Description
Publication Date: September 1, 2025
ISBN Number: 978-1592647071
Number of Pages: 320
In 539 BCE Cyrus the Great writes an edict allowing the Jews who had been exiled by the former Neo-Babylonian empire to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. Many remain behind in Babylon, but some Jews pick up and return, and thus begins sefer Ezra-Nehemiah. What follows are the twists and turns of what becomes known as the Period of Restoration in Israel. The period is remarkable, and teeming with potential, but it is also fraught with unprecedented challenges. The ways in which the Jewish community and its leaders contend with those challenges make up the bulk of the sefer. But, as with all historiographical works in Tanakh, the events of the period aren’t simply chronicled. Language, genres, motifs, and personalities are carefully curated to persuade the reader of the sefer’s unique ideology and worldview.
Ezra-Nehemiah takes its readers on a literary tour of 6th-5th century Judea, an era in which cohesiveness among fragmented Jewish communities was being tested, the parameters of Jewish identity were being re-assessed, political tact was being learned by necessity, and Biblical literacy was at long last, becoming the centerpiece of the Jewish community. In a sefer that feels more timely than ever, modern students of Ezra-Nehemiah are likely to learn as much about the times through which they are living, as they are about the trailblazers of their past.
Rivka Kahan (verified owner) –
Yael Leibowitz’s masterful study of Ezra-Nehemiah is exceptional in a number of ways, but perhaps none is more impressive than its relevance and value to the full range of students and scholars of the Bible. It is thoroughly researched, drawing on an extensive range of scholarly sources and offering new directions for study in the footnotes. It is written in an engaging, dynamic voice that draws the reader into its analysis, and it focuses on ideas of enduring meaning that emerge from Ezra-Nehemiah. These qualities contribute to a work that is scholarly as well as meaningful, penetrating as well as accessible.
In addition to scholarly research, the book draws heavily on intertextual analysis to identify the unique themes and concerns of Ezra-Nehemiah. Through comparison and contrast to other biblical works, particularly Second Temple texts, it analyzes such phenomena as Ezra-Nehemiah’s distinctive lack of interest in the reestablishment of the Davidic monarchy and its strikingly realistic portrayal of both the Jewish past and the Jewish future with all of their imperfections. These qualities contribute to the unique historical voice of Ezra-Nehemiah, which reimagines models of Jewish governance and “sees the times its audience is living through as another point on the continuum of Israel’s imperfect history” (p. 116). In doing so, it impresses upon its readers their responsibility for making the most of the moment’s potential amidst all of its challenges. Leibowitz’s intertextual analysis deepens understanding of both the particular perspective of Ezra-Nehemiah and other voices within the biblical canon.
The distinct challenges faced by Ezra and Nehemiah–for example, building and leading community during a time when Jews live in both the land of Israel and the Diaspora–are explored and explicitly related to contemporary Jewish experience. Similarly, Ezra and Nehemiah’s approaches of strengthening commitment to Torah study and covenant on a national, communal level, as well as maintaining solidarity between Jewry in Israel and the Diaspora, retain their eternal relevance.
Yael Leibowitz’s Ezra-Nehemiah is a profound, elegant study which offers the reader deep exposure to these biblical works while also exploring their themes in the broader context of the biblical canon. Furthermore, its analysis leaves its readers with new ideas and insights into the nature, challenges, and opportunities of Jewish identity and community building that are rooted in antiquity but equally compelling and illuminating for our own times.
Ben Rothke (verified owner) –
For many years, my sister-in-law Jane has spent parts of her summer at the Matan Women’s Institute for Torah Studies (Matan, an acronym for Machon Torani l’Nashim), a Jerusalem-based midrasha.
Yael Leibowitz, a teacher at Matan, recently published her book Ezra-Nehemiah: Retrograde Revolution (Maggid Books). After reading it, it becomes clear why Jane values her time at Matan so highly.
The Kitvuni Fellowship, part of Matan, aims to promote the publication of high-level Torah scholarship by women. Leibowitz is a fellow in the program, and hers is the first English book to be published, with the others being in Hebrew.
Ezra-Nehemiah was originally one book, but was later divided into two. The book of Ezra details the Jewish return to Israel in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, after the 70-year Babylonian exile. While permission was granted to build the second Temple, the process and construction were not smooth sailing by any stretch of the imagination.
Ezra the scribe was the leader of the generation, and one of the most well-known challenges he faced was dealing with the many intermarried Jewish men.
The book of Nehemiah is a first-person account by Nehemiah, the cupbearer to the king of Persia. He returned to Jerusalem to become the governor of Judah and led the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls. He, along with Ezra, was instrumental in revitalizing Judaism in the aftermath of the destruction of the First Temple.
In this insightful book, Leibowitz analyzes how Ezra-Nehemiah shapes our understanding of Israel’s restoration. She identifies the challenges that arose from the unique circumstances in which Ezra-Nehemiah was written and how the historical actors of the time addressed them.
Many people assume that the books of Ezra-Nehemiah, along with other books of Tanach, are in part historical works. Leibowitz writes that not only is Tanach not a work of science or psychology, but despite its façade, it is not a work of history either.
She observed that, as we think of it today, history writing did not exist as such in the ancient world. The way we think of historical writing, as an attempt to record facts in a coherent, objective, and comprehensive way for posterity, did not really begin until the Greek historian Herodotus, of the 5th century BCE. Until then, wars and major events might have been recorded, but the expectations were very different. And to a large part, history comes down to Napoleon’s famous remark, “What is history but a fable agreed upon?
So what is the function of works like Ezra-Nehemiah? To answer this, she writes that Tanach enables us to make sense of our individual place within society and of that society’s place in relation to God. Furthermore, the Tanach contains wisdom literature that seeks to answer perennial questions about suffering, loss, love, fulfilment, and much more.
In 1958, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion sent a letter to fifty-one Jewish intellectuals asking them to define Jewish identity. The “who is a Jew?” question was not new; Ezra faced it in his era.
Cyrus permitted the Jews to return, but only some went back to Israel. One result was the need to redefine what it meant to belong to the nation of Israel. Leibowitz writes that to understand why a partial return would provoke such a need, one must understand what “being an Israelite” meant in the pre-exilic period. The terms “Israelite,” “Judean,” and “Jew” evolved in complex and important ways, as did the distinctions between nation, ethnos, and religion.
The events of Ezra-Nehemiah occurred about 2,600 years ago, yet their themes and struggles are strikingly similar to those of today. Ezra-Nehemiah, though one of many books in Tanach, might be the most important to read now.
Ezra-Nehemiah comprises 23 chapters. Rather than providing a line-by-line commentary, the book examines key themes and lessons.
A substantial portion of Ezra-Nehemiah concerns the construction of boundaries around the Judean community. Zerubabbel erects a boundary between the community of Temple builders and those beyond it. Through his intermarriage ban, Ezra reinforces the boundary, shielding Judean families and, by extension, the entire community from foreign influences.
As for Nehemiah, one of his first actions upon reaching Jerusalem was to repair the city’s broken walls. It is an important task both from a practical perspective and symbolically.
As to the title of this book, it at first seems to be a contradiction in terms. Retrograde means moving backward, while revolution means a new system. While Ezra and Nehemiah were innovators, neither of them nor the society around them recognized them as such. The greatness of Ezra and Nehemiah lay in their ability to effect a retrograde revolution.
In some ways, this is reminiscent of the story in Menahot 29a. In that narrative, Moshe finds himself at the back of Rabbi Akiva’s study hall, where Rabbi Akiva is explaining the Torah in a manner so incomprehensible to Moshe that he becomes weak. However, Moshe is revitalized when he learns that Rabbi Akiva’s learning comes from Sinai.
The message is that Rabbi Akiva’s new teachings simply extend the Torah from Sinai. There is no contradiction in newness when it comes from the old. The retrograde revolution of Ezra and Nehemiah allowed Jews to return and restart.
When discussing the flexibility in the Oral Law, Rabbi Mordechai Becher quoted the late Rav Nota Schiller, Rosh Yeshiva of Ohr Somayach, who said, “We change enough to stay the same.” This is a similar observation of retrograde revolution.
The current situation in Israel is an example of retrograde without revolution. Many in the Charedi sector are stuck in a past that no longer exists. Leaders who would follow the example of Ezra or Nehemiah would do a lot for the nation.
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik said that if he were to add to Maimonides’ 13 Principles of Faith, his 14th principle would be that the values and legal constructs of the Torah are timeless and have absolute relevance to every generation and location.
Leibowitz articulately shows how it’s not just the values and legal constructs of the Torah that are timeless, but also what it means to be a great leader. Ezra and Nehemiah lived during one of the most turbulent times in Jewish history. But, to a degree, it’s hard to find a time in Jewish history that wasn’t turbulent. She shows how Ezra, as a religious leader, and Nehemiah, as a lay leader, accomplished what the people needed at the national level.
Composer Gustav Mahler observed that “tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. Leibowitz has written a most engaging work showing what it takes to preserve that religious fire.