In this lecture, Chajes will reflect upon the critical role the academic study of Judaism has to play in the fashioning of nuanced and authentic alternatives to the fundamentalist, reactionary postures that became dominant in the modern period. Drawing on his extensive personal as well as professional experience, he will explain the particular significance of this issue in Israel, where he has taught for over twenty years at the most culturally diverse university in the country.

In Kooperation mit

• Born in 1965 in Detroit, USA.
• He is Sir Isaac Wolfson Full Professor of Jewish Thought in the Departement of Jewish History at the University of Haifa.
• He represents the fields of Jewish thought and rabbinic literature on the Executive Board of the World Union of Jewish Studies.
• Chajes's research focuses on the intersection of Kabbalah, magic, and science in early modern Jewish culture.
• He has written on spirit possession and exorcism, women’s religiosity, attitudes towards magic, and on the visualization of knowledge. His forthcoming The Kabbalistic Tree (PSUP) has already won an Israel Science Foundation pre-publication prize.

Mail