Tal Ilan

Prof. Dr. Tal Ilan (born 1956) is an Israeli historian and Hebrew scholar specializing in Jewish history of Late Antiquity. Since 2003, she has held a professorship at the Institute for Jewish Studies of the Free University of Berlin.

• PhD from Hebrew University of Jerusalem (completed after Menahem Stern's death under Isaiah Gafni)
• Visiting professorships at Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and Frankfurt universities

Her research focuses on gender aspects in Rabbinic literature and the Hebrew Bible, combined with extensive work in Jewish Onomastics through her multi-volume Lexicon of Jewish Names. The feminist commentary on the Babylonian Talmud represents a groundbreaking contribution to Jewish feminist theology.

Key research projects include:

• Lexicon of Jewish Names: Comprehensive database of Jewish names from Palestine and Diaspora
• Lectio difficilior: Co-edited the first European online journal for feminist exegesis