This year’s Elm City Kallah speaker is Gila Fine, a lecturer of rabbinic literature at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies who explores the tales of the Talmud through philosophy, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and pop-culture.

The author of The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic: Rereading the Women of the Talmud, Fine is also the winner of the 2024 Rabbi Sacks Book Prize and the recipient of the Maimonides Award for Excellence in Jewish Education. 

Haaretz has called her “a young woman on her way to becoming one of the more outstanding Jewish thinkers of the next generation.”

As editor in chief of Maggid Books, Gila worked closely with such leading scholars as Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, publishing over a hundred titles of contemporary Jewish thought, including several bestsellers and eight National Jewish Book Award winners.

Fine will speak Friday evening at Westville Synagogue, will come to BEKI on Saturday, and will finish the weekend of study on Sunday morning at Congregation B’nai Jacob.

A collaboration of the three congregations to bring exceptional Jewish programming to New Haven, Elm City Kallah is in its 8th year. Past Kallah speakers were Rabbi Tamar Elad Appelbaum, Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, Rabbi Ethan Tucker, Rabbi Noam Zion, Rachel Korazim, Maharat Rori Picker-Neiss, and Aviva Zornberg.