麻豆原创

Biography

BA, Wellesley College; MA, MPhil, and PhD, Columbia University

Dr. Marjorie Lehman is professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at 麻豆原创 and the Area Coordinator of Rabbinic Literatures and Cultures. She teaches a wide range of courses in Rabbinics, including courses on gender in Talmudic literature, aggadah, halakhah, the history of the Jewish book, and pedagogy. Her scholarly journey reflects a commitment to balancing the historical and intellectual aspects of Jewish texts while also focusing on the ways they speak to and help us to understand our place in the contemporary moment.

Dr. Lehman鈥檚 first book, The En Yaaqov: Jacob ibn Habib鈥檚 Search for Faith in the Talmudic Corpus (Wayne State University Press, 2012) reflects her interest both in the study of Talmudic aggadah and also in the concept of studying a complete literary work鈥攊n this case the early sixteenth century collection, the En Yaaqov. Building on this interest and integrating it with her interest in gender in rabbinic literature, she explored the Babylonian tractate, Yoma, as one cultural unit of study. This book, Bringing Down the Temple House: Engendering Tractate Yoma was published (Brandeis University Press) in 2022. With a staunch commitment to collaborative work, Dr. Lehman has co-edited two books, Mothers in the Jewish Cultural Imagination with Jane Kanarek and Simon Bronner (Liverpool: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization at Liverpool University Press, 2017) and Learning to Read Talmud: What it Looks Like and How It Happens with Jane Kanarek.

Dr. Lehman joins Michelle Margolis (Norman E. Alexander Librarian for Jewish Studies at Columbia University), Adam Shear (University of Pittsburgh), and Joshua Teplitsky (University of Pennsylvania) as a co-director of an internationally renowned digital humanities project in Jewish Studies called F听Footprints tracks the global movement of copies of Jewish books since the inception of print. It听offers scholars the opportunity to think about the way a book becomes personalized by paying careful attention to the marks individuals leave on its physical form including its owners鈥� signatures, censors鈥� marks, marginalia, and the mementoes pasted between its leaves. It brings to the humanities a new approach to studying history that considers book ownership as able to offer insight into the complexity of Jewish life and culture.

Deeply committed to the training of individuals in Judaica librarianship, Dr. Lehman represents the JTS faculty in the launch of a certificate program jointly conceived and overseen by JTS and the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL). She joins Naomi Steinberger (JTS Director of Library services), Michelle Margolis (President of the AJL), and Jeremiah Aaron Taub (AJL and Head of the Israel and Judaica Section at the Library of Congress) in this endeavor. She is grateful to the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program for their support of this groundbreaking initiative. This certificate is designed to respond to a pressing need for specialized expertise in Judaica and Hebraica collections. It equips library and archival professionals with the skills necessary to serve diverse communities across the United States and beyond ().

As a committed teacher, Dr. Lehman pays great attention to pedagogy and has collaborated on research with members of JTS’s Jewish Education faculty and has conducted workshops in conjunction with the Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University. She was a rabbinics advisor at the Frankel Jewish Academy in West Bloomfield, Michigan and at the Gesher Jewish Day School in Fairfax, Virginia.

Dr.听 Lehman has published articles in the听Jewish Studies Quarterly,听Nashim,听AJS Review, the听Journal of Teaching Theology and Religion听and the听Journal of Textual Reasoning, and she has lectured and presented scholarly papers at many conferences throughout the United States, Europe, and Israel. She has been awarded fellowships and served as a visiting scholar at several institutions. She has served on the听Academic advisory board of the Center for Jewish History. She serves on the advisory boards of the Program Committee of the Association for Jewish Studies, Center for Jewish Studies, the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, and the board of trustees at the Ramaz School in NYC.

GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND AWARDS

• NYU School of Law, Ivan Berkowitz Fellow 2023鈥�2024
• University of Pennsylvania, The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, Fellow (Fall 2019)
• University of Pennsylvania/Stanford University, Fellow (Summer 2015)
  • Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies and the Taube Center for Jewish Studies, Stanford University
  • Project: Feminist Hermeneutics and the Babylonian Talmud
• Brandeis University, Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education, Affiliated Scholar
  • 2013鈥�2014, Project: Learning to Read Talmud
  • 2016鈥�2017, Workshop on Talmud and Pedagogy
• University of Michigan, Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, Fellow (Spring 2014)
• Wabash Fellow, JTS
  • 2012鈥�2013, Teaching Mentor to Graduate Students
  • 2008鈥�2009, Grant issued by the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion to study teaching at JTS

Publications

Books and Edited Volumes听

• 鈥� co-author Mira Wasserman,听Sources. Spring 2025.
• Bringing Down the Temple House: Engendering Tractate Yoma (Brandeis University Press, 2022)
• Mothers in the Jewish Cultural Imagination. Co-editors: Marjorie Lehman, Jane Kanarek and Simon Bronner. Liverpool: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization at Liverpool University Press, 2017. The book was a finalist for the 2017 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Women鈥檚 Studies.
• Learning to Read Talmud: What it Looks Like and How It Happens. Co-editors: Marjorie Lehman and Jane L. Kanarek. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2016. The volume was a finalist for the 2017 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Education and Jewish Identity.
• The En Yaaqov: Jacob ibn Habib鈥檚 Search for Faith in the Talmudic Corpus. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2012 was a finalist for the 2012 National Jewish Book Award鈥揘ahum M. Sarna Memorial Award in the Scholarship category.
• Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women鈥檚 Studies and Gender Issues. 28 (2015) in honor of Judith Hauptman. Co-editors: Charlotte Fonrobert, Jane Kanarek and Marjorie Lehman.

Articles

• 鈥淭丑别 Ethical Implications of Underreading Rabbinic Sources on Slavery,鈥� with Mira Wasserman (Journal of Jewish Ethics, forthcoming)
• 鈥淓choing Yehudit: Dirshuni as a Women鈥檚 Collective Enterprise,鈥� co-author Chaya Halberstam,听Journal of Textual Reasoning听16:1 (2025).听
• 鈥淔ootprints: A Digital Approach to (Jewish) Book History.鈥澨�European Journal of Jewish Studies听17 (2023), 1-30. co-authors Michelle Margolis, Adam Shear, and Josh Teplitsky.
• 鈥淭丑别 Student as Ethical Prompt: Reading Virginity Claims in Tractate Ketubot,鈥澨�Jewish Textual Reasoning, 15:1 (2023), 182-204.
• 鈥淎nna Whistler and the Talmudic Mothers of Yerushalmi Kiddushin,鈥澨�Making History: Studies in Rabbinic History, Literature, and Culture in Honor of Richard L. Kalmin. Eds. Alyssa Gray and Carol Bakhos, Providence: Brown Judaica Series, 2023.
• 鈥淲ho Gets a Voice at the Table?: Eating and Blessing with Rav Na岣�man听 (New York: JTS Press, 2020).鈥� Festschrift honoring Joel Roth鈥檚 retirement; eds. Robbie Harris and Jonathan Milgram.
• 鈥淭丑别 Priesthood in the Rabbinic Imagination and the Prohibition against Wearing Shoes on Yom Kippur.鈥� 听AJS Review 44:2 (2019), 319-338. This is one article in a collection of articles on the Temple that emerged from a seminar I co-convened with Hayim Lapin at the AJS.
• 鈥�.鈥� Journal of Textual Reasoning 10:1 (2018).
• 鈥淥ld Texts and New Media: Jewish Books on the Move and a Case for Collaboration.鈥� 听In Digital Humanities, Libraries, and Partnerships. Eds. Kate Joranson and Robin Kear.听 Chandos Elsevier, (March 2018), with Michelle Chesner, Adam Shear and Josh Teplitsky.
• 鈥淩eading Beruriah through the Lens of Isaac Bashevis Singer鈥檚 Yentl.鈥� Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women鈥檚 Studies and Gender Issues. 31:1 (2017): 123-145.
• 鈥淎nd No One Gave the Torah to the Priests: Learning to Read the Mishnah through the Lens of the Priests and the Temple.鈥� 听In Learning to Read Talmud: What it Looks Like and How it Happens. Eds. Jane Kanarek and Marjorie Lehman. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2016, 85-116.
• 鈥淢aking Choices: Yom Kippur is Upon Us, What Text Should I Teach?鈥� 听Gleanings: Dialogue on Jewish Education from the Davidson School. 2:4 (2015).
• 鈥淩abbinic Masculinities: Reading the Ba鈥檃l Keri in Tractate Yoma.鈥� 听Jewish Studies Quarterly 22 (2015): 109-36.
• 鈥淚magining the Priesthood in Tractate Yoma: and.鈥� 听Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women鈥檚 Studies and Gender Issues. 28 (2015): 88-105.
• 鈥淭eaching to, with and against Faith.鈥� 听Teaching Theology and Religion. 18:4 (2015): 363-386.
• 鈥淒ressing and Undressing the High Priest: A Talmudic View of Mothers.鈥� 听Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women鈥檚 Studies and Gender Issues 26 (2014): 52-74.
• 鈥淎ssigning Integration: A Framework for Intellectual, Personal, and Professional Development in Seminary Courses.鈥� Teaching Theology and Religion 16:1 (2012), 18-32. Co-author, Jane Kanarek.
• 鈥淩eading the Gendered Rhetoric of Yom Kippur.鈥� 听In Introduction to Seder Qodashim, Eds., Tal Ilan, Monika Brockhaus, and Tanja Hidde. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012, 33-56.
• 鈥淟evisohn鈥檚 Orientations: A Response from the Classroom.鈥� Journal of Jewish Education 76 (2010): 117-119.
• 鈥淩eimagining Home, Rethinking Sukkah: Rabbinic Discourse and its Contemporary Implications.鈥� 听In Jews at Home: The Domestication of Identity. Ed., Simon J. Bronner. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2009, 107-139.
• 鈥淢aking a Case for Rabbinic Pedagogy.鈥� 听In The International Handbook of Jewish Education. Eds. Lisa Grant and Alex Pomson, 581-596. New York: Springer, 2011 (co-author, Jane Kanarek).
• 鈥淭丑别 Gendered Rhetoric of Sukkah Observance.鈥� 听Jewish Quarterly Review 96:3 (2006): 309-335.
• 鈥淓xamining the Role of Gender Studies in the Teaching of Talmudic Literature.鈥� 听Journal of Jewish Education 72:2 (2006): 109-121.
• 鈥淭丑别 Babylonian Talmud in Cognitive Perspective: Reflections on the Nature of the Bavli and its Pedagogical Implications.鈥� 听Journal of Jewish Education, 69:2 (2003): 58-78.
• 鈥淒ialogue and ‘Distance’: Cognitive-Developmental Theories and the Teaching of Talmud.鈥� Jewish Education News, Spring 2004 (co-author, Jeffrey Kress).
• 鈥淲omen and Passover Observance: Reconsidering Gender in the Study of Rabbinic Texts.鈥� Studies in Jewish Civilization 14 (2003): 45-66.
• 鈥淔or the Love of Talmud: Reflections on the Study of Bava Metzia, Perek 2.鈥� The Journal of Jewish Education, 68:1 (2002): 87-103.
• 鈥淭丑别 Ein Yaakov: A Collection of Aggadah in Transition.鈥� 听Prooftexts 19:2 (1999): 21-40.

Book Reviews

• Book Review: Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals: The Talmud after the Humanities. Mira Beth Wasserman, Journal of Religious History (December Special Issue). 43:1 (2019).
• Book Review: Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem by Julia Watts Belser. Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women鈥檚 Studies and Gender Issues. 34 (2019): 189-192.
• Book Review: Tractates Tamid, Middot, Qinnim by Dalia Marx. Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women鈥檚 Studies and Gender Issues. 27 (2014): 178-181.
• Book Review: Rereading the Rabbis by Judith Hauptman. Prooftexts 19:3 (1999): 292-98.

Blogposts; Online and Magazine Articles

• 鈥淲omen and Talmud Study: An Unfinished Story.鈥� AJS Perspectives (forthcoming, Fall 2020).
• 鈥�.鈥� In Library Exhibitions from the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, The Jewish Home: Dwelling on the Domestic, the Familial, and the Lived-In, 2020.
• 鈥�.鈥� Medaon: Magazin f眉r j眉disches Leben in Forschung und Bildung. 12: (2018) (co-authors Michelle Chesner, Joshua Teplitsky and Adam Shear).
• 鈥淭eaching with Footprints: Integrating Digital Humanities Projects into Our Courses.鈥澨�AJS Newsletter, Fall 2016
• 鈥�.鈥� 听September 2016 (Editor: Shai Secunda)
• 鈥�.鈥� June 2016
• 鈥�.鈥� September 2015. Marjorie Lehman and Charlotte Fonrobert, co-authors
• 鈥�.鈥� 听September 2015
• 鈥淩eenacting Ancient Pedagogy in the Classroom.鈥澨� Spotlight on Theological Education: American Academy of Religion 2:1 (2008): 3.

Learn with Dr. Lehman at JTS Torah Online