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Academic Positions

• 1997:
  • Charles E. Smith Professor of Jewish History
  • Director of Program in Judaic Studies, The George Washington University
• 1986-97:
  • Gloria M. Goldstein Professor of Jewish History and Thought
    Washington University in St. Louis
• 1989-97:
  • Director, Program in Jewish and Near Eastern Studies
    Washington University in St. Louis
• 1983-86:
  • Associate Professor of Jewish Studies
    Harvard Divinity School
• 1979-83:
  • Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies
    Harvard Divinity School
• 1977-79:
  • Lecturer on Hebrew Literature
    Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
• Fall, 2002:
  • Hugo Gryn Visiting Fellow in Religious Tolerance
    The Centre for Jewish-Christian Relations, Cambridge, UK
• Spring, 2002:
  • Mordecai and Dr. Monique Katz Visiting Professor of Jewish History
    Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, Yeshiva University
• Fall, 1995:
  • Visiting Professor of Jewish History University of Pennsylvania
• Summer, 1985:
  • Visiting Professor, The Iliff School of Theology
• Spring, 1980:
  • Visiting Assistant Professor of History
    Columbia University

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Rabbinical Positions

• 1972-73: Assistant Rabbi, Central Synagogue, New York
• 1973-86: Rabbi (part-time), Temple Beth David, Canton, MA

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Other Positions

• Vice President, American Academy for Jewish Research (2004–)
• Treasurer, American Academy for Jewish Research (2000–2004)
• Academic Advisory Committee, Rothberg School of Hebrew University (2000–)
• Book Review Editor, Association of Jewish Studies Review (1997-2002)
• Academic Advisors' Committee, Hebrew Union College (1997--)
• Central Conference of American Rabbis, Continuing Education Task Force (1990-1997)
• Board of Directors, Association for Jewish Studies (1983-1999)
• St. Louis Holocaust Commission (1986-97)
• Board of Trustees, "St. Louis Jewish Light" (1989-97)
• Board of Directors, B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation in St. Louis (1992-97)
• Washington University Faculty Council (1990-93)
• Washington University Senate Council (1987-88)
• Washington University Library Council (1987-88)
• Central Conference of American Rabbis, Publications Committee (1987-91)
• Central Conference of American Rabbis, Executive Board (1985-87)
• Board of Directors, B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation at Harvard (1975-86)

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Publications

Books

• Decoding the Rabbis: A Thirteenth-Century Commentary on the Aggadah
  (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980)
• Jewish Preaching 1200-1800
  (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980)
  (See "Special Honors and Awards")
• Moments of Crisis in Jewish-Christian Relations
  (London and Philadelphia: SCM - Trinity Press International), 1989)
• Essential Papers on Messianic Movements and Personalities in Jewish History
  (New York: NYU Press, 1992)
• "Your Voice Like a Ram's Horn": Themes and Texts in Traditional Jewish Preaching
  (Cincinnati: HUC Press, 1996)
  (See "Special Honors and Awards")
• Witness from the Pulpit: Topical Sermons 1933-1980, by Harold I. Saperstein (editor)
• Exile in Amsterdam: Saul Levi Morteira's Sermons to a Congregation of "New Jews" (Cincinnati: HUC Press, 2005)

Articles

• "R. Isaac b. Yeda'yah: A Forgotten Commentator on the Aggadah," Revue des Etudes Juives 138 (1979): 17-45.
• "The Earliest Commentary on the Midrash Rabbah," in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 283-306.
• "The Simpleton's Prayer: Transformations of a Motif in Hebrew Literature," Judaism 29 (1980): 295-304.
• "Inscribed for Life or Death?" Journal of Reform Judaism 28:3 (1981): 18-26.
• "Halevi's West Wind," Prooftexts 1 (1981): 306-15.
• "Merchants, Martyrs and Rabbis: Jewish Communal Conflict as Reflected in the Responsa on the Boycott of Ancona, 1556," Jewish Social Studies 43 (1981): 215-28.
• "Yedaiah Bedersi's Commentary on the Midrashim," in Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division C(Jerusalem, 1982), pp. 59-65.
• "The Sermon as Art Form: Structure in Morteira's Giv'at Sha'ul," Prooftexts 3 (1982): 243-61.
• Forward to Joshua Trachtenberg's The Devil and the Jews (Philadelphia, 1983), pp. vii-xii.
• "Selected Passages from Yedaiah Bedersi's Commentary on the Midrashim," in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, vol.2 (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 424-40.
• "Research on Jewish Sermons: Problems and Rewards," Center for the Study of World Religions Bulletin (Spring, 1985): pp. 8-19.
• "Understanding Maimonides,"Keeping Posted (Fall, 1985): pp. 10-15.
• "'Your Voice Like a Shofar': Conceptions of Jewish Preaching," Conservative Judaism 38 (Fall, 1985): 83-90.
• "Christians and Jews: Some Positive Images," in Christians Among Jews and Gentiles, ed. George Nickelsburg (Philadelphia, 1986), pp. 236-46 (=Harvard Theological Review 79 [1986]).
• "The Land of Israel in Pre-Modern Jewish Thought: A History of Two Rabbinic Statements," in The Land of Israel, ed. Lawrence Hoffman (South Bend, IN, 1986), pp. 188-209.
• "Stories in Jewish Sermons (The 15th-16th Centuries)," Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division C (Jerusalem, 1986), pp. 101-108.
• "The Conflict over the Rashba's Herem on Philosophical Study: A Political Perspective," Jewish History 1:2 (1986): 27-38.
• "Sermon," in Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, ed. Arthur Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr (New York, 1987), pp. 867-72.
• "Preaching for Pesach," Journal of Reform Judaism 34:2 (Spring, 1987): 25-36.
• Articles on "Adret, Shelomoh ben Avraham" "Asher ben Yehiel," "Ibn Ezra, Avraham," in Encyclopedia of Religion (New York, 1987), vols. 1 and 6.
• "Maimonidean Controversy," in Dictionary of the Middle Ages (1987), 8: 48-49.
• "In Praise of an Anti-Jewish Empress: Ezekiel Landau's Eulogy for Maria Theresa," Shofar 6 (1987): 20-25.
• "Israel and the Reform Rabbinate," in Tanu Rabbanan: Essays in Commemoration of the Centennial of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, ed. Joseph Glaser (New York, 105-31).
• "An Unknown Sermon on the Akedah from the Generation of the Expulsion and its Implications for 1391," in Exile and Diaspora, ed. Aharon Mirsky, et al. (Jerusalem, 1991), pp. 103-24.
• "Saul Levi Morteira's Eulogy for Menasseh Ben Israel," in A Traditional Quest: Essays in Honour of Louis Jacobs, ed. Dan Cohn-Sherbock (Sheffield, 1991): 133-53.
• "Saul Levi Morteira's Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul," Studia Rosenthaliana 25 (1991): 131-48.
• "Italian Jewish Preaching: An Overview," in Preachers of the Italian Ghetto, ed. David Ruderman (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992), pp. 22-40; reprinted in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, ed. David Ruderman (New York, 1992), pp. 85-104.
• "Christians and Jews in the Sermons of Jacob Anatoli," in The Frank Talmage Memorial Volume II (1992): 225-42.
• "War and Patriotism in Sermons to Central European Jews: 1756-1815," Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 18 (1993): 3-14.
• "Jewish-Christian Relations in the Middle Ages: Misconceptions, Realities, Enigmas," CCAR Journal (Fall, 1993): 51-60.
• "Jewish Typological Exegesis After Nahmanides,"Jewish Studies Quarterly 2 (1993): 1-13.
• "Jewish Images of Jesus Through the Ages," in Proceedings of the Center for Jewish - Christian Learning 10 (1995): 23-29.
• "Homiletics," in The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion (Oxford, 1996).
• "The Preaching of Repentance and the Reforms in Toledo of 1281," in Beverly Kienzle et al., editors, Models of Holiness in Medieval Preaching (Louvain-la-Neuve: F.I.D.E.M., 1996), pp. 155-72.
• "The Cultural and Social Context: 13th-15th Centuries," in Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman, editors, History of Jewish Philosophy (London: 1996), pp. 294-330.
• "Chief Rabbi Ezekiel Landau responds to the Austrian emperor's Edict of Toleration (Toleranzpatent)," in Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture 1096-1996, edited by Sander Gilman and Jack Zipes (New Haven: 1997), pp. 84-87.
• "A Medieval and A Modern Pope," Washington Post, April 1, 1998.
• "Homiletics," in The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, edited by R. J. Zwi Werblowsky and Geoffrey Wigoder (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 334-35.
• "History as Homiletics: The Use of Historical Memory in the Sermons of Saul Levi Morteira," in Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, edited by Elisheva Carlebach, John M. Efron, and David Myers (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1998), pp. 113-133.
• "The Manuscript/s of Morteira's Sermons," in Studies in Jewish Manuscripts, edited by Joseph Dan and Klaus Herrmann" (Mohr Siebeck, 1999), pp. 171-98.
• "A Byzantine Manuscript of Sermons: Description and Selections about Prayer and the Synagogue," with Ephraim Kanarfogel, Pe'amim 78 (1999): 164-84 (Hebrew).
• "The Medieval Jewish Sermon," in The Sermon, edited by Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Typologie des sources du moyen age occidental, 81-83 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2000), pp. 175-201.
• Articles on "Homiletics" and "Israel, Land of: In Jewish Thought," in Reader's Guide to Judaism (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000), pp. 267-68, 300-1.
• "The Sermon as Oral Performance," in Yaakov Elman and Israel Gershoni, editors, Transmitting Jewish Traditions: Orality, Textuality, and Cultural Diffusion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 248-78.
• "Five Sermons No One Slept Through," Reform Judaism 29 (Fall 2000): 33-37.
• "The Rhetoric and Substance of Rebuke: Social and Religious Criticism in the Sermons of Hakham Saul Levi Morteira," Studia Rosenthaliana 34 (2000): 131-152.
• "Exile in Amsterdam: The Evidence in the Sermons of Saul Levi Morteira," in Me'ah She'arim: Studies in medieval Jewish Spiritual Life in Memory of Isadore Twersky (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2001), pp. 208-49.
• "Christian Doctrine and the 'Final Solution': The State of the Question," in Remembering for the Future: The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide, edited by John K. Roth, 3 volumes (Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Publishers, 2001), pp. 814-41.
• "Christianity, Christians and 'New Christians' in the Sermons of Saul Levi Morteira," Hebrew Union College Annual, 70-71 (1999-2000): 329-84.
• “Issues in Jewish Liturgy,” in Jews and Christians in Conversation: Crossing Cultures and Generations, ed. by E. Kessler, J. Pawlikowski, and J. Banki (Cambridge: Orchard Academic, 2002), pp.199-208.
• “Christian Doctrine and the Death Camps: The Ambiguities of Influence,” in Catholic International, 13:2 (May 2002): “The Church, Jews and Judaism,”  pp. 27-34.
• "Jews and Christians: Intolerance and Creative Competition in the Middle Ages,” in Ecumenism/Oecuménism, No. 146, June 2002, pp. 5-12 (published in English and French versions).
• “‘Arab Chains’ and ‘The Good Things of Separad:’ Aspects of Jewish Exile” with Nancy E. Berg in Association for Jewish Studies Review, 26:2 (2002): 301-26
• “The Method of Doubts: Problematizing the Bible in Late Medieval Jewish Exegesis,” in With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. by Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Barry D. Walfish, and Joseph W, Goering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 133-56.
• “Sermons in Medieval and Early Modern Judaism,” in The Encyclopaedia of Judaism, Volume 4, Supplement 1, edited by Jacob Neusner, Alan J. Avery-Peck, and William Scott Green (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2003), pp. 1887-1904.
• "Sermons in Modern Judaism," in The Encyclopaedia of Judaism, Volume 5, Supplement 2, edited by Jacob Neusner, Alan J. Avery-Peck, and William Scott Green (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2004), pp. 2265-2283.
• "Religious Intolerance and Tolerance inthe Middle Ages,"Themes in Jewish-Christian Relations,ed. Edward Kessler and Melanie J. Write (Cambridge, UKL Orchard Academic, 2005), pp.69-88.
• "The Diaspora and the Holy Land: Two Manuscript Sermons by Saul Levi Morteira of Amsterdam,"Be'erot Yitzak: Studies in Memory of Isadore Twersky, ed. Jay Harris (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp.61*-78*.
• "Ein Li Eseq ba-Nistarot [I do not delve into esoteric doctrine]: Saul Levi Morteira's Sermons on Parashat Bereshit," in Creation and Re-Creation in Jewish Thought" Festschrift in Honor of Joseph Daned.Rachel Ilior and Peter Schafer (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), pp.209-47.
• "British Jewish Preachers in Time of War (1800-1918)"Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 4:3 (Oxford,UK 2005), pp.255-71.