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UCL’s Hebrew & Jewish Studies department is a tight-knit community of academics from around the world, whose research interests and teaching expertise create a vibrant intellectual atmosphere.
Academic Staff
Seth Anziska
Mohamed S. Farsi-Lindenbaum Professor of Jewish-Muslim Relations
Modern Middle Eastern History; Israel and Palestine
Sima Beeri
Lecturer (Teaching) in Yiddish
Yiddish pedagogy; Jewish traditional food
Michael Berkowitz
Professor of Modern Jewish History
German Jewry; English-speaking Jewry; Holocaust Studies; Jews in science and technology
Alinda Damsma
Deputy Head of Department
Lecturer (Teaching) in Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic
Witchcraft in biblical and post-biblical times; Aramaic dialectology
Mark Geller
Jewish Chronicle Professor of Jewish Studies
Ancient Babylonian medicine; Syriac medicine; Talmud medicine
Shirli Gilbert
Professor of Modern Jewish History
Jews in South Africa; Holocaust memory
Sonia Gollance
Associate Professor of Yiddish Studies
Modern Jewish literature; Gender and Yiddish theatre
François Guesnet
Professor of Modern Jewish History
Modern Jewish History; Polish Jewish History; Eastern Europe
Lily Kahn
Head of the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies
Professor of Hebrew & Jewish Languages
Contemporary Hasidic Yiddish; Contemporary Ashkenazic Hebrew; Hebrew in Eastern Europe; Multilingualism in Hasidic communities
Neill Lochery
Professor of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Studies
Tali Loewenthal
Lecturer (Teaching)
Hasidism and modernity; Jewish Mysticism; Orthodoxy/Gender in Orthodoxy
Tamara Novis
Lecturer (Teaching) in Modern Hebrew
Shoshana Sharpe
Lecturer (Teaching) in Modern Hebrew
Sacha Stern
Professor of Rabbinic Judaism
Jewish history in Antiquity; Calendars and time; Rabbinic literature; Qaraites and Rabbanites
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Research Associates
Simo Muir
Honorary Research Associate
Yiddish culture during and after Shoah, Jewish history in Finland, Postwar politics of memory
Nadia Vidro
Honorary Research Fellow
Medieval Jewish intellectual and social history, Calendars, Jewish manuscripts
Sonya Yampolskaya
Honorary Research Fellow
Maskilic and premodern Hebrew language; Yiddish dialects; Hasidic Yiddish
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Research Students
Noa Ben David
Jewish identifications and minority integration in contemporary Norway
Supervisors: Prof François Guesnet, Dr Elettra Carbone (Scandinavian Studies, SELCS)
Nir Ben-Porat
Minority Language and Mobility in Ethno-Nationalist Societies: The Case of Palestinians in Tel Aviv
Supervisors: Dr Seth Anziska, Prof Lily Kahn
Tamara Gleason Freidberg
The Yiddish Press and the Holocaust in Mexico
Supervisors: Prof Shirli Gilbert, Dr Helen Beer
Sarah Grabiner
Constructing and Connoting Multiple Liturgical Meanings via Translation in Hebrew-English Prayerbooks (1940-2022)
Supervisor: Prof Lily Kahn
Ron Hassan
Zion, Yeshurun & Biblical Onomastics: a new outlook on the history of Hebrew & Israelite gods
Supervisors: Prof Mark Geller, Prof Lily Kahn
Zeyu Jiang
Inter-Cultural Dynamics in the Globalisation of Scientific Practices: A Comparative Study of Babylonian and Chinese Medicine in the 1st Millennium BCE
Supervisors: Prof Mark Geller, Prof Vivienne Lo (Department of History)
Rabbi Ofer Livnat
Sifrei Evronot: 16th-18th Century Jewish Calendar Manuals
Supervisor: Prof Sacha Stern
Theodosis Pipis
An Escape from Eurocentrism and Hellenism: Cypriot History in an Arab Key, 1923-1974
Supervisors: Dr Seth Anziska, Dr Ali Coşkun Tunçer
Keren Rubner
Generational phonetic variation in the Hasidic English of Stamford Hill
Supervisors: Prof Lily Kahn and Dr Bronwen Evans (Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences)
Scott Saunders
Holocaust Journeys
Supervisor: Prof Shirli Gilbert, Prof François Guesnet
Anna Switaj
The City, Despite Everything: Lviv Architecture as Witness, 1918-1947
Supervisors: Prof François Guesnet and Prof Eva Branscome (Bartlett School of Architecture)
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Emeritus Staff
Helen Beer
Ben Zion Margulies Lecturer Emeritus in Yiddish
Yiddish language, literature, culture
Tsila Ratner
Lecturer Emeritus in Modern Hebrew Literature
Modern Hebrew literature, Women’s writing, Gender studies
Willem Smelik
Professor Emeritus of Hebrew and Aramaic
Aramaic Language and Literature, Hebrew Bible (esp. Former Prophets), Classical Rabbinic Literature, textual transmission