A scholar of medieval kabbalah and its ripples through time. Some questions that interest me: what does it mean to be human in kabbalah? Why did some kabbalists imagine worlds before this one – and worlds yet to come – and how did those ideas shape their being in the present? What is the difference between a Golem and a robot?
I am a Senior Lecturer at the Multidisciplinary Center for Jewish Studies at Bar Ilan University and head of the “Cramim” Excellence Program for Undergraduate Studies.

My dissertation supervisor was Prof. Daniel Abrams, whom, under his tutelage I learnt to always ask ‘how do we know’, before ‘what is’? This led to the preparation of a criticaled ition of one of the most important, enigmatic and influential medieval kabbalistic texts – Rabbi Joseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi’s Commentary on Sefer Yesira (which I currently have the honour of preparation new annotated edition with a translation into English with Oxford University Press). Along side the edition, I explored three key themes of his thought: cosmicreincar nation, the dialogue between kabbalah and medieval science(extremely helpful for this theme, was a short spell spent as a Junior fellow at the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies at the University of Hamburg) and an astro-kabbalistic path toward prophecy.

Upon completion of my dissertation I went on a philological hunt to unearth kabbalistic manuscripts and the next stage on my scholarly journey began. I had come across an extensive compilation of kabbalistic mysteries relating to cosmic cycles. This led to becoming a Postdoctoral Kreitman Fellowship and Ben Gurion University, under the guidance of Prof. Oded Yisraeli (Jewish Thought). Since then, I devout much time to discover new manuscripts and study this fascinating idea, especially as it manifests itself kabbalistically. It’s a bit like Alice in Wonderland in conversation with Franz Kafka.

For other topics of interest see the relevant section. Beyond academic scholarship, as a cultural entrepreneur with a knack for identifying neglected yet important texts, I enjoy bringing these back into public life. That has involved discovering forgotten works, building public support for their publication, and working towards making them accessible to wider audiences – from ‘The Hitler Haggadah’, to the medieval Ethiopian Jewish legend ‘Tazaze Senbat’.

In previous professional reincarnations, I took on several leadership roles in the Jewish world, including advisor to the CEO of Birthright and executive manager with StandWithUs. My debut novel was a Mossad espionage thriller titled, ‘The Way Back’.

My first job was washing dishes and cleaning floors at a local shawarma place.