Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Full Professor, teaches rabbinic literature in the department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud at Tel-Aviv University. In 2013 he was elected to the Israel Young Academy of Sciences. He has written on Midrash and Mishnah, as well as on issues of self-formation and collective identity in Second-Temple Judaism and rabbinic literature. Among his publications are: Demonic Desires: YETZER HARA and the Problem of Evil in Late Antiquity (University of Pennsylvania 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; won the Goshen-Goldstein prize for the best book in Jewish Philosophy for the years 2016-2018); Between Mishnah and Midrash: The Birth of Rabbinic Literature (Open University 2019).
Prof. Ishay Rosen Zvi
Department of Jewish Philosophy
faculty of humanities
חוג לפילוסופיה יהודית
סגל אקדמי בכיר
faculty of humanities
CV
Publications
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.
- Demonic Desires: Yetzer Hara and the problem of Evil in Late Antiquity, Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion (Philadelphia: Penn Press, 2011). 293 pages.
- 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.
- Between Mishnah and Midrash: The Birth of Rabbinic Literature (the Open University, Raanana 2019; Hebrew), 476 pages.
- From A Holy Goy to A Shabbat Goy: The emergence and Persistence of the Jews' Other (With Adi Ophir, Carmal: Jerusalem, 2021)
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).
Midrash hermeneutics project
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)
Books:
- 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.
- An English translation of this book is forthcoming on 2023 by the University of California.
Articles:
- "Measure for Measure as a Hermeneutic Tool in Early Rabbinic Literature", Journal of Jewish Studies 56 (2006), pp. 269-286.
- "Two Rabbinic Inclinations? Rethinking a Scholarly Dogma", Journal for the Study of Judaism 39 (2008), pp. 513-539.
- "Orality, Narrative, Rhetoric: New Directions in Mishnah Research", AJS Review 32 (2008), pp. 1-15.
- "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.
- "Towards a Hermeneutic Lexicon of Midrashic Terminology", Jewish Studies 48 (2012), pp. 71-91. [Hebrew]
- "Structure and Reflectivity in Tannaitic Legal Homilies, or: How to Read Midrashic Terminology", Prooftexts 34 (2014): 271-301
- "Midrashic Hermeneutics: Between Halakha and Aggadah" (with Assaf Rosen-Zvi), Tarbiz 86 (2019): 203-232 [Hebrew]
- "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.
- Afterword to the Hebrew Translation of D. Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (ed. E. Reiner, Jerusalem: Shalom Hartman Institute, 2012), 273-286.
- "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.
- "Paul and Universalism: 'A Radical Jew' Revisited", with Adi Ophir. M. Vidas, C. Fonrobert, A. Shemesh and I. Rosen-Zvi (eds.), Talmudic Transgressions: Encounters with Daniel Boyarin (Brill, Leiden, 2017), pp. 368-385.
- "Is the Mishnah a Roman Composition?", Ch. Hayes, Z. Novick and M. Bar-Asher Segal (eds.), The Faces of Torah. Studies in the Texts and Contexts of Ancient Judaism in Honor of Steven Fraade, Journal of Ancient Judaism. Supplements, vol. 22, Göttingen 2017, 487-508.
- "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.
- "The Evil Inclination in Tannaitic Literature: Demonic Desires and Beyond", H. Patmore, I. Rosen-Zvi, J. Atikan (eds.), The Evil Inclination in Early Judaism and Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 115-125.
- "Early Judaism And Rabbinic Judaism", in M. Henze and Rod Werline (eds.), Early Judaism and its Modern Interpreters (Leiden, Brill, 2020), 489-518.
- "The Rhetorical Self in Tannaitic Halakha", Dead Sea Discoveries 28 (2021) 341–366.
Other publications:
- “Mishnah, Midrash, and How to Read Tannaitic Literature,” Ancient Jew Review (Sep 2, 2020)
The birth of the goy project
Grants:
- Israel Science Foundation [2013-2016] - "The birth of the goy in ancient Jewish literature." Co-chief researcher with Prof. Adi Ophir. (no. 580/13)
Books:
- Goy: Israel’s Others and the Birth of the Gentile (with Adi Ophir) (OUP: Oxford 2018; won the Goshen-Goldstein prize for the best book in Jewish Philosophy for the years 2016-2018);
- From the Holy Goy to the Shabbat Goy: Realizing the Jews’ Other, with Adi Ophir (Carmel, Tel-Aviv 2021) [Hebrew]
Articles:
- "Goy: Toward a Genealogy", with Adi Ophir, Dine Israel 28 (2011), 69-112.
- "Paul and the Invention of the Gentiles", with Adi Ophir, Jewish Quarterly Review 105 (2015): 1-41.
- "What If We Got Rid of the GOY? Rereading Ancient Jewish Distinctions", Journal for the Study of Judaism 47 (2016): 149-182.
- "Between Ethnos and Nomos: Josephus and the goyim", Jewish Studies Internet Journal 19 (2020): 1-11.
- "Xenophobia, Judeophobia and the Birth of the GOY: On Chickens and Eggs", Zion 85 (2020): 151-175. [Hebrew]
- "The Birth of the Goy in Rabbinic Literature", I. Rosen Zvi, G. Bohak and R. Margolin (eds.), Myth, Mysticism and Ritual: Studies in the Relations between Jewish and Religious Studies, Ithamar Gruenwald Festschrift (Te'uda: Studies of the Hayim Rosenberg School for Jewish Studies in Tel Aviv University, 26), pp. 361-438. [Hebrew]
Other publications:
- “Gentiles in Rabbinic Judaism” in: The Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (EBR), Edited by C. Hayes et al (Berlin: de Greuter).
- "The “goy” and the Jewish State", Alpayim 2 (2019).
- "Why Goy?" in Goy: An AJR Forum, Ancient Jew Review (Feb 18, 2019)
- Goy: An AJR Forum (Feb 18, 2019)
Video:
- GOY: Israel's Multiple Others and the Birth of the Gentile - Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi, MythVision Podcast
- How did the gentile come to be? A short video to promote the book's release, Shalom Hartman Institute [Hebrew]
- "Why Goy?" 2020 Kadar Family Award lecture
- "We, and the Gentiles", an interview series with Alex Zeitlin [Hebrew] - ch. 1, ch. 2