Contact Information
3092D Foreign Language Building
707 South Mathews
Urbana, Illinois 61801
Biography
Dov Weiss is an Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and a Conrad Humanities Scholar (21-26) in the Departments of Religion, Classics and Medieval Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He completed his PhD at the University of Chicago Divinity School as a Martin Meyer Fellow in 2011 and was the Alan M. Stock Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Jewish Studies in 2012. Specializing in the history of Jewish biblical interpretation and rabbinic theology, Dov’s first book, Pious Irreverence: Confronting God in Rabbinic Judaism (University of Pennsylvania Press), won the 2017 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Scholarship.
Research Interests
Ancient Judaism, Rabbinic Thought and Literature, Medieval Judaism, History of Jewish Theology, Jewish Biblical Interpretation, Modern Jewish Thought
Education
Ph.D. (with distinction) in History of Judaism, University of Chicago Divinity School, 2011
M.A. (Modern Jewish History) Yeshiva University, 1999
B.A. (Political Science) Yeshiva University, 1995
Awards and Honors
Conrad Humanities Scholar, University of Illinois (2021-2026)
Associate, Center for Advanced Studies, University of Illinois (2020-2021)
NEH Summer Stipend for Rabbinic Inferno: Hell in Classical Judaism (2020)
National Jewish Book Council's “Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award” in Scholarship (2017)
Harry Starr Fellow, Harvard University (2012)
Martin Marty Fellow, University of Chicago Divinity School (2010-2011)
Additional Campus Affiliations
Associate Professor, Religion
Associate Professor, Program in Medieval Studies
Associate Professor, Classics
Associate Professor, Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Highlighted Publications
Weiss, D. (2016). Pious Irreverence: Confronting God in Rabbinic Judaism. (Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion). University of Pennsylvania Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/j.ctt1d392cr
Recent Publications
Weiss, D. (2022). Cyril of Alexandria's Critique of "Jewish" Parental Sin. Medieval Encounters, 28(3), 221-241. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340138
Weiss, D. (2022). Dramatic Dialogues in the Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Midrashim. In Brill Reference Library of Judaism (pp. 249-269). (Brill Reference Library of Judaism; Vol. 70). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004469198_013
Weiss, D. (2019). Legends of Rabbi Akiva: New “Biographies” and a Hermeneutical Study. Review of Rabbinic Judaism, 22(1), 121-125. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341353
Weiss, D. (2018). Review: A. Gregerman's Building on the Ruins of the Temple: Apologetics and Polemics in Early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. AJS Review, 42(1), 219-221. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0364009418000223
Weiss, D. (2017). Olam Ha-ba in Rabbinic Literature: A Functional Reading. In L. J. Greenspoon (Ed.), olam ha-zeh v'olam ha-ba: This World and the World to Come in Jewish Belief and Practice (pp. 91-104). (Studies in Jewish Civilization). Purdue University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh9w0gb.11