Mixed Offspring : Children from Intermarriage in Jewish Antiquity (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism)

Were children from intermarried couples considered Jewish in antiquity? What factors shaped their identity? Why were Moses’s children from a Midianite woman included in the Israelite community, whereas children with the same genealogical makeup were expelled at the time of Ezra? This book explores a wide range of Jewish works from antiquity and traces the diverse criteria used to negotiate the status of mixed offspring within these texts. Michael Gabizon shows how Jewish writers appealed to genealogy, gender, geography, and piety in the construction of Jewish identity.