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Jewish Thought and Culture

In the Jewish Thought and Culture Area, we concentrate on Jewish thought, from antiquity to the present. 

Faculty: Simeon Chavel, Sarah Hammerschlag, Sheila E. Jelen, James T. Robinson

Associated Faculty: Kenneth Moss

Midrash and piyyut, Biblical interpretation and belles-lettres, Sufism and Kabbalah, philosophy and theology – these are the main subjects we explore in historical and hermeneutical contexts. The main focus is textual, the study of ideas as they emerge in the vast and varied literary production of the Jews throughout time. Although students are required to gain expertise in one historical period and geographical realm, they are also encouraged to acquire a sense for the development of ideas through the ages, from Biblical to Second Temple, Hellenistic and Rabbinic Judaism, into the Medieval period—in the Islamic world and Christian Europe—into Modern times, in Germany, France, Italy, Israel and America.

Jewish Studies has been an important field of research at The University of Chicago since the institution's founding in 1890. Among its first five full professors, two taught Judaica: William Rainey Harper and Emil Gustav Hirsch. The University's first president, Professor Harper, was a renowned Biblical scholar and oversaw the beginnings of programs in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations. A few decades later, these early initiatives received a huge institutional boost with the founding of the Oriental Institute, which remains one of the pre-eminent centers for the study of ancient Near Eastern languages, civilizations, and archeology.

Professor Hirsch held a chair in rabbinical literature and Jewish philosophy. Current to his duties as the principal rabbi of Congregation Sinai, located in the neighborhood of the university, Hirsch taught until his death in 1923 a full range of courses in Talmud, Midrash, and Medieval Jewish philosophy.

The subsequent flourishing of Jewish Studies at Chicago has been sustained by appointments in a wide range of departments: Classics, Philosophy, History, Social Thought, Political Science, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Music, Germanic Studies, Slavic Languages and Literatures, Romance Languages and Literatures, to name a few. In 1994, the Divinity School established its History of Judaism program for the training of graduate students in Jewish Studies. During the decade and a half since, the School has appointed eminent scholars in the study of Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Medieval Jewish Thought, and Modern Jewish Thought. Working together, these fields and disciplines have created the most comprehensive, distinguished, and interdisciplinary program in Jewish Studies available at any American university. In 2026, the area was renamed Jewish Thought and Culture, to better describe the encompassing nature of scholarship produced by faculty and students. 

The Jewish Thought and Culture faculty, focused on the study of Jewish texts in their various historical, cultural, philosophical, literary, and religious contexts, includes Simeon Chavel, Michael Fishbane, Sarah Hammerschlag, Sheila E. Jelen, and James T. Robinson.

The Jewish Thought and Culture doctoral program offers three different concentrations: Ancient Judaism, Medieval Judaism, and Modern Judaism.

Requirements for the PhD in the Jewish Thought and Culture Area are:

1. Coursework and Residency: There is a four-year scholastic residency requirement for every student in the Divinity School. With supervision from the primary academic advisor, students develop a course of study to prepare for comprehensive exams and acquire the necessary linguistic proficiency.

2. Research Languages: Each area of research has its own unique language needs. In general, PhD students in the Jewish Thought and Culture area will be required to master two languages related to their interests, for example, Rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic or Syriac; Medieval Hebrew and Arabic or Latin (or a relevant romance language); Maskilic Hebrew and Yiddish or another European language. Students with strong chronological interests can focus on the various stages of Hebrew: Biblical, Rabbinic, Medieval, and Modern.

3. Languages of Modern Scholarship: All Jewish Thought and Culture PhD students are required to show competency in Modern Hebrew, French, and German. Competency is determined by a formal faculty-administered exam tailored to the student's research interests. One must pass the required language exam before taking the doctoral orals and submitting a dissertation proposal.

4. Pre-exam Colloquium: After completing the course and residency requirements and passing the relevant language exams, students participate in a colloquium with all members of the Jewish Thought and Culture faculty in attendance. This colloquium will provide an opportunity for intensive discussion of one substantial research paper by the student in relation to his or her larger research goals. Typically, this is done at the end of the second year or the beginning of the third year of studies. 

5. Comprehensive Exams: Students in the Divinity School are required to sit four comprehensive examinations followed by an oral defense. In the Jewish Thought and Culture area, at least two, and no more than three, of the exams must be in Jewish Thought and Culture; at least one, and no more than two, in another area of the Divinity School. An "orals paper," related to the student's prospective dissertation research, is submitted prior to taking exams and will be discussed during the oral defense. Sample bibliographies can be seen here: Ancient, Medieval, Modern.

Sample exams from previous years are available in the Dean of Students' office.

6. Dissertation Proposal: Upon successful completion of the comprehensive exams, students must formulate and submit a dissertation proposal together with a dissertation committee of at least three faculty members: a primary adviser and two readers. The proposal must be submitted to the Committee on Degrees for formal approval.

7. Dissertation: The final requirement of the PhD is the dissertation, which must represent substantial and original research in the student's chosen field of expertise.

Sample Courses

  •  The "Science of Letters" in Judaism and Islam
  • The Bible in Arabic
  • Mystical Theology of Hasidism: The Circle of Maggid of Mezeritch
  • Poetics of Midrash
  • The Jewish Interpretation of the Bible in the Middle Ages
  • A Proto-History of Race? Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in Spain and North Africa (1200-1600)
  • Messianism in Modern Jewish Thought
  • Interactions between Jewish Philosophy and Literature in the Middle Ages
  • The Book of Judges
  • Between Polemics and Encounter: "Jews" and "Christians" in Rome and Sasanian Persia
  • Jewish Sufism
  • Martin Buber's Conception of Religion and Judaism
  • Modern Jewish Religious Thought: An Introductory Survey
  • Readings in Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed
  • A Medieval Menagerie: Animal Spirituality in the Middle Ages