A Spindle for Caesar’s Daughter

This paper is a study of a story from Tractate Ḥullin of the Babylonian Talmud, which aims to show that this short narrative is a product of the transmigration and transformation of seemingly non-parallel Palestinian narrative traditions. By retelling this story, the Babylonian narrators grappled with critical theological problems and while doing so, also reflected on gender politics. I would like to dedicate this paper to Tal, who recently competed her commentary to b. Ḥullin.1. Her interest in migrating traditions, comparative studies of these narratives,2 gender politics,3 and even the humour of the Rabbis is reflected in her own research.4 All these topics are encountered in this short story. By that I continue the ongoing dialogue between Tal and myself about women and femininity in rabbinic narrative, a topic well known among scholars, but still continuously surprised by new findings.