Jonathan P Decter

Edmond J. Safra Professor of Sephardic Studies

Departments/Programs

Comparative Literature
Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

Degrees

Jewish Theological Seminary, Ph.D.
Jewish Theological Seminary, M.Phil.

Expertise

Jews of the Islamic World, Medieval Hebrew Literature, Medieval Jewish Studies, Sephardic Studies, Medieval Jewish Thought

Profile

Please visit my new faculty profile page.

Jonathan Decter is the Edmond J. Safra Professor of Sephardic Studies. His research interests include Jews in the Islamic World, Jews in Medieval Spain, Judeo-Arabic Studies, Medieval Hebrew and Arabic Literature, and Jewish Thought.

Courses Taught

NEJS	3a	Religions of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam
NEJS	134a	Debating Religion: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Dialogue and Dispute
NEJS	143a	Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain
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

Awards and Honors

American Council of Learned Societies, awarded for Spring, 2019 (2019)

Jordan Schnitzer Book Award Finalist, Association for Jewish Studies (2019)

National Jewish Book Award in Sephardic Culture, awarded by the Jewish Book Council (2019)

Hirschfeld Presidential Visiting Scholar, Brown University (awarded for Fall, 2018) (2018)

Honorary Starr Fellow in Judaic Studies, Harvard University (2018)

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

Center for Advanced Jewish Studies Fellowship (University of Pennsylvania) (2005 - 2007)

Koret Foundation Jewish Studies Publication Award (2005)

Scholarship

Decter, Jonathan P. "Al-Yahudiyya: The Emergence of a Comparative Framework in Medieval Jewish Thought." Journal of Religion (2020). (forthcoming)

Decter, Jonathan P. ""A Remote Right to Entry": Defining Boundaries in the Early Years of the Jewish Quarterly Review." Jewish Quarterly Review 110. (2020): 599-602.

Decter, Jonathan P. "Survivals, Debris, and Vestiges: Edward Burnett Tylor, The Orientalist Inheritance, and Medieval Polemic." Journal of the History of the Humanities 5. (2020): 251-71.

Decter, Jonathan P. "The (Inter-religious?) Rededication of an Arabic Panegyric by Judah al-Harizi." Journal of Arabic Literature 51. (2020): 351-68.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Praise as Pedagogy: Moses Ibn Ezra’s Didactic Poem on the “Beautiful Elements of Poetry” (maḥāsin al-shi‘r) in the Context of Classical Arabic Poetics." 'His Pen and Ink Are a Powerful Mirror': Andalusi, Judaeo-Arabic, and Other Studies in Honor of Ross Brann. Ed. Adam Bursi, S.J. Pearce, Hamza M. Zafer. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2020. 65-93.

Decter, Jonathan P. "Poems for Ploni: On the Use and Reuse of Praise." The Poet and the World: Festschrift for Wout Van Bekkum on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Ed. Yeshaya, Joachim J.M.S, Elisabeth Hollender, Naoya Katsumata. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019. 107-16.

Decter, Jonathan P. "The Jewish Ahl al-Adab of al-Andalus." Journal of Arabic Literature 50. (2019): 325-41.

Decter, Jonathan P. "Things Jewish: A View from Judeo-Arabic." Marginalia Review of Books July 5, 2019. (2019): <https://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/things-jewish-view-judeo-arabic/>.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Belles-Lettres." Cambridge History of Judaism. vol. 6: The Middle Ages Ed. Robert Chazan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 787-812.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Mediterranean Regionalism in Hebrew Panegyric Poetry." Regional Identities and Cultures of Medieval Jews. Ed. Talia Fishman and Ephraim Kanarfogel. London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2018. 193-219.

Decter, Jonathan P.. Dominion Built of Praise: Panegyric and Legitimacy among Jews in the Medieval Mediterranean. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.

Decter, Jonathan P. and Esperanza Alfonso, ed. Patronage, Production, and Transmission of Texts in Medieval and Early-Modern Jewish Cultures. 1 ed. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2014.

Decter, Jonathan P.. "Review of David Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism: the Western Tradition." Marginalia Review of Books (2014): <Marginalia Review of Books http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/archives/tag/david-nirenberg>.

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.