Duke-UNC JSS Welcomes Rachel Elior

The Duke-UNC Jewish Studies Seminar is pleased to welcome Professor Rachel Elior, head of the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University. Professor Elior's research interests include: the history of Jewish mysticism; early Jewish mysticism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Heikhalot; Kabbalah ; the early modern period, Messianism, Sabbatianism, Hasidism, Frankism; the presence and absence of women in Jewish culture and religious tradition, and the history of freedom; traditional sources of secular Judaism ; identity, knowledge, criticism and creativity.Prof. Elior has written ten books on different periods of Jewish mystical creativity, edited five books and authored some hundred articles on this subject. She won a number of prizes, among them the Friedenberg Award of Excellence of the Israel National Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Beracha-Yigal Alon Prize for Academic Excellence, AVI Fellowship , Geneva, Warburg Prize, Federman Foundation, State University of New York Research Foundation, The Littauer Fund, Oxford Jerusalem Trust Visiting Fellowship, Wolfson Foundation and Memorial Foundation for Jewish Studies Fellowship. The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities has recently awarded her the Gershom Scholem Prize for Research in Kabbalah.