Isaiah Gafni
Isaiah Gafni (born 1944) is a historian of Judaism in the Second Temple and Talmudic periods. He is the Sol Rosenbloom Chair of Jewish History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and president (since 2016) of Shalem College in Jerusalem. Education. He has a Ph.D in Jewish History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1978), under the direction of Menahem Stern and Shmuel Safrai; MA, Hebrew University (1969); BA, Hebrew University (1966). Thought and writings. Gafni is interested in the attitudes of the Jews of the Second Temple towards the Land of Israel. His research focuses on how Judaism was  reshaped during the years the Jews after the Temple's destruction. He has authored numerous academic articles, three books, and he edited over fifteen books regarding a wide range of topics in Jewish History. Gafni's focus is research on political, social and religious Jewish life during the Second Temple Period (516 BCE – 70 CE). His book The "Jews of Talmudic Babylonia: A Social and Cultural History" was honored with the 1992 Holon Municipality Prize for Jewish studies. Additionally he has written more than 100 entries in the Encyclopaedia Judaica. Gafni's most recent book, titled, "Land, Center and Diaspora : Jewish Constructs in Late Antiquity" was originally delivered in a series of lectures in Oxford called the Third Jacobs Lectures in Rabbinic Thought in January 1994. In the book he seeks to "shed some light on what the Jews of the period (post destruction of the Second Temple), in Judea, as well as in diaspora, might have thought about their particular situation as a scattered people, and how these thoughts translated into concrete policies and subsequent measures that shaped and defined relationships among the various Jewish communities of Late Antiquity." The most recent works published by Gafni are "The Jewish  Family – Metaphor and Memory", explaining the institution of Jewish marriage in Rabbinic times, and "Irano-Judaica II" which articulates the expressions and types of “local-patriotism” among the Jews of Sasanian Babylonia. Professor Gafni has been a professor in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for over 40 years and a visiting professor at Yale University and Brown University. He has offered courses entitled "“The Beginnings of Judaism”", "“The Great World Religions”", and has lectured in institutions throughout Israel and North America. Selected publications. Books