Alyssa Gray, J.D., Ph.D.

Alyssa M. Gray is the Emily S. and Rabbi Bernard H. Mehlman Chair in Rabbinics, and Professor of Codes and Responsa Literature at HUC-JIR in New York. She received her Ph.D. with distinction in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary. She also holds an LLM in Mishpat Ivri (Jewish law) from the Hebrew University Faculty of Law and a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law.

Gray’s scholarly interests are the development of Talmudic literature, the history of Jewish law, and literary studies of post-talmudic legal writings. Her books include Charity in Rabbinic Judaism: Atonement, Rewards, and Righteousness (New York and London: Routledge, 2019; paperback ed., 2020) and A Talmud in Exile: The Influence of Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah on the Formation of Bavli Avodah Zarah (Brown, 2005; 2nd digital edition; Brown, 2020). She has also published many articles and book chapters and is a contributor to major collaborative projects such as the Oxford Bibliographies in Jewish Studies, The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, and the Oxford Annotated Mishnah. 

Gray has been a Fellow of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania (2021–2022), and a visiting professor at Yale University and at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She has also lectured in a variety of other academic and non-academic settings. She is a co-editor of AJS Review: The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies and sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Jewish Ethics and of HUC Press.