Synopses & Reviews
Review
Praise for
One Hundred Philistine Foreskins"A postmodern stew of pious rebellion." Publishers Weekly
"Out of Tova Reich's untamed imagination ferocious, searing, and always on the mark bursts Temima, a prophetess both majestic and vulnerable, her vision teeming with biblical champions, harlots, and sages, who ascends out of a mundane and hurtful Brooklyn to holy veneration in Jerusalem.
True to its startling title, One Hundred Philistine Foreskins is a feminist novel like no other tumultuous with pageantry and pregnancy, wisdom and farce, tenderness and fanaticism, wild faith and earthy folly. If Thomas Mann, with all his anthropological and scriptural vigor, had chosen, instead of Joseph the dreamer, a woman of similar powers and changes of fortune, he might have created Temima. In giving us a visionary Hebrew hero, Mann missed his chance at an oracular Hebrew heroine. But Tova Reich, herself a daring seer, has not." Cynthia Ozick
Synopsis
One Hundred Philistine Foreskins centers on the life of Temima Ba'alatOv, known also as Ima Temima, or Mother Temima, a charismatic woman rabbi of extraordinary spiritual power and learning, and an utterly original interpreter of the Hebrew Bible. Temima is revered as a guru with prophetic, even messianic powersone who dares to raise her womans naked” voice even in the face of extreme hostility by the traditional establishment. Moving between two worldsTemima as a child in Brooklyn and Temima as an adult in Jerusalemthe story reveals the forces that shaped her, including the early loss of her mother; her spiritual and intellectual awakening; her complex relationship with her father, a ritual slaughterer; her forced marriage; her ascent” to Israel; and her intense romantic involvements with charismatic men who launch her toward her destiny as a renowned woman leader in Israel.
True to Reichs voice as a satirist of humanity's darker inclinations, the story is rooted in contemporary times, revealing the extreme and ecstatic expressions of religion, as well as the power of religion and religious authorities to use and abuse the faithful, both spiritually and physically, with life-altering and crushing consequences. Cynthia Ozick said of Tova Reich that her verbal blade is amazingly, ingeniously, startlingly, all-consumingly, all-encompassingly, deservedly, and brilliantly savage.” This has never been more true than in One Hundred Philistine Foreskins, a work of literature sure to be hailed as an immensely authoritative and fearlessly bold tour-de-force.
About the Author
Tova Reich was born in New York and holds an M.A. in English literature. She has worked as an editor for several publishers and has taught literature and writing at a number of universities, but she is, and has always been, above all, a writer. She has traveled extensively, including many visits to Israel, living in the ultra-Orthodox quarter of the holy city of Jerusalem, as well as to India, living on the ghats in the holy city of Varanasi where Hindus are cremated. Her permanent home, though, is on the fringe of the unholy city of Washington, DC, where she lives with her husband, psychiatrist and author, Walter Reich. They have three grown children.