Faculty Updates Spring 2026

June 9, 2026

The JTS faculty continues to pursue scholarship and excel in their areas of expertise. Here are a few highlights from this past semester:

Professor Benjamin Sommer, Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages, was part of a panel at Duke University honoring Professor Marc Brettler on his retirement. Other panelists included Dr. Rabbi David Starr, Rabbi David Steinberg, and Tova Hartman. The panel was entitled “Academic Scholarship and Jewish Life.” He also delivered a lecture entitled “Biblical Monotheisim: Exculsive or Inclusive? The Bible and the Ancient World Seminar Series” in May at UCLA. This lecture examined the discussion of pluralism in the field of comparative theology in light of a core question in the story of Israelite religion.

Professor Shira Billet recently taught a class entitled “Affective Power: Hermann Cohen’s Critique of Spinoza on the Negative Emotions” at the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center at Hebrew University, as part of the Center’s yearlong seminar on Emotions in the German-Jewish Experience. She was also at the Angelicum in Rome (Pontifical University of St. Thomas), where she participated in a conference on the Holy Spirit, presenting a paper on this theme in modern Jewish thought. 

Over the past few months, Prof. Billet presented several other talks in the United States and internationally, such as “Eudaimonia and Negation of the Diaspora: Rethinking Hermann Cohen on Zionism After 100 Years,” at the International Workshop in Memory of Paul Mendes-Flohr at Bar-Ilan University, co-sponsored by the Joseph Carlebach Institute and the Institute for the History of German Jews; “Prophecy and the Biblical Prophets in Modern Jewish Thought,” at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University; “Virtue and Power in Hermann Cohen’s Ethics and Philosophy of Religion” as part of the Toldot & Tarbut Series (University of Bonn); and “Can Commentary Be Philosophy? Hermann Cohen’s Contested Legacy” as part of the conference Commentary and/as Philosophy (Princeton University), sponsored by the Program in Judaic Studies.

Professor Yitz Landes hosted Dr. Gene Matanky for a talk on “Esoteric Labor: Scholarly Practices and Safedian Kabbalah.” Dr. Matanky is a Harry Starr Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University and a Golda Meir Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The day began with remembering Rabbi Jerry Schwarzbard, former Ripp Schnitzer Librarian for Special Collections at the Library. After the talk, Dr. Matanky gave a tour of the Rare Book Room.

Professor Jonathan Milgram has been on a well-deserved sabbatical this past semester and has been working on his book on the topic of Pidyon Haben. He also recently published, “The Textual Formation and Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud,” in What is the Bavli?, ed. Jay Harris and Christine Hayes, Harvard University Press, 2025.

Congratulations to Professor David Fishman, who was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research. This honor represents the high regard that Jewish studies researchers have for Professor Fishman and his work.  He was also appointed to the Advisory Committee of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum in Vilnius, Lithuania. As director of the Jewish Archival Survey in Ukraine, he co-edited the newly published Jewish Documentary Sources in Chernivtsi Archives: A Guide (Bucharest University Press). His study “Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn: The Making of a Jewish Religious Leader in the Soviet Union”  has appeared in the book Religion and the Russian Revolution of 1917 (Indiana University Press).

Several faculty members participated in the JTS learning series, America at 250: Jewish Ideas and the American Experiment, including Professors Robert Harris, Sandra Fox, Jack Wertheimer, Sarah Wolf, Shira Billet, and Benjamin Sommer.

Professor Robert A. Harris, Irma Cameron Milstein Chair, for Hebrew Bible and Its Interpretation, has been selected by an international committee as the 2027 JTS–Rome Fellow. This fully funded fellowship will support his teaching at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (PUST) in Rome during the Spring 2027 semester. An internationally recognized scholar of medieval Jewish biblical exegesis, Professor Harris will work closely with Professor Gavin D’Costa of PUST, contributing to interfaith dialogue and scholarly exchange.