Prof. Ishay Rosen Zvi

Ishay Rosen-Zvi is a professor of rabbinic literature in the Department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud at Tel Aviv University and serves as a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. In 2025, he received the Rothschild Prize for Excellence in the Humanities, and in 2026 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

He has taught in many universities among them Princeton, UC Berkeley, UCLA and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. On 2025 he was the Gerard Weinstock Visiting Professor and a Harry Starr Fellow at the Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University.

He has written on issues of Hermeneutics, self-formation and collective identity in Second-Temple Judaism and rabbinic literature. Among his publications are: Among his publications are: Demonic Desires: YETZER HARA and the Problem of Evil in Late Antiquity (Penn 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); The Secret Life of Jewish Holidays (Kineret-Zemora: Tel Aviv, 2023); The Talmud: A History of Learning, with Yakov Z. Meir (Magness Press: Jerusalem, 2025); How to Read Mishna and Midrash: An Introduction to Early Rabbinic Literature (University of California Press: Berkeley, 2026).

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)
• The Secret Life of Jewish Holidays (Tel Aviv: Kineret-Zemora, 2023; Hebrew), 191 pages. 
• The Talmud: A History of Learning, with Yakov Z. Meir (Jerusalem: Magness Press, 2025; Hebrew), 382 pages.
• How to Read Mishna and Midrash: An Introduction to Early Rabbinic Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2026), 455 pages.
• Rediscovering the Holidays: The Forgotten History of Jewish Festivals (Jewish Publication Society Press, 2026).  

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).

• Accepted for Publication:

   I. Rosen-Zvi, M. Vidas, V. Noam and Y. Z. Meir (eds.), The Palestinian Talmud: New Perspective, Teudah 35 (Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 2025). 
   

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)
• Israel Science Foundation (2023-2027) - “A Database and Lexicon of the Terminology of Tannaitic Midrashim: A New Method.” Chief researcher. (no. 202/23)    

Books:

• How to Read Mishna and Midrash: An Introduction to Early Rabbinic Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2026). A revised translation of Between Mishnah and Midrash (2019)
  • Ancient Jew Review Podcast
• 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.
  • Book Review in Ancient Jew Review.

Articles:

• “On Midrash and Allegory: the Case of ‘Ella’” (edited by Dov Schwartz), Yet Holding Faith in Human: Jubilee Volume in Honor of Avi Sagi (Ramat Ran: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2026), 217-227. [Hebrew]
• “The Roots of Tannaitic Midrash” (With Assaf Rosen-Zvi) (edited by Yaron Harel, Ariel Pikard and Avi Sagi), Zvi Tifara: Studies in honor of Zvi Zohar (Ramat Ran: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2025), 61-80. [Hebrew]
• “What is Midrash?”, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, spring/summer 2025: 50-61.
• “’We did not Hear’: what does Midrash expect to hear and how?” (with Yaakov Kroizer), Oqimta 11 (2025): 271-292. [Hebrew]
• “Midrash and/as Allegory: the case of Ella”, Oqimta 10 (2024): 187-209.
• “The Hermeneutics of Aggadic Exegesis in Tannaitic Midrashic: a Terminological Survey,” (with Assaf Rosen-Zvi), Mehkarei Talmud 4 (2023), 765-816. [Hebrew]
• “Rabbis as Nomikoi? Some Questions on a New Paradigm”, Journal for the Study of Judaism 55 (2023): 1-13.
• “The Rhetorical Self in Tannaitic Halakha”, Dead Sea Discoveries 28 (2021) 341–366.
• “Early Judaism and Rabbinic Judaism”, in M. Henze and Rod Werline (eds.), Early Judaism and its Modern Interpreters (Leiden, Brill, 2020), 489-518.
• “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.
• “Midrashic Hermeneutics: Between Halakha and Aggadah” (with Assaf Rosen-Zvi), Tarbiz 86 (2019): 203-232 [Hebrew]
• “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. 
• "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. [Hebrew]
• "Structure and Reflectivity in Tannaitic Legal Homilies, or: How to Read Midrashic Terminology", Prooftexts 34 (2014): 271-301 
• Afterword to the Hebrew Translation of D. Boyarin, Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (ed. E. Reiner, Jerusalem: Shalom Hartman Institute, 2012), 273-286. [Hebrew]
• "Towards a Hermeneutic Lexicon of Midrashic Terminology", Jewish Studies 48 (2012), pp. 71-91. [Hebrew]
• "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.
• "Orality, Narrative, Rhetoric: New Directions in Mishnah Research", AJS Review 32 (2008), pp. 1-15.
• "Two Rabbinic Inclinations? Rethinking a Scholarly Dogma", Journal for the Study of Judaism 39 (2008), pp. 513-539. 
• "Measure for Measure as a Hermeneutic Tool in Early Rabbinic Literature", Journal of Jewish Studies 56 (2006), pp. 269-286.

Review Essay:

•  “Mishnah, Midrash, and How to Read Tannaitic Literature,” Ancient Jew Review (Sep 2, 2020)

Lecture Series:

• Intro to Rabbinic Literature