WISCONSIN JEWISH CHRONICLE, May 12, 2006

New Books Spotlight the Bible's Feminine Side

By Andrea Waxman

Of The Chronicle Staff

'Feminine strength and love'

"The Song of Hannah" by Eva Etzioni-Halevy.

(Plume original paperback, September 2005, $14.00) is a midrashic telling of the story of the biblical heroines Hannah and Pninah, who had to share the love of their husband Elkanah, as well as that of Hannah's son Samuel, one of the great prophets of the Hebrew people.

In the style of "The Red Tent," it is a work of Biblical fiction that speaks in two women's voices weaving the whole into one tale of sorrow, revenge and redemption through feminine strength and love.

Etzioni-Halevy, born in Vienna, escaped Europe with her parents in 1939. They immigrated to pre-Israel Palestine, where she grew up in a religious high school. She has spent most of the rest of her life in Israel with stretches in the U.S. and Australia.

Following a lengthy academic career in various universities, she is now professor emeritus of sociology at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv.

This novel, she said, is part of a personal journey back to her roots, including her religious upbringing, which led her to "the discovery of the rich world of the Bible and to the intention of bringing it to life for contemporary readers."