Professor Emerita Rabbi Tamara Cohn Eskenazi Delivers Presidential Address to Society of Biblical Literature

Rabbi Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, Ph.D., ’13, the Effie Wise Ochs Professor Emerita of Biblical Literature and History at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, received a standing ovation when she delivered this year’s Presidential Address at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Diego on November 23. Eskenazi is currently serving as President of the SBL, the oldest and largest society of biblical scholars, with more than 8,500 members around the world.

In her address, Eskenazi highlighted “reasons why the Bible should be part of our public conversations about the futures of our communities.” She suggested ways that SBL members can contribute to those conversations and touched on issues of ethics and interpretation.

The Bible – in particular the Hebrew Bible on which her work is focused – is “fundamentally a political book,” said Eskenazi, who noted that she was using the term “politics” in the “classic Aristotelian sense – namely, the art of learning to live together… the organizing of communal life for the benefit of the citizens as a whole.”

Democracy “depends on a free public exchange and exploration of competing ideas, and the Bible bears directly on democracy because it is multi-vocal and enshrines diverse perspectives,” Eskenazi continued. “Although none of us may wish to live in Aristotle’s Athens – as a woman, I surely don’t – or in biblical Israel, nevertheless, understanding how the Bible has successfully sustained communities, enabling them to endure for millennia, is particularly significant now.”

Since the Bible is “the most influential book in history,” Eskenazi said, “it is already in the public square. Our scholarship is not – or not yet. If we don’t bring it to the conversation, who will?”

Eskenazi’s message to her fellow SBL members was that their engagement with the Bible must be guided by a “hermeneutic of chesed in scholarship,” which she defined as “extending generosity to a text that can no longer defend itself against misuses.”

In her address, she cited examples from the Book of Ruth, which she said is infused with “royal politics, economic politics, sexual politics, religious politics,” and more. “Like a well-cut diamond, each of its many facets sheds brilliant light on the issues. One of them is: ‘How do you build a community into which you want to bring a child?’ The answer in Ruth is chesed. With this book, the Bible claims that chesed can be a revolutionary power,” she said.

Eskenazi called on her fellow SBL members to apply that power “to how we treat each other in the Guild. We can be demonstrably part of the public good by respecting each other in our differences and modeling how to engage with curiosity and empathy when dealing with what is contentious, be it Bible or other pressing issues.”

Eskenazi addressed the assembled members of the SBL as the first woman from Hebrew Union College to serve as the organization’s president, and the fifth member of the faculty overall to hold the position, following Julian Morgenstern (1941), Sheldon Blank (1952), Samuel Sandmel (1961), and Harry Orlinsky (1970).

Eskenazi was also a first at Hebrew Union College, where she became the first woman hired as a full-time tenure track faculty member at the rabbinical school in 1990, and the first female tenured full professor there in 1995. Her research has focused on the biblical texts and the Persian period (539-333 BCE), with a particular emphasis on Ezra-Nehemiah. Her early book on that subject, In an Age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra-Nehemiah (1988) proved to be a watershed in scholarship in the area. Her other works include Ezra: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries, 2023), JPS Bible Commentary: Ruth, which won the National Jewish Book Council Award for Women Studies (2012), and The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, edited with Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss, Ph.D., which won the prestigious “Book of the Year Award” of the National Jewish Book Council (2008).

Weiss, the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost and Associate Professor of Bible, who was a student in Eskenazi’s first class at HUC-JIR and later served as her associate editor on The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, reflected, “What a pleasure to listen with pride and admiration as my beloved teacher and colleague shared her timely torah with the members of the Society of Biblical Literature. She embodies the ‘hermeneutic of chutzpa’ and the ‘hermeneutic of chesed’ that she spoke about so powerfully in her important and inspiring address.”

Eskenazi called it a great honor to address her peers from SBL, an “intellectual home” whose leaders she says have long been “committed to gender inclusion,” welcoming her scholarship on women in the Bible from the very beginning. “I was fortunate that I was able to walk through open doors. I didn’t have to crash a ceiling to get into where I needed to go.”

One of those places Eskenazi needed to go was Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. “I remember walking into the building for the first time and knowing, I’ve come home,” she recalled. “A home for my Jewish self, my intellectual self, my Israeli self, and for my commitment to social justice. Things cohered for me as a person, emotionally, religiously, intellectually, and structurally.”

Eskenazi said that a core value for her, and a core message, can be found in the song by Rabbi Menachem Creditor, “Olam Chesed Yibaneh” – “A world of Chesed Will Be Built.” As an Israeli American, she said, she hopes “that this message of chesed will find ways to shape the world in our troubled time.” For her, “being at HUC-JIR has been an important part of working toward that goal.”