Monday, September 23, 2013

"The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant

I loved this book. It offers a new and much more personal perspective on the Biblical story of Jacob, Joseph and his brothers, and - most importantly - their sister Dinah, who gets only a passing mention in the Bible. If you are familiar with the book of Genesis, you cannot help but have a reaction to this novel. The portraits of Joseph and Jacob might totally shock you to the point that you won't be able to recognize the familiar Biblical stories. But what the novel really does brilliantly is examine the fate of Biblical women. The red tent is the place where women went during their menstrual period, illness or when giving birth, in order to stay separate during the time when they were unclean. This is the story about the women of Jacob's family: their love, struggles, pain and survival. I highly recommend this book. It showed me the familiar Bible stories in a completely new light and made Biblical characters very real.

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