Yehuda Septimus
Gruss Scholar in Residence 2008-2009
Yehuda Septimus is the Stanley A. and Barbara B. Rabin Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies at Columbia University. He received his doctorate in Religious Studies from Yale University in December of 2008. His dissertation, “On the Boundaries of Prayer: Rabbinic Ritual Texts with Addressees Other Than God,” examines the rhetorical, ritual, and definitional limits of rabbinic prayer based on ritual recitations preserved in talmudic texts addressed to non-divine beings such as humans and angels. He is currently publishing the dissertation as part of Mohr Siebeck’s Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism Series, edited by Peter Schäfer. He received a B.A. in English literature and rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University. His research interests include Jewish Law; Talmud and Midrash; Jewish Ritual and Synagogue Culture; and the intersection of early Christianity and Judaism.
