Torah Queeries: Not Your Zayde/Bubbe’s Parshat Hashavua
Diane Klein
In 2009, NYU Press published Torah Queeries, a groundbreaking set of essays on parshiyot hashavua (the sections of the Torah read each week) and Jewish holidays authored by gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and otherwise self-described “queer Jews.” In this course, we will read some of these essays side by side with more “traditional” interpretations of the same texts, and familiarize ourselves with the various methodologies employed by queer interpreters of Torah. Are these queer approaches equally or even more appealing and persuasive than some traditional interpretations? Or is this politically-motivated “eisegesis,” as some critics charge – “reading in” what the reader hopes to find, rather than “exegesis,” reading out what is “actually there”? The course will culminate, at the end of the week, with all class members writing (and presenting, if desired) a queer drash on a few verses, an episode, or a character from the Torah.
Diane Klein is a lawyer and law professor living in Berkeley, California, working in San Francisco and participating sporadically in Congregation Sha’ar Zahav. Some of her legal scholarship focuses on gender and queer theory, and she thinks of herself as a 'queer heterosexual.'
Categories
- Contemporary Issues
- Intermediate Text
- Morning Course
