Reading the Talmud: Developing Independence in Gemara Learning

by Henry Abramson

The Jewish world has seen a phenomenal renaissance in Talmudic study in recent decades, yet many serious adult students continue to struggle at a basic level because they did not have the benefit of a traditional Jewish childhood education. Despite great levels of motivation and personal self-sacrifice, such students are forced to choose between reading English translations of the Talmud, or struggling to look every other word in an Aramaic-English dictionary. Reading The Talmud represents the first English-language textbook of Talmud, designed precisely for the contemporary ba’al teshuvah. Incorporating traditional Yeshivah-style learning techniques with modern methods of language study, this textbook is designed to make it possible for students “to make a breakthrough…which will lead them to self-sufficent competence” (Rabbi Mendel Weinbach, Rosh Yeshiva, Ohr Somayach).

Hardcover

First published December 4, 2006

About the author

Henry Abramson is a Dean of Touro's Lander Colleges, serving at the Avenue J campus in Brooklyn, New York. A native of northern Ontario, Canada, he earned his PhD in History from the University of Toronto and went on to hold post-doctoral fellowships and visiting appointments at Cornell, Harvard, Oxford and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research has been recognized with fellowships from the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and he has won numerous teaching awards, including the Excellence in the Academy Award from the National Education Association.