CENTRE STAFF AND HONORARY RESEARCH FELLOWS
Emeritus Professor of Post-Biblical Jewish Literature; Fellow of the British Academy. Research interests include: the history of Judaism; the relationship between Judaism and Hellenism in the Second Temple and Talmudic periods; early Jewish Bible interpretation, particularly Midrash and Targum; the Dead Sea Scrolls; the Jewish background to Christian origins; the interaction of Judaism and Christianity in Late Antiquity; early Jewish geography; early Jewish and Christian mysticism and magic, especially the Testament of Solomon and Heikhalot mysticism; the relationship of the latter to Gnosticism and its influence on the development of the mediaeval Qabbalah and German Hasidism; Jewish messianism. Major publications include: Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late-Roman Palestine (co-ed. 2010); Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Mystical Texts (2005); The Targum of Canticles (2003); Serekh ha-Yahad and Two Related Texts (1998); and Textual Sources for the Study of Judaism (1984).
Pears Lecturer in Israeli and Middle Eastern Studies. Research interests include: the Arab-Israeli Conflict; Israeli Society, Politics and Culture; Middle Eastern Jews; the relational consolidation of Jewish and Arab nationalisms within a comparative framework. Major publications include: ‘Palestine, Arabized-Jews and the Elusive Consequences of Jewish and Arab National Formations’ (2007); ‘The “pre-Israel” and “in-Israel” History of Middle Eastern Jews’ (2005) [Hebrew], extended version in Dan Avnon, ed., Civic Tongue in Israel (2006); ‘Do Comparative and Regional Studies of Nationalism Intersect?’ (2005); ‘The Peace Process and Israeli Domestic Politics in the 1990s’ (2002); ’al-Yahud al-Sharqiyun wa-l-Sharq al-Awsat’ [Middle Eastern Jews and the Middle East]) (1998) [Arabic]. Teaching includes: The Question of Palestine/Israel (1882-1967); The Contemporary Middle East; Themes in the Formation of Arab and Jewish Nationalisms; Controversies in Collective Memory and Politics.
AHRC Research Associate for the project on the ‘Typology of Pseudepigraphic and Anonymous Jewish Literature c.200 BCE to 700 CE’. Research interests include: the formative age of Rabbinic Judaism; the literary analysis of Rabbinic literature; the relationships between Mishnah and Tosefta; and Holocaust theology. He graduated from Bologna with a dissertation on ‘Jewish Theological Responses to the Shoah’, then took an MA in Jewish Studies in Manchester (with distinction), writing a dissertation on ‘Reasons for Norms in Mishnaic Discourse’ (published in Melilah). His PhD thesis in Bologna and Paris–Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Sorbonne) was on ‘Amei ha-aretz and Kutim in the Discourse of Mishnah and Tosefta’. Before coming to Manchester he worked as a post-doctoral researcher for the University of Bologna. His latest article, 'A Literary Analysis of the Genesis Apocryphon' will be published in Aramaic Studies shortly.
Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis; President of British Association of Jewish Studies (1999); President of Society for Old Testament Study (2012); Member of the international team editing the Dead Sea Scrolls under the auspices of the Israel Antiquites Authority; Founding editor of Dead Sea Discoveries; Editor of Journal of Semitic Studies. Research interests include: Dead Sea Scrolls and other Literature of the Second Temple period; Semitic Studies and the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament. Major publications include: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (2005); The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls (co-author; 2002; 2nd ed. 2011); Jewish Ways of Reading the Bible (ed. 2000); Temple Scroll Studies (ed. 1989); and Exegesis at Qumran (1985; 2006). Teaching areas include: World of the Ancient Israelites; Ethical Issues from Joshua to Jesus; Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Jewish Novels.
Honorary Research Fellow; Chartered Psychologist, Psychotherapist and Comparative Theologian. Course Leader and Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Psychology (Psychology & Society) at Leeds Metropolitan University; Director of the Manchester Academy of Transpersonal Studies; Former Lecturer at Centre for Jewish Studies in ‘Holocaust Theology’ and ‘Hybrid Jewish Identities’. Research interests include: Judaism, Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism; Transpersonal Psychology; Psychotherapy; Discourse and Narrative Analysis. Media, publications and conferences include: 'The Use of Holocaust Testimony By Jews for Jesus' (Melilah, 2009); ‘Occupying Jewish Space and Time’, UCL Conference on ‘Sects and Sectarianism’ (2008, proceedings to be published by Brill in 2011); ‘Jewish Community of Kaifeng’ [documentary] (2007); ‘All is One and One is All: Interfaith Dialogue’ at CRONEM, University of Surrey (2005); BBC ‘Everyman: Life of the Buddha’ (2003); ‘Rosh Hashanah: Agents of Hope’ (2003) with the Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks.
Honorary Research Fellow; President of the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester and Region; former President of the Zionist Central Council of Greater Manchester; Member of the Jewish Leadership Council; delegate, Board of Deputies of British Jews; Lucille was a visiting lecturer in the Department of Middle East Studies and taught from 1990-2001 in the University’s Centre for Continuing Education specialising in the history and archaeology of Jerusalem and the cross-cultural influences of mediaeval Spain. She writes occasional newspaper columns and has worked as a journalist on the Jerusalem Post, the Jewish Chronicle and the Jewish Gazette. She was acting editor of The Holyland (a Jerusalem fortnightly publication) and has edited academic work for the Hebrew University.
Retired Senior Lecturer in Hebrew Bible Studies; Member of the Society for Old Testament Study, including service as Home Secretary, committee member and programme sub-committee member. Research interests include: the relevance of the religious texts from Ras Shamra/Ugarit for the study of the Hebrew Bible, particularly the religion of Israel; the Book of Psalms; the possible interaction between ancient Israelite and what might be loosely termed ‘Canaanite’ beliefs and practices; and, more generally, historical geography as applied to the study of the Bible. Major publications include: Oxford Bible Atlas 4th edition (2007; revised paperback edition 2009); Psalms (2004); The Book of Jeremiah and its Reception (1997); Ugarit and the Bible (1994); Joshua (1994); and Ugarit (Ras Shamra) (1985). Teaching areas included: the World of the Ancient Israelites; Ancient Israel’s Prophetic Literature; Israelites and Canaanites; and Biblical Hebrew.
Reader in Holocaust Studies. Research interests include: Holocaust studies; Genocide studies/anthropology of genocide; History of the Jews in Europe (19th-20th Century); History of Jews in France (19th-20th Century); Economic history of France and Germany; Holocaust memory/politics of memory; Modern history of Alsace and Rebuilding post-war societies. Major publications include: Dictionnaire de la Shoah [Dictionary of the Holocaust] (2009); Il m’appelait Pikolo. Un compagnon de Primo Levi raconte [He called me Pikolo. Un companion of Primo Levi tells his story] (2007) ; Ami, si tu tombes? Les déportés résistants. Des camps au souvenir, 1945-2005 [Friend, if you fall? Deported Resistance Fighters, from camps to memory, 1945-2005] (2005). Teaching areas include: Introduction to Holocaust Studies; The Jews in Europe 1789-1939; Consequences of the Holocaust on Western Societies and Jewish History and The Holocaust in History.
Honorary Research Fellow; Sociologist; Artist. She was awarded her PhD for research on domestic and industrial life while holding a Research Fellowship at the University of Keele. Research interests include: the analysis and depiction of Biblical and Kabbalistic themes relating to personal and collective practice. Her Omer Calendar is illustrated with plants mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, and the accompanying text explains the symbolic significance of these plants. Her illustrations of the 54 sedra of Torah was shown at Keele University Art Gallery and at Menorah Synagogue, and some of these illustrations have been reproduced in the Jewish Chronicle. Her most recent work concerns the significance of the seven Ushpizin. Recent papers include: ‘Abraham, Isaac and Jacob role models?’ Menorah Synagogue (2011); ‘Seven Biblical Archetypes’, Menorah Synagogue (2010); ‘Jacob and Rachel wrestling favour’, Limmud (2009).
Honorary Research Fellow; Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Social Anthropology and Honorary Life Fellow of the University at Keele; Co-Founder of Time & Society. He graduated in pre-clinical sciences and anthropology from Cambridge in 1950 and gained his PhD from Manchester under the supervision of Max Gluckman. Research interests include: communities in Britain; medical anthropology; society's response to illness, including HIV infection. His current research is on the twentieth century role of Jews as exemplars and existential practitioners of being ‘strangers within the gates’ in Southern Africa, China and Wales. Major publications include: ‘British medical anthropology; past, present and future,’ in F. Saillant and S. Genest, eds., L'anthropologie Médicale du XXIe siècle (2005); Custom and Conflict in British Society (1982); Communities in Britain (1965); Village on the Border: A Social Study of Religion, Politics and Football in a North Wales Community (1957).
Co-Administrator of the Centre for Jewish Studies, Editorial Assistant for Melilah: Manchester Journal for Jewish Studies; Co-ordinator of the ICCJ International Abrahamic Forum; Committee Member and Web Officer for the Council of Christians and Jews (CCJ) in Manchester; Co-ordinator of the 2012 Conference of the International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ) in Manchester. She reports for BBC Radio Manchester’s Jewish Hour and is involved in recruitment and widening participation for the department of Religions and Theology, delivering workshops to Years 7-11 and lectures to Sixth Form students. Recent presentations include ‘Religious and Philosophical Views about Life after Death’ and ‘The Israel Debate: Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations’. PhD topic: ‘Samuel Sandmel: Post-Holocaust US Communal Leader, New Testament Scholar, and Pioneer in Jewish-Christian Relations’ (supervised by Prof. Daniel Langton).
Lecturer in Hebrew Studies; SLLC Student Support Advisor; Residence Abroad Tutor for Middle Eastern Studies; Chair of Middle Eastern Studies Curriculum Development Group for Language Teaching; a member of the Language Centre Users' Committee. She is a regular participant in workshops and working conferences in the UK and Israel, having given a number of presentations on teaching methods and assessment, a former AQA Chief Examiner in Modern Hebrew for A and AS levels (2001-2003) and a previous adviser on the Teaching of Hebrew at the Division for Hebrew and Culture, Jerusalem, Israel. Research interests include: Hebrew language and literature, with a special interest in the effect of mother tongue of British students on the learning of Hebrew. Principal Teaching : Modern Hebrew Language; Hebrew Literature; Modern Hebrew Texts; Israeli Media, Israeli Cinema as part of the contemporary cinema in the Middle East; E-learning.
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Senior Lecturer in German Studies; Co-Editor of the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book (Oxford Journals); Member of the Board of Directors and Trustees of the Leo Baeck Institute London for the Study of the History and Culture of German-Speaking Jewry. Research interests include: Holocaust representations and contemporary German-Jewish culture in European and global context, including issues of gender and sexuality. Her current collaborative research project studies the construct of Jewish cosmopolitanism from early 19th century German philosophy to contemporary globalization and cosmopolitanism discourses. Major publications include: The Golem Returns (2011); Jewish Culture in the Age of Globalization (2011) and Archiv der Erinnerung: Interviews mit Überlebenden der Shoah [The Archive of Memory: Interviews with Shoah Survivors](1998). Teaching areas include: Gender, Sexuality and Race in early 20th Century German Culture and Screening the Holocaust. Personal webpage.
Professor Emeritus in Government. Research interests include: Marxism; the Holocaust; and the concept of crimes against humanity. Major publications include: Crimes Against Humanity: Birth of a Concept (2011); The Contract of Mutual Indifference: Political Philosophy after the Holocaust (1998). Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind: The Ungroundable Liberalism of Richard Rorty (1995); Discourses of Extremity (1990); Literature of Revolution: Essays on Marxism (1986); Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend (1983); The Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg (1976). Since July 2003 he has maintained a blog -normblog; which focuses on political and philosophical issues as well as other interests.
Postdoctoral fellow funded by the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe, working on 'Moses Gaster’s Contribution to Jewish Studies: A Case Study of his Work on Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Folklore, Magic and Mysticism.' Research interests include: Hebrew Bible (especially narratives and wisdom literature); Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha; narratology and reception history of stories and motifs from the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism. Publications include: an edition and study of an unknown Slavonic version of the prose frame of the Book of Job in Scripta & E-Scripta 8/9 (2010); a contribution on the Testament of Job to the volume Men & Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (2010); The Testament of Job: Text, Narrative and Reception (forthcoming). She completed her PhD at the University of Manchester, supervised by Professor George Brooke. She has also compiled a draft catalogue of archival material, ‘Manuscripts of Moses Gaster’s Work’, at the John Rylands University Library.
Professor of Semitic Studies; Fellow of the British Academy; Co-editor of Journal of Semitic Studies. Research interests include: Semitic Languages; history of the alphabet; Ugaritic Studies; Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible; Aramaic and Syriac epigraphy and linguistics, especially Egyptian Aramaic, Nabataean, Palmyrene and Hatran Aramaic and Syriac; the Middle East in the Greek and Roman periods; Christianity and its literature; legal history (pagan and early Jewish legal documents). Major publications include: Aramaic Inscriptions and Documents of the Roman Period (2009); Leshono Suryoyo: First Studies in Syriac (2005); The Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus (2001); The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene (1999); The Nabataean Tomb Inscriptions of Mada’in Salih (1993). Teaching includes: Aramaic and Syriac language and texts; pre-Islamic Middle Eastern history; and Semitic philology.
Honorary Research Fellow; Rabbi of Kol Chai Hatch End Jewish Community; Founder Member of Sternberg Centre Jewish-Christian-Muslim dialogue group (1992-2010); Faculty Member of Leo Baeck College. Research interests include: Jewish-Christian relations and the history of Jewish customs and festivals, especially bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah and Jewish confirmation. Major publications include: ‘How did the British Jewish Community come to be where it is today?’ (forthcoming); ‘Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah – A Reform Perspective Based on History’ [pamphlet] (2010); ‘Jewish Confirmation’ in ‘Research in Dr. Helena Miller, ed., Jewish Education in the UK (2010); ‘Why We need a Haggadah for Jews and Christians’ (2007); ‘Forty Years of European Judaism - Thirty-Eight Years of Dialogue’ (2006); The Christian Effect on Jewish Life (1994; German ed. 2000); The Gospels and Rabbinic Judaism - A Study Guide (co-authored with Gordian Marshall, 1988; American ed. 1989; Japanese ed. 1992).
Emeritus Professor; (Part-time) Professor of Law and Jewish Studies at Liverpool Hope University; Founder Editor of The Jewish Law Annual; Chairman of The Jewish Law Association; past President of BAJS. Research interests include: Orality and Literacy in the development of Jewish law; secular and theological models in the philosophy of Jewish Law; Jewish Law in the modern State of Israel; history of Jewish family law and especially the contemporary problem of the Agunah. Major publications include: Essays on Halakhah in the New Testament (2008); Wisdom-Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1-22:16 (2006); Studies in the Semiotics of Biblical Law (2000); Making Sense in Jurisprudence (1996); Making Sense in Law (1995); Law, Fact and Narrative Coherence (1988); Semiotics and Legal Theory (1985); Essays in Jewish and Comparative Legal History (1975), Theft in Early Jewish Law (1972). Full publications list.
Honorary Research Fellow; Reader in Comparative Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University; leader of MA Sociology and Global Change. nbsp;Principal Researcher of ‘Ethnicity and Gender in Degree Attainment: Extensive Survey’ (2007). Research interests include: forms of racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia; gender; land rights; livelihoods; and globalisation. She holds postgraduate qualifications in Anthropology and in Sociology from the London School of Economics; her D. Phil., from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, researched gender relations and land reform in Zimbabwe. She lectures on sociology, globalisation, gender issues and ethnicity. Major publications include: ‘Globalisation, anti-globalisation and the Jewish “question”’ (2011) EHR; Gender and Agrarian Reforms 2010); ‘Interactional Issues in the teaching of ”race” in higher education’ (2006); States of Conflict: Gender, Violence and Resistance (co-ed., 2000) and a number of publications on gender and land rights in Africa and elsewhere.
Honorary Research Fellow; Professor of Transpersonal Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University. Research interests include: the cognitive neuroscience of consciousness and the psychology of spiritual traditions, with particular reference to Jewish mysticism. Major publications include: ‘’Kabbalah and Science,’ in N. P. Azari, ed., Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions (forthcoming); ‘Cognitive Neuroscience, Spirituality and Mysticism: Recent Developments,’ in I. Clarke, ed., Psychosis and Spirituality (2010), ‘Engaging with the mind of God: the participatory path of Jewish mysticism,’ in J. Ferrer and J. Sherman, eds., The Participatory Turn: Spirituality, Mysticism, Religious Studies (2008); ‘Reading in or reading out? Time and consciousness in “kabbalistic psychology”’ (2007); ‘The Transpersonal as a Framework for Dialogue: A Jewish Perspective’, in J. Drew and D. Lorimer, eds.,A Way through the Wall: Approaches to Citizenship in an Interconnected World (2005); The Essence of Kabbalah (2005); The Elements of Judaism (2003).
Professor of the History of Jewish-Christian Relations; Co-Director of the Centre for Jewish Studies; Co-Editor of Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies; and Secretary of the European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS). Research interests include: the history of Jewish-Christian relations; modern Jewish thought and identity in a variety of contexts, including Jewish New Testament studies; the origins of Anglo-Reform and Anglo-Liberal Judaism; Israel and Zionism; Holocaust Theology and Jewish engagement with Darwinian evolutionary theory. Major publications include: The Apostle Paul in the Jewish Imagination: A Study in Modern Jewish-Christian Relations (2010); Children of Zion: Jewish and Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land (2008) and Claude Montefiore: His Life and Thought (2002). Teaching areas include: Religion and Evolution; the history of Jewish-Christian Relations; Holocaust Theology and Jewish Approaches to Jesus and Paul.
Honorary Research Fellow in Philosophy; Representative for the University of Manchester on the Greater Manchester Jewish Representative Council. Research interests include: History of Philosophy, especially Ancient Philosophy and Jewish Philosophy, and Ethics, especially Bioethics and Medical Ethics. At post-graduate level, he has successfully supervised 18 PhD theses, 17 M.Phil theses and 19 MA dissertations. Publications include: ‘Utilitarianism and Liberalism,’ in T. Takala, ed., Philosophical Approaches to Bioethics (2007); ’Dealing with morally difficult passages in the Hebrew Bible,’ in G. Brooke, ed., Jewish ways of reading the Bible (2000); ‘Samuel Raphael Hirsch’ in O. Leaman, ed., History of Jewish Philosophy (1997); ‘Levinas and the Jewish Idea of the Sage’ in S. Hand, ed., Facing the Other: the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas (1996); ‘The Holocaust: moral and political lessons’ (1995). Teaching included: Philosophy of Law and Contemporary Metaethics.
Professor in Linguistics; Editor of Romani Studies; Editorial Board Member of Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Typology and Special Languages. Research interests include: the interface of grammar and discourse; a functional-pragmatic approach to grammatical categories and linguistic typology; language contact and bilingualism; anthropological linguistics and dialectology; standardisation of minority languages and issues of language and identity; and functions and structural composition of in-group and secret languages such as Lekoudesch (Jewish cattle-traders’ jargon). His current research is directed particularly to Romani language, but has also included language typology and contact in Jewish languages (Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Kurdish, Neo-Aramaic). Major publications include: Romani in Britain: The Afterlife of a Language (2010); Markedness and Language Change (2006); ‘Spoken Israeli Hebrew revisited’ (2005); Romani: A Linguistic Introduction (2002), ‘The state of present-day Domari in Jerusalem’ (1999). Teaching areas include: Language Contact and Romani Linguistics.
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Honorary Research Fellow; Co-founding editor of Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies (1999-2010); Associate editor of the Israeli Journal of Humor Research. Research interests include: folklore studies; Jewish zoology; Jewish dress; Jewish law; Italian and Eastern Jewry; Midrash and related literature; parody in Hebrew literature; Hebrew lexicon and word formation. Major publications include: ‘Captive Gazelles in Iraqi Jewry in Modern Times in Relation to Cultural Practices and Vernacular Housing’ (2009); ‘What is in a Busby, What is in a Top-hat: Tall Hats, and the Politics of Jewish Identity and Social Positioning’ (2008); ‘A Gleaning of Concepts from the Natural Sciences Held by the Jewish Sages of Late Antiquity’ (2007); ‘A Hebrew/Italian Proverb List from the End of the Eighteenth Century’ (2001); ‘On the Treatment of Some Toponyms or Ethnics in a Sharh to the Haggadah’ (2001); ‘The Shabbat Notepad’ (1999).
Professor of Jewish Thought; Co-Director of the Centre for Jewish Studies. Research interests include: Literary structures of ancient Jewish literature; ancient Jewish Bible interpretation, including Midrash, Targum, Pesher and Re-Written Scripture; the legal discourse of talmudic literature; the philosophical thought of Spinoza, Husserl, Rosenzweig, Buber and Levinas; phenomenological theories of reading; Hebrew Manuscripts. He currently leads a major AHRC project on the ‘Typology of Pseudepigraphic and Anonymous Jewish Literature of Antiquity, c.200 BCE to 700 CE’. Major publications include: Forms of Rabbinic Literature and Thought (2007); Rabbinic Interpretation of Scripture in the Mishnah (2002), accompanied by his Database of Midrashic Units in the Mishnah; Spinoza’s Theorie der Religion (1993) and The Interpretation of Speech in the Pentateuch Targums. A Study of Method and Presentation in Targumic Exegesis (1992). Teaching areas include: Talmudic Judaism; Jewish philosophy; and methodologies in the academic humanities.
Honorary Research Fellow in Modern Jewish Thought; Rabbi of Manchester Reform Synagogue (Jackson’s Row) since 1977; Former Chairman of the British Assembly of Rabbis; Former Lecturer in Modern Hebrew and Modern Jewish Thought, University of Manchester. Research interests include: the Jewish reception of Spinoza; modern Jewish thought; the contributions of Jews to psychology and psychotherapy. He is currently co-hosting the 'Progressive Judaism Manchester Adult Learning Programme', a series of events asking: How do Reform communities make decisions about core issues in Jewish practice?, including a personal lecture entitled 'Strictly Come Davening: Examining the essentials of the prayer service'. Major Publication: Baruch Spinoza, Outcast Jew, Universal Sage (1991). Recent papers include: ‘Spinoza – Hero or heretic?,’ Sheffield Jewish Studies Workshop (2011); ‘Beyond Judeo-Christianity – Towards “the One than whom no greater can be conceived,”' St Anselm Interfaith Lecture, University of Manchester (2010).
Lecturer in Medieval Jewish Studies. Research interests include: the interaction of Jewish, Christian and Muslim learning, society and culture and the transmission through Jewish channels of ideas from the Muslim world to Western Europe during the Middle Ages and beyond. As a post-doctoral researcher, she catalogued and studied the Cairo Genizah collection of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, consisting of ca. 15,000 fragments, and is currently editing a volume of articles on the Rylands Genizah with Professor Philip Alexander. Major publications include: a critical Hebrew edition of Abraham Abulafia's Secrets of the Torah (forthcoming) and ’Abraham Ibn Ezra`s Astrological Works in Hebrew and Latin: New Discoveries and Exhaustive Listing’ (2006). Teaching areas include: Introduction to Judaism; Religion and Science in Medieval Jewish, Christian and Muslim Thought and Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations from the earliest times to the Middle Ages.
Honorary Research Fellow; Senior Associate, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies; President, Society for Jewish Study; President of British Association of Jewish Studies (1994); Editor of the quarterly Christian Jewish Relations for the Institute of Jewish Affairs, London (1985-1991). Research interests include: Jewish Theology and Philosophy; Talmud; modern Jewish thought; and interfaith relations. Major publications include: ‘The Evolution of Talmudic Reasoning’ (2011); The Talmud: A Selection (2009); ‘Religion and Human Rights with Special Reference to Judaism’ (2007); Abraham’s Children: Jews, Christians and Muslims in Conversation (2006); ‘Judaism and the Ethics of War,’ (2005); Historical Dictionary of Judaism (1998, 2nd ed. 2006); ‘Zionism and Religion: The Transformation of an Idea’ (2000); ‘Jewish Holocaust Theology’ (1997); A Very Short Introduction to Judaism (1996); The Analytic Movement: Hayyim Soloveitchik and his Circle (1993); Judaism and World Religion (1991). For further information see website.
Honorary Research Fellow; Lecturer in Sociology at Bangor University; Member of the editorial board of Patterns of Prejudice. Research interests include: modern antisemitism, especially its interconnections with liberalism and nationalism and the emergence of ‘Sociology’; critical theory; the history of modern intellectual thought; nation, race and ethnicity; gender studies; and modern German history. Major publications include: ‘Sociology and Holocaust Writing,’ in J-M. Dreyfus and D.R. Langton, eds., Writing the Holocaust (in press); ‘Holocaust Memory in the Twenty-first Century’ (with J-M. Dreyfus, 2011); ‘Modern antisemitism and the emergence of sociology’ (2010); The State, the Nation and the Jews: The Antisemitism Dispute in Bismarck's Germany (2008); ‘Cultural difference in the national state: from trouser-selling Jews to unbridled multiculturalism’ (2008); ‘Antisemitism and the Self-Destruction of the Nation-State,’ in D. Stone and R. King, eds., Imperialism, Slavery, Race, and Genocide: The Legacy of Hannah Arendt (2006).
Honorary Research Fellow; Retired Minister of the Yeshurun Synagogue, Gatley (1981-2003); Former Lecturer in Comparative Religion at the University of Manchester. Research interests include: the history of the Jewish people; Jewish legend, folklore and superstition; the framework of Jewish law, literature and poetry; Jewish methods of Biblical interpretation; the different languages and subgroups within the Jewish community; Jewish legal, mystical, theological, ethical and ritual traditions; Kabbalah, particularly the literature of Zohar, the Lurianic corpus, and the Chasidic mystical tradition. Major publications include: Historical Dictionary of the Jews (2010); The Kabbalistic Tradition: An Anthology of Jewish Mysticism (2008); A Dictionary of Jewish Lore and Legend (1993); Arts and Practices of Living Religions: Judaism (1981); Jews: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (1976, 2nd ed. 1996); The Wisdom of the Jewish Mystics (1971).
Honorary Research Fellow; Founder, Honorary President and Historical Adviser of the Manchester Jewish Museum, now a remarkable success as a venue of exhibitions, a centre of cultural activity, a focus for education and a repository of archives and artefacts; Founder of the Manchester Studies Unit. Research interests include: Manchester Jewry; Holocaust testimonies; leadership in Anglo-Jewry; the reception and experiences of refugees to the Manchester region, 1933-1940. Major publications include: Jews and Other Foreigners: Manchester and the Reception of Refugees from European Fascism (forthcoming 2011); Jewish Manchester: An Illustrated History (2008); Sir Sidney Hamburger and Manchester Jewry. Religion, City and Community (1999); ‘Heritage and Community: Rescuing Manchester’s Jewish Past,’ in A. Kushner, ed., The Jewish Heritage in British History (1992); Manchester Jewry, a Pictorial History, 1788-1988 (1988); The Making of Manchester Jewry, 1740-1875 (1976).
Honorary Research Fellow; free-lance historian; broadcaster and consultant to BBC and commercial broadcasters on Jewish orthodoxy; free-lance journalist contributing regularly to the national, Anglo-Jewish and Israeli press; visiting university lecturer in PR, marketing management and journalism. Research interests include: Anglo-Jewish orthodoxy; Israeli politics; and the history of European orthodoxy since 1789. He was awarded an MA in Politics and Contemporary History at Salford University with a dissertation on the history of Zionism. He completed his doctoral thesis at the University of Manchester on the origins and history of Manchester's strictly orthodox community. He also regularly lectures to Jewish and non-Jewish groups on Anglo-Jewish history. Major publications include: ‘The Establishment of Ultra-Orthodoxy in Manchester' (2010); ‘A Brief History of The Jewish Community in Prestwich, Whitefield and Bury’ (3rd edition 2009); ‘Fascism in Manchester’ [pages on the CJS website] (2004).