Shulamit Shinnar
Dr. Shulamit Shinnar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at Florida State University. She holds a PhD in History from Columbia University (2019), a MA with distinction in Rabbinic Literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary (2011), and a BA in Philosophy from Columbia University (2009). She previously held postdoctoral fellowships at both Columbia University and McGill University.
Her research explores ancient Jewish history, with a focus on the production of rabbinic literature in Roman Palestine and Sassanian Babylonian. She engages with methodological questions from the history of science and medicine, medical anthropology, post-colonial theory, the study of gender and sexuality, and disability studies. She is currently working on a monograph examining Jewish medical culture in Late Antiquity, focusing on medicine as a site for social encounter and cultural exchange between different ethnic, religious, and gender identities. Other research projects include the representations of disability in biblical and rabbinic literature and theories of knowledge in late antique Jewish sources.
She has previously taught courses at both Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary and is the recipient of the Presidential Teaching Award, the highest teaching honor at Columbia University
https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/lecturers
Address: New York, New York, United States
Her research explores ancient Jewish history, with a focus on the production of rabbinic literature in Roman Palestine and Sassanian Babylonian. She engages with methodological questions from the history of science and medicine, medical anthropology, post-colonial theory, the study of gender and sexuality, and disability studies. She is currently working on a monograph examining Jewish medical culture in Late Antiquity, focusing on medicine as a site for social encounter and cultural exchange between different ethnic, religious, and gender identities. Other research projects include the representations of disability in biblical and rabbinic literature and theories of knowledge in late antique Jewish sources.
She has previously taught courses at both Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary and is the recipient of the Presidential Teaching Award, the highest teaching honor at Columbia University
https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/lecturers
Address: New York, New York, United States
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In this context, this paper examines Leviticus Rabbah’s discussion of the skin affliction of tsara‘at and the extensive reflection on the association between tsara‘at and sin, deviant sexual behavior, especially transgressive female sexuality, and non-Jews. Developing the Biblical connection between tsara‘at and sin, the rabbinic text details a physiological theory where transgressive behavior effects the internal balance of the body causing tsara‘at. Here, the transgressive behaviors of an individual are transcribed on the external surface of the body. Studying the imagined disgusting body stricken with tsara‘at in Leviticus Rabbah, offers insight into the body politics within rabbinic literature, defining the healthy “normate” body against the sinful, deviant, non-Jewish body marked by tsara‘at. As Deacon suggests, cultural beliefs surrounding skin afflictions such as tsara’at become a site for cultural reflections regarding communal norms and deviancy.
Prior to the fourth century, there were limited public healthcare institutions in the Roman Empire. Rather, medicine was characterized by a diverse range of practitioners including doctors, midwives, astrologers, priests, and purveyors of magical cures competing with one another in a medical marketplace. Sick persons depended on their family and their own financial means when seeking out and choosing from amongst the variety of treatment options. However, certain cities, especially in the eastern portion of the empire, did have a form of public healthcare. These cities offered tax exemptions to a limited number of doctors, known as archiatri – or civic doctors, who were approved by the city council. In exchange for the tax exemptions, the archiatri ensured local access to medical professionals, were viewed as a more trustworthy source of medical care, and, in certain cases, provided free medical services to those patients unable to afford payment.
In the fourth century, with the emergence of the new model of Christian charity, discussions of the impoverished and the sick became a focal point of Christian discourse and led to a different healthcare model. In contrast to the Greco-Roman healthcare model where the burden of healthcare payments fell on sick-individuals, Susan Holman has argued that Christian authors describe medical treatment as an entitlement of the impoverished and sick. Additionally, new forms of public healthcare institutions arose, including Basil of Caesarea’s so-called hospital.
In the context of these competing models of healthcare, this paper examines texts from the Palestinian Talmud mesechet Peah, Shabbat, and Abodah Zarah, exploring discussions within rabbinic literature about care for the sick. This paper argues that rabbinic literature reflects aspects of both these models. The general depiction of the healthcare system that emerges from rabbinic literature is the Greco-Roman model; in specific legal rulings, the responsibility to pay for healthcare falls on the sick person and their family. Furthermore, various statements demonstrate a particular support for the institution of the civic doctor. However, a series of stories in PT Peah reveals a discomfort that the poor do not always have access to medical treatment. In these stories the “sick” and the “poor” become overlapping and intertwined categories, echoing contemporary Christian discourses, and raising questions regarding rabbinic responsibility to care or to provide care for the sick. Through this study, this paper seeks to contribute to a broader understanding of medical culture, health, and healing in late antique rabbinic and early Christian sources.
In this context, this paper examines Leviticus Rabbah’s discussion of the skin affliction of tsara‘at and the extensive reflection on the association between tsara‘at and sin, deviant sexual behavior, especially transgressive female sexuality, and non-Jews. Developing the Biblical connection between tsara‘at and sin, the rabbinic text details a physiological theory where transgressive behavior effects the internal balance of the body causing tsara‘at. Here, the transgressive behaviors of an individual are transcribed on the external surface of the body. Studying the imagined disgusting body stricken with tsara‘at in Leviticus Rabbah, offers insight into the body politics within rabbinic literature, defining the healthy “normate” body against the sinful, deviant, non-Jewish body marked by tsara‘at. As Deacon suggests, cultural beliefs surrounding skin afflictions such as tsara’at become a site for cultural reflections regarding communal norms and deviancy.
Prior to the fourth century, there were limited public healthcare institutions in the Roman Empire. Rather, medicine was characterized by a diverse range of practitioners including doctors, midwives, astrologers, priests, and purveyors of magical cures competing with one another in a medical marketplace. Sick persons depended on their family and their own financial means when seeking out and choosing from amongst the variety of treatment options. However, certain cities, especially in the eastern portion of the empire, did have a form of public healthcare. These cities offered tax exemptions to a limited number of doctors, known as archiatri – or civic doctors, who were approved by the city council. In exchange for the tax exemptions, the archiatri ensured local access to medical professionals, were viewed as a more trustworthy source of medical care, and, in certain cases, provided free medical services to those patients unable to afford payment.
In the fourth century, with the emergence of the new model of Christian charity, discussions of the impoverished and the sick became a focal point of Christian discourse and led to a different healthcare model. In contrast to the Greco-Roman healthcare model where the burden of healthcare payments fell on sick-individuals, Susan Holman has argued that Christian authors describe medical treatment as an entitlement of the impoverished and sick. Additionally, new forms of public healthcare institutions arose, including Basil of Caesarea’s so-called hospital.
In the context of these competing models of healthcare, this paper examines texts from the Palestinian Talmud mesechet Peah, Shabbat, and Abodah Zarah, exploring discussions within rabbinic literature about care for the sick. This paper argues that rabbinic literature reflects aspects of both these models. The general depiction of the healthcare system that emerges from rabbinic literature is the Greco-Roman model; in specific legal rulings, the responsibility to pay for healthcare falls on the sick person and their family. Furthermore, various statements demonstrate a particular support for the institution of the civic doctor. However, a series of stories in PT Peah reveals a discomfort that the poor do not always have access to medical treatment. In these stories the “sick” and the “poor” become overlapping and intertwined categories, echoing contemporary Christian discourses, and raising questions regarding rabbinic responsibility to care or to provide care for the sick. Through this study, this paper seeks to contribute to a broader understanding of medical culture, health, and healing in late antique rabbinic and early Christian sources.
is instructed to cut open the tissue and examine its contents. The rabbinic texts provide methods for improving the accuracy of this examination including soaking the tissue and choosing the best lighting. In this paper I will focus on a series of Tannaitic and Palestinian Amoraic rabbinic texts from the tractate of Niddah that describe techniques for dissecting and examining parturient tissue. I will contextualize these techniques within the broader context of Greco-Roman medical traditions in late antiquity. Through my inquiry, I will examine rabbinic attitudes towards Greco-Roman medical traditions and medical professionals. Furthermore, I will consider the way in which these techniques preserved in Talmudic literature can expand our knowledge and inform our understanding of medical practices in the Greco-Roman world at large.
Additionally, this course aims to expose you to a variety of methods in reading rabbinic literature. For each thematic topic, there is also an associated focus on particular methodologies used in the study of Talmud, ranging from source-critical readings, comparative work with second temple and early Christian Jewish sources, medieval commentary traditions, ritual theory, and gender analysis. The ultimate goal of the course is to develop a general approach to reading rabbinic literature that is attentive both to methodology and to the rich and varied layers of meaning within the texts.
COURSE GOALS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES: The purpose of this course is to examine rabbinic personal injury law while also increasing our facility in analyzing Talmudic texts. The course aims to sharpen and develop reading skills for the Talmud, Rashi, Tosafot, and other selected medieval Talmudic commentators and legal codifiers. We will read the Talmud critically, being sensitive to the language, structure, terminology and methodology employed.