Elisha Russ-Fishbane, Associate Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, is a historian of Jewish culture in the medieval Islamic world and a scholar of medieval Jewish thought, law, and literature. His first book on the movement of Jewish-Sufi pietism in medieval Egypt, entitled Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt: A Study of Abraham Maimonides and His Circle (Oxford University Press, 2015), was awarded the Salo Wittmayer Baron Book Prize by the American Academy for Jewish Research. His second book, Ageing in Medieval Jewish Culture, forthcoming with The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, is a study of aging in the Jewish communities of the medieval Mediterranean and Near East and of old age as a paradigm and ideal in medieval Jewish culture. He is currently working on a study of how Islam, both as religious rival and political power, was portrayed in medieval Jewish literature, as well as how Muslims were depicted in the daily documents of the Cairo Genizah.
Elisha Russ-Fishbane
Associate Professor
What would you like prospective grad students to know about you, your teaching, and your scholarship?
Prof. Russ-Fishbane's graduate courses focus on major areas of medieval Jewish history culture, law, and literature. Doctoral students in the medieval track receive a thorough training in the broad spectrum of Jewish sources and scholarly methodologies. Emphasis is placed both on depth of study in the primary sources (essential for a future in scholarship) and breadth of general expertise (essential for a future in the classroom).
What types of undergraduate courses do you teach and why might students be interested in these classes?
Prof. Russ-Fishbane's undergraduate teaching covers many areas of Jewish life and culture (including Jewish mysticism, philosophy, and politics), specialized courses (such as a history of Sephardic Jewry and a history of Jewish-Muslim relations), and more advanced courses in the history of halakhah (e.g. rabbinic responses to modernity, custom in Jewish law, and medicine and Jewish law).
Harvard University, PhD 2009
Jews of the Islamic world; medieval Jewish philosophy and literature; Maimonides and the Maimonidean legacies; history of Jewish law
Association for Jewish Studies; Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies; The Marginalia Review of Books, Abrahamic Religions [subject editor].
Harry Starr Fellowship in Judaica, Harvard University, 2015-16
John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, University of Heidelberg , 2011-13
Tikvah Postdoctoral Fellowship in Jewish Thought, 2009-12
Publications
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Oxford University Press, UK, 2015
“Maimonidean Controversies after Maimonides: The Egyptian Context,”
Hebrew Union College Annual 88 (2017), 159-202
“Jews and Judaism in Classical Sufi Literature,”
Journal of Sufi Studies 6 (2017), 143-164
“The Legacy of the Prophets and the Prophetic Path in Medieval Sufism and Egyptian Jewish Pietism,”
(Hebrew: מורשת הנביאים ודרך הנבואה בקרב צופים וחסידי מצרים בימי הביניים)
Pe‘amim 148 (2017), 65-94
“Physical Embodiment and Spiritual Rapture in Thirteenth-Century Sufi Mysticism”
Les mystiques juives, chrétiennes et musulmanes dans l’Egypte médiévale: interculturalités et contextes historiques, ed. G. Cecere, M. Loubet, and S. Pagani
(Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 2013), 305-332
“Respectful Rival: Abraham Maimonides on Islam”
A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day, ed. A. Meddeb and B. Stora
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 856-864
“The Maimonidean Legacy in the East: A Study of Father and Son”
Jewish Quarterly Review 102 (2012): 190-223
Contact Information
Elisha Russ-Fishbane
Associate Professor elisha.russfishbane@nyu.edu 53 Washington Square South, Room 111Phone: (212) 998-8973