Beth Berkowitz

Beth Berkowitz is associate professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at The Jewish Theological Seminary.

Dr. Berkowitz specializes in rabbinic literature, Judaism and Christianity in late antiquity, and theories and methods in the study of religion.

She received a bachelor of arts, master of philosophy, and doctoral degree in Religious Studies from Columbia University. In addition, she holds a master of arts degree from University of Chicago Divinity School. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the Program of Judaic Studies in the Religious Studies Department at Yale University from 2001 to 2003.

Dr. Berkowitz was a fellow of the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at University of Pennsylvania in 2007–2008 and will be a fellow of the Tikvah Center for Jewish Law and Civilization at New York University Law School in 2009–2010. Dr. Berkowitz has taught at Columbia University and Yale University, serves on the board of the journal Prooftexts, and sits on the steering committee for the History of Judaism section of the American Academy of Religion.

Her newest book is Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic and Christian Cultures. Currently she is working on a book titled Anxieties of Identity in Jewish and Christian Reading: Leviticus 18 and "Their Laws."

July 2009

Published Works

Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic and Christian Cultures.

"Reconsidering the Book and the Sword: A Rhetoric of Passivity in Rabbinic Hermeneutics," Biblical Interpretation, forthcoming 2009.

"The Limits of ‘Their Laws': Ancient Rabbinic Controversies about Jewishness (and Non-Jewishness), Jewish Quarterly Review, forthcoming 2009.

"Negotiating Violence and the Word in Rabbinic Law." Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 17.1 (Winter 2005): 125–150.

"Decapitation and the Discourse of Anti-syncretism in the Babylonian Talmud." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70.4 (2002): 743–70.

"The Assemani Codex of the Sifra," Center for Advanced Judaic Studies Web Exhibition, "Jewish and Other Imperial Cultures in Late Antiquity," at http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/cajs/fellows08/cajs2008.html

Reviews:

Review of Calum Carmichael, Illuminating Leviticus: A Study of its Laws and Institutions. Journal of Law and Religion, 23.1 (2007–2008).

Review of Pamela Barmash, Homicide in the Biblical World. Journal of Law and Religion 21.1 (2005–2006), 101–104.

Recent Conference Presentations

"Clement's Use of Philo and Assumptions about Jewish/Christian Difference," Society for Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, Section on Philo. Boston, November 2008.

"Taking Note of Narrative in Rabbinic Law," Session Organizer and Chair, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Section on History of Judaism. Chicago, November 2008.