Faculty Guide

Title

Edmond J. Safra Professor of Sephardic Studies

History of Ideas
Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

Expertise

Sephardic studies.

Awards and Honors

Salo W. Baron Prize for outstanding first book in Jewish Studies (2008)

Center for Advanced Jewish Studies Fellowship (University of Pennsylvania) (2005)

Koret Foundation Jewish Studies Publication Award (2005)

Courses Taught

FYS	53a	Between Conflict and Cooperation: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain
NEJS	3a	Introduction to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
NEJS	123b	Classical Biblical Commentaries
NEJS	124a	Arabic Literature, Hebrew Literature (500-1500)
NEJS	139a	Philosophers, Poets, and Mystics: Jewish Intellectuals in the Middle Ages
NEJS	140a	Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages
NEJS	144a	Jews in the World of Islam
NEJS	149a	The Jews of Muslim and Christian Spain
NEJS	155a	Maimonides: A Jewish Thinker in the Islamic World
NEJS	177b	Judeo-Arabic Literature
NEJS	179a	Jewish Literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Scholarship

Decter, Jonathan P. and Esperanza Alfonso, ed. Jewish Sacred Books in the Medieval and Early-Modern Mediterranean. London: Brepols, 2013. (forthcoming)

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Hebrew Literature of the Christian Mediterranean." Cambridge History of Judaism. vol. 6: The Middle Ages Ed. Robert Chazan and Marina Rustow. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012 (forthcoming)

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Before Caliphs and Kings: Jewish Courtiers in Medieval Iberia." The Jew in Medieval Iberia. Ed. Jonathan Ray. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2012. 1-31.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "“Em kol ḥai”: Virtues and Vices in Benjamin ben ‘Anav of Rome’s Masa’ gei ḥizayon." Ot Letova - Essays in Honor of Professor Tova Rosen. Ed. E. Yassif, H. Ishay and U. Kfir. Beer Sheva: Ben Gurion University Press, 2012

Decter, Jonathan P.; Prats, Arturo. The Hebrew Bible in the Fifteenth Century: Exegesis, Literature, Philosophy, and the Arts. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2012.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "A Hebrew 'Sodomite' Tale from Thirteenth-Century Toledo." Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 3. 2 (2011): 187-202.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Concerning the Terminology of Al-Harizi's Virtues Debate." Giving a Diamond: Essays in Honor of Joseph Yahalom on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. Ed. Wout van Bekkum and Naoya Katsumata. Leiden: Brill, 2011. 159-73.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Ibrahim Ibn al-Fakhar al-Yahudi: An Arabic Poet and Diplomat Between Castile and the Maghreb." Beyond Religious Borders: Interaction and Intellectual Exchange in the Medieval Islamic World. Ed. Goldstein, Miriam and David Freidenreich. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. 96-111.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "A Gathering for Our Time: The Dream of the Poem as an Anthology." La Coronica 38. (2010): 167-82.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Sephardi and MIddle Eastern Jewry." The Jew in the Modern World. 3rd ed. Ed. Jehuda Reinharz and Paul Mendes-Flohr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 435-97.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Andalusi Poetics and Representations of Women in the Andalusi Hebrew Lament." Transforming Loss into Beauty: Essays in Honor of Magda al-Nowaihi. Ed. Marle Hammond and Dana Sajdi. American University in Cairo Press, 2008. 115-41.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "The Hidden Exilarch: Power and Performance in a Medieval Jewish Ceremony." Visualizing Medieval Performance: Perspectives, Histories, Contexts. Ed. Elina Gertsman. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008. 179-91.

Decter, Jonathan P. and Michael Rand, ed. Studies in Arabic and Hebrew Letters in Honor of Raymond P. Scheindlin. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2007.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Ibn Shahin, Nissim Ben Jacob." Medieval Islamic Civilization, an Encyclopedia. 2007.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Landscape and Culture in the Medieval Hebrew Rhymed Prose Narrative." Jewish Studies Quarterly 14. 3 (2007): 257-85.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Poetry, Hebrew." Medieval Islamic Civilization, an Encyclopedia. 2007.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Power in the Portrayal." Rev. of Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Jews and Muslims in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Islamic Spain, by Ross Brann. Jewish Quarterly Review vol. 97 78-81.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Subduing Hagar: The Hebraization of Arabic and Judeo-Arabic Texts in Christian Spain and Provence." Language of Religion, Language of the People: Medieval Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Ed. Michael Richter and David Wasserstein. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2007. 155-70.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "The Texture of the Divine." Rev. of The Texture of the Divine: Imagination in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Thought, by Aaron Hughes. Jewish Quarterly Review vol. 97 82-84.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "al-Harizi, Judah." Medieval Islamic Civilization, an Encyclopedia. 2007.

Decter, Jonathan P.. Iberian Jewish Literature: Between al-Andalus and Christian Europe. Bloomington, In: Indiana University Press, 2007.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Rendering Qur'anic Quotations in Hebrew Translations of Islamic Texts." Jewish Quarterly Review 96. 3 (2006): 336-358.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Literatures of Medieval Sepharad." Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jewry: From the Golden Age of Spain to Modern Times. Ed. Zion Zohar. New York: New York University Press, 2005. 77-110.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "A Myrtle in the Forest: Landscape and Nostalgia in Andalusian Hebrew Poetry." Prooftexts 24. (2004): 135-166.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan." Middle Eastern Literatures and Their Times. Ed. Joyce Moss. Santa Monica: Moss Publishing, 2004. 35-41.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Judah al-Harizi's Book of Tahkemoni." Middle Eastern Literatures and Their Times. Ed. Joyce Moss. Santa Monica: Moss Publishing, 2004. 68-75.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Book of Tahkemoni: Jewish Tales from Medieval Spain." Rev. of Book of Tahkemoni: Jewish Tales from Medieval Spain, by David Simha Segal. Prooftexts vol. 23 110-118.