The Woman Who Laughed at God

The Untold History of the Jewish People

Series Compass

Save

Add to Goodreads

Who is a Jew? In this colorful, eye-opening work, bestselling author and lecturer Jonathan Kirsch takes us on a three-thousand-year tour of Jewish identity and diversity and offers answers to this complex and difficult question. Kirsch reveals that Judaism has never been a religion of strict and narrow orthodoxy. For every accepted tradition in Jewish faith there are countertraditions rooted in biblical antiquity: the Maccabee freedom fighters who closed the Bible and picked up swords, dervish-like ecstatics who claimed to enjoy direct communication with God even after they had been excommunicated by a distrustful rabbinate, and courageous men and women who were the forgotten heroes of the Holocaust. With drama and narrative verve, Kirsch explores these and many other "Judaisms"…

$10.99

October 29, 2002

Select a Retailer:

Jonathan Kirsch is a book columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed books Moses: A Life and The Harlot by the Side of the Road. He writes and lectures widely on biblical, literary, and legal topics. Kirsch is a member of the National Book Critics Circle, and was the president of PEN Center USA West and a former correspondent for Newsweek. He lives in Los Angeles.