Abbreviations/ List of Contributors/ Athalya Brenner/ Introduction/ Part I/ Ruth/ A. Aspects of the Ruth Scroll/ Irmtraud Fischer/ The Book of Ruth: A 'Feminist' Commentary to the Torah?/ Bonnie Honig/ Ruth, the Model Emigrée: Mourning and the Symbolic Politics of Immigration/ Carole R. Fontaine/ Facing the Other: Ruth-the Cat in Medieval Jewish Illuminations/ Ursula Silber/ Ruth and Naomi: Two Biblical Figures Revived among Rural Women in Germany/ Carol Meyers/ 'Women of the Neighborhood' (Ruth 4.17) Informal Female Networks in Ancient Israel/ B. Ruth Papers. Orpah Papers, Papers Delivered at the 'Semiotics and Exegesis' Session American Society of Biblical Literature, November 1997/ Laura E. Donaldson/ The Sign of Orpah: Reading Ruth through Naive Eyes/ Musa W. Dube/ The Unpublished Letters of Orpah to Ruth/ Judith E. McKinlay/ A Son is Born to Naomi: A Harvest for Isarel/ Athalya Brenner/ Ruth as a Foreign Worker and the Politics of Exogamy/ Roland Boer/ Culture, Ethics and Identity in Reading Ruth: A Respone to Donaldson, Dube, McKinlay and Brenner/ Part II/ Ruth and Esther: Mothers and Daughters/ Leila Leah Bronner/ The Invisible Relationship Made Visible: Biblical Mothers and Daughters/ Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan/ Black Mother Women and Daughters: Signifying Female Divine Relationships in the Hebrew Bible and African-American Mother-Daughter Short Stories/ Part III/ Esther/ Mieke Bal/ Lots of Writing/ Klara Butting/ Esther: A New Interpretation of the Joseph Story in the Fight against Anti-Semitism and Sexism/ Bibliography/ Index of References/ Index of Authors