Yitz Landes
Assistant Professor of Rabbinic Literatures and Cultures
Department: Rabbinic Literatures and Cultures
Phone: 212-870-5812
Email: islandes@jtsa.edu
Building Room: Unterberg 506
Office Hours: By Appointment
BA and MA, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; AM and PhD, Princeton University
Dr. Yitz Landes (he/him) is Assistant Professor of Rabbinic Literatures and Cultures. His research focuses on the premodern transmission of Jewish knowledge, primarily vis-à-vis the history of rabbinic education and the history of the Jewish book. Additionally, Dr. Landes works on the development of Jewish ritual and liturgy, topics he addressed in his first monograph, Studies in the Development of Birkat ha-Avodah (The Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies, 2018).
Dr. Landes received a BA in Talmud and Halakhah and Comparative Religion and an MA in Talmud and Halakhah and Late Antique Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as an AM and PhD in Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity from Princeton University.
At JTS, Dr. Landes teaches courses on classical and post-classical rabbinic texts, on Jewish Liturgy, on ancient Jewish History, and on Hebrew manuscript cultures. In addition, he teaches a semester of the Jewish Canon curriculum for freshman students in List College.
Dr. Landes’s current book project, based on his Princeton dissertation, traces the reception and transmission history of the Mishnah, the central work of the rabbinic canon, from its inception in late second-century Galilee until the publication of Maimonides commentary to the Mishnah in the 12th century. By uncovering the various ways in which people studied, memorized, copied, and cared for the Mishnah, Dr. Landes maps the spread of Rabbinic Judaism by providing a detailed picture of the history of rabbinic literacy and identity, taking into account the diversity of the various premodern Jewish communities located throughout the Mediterranean world. Dr. Landes also researches the textual criticism of various ancient and medieval Jewish works, and is co-editing a critical edition and translation of The Epistle of Pirqoi ben Baboi, a polemical letter from the turn of the 9th century that is crucial for understanding the spread of rabbinic practice and the reception of the Babylonian Talmud.
