Then the other sons ransacked the city and took “All their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and made their prey.” This is all we hear of Dinah, who is taken “out of Shechem’s house” by her brothers.

The Hivites agreed and as they lay sore from the procedure, two of Dinah’s brothers, Simon and Levi, killed all the men. Her father and brothers pretended to agree to the proposal and asked only that the Hivites be circumcised. The book also says Shechem’s “soul was drawn to Dinah” and he wanted to marry her. According to the biblical account, Dinah was raped by Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite.

The Red Tent is a reimagining of the story of Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob, the man who, according to the Bible wrestled an angel and won the name ‘Israel’ and whose 12 sons became the 12 tribes of Israel. Yet it seems ageless and as relevant as it was nearly two decades ago, which, while it testifies to the joys of this work, is also a sad comment on the state of women in our society. The result is a beautiful, thought-provoking novel.I discovered The Red Tent by Anita Diamant 21 years after it was first published. Seeking to preserve not only her own remarkable experiences but those of a long-ago era of womanhood left largely undocumented by the original male scribes and later Biblical scholars, Dinah breaks a male silence that has lasted for centuries, revealing the ancient origins of many contemporary religious practices and sexual politics. Moving panoramically from Mesopotamia to Canaan to Egypt, The Red Tent is robustly narrated by Dinah, from her upbringing by the four wives of Jacob, to her growth into one of the most influential women of her time. Lost to the history by the chronicles of men, here at last is the dazzling story of Dinah, Jacob's only daughter in the Book of Genesis. That is why I became a footnote, my story a brief detour between the well-known history of my father Jacob, and the celebrated chronicle of Joseph, my brother.' The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the word passed to the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing. An international publishing phenomena, this beautiful and thought provoking novel tells the story, lost to history by the chronicles of men, of Dinah, Jacob's only daughter in the Book of Genesis.

Diamant the red tent