Joshua Teplitsky

Joshua Teplitsky is the Joseph Meyerhoff Associate Professor of Modern Jewish History and Ruth Meltzer Director of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of History. His research focuses on Jewish life in early modern Central Europe, emphasizing minority experiences, Jewish-Christian relations, and the intersection of epidemics with social structures.

He earned his Ph.D. from NYU in 2012 and has held fellowships at institutions including the University of Oxford, Harvard, and Tel Aviv University. His work bridges book history and material culture through projects like Footprints: Jewish Books Through Time and Place, reconstructing the movement of Jewish books from early print to modern provenance.

Teplitsky’s awards include the Salo Baron Prize and Jordan Schnitzer Book Award for his 2019 monograph on Jewish book collecting. He co-directs digital humanities initiatives and serves on editorial boards for the Encyclopedia of Jewish Book Cultures Online and the German Jewish Cultures series. Current projects include a monograph on the 18th-century plague in Prague’s Jewish ghetto, examining crisis responses across religious and social divides.

He teaches courses on early modern Europe, Jewish-Christian relations, and the history of the Jewish book. Office hours are Tuesdays 2–3:30pm.