Jews and Sex is an anthology of essays about cultural representations of Jewish sexuality in Israel, England, and the United States from early twentieth century to the present. While a few of the contributors frame their essays theoretically, most of the essays are close readings of specific artists, films, or novels about or by Jews. Its breadth is the collection’s greatest strength as it brings together perspectives from different genres, sexualities, and locales. The volume opens up new directions for cultural studies of Jewish sexuality...

...This anthology breaks new ground, exploring unstudied cultural contexts for the conversation about Jewish sexuality. The authors’ willingness to frame “Jews” and “sex” and the connections between them in the broadest ways creates new objects for inquiry. These essays boldly tackle difficult issues such as sex work, pornography, and antisemitic stereotypes. They question previously held assumptions about Jews and sex, shifting the conversation away from the religious and theological and towards the secular and cultural but also making connections between these worlds. The portrait of a naked Annie Sprinkle as Eve accompanied by fruit and serpent that adorns the cover of the volume reveals the possible new directions for inquiry this book opens up, and this volume is a welcome addition to this field of inquiry.

Shofar is a quarterly, interdisciplinary journal of Jewish Studies, and is the official journal of the Midwest and Western Jewish Studies Associations. It publishes peer-reviewed scholarly articles, opinion pieces, readers' forums, pedagogical essays, and book reviews. Some recent and forthcoming contributors include Steven Nadler, Judith R. Baskin, Ira Sharkansky, Louis H. Feldman, Donna H. Divine, Seth Ward and Lawrence Baran.

Rebecca Alpert, Temple University

A Jewish academic is set to ruffle some religious feathers by publishing a book exploring raunchy themes in the Old Testament.

Jews and Sex is the title of Dr Nathan Abrams' latest work, a collection of controversial essays on topics including sexual imagery and homosexuality in the Bible, lesbian Yiddish poetry and Jews in pornography.

"It all started with an essay I wrote for the Jewish Quarterly on pornography and then my publisher contacted me about a book," said Dr Abrams, who grew up in Highgate and is now a lecturer at Bangor University...

Kate Davies