A LEO BAECK COLLEGE LIBRARY EXHIBITION Sheila Reading Her Dissertation
21st November 2019 – 31st January 2020
by appointment during library hours
contact cassy.sachar@lbc.ac.uk for further information
To accompany the memorial evening Reading Sheila Reading, marking Rabbi Sheila Shulman’s ז”ל fifth yahrzeit, we have put together a display of texts Sheila used for the dissertation she submitted towards her rabbinic ordination when a student at Leo Baeck College.
In her research for her dissertation entitled The Dialogue of God and Israel in Selected Midrashim and Aggadot we see her range of interests as she traces ideas about theology, faith and identity from rabbinic texts through philosophy and literary and critical theory.
Books from Sheila’s personal library are now treasured by friends and colleagues, with her annotations and famous post-it notes, and even sometimes a faint hint of cigarette smoke accompanying them. A significant part of her library on feminism and gender studies went to the Fawcett Library and almost 400 books on Judaism and philosophy are now held here at Leo Baeck College.
“In the end, I am left with questions,” her dissertation concludes. Her questions, her books, her annotations and the legacy of her teaching and rabbinate are a resource for all those, in the great rabbinic tradition, who come with and are left with questions.