Rachel Elior

Rachel Elior

Rachel Elior (born 28 December 1949) is an Israeli professor of Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Jerusalem, Israel. Her principle subject of research has been the history of early Jewish mysticism.[1]

Academic career

Elior is the John and Golda Cohen Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Jewish Mystical Thought at the Hebrew University, where she has taught since 1978. Currently she is the head of the Department of Jewish Thought. She earned her PhD Summa cum laude in 1976. Her specialties are early Jewish Mysticism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Hekhalot literature, Messianism, Sabbatianism, Hasidism, Chabad,[2][3] Frankism and the role of women in Jewish culture.

She has been a visiting professor at Princeton University, UCL, Yeshiva University, the University of Tokyo, Doshisha University in Kyoto, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, in the University of Chicago and at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

Elior claims that the Essenes, the supposed authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls never existed. She contends (as have Lawrence Schiffman, Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, Chaim Menachem Rabin, and others) that the Essenes were really the renegade sons of Zadok, a priestly caste banished from the Temple of Jerusalem by Greek rulers in the 2nd century BC. She conjectures that the scrolls were taken with them when they were banished. "In Qumran, the remnants of a huge library were found," Elior says, with some of the early Hebrew texts dating back to the 2nd century BC. Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest known version of the Old Testament dated back to the 9th century AD. "The scrolls attest to a biblical priestly heritage," says Elior, who speculates that the scrolls were hidden in Qumran for safekeeping.[4]

She is a member of the board of the international council of the New Israel Fund.

Awards and recognition

In 2006, Elior received the Gershom Scholem Prize for Research in Kabbalah from the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.[5]

References

  1. ↑ Gibson, Etta Prince (24 December 2004). "Hear me roar". Jerusalem Post.
  2. ↑ "Prophecy Now". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 24 September 2000.
  3. ↑ Radoszkowicz, Abigail (24 June 2004). "Decade after rebbe, Chabad alive and well". Jerusalem Post.
  4. ↑ McGirk, Tim (16 March 2009). "Scholar Claims Dead Sea Scrolls 'Authors' Never Existed". Time. Retrieved 17 March 2009.
  5. ↑ "Gershom Scholem Prize for Research in Kabbalah Awarded to Prof. Rachel Elior of Hebrew University". Hebrew University. 11 April 2006. Retrieved 12 January 2014.

Bibliography

External links

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