DEATHLESS

Shes more than 3,000 years old. Her grandfather was the patriarch Jacob. Shes 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 University In 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 Shma Now