Daniel Behar completed his BA degree in Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University (2010). He obtained a PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University with a dissertation thesis titled The New Austerity in Syrian Poetry (2019). He later went on to receive a two-year Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Dartmouth College, where he was affiliated with programs in Jewish Studies and Middle Eastern Studies. He joined the Department of Arabic Language and Literature in 2021. Daniel specializes in modern Arabic literature, and specifically works on the literary and historical context for the rise of the modern prose poem in Syria. His work approaches this material by means of broad comparative frameworks such as translation studies, world literature, and comparative modernisms. 

Received his PhD at the Hebrew University in 2012. In his research, he focuses on classical Islamic mysticism, with particular attention to medieval Andalusian mysticism as well as the links between the Shi'ite tradition and Sunni mysticism.

B.A. summa cum laude Harvard College; M.Phil University of Cambridge; PhD summa cum laude The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.A specialist in medieval Judeo-Arabic texts, Prof. Goldstein focuses on interreligious relations in the medieval Arabic-speaking world as well as Judeo-Arabic Bible exegesis. She is author of A Judeo-Arabic Parody of the Life of Jesus: The Toledot Yeshu Helene Narrative (Tübingen, 2023) and Karaite Exegesis in Medieval Jerusalem (Tübingen, 2011) and co-editor of Beyond Religious Borders: Interaction and Intellectual Exchange in the Medieval Islamic World (2011) and Authorship in Mediaeval Arabic and Persian Literatures (2019), and has published numerous articles on Arabic and Judeo-Arabic literature. Her work has been supported by the Israel Science Foundation, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Minerva Stiftung, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, a Marshall Fellowship and the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development.

Prof. Goldstein’s current major project is a critical edition and translation of the Judeo-Arabic Pentateuch commentaries of the Baghdadi Karaite scholar Ya‘qub al-Qirqisani.

Goldstein is a former triathlete and a fervent believer in sustainability and living lightly on the planet, and more than her academic publications, may be proudest of a piece that appeared this year in Israel’s national Haaretz paper featuring her and her bike commute to the Mt Scopus campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Received his B.A. from the University of Chicago (1997), and his M.A. (2009) and Ph.D. (2016) from the Hebrew University. After receiving his doctorate, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Modern Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia at Princeton University and at the Mandel Scholion Research Center.

His research focuses on Muslim theology, from the kalām to modern Muslim thought, with a central focus on Ibn Taymiyya and the salafī tradition in Islam.

Completed her academic studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  She has taught in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature since the year 2000.

Her doctoral dissertation was supervised by Professor Sarah Stroumsa and Prof. Etan Kohlberg.  It focused on the question of man’s reward after death according to the commentator and theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, who belonged to the Ash‘arite school of thought. Dr. Levi’s discussion also included the views of the rival school to the Ash‘ariyya, namely the Mu‛tazila, regarding this issue.

Her research interests include:  Quranic exegesis, kalām literature, and the linguistic and cultural aspects of the Arabic language - written and spoken.

Iyas Nasser, a published poet, is a scholar of pre- and early Islamic poetry and classical Arabic literature. He graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a BA from the Departments of Arabic Language and Literature, and General and Comparative Literature.  In his MA studies at the Hebrew University he specialized in classical Arabic poetry. He wrote his Master’s thesis, “Fatalism and Hedonism in Ancient Arabic Wine Poetry”, on the social concepts reflected in the wine poetry of pre-Islamic poets, under the supervision of Prof. Albert Arazi. In 2017, he received his PhD from the Hebrew University’s Department of Arabic Language and Literature. His dissertation, supervised by Prof. Arazi and Prof. Meir Bar-Asher, is titled “The Narrative in the Nasīb in Ancient Arabic Poetry”. It examines various narrative forms in pre- and early Islamic amatory poetry, in the light of modern theories of narratology. On completing his PhD he took up his first postdoctoral fellowship at the Seminar for Semitic and Arabic Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin, where he explored several manuscripts of medieval Arabic works which focus on classical poetry. During his second postdoctoral Fellowship, at the Mandel Scholion Research Center of the Hebrew University, he focused on the rhetorical technique of the extended simile in ancient Arabic poetry and in modern Arabic literature.

Dr. Nasser’s research centers on pre-Islamic wine poetry, pre- and early Islamic love poetry, medieval Arabic works of literary criticism, rhetoric, and adab literature (fine literature of an eclectic and encyclopedic nature). In addition, he researches poems composed by women in the pre- and early Islamic eras, and examines their modes of expression in different contexts. He also explores the ways in which specific values and codes are conveyed in pre-Islamic poetry, and the presence of classical literary motifs in modern Arabic literature. In recent studies, he examined the structural affinity between the traditional qaṣīdah and Kitāb al-Zahrah, an anthology of poetry compiled by Muḥammad Ibn Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī (d. 910). After consulting the manuscripts of this anthology, he was able to shed new light on several aspects which until then had been unclear in the printed editions.

Dr. Nasser teaches courses on a number of subjects, including classical Arabic poetry and literature, love poetry, classical women’s poetry, and modern Arabic novels and short stories. He has won several prestigious awards, most recently the Maof Scholarship for outstanding young scholars. In addition to his academic research, Iyas Nasser has published two Arabic-language poetry collections on themes such as love and women’s rights, and various classical literary motifs.

Ori Shachmon is a dialectologist, specializing in the documentation, description and analysis of spoken Arabic dialects. Her studies deal with the Arabic varieties currently heard in Israel, among which are many distinct Palestinian dialects and Jewish varieties of Arabic. 
Striving to observe the history of the Arabic language through the prism of its modern dialects, her studies also delve into the fascinating mosaic of peninsular Arabic, paying special attention to Yemen. Her monograph "Tēmōnit - The Jewish Varieties of Yemeni Arabic" was published in 2022 by Harrassowitz. 
At HUJI she regularly teaches a course on Palestinian Arabic, which serves as an introduction to the field of Arabic dialectology. In addition she offers varying elective courses, exposing the students to advanced grammatical topics in various dialects throughout the Arab world, or to issues in Arabic sociolinguistics. She also offers an applied workshop focusing on the methodology of linguistic fieldwork. 

Prof. Ofra Tirosh-Becker is the Bialik Professor of Hebrew language. She is a Professor in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature and in the Department of Hebrew Language at the Hebrew University. She is the Head of the Hebrew University's Center for Jewish Languages and Literatures. From 2018 through 2021 she was the Director of the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East. She served as the Chairperson of the Department of Hebrew and as the Chairperson of the Department of Arabic Language and Literature. Prof. Tirosh-Becker is also a member of the executive committee of the Academy of the Hebrew Language in Jerusalem, and a full member of this Academy. She is the founder and co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Jewish Languages published by Brill, a co-editor of Massorot: Studies in Language Traditions and the Jewish Languages, and the editor of the Languages and Linguistics Section of the online edition of the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World. She was a visiting professor at Harvard University a few times.

Tirosh-Becker is a recipient of the 2011 Asaraf Prize from The Academy of the Hebrew Language, the 2013 Ben-Zvi Award for Research of Jewish Communities in the East, and the 2013 Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality in the Humanistic Disciplines (First Prize). Her two-volume book Rabbinic Excerpts in Medieval Karaite Literature was published in 2011 (Vol. 1: Philological and Linguistic Studies, Vol. 2: A Critical Annotated Scientific Edition of the Texts). Together with Prof. Lutz Edzard of Erlangen University, Germany she published the book Jewish Languages: Text Specimens, Grammatical, Lexical, and Cultural sketches (2021).

Her research focuses on the contacts between Arabic and Hebrew, including: North-African Judeo-Arabic; Judeo-Arabic translations of the Bible and of post-biblical literature; Medieval Hebrew; Hebrew in Algeria in the 19th-20th centuries; The contact between Hebrew and Arabic in the Middle Ages; Rabbinic Hebrew in Karaite writings.

Prof. Tirosh-Becker completed her B.A. at the Department of Hebrew Language and the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University. Her Master's thesis is on a Judeo-Arabic translation of Psalms from Constantine, Algeria, written under the supervision of Prof. Moshe Bar-Asher. In 2000 she received her doctoral degree from the Hebrew University. Her doctoral thesis, also under the supervision of Prof. Moshe Bar-Asher, focused on rabbinic Hebrew embedded in medieval Karaite literature, which for the most part was written in Judeo-Arabic.

In 2000 she carried out her post-doctoral training at the Center for Jewish Studies of Harvard University as a Starr Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar. In 2001-2002 she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Eliezer Ben Yehuda Research Center for the History of Hebrew at the Hebrew University.

Began his academic career at the University of Lyon (France), where he received his BA in Arabic and French language and literature. Arazi completed his doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris, on the topic of the poetry of jest in the Abbasid period.

Prof. Arazi has taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 1976, became Full Professor in 1990, and retired in 2006. One of Arazi’s most important contributions in the field of Arabic poetry was the publication of the Concordance of Early Arabic Poetry, together with his student Dr. Salman Masalha. Arazi is also the author of the entry Shi‘r (“Poetry”) in the Encyclopedia of Islam, which is considered one of the central entries in the entire work.

Prof. Arazi teaches Arabic poetry and Abbasid belles-lettres in the department on a volunteer basis until the present day.

Ph. D. (1991) in Islamic Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has published on Imami Shi'i and Isma'ili doctrine and exegesis and on the Nusayri-Alawi religion. His studies include Scripture and Exegesis in Early Shi'ism  (Leiden and Jerusalem 1999) and (in collaboration with Aryeh Kofsky) The Nusayri-Alawi Religion: An Enquiry into its Theology and Doctrine, Leiden 2002.

Professor Emeritus of Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University. He has served as co-director of the Center for the Study of Judaeo-Arabic Culture and Literature (Ben-Zvi Institute, since 1995); President of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies (1997-2013); co-director of the Jewish Studies program at St. Petersburg State University (2000-2006); academic co-director of the Friedberg Genizah Project (since 2003); and Academic Director of the National Library of Israel (October 2009-September 2015). Prof. Ben-Shammai studied at the Hebrew University in the departments of Arabic Language and Literature, history of the Islamic countries and Semitic languages for the degrees of B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. (1962-1977). His interests include Judaeo-Arabic Bible exegesis and philosophy, history of Jewish communities in Islamic countries, with special emphasis on Karaites, and Islamic theology (Kalam). Prof. Ben-Shammai has published numerous articles and chapters in books on these areas and has co-edited several books.

Prof. Ben-Shammai served as visiting professor and research fellow in several universities in England and the U.S.A. (Cambridge, London, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Yeshiva U). He was involved in the founding and academic management of projects aimed at enhancing Jewish studies in Russia, and in organizations active in research and diffusion of Jewish studies, such as the Ben Zvi Institute for the study of Jewish Communities in the East, the Center for the Study of Judaeo-Arabic Culture and Literature and the Friedberg Geniza Project.

On a personal note: Prof. Ben-Shammai was born in Tel-Aviv in 1939, grew up in Jerusalem and has lived to this day in this city. He served in the army in a Nahal unit, and stayed on a Kibbutz for a few years afterwards. He is married to Bitya, who was for many years the editor and director of the RAMBI project. Haggai and Bitya have four married children, twenty grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Max Schloessinger Professor Emeritus. Since 1999, a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He was awarded the Israel Prize for Near Eastern Studies in 2016.

In 2002 Friedmann was member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 2003 he received the Landau Prize in the Humanities.  Prof. Friedmann continues to teach on a volunteer basis in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature and the Department of Near Eastern Studies.

Friedmann's studies center on Islamic religious thought, mainly in the Indian subcontinent. He assays the historical record for evidence of both tolerance and intolerance of other religious faiths in the Islamic tradition in his most recent work, "Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition". Since 1993, he has been the editor of the acclaimed Hebrew University publication Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam.

Professor emeritus at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Arabic Language and Literature. The principal focus of his scholarship has been on Jerusalem in Islam, the transition from Jahiliyya to Islam, and contemporary Sunni-Shia relations. His publications include: Fada’il al-Bayt al-Muqaddas of Abu Bakr al-Wasiti (1979); Le voyage de Sa’id ibn Muhammad al-Suwaysi au Yaman 1890-1895 (2008) (in collaboration with A. Arazi); “Muslim Literature in Praise of Jerusalem: Fada’il Bayt al-Maqdis,” The Jerusalem Cathedra, 1 (1981); “The Muslim View of Jerusalem—The Qur’an and Hadith” in J. Prawer and H. Ben-Shammai (eds.), The History of Jerusalem, The Early Muslim Period 638-1099, (1996); “Judham entre la Jahiliyya et l’Islam,” Studia Islamica (1995); “La conversion de Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan,” JSAI (1998; “Les Shiites vus par les Neo-Wahhabites,” Arabica (2006).

Grew up in England and studied Semitic languages at the University of London. His doctorate dealt with the language of early Arabic papyri and was published as Studies in the Grammar of Early Arabic (1984). After several years of teaching Hebrew at the University of Cape Town, he moved to Israel, where he worked on the Historical Dictionary project at the Academy of the Hebrew Language before joining the Arabic Department of the Hebrew University in 1984.

Simon Hopkins is interested in Semitic philology as a whole, especially in the historical development of Arabic and Aramaic and the relations between them. In these areas he has published work on mediaeval Judaeo-Arabic (particularly Maimonides) and Neo-Aramaic dialects.

Born in Tel-Aviv in 1943. After completing his military service he began his studies at the Hebrew University and was awarded the B.A. (1966) and M.A. degrees (1968) summa cum laude. From 1969 through 1971 he was at Oxford University, where he wrote his doctoral thesis under the supervision of Samuel Stern and Richard Walzer (1969-1971). In 1972 he began teaching at the Hebrew University, and was promoted to senior lecturer four years later. In 1983 he was appointed associate professor and has been a full professor since 1991. He served as Head of the Institute of Asian and African Studies (1987-1989).

Prof. Kohlberg has been awarded the Rothschild Prize (2008) and the EMET Prize (2008) for his unique contribution to the study of Islam and in particular its Shii branch.

Has taught at the Hebrew University in a variety of positions since 1978. His M.A. thesis (1978, supervised by J. Blau), "Jewish Settlements in Babylonia during the Talmudic Period" traced Talmudic place names that survived in the geographical literature. His Ph.D. thesis (1983, supervised by M.J. Kister), "On the Prophet Muhammad's Activity in Medina" studied the so-called Constitution of Medina and several other topics relating to Muhammad's Medinan period.

Michael Lecker studies early Islamic texts, with an emphasis on the life of the Prophet Muhammad. It is not clear exactly how Muhammad's classical biography came into being. What is certain is that it is a product of the first Islamic century. While reflecting several rival viewpoints, the many solid facts it includes help us establish the broad lines of Muhammad's life and time. Lecker also founded the Jerusalem Prosopography Project.

Professor (emeritus) of Arabic Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he taught beginning in 1963. He has served as chair of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). He is author and director of the online edition of the Arabic-Hebrew dictionary originally authored by David Ayalon and Pessah Shinar. Prof. Milson served as the head of the Institute of Asian and African Studies and as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Hebrew University. Prof. Milson’s areas of research include Sufi literature, modern Egyptian literature and Arabic lexicography.
He holds a Ph.D. in Arabic literature from Harvard University (1964).

Was born in Jerusalem and has lived most of his life in Tel Aviv. He received his Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University in 1995 and is a senior lecturer in Arabic Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research and academic publications focus on the literature, drama, language and folklore of modern Egypt, based both on written sources and on close contact with Egyptian culture and its makers. He writes fiction prose and poetry in Hebrew and has also published translations of foreign literary works into Hebrew, including two plays by Egyptian playwrights. He has visited Egypt many times and has lectured on several occasions at the Israeli Academic Center in Cairo.

Alice and Jack Ormut Professor Emerita of Arabic Studies. She taught in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature and the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she served as the Rector of the University from 2008 until 2012. Her area of academic focus includes the history of philosophical and theological thought in Arabic in the early Islamic Middle Ages, Medieval Judaeo-Arabic literature, and intellectual history of Muslims and Jews in Islamic Spain. Among her published works in English: Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn alRāwaādī, Ab ū Bakr al-Rāzī, and Their Impact on Islamic Thought (Leiden: Brill, 1999; Paperback edition 2016); Maimonides in his World: Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker (Princeton: Princeton University, 2010; Paperback edition 2012) and Dāwūd al-Muqammaṣ, Twenty Chapters (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2016).