Yael Wilfand is a lecturer at the School of Basic Jewish Studies at Bar-Ilan University. She earned her BA and MA in Jewish history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During her years at Hebrew University, Yael also studied and taught Talmud and other Jewish texts in a number of Beit Midrash programs. She then attended Duke University, where she received her PhD in Religion (2011). A monograph based on her dissertation, Poverty, Charity and the Image of the Poor in Rabbinic Texts from the Land of Israel, was later published by Sheffield Phoenix Press (2014; an extended Hebrew version was published by Hakibbutz Hameuchad in 2017). From 2015 to 2018, Yael researched rabbinic texts for the ERC project “Re-thinking Judaism’s Encounter with the Roman Empire: Rome’s Political and Religious Challenge to Israel and Its Impact on Judaism” at CNRS – Aix-Marseille University. From 2018 to 2019 she was a Research Associate at the Melton Centre for Jewish Education, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 2021 to 2022, she was a fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania. Her current research focuses on the status of converts in rabbinic literature from the Land of Israel.

Books

Poverty, Charity and the Image of the Poor in Rabbinic Texts from the Land of Israel. Social World of Biblical Antiquity, Second Series, 9; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014.

The Wheel that Overtakes Everyone: Poverty and Charity in the Eyes of Sages in the Land of Israel. Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2017. [Revised and expanded Hebrew version of English monograph].

Articles (a selection)

“Charity and Philanthropy.” Pages 293-310 in On the Economy and on the Sustenance: Judaism, Society and Economics. Edited by Itamar Brenner and Aharon Ariel Levi. Jerusalem: Reuven Mas, 2008. [Hebrew]

“Did the Rabbis Reject the Roman Public Latrine?” BABESCH Annual Papers on Mediterranean Archaeology 84 (2009): 183-196.

“Aramaic Tombstones from Zoar and Jewish Conceptions of the Afterlife.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 40 (2009): 510-539.

“From the School of Shammai to Rabbi Yehuda the Patriarch's Student: The Evolution of the Poor Man's Tithe.” Jewish Studies Quarterly 22 (2015): 36-61.

“Supporting non-Jewish Poor: 'Goyim' (Gentiles), 'Others', and 'Those Who Do Not Belong to the Covenant'” Sidra: Journal for the Study of Rabbinic Literature 30 (2016): 35-46. [Hebrew]

“'Even a Horse, Even a Slave'?: The Provision of Personal Needs versus the Application of Uniform Standards in Rabbinic Almsgiving.” Pages 369-399 in Pursuing Justice: Society and Economy in Jewish Sources. Edited by Hanoch Dagan and Benjamin Porat. Jerusalem: The Israel Democracy Institute, 2016. [Hebrew]

 “‘No-one can Avoid this Measure’ Explaining Poverty among Individuals according to the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds.” Pages 215-240 in Between Babylonia and the Land of Israel: Studies in Honor of Isaiah M. Gafni. Edited by Geoffrey Herman, Meir Ben Shahar and Aharon Oppenheimer. Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2016.

“Serpent or Furled Sail: An Analysis of the Ships in the Madaba Map.” Eastern Christian Art in its Late Antique and Islamic Contexts 10 (2014-2016): 113-124.

 “The Roman Context for the Rabbinic Ban on Teaching Greek to Sons.” Journal of Ancient Judaism 8 (2017): 365-387.

“Did Roman Treatment of Freedwomen Influence Rabbinic halakhah on the Status of Female Converts in Marriage?” The Journal of Legal History 40 (2019): 182-202.

“‘How Great Is Peace’: Tannaitic Thinking on Shalom and the Pax Romana.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 50 (2019): 223-251.

“‘A Proselyte whose Sons Converted with Him’: Roman Laws on New Citizens’ Authority over Their Children and Tannaitic Rulings on Converts to Judaism and Their Offspring.” Zion 84 (2019): 445–461.  [Hebrew]

“Alexander the Great in the Jerusalem Talmud and Genesis Rabbah: A Critique of Roman Power, Greed and Cruelty.” In Reconsidering Roman Power: Roman, Greek, Jewish and Christian Perceptions and Reactions. Edited by Katell Berthelot. Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, 2020.

Reviews:

Review of Steven Fine, Art, History and the Historiography of Judaism in Roman Antiquity, Review of Biblical Literature [http://www.bookreviews.org] (2014).

Review of Stuart S. Miller, At the Intersection of Texts and Material Finds: Stepped Pools, Stone Vessels, and Ritual Purity among the Jews of Roman Galilee, Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies (JEMAHS) 6 (2018): 163-166. 

Last updated: 1 June 2020