Contact the author at author@rashisdaughters.com
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About
the Author
Maggie Anton
was born Margaret Antonofsky in Los Angeles, California. Raised
in a secular, socialist household, she reached adulthood with
little knowledge of her Jewish religion. All that changed when
David Parkhurst, who was to become her husband, entered her life,
and they both discovered Judaism as adults. That was the start
of a lifetime of Jewish education, synagogue involvement, and
ritual observance. In 2006, Anton retired from being a clinical
chemist in Kaiser Permanente's Biochemical Genetics Laboratory
to become a fulltime writer.
In
the early 1990's, Anton learned about a women's Talmud class
taught by Rachel Adler, now a professor at Hebrew Union College
in Los Angeles. Nearly every Wednesday for five years, she and
about six other women met around Rachel's dining room table
to study Tractate Berachot. Now Anton continues her studies
individually with Rabbi Aaron Katz Ph.D., Professor of Rabbinics
at the Academy of Jewish Religion (CA branch).
In
1997, as her children Emily and Ari left the house and her mother
was declining with Alzheimer's Disease, Anton sought new interests.
She became intrigued with the idea that Rashi, one of the greatest
Jewish scholars ever, had no sons, only three daughters. Slowly
but surely, she began to research the family and the time in
which they lived. Much was written about Rashi, but almost nothing
of the daughters, except their names and the names of their
husbands. Legend has it that Rashi's daughters were learned
in a time when women were traditionally forbidden to study the
sacred texts. These forgotten women seemed ripe for rediscovery,
and the idea of a book about them was born.
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