This Day in History

October 1, 1997

Anita Diamant publishes "The Red Tent"

Anita Diamant's powerful first work of fiction, The Red Tent, was published on October 1, 1997. The novel offers a striking reimagining of the minimal Biblical narratives describing the lives of the Jewish matriarchs, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel. It focuses on the life of Leah's daughter Dina who appears in the Bible only as a rape victim.

After a small initial printing, readers across the nation began to discover and embrace The Red Tent. It became a popular pick by book clubs and individuals alike, and a long-lived best seller on amazon.com. The Red Tent has been reprinted multiple times in paperback, and foreign editions are available in 20 countries worldwide. A tenth-anniversary edition was published in August 2007.

Prior to publishing The Red Tent, Diamant worked as a journalist in Boston and New England. She is the author of many critically acclaimed books about contemporary Jewish life, practice, and the community. Such books include Choosing a Jewish Life: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends (1997), as well as Saying Kaddish, How to Comfort the Dying, Bury the Dead and Mourn as a Jew (1998).

Diamant lives in Boston where she helped to found and is President of Mayyim Hayyim: Living Waters Community Mikveh & Education Center, an organization that opened the first non-Orthodox mikveh (ritual bath) in the Boston area in May 2004. Diamant's most recent books include a novel, The Last Days of Dogtown (2005), and Pitching My Tent (2003), a spiritual autobiography.

Sources: www.mayyimhayyim.org; www.anitadiamant.com.