Prof. Ishay Rosen Zvi

Ishay Rosen-Zvi is a professor of rabbinic literature in the Department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud at Tel Aviv University and serves as a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. In 2025, he received the Rothschild Prize for Excellence in the Humanities.

Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

He has taught at many universities, including Princeton, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Harvard University.

He has written on issues of Hermeneutics, self-formation and collective identity in Second-Temple Judaism and rabbinic literature. Among his publications are: Among his publications are: Demonic Desires: YETZER HARA and the Problem of Evil in Late Antiquity (Penn Press: Philadelphia 2011); Body and Soul in Ancient Judaism (Modan: Tel Aviv 2012); The Mishnaic Sotah Ritual: Temple Gender and Midrash (Brill: Leiden 2012); Goy: Israel’s Others and the Birth of the Gentile (with Adi Ophir) (OUP: Oxford 2018); The Secret Life of Jewish Holidays (Kineret-Zemora: Tel Aviv, 2023); The Talmud: A History of Learning, with Yakov Z. Meir (Magness Press: Jerusalem, 2025); How to Read Mishna and Midrash: An Introduction to Early Rabbinic Literature (University of California Press: Berkeley, 2026).

BOOKS

• The Rite that Was not: Temple, Midrash and Gender in Tractate Sotah (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2008; Hebrew). 316 pages.
• The Mishnaic Sotah Ritual: Temple, Gender and Midrash (Journal for the Study of Judaism-Supplement Series, Leiden: Brill, 2012). 256 pages. A revised translation of the former.
  • Review by Prof. Ron Naiweld in Judaïsme Ancien Vol 4
• Demonic Desires: Yetzer Hara and the problem of Evil in Late Antiquity, Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion (Philadelphia: Penn Press, 2011). 293 pages.
  • Review by Prof. Shai Secunda in the Talmud Blog
  • Review by Prof. Matthew A. Kraus in H-Judaic
• Body and Soul in Ancient Judaism (Tel Aviv: Modan and the Broadcasted University, 2012; Hebrew), 131 pages.
• Goy: Israel Others and the Birth of the Gentile, with Adi Ophir (Oxford University Press, 2018), 333 pages.
  • Review by Benjamin Z. Wolf
• Between Mishnah and Midrash: The Birth of Rabbinic Literature (the Open University, Raanana 2019; Hebrew), 476 pages.
  • Review by Dr. Yakov Z. Mayer in Ancient Jew Review
• From A Holy Goy to A Shabbat Goy: The emergence and Persistence of the Jews' Other (With Adi Ophir, Carmal: Jerusalem, 2021)
• The Secret Life of Jewish Holidays (Tel Aviv: Kineret-Zemora, 2023; Hebrew), 191 pages. 
• The Talmud: A History of Learning, with Yakov Z. Meir (Jerusalem: Magness Press, 2025; Hebrew), 382 pages.
  • Review by Dr. Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg in AJS Review.
• How to Read Mishna and Midrash: An Introduction to Early Rabbinic Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2026), 455 pages.
• Rediscovering the Holidays: The Forgotten History of Jewish Festivals (Jewish Publication Society Press, 2026).  

EDITED BOOKS

• I. Rosen-Zvi, G. Bohak and R. Margolin (eds.), Myth, Mysticism and Ritual: The Relationship between Jewish Studies and Religious Studies; A Festschrift for Ithamar Gruenwald. Teudah: Studies of the Haim Rosenberg School for Jewish Studies, 26, 2014.
• I. Rosen-Zvi, M. Vidas, C. Fonrobert, A. Shemesh and (eds.), Talmudic Transgressions: Encounters with Daniel Boyarin (Brill, Leiden, 2017)
• I. Rosen-Zvi, D. Boyarin and V. Noam (eds.), From the Disciples of Aaron: Studies in Tannaitic Literature and Ancient Halakha, in Memory of Prof. Aaron Shemesh, Teuda (Tel-Aviv University 2020).
• H. Patmore, I. Rosen-Zvi, J. Atikan (eds.), The Origins of Evil in Early Judaism and Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Oxford, 2021).

• Accepted for Publication:

   I. Rosen-Zvi, M. Vidas, V. Noam and Y. Z. Meir (eds.), The Palestinian Talmud: New Perspective, Teudah 35 (Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 2025). 
   

FULL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Grants:

• Israel Science Foundation  (2009-2012) - "The terminology of Tannaitic Midrash: towards a hermeneutic lexicon." Chief researcher.  (no. 41/09)    
• Israel Science Foundation (2019-2022) - "The Hermeneutic of Tannaitic Midrashim: Between Halakha and Aggada." Co-chief researcher.  (no. 293/19)
• Israel Science Foundation (2023-2027) - “A Database and Lexicon of the Terminology of Tannaitic Midrashim: A New Method.” Chief researcher. (no. 202/23)    

Books:

• How to Read Mishna and Midrash: An Introduction to Early Rabbinic Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2026). A revised translation of Between Mishnah and Midrash (2019)
  • Ancient Jew Review Podcast
• Between Mishnah and Midrash: The Birth of Rabbinic Literature (the Open University, Raanana 2019; Hebrew), 476 pages.
  • Book launch event in Shalom Hartman institute.
  • Book launch event in the Open university, Israel.
  • Book Review in Ancient Jew Review.

Articles:

• “On Midrash and Allegory: the Case of ‘Ella’” (edited by Dov Schwartz), Yet Holding Faith in Human: Jubilee Volume in Honor of Avi Sagi (Ramat Ran: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2026), 217-227. [Hebrew]
• “The Roots of Tannaitic Midrash” (With Assaf Rosen-Zvi) (edited by Yaron Harel, Ariel Pikard and Avi Sagi), Zvi Tifara: Studies in honor of Zvi Zohar (Ramat Ran: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2025), 61-80. [Hebrew]
• “What is Midrash?”, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, spring/summer 2025: 50-61.
• “’We did not Hear’: what does Midrash expect to hear and how?” (with Yaakov Kroizer), Oqimta 11 (2025): 271-292. [Hebrew]
• “Midrash and/as Allegory: the case of Ella”, Oqimta 10 (2024): 187-209.
• “The Hermeneutics of Aggadic Exegesis in Tannaitic Midrashic: a Terminological Survey,” (with Assaf Rosen-Zvi), Mehkarei Talmud 4 (2023), 765-816. [Hebrew]
• “Rabbis as Nomikoi? Some Questions on a New Paradigm”, Journal for the Study of Judaism 55 (2023): 1-13.
• “The Rhetorical Self in Tannaitic Halakha”, Dead Sea Discoveries 28 (2021) 341–366.
• “Early Judaism and Rabbinic Judaism”, in M. Henze and Rod Werline (eds.), Early Judaism and its Modern Interpreters (Leiden, Brill, 2020), 489-518.
• “To See the Voices: Midrash and/as Revelation”, B. Levinson (Guest Editor), Law, Society, and Religion: Essays in Memory of George E. Mendenhall, MAARAV, A Journal for the Study of the Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures 24 (2020): 193–206.
• “Midrashic Hermeneutics: Between Halakha and Aggadah” (with Assaf Rosen-Zvi), Tarbiz 86 (2019): 203-232 [Hebrew]
• “Two Midrashic Selves: Between Origen and the Mekhilta", in M. R. Niehoff and J. Levinson (eds.), Constructions of the Self in the Roman Empire (Mohr Siebeck: Tübingen, 2019), 469-501. 
• "Introduction to the Mishnah", D. Rosenthal (ed. in chief), Rabbinic Literature of Eretz Israel: Introductions and Studies (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 2018), pp. 1-64. [Hebrew]
• "Structure and Reflectivity in Tannaitic Legal Homilies, or: How to Read Midrashic Terminology", Prooftexts 34 (2014): 271-301 
• Afterword to the Hebrew Translation of D. Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (ed. E. Reiner, Jerusalem: Shalom Hartman Institute, 2012), 273-286. [Hebrew]
• "Towards a Hermeneutic Lexicon of Midrashic Terminology", Jewish Studies 48 (2012), pp. 71-91. [Hebrew]
• "Midrash and Reflectivity: Kishmu'o as a Test Case", M. Niehoff (ed.), Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 329-344.
• "Orality, Narrative, Rhetoric: New Directions in Mishnah Research", AJS Review 32 (2008), pp. 1-15.
• "Two Rabbinic Inclinations? Rethinking a Scholarly Dogma", Journal for the Study of Judaism 39 (2008), pp. 513-539. 
• "Measure for Measure as a Hermeneutic Tool in Early Rabbinic Literature", Journal of Jewish Studies 56 (2006), pp. 269-286.

Review Essay:

•  “Mishnah, Midrash, and How to Read Tannaitic Literature,” Ancient Jew Review (Sep 2, 2020)

Lecture Series:

• Intro to Rabbinic Literature