Shayna, a 12-foot albino Burmese python, with her recent batch of 38 eggs.
Shayna and Cuddles are unlike many new parents in Israel. They are pythons. But that doesn’t mean their offspring weren’t feted in a traditional way.
Israel’s Biblical Museum of Natural History held a public kiddush on last week to celebrate the first baby snakes to have emerged from a crop of 38 eggs that Shayna, a 12-foot albino Burmese python, laid several months ago.
“Waiting and watching has been an incredible experience and opportunity to share more about these amazing creatures, and there is no more fitting way to celebrate their entrance to the Biblical Museum of Natural History than with a traditional, haimish Kiddush!” Rabbi Natan Slifkin, the museum’s director and founder, said in a press release announcing the event.
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Prof. Joel Baden works widely in the field of Hebrew Bible, with special attention to the literary history of the Pentateuch. He is the author, most recently, of The Book of Exodus: A Biography (Princeton University Press, 2019). His other books include J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch (Mohr Siebeck, 2009); The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis (Yale University Press, 2012); The Promise to the Patriarchs (Oxford University Press, 2013); The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero (HarperOne, 2013); Reconceiving Infertility: Biblical Perspectives on Procreation and Childlessness (with Candida Moss; Princeton University Press, 2015); and Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby(with Candida Moss; Princeton University Press, 2017). He is the co-editor of the volumes The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions (TVZ, 2009) and Sibyls, Scriptures, and Scrolls (Brill, 2017).