According to one prominent Catholic feminist theologian, ancient Israelite women experienced “enslavement” within their families. Carol Meyers attests that her undergraduate students likewise tend to assume biblical women were veiled, subservient, and oppressed. Yet the archaeological record of ancient Israel, when combined with a more careful reading of the Hebrew Bible itself, yields a very different picture of relations between the sexes. Meyers illustrates this point by focusing on the role ancient Israelite women played in processing grains into flour and baking it into bread:

The biblical prominence of national religious institutions—priesthood, sacrifice, tabernacle, and temple—often means that household religious activities are overlooked. Yet those activities were arguably the primary and most common aspect of the religious lives of most Israelites, and women had essential roles in sacral household activities involving food and its preparation.

Sanctity related to bread production appears in the offering of a piece of bread dough to God (Numbers 15:19-21) in order to secure God’s blessing for the household (Ezekiel 44:30). This ritual reflects a belief about the sanctity of bread. . . . In addition to the sacred task of making bread, women prepared special loaves and other foods for everyday and seasonal festivals.

All this should sound familiar to modern practitioners of Judaism. In a similar vein, Meyers warns about misreading the Bible’s depiction of a woman’s role in economic life:

Preparing bread was not simply a domestic chore; it was a life-sustaining activity. It was no less important to household survival than was the work of men in growing grain. While men and women were not equal in all aspects of community life, . . . both women and men were “breadwinners.” In fact, women dominated many household activities and men dominated others.

And let’s not forget the “strong woman,” [usually rendered as “woman of valor”] of Proverbs 31:10‒31. These 22 verses portray a household manager. More than half refer to economic processes. She provides food and engages in textile production; she purchases land, has a profitable business, and sells the textiles she produces to merchants. Moreover, she uses some of her household’s resources as charity for the poor.

Yesterday, the Iranian foreign minister flew to Geneva to meet with European diplomats. President Trump, meanwhile, indicated that cease-fire negotiations might soon begin with Iran, which would presumably involve Tehran agreeing to make concessions regarding its nuclear program, while Washington pressures Israel to halt its military activities. According to Israeli media, Iran already began putting out feelers to the U.S. earlier this week. Aviram Bellaishe considers the purpose of these overtures:

The regime’s request to return to negotiations stems from the principle of deception and delay that has guided it for decades. Iran wants to extricate itself from a situation of total destruction of its nuclear facilities. It understands that to save the nuclear program, it must stop at a point that would allow it to return to it in the shortest possible time. So long as the negotiation process leads to halting strikes on its military capabilities and preventing the destruction of the nuclear program, and enables the transfer of enriched uranium to a safe location, it can simultaneously create the two tracks in which it specializes—a false facade of negotiations alongside a hidden nuclear race.