Prof. Ishay Rosen Zvi

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). 

FULL CV

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.
• 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) 

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).

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)    

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)