Brandeis University Press

Joy Ladin holds the David and Ruth Gottesman Chair in English at Stern College of Yeshiva University.

• "I thanked Ladin after her reading, telling her that her work was an inspiration for my own journey into scripture as a gender nonconforming person. She told me that the only way to read Torah is in community, with other voices to guide and challenge you on your reading, each contributing a layer of interpretation to the text. This was days before the reckoning with COVID-19 transformed New York, seemingly overnight, into a city of isolates; now many of us are experiencing the “being alone with God” that Joy Ladin described in her childhood....I felt, if not a sense of community, one of solidarity—a common wayfinding in search of various shores. We’re all looking to get to the other side of something right now. Narratives of transition and transformation remind us that, even in the face of unfathomable bewilderment, we are capable of learning who we truly are." - Believe Out Loud
• This heartfelt, difficult work will introduce Jews and other readers of the Torah to fresh, sensitive approaches with room for broader human dignity. — Publishers Weekly, starred review
• Defining transgender as having a sense of self that does not fit the traditional binary gender categories of male and female, she finds a connection with those in the Bible who abandoned or violated their assigned gender roles. But it is to God she always returns, concluding that to open ourselves to the deity, we must open ourselves to the stranger. — Booklist
• Taken together, these chapters provide groundbreaking and vitally important readings of the Torah that have transformative potential for transgender and queer people as well as all others. — Journal of the American Academy of Religion
• For me, the best Torah and the better life come from a wrestle and a dance between a superbly sensitive human being in the right-now, and the ancient text. Ladin has done this in her transparent exploration of how her own trans life, through joy and pain, has brought her new insights into Torah and into life that open both of them more fully. I found myself dancing in mind and heart and spirit as I read. Hallelu-Yah! — Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of The Shalom Center and author of “Godwrestling — Round 2”
• An intellectual and spiritual journey illuminated by the audacity of faith in God. Ladin’s transcendent readings of scripture restore the luster of the revelation at Sinai. And her readers will find the work transformational to their own relationships to other humans and to God. — Rabbi Burton L. Visotzky, Jewish Theological Seminary
• In this beautifully written book, Ladin uses transgender experience to shed light on the Torah and the Torah to shed light on transgender experience. In doing so, she offers readers many insights into what it means to be a stranger and to think of God as a stranger. — Judith Plaskow, professor emerita of religious studies at Manhattan College
• Joy Ladin is our finest writer on transgender issues, and “The Soul of the Stranger” is her best book. In it, she examines her profound faith in an invisible but undeniably present god from a trans perspective, and finds wisdom, understanding and love. A must-read for anyone who wishes to be touched by both the eternal divine as well as the humbly, miraculously human. Luminous, heartfelt and brilliant.” — Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of “She’s Not There” and “Long Black Veil”
• "The Soul of the Stranger is a daring book. Ladin dares to speak as a transgender person, unapologetically, and assert that transgender people have a place in Judaism, whatever people may say and think....The Soul of the Stranger does not teach that lesson only to transgender Jews. Ladin is an example to everyone who fears living openly as themselves will cost them a place in their community. Whatever identities you hold, we all have something to learn from Ladin about living openly, boldly, and loving God while we do it." — The Common Reader