. 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.

(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.

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.

 

, 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).

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.