Spring 2008 Lectures:

A THREE PART SERIES

by

DR. SHAI SECUNDA, Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Post-doctoral Associate, Judaic Studies Program, Yale University

The Religious Context of the Babylonian Talmud and Sasanian Inter-religious Debate

The series will introduce the major religions of Sasanian Mesopotamia - Zoroastrianism, Eastern Christianity, and Manichaeism - and discuss the relationship between them and the Bavli. The sessions will focus specifically on inter-religious debate and examine polemical rabbinic, Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Eastern Christian, and magical texts

Wednesdays

April 16th

April 23rd

April 30th

All seminars will take place at 4:00pm

451 College Street, New Haven

4th Floor Lounge

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CHARLOTTE ELISHEVA FONROBERT, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Stanford University

THE RABBIS’ HERMAPHRODITE: GENDER AMBIGUITY AND LEGAL IDENTITY IN JUDAISM

THURSDAY, APRIL 10TH, 2008 at 4:00pm

William L. Harkness Hall (WLH)100 Wall Str., New Haven, Rm. 117

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Samuel D. Kassow, Charles Northam Professor, Trinity College

"A Historian in Hell: Emanuel Ringleblum in the Warsaw Ghetto" Thursday, February 28th @ 4:00pm - Joseph Flifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, 80 Wall Street, New Haven

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The 2008 Stanley H. Arffa Visiting Scholar Edward L. Greenstein, Professor of Bible and Gwendolyn and Joseph Straus Distinguished Scholar at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel will be giving a Three Part Series: "Is God Just, or Just God"

Thursday February 7:

I. “The Problem of Evil in the Book of Job” (Lecture)

Wednesday, February 13:

II. “Job on Trial: Another Look at the Prose Tale”  (Seminar)

Wednesday, February 20:

III. “Is Everybody at Fault?: Another Look at the Dialogues in Job” (Seminar)

All Talks will take place at 4:00pm at Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, 80 Wall Street, New Haven. This series is sponsored by - The Program in Judaic Studies with the Department of Religious Studies, the Yale Divinity School, and Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale

Fall 2007 Lectures:

Thursday October 18, 4:00 PM

Naomi Seidman, Koret Professor of Jewish Culture and Director of the Richard C. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union

"Faithful Renderings: Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation"

208 Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St.

Thursday October 25, 4:00 PM

Martin Goodman, University of Oxford

Title: Rome and Jerusalem: A Comparison of Lifestyles

211 Hall of Graduate Studies, 320 York St.

Co-sponsored by History Department and Yale Divinity School

Wednesday December 5, 4:00 PM

Froma Zeitlin, Charles Ewing Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature, Princeton University

"Martyrdom Transfigured: The Holocaust and André Schwarz-Bart's The Last of the Just (Le dernier des justes)"

208 Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St.

2007-2008

The Ancient Judaism Workshop

Recent Trends in the Study of Ancient Judaism

Wednesdays 12.00-1.20

451 College St. Basement Seminar Room B-04

Faculty advisers: Steven Fraade and Christine Hayes

Workshop coordinator: Michal Bar-Asher Siegal

Fall Semester 2007

Sept 12

Michael Tzvi Novick, PhD student, Yale University

Re-Citing Scripture: Between Lemma and Comment in Early Rabbinic Exegesis

Sept 19

Samuel Secunda, Postdoc in Judaic studies, Yale University

In or Out?: The place of Menstruants in Sasanian Rabbinic and Zoroastrian Texts

Oct 3

Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, PhD student, Yale University

“And the LORD Said unto Me, Let it Suffice Thee; Speak No More unto Me of this Matter” (Deut 3:27) - Rav Lach in the Tannaitic Midrash Sifre Deuteronomy

Oct 17

Azzan Yadin, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, Rutgers University

Tannaitic Sources on the Life of Rabbi Aqiva and the Creation of the Rabbinic Ideal Type

Oct 31

Jashua Ezra Burns, PhD student, Yale University

The Pre-History of the Essene
Hypothesis: Recovering the Intellectual Foundations of the Earliest
Descriptions of the Qumran Community.

Nov 14

Vered Noam, Professor at the Department of Hebrew Culture Studies, Tel Aviv University

The Dual Strategy of Rabbinic Purity Legislation

Nov 28

Steven Fraade, Mark Taper Professor of the History of Judaism, Yale University

The Temple as a Jewish Identity Marker Pre- and Post-70 CE, with Particular Attention to the Holy Vessels in Memory and Imagination.

Spring semester 2008

Jan 16

Holger Zellentin, Assistant Professor of Rabbinics, Graduate Theological Union

Alcoholism and Theodicy according to Leviticus Rabbah

Jan 23

John J. Collins, Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation, Yale University

What do we know about the sect behind the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Feb 6

Barry Wimpfheimer, Assistant Professor of Religion, Northwestern University

All Rise: The Significance of Courtroom Ritual in the Babylonian Talmud

Feb 20

Akiva Shapiro, PhD student, Yale University

"His Mother was a Whore": How the Rabbis Cut Goliath (and Other Enemies of Israel)Down to Size (or:the Problem of Lineage)

Mar 5

Yehuda Kurtzer, PhD student, Harvard University

From Tyre to Carthage: In Search of the Elusive Rabbis of the Mediterranean Diaspora

Apr 2

Yehuda Septimus, PhD student, Yale University

Title TBA

Apr 16

Ronit Ir-shai, Visiting Lecturer on Women's Studies and Judaism, Harvard Divinity School; lecturer of Jewish philosophy and feminism and a faculty member of the Gender Studies, Bar-Ilan University

Gender, Justice, and Jewish Law

Apr 23

Elitzur Avraham Bar-Asher, PhD Student, Harvard University; Visiting lecturer, Yale University

Reconsideration of the Use of Hebrew in Speaking and Writing in the First Centuries CE

Fall Conference

Poetics and Politics in Yehuda Amichai's World

On October 20-21 a conference will be held on the life work of Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai whose papers are deposited in Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

It will be held at the Whitney Humanities Center,

53 Wall Street, New Haven, CT

For information: www.library.yale.edu/judaica/Amichai/index.html

Spring 2007 Lectures

Wednesday, January 24, 4:00 PM, Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall Street, Room 208

Lee Levine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem:

"Jews & Judaism Under a Triumphant Christianity: Powerlessness & Identity"

Tuesday, February 6, 4:00 PM, Romance Languages Lounge, 82-90 Wall Street, 3rd Floor

Gary Anderson of the University of Notre Dame:

"From Israel's Burden to Israel's Debt : Metaphors of Sin & Forgiveness in Ancient Judaism and Christianity"

Tuesday, February 20, 4:00 PM, Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall Street, Room 208

Guy Stroumsa of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem:

"Religious Dynamics Between Jews & Christians in Late Antiquity"

Monday, March 5, 8:00 PM, Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall Street, Room 208

Michael Stone of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem:

"Adam & Enoch: Vying Paradigms to Explain Evil"

Friday, April 13, 12:30 PM

Geza Vermes, Oxford University

Topic and place to be announced

Calendar
Interactive calendar of events.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE FALL 2006 SEMESTER:

LEO STRAUSS: PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, JUDAISM
A Symposium on the Occasion of the Publication of Steven B. Smith’s Book, Reading Leo Strauss: Politics, Philosophy, Judaism

Panelists  
Mara Benjamin, Yale University
Peter E. Gordon, Harvard University
Warren Zev Harvey, The Hebrew University and Yale University 
Mark Lilla, University of Chicago and Columbia University
Eugene R. Sheppard, Brandeis University

Respondent
Steven B. Smith, Yale University

Sunday, December 10, 2006
2:00 - 5:00 P.M.
The Joseph Slifka Center Chapel,
2nd Floor, 80 Wall Street
Free and Open to the Public
Sponsored by the Rose & John Fox Endowment

THE FRANZ ROSENZWEIG LECTURES 2006

Arthur Green is Irving Brudnick Professor of Jewish Theology and Mysticism at Hebrew College and Rector of the Rabbinical School and Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University.

The lectures took place at Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale in the fall of 2006.

A Jewish Mystical Theology for Today
God: An Evolutionist Approach
Torah: Word Out of Silence
Israel? Still Wrestling with the Angels

The Franz Rosenzweig Lectures are free and open to the public.

The Greco-Roman Lunch
Once a week during term, graduate students and faculty in several programs of the university, including Ancient Christianity, Ancient Judaism, Classical Archeology, Classics, History of Art, Medieval Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and New Testament meet for lunch and conversation and hear a brief, informal presentation by one of their number on work in progress. Attendance at this colloquium, which is voluntary and informal, provides a pleasant and friendly way to keep up with students and faculty in related parts of the university. During the 2005-2006 academic year, the Greco-Roman Lunch will meet in the Saybrook College Fellows Lounge, from 12:15-1:20 PM, with a dessert talk beginning at 12:45. Lunch is free for all graduate students and faculty.

The Judaic Studies Colloquium
The Judaic Studies Program Colloquium takes place every year during the spring semester. The colloquium presents an opportunity for faculty and graduate students to meet on an informal basis and learn about each other's current research projects. The meeting takes place in the Judaic Studies Reading Room of the Sterling Memorial Library. A graduate student nearing the completion of his/her dissertation and a faculty member of the Program each deliver a paper followed by a discussion in which colloquium participants exchange thoughts and ideas concerning the paper with the speaker. Spring 2006 speakers and topics will be announced later in the year.

Next: Calendar