Dr. Guedj is a historian of the Jews in Muslim countries.  His research interests are focused on Intellectual history of Jews in Muslim countries in the 19th and 20th centuries; The development and modernization of a polyglot book culture in 20th century Morocco; The Maghreb during WW2 and the Holocaust; Childhood, youth and family in Jewish communities across Muslim countries; Visual and literary images of Jews from Muslim countries in their native lands and in Israel.

His first book, The Hebrew Culture in Morocco, explores the Attitudes of Moroccan Jewry toward the Hebrew language and the building of Hebrew culture during the colonial period (1912-1956). Currently he is working on a monograph tentatively titled: The development and modernization of a Jewish polyglot book culture in 20th century Morocco.

MA and PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Wrote his doctoral dissertation on the historical significance of the Third Book of Maccabees, under the supervision of Professor Daniel Schwartz, and specializes in the history of Diaspora Jewry during the Second Temple, Mishna and the Talmud, especially Hellenistic Jewish Diaspora. In addition, also explores rabbinic literature in its historical contexts.

His current research project together with Professor Tal Ilan (Free University of Berlin) is preparing the fourth volume of a collection of Jewish papyri (Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum). This collection reveals and shows everyday life of the Jews in Egypt, during the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods, and enable us to understand different aspects of the history of the Jews in this important diaspora community.

 

Among his publications:

'The Letter of Aristeas: A New Exodus Story? ', Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 36 (2005), pp. 1-20

‘Exile and Self-Identity in the Qumran Sect and in Hellenistic Judaism’, E. Chazon & B. Halpern-Amaru (eds.), New Perspectives on Old Texts: Proceedings of the 10^th International Symposium of the Orion Center for the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 9-11 January, 2005, Brill: Leiden 2010, pp. 3-21

‘Where Does the Shekhinah Dwell? Between Dead Sea Sect, Diaspora Judaism and Rabbinic Literature’, A. Lange, E. Tov, M. Weigold (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context: Integrating the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Study of Ancient Texts, Languages, and Cultures, vol. 1, (SVT 140/1), Brill: Leiden & Boston , 2011, pp. 399-412

‘Sanctity and the Attitude towards the Temple in Hellenistic Judaism’, D.R. Schwartz & Zeev Weiss (eds.), Was 70 C.E. a Watershed in Jewish History? On Jews and Judaism before and after the Destruction of the Second Temple, (AJEC 78), Brill: Leiden 2012, pp. 155-179

‘Between mĕšûbâ and môšābâ: On the Status of Diaspora Jews in the Period of Redemption According to the Septuagint and Hellenistic Judaism’, Melvin K.H. Peters (ed.), XIV Congress of the IOSCS, Helsinki, 2010 (SBL Septuagint and Cognate Studies, 59), Atlanta 2013, pp. 127-142

'Bigthan and Teresh and the Reason Gentiles Hate Jews', Vetus Testamentum 62 (2012), pp. 318-356

‘The High Priesthood and Onias’ Temple: The Historical Meaning of a Rabbinic Story’,Zion 78 (2013), pp. 439-469 [Hebrew]

 

 

At the center of his research lies the dialogue and polemics with the Christian world and by extension also the manner in which it influenced the Christian self-identity. Some of his studies are posted on the worldwide web via the website of academia. 

 

Academic Functions: Chairman of the Historical Society of Israel, 1992-2000; Director of the School of History at the Hebrew University, 2001-2004; Chairman of the World Union of Jewish Studies, 2009-2013; since 2013 Chairman of the Humanities Division of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Prizes and Awards:  Ben Zvi Prize (2003) and Israel Prize (2013). In 2012 he was awarded an Advanced Grant  from the European Research Council (ERC).

Since 2004 he is a member of the Israel Academy for Sciences and Humanities.

 

Her first book “Seder Mazikin: Law and Magic in Late Antique Jewish Society” (Yad Ben Zvi, 2024) questions the scholarly dichotomy between ancient Jewish law and magic by arguing that legal formulations constituted an essential part of Jewish magical texts and Jewish legal terms were often invested with a metaphysical meaning. She is currently working on a synthetic social history of the Jews in the Sasanian empire focusing on the daily life of Jewish individuals, the scope of rabbinic authority over popular Jewish groups, and the boundaries between Jewish and Christian communities. Dr. Manekin-Bamberger has published articles on various aspects of rabbinic literature, ancient Jewish magic and demonology and ancient Jewish culture within its broader context.

  His recent books include American Israelis: Migration, Transnationalism, and Diasporic identity (with L. Lev Ari, Brill 2010); and Jews and the American Religious Landscape (Columbia University Press, 2016). His current research is on Israelis in Germany. 

Prof. Rebhun is the Vice-Dean for Teaching of the Faculty of Humanities; and also serves as chair of the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry.

In the past his was the head of the Honors program "Revivim"; and director of the Cherrick Center for the study of Zionism, the Yishuv, and the State of Israel.

 

His research focuses on Jewish history in the Second Temple period, especially upon ancient historiography. Among his books: annotated commentaries to the Second Book of Maccabees (2004 in Hebrew, 2008 in English) and Josephus’s Vita (2007); Agrippa I: The Last King of Judaea (1987 in Hebrew, 1990 in English); Reading the First Century: On Reading Josephus and Studying Jewish History of the First Century (2013); Judeans and Jews: Four Faces of Dichotomy in Ancient Jewish History (2014); and Between Jewish Posen and Scholarly Berlin: The Life and Letters of Philipp Jaffé (2017). Alongside teaching and research, he has held numerous administrative positions in the University;  He is currently the Academic Head of the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

 

His research interests include intellectual and political history of Zionism and modern Jewish nationalism, with an emphasis on its Central and East European contexts; history of Austro-Hungarian Jewries, including the effects of emancipation discourse, modernization projects, ethnic and national struggles, and social and cultural conflicts on Jewish life and the Jewish perceptions of Jewish-Gentile relations; Soviet Jewish history and the study of post-Soviet migration.

His book Between Prague and Jerusalem: Prague Zionists and the Origins of the Idea of Binational State in Palestine (published in Hebrew by Shazar Center & Leo Baeck, 2010), won the Hecht Prize for the Best Book in Israel Studies for 2011. A German version of this book has been published in 2013 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen. His scholarly publications appeared in a number of leading journals in the Jewish Studies, including Zion, AJS Review, Jewish Social Studies, Jewish History, The Jewish Quarterly Review, as well as in The Russian Review, a leading journal in the Eastern European Studies.

Prof. Shumsky’s last book, Beyond the Nation-State: The Zionist Political Imagination from Pinsker to Ben-Gurion (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2018), has been awarded an “Honorable Mention” (2nd place winner) of the Annual Shapiro Prize for the best book in Israel Studies awarded by the Association for Israel Studies (2019); and an “Honorable Mention” of the Ab Imperio Award for the best study in new imperial history and history of diversity in Northern Eurasia sponsored by Ab Imperio quarterly (2019).

Prof. Shumsky teaches broadly in European Jewish history from early modern to contemporary times, including courses in history of the origins and phenomenology of modern Jewish nationalisms; the Zionist ideology; the formation of modern Jewish culture in the Bohemian lands; emancipation, acculturation and identity in the Central and Eastern Europe; ethnicity, identity and conflict in Israeli society.

Prof. Shumsky was a Mandel Fellow at Scholion, the Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University (now Interdisciplinary Research Center in the Humanities and Jewish Studies). He stayed as a guest scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Leipzig, and University of Munich. Since 2008 Prof. Shumsky won three ISF grants.