Between the Market Square and the Study House: On Rabbinic Literature and Folk Literature
A series of meetings on Rabbinic literature and folk literature, November 15–19, 2026, at Beit Avi Chai in Jerusalem. Led by Dr. Gila Wakman.
Rabbinic literature was created, for the most part, by Torah scholars and for them, but they did not act in a vacuum or sit in an isolated ivory tower. In the sessions in this series, we will examine the connection between the world of study and the beit midrash and the outside world and the popular traditions that circulated within it. We will ask to what extent popular literature influenced midrashic creation and how the sages of the Talmud and Midrash reshaped popular stories. We will explore a selection of popular genres, such as biographical legends and fables, and read a variety of rabbinic sources—the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, Genesis Rabbah and Leviticus Rabbah, and Avot de-Rabbi Natan—that express the complex relationship between these two worlds.
Dr. Gila Vachman is a lecturer in Midrash and Aggadah at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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