Judith Kates is Professor of Jewish Women’s Studies at Hebrew College, Newton, MA. She received a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University, where she taught literature for eleven years. She is one of the core faculty members of the transdenominational rabbinical school at Hebrew College and teaches in programs of adult learning in the Jewish community. She is co-editor (with Gail Twersky Reimer) of Reading Ruth: Contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story (1994) and Beginning Anew: A Woman’s Companion to the High Holy Days (1997). In 1998 Dr. Kates received the Keter Torah Award for outstanding educators from the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Boston.