Ruth Calderon’s A BRIDE FOR ONE NIGHT is a fascinating exploration of some of the liveliest and most colorful stories in the Talmud. Calderon rewrites Talmudic legends as richly-imagined fictions, drawing us into the lives of such characters as the woman who risks her life for a sister suspected of adultery; a humble schoolteacher who rescues his village from drought; and the wife who dresses as a prostitute to seduce her pious husband in their garden. Breathing new life into an ancient text, A BRIDE FOR ONE NIGHT offers a surprising and provocative read, both for anyone already intimate with the Talmud and to anyone interested in one of the most canonical works of Jewish literature.

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Rights Sold to:

Argentina: Editorial Leviatan; Israel: Keter Publishing; USA: JPS and University of Nebraska Press

​Reviews:

“A Bride for One Night is a treasure, and made me even more eager to study Talmud.” – Edgar Bronfman

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“Calderon's retelling of tales of the Talmud will be healing for all those who have felt pushed to the Talmud's margins, and exciting for those who have loved the Talmud's gift for a good story.” – Rabbi Jill Hammer, author of Sisters at Sinai and The Jewish Book of Days

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“Ruth Calderon may very well be the future of Israel. And, if it be so, she will take along the Torah on her historic journey. The same Torah that God gave to ‘all’ Jews. For such is her message.” – Rabbi Steven Kushner

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“JPS is committed to bringing important works of Jewish thought published in Hebrew to the English-reading world. We are delighted to be doing so for Ruth Calderon as she reads the Talmud ‘barefoot’ and brings its sages to life in a bold new way.” – Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz, JPS Director

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“]A[ literary-personal-philosophical-political project, reclaiming texts that had been kept semi-secret and finding within those texts personalities, voices and themes that are fully three-dimensional, and often heterodox.”

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“Calderon’s exegeses, often of talmudic tales that seem opaque and mystifying at first, open the door to this hidden world. They reveal talmudic voices deeply troubled by talmudic values, critical of authority, aware of the subjugation of women and often at odds with what we suppose to be the dominant thrust of the Talmud itself.”

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...“exceptional renderings of difficult texts that manage to simplify without simplification.”

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“A Bride for One Night’… does not condescend to the reader, does not paper over the difficult aspects of this ancient society and does not pull punches. What it does do is invite one into two worlds: that of the Talmudic sages and, perhaps more important, that of Calderon’s own beit midrash, or study hall, where small miracles are happening every day.” – Jay Michaelson, The Forward