244 | journal of jewish studies Avraham (Rami) Reiner, Rabbenu Tam. Interpretation, Halakhah, Controversy (in Hebrew). Bar-Ilan University Press, Ramat Gan, 2021. 503 pp. ₪130.00. isbn 978 9 65226 599 9. Powerful parents – especially fathers – do not always leave stable and secure ofspring who emulate their example. Solomon b. Isaac of Troyes, commonly cited as ‘Rashi’, was not only an outstanding expert in Bible and Talmud. He was also an inspiring teacher, a Halakhist with a concern for women’s rights (perhaps because he had three or four daughters), and an indulgent grandfather to his grandson Samuel b. Meir (see the commentary of the latter – ‘Rashbam’ – on Gen. 37:2). Rashbam’s brother, Jacob, consistently known as Rabbenu Tam of Ramerupt (1100–1171, henceforth RT), was a brilliant scholar, an innovative Talmudic and Halakhic exegete, and a fearless polemicist, who left an indelible mark on all subsequent rabbinic learning. Such achievements notwithstanding, Reiner points out (p. 50) that RT, unlike his mother Yokheved’s father, Rashi, did not have grandchildren who followed the family tradition of outstanding learning. This fact occupies Reiner only peripherally, but his highly learned and lengthy volume perhaps contains some indications as to why this was so. He reports (p. 29) a tradition that when, as a young boy, RT heard the weeping for Rashi’s death, which meant for his mother that the light of learning had been extinguished, he assured her that he would kindle it afresh. Avraham (Rami) Reiner, who currently teaches at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, applies an intense rabbinic knowledge acquired during years of yeshivah study and honed at the Talmud department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to the close study of RT’s roots, his library, his works and his infuence. It was on RT that he wrote his doctoral dissertation under the late Israel Ta-Shma, whose method and style are often detectible in the book here being reviewed. There are 17 chapters. In the frst of these, Reiner refers to, and assesses carefully, the signifcant earlier work of Isaac Hirsh Weiss and Avigdor Aptowitzer, both of Vienna, as well as the important publications of E.E. Urbach and Jacob Sussmann of Jerusalem. He also comments on RT’s teachers, his life as an intellectual and leader who grew in stature from the 1130s, and how he brought fame to his little town of Ramerupt, but chose, like many of his followers, to reveal few of his personal details. It was his elder brother, Samuel (15–20 years his senior) who, more than his father Meir, functioned as his major teacher, but, as he matured, RT did not hesitate to take serious issue with him when he saw the need. They, as well as their brother, Isaac, subjected many Talmudic passages, of varying themes and conclusions, to the kind of sharp and comparative analysis that became the hallmark of the Tosafsts that followed and perfected their example in Franco-Germany. The four chapters dealing with the books that were available to RT begin journal of jewish studies | vol. lxxiv no. 1 | spring 2023 | pp. 244–7 | issn 0022-2097 | https://doi.org/10.18647/3580/jjs-2023 | https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9793-9759 | copyright © Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, 2023.