Women’s Initiative for Jewish Studies (WIJS) at Young Israel of New Rochelle is proud to present Gila Fine on Sunday, December 7, 2025 @ 10:00 am (ET) on Zoom. Fine will be the third speaker of the 2025-2026 season in the monthly scholarly programming offered by WIJS at YINR.
In her lecture, Fine will discuss her book, The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic: Rereading the Women of the Talmud, an exploration of the six named heroines of the Talmud. She will specifically address compelling questions such as ‘How does the Talmud portray its heroines? Why are they never as they first seem? And what does this tell us about the rabbis’ views of marriage, sex, childbirth, and what it means to be a woman in the world?’
Gila Fine is an award-winning author and lecturer of rabbinic literature, exploring the tales of the Talmud through philosophy, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and pop-culture. Her book, The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic: Rereading the Women of the Talmud, won the 74th National Jewish Book Award and the 2024 Rabbi Sacks Book Prize. Gila serves on the faculties of Shalem College, the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, the Tikvah Scholars Program, the Nachshon Project, and Amudim Seminary, and has taught thousands of students at conferences and communities across the Jewish world. She is the recipient of the Maimonides Award for Excellence in Jewish Education.
As editor in chief of Maggid Books, Fine worked closely with such leading scholars as Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz z”l and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l, publishing over a hundred titles of contemporary Jewish thought, including several bestsellers and National Jewish Book Award winners. She is also the former editor of Azure: Ideas for the Jewish Nation. Gila’s work has been featured in the BBC, Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, The Jerusalem Report, Tradition, Jewish News, and The Jewish Chronicle (which selected her as one of the ten most influential Brits in Israel). Haaretz has called her “a young woman on her way to becoming one of the more outstanding Jewish thinkers of the next generation.”
All WIJS programming is open to women and men. Please visit https://www.yinr.org/wijs.html to view the complete WIJS 2025-26 schedule. For more information, to be added to the WIJS email list, or for Zoom information, please call 914-636-2215 or email: wijs@yinr.org. Individuals on the WIJS mailing list will automatically receive the Zoom information.
