Judah Levine
5th year PhD Student in the Committee on Jewish Studies, University of Chicago
BA - Brandeis University (2000)
MA - Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2002)
I am a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the Committee on Jewish Studies. I have recently completed my qualifying exams and, after having my dissertation proposal accepted, moved into doctoral candidacy. I study modern Jewish thought with Dr. Mendes-Flohr and I also have an interest in medieval Jewish philosophy.
I earned my B.A. in psychology and Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University in 2000. I received my introduction to Jewish philosophy through a course on Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed and from there decided to pursue my studies of Jewish philosophy further and then on the graduate level. I completed work for my M.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2002 through their Rothberg International School where I continued my study of medieval Jewish philosophy and also became interested in modern Jewish thought. I began my studies at the University of Chicago in 2003.
My dissertation is entitled "Talmud Torah in Modern Jewish Thought: Re-valorizing Judaism as a Text-centered Culture." It seeks to consider how after a period of religious reform and acculturation several important post-traditional and non-halakhic thinkers, such as Buber, Rosenzweig and later Levinas among others, seeking an authentically Jewish yet unapologetically modern existence and identity return traditional text-study to the center of the modern Jewish experience. As the nexus of Jewish thought and practice, life-long Jewish learning is identified, embraced and modified to become a mode allowing the modern Jew access to the Jewish past without imposing any heteronomous ontological or theological claims. The distinct phenomenology of and epistemological and ontological claims implied in this new Jewish learning is the focus of this study.
I have taught in adult Jewish education programs in New York and Chicago and hope to pursue a career in academics and higher Jewish education. I currently live in Jerusalem with my wife and daughter.