AJ Berkovitz, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Liturgy and Ancient Judaism

Contact Information

school/program: Rabbinical School (US)
academic field: Bible and Cognate Studies, History, Jewish Language and Literature, Rabbinics and Liturgy
campus: New York

A.J. Berkovitz is a scholar of Jewish Antiquity. His research explores Jewish texts, traditions, and history from the formation of the Hebrew Bible until the rise of Islam. He received his Ph.D. in Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity from Princeton University and a B.A./M.A. in Jewish Studies/Bible from Yeshiva University. His first book, A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity (University of Pennsylvania) explores the history of Psalm reception in late ancient Judaism through the lenses of materiality, exegesis, liturgy, piety, and magic. The book received a Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Award from the Association for Jewish Studies and the Honorable Mention in the American Academy for Jewish Research’s Salo Baron Prize. He is also the co-editor of Rethinking ‘Authority’ in Late Antiquity: Authorship, Law, and Transmission in Jewish and Christian Tradition (Routledge, 2018) and the author of over thirty academic articles and popular essays. His article, “Psalm 45 Between Abraham and Jesus: A Palestinian Rabbinic Polemic and its Shelf Life,” was awarded the 2021 CRINT Prize Essay. He was a Starr Fellow at Harvard and also Wexner Graduate Fellow.

How Psalms became Liturgical

The Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Catching Foxes- Love and Ambiguity in Song of Songs

LiShana HaBa’ah BiMitzrayim? The Jews of Elephantine

How Terrorism and the Roman Game of Thrones Destroyed the Second Temple

A View from Without: Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism

A Very Greek Purim: Reading Esther in the Second Temple Era

Esther on the Cross: How the Rabbis used Midrash to Combat Christianity

Who Were the Rabbis? Jewish Identities in the Times of the Talmud (lecture series)

Dramatizing the Decalogue: Recovering a Lost Liturgical Art

Playing in the Bible’s Back Yard: Using the Ancient Near East to Understand the Commandment to Love God

The Haggadah in Renaissance Italy

Jewish Life Cycle and Ritual Theory

Psalms and its Readers

New Testament and Christian Origins

Aramaic Language and Literature

Psalms in the World of the Rabbis

Foundations of Jewish Liturgy

Late Ancient Biblical Translation

The Bible in the Synagogue: Targum, Midrash, Piyyut and Art

Ph.D., Department of Religion, Princeton University

M.A., in Bible, Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, Yeshiva University

Starr Fellow, Harvard University