The development of the academic study of Kabbalah - Panel discussion with Dr. Biti Roi, Dr. Noam Zadoff and Dr. Andrea Gondos

Please join the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies on Tuesday, February 22, 2022 at 12:00PM EST / 7:00PM ILT, for a virtual panel with Dr. Biti Roi, Dr. Noam Zadoff and Dr. Andrea Gondos on The development of the academic study of Kabbalah: A central theme in the history of Humanities in Israel. Marking the 40th anniversary of the death of Gershom Scholem, the founder of the discipline at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, our panelists review some of the main questions, topics and characters that have defined the field over the decades.

We would like to thank Rachel Alkallay for her generous donation of a complete Zohar to the Azrieli Institute Reading Room from the Estate of the late Isaac Alkallay, z'l (Alexandria, Egypt May 23, 1928 - Montreal, Canada January 8, 2008).

Panelists

Dr. Biti Roi taught at the Ben Gurion University and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Currently, she is a professor at the graduate program at the Schechter Institute. Roi is a Senior Fellow of the Kogod Research Center for Contemporary Jewish Thought, at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Israel. Her fields of research includes: Kabbalah from the Zohar at the Middle Ages until Early modernity Hasidism, Kabbalah and Gender, Jewish Mysticism in the writing of Rav Kook, and the relationship between Jewish Mysticism, Myth Performance and Rituals. Her book, Love of Shekhina: Mysticism and Poetics in Tiqqunei ha-Zohar, was awarded the World Union of Jewish Studies Prize, for the best book  2015-2017.

Dr. Noam Zadoff is an Assistant Professor in Israel Studies at the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck. His book Gershom Scholem: From Berlin to Jerusalem and Back was awarded with the Concordia University Azrieli Institute Award for Best Book in Israel Studies (2018). He edited the Hebrew correspondence between Gershom Scholem and Joseph Weiss, and wrote a biography on Scholem, which is forthcoming this year with Zalman Shazar Center Press.

Dr. Andrea Gondos is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in the Emmy Noether Research Group on Knowledge Circulation examining questions of sexuality, gender, and emotions in magical recipe texts produced in early modern Ashkenaz. Her first monograph titled, Kabbalah in Print: The Study and Popularization of Jewish Mysticism in Early Modernity examines the literary structure and cultural impact of kabbalistic reference tools and their role in mediating and popularizing Kabbalah in early modernity.