معرفی
Yedidah Koren serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at Princeton University, having joined the faculty in fall 2023. Her academic profile reflects deep engagement with Jewish textual traditions across multiple institutions including Princeton University, Tel Aviv University (where she completed graduate work in Talmud), and New York University's Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies.
Dr. Koren specializes in Ancient Jewish and Rabbinic literature, with research interests spanning identity formation, the body and sexuality, systems of scrutiny and surveillance, and the historical crystallization of halakha (Jewish legal norms). Her work examines how ancient Jewish communities developed mechanisms for maintaining social boundaries through textual interpretation and legal innovation, particularly focusing on questions of lineage, pedigree, and marital restrictions as platforms for inner-Jewish separation.
Her scholarly contributions demonstrate consistent focus on boundary maintenance in ancient Jewish communities, analyzing concepts like the 'foreskinned Jew,' lineage policing, and impurity status of the mamzer (offspring of forbidden relations). Her publications reveal how rabbinic literature reinterpreted biblical concepts to address contemporary social concerns about community membership and identity.
Dr. Koren maintains active scholarly engagement with Early Christianity, Second Temple Judaism, Historical Development of Halakhah, Late Antique Literature, and Roman History, reflecting a broad interdisciplinary approach to ancient religious traditions. Her current book project extends this trajectory by examining how lineage concepts functioned as tools for inner-Jewish separation in Rabbinic literature.