Lessons from the Semester….
My semester is winding down. It is funny the way that it does this; it has mostly ended but there are stray bits and pieces that seem to drag on interminably. Despite this, as at the end of every...
View ArticleJews and Judaism in Late Antiquity: Taking Stock
I am just emerging from a colloquium that earlier this week I co-organized with Ishay Rosen-Zvi on “Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity.” As such things go, it was a bit unusual: we focused on five...
View ArticleThat Time of Year: My Mishnah Syllabus
This semester I will be teaching a graduate-level course on “Mishnah and Tosefta.” I have taught versions of this course before (and have posted them) but have made a few changes. Should anyone be...
View Article“Office Hours”
In his recent opinion essay in the New York Times, “How to Get the Most Out of College,” Frank Bruni advised college students to visit their professors. He wrote: But perhaps the most important...
View ArticleReview of “Jew,” by Cynthia Baker.
I recently published a review essay of Cynthia Baker’s fine book, Jew. It was originally published in Quest: Issues in Contemporary Jewish History 13 (August, 2018), and is reproduced below. I...
View ArticleJudaism and the Economy: A Sourcebook
I am delighted to announce the publication of my (edited) volume, Judaism and the Economy: A Sourcebook. Here’s the publisher’s description: Judaism and the Economy is an edited collection of...
View ArticleGreat Jewish Books, Again
This semester I am teaching my “Great Jewish Books” class again. It is targeted for undergraduates and meant to introduce them to the general shape of the “Judaic conversation” while having them...
View ArticleOnline Course: “Judaism, Christianity, Islam”
I am preparing to teach my first online course during Brown’s Wintersession, beginning this December. It is a version of a course I have taught (and will teach again) to undergraduates, called...
View ArticleStrength to Strength: Essays in Honor of Shaye J. D. Cohen
I am delighted to announce the publication of the book Strength to Strength: Essays in Honor of Shaye J. D. Cohen, which I had the pleasure of editing. At over 700 pages, it contains 39 original...
View ArticlePaul’s Scriptures
For a while I’ve been interested in how Paul and Josephus, and people like them, would have learned Scripture. When and how would they have learned to read Hebrew and Greek, particularly at the level...
View ArticlePresenting a Volume to Shaye Cohen
At the Association for Jewish Studies Annual Meeting, we presented an edited volume to my mentor, Professor Shaye Cohen (Harvard University): Strength to Strength: Essays in Honor of Shaye J. D. Cohen...
View ArticleResources for the Digital Study of Jews and Judaism in Antiquity
At the Association for Jewish Studies Annual Meeting in 2018 I delivered a kind-of “state of the field” talk with some reflections on applying digital humanities to the study of Jews and Judaism in...
View ArticleTHE HASIDIM HA-RISHONIM AND OTHER ANCIENT AND MODERN FANTASIES
An article that I prepared in connection with the research group “Jewish Ritual Dynamics” run out of Erfurt just appeared in in Historia Religionum 10 (2018): 41-52. I am not allowed to post the...
View ArticleThe Benefit of the The Doubt: Workshop Reflections
I had the pleasure of participating in a workshop entitled, “The Benefit of the Doubt. Between Scepticism and Godlessness, Critique or Indifference in Ancient Mediterranean Religious Traditions” in...
View ArticleOpen Books!
Over the past few years I have served as Managing Editor of Brown Judaic Studies (BJS), a scholarly monograph series. I am very excited to announce that after a few attempts, we have succeeded in...
View ArticleThe College Admissions Process
In light of the latest college admissions scandal (now almost old news), I wrote something on how a simple but radical reform can improve not just the process at selective universities, but ripple down...
View ArticlePhilo’s Definition of “Judaism”
With the publication of Daniel Boyarin’s book, Judaism: The Genealogy of a Modern Notion, “Judaism” is back on the scholarly agenda. The book (for which I supplied a blurb) was recently the center of...
View ArticleThe Geonim: An Introduction
I have been teaching for many years in the Me’ah adult learning program run by Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts. I’ve always enjoyed teaching in this program and having the opportunity to...
View ArticleThe Poor and Their Relief in the Mishnah
Last month there was a workshop in Jerusalem on charity in rabbinic literature that I was sorry to miss. There has been a great deal of scholarly interest lately on the topic of charity generally in...
View ArticleCourse: How the Bible Became Holy (Again)
I have taught an introductory level undergraduate course, “How the Bible Became Holy,” several times at Brown and will be doing so again this fall. The course gives (but does not insist on) a loose...
View Article