Society of Biblical Literature Reviews Going Out with Knots by Rabbi Wendy Zierler, Ph.D.
July 2026
The Review of Biblical Literature (RBL), a publication of SBL Press, recently reviewed Going Out with Knots: My Two Kaddish Years with Hebrew Poetry by Rabbi Wendy Zierler, Ph.D., Sigmund Falk Professor of Modern Jewish Literature and Feminist Studies.
Reviewer Ellen F. Davis from Duke Divinity School writes:
Processes of translation are central for Zierler, in a sense that is not strictly linguistic. She understands translation as “being moved, from one place or state or mode or time or language to another”; through that movement, “it offers its own form of healing” (xxvii). A significant part of the translation work here is in the direction of “open siddur,” identifying places of fluidity even in the so-called fixed liturgy, so participants may move “from static ritual to transformation” (xxviii).
Nonetheless, it is Zierler’s skill as a linguistic translator that secures the success of her project. She is sensitive to pattern and rhythm and searches out ways to capture alliteration and assonance wherever these are pronounced features of the Hebrew poem.