Jewish studies
Jewish studies is an interdisciplinary field examining Jewish history, religion, literature, languages, culture, and societies across time and place.
Hebrew Bible: A collection of ancient Israelite and Jewish scriptures, also foundational to Christianity. Textual study of the Hebrew Bible connects Jewish studies to ancient history, religion, and literary interpretation.
Biblical studies: The academic study of biblical texts, their contexts, composition, transmission, and interpretation. It applies historical and literary methods to texts central to Jewish traditions.
Wissenschaft des Judentums: A nineteenth-century movement applying modern scholarly methods to Jewish texts, history, and culture. It established scholarly approaches that helped shape Jewish studies as a discipline.
Religious studies: The academic study of religions, including their histories, texts, practices, and social forms. Jewish studies shares its methods while retaining sustained attention to Jewish communities and traditions.
Rabbinic literature: Jewish texts produced by rabbis, including the Mishnah, Talmuds, and midrashim. These texts document the development of Jewish law, interpretation, and communal life.
Talmudic studies: The study of the Mishnah and Talmuds, their interpretation, history, and legal reasoning. This subfield examines foundational rabbinic sources in detail.
Leopold Zunz: A German Jewish scholar and a founder of the modern critical study of Judaism. His work helped set the agenda for Wissenschaft des Judentums.
Middle Eastern studies: The interdisciplinary study of societies, histories, and cultures of the Middle East and North Africa. It places Jewish communities within regional histories often treated separately from Jewish studies.
Hebrew language: A Northwest Semitic language used in Jewish texts, worship, and modern Israeli life. Hebrew sources span biblical, rabbinic, medieval, and modern periods of Jewish history.
Sephardi Jews: Jewish communities with historical roots in the Iberian Peninsula and their diasporic descendants. Their histories and cultural traditions reveal experiences distinct from Ashkenazi-centered accounts.