Melisa writes:

<< This reminds me of a wonderful book that I just read, and forgive
 me for not knowing the author off hand.... the book is called The Red Tent.
 It's about the family of Jacob in the Bible.  It's religious fiction but a
 very interesting insight into how it *could* have been.  It's written by a
 wonderful Jewish author.  >>


Indeed.  Her name is Anita Diamant.   It's really about (fictionalized)
women's cultures in the middle east -- levant and egypt -- with its plot
based partly on the midrash.    It assumes, though, that the women are
polytheistic and only the men monotheistic (the monotheists are kind of the
bad guys, oppressive to women etc) so caveat emptor from the religious
perspective --

Elisheva

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