Rachel Elior

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Rachel Elior

Rachel Elior (born 28 December 1949) is an Israeli professor of

Hasidism and the history of early Jewish mysticism.[1]

Academic career

Elior is the John and Golda Cohen Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Jewish Mystical Thought at the Hebrew University, where she has taught since 1978. Currently she is the head of the Department of

Hasidism, Chabad,[2] Frankism
and the role of women in Jewish culture.

She has been a visiting professor at

University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
.

She is a member of the board of the international council of the New Israel Fund.

Awards and recognition

In 2006, Elior received the Gershom Scholem Prize for Research in Kabbalah from the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.[3]

Criticism and controversy

Rachel Elior's research into Hasidism and the Dead Sea Scrolls has elicited a range of scholarly responses, marking her work as a significant point of contention and endorsement within academic circles.

Hasidism

Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, a Professor at Northwestern, critiques Elior's approach to Hasidism, stating, "Elior uses a rather outdated concept of the [hasidic] movement to cement her narrative. She leaves aside theories, ideas, insights, and data amassed by scholars who have long departed from the thinking patterns of Dinur or Scholem." And that Elior, among others, "should revisit [the early writers of hasidic stories'] conceptual framework, in which sources coexist in a nontemporal fashion and freely talk to one another, as ideas in the Platonic world of forms."[4]

Dead Sea Scrolls

Her notion of the origins of mysticism in the priestly class has been challenged by professor

Peter Schaefer criticizes her for blurring distinctions between texts and periods, and is not sensitive to important nuances, noting that her views of angels at Qumran and the calendar are wrong.[9] Professor Martha Himmelfarb finds Elior's work "simply untenable",[10] stating that Elior creates tenuous links and historical connections without a basis.[11]

Elior has posited that the

James Charlesworth, director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Project and professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, states there is "significant evidence for the Essenes’ existence" and "It is impossible that Josephus created a group already mentioned by Philo, who had visited Jerusalem," arguing against Elior's conclusion. Princeton religion professor Martha Himmelfarb said she doesn’t think Elior’s work is as "historically informed" as other research on the Scrolls, saying, "[Elior] does not tend to engage the historical nitty-gritty that other scholars’ work does."[13]

See also

References

  1. ^ Gibson, Etta Prince (24 December 2004). "Hear me roar". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 25 October 2012.
  2. ^ "Prophecy Now". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 24 September 2000.
  3. ^ "Gershom Scholem Prize for Research in Kabbalah Awarded to Prof. Rachel Elior of Hebrew University". Hebrew University. 11 April 2006. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
  4. S2CID 162389210
    .
  5. ^ Liebes, Yehuda (6 April 2003). "Children of the sun vs. children of the moon".
  6. ISSN 1565-1525
    .
  7. doi:10.1163/1570063054012132
    .
  8. ^ Dan, Joseph (3 February 2003). "Varieties of religious experiences". Haaretz. Retrieved 18 March 2009.
  9. ISBN 978-3-486-58006-8
    .
  10. ISBN 978-3-486-58006-8
    .
  11. ISBN 978-3-486-58006-8
    .
  12. ^ McGirk, Tim (16 March 2009). "Scholar Claims Dead Sea Scrolls 'Authors' Never Existed". Time. Archived from the original on 20 March 2009. Retrieved 17 March 2009.
  13. ^ "Dead Sea Scrolls' origins spark debate - the Daily Princetonian". Archived from the original on 30 March 2009. Retrieved 29 March 2009.

Bibliography

External links
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