End-of-Semester Faculty Spotlight
JTS faculty members have been sharing their scholarship far beyond the classroom these past few weeks. Read about the different panels, awards, and workshops they’ve been participating in.
On May 7, Dr. Yael Landman, assistant professor of Bible, received the 2024 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise at an awards ceremony in Heidelberg, Germany, in recognition for her book Legal Writing, Legal Practice: The Biblical Bailment Law and Divine Justice. The ceremony recognized ten young scholars from Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States for outstanding dissertations or postdoctoral book publications on the topic of “God and Spirituality.” While in Heidelberg, she also presented her current research.
Dr. Marjorie Lehman, professor of Talmud and Rabbinics and the Area Coordinator of Rabbinic Literatures and Cultures, helped lead a two-day paleography workshop at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. The workshop was organized in conjunction with the digital humanities project Footprints: Jewish Books Through Time and Place, which Dr. Lehman co-directs. “After a difficult year for all of us, it was wonderful to connect with one another through our devotion to the history of Jewish books,” said Professor Lehman. “Reading difficult inscriptions while drawing on the expertise of the participants was so enriching and generative.” Read more about the workshop here.
Dr. David Fishman, professor of Jewish history, organized a day-long seminar at JTS on Ukrainian Jewry. Scholars from across the United States and Europe joined him to discuss new perspectives and works in progress on Ukrainian Jewry. Four different panels were held: “Politics and Scholarship,” “Migration and Diaspora,” “History and Memory,” and “History and Literature.”
Dr. Fishman also delivered a keynote address entitled “The Jewish Condition and the Ever-Endangered Jewish Archive” at the Fifth International Judaica Curators Conference held at The National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. This year’s conference highlighted three areas that necessitate collaborative leadership: digital collecting and curating, endangered archives, and provenance.
Rabbi Burt L. Visotzky, Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies Emeritus, participated in an event much closer to home when he was a member of an interfaith panel at the historic Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights. The event was called “Dialogues on Divinity: A Love That is Holy and True: Interreligious Discovery” and invited local scholars of Judaism, Islam and Christianity to be in dialogue.
