Lisa Fredman, the author of The King and the Commentator, is an Israeli-based biblical scholar, educator, and author whose work focuses on the Hebrew Bible and medieval Jewish biblical interpretation. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Stern College and completed both her MA and PhD in Bible at Bar-Ilan University. Her focus is on biblical studies, textual analysis, and the history of Jewish biblical teachings.

She examines Rashi’s commentaries. Rashi was one of the most influential commentators on the Hebrew Bible. Her 2026 book, The King and the Commentator: Rashi’s Holistic Readings of Solomon’s Song, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, was published by Maggid Books. The work explores how Rashi read these three seemingly different biblical books as parts of a single theological vision.

The King and the Commentator is one of the more original recent studies of Rashi. It does not examine his commentaries verse by verse in isolation. Instead, Dr. Fredman asks a larger question: how did Rashi understand all three Solomonic books as a unified whole?

The book begins with a puzzle. The passionate love poetry of the Song of Songs, the practical wisdom of Proverbs, and the philosophical skepticism of Ecclesiastes appear so different that many readers........

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