In law and lore Tavi is Rabban Gamliel’s non-Jewish slave. In Bavli Yoma 87a, more specifically, Tavi is referred to as a Canaanite slave who discredits all of the generations that follow after him. This paper will explore the ethical stakes of using the equation made between Tavi and his status as a Canaanite slave to read other rabbinic sources that mention him. What do we impose on these sources when we read them through the lens of Tavi’s status as a Canaanite? What do such readings reveal and what do they mask? As part of our larger project on rabbinic conceptions of slavery and slaveholding, we will discuss how our reading practices of sources such as those that mention Tavi are fused with apologetics about Jews and slavery. We will discuss how unsettling past understandings of slavery that stem from underreading rabbinic sources call attention to the ways that our readings (whether intentionally or not) are colored by xenophobic attitudes toward non-Jews and desires to see rabbinic slavery in a positive light.
