BIOGRAPHY

Scholar

By 1994 I felt the time had come to focus on the academic studies I had always cherished. Oxford was my saviour.

I had been Visiting Lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies since 1985, and in 1994/5 was Koerner Visiting Fellow. My association with Oxford was put on a firmer footing in 1995 when I was appointed Fellow in Modern Jewish Thought at the Centre and Hebrew Centre Lecturer in Theology, University of Oxford. I retired in 2001 but remain a Senior Associate of the Centre and a member of the Oxford University Unit for Teaching and Research in Hebrew and Jewish Studies.

My first book following arrival in Oxford was the popular A Very Short Introduction to Judaism (OUP), translated into more than a dozen languages. The Historical Dictionary of Judaism appeared in 1998, The Penguin Classics Talmud: A Selection in 2009, Torah from Heaven in 2012, and Making Sense of “God” (2023). I have also published almost 100 papers and numerous book reviews.

I was Specialist Adviser to Council for National Academic Awards (1989-92) and to the Open University Validating Service (1994-7), and President of the British Association for Jewish Studies (1994 – it was subsequently renamed “British and Irish Association for Jewish Studies”). From 2013-15 I was a member of the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life (https://www.corab.org.uk/national.php).