Dr. Rafael Neis

Biography

Rafael Neis is a Professor in the Department of History and the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, holding the Jean Samuel Frankel Chair in Rabbinic Literature. Neis is the Faculty Director of the Arts Learning Arts initiative. He completed his Ph.D. in Jewish Studies at Harvard University in 2007 and has a Master's degree in Religious Studies from Boston University, as well as a law degree from the London School of Economics. His research focuses on the cultural history of the rabbinic movement from the centuries of the Common Era in Roman Palestine and Sasanian Mesopotamia. Neis investigates the ways in which ancient Jewish culture engages with modern and contemporary issues, particularly through multi-media forms of knowledge-sharing such as workshops and comics. He has authored several significant publications, including "Sense of Sight: Rabbinic Culture and Jewish Ways of Seeing in Late Antiquity," which won the Salon Baron Prize for books in Jewish Studies. His most recent work, "Human Gives Birth to Raven: Rabbis, Reproduction, and Species," explores themes of generation and reproduction within ancient Jewish texts.

Research Interests

Experience