Tamara Cohn Eskenazi is professor of Bible at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. She is the first woman appointed as professor to the rabbinical faculty in HUC-JIR’s long history. Earlier she had been on the faculty of the University of Denver, directed the Institute of Interfaith Studies, and co-founded the Jewish Women Resource Center in Denver.

 

Eskenazi is the chief editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, the winner of the 2008 Jewish Book of the Year Award presented by the Jewish Book Council. She has served on the executive committee of the Society of Biblical Literature, and her numerous published articles include: In an Age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra-Nehemiah (1988) and Second Temple Studies 2: Temple and Community in the Persian Period (1994). An expert in postexilic history and literature and in the Bible, Dr. Eskenazi has presented papers national and international at scholarly conferences.

 

Tikva Frymer-Kensky z"l was a professor of Hebrew Bible and the History of Judaism at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Her areas of specialization included Assyriology and Sumerology, biblical studies, Jewish studies, and women and religion. She was the author of Reading the Women of the Bible (which received a Koret Jewish Book Award in 2002 and a National Jewish Book Award in 2003), In the Wake of the Goddesses, and Motherprayer.