News and Events

The Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies and the University of Chicago Divinity School will host a conference in memory of the late Paul Mendes-Flohr, z"l, Dorothy Grant Maclear Professor Emeritus of Modern Jewish History and Thought at the University of Chicago Divinity School. New Directions in Jewish Intellectual History: Knowledge Production and Modernity will feature presentations from 15 former students and colleagues underscoring Mendes-Flohr’s interdisciplinary scholarship and legacy. Professor Zirkle's talk is entitled, "From Desert to Land: The Possibilities and Limits of Relations in Buber and Mendes-Flohr.

Special Issue Rabbinic Thought between Philosophy and Literature Published 2026 Open Access; Sergey Dolgopolski served as a guest editor.

Sergey Dolgopolski’s Open Access article “State of Homonymy: Israel Multiple Selves” with Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy 34 (2026) 294-311 is forthcoming

Idolatry is a concept that is native to the Bible. The prohibition on the worship of idols originates in the Bible and comes from its concerns around the worship of the one God. What is strange, then, is that the word Idolatry does not appear once in the entire Hebrew Bible. Rather, idolatry is coined in 1 Corinthians, a Pauline Epistle. The word in Greek is ειδωλολατρειας which combines the Greek words for that which is seen and worship. Using a close textual and conceptual reading of conical and non-canonical sources this project argues that idolatry is not a neutral or natural term, rather it is one that grows out of the Biblical religion and Paul’s response to it. This project aims to contribute a conceptual history of idolatry and the intellectual environment that makes it not only possible, but prohibited.

A new SUNY Press volume, "The Event of the Good: Reading Levinas in a Levinasian Way," honors UB Professor Richard A. Cohen’s 45-year career in philosophy with essays from 21 scholars worldwide exploring his influential work on ethics.

The co-edited volume Talmud and Philosophy (Indiana University Press, 2024), led by UB’s Sergey Dolgopolski, is sparking global dialogue — including a dedicated conference in Munich this fall exploring the intersections of rabbinic tradition and philosophy.