Sing, O Barren One: Reproduction in Jewish Texts and Magic in the Ancient World

Name: Sing, O Barren One: Reproduction in Jewish Texts and Magic in the Ancient World
Start: 2025-01-12T10:30:00-05:00
Location: 253 Prospect St, Northampton, MA, United States, Massachusetts 01060

Schedule

Sun, 12 Jan, 2025 at 10:30 am

UTC-05:00

Location

253 Prospect St, Northampton, MA, United States, Massachusetts 01060 | Northampton, MA

This presentation will explore what the Jewish tradition teaches us about how birthing people in antiquity navigated questions of fertility, pregnancy, and birth.
We will examine not only written texts from the Torah and rabbinic literature, but evidence of magical traditions such as amulets and incantation bowls. This conversation will help us gain a deeper understanding of how Jews in antiquity understood larger issues such as bodies and health, reproduction, community, and identity, and what we can learn from them today.
Sari Fein is a birth doula and a scholar of women and gender in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish antiquity. She teaches in the Jewish Studies program at Smith College.
Sari recently published the article “A ‘Queer’ Mother of Nations: Reproductive Futurism and the Maccabean Mother of Seven” (Journal of Ancient Judaism, 2024). Sari lives in Northampton and is a part of the CBI community along with her partner, two children, three cats, and six chickens.