Tamar El-Or has given us a book that could benefit from the layout of the Talmudic pages that provide the text for the women's studies she has researched. Using her observations as base, she develops multiple perspectives that go well beyond the usual anthropological ethnography, adding layer upon layer of interpretation and perspective. The book begins with a survey and description of the institutes of religious higher learning for women in Israel at the time of her data collection (late 1990s); continues with the presentation and analysis of her interviews with 40 (out of 1,300) female students at Bar-Ilan University's Midrasha (women's institute of religious higher learning) about their development as religious “learners”; presents the results of her three years of participant observation in classrooms at the Midrasha; and concludes with an interpretation of the data from the perspective of “literacy,” which is seen in the anthropological literature as a central facet of societal participation, and its implied meanings for gender relations among Jews (at least among the Orthodox).