Book Parties!

Behind Ancient Bars takes its first steps into the world!

Behind Ancient Bars officially came out on May 12, and I’ve been getting heaps of emails from folks who received the book and started reading it. It’s always a strange delight to see one’s book separate from oneself, making its way throughout the world to various hands—some who know me and some who don’t.

So far we’ve had two book release parties in two Jewish spaces where I spend much of my time: at the San Francisco Campus for Jewish Living, where I did my chaplaincy graining and where I’m subbing for Rabbi Gray Myrseth for the next few months, and at Congregation Shir Ami, where I’ve held a rabbinic internship since September. Both conversations were thought provoking and heartwarming. People are really engaging with the argument that incarceration is not unique to modernity—and that the governmental problems associated with people locking each other up are perennial, as is the potential of the human spirit to soar above the prison cell and hope for redemption.

I’m very excited about the potential that Behind Ancient Bars join an intrepid collection of books and articles from the last few years, in the areas of ancient history and archaeology, which highlight ancient carcerality through material and documentary evidence. One of my dreams is to gather all the people writing in this field across geography and genre and host a workshop.

I’m also atwitter about the prospect of using the stories in the book as the basis for Torah study in various Jewish spaces—synagogues, JCCs, Hillels, schools, Jewish Studies departments and programs—and bridging the gap between academic, university-press materials and public learning. I have a few synagogue stops already on my book tour list and hope to add more (hit me up if you’d like me to visit your space/congregation).

At our congregational book party, a lovely congregant asked me a personal question about the experience of writing this book as opposed to previous works. This is my fifth book and fourth monograph, and each book has been its own journey, but a few things made this experience different—the premature and shocking death of my father, with whom I started my Jewish learning journey as a little girl, and shortly afterwards, the horrors of the October 7 massacre and the ensuing war (which also had life-changing effects on my professional and social world). It’s been a rough time and a complicated decision to go into it, albeit briefly, in the preface to the book. It feels public, more public than I’ve ever been with my personal experiences, and even though I obviously wrote those things, and they are obviously true, I still felt quite tender when I saw the preface featured in the free sections of the book you can access on Amazon and on the UC Press website. I don’t like indulging in misery and marinating in grievances, and have worked very hard to reinvent and refresh my spiritual, social, and intellectual life in the last few years. A friend noted that Behind Ancient Bars is a lighter read than Fester. Maybe it is, because the incarcerations we discuss in the new book are from millennia ago—but the personal process was no less profound, and the truth is that it is sometimes hard to get out of bed in the morning, which I know is true for many, many Jewish friends. It takes active energy to counter the feelings of despair with hope and enthusiasm, and the hardship has taken a toll (including on my physical health and wellness). But waking up to prayer in the morning, and to our daily Talmud page, is a great salve, and one can hardly avoid brimming with wacky enthusiasm when reading the twists and turns, arguments across difference, and hilarious hypotheticals on each page of the Talmud—even (perhaps especially) when the content is archaic and odd.

I hope that our learning together gives you, too, hope, purpose, and a dry chuckle once in a while! And if you’d like Behind Ancient Bars to come to your shul, do let me know and we will make it happen.