BERURYAH (second century ce), one of the few famous women in rabbinic Judaism of late antiquity. Rabbinic tradition states that she was the daughter of Ḥananyah ben Teradyon, and the wife of Meʾir.

In rabbinic sources Beruryah appears several times among the scholars who reestablished the Sanhedrin in the Galilean town of Usha after the Bar Kokhba Revolt. She is mentioned twice in the Tosefta (in Tosefta, Kelim, Bavaʾ Metsiʿaʾ 1.6 by name and in Tosefta, Kelim, Bavaʾ Qammaʾ 4.17 as the daughter of Ḥananyah ben Teradyon) and seven times in the Babylonian Talmud.

Beruryah's contemporary importance lies in her prominence as one of the only female scholars accepted in the male-dominated rabbinic culture. David Goodblatt (1977) believes that Beruryah exemplifies the possibility, though quite uncommon, that a woman might receive formal education within rabbinic society. Goodblatt argues, however, that the traditions that ascribe rabbinic learning to Beruryah appear...