AUTHORS INTERVIEWING CHARACTERS: Maggie Anton Interviews Hannah Covey Eisin

Award-winning author Maggie Anton (Rashi’s Daughters) has a new novel out this May.  THE CHOICE: A Novel of Love, Faith and The Talmud, (Banot Press Trade Paperback Original; May 17, 2022; $16.99) is a wonderful combination of historical fiction, romance and the most intimate subjects in Jewish law and learning.

When Hannah Eisen, a successful journalist, interviews Rabbi Nathan Mandel, a controversial Talmud professor, she persuades him to teach her the mysteries of the text forbidden to women—even though it might cost him his job if discovered. Secret meetings and lively discussions bring the two to the edge of a line that neither dares to cross, as their relationships with each other and Judaism are tested.

Maggie Anton Interviews Hannah Covey Eisin

INTERVIEWER: Miss Eisin, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you some personal questions? But please feel free not to answer them.

HANNAH: If we’re going to get personal, then please call me Hannah. I’m not shy. I’ll let you know if a question is too personal.

INT: All right. I know you probably get asked this a lot, but you’re a beautiful young woman who’s still single at age twenty-five. What has held you back from marriage? What are you waiting for?

HANNAH: I am determined to be taken seriously as a journalist, one who reports on more than women’s issues. In addition, I want to become a published author; I have boxes of short stories and other what I call my “special writings” that I’d like to see in print. But very few men, especially Orthodox Jewish men, want to marry a career woman.

INT: So the problem is finding a husband who won’t object to you working?

HANNAH (frowning):  Well, it’s not only that. Most people assume that a good-looking blonde attracts the attention of plenty of men. But many of those men are only interested in one thing … and it’s not marriage. To make matters worse, it seems that only egotistical, arrogant and presumptuous men are bold enough to approach me. Not the shy and reserved intellectual types.

INT: You sound angry when you complain about the men who are interesting in one thing. Am I wrong to assume you’ve had some unpleasant experiences?

HANNAH: You’re right. It started when I was in fifth grade in public school, when a slightly older boy suddenly came up to me and grabbed at my breasts, which were just starting to grow. It really hurt, but he just laughed and ran off before I could say or do anything. I don’t know how my mother knew, but within weeks she enrolled me in the Orthodox Jewish grade school.

INT: And after that you’ve had no more problems? (skeptically)

HANNAH: (shaking her head) I was completely unprepared for college men; even limiting my dating to Jewish men didn’t protect me. 

INT: Didn’t you have anyone you could ask for advice about this?

HANNAH: (after sighing sadly) Not really. My mother had been brutally raped by Cossacks during the pogroms when she was a teenager, and I didn’t want to remind her of that trauma. The girlfriends with whom I could discuss such subjects had married right out of high school. But mostly I was ashamed to admit my ignorance and innocence, especially when a fellow student tried to take advantage of me.

INT: So what did you do?

HANNAH: (shrugs) I mostly gave up dating, except for an occasional double date. I attended some dances at my synagogue as well as a few others, but there were still too many men with wandering hands. Even with the most gentlemanly partners, I never allowed any of them to see me home or be alone with me anywhere.

INT: How did you manage to interview Professor Nathan Mandel if you couldn’t be alone with him?

HANNAH: We initially met at a local kosher café, but I insisted that I needed to understand Talmud in order to describe the controversial way he taught the subject. We both knew that teaching a woman Talmud was forbidden, as well as being secluded with one you’re not related to. But he understood that I couldn’t write a decent article otherwise.

INT: You must have spent a significant amount of time alone with him to acquire the knowledge you demonstrated in the article you wrote?

HANNAH: Yes. We met twice a week at his apartment—at his suggestion.

INT: Didn’t that make you anxious?

HANNAH: It did at first. In fact, I was so nervous at our first lesson that I couldn’t bring myself to ring his doorbell. He saw me climb up the stoop and opened the door for me. Then I sat as far from him at the table as I reasonably could. But he never even tried to make a pass at me.

INT: Did you ever get comfortable being alone with him?

HANNAH: Yes, I did. After a few weeks, when it was time for the first Seder, he had taught me so much from Tractate Pesachim that our relationship was fully teacher and student, not single man and single woman.

INT: I get the impression that he learned as much from you as you did from him.

HANNAH: (nodding) You’re right. He told me several times how much he appreciated the questions I asked—questions he’d never heard before, questions no yeshiva student would even think to ask. It forced him to consider, and reconsider, how to interpret the text.

INT: So how was it for you, studying Talmud with one of New York’s top scholars?

HANNAH: It was frustrating at first. I knew so little compared to Nathan’s regular students, who’d studied in yeshivot for years.

INT: Nathan, not Professor Manel? Didn’t you just say that your relationship was fully teacher and student, not single man and single woman?

HANNAH: Nathan and I went to grade school together. It’s true that we hadn’t seen each other in years, but we have known each other since childhood.

INT: If studying with him was frustrating at first, that implies that it wasn’t frustrating for long.

HANNAH: After he realized I was such a novice that he couldn’t assume I knew anything about Talmud, he changed his approach. He encouraged me to ask questions and not be concerned about appearing ignorant. So I learned how the Talmud informs and rebuilds Judaism after the Temple’s destruction. That the most important—critical even—aspects of modern Jewish life come out of Talmud. The existence of synagogues, our liturgy, and the blessings we say, how we keep Shabbos and other holidays, how we observe kashrus—all of these are based in Talmud, not the Torah. Until I studied with Nathan, I’d never understood that without Talmud, Judaism would be a very different religion, if it still existed at all. 

INT: So the Talmudic Sages actually saved Judaism after Rome destroyed the Second Temple?

HANNAH: Undoubtedly.

INT: I think that makes a good conclusion to this interview, but I’d like to ask one more question. You use the past tense, which gives the impression that you only studied with him until Passover. Is this correct?

HANNAH: (blushing) Actually, we continue to study together today.

—

Maggie Anton is an award-winning author of both fiction and nonfiction and a Talmud scholar with a deep understanding of Jewish women’s history. Her research into the great Jewish scholar Rashi, who had no sons, led to the award-winning trilogy Rashi’s Daughters, followed by a two-book series, Rav Hisda’s Daughter, a National Jewish Book Award finalist and a Library Journal pick for Best Historical Fiction. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

THE CHOICE: A NOVEL OF LOVE, FAITH, AND TALMUT

A powerful love story with a purpose: to challenge Jewish customs concerning women, marriage, and equality.

The award-winning author of Rashi’s Daughters, Maggie Anton, has written a wholly transformative novel that takes characters inspired by Chaim Potok and ages them into young adults in Brooklyn in the 1950s, a time of Elvis & Marilyn, communist scares & polio vaccines, Jewish migration & American integration. When Hannah Eisen, a successful journalist, interviews Rabbi Nathan Mandel, a controversial Talmud professor, she persuades him to teach her the mysteries of the text forbidden to women—even though it might cost him his job if discovered. Secret meetings and lively discussions bring the two to the edge of a line that neither dares to cross, as their relationships with each other and Judaism are tested.

“The Choice is about the choices Jews make and the rules we break for reasons of conscience, consideration, logic, and love. Buy this book for the endearing romance at its core and as a bonus get a feminist brief for women’s inclusion in sacred space and communal life, plus twenty brilliant Talmud lessons for free. A surfeit of riches.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin, author of twelve books including Deborah, Golda, and Me and the forthcoming Shanda: A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy

BUY HERE

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