Ima Shalom אימא שלום

After the dispute of the oven of Akhnai her husband Rabbi Eliezer was placed under the ban—and at the head of the court stood her brother, Rabban Gamliel. The Talmud tells that from then on Ima Shalom never let her husband fall on his face in the penitential prayer: she knew the gates of the wronged stand open, and feared for her brother. Once she was distracted—and in that hour Rabban Gamliel died.

Her stories show the study house from within: a woman who knew the weight of prayer, of hurt and of kinship. To her the Talmud also gives the sharp answer to a bribed philosopher-judge.