The Red Tent (2014)

Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only a suggestion during a short and violent detour within the more familiar chapters about her father, Jacob and his dozen sons in the Book of Genesis. Said through Dinah’s eloquent voice, this grand mini-series reveals the traditions and disorders of the ancient woman. Dinah’s story begins with the story of his mother: Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah, Jacob’s four wives. I love Dinah and give her the gifts that must support her through a strong young man, a call to the midwife and a new home in a foreign country. Dinah tells us of the world of the red tent, a place where women were sequestered during their cycle of birth, menses, and illness; of her initiation into the practices of the religion, and sex of the well; the courtship of Jacob’s four wives of his, the mystery and wonder of caravans, farmers, shepherds, and slaves; of love and death in a city of Shechem; of her brother’s half-brother, Joseph, in Egypt, and, of course, is her marriage to Shechem, and to the consequences of his blood.