Room 5306, The Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Office hours: Monday, 13:00-14:00

meir.bar-asher@mail.huji.ac.il

02-5883700

Meir M. Bar-Asher is a Max Schloessinger Professor of Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a member of the department of Arabic Language and Literature at this university. His research interests include Quran exegesis and religious communities in Islam (especially Twelver Shi’ism and Nusayri- ‘Alawi religion), as well as religious and historical contacts between Judaism and Islam.

            Among his publications are Scriptures and Exegesis in Early Shi’ism (Leiden and Jerusalem, 1999) and The Nusayri- ‘Alawi Religion: An Enquiry into Its Theology and Liturgy (Leiden, 2002 [with A. Kofsky]). He is the editor of several books, among which is Le Shi’isme Imamite: Quarante ans Après: Hommage à Etan Kohlberg (Turnhout, 2009 [with M.A. Amir-Moezzi and S. Hopkins]); Islam: History, Religion and Culture (Jerusalem, Magness Press, 2017 [with Meir Hatina]). His recent book is Les Juifs et le Coran (Paris: Albin Michel, 2019) and in an English version – The Jews and the Qur’an (Princeton University Press – forthcoming).

Room 6422, The Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Office hours: Monday, 11:15-12:15

biranm@mail.huji.ac.il

02-5883741

Michal Biran is the Max and Sophie Mydans Foundation Professor in the Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a member of the Israel Academy of Science and Humanities, and from October 2021, head of the Institute of Asian and African Study at the Hebrew University.  She is a historian of Inner Asia, imperial China and the medieval Islamic world who teaches at the departments of Asian Studies and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. She has published extensively on the Mongol Empire, Mongol and pre-Mongol Central Asia (especially the Qara Khitai and the Chaghadaids), cross-cultural contacts between China, nomadic empires and the Muslim world, comparative study of empires, nomadic culture, migrations and mobility, and Ilkhanid Baghdad. 

Autor or editor of 12 books and volumes and dozens of articles, together with Hodong Kim she has recently completed editing The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire (2 vols. forthcoming 2022). Recent publications include Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, Intellectuals (co-edited with Jonathan Brack and Francesca Fiaschetti, University of California Press, 2020, Korean translation 2021) and The Limits of Universal Rule: Eurasian Empires Compared (co-edited with Yuri Pines and Jörg Rüpke, Cambridge University Press, 2021).

Room 6603, The Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Office hours: Monday, 12:00-14:00

brouria.bitton-ashkelony@mail.huji.ac.il

Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony is Martin Buber Chair in Comparative Religion, Faculty of Humanities. As a historian of late antique Eastern Christianities she inquiries into and interprets the delicate balance of continuity and transformation that defines a historical Christian self-identity. She seeks to discern the dynamics of change, continuity, and rupture in religious behavior and thought within Christian and non-Christian traditions alike; to reveal their effects on institutional and personal religion in late antique Eastern Christianities; and to seize the particularity of the period through the lens of three major religious and social phenomena: pilgrimage, monasticism, and prayer in Greek and Syriac sources.

            Among her publications are Encountering the Sacred: The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity, The Transformation of the Classical Heritage Series 38 (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 2005); with A. Kofsky, The Monastic School of Gaza. Vigiliae Christianae Supplements Series 78 (Leiden: Brill, 2006); 'The Ladder of Prayer and the Ship of Stirrings': The Praying Self in Late Antique East Syrian Christianity (Leuven: Peeters, 2019). Among her recent co-editing books are Patristic Studies in the Twenty-First Century (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015); Prayer and Worship in Eastern Christianities, 5^th to 11^th centuries (London and New York: Routledge, 2017); Origeniana Duodecima: Origen Legacy in the Holy Land (Leuven: Peeters, 2019).

Room 6419, The Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Office hours: By e-mail appointment

michael.ebstein@mail.huji.ac.il

Michael Ebstein teaches at the Arabic Language and Literature Department and the Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In his research. He focuses on classical Islamic mysticism, with particular attention to Andalusi mysticism and its links to both the Shi’i world and Jewish mysticism.

            Among his publicatioin, Mysticism and Philosophy in Al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra, Ibn al-‘Arabi and the Isma‘ili Tradition (Brill, 2014).

Room 5305, Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Office hours: By e-mail appointment

sivan.lerer@mail.huji.ac.il

Dr. Sivan Lerer is the executive manager of the Chair in Baha'i Studies. She has been teaching courses on the history of the Baha'i faith at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for over a decade. Her PhD. thesis was written under the supervision of Prof. Moshe Sharon and dealt with the "dialogue" between the Sheikhi leader Karim Khan Karmani and the Bab.

Her research focuses on the early history of the Babi-Baha'i faith; Baha'i interpretations of various scriptures; the Baha'i faith as an "Abrahamic Religion"; and Baha'i scriptures in contact with various religious traditions.

As part of the "Digital Humanities" movement and the effort to make  academic knowledge and research more accessible to the general public, Sivan's students have written more than 80 articles on the Hebrew Wikipedia (and several in other languages) dealing with Baha'i subjects.

Sivan is also the executive editor of the Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam international journal published by the Max Schloessinger Memorial Foundation.

Room 5323, The Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Office hours: by e-mail appointment

rubanovich.julia@mail.huji.ac.il

02-5883656

Julia Rubanovich is Head of the Iranian Studies Program in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and Vice Dean for Teaching Affairs at the Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on medieval Persian literature, with an emphasis on epic poetry, including the oeuvre of Shāhīn in Judeo-Persian; folk literature (especially prose dāstāns) and the question of medieval orality; the Alexander Romance in the Islamic world, and literary paratexts and concepts of authorship in relation to the notion of the literary canon.

drutstein@bwc.org

David Rutstein is the Secretery-General of the Baha’i International Community. He has been a member of various Baha’i communities and served on different local and national Baha’i institutions.

            Dr. Rutstein is a senior health executive’ public health expert and clinician. In the course of a 36-year career, he created and let innovative clinical, administrative, management, emergency response and executive level teams and organizations. Most recently, he founded SolHEALTH, a non-profit organization working to promote health and prevent disease in diverse populations globally.