"Defining Jewish Difference is a scholarly and intellectual tour de force. Beth Berkowitz is one of the most insightful and meticulous scholars of rabbinic literature of the younger generation. She is fully engaged with a number of current conversations in the humanities, particularly with respect to the formation and making of collective identities. With great acuity Berkowitz zeroes in on the biblical verse perhaps most central to this issue in the history of Jewish law and culture, and its exegetical history. She tells a fascinating story of the making of Jewish distinctiveness, and thereby adds an important new angle to the broader discussion about Jewish identity. The book is so persuasive and the argument so masterfully developed that one is simply left wondering why this case has not been made before. All this is done with such elegance of writing that without a doubt this book will find a wide, interdisciplinary readership it deserves." -Charlotte E.

Fonrobert, Stanford University.