"An intelligent study an interesting and bold attempt to contextualize banality within an intellectual space that had engaged Socrates in a quest for arguments and their reverse." --Bryn Mawr Classical Review "A committed, contemporary reading of a distinct subset of rabbinic dialogue.Jenny Labendz's firstling presents us with many intriguing perspectives.Through successive close readings of a small set of texts, she manages to open up a remarkable room for discussion." --Marginalia "Labendz' argument is fascinating- it echoes the endeavors of advocates of Jewish universalism, eager to defend the cosmopolitan essence of Jewish culture. With this work, Labendz certainly points to new directions in framing otherness through the ages, in a Jewish key." --Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Culture "Jenny Labendz does a marvelous job of illuminating narratives of dialogues between ancient rabbinic sages and their Greco-Roman counterparts. Of particular reward are her explorations of the relation of these dialogues to those centered on Socrates in the writings of Plato, uncovering thereby the epistemological foundations of these dialogues and their pedagogic function.

She provides precious insights into early rabbinic Judaism's view of non-Jews and non-Rabbis as participants in the production, communication, and consumption of 'rabbinic knowledge.'"--Steven D. Fraade, Mark Taper Professor of the History of Judaism, Yale University "Jenny Labendz examines a fascinating sub-genre of rabbinic literature, in which a rabbi and a non-Jew enter into a dialogue, what she calls Socratic Torah. The rabbi appeals to the experience of the non-Jew in responding to his questions, then teaches him some truth about God, Israel, or scripture. According to much prior scholarship, these stories are rife with rabbinic anxiety about non-Jewish political, cultural, and religious dominance. Labendz shows how Socratic Torah reveals a rabbinic movement confident in its truths and traditions and curious about others. Labendz's reading of these texts is careful and subtle, and her comparison between rabbinics and Socratic dialogue creative and engaging. Her approach enables her to see the long-ignored productive and cooperative dimensions of the dialogues between rabbis and non-Jews.

"--Beth Berkowitz, author of Defining Jewish Difference: From Antiquity to the Present "Socratic Torah provides a fresh and provocative rethinking of some commonly held views of the rabbinic eschewing of the hegemonic Greco-Roman culture. By highlighting a number of rabbinic dialogues with non-Jews, dialogues that share in the strategies of the Socratic elenchus, Jenny Labendz argues for a more textured view of the relationship of the rabbis to 'alien wisdom.'"--Marc Hirshman, Mandel Professor of Jewish Education, The Melton Centre of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.