Graduate Students

Patrick Angiolillo is a doctoral candidate studying the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple period Jewish literature, including the Hebrew Bible, Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, and New Testament. His dissertation research explores conceptualizations of divinity in ancient Jewish prayers within the context of shifts in Hellenistic Mediterranean literary culture. Patrick earned his MA in Religion from Yale Divinity School and his BA magna cum laude from Boston College. He is the Content Editor of Second Temple Judaism for the digital journal, Ancient Jew Review, and a former co-organizer of the NYU Society for Ancient Studies. Patrick is also the Education Coordinator and an Assistant Area Supervisor at the Huqoq Excavation Project in the Galilee region of Israel.

You may find more information about Patrick via his Academia webpage.

Nazeer Bacchus is a doctoral student in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. His research explores the relationship between poetics and the body in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature more broadly. His research interests include: the theorization of the body and embodied performance in antiquity; the body as a site of memory, violence, and resistance; and lexical and cognitive semantic approaches to identity and gender. Prior to his arrival at NYU, Nazeer received his MAR in Religion and Literature, specializing in Hebrew Bible, from Yale Divinity School, a BA in English Literature and Judaic Studies from the University of Central Florida, and an AA from Valencia Community College. 

Nazeer can be reached at nazeer.bacchus@nyu.edu

Abigail Beech is a doctoral candidate studying Hebrew Bible within the Hebrew and Judaic Studies Department. Previously, she received her M.A. in Religion, specializing in Hebrew Bible, from Yale Divinity School and her B.A. in Religion from Temple University.  She is primarily interested in studying pentateuchal texts as literature, the Neo-Documentary Hypothesis, and considering the relationships between source material through philology and character development.  

Gavin Beinart-Smollan is a doctoral student in the joint PhD program in History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies. He studies eastern European Jewish migrants from a global perspective, with a particular focus on food studies and the history of the family. Prior to NYU, Gavin completed an MA at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he wrote a thesis entitled "South African Jewish Community Cookbooks: Everyday Life and Culture under Apartheid, 1947-1994". Gavin is also a student in the Advanced Certificate in Public History program through the History department. 

Ilan Benattar is a doctoral student in the Joint Program in Hebrew and Judaic Studies and History. Prior to arriving at NYU, he earned an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies at CUNY Graduate Center and a B.A. in History and Arabic Studies at Binghamton University. His research focuses on the intellectual history of late Ottoman Jewish communities. Ilan is particularly interested in the theme of galut--"exile"--as it manifests in late Ottoman Jewish thought. Ilan’s research interests include Late Ottoman history, Modern Intellectual history, Mediterranean history, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewries, and theory and philosophy of history.

Tova Benjamin is a joint PhD candidate in the Hebrew and Judaic Studies and History departments. Her current research focuses on Jewish economic life before and after the Russian Revolution. Her research interests include the political economy of Russia during the Revolutionary years, the history of global trade and capitalism, and Yiddish studies. Tova can be reached at tpb254@nyu.edu.

Aure Ben-Zvi Goldblum’s interests span the entire Bible but she is particularly interested in late Biblical texts, Apocrypha, Psedepigrapha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. She is currently focusing on aspects of authority and power, both in texts and people, in the Ancient Near East. She is also interested in language pedagogy and exploiting digital tools for making research more accessible.

To learn more about Aure and her interests, please visit her academic profile.  

Hadas Binyamini is a doctoral student in the joint program in History and the Skirball Department of Hebrew & Judaic Studies. Her research focuses on Jewish politics in the 1970s, grassroots activism, and the religious right. Prior to starting her doctoral studies at NYU, she worked in Jewish museums and earned her Masters in Archives and Records Management at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information and the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies.

Joshua Blachorsky is currently a doctoral student in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU. Prior to this, he earned a master's degree from the University of Oxford, a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University, and an associate's degree from Rockland Community College. Josh's current research focuses on situating late antique Jewish texts in their cultural contexts. When he is not working, Josh enjoys good coffee, playing the drums, and being disappointed by the New York Jet

Oana Capatina specializes in Second Temple Judaism, particularly Hellenistic and Roman-era Judaism. She holds a BA in Classics from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and an MAR in Religious Studies from Yale Divinity School. Her research interests include: post-biblical prophecy and oracular literature; scribal culture, textual transmission, and book collection in antiquity; and the reception of Second Temple texts and ideas in early Christianity.

Kimberly Cheng is broadly interested in historical points of contact and interaction between Jewish and Chinese populations in Europe, America, and Asia. For her dissertation, she will examine German Jewish refugee life in Shanghai during World War II, with a particular focus on children and memory. She holds a M.S.Ed. from the University of Pennsylvania and an A.B. from Cornell University in History and Jewish Studies.

Noam Cohen is a PhD student at NYU studying the Hebrew Bible and other ancient West Asian texts. He is currently working on his dissertation, entitled Scribing Violence: Biblical and Cuneiform Portrayals of Spousal Violence, in which he demonstrates that different legal systems and narrative worlds contain distinct perspectives on spousal rights and employ references to spousal violence to different rhetorical effects. In addition to gender and violence, Noam's other research interests include ritual texts, Northwest Semitic languages, ancient Semitic poetry, and the Masorah. Before he joined the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, Noam received a combined BA/MA from Brandeis University in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. You can learn more about Noam at noamcohen.org

Quinn Daniels is writing a dissertation on the kingdom of Israel in the space south of the Judahite highlands and the ways this unexpected phenomenon explains a host of biblical traditions. Key places of impact include the narrative of Isaac, Jacob, and Esau, the accounts of the departure from Egypt, the material about David as a southern strongman, and Yahweh's ancient itineraries. 

You may find more information about Quinn via his Academia webpage. 

Natalia Dubno Shevin is a doctoral student in the joint program in Hebrew and Judaic Studies and History studying American Jewish History.  She holds a B.A. in history from Oberlin College. Her research interests include labor history, labor diplomacy, and late twentieth century Jewish history.

Netta Ehrlich is a doctoral student at the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, where she studies Modern East European Jewish History. Her research interests include the relations between the Jews and their Polish, Russian and Ukrainian environment, the History of Zionism, and Holocaust History. She graduated with a BA in History from The Hebrew University and MA in Jewish History from Tel Aviv University, summa cum laude.

Spencer Elliott is a doctoral student in the Skirball Department of Hebrew & Judaic Studies. Before coming to NYU, he earned two MA degrees, one from Trinity Western University, and the other from Jerusalem University College. His current assortment of interests includes the book of Psalms, public and private expressions of Israelite religion, historical geography, and the Septuagint. More information about Spencer’s research can be found on his Academia page https://nyu.academia.edu/SpencerElliott.

Aaron Forman is a doctoral student in the Hebrew and Judaic Studies department from Los Angeles, CA, whose research focuses on Mediterranean interconnectivity in the medieval Jewish world. Using medieval texts, Aaron seeks to extrapolate how Jews from different regions defined themselves and their communities in relation to non-Jews and Jews from other parts of the world with whom they came into contact. Aaron graduated magna cum laude from Carleton College with distinction in the History major, where his thesis explored how the twelfth-century travel narratives of Benjamin of Tudela and Petachia of Regensburg contributed to a sense of global unity among medieval Jews in the Mediterranean basin and beyond. Outside of his studies, Aaron can be found playing in soccer, basketball, and volleyball pickup games or seeking out the best spicy Chinese food in the city.

Yaelle Frohlich is a doctoral candidate in NYU's Joint Program in Hebrew and Judaic Studies and History. Her dissertation, "Holy Land in the Mind's Eye: Diaspora Jewish Perceptions of Palestine, 1830-1881," examines diverse, practical forms of engagement with Eretz Israel by European and American Jews prior to the rise of Zionism. In addition, she has conducted archival research on the publication of the poet Yehoash's Yiddish translation of the Bible. Frohlich is also the creator and curator of Jewish Geography, an online project exploring contemporary intersections between place, homeland, and Jewish identity. 

Andrew Gerstenberger is a doctoral student in the joint program in History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies. His research focuses on transnational migration, with an emphasis on German- and Yiddish-speaking migrants.

Benjamin Gladstone is pursuing his PhD in Hebrew and Judaic Studies and History at the Taub Center for Israel Studies. His research focuses on Operation On Eagles' Wings and on Yemeni Jewish history and politics in the Yishuv and Israel. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Judaic Studies and Middle East Studies from Brown University, where he wrote his thesis on the idea of an "Ingathering of Exiles" in relations between Jewish communities in the United States, Israel, Yemen, and 'Aden during Operation On Eagles' Wings and his capstone on state-sponsored secularism and anti-Mizrahi racism in 1940s-50s Israel. In 2018-19, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research in Jerusalem examining Yemeni Jewish narrative construction in Israel and the relationship between British colonialism and anti-Jewish violence in 'Aden, Tripolitania, and Mandate Palestine. His research interests include Mizrahi and Sephardi history, Zionist thought, migration and refugee histories, nationalism and narrative construction, colonialist violence, and the role of religion and secularism in state-building.

Mark Gondelman studies early modern Jewish mysticism with a concentration in the unstudied legacy of Abraham Miguel Cardoso (1626 – 1706), one of the most important Sabbatian theologians. Under the supervision of Professor Michah Gottlieb, Mark aims to understand his legacy within the broader context of early modern thought, philosophy, Jewish and Christian mystical traditions. Moreover, Mark believes it is important to revisit Cardoso’s thought through different perspectives such as modern philosophy, religious studies, and hermeneutics.

Jonathan Green is a doctoral candidate in Hebrew and Judaic Studies. He wrote his MA thesis on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's enigmatic interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. Jonathan's research interests include Jewish thought, religion and politics, and the history of biblical interpretation. He can be reached at jonathan.green@nyu.edu.

Dotan Greenvald is pursuing his PhD in the joint program of History & Hebrew and Judaic Studies. His dissertation examines the complex and often unsettling relationship between Zionism and the city of Jerusalem from the foundational years of the Zionist movement in the late 19th century until the beginning of the British Mandate period in Palestine in the 1920s. His research traces the geographic, demographic, political and cultural recasting of Jerusalem from a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional ‘Old City’, relegated to the margins of Zionist hopes, into the most important political and ideological touchstone of Israeli state-building during the formative era of the Zionist movement. Greenvald argues that the “Zionization” of Jerusalem provides an important corrective to the common image of modern Israel as a Jewish utopia, heroically created by a “people without a land in a land without a people.” Dotan’s research interests include Jewish nationalism, Modern Jewish Thought, Israeli politics, Ottoman Palestine, and Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewry.

Jill Joshowitz is a PhD candidate specializing in late antique Jewish art and culture. Jill’s dissertation examines the central role that late antique Jewish exemplary norms played in shaping the emerging corpus of Jewish biblical illustrations that began to appear on the walls, architectural furnishings, and mosaic pavements in late antique Eastern Mediterranean synagogues. Jill’s research has been supported by the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Fulbright Israel, and the Rothschild Foundation. In addition to her academic work, Jill has held various internship and curatorial positions at international art museums and auction houses in both Jerusalem and New York. Jill is currently a visiting scholar in the Jewish Studies program at the University of Pittsburgh.

Olga Kartashova specializes in the history of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, its aftermath, memory, historiography, and trials. She holds MA degrees in Comparative History from Central European University and in Holocaust Studies from Haifa University. She completed internships in Yad Vashem, Ghetto Fighters’ House, and Open Society Archives in Budapest. Her current study analyses how the postwar trials of Nazi war criminals in Poland shaped the memory of the Nazi camps and their victims. Olga is engaged in Digital Humanities and is exploring ways to incorporate technology into the Holocaust research, archives, and museums.

Brett Levi is a PhD candidate in the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Taub Center for Israel Studies at NYU. His dissertation, "Expanding the Borders of Holiness: The Construction of the Postwar Haredi Landscape," examines strictly Orthodox Jewish engagement with territory and geographic space since World War II in Israel, North America, and Europe. Brett received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied History, Jewish Studies, and History of Art, and his master's degree from Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, where he was awarded the prize for best master's thesis in 2013 for his paper “Hasidic Geopolitics and the Greater Land of Israel: Israeli Hasidic Rebbes Encounter the West Bank, Gaza and Territorial Withdrawal, 1982–2013.” Brett has worked at research institutes and non-profit organizations in New York, Boston, and Jerusalem. His primary research interests include the history of the Israeli landscape; ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities; and post-WWII  European Jewish history.

Shiyong Lu is a joint doctoral student in Hebrew and Judaic Studies and History. She is interested in American Jewish history and history of immigration. Her research focus on interactions between Jews and Chinese in America. She holds a BA with research distinction from The Ohio State University, and a MA in history from NYU.

Matheus Machado Rinco is a doctoral student in Hebrew and Judaic Studies, focusing on Rabbinics and the literature of the Second Temple period. He holds an LLB from the University of Brasília, an MA in Jewish Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and an MA in Hebrew and Judaic Studies from the University of Connecticut. Matheus is interested in the development of Jewish law and the evolution of Talmudic reasoning as well as the relationship rabbis maintained with the broader Jewish society in Roman Palestine. In his MA thesis for the University of Connecticut, he surveyed the rules of legal competence formulated by the rabbis of Palestine in the first and second centuries C.E. and the prominent role non-rabbis assumed in the rabbinic depiction of Jewish judicial practices.

Daniel Mackler is a doctoral student in Hebrew and Judaic Studies focusing on modern Jewish thought. He is interested in the permeable boundaries between rabbinic literature, modern philosophy, and historical consciousness. Daniel holds a BA in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary and a BA in Philosophy from Columbia University. His 2021 article at Jewish Studies Quarterly, “The Place of Maimonides in Zechariah Frankel’s Darkhei HaMishnah,” was adapted from his undergraduate thesis on the same. His current research centers on the thought of 19th-century Galician rabbi Nachman Krochmal. Daniel can be reached at daniel.mackler@nyu.edu.

Maytal Mark is a doctoral student in Hebrew and Judaic Studies. She holds a BA in History from Northwestern University and an MA in Modern Middle East History from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research languages are Arabic and Hebrew and her research interests include the history of Zionism, Ottoman and Mandate era Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine, and Sephardi and Mizrahi history.

Alexander Maro is a doctoral student in the joint PhD program in History and HJS. His research focuses on fascism and empire in Europe during the first half of the twentieth century.

Avi Miller is a doctoral candidate at New York University’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, where he studies rabbinic literature.  His current research focuses on the role of documentary writing in rabbinic legal culture.  His work encompasses material culture, scribalism, history of the book, Roman law in the provinces, and textuality/orality.  Before he joined the department, Avi earned an M.A in Jewish Philosophy at the Bernard Revel Graduate School and an A.B. in Philosophy from Princeton University.

Yael Mizrahi-Arnaud is a doctoral student in the joint PhD program in History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies. Her research interests include Mizrahi and Sephardi intellectual history, the history of Zionism, ethnic politics in Israel and the settlement enterprise. 

Prior to NYU, Yael worked as a senior research assistant in Middle East Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, In addition, she was a project manager at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in Jaffa, Israel, and is currently a research fellow at the Forum for Regional Thinking, and a David Hartman Center Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. Yael received her Masters from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and graduated cum laude from Reichman University.

Jaime Myers is a PhD. candidate studying the literature of the Hebrew Bible and wider ancient Near East. She is particularly interested in constructions of divinity, worship practice, and religious artifacts in ancient texts. Her approach is characterized by the recognition that texts depicting ancient religious phenomena are not a direct window to past performance, but rather reflect the perceptions, interests, and concerns of their authors. Her dissertation explores the diverse representations of the Ark of the Covenant in the Hebrew Bible. It will evaluate how narrative structures and rhetorical choices shape the presentation of the ark’s nature, function, and purpose and locate these depictions within a geographically and historically situated scribal world.

Before NYU, Laura Pisoni earned a Master of Arts in Religious Studies, a Master of Environmental Management, and a Juris Doctor at Duke University and a Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College. Laura's research interests include "otherness" and specifically the treatment and understanding of non-Jews in rabbinic and medieval Jewish literature. Outside of academics, Laura spends her time doing cat rescue in the Bronx and teaching Hebrew school in Brooklyn.

Idan Rochell is a PhD student in Hebrew and Judaic Studies affiliated with the Taub Center for Israel Studies. His M.A. thesis at the University of Haifa was "The United States Policy towards Israel regarding the Arab-Israeli Dispute over the Jordan River Water between the years 1953- 1964." His main research interest is the American influence on Israel's diplomatic, economic, and state development policies. Idan can be reached at ir607@nyu.edu. 

To learn more about Idan and his interests, please visit his LinkedIn page.  

Isaac Roszler is a doctoral student in the Skirball Department of Hebrew & Judaic Studies focusing on Talmud and rabbinic literature. Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, Isaac received a B.A. in Hebrew and Judaic Studies from New York University and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. His current research focuses on jurisprudence and the history of Halakhah.

To learn more about Isaac and his interests, please visit his Academia webpage https://nyu.academia.edu/IsaacRoszler.

Jonathan Schmidt-Swartz is a doctoral student in the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies focusing on Bible and the Ancient Near East. He received his A.B. summa cum laude in Religious Studies and Comparative Literature with minors in Near Eastern Studies and Jewish Studies from Cornell University in May 2015. He spent his junior year abroad at the University of Cambridge focusing on Bible and Modern Judaism. His primary research interests and dissertation focus broadly on the intersection of ancient scribal culture, critical theory, and kingship. 

You may find more information about Jonathan via his Academia webpage. 

Ena Raphaëlle Oskar Schulz is a PhD candidate in Rabbinic Literature at the Hebrew and Judaic Studies department at New York University. A performing multimedia artist herself, Raphaëlle's interests revolve around performance and performativity of the Talmud. Raphaëlle can be reached at ers581@nyu.edu.

Kylie Unell is a doctoral student in the department of Hebrew & Judaic Studies studying modern German Jewish thought. Her particular area of focus is the intersection between Moses Mendelssohn and Booker T. Washington's philosophies of self-cultivation. She is interested in the cross-pollination of ideas across denominational, racial, and national lines. Her research interests include modern German Jewish thought, American Jewish thought, and German Romanticism. 

N. D. van Renswoude is a doctoral student in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. Prior to arriving at NYU, N.D. completed the M.A. in North-West Semitic Philology at the University of Chicago and a Ba(Hons) Oriental Studies: Egyptology at Liverpool University. His research focuses on multilingualism and language contact in the early Second Temple Period. His research interests include cultural contact, language contact, multilingualism, socio-historical linguistics, and Northwest Semitic Philology with a focus on Aramaic and Hebrew.

Hannah Zaves-Greene is a doctoral candidate in American Jewish history, focusing on immigration, gender, women’s history, legal history, and disability studies. She holds an Association for Jewish Studies dissertation completion fellowship and is currently a recipient of research awards from the Hadassah Brandeis Institute and the AAJR. Her dissertation, Able to Be American: American Jews and the Public Charge Provision in United States Immigration Policy, 1891-1934, explores how American Jews responded to discrimination against immigrants on the basis of health, disability, and gender, in federal law and its enforcement. She has taught multiple courses at Cooper Union and the New School for Social Research, her public history writing appears online at the Jewniverse, the Activist History Review, and the Jewish Women’s Archive, and her academic work has been published in American Jewish History and AJS Perspectives, with forthcoming book reviews in the American Jewish Archives Journal and the Journal of American Ethnic History.