JEREMY COHEN
Abraham and Edita Spiegel Family Foundation Professor of European Jewish History
Department of Jewish History
Faculty of Humanities Tel Aviv University 69978 Tel Aviv, ISRAEL
Phone: 972-3-6409799, 6409462 (office); 972-9-7445387 (home); fax: 972-3-6407287
e-mail:
EDUCATION
1970-1974 Columbia University B.A. in History, summa cum laude
Columbia College Valedictorian
1970-1974 Jewish Theological Seminary B.Heb.Lit. in Talmud, 1974
1972-1973 Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Centre for Jewish Education in the Diaspora
1974-1978 Cornell University M.A. in History, 1976
Ph.D. in History, 1978
ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
1977-1981 Cornell University, Department of Near Eastern Studies
1977-1978 --Instructor of Jewish History
1978-1981 --Assistant Professor of Jewish History
--Coordinator, Program of Jewish Studies
1982-1997 Ohio State University, Department of History
occupant of the Samuel and Esther Melton Chair in Jewish History
1982-1989 --Associate Professor of Jewish History
1989-1997 --Professor of Jewish History
1988 --Acting Director, Melton Center for Jewish Studies
1989-present Tel-Aviv University, Department of Jewish History
1989-1989 --Senior Lecturer
1989-1998 --Associate Professor
1998 --Professor
2002-2005 --Director, Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center
2004- --Abraham and Edita Spiegel Family Foundation Chair for European
Jewish History
Visiting Appointments
1983-1991 Methodist Theological School, Delaware, Ohio
1983-1989 --Adjunct Associate Professor of Church History
1989-1991 --Adjunct Professor of Church History
1984-1985 Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Institute of Jewish Studies
Visiting Scholar
1995 College of William and Mary, Department of Religion
Bronfman Visiting Distinguished Professor in Judaic Studies
1996 Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Louis Jacobs Lecturer
1999 University of Chicago, Divinity School
Regenstein Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies
2000 College of William and Mary, Department of Religion
Bronfman Visiting Distinguished Professor in Judaic Studies
2005 Georgetown University
Herman Allen Israel Lectureship in Jewish-Catholic Relations
2005 College of William and Mary, Department of Religious Studies
Bronfman Visiting Distinguished Professor in Judaic Studies
2005 Johns Hopkins University, Department of History
Crane Foundation Distinguished Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies
2009 Yale University, Stanley H. Arffa Visiting Scholar in Judaic Studies
2010 College of William and Mary, Department of Religious Studies
Bronfman Visiting Distinguished Professor in Judaic Studies
Fellowships
1976-1978 Danforth Foundation Kent Fellow
1980-1981 Fellow, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University
1984-1985 offered fellowship at National Humanities Center, U.S.A. (declined)
1984-1985 Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture Research Fellowship
1989-1993 Fellow, Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem
1992-1993 Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
1996-1997 National Endowment for the Humanities
Fellowship for University Teachers
2000-2001 Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University
2005-2006 Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture Research Fellowship
Academic and Professional Awards
1970-1974 John Jay National Scholar, Columbia University
1973 Election to Phi Beta Kappa
1974 Valedictorian, Columbia College
1974-1977 Andrew Dickson White Graduate Fellow, Cornell University
1976-1977 Danforth Foundation Kent (Doctoral) Fellowship
1979 NEH Summer Stipend
1983 National Jewish Book Award, U.S.A.
1986 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend
1990 National Jewish Book Award, U.S.A.
1990 American Catholic Historical Association John Gilmary Shea Prize
1991 Ohio Academy of History Publication Award
1996-1997 NEH Fellowship for University Teachers
1999 Yoran Schnitzer Award, Institute for the Study of Zionism
Tel Aviv University
1999-2000 Wischnitzer Prize in Jewish History (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
1999-2002 Israel Academy of Sciences (Basic Science Foundation)--Research Grant
"Christ, Antichrist, and the Jew"
2000 National Jewish Book Award, U.S.A.
2003 Zalman Shazar Prize in Jewish History (Israel Historical Society)
2008 NEH Summer Institute for College Teachers (“The Holy Land”) Co-Director
2008-2012 Israel Science Foundation Research Grant
Solomon ibn Verga’s Shevet Yehudah
2010 National Jewish Book Award, U.S.A.
Professional Service
1983-1989 Association for Jewish Studies: Board of Directors
1995-2003 Israel Historical Society: Academic Council
1996 Vidal Sassoon Centre for the Study of Antisemitism
Bibliographic Project: Academic Committee
1998-2005 Editorial Board, Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History
1999-2004 Medieval Encounters: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Culture in Confluence
and Dialogue (E.J. Brill Publishers): Editorial Board
2000-2003 Israel Historical Society: Executive Committee
2003-2005 Tel Aviv University Board of Governors
2006- Editor of Zion, journal of the Israel Historical Society
2007- Board of Directors, Beth Hatefutsoth (The Nahum Goldman Museum of the
Jewish Diaspora)
PUBLICATIONS
Books
· The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism, Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 1982.
winner of: National Jewish Book Award for scholarship, 1983
included in: ACLS Humanities E-Book collection
· “Be Fertile and Increase, Fill the Earth and Master It”: The Ancient and Medieval Career of a Biblical Text, Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 1989.
winner of:
--National Jewish Book Award for scholarship, 1990
--American Catholic Historical Association, John Gilmary Shea Prize, 1990
--Ohio Academy of History Publication Award, 1991
· Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1999.
winner of:
--Wischnitzer Prize in Jewish History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1999-2000
--National Jewish Book Award for scholarship, 2000
· Hebrew translation: כעיוור במראה: היהודי בתפיסה הנוצרית בימי הביניים (Jerusalem, Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2002)
winner of: Zalman Shazar Prize in Jewish History, 2003
· Sanctifying the Name of God: Jewish Martyrs and Jewish Memories of the First Crusade, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
· Christ-Killers: The Jews and the Passion, from the Bible to the Big Screen, New York, Oxford University Press, 2007.
Edited Volumes
· Essential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict: From Late Antiquity to the Reformation, New York, New York University Press, 1991
· From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought, Wiesbaden, Germany, Otto Harrassowitz Publishers, 1996
· Facing the Cross: The 1096 Persecutions in History and Historiography [in Hebrew], ed. Y.T. Assis, J. Cohen, A. Kedar, O. Limor, and M. Tokh, Jerusalem, Dinur Institute for Jewish History, 2000
· Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies, ed. Martin Goodman, assoc. eds. Jeremy Cohen, David Sorkin, Oxford University Press, 2002
winner of: National Jewish Book Award for scholarship, 2003
· The Jewish Contribution to Civilization: Reassessing an Idea, ed. Jeremy Cohen and Richard I. Cohen, Oxford, Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2008
· Rethinking European Jewish History, ed. Jeremy Cohen and Moshe Rosman, Oxford, Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2008
winner of: National Jewish Book Award for anthologies and collections, 2010
· Remembering and Forgetting: Israeli Historians Look at the Jewish Past, ed. Albert Baumgarten, Jeremy Cohen, and Ezra Mendelsohn, Jerusalem, Historical Society of Israel, 2009
Articles
“Roman Imperial Policy towards the Jews from Constantine until the End of the Palestinian Patriarchate (ca. 429),” Byzantine Studies 3 (1976), 1-29.
“The Nasi of Narbonne: A Problem in Medieval Historiography,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 2 (1977), 45-76.
“The Christian Adversary of Solomon ibn Adret,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 71 (1980), 48-55.
“Original Sin as the Evil Inclination--A Polemicist’s Appreciation of Human Nature,” Harvard Theological Review 73 (1980), 495-520.
“Jews as the Killers of Christ in the Latin Tradition, from Augustine to the Friars,” Traditio 39 (1983), 1-27.
“Philosophical Exegesis in Historical Perspective: The Case of the Binding of Isaac,” in Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence in Medieval Philosophy, ed. Tamar Rudavsky, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, D. Reidel Publishers, 1985, pp. 135-42.
“The Bible, Man, and Nature in the History of Western Thought: A Call for Reassessment,” Journal of Religion 65 (1985), 155-72.
“Scholarship and Intolerance in the Medieval Academy: The Study and Evaluation of Judaism in European Christendom,” American Historical Review 91 (1986), 592-613.
“Robert Chazan’s ‘Medieval Anti-Semitism’: A Note on the Impact of Theology,” in History and Hate: The Dimensions of Anti-Semitism, ed. David Berger, Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society, 1986, pp. 67-72.
“The Mentality of the Medieval Jewish Apostate: Peter Alfonsi, Hermann of Cologne, and Pablo Christiani,” in Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World, ed. T.M. Endelman, New York, Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1987, pp. 20-47.
“The Friars and the Jews,” in The Many Sides of History: Readings in the Western Heritage, ed. Steven Ozment and Frank M. Turner, New York, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987, vol. 1, pp. 187-202.
“Recent Historiography on the Medieval Church and the Decline of European Jewry,” in Popes, Teachers, and Canon Law in the Middle Ages, ed. James Ross Sweeney and Stanley Chodorow, Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University Press, 1989, pp. 251-62.
“Traditional Prejudice and Religious Reform: The Theological and Historical Foundations of Luther's Anti-Judaism,” in Antisemitism in Times of Crisis, ed. Steven Katz and Sander Gilman, New York, New York University Press, 1991, pp. 81-102.
“Introduction,” in Essential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict, ed. Jeremy Cohen, New York, New York University Press, 1991, pp. 1-36.
“Profiat Duran’s The Reproach of the Gentiles and the Development of Jewish Anti-Christian Polemic,” in Shlomo Simonsohn Jubilee Volume: Studies on the History of the Jews in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Daniel Carpi, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv University Press, 1993, pp. 71-84.
“Towards a Functional Classification of Jewish Anti-Christian Polemic in the High Middle Ages,” in Religionsgesprache im Mittelalter, ed. Bernard Lewis and Friedrich Niewohner, Wiesbaden, Germany, Otto Harrassowitz Publishers, 1992, pp. 93-114.
“Rationales for Conjugal Sex in Ra’AbaD’s Ba‘alei ha-Nefesh,” Jewish History 6 (1992), 65-78.
“Medieval Jews on Christianity: Polemical Strategies and Theological Defense,” in Interwoven Destinies: Jews and Christians through the Ages, ed. Eugene J. Fisher, New York, Paulist Press, 1993, pp. 77-89.
“On Medieval Judaism and Medieval Studies,” in The Past and Future of Medieval Studies, ed. John Van Engen, Notre Dame, Ind., University of Notre Dame Press, 1994, pp. 73-93.
“Gezerot Tatnu: Martyrdom and Martyrology in the Hebrew Chronicles of 1096” [in Hebrew], Zion 59 (1994), 169-208.
“Isidore of Seville’s Anti-Jewish Polemic: A Reevaluation,” in Proceedings of the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, (Jerusalem, 1994), B1:83-89.
“‘Witnesses of Our Redemption’: Jews in the Crusading Theology of Bernard of Clairvaux,” in Medieval Studies in Honour of Avrom Saltman, ed. Bat-Sheva Albert et al., Ramat Gan, Bar-Ilan University Press, 1995, pp. 67-81.
“The Oriental Connection: Muslim Influences on Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth Century” [in Hebrew], in Daniel Carpi Jubilee Volume, ed. D. Porat, M. Rozen, and A. Shapira, Tel Aviv University Press, 1996, pp. 59-72.
“The Muslim Connection, or, On the Changing Role of the Jew in High Medieval Theology,” in From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought, ed. Jeremy Cohen, Wiesbaden, Germany, Otto Harrassowitz Publishers, 1996, pp. 141-62.
“Sexuality and Intentionality in Rabbinic Thought of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries” [in Hebrew], Te‘udah 13 (1997), 155-172.
“The Commandment To ‘Be Fertile and Increase’ and Its Role in Religious Polemics” [in Hebrew], in Sexuality and the Family in History: Collected Essays, ed. Israel Bartal and Isaiah Gafni, Jerusalem, Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 1998, pp. 83-96.
“‘Slay Them Not’: Augustine and the Jews in Modern Scholarship,” Medieval Encounters 4 (1998), 78-92.
“Between Martyrdom and Apostasy: Doubt and Self-Definition in Twelfth-Century Ashkenaz,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 29 (1999), 431-471.
“The Hebrew Crusade Chronicles in Their Christian Cultural Context,” in Juden und Christen zur Zeit der Kreuzzuge, ed. Alfred Haverkamp, Sigmaringen, Germany, Jan Thorbecke Publishers, 1999, pp. 17-34.
“The Second Disputation of Paris and Thirteenth-Century Jewish-Christian Polemic” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 68 (1999), 557-579.
“The Crucified Jesus, Jewish Memory, and Counter-History” [in Hebrew], Zmanim 68-69 (1999-2000), 12-29.
“A 1096 Complex? Constructing the First Crusade in Jewish Historical Memory, Medieval and Modern,” in Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Michael Signer and John Van Engen, Notre Dame, Ind., University of Notre Dame Press, 2000, pp. 9-26.
“Between History and Historiography: On the Study of the Persecutions and the Determination of Their Significance” [in Hebrew], in Facing the Cross: The 1096 Persecutions in History and Historiography, Jerusalem, Dinur Institute for Jewish History, 2000, pp. 16-31.
“Raymundus Martini's Capistrum Iudaeorum” [in Hebrew], in Me’ah She‘arim: Studies in Mediebal Jewish Spiritual Life in Memory of Isadore Twersky, ed. Ezra Fleischer et al., Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 2001, pp. 279-296.
“Christian Theology and Anti-Jewish Violence in the Middle Ages: Connections and Disjunctions,” in Religious Violence between Christians and Jews: Medieval Roots, Modern Perspectives, ed. Anna Sapir Abulafia, Palgrave Publishers, 2002, pp. 44-60.
“Synagoga Conversa: Honorius Augustodunensis, The Song of Songs, and Christianity’s Eschatological Jew,’” Speculum 79 (2004), 309-340.
“The Mystery of Israel’s Salvation: Romans 11:25-26 in Patristic and Medieval Exegesis,” Harvard Theological Review 98 (2005), 247-281.
“The Blood Libel in Solomon ibn Verga’s Shevet Yehudah,” in Jewish Blood: Reality and Metaphor in Jewish History, Religion, and Culture, ed. Mitchell Hart, London, Routledge, 2009, pp. 116-135.
“Augustine’s Doctrine of Jewish Witness Revisited,” Journal of Religion, 89 (2009), 564-578.
“Antichrist and His Jewish Connections” [in Hebrew], in Rishonim ve-Achronim: Studies in Jewish History Presented to Avraham Grossman, ed. Joseph Hacker et al., Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2010, pp. 29-45.
“‘The Guardian of Israel neither Dozes nor Sleeps’: Exegesis, Polemics, and Politics in the Late Medieval Jewish-Christian Encounter,” in Transforming Relations: Essays on Jews and Christians throughout History in Honor of Michael Signer Memorial Volume, ed. Franklin T. Harkins, University of Notre Dame Press, 2010, pp. 285-309.
“Polemic and Pluralism: The Jewish-Christian Debate in Solomon Ibn Verga’s Shevet Yehudah,” forthcoming in Festschrift for Ora Limor, ed. Israel J. Yuval and Ram Ben-Shalom, Brepols Publishers
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