Deathless

She's more than 3,000 years old. Her grandfather was the patriarch Jacob. She's mentioned by name three times in the Hebrew Bible, but there are no stories told about her. She knew Moses and David, Spinoza and Einstein--and now, at long last, Serach bat Asher has written her autobiography. I was born in a tent, Serach tells us, a woman long silenced by history. She is feisty, funny, and bitter. The stories she tells about what really happened to her and her family will make you laugh and cry and maybe even rage against her, the oldest woman in the world, now living two blocks from the beach in Los Angeles. 'Fiction,' says Andrew Ramer in this remarkable book, provides 'a marvelous mirror of the soul.' And, once again, Ramer has produced a profoundly soulful work packed with insight, pathos, and memorable interplay between ancient and contemporary wisdom. --Steven J. Zipperstein, Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History, Stanford UniversityIn this imaginatively recounted story, Andrew Ramer offers a cinematic retelling of one biblical woman, Serach bat Asher. He extends our arc of history through this 'memoir'--a beautifully written first-person account of a very sage and prescient woman. Suspending our literal understanding of Torah, we hear Serach stretch and spin a tale of forgotten stories.--Susan Berrin, Editor-in-Chief of Sh'ma Now: A Journal of Jewish SensibilitiesRamer takes us on a delightful romp through the Hebrew Bible, filling in the missing stories of women and LGBT biblical figures. Along the way, he has important things to say about the meaning of inherited tradition and the power of reinterpretation and reinvention.--Judith Plaskow, Author of Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist PerspectiveDeathless is a radical reimagining of the Hebrew Bible as it has come down to us, 'another Torah,' reintegrating the voice of our now almost invisible female lineage and the suppressed Israelite Goddess religion of the ancient world. Andrew Ramer's epic of the life of Serach bat Asher will pique your curiosity, smash your sacred cows, make you laugh in surprise, and pierce your heart.--Risa Wallach, Cantor at Congregation B'nai Shalom in Walnut Creek, CaliforniaAndrew Elias Ramer is the author of Torah Told Different: Stories for a Pan/Poly/Post Denominational World; Queering the Text: Biblical, Medieval, and Modern Jewish Stories, and a co-author of the international best seller Ask Your Angels. The world's first ordained interfaith maggid (sacred story teller), he lives in Oakland, California.