Yehuda Halper

Yehuda Halper is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, and is the recipient of the Alon Fellowship for Outstanding Young Researchers in Israel. Dr. Halper’s research examines the advent of Greek philosophy to Jewish readers via Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew texts. His book, Jewish Socratic Problems in an Age without Plato: Permitting and Forbidding Open-Inquiry in 12-15th century Europe and North Africa is forthcoming by the end of 2020. His publications treat such well known pillars of Jewish thought as Judah Halevi, Moses Maimonides, and Levi Gersonides, along with less well-known Jewish philosophers like Jacob Anatoli, Immanuel of Rome, Abraham Bibago, Eli Habilio, Johanan Alemanno, and Judah Moscato.

He is currently directing a research project on Aristotelian dialectic in Hebrew funded by the Israel Science Foundation. Previously, he organized a research group on Aristotelian logic in medieval cultures at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem and a project on Open Inquiry in Jewish Thought at the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies at the University of Hamburg. He lectures regularly throughout Israel, the United States, Germany, France, Italy, and Czechia.

He was raised in Athens, Georgia, where he attended a public high school. He then studied math and classics at the University of Chicago, before making Aliyah where he completed his M.A. (Hebrew University) and Ph.D. (Bar Ilan). After his Ph.D. he taught at Tulane University for five years, before returning to Israel to teach at Bar Ilan.