Centre for Jewish Studies

Faculty List

Director
Anna Shternshis (Department for Germanic Languages and Literatures and Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies) - Al and Malka Green Professor in Yiddish Studies

Graduate Coordinator
Naomi Seidman (Department for the Study of Religion and Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies) – Chancellor Jackman Professor in the Arts

Undergraduate Coordinator
Yigal Nizri (Department for the Study of Religion)

TENURE STREAM

Professors
Abigail Bakan (OISE, Department of Social Justice Education)
Amir Harrak (Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations)
Andrea Most (Department of English)
Anna Shternshis (Department for Germanic Languages and Literatures and Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies) - Al and Malka Green Professor in Yiddish Studies
Arthur Ripstein (Faculty of Law and Department of Philosophy) – Howard Beck QC Chair in Law
Caryl Clark (Faculty of Music)
Clifford Orwin (Department of Political Science)
Daniel Silver (Department of Sociology, UTSC)
David Novak (Department of Philosophy and Fellow of St. Michael’s College) – J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair in Jewish Studies (now Professor and Shiff Chair Emeritus)
Doris Bergen (Department of History) – Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies
Esther Geva (Department of Psychology)
Harold Troper (OISE Department of Curriculum Teaching and Learning) (now Professor Emeritus)
Harry Fox (Department for the Study of Religion and Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations)
Ivan Kalmar (Department of Anthropology)
James Retallack (Department of History)
Jeremy Schipper (Department for the Study of Religion and Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations)
John Kloppenborg (Department for the Study of Religion)
Joseph M. Bryant (Department of Sociology)
Judith Newman (Status-Only, Department for the Study of Religion and Emmanuel College, Victoria University)
Karen Weisman (Department of English)
Kenneth Green (Department for the Study of Religion)
Leonid Livak (Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures) – Department Chair
Lorraine Weinrib (Faculty of Law) – Professor Emerita
Louis Kaplan (Department of Visual Studies UTM)
Lynne Viola (Department of History) - Professor Emerita
Mark D. Meyerson (Department of History and Centre for Medieval Studies)
Maria Subtelny (Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations)
Marsha Hewitt (Trinity College Faculty of Divinity)
Michael Chazan (Department of Anthropology)
Michael Rosenthal (Department of Philosophy and Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies) – Grafstein Professor of Jewish Philosophy
Naomi Seidman (Department for the Study of Religion and Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies) – Chancellor Jackman Professor in the Arts
Rebecca Comay (Department of Philosophy and Centre for Comparative Literature)
Robert Brym (Department of Sociology)
Robert Gibbs (Department for the Study of Religion and Department of Philosophy)
Robert Holmstedt (Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations)
Robin Elliot (Faculty of Music) – Jean A. Chalmers Chair in Canadian Music
Ron Levi (Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, and Department of Sociology)
Ronald Beiner (Department of Political Science) – Professor Emeritus of Political Science
Ronald J. Leprohon (Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations) – Professor Emeritus
Ronit Dinovitzer (Department of Sociology)
Sarianna Metso (Department of Historical Studies, UTM)
Simon Coleman (Department for the Study of Religion, cross-appointed to Anthropology) – Associate
Chair
Steven Vande Moortele (Faculty of Music)
Susan Solomon (Department of Political Science) – Professor Emerita
Timothy Harris (Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations)
Walid Saleh (Department for the Study of Religion and Department of Near and Middle Eastern
Civilizations)
Willi Goetschel (Department of Philosophy and Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures)

Associate Professors
Adam S. Cohen (Department of Art History)
Alejandro I. Paz (Department of Anthropology)
Ann Komaromi (Centre for Comparative Literature)
Daphna Heller (Department of Linguistics)
Jill Ross (Centre for Comparative Literature)
John Marshall (Department for the Study of Religion)
Katherine Blouin (Department of History)
Lauren Bialystok (Department of Social Justice Education, Center for Ethics)
Mitchell Hoffman (Rotman School of Management and Department of Economics)
Nicholas Stang (Department of Philosophy)
Piotr J. Wrobel (Department of History) - Konstanty Reynert Chair of Polish Studies
Rebecca Wittmann (Department of Historical Studies, UTM) – Department Chair
Ronald Charles (Department for the Study of Religion)
Sherry Denise Lee (Faculty of Music)
Tirzah Meacham (Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations)
Yiftach Fehige (Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology)

Assistant Professors
Max Mishler (Department of History)
Tanhum Yoreh (School of the Environment)

TEACHING STREAM

Professor, Teaching Stream
Robert Austin (Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies)

Associate Professors, Teaching Stream
Renan Levine (Department of Political Science UTSC)
Sol Goldberg (Department for the Study of Religion)
Yigal Nizri (Department for the Study of Religion)

CLINICAL FACULTY

Associate Professor
Ayelet Kuper (Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Department of Medicine)

LIBRARIAN
Nadav Sharon (Judaica Librarian at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library)

Introduction

The Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies offers a Specialist in Jewish Studies, a Major in Jewish Studies, and a Minor in Jewish Studies.

Our undergraduate program provides students with a comprehensive education in Jewish Studies, a field that aims to situate the cultural, social, and economic diversity of the Jews and their faith within broader cultural contexts. Students who take our courses are trained in various methodological and disciplinary approaches across historical periods, geographical regions, textual corpora, and literary genres. Consequently, our students are pursuing education in Jewish history (ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary), Jewish literary and artistic creativity, and Jewish languages (mainly Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, and Yiddish) but also about Judaism, Jewish thought, theology, philosophy, mysticism, and modern Israel. 

The program is interdisciplinary, each student can pick and choose courses that broaden their disciplinary knowledge. The program provides intensive training in the historical, religious, cultural, and political experience of Jewish communities in their diverse civilizational contexts. A primary objective of our three undergraduate programs in Jewish studies has been to provide students with forward-thinking tools to shape their interaction with and understanding of questions through Jewish prisms while at the same time encouraging them to think with the potentialities found in the Jewish historical experience. We teach students how to use a variety of methodologies to explore the experiences of Jews through interdisciplinarity, transnationally, historically, and contemporarily. 

We offer the following pathways in Jewish Studies:

• Jewish Philosophy and Thought 
• Jewish History  
• Jewish Visual Art and Archeology 
• Jewish Literature and Culture 
• Origins of Judaism/Hebrew Bible Studies 
• German Jewish Studies
• Antisemitism Studies 
• Jewish Christian Encounters   
• Yiddish Studies
• Modern Hebrew Culture
• Israel Studies    
• Holocaust and post-Holocaust Studies 
• European Jewish Studies 
• Jewish Environmentalism 
• Jewish-Muslim Relations
• Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewish Studies 
• Gender, Women, Queer and Sexuality and Jewish Studies

For more information, we encourage students to visit our website and contact us at any time by email or phone: