Rachel Elior is the head of the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University. She has been a member of the University faculty since 1978 and is the John and Golda Cohen Professor of Jewish Philosophy in the Department of Jewish Thought. She received her BA (1973) and PhD (1976), both Summa Cum Laude, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Professor Elior's research interests include: the history of Jewish mysticism – early Jewish mysticism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Heikhalot; Kabbalah – the early modern period, Messianism, Sabbatianism, Hasidism, Frankism; the presence and absence of women in Jewish culture and religious tradition, and the history of freedom; traditional sources of secular Judaism – identity, knowledge, criticism and creativity.
Prof. Elior has taught at Princeton University, Tokyo University, Yeshiva University and Case Western University, Shalom Institute in the University of New South Wales in Sydney, The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Oberlin College and University College London. She has also been a Research Fellow at the Oxford Center for Jewish Studies in Oxford University.
Prof. Elior has written ten books on different periods of Jewish mystical creativity, edited five books and authored some hundred articles on this subject. She won a number of prizes, among them the Friedenberg Award of Excellence of the Israel National Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Beracha-Yigal Alon Prize for Academic Excellence, AVI Fellowship – Geneva, Warburg Prize, Federman Foundation, State University of New York Research Foundation, The Littauer Fund, Oxford Jerusalem Trust Visiting Fellowship, Wolfson Foundation and Memorial Foundation for Jewish Studies Fellowship. The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities has recently awarded her the Gershom Scholem Prize for Research in Kabbalah.
Selected Publications
- Memory and Oblivion: The Mystery of The Dead Sea Scrolls, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, 2009
- Dybbuks and Jewish Women in Social History, Mysticism and Folklore, Jerusalem and New York, Urim Publications and Lambda Publishers, Inc., 2008
- Jewish Mysticism: The Infinite Expression of Freedom, Oxford, The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2007
- The Mystical Origins of Hasidism, Oxford, The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006
- "You have chosen Enoch from among human beings”: Enoch "The scribe of righteousness" and the Scroll's library of "The Priests, the sons of Zadok. "In: On Creation and Re-Creation in Jewish Thought: Festschrift in Honor of Joseph Dan on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, eds. R. Elior and P. Schäfer, Tubingen: Mohr Sieback, 2005, pp.15-64
- " 'Possession' in the early Modern Period: Speaking voices, silent worlds and silenced voices." In: The Path of the Spirit, The Eliezer Schweid Jubilee Volume (Derekh haRuah: Sefer haYovel le-Eliezer Schweid), Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought, Vols.18-19, ed. Y. Amir. Jerusalem, Department of Jewish Thought, Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, Hebrew University, and The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, 2005, pp.499-536 (Hebrew)
- "Divine time cycles, the Merkavah tradition and the dispute over the calendar." In: Lights in Literature, Art and Jewish Thought, eds. E. Bilski, A. Mendelsohn and A. Shinan, Tel Aviv, Am Oved, 2005, pp.92-118 (Hebrew)
- The Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism, Oxford, Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004
- Herut al Haluhot – Studies in the Mystical Foundations of Hasidism, Broadcast University, Defense Ministry Press, 1999
Books edited
- Men and Women: Gender, Judaism and Democracy, Jerusalem, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Urim Publications, 2004.
Prof. Rachel Elior's page at the Hebrew University
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