Maggie Anton

Maggie Anton was born Margaret Antonofsky in Los Angeles, California, where she still resides. Raised in a secular, socialist household, she reached adulthood with little knowledge of her Jewish religion. All that changed when David Parkhurst, who was to become her husband, entered her life, and they both discovered Judaism as adults. That was the start of a lifetime of Jewish education, synagogue involvement, and ritual observance. This was in addition to raising their children, Emily and Ari, and working full-time as a clinical chemist for Kaiser Permanente for over 30 years. In 1992 Anton joined a women’s Talmud class taught by Rachel Adler, now a professor at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. To her surprise, she fell in love with Talmud, a passion that has continued unabated for 30 years. Intrigued that the great Talmudic scholar Rashi had no sons, only daughters, Anton researched the family and decided to write novels about them. Thus, the award-winning trilogy, Rashi’s Daughters, was born, to be followed by National Jewish Book Award finalist, Rav Hisda’s Daughter: Apprentice and its sequel, Enchantress. Still studying women and Talmud, Anton has lectured throughout North America and Israel about the history behind her novels. Her most recent effort is the Ben Franklin Award winner for Religion, Fifty Shades of Talmud: What the First Rabbis Had to Say about You-Know-What, a light-hearted look at our Sages’s surprisingly progressive views on sexuality. For more information visit https://www.maggieanton.com/.