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Dov Weiss

Profile picture for Dov Weiss

Contact Information

Department of Religion
3092D Foreign Language Building
707 South Mathews
Urbana, Illinois 61801
Associate Professor

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

View all publications on Illinois Experts

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

View all publications on Illinois Experts