old, this ancient Roman floor mosaic is one of the world’s largest and best preserved. Discovered in 1996 in Lod, Israel (near Tel Aviv), the "Lod Mosaic" is often characterized as an archaeological gem. Learn about the mosaic's discovery, history and conservation in this limited time exhibition. See this unique masterpiece in its final United States venue before it travels to the Louvre in Paris and eventually becomes the permanent focus of the Shelby White and Leon Levy Lod Mosaic Center in Israel. For more info, including a picture, check out this link.