Reuven Firestone is an American
academic and
historian of religion, who serves as the Regenstein Professor in Medieval Judaism and Islam at the
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
's Skirball Campus in
Los Angeles and Affiliate Professor of Religion at the
University of Southern California.
Biography
Firestone was born in
Northern California
Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...
and has lived with his family in
Israel,
Egypt, and
Germany.
He regularly lectures in universities and religious centers throughout the
United States,
Europe, the
Middle East, and
Asia.
He has initiated and continues to be involved in numerous projects and initiatives which bring together
Jews,
Muslims, and
Christians, Jews and
Arabs, and
Israelis and
Palestinians
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
.
Firestone earned his
B.A. at
Antioch College, his
M.A. and
Rabbinic ordination from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1982,
and was awarded his
Ph.D. in
Arabic and
Islamic studies from
New York University in 1988. His scholarship focuses on
Jewish studies
Jewish studies (or Judaic studies; he, מדעי היהדות, madey ha-yahadut, sciences of Judaism) is an academic discipline centered on the study of Jews and Judaism. Jewish studies is interdisciplinary and combines aspects of history (esp ...
, the
Hebrew Bible and its
exegesis, the
Quran and its exegesis,
Islamic–Jewish relations,
religious phenomenology,
comparative religion, and
interfaith dialogue.
He has researched and written extensively on the topics of
religious violence and
holy war in
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
and
Judaism.
He is currently recipient of the
Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (german: Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) is a foundation established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and funded by the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Education and Rese ...
in
Berlin and Sigi Feigel Visiting Professorship for Jewish Studies at the
University of Zürich.
He served as vice president of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) and president of the International Qur’anic Studies Association (IQSA).
Publications
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*. Translated into Turkish (2004): ''Yahudiliği Anlamak İbrahim'in / Avraam'ın Çocukları'' (
Istanbul: GÖZLEM GAZETECİLİK BASIN VE YAYIN AŞ). Translated into Arabic (2005): ذرية إبراهيم: مقدمة عن اليهودية للمسلمين, ''Dhuriyat Ibrahim: Muqaddima `an al-Yahudiyya lil-Muslimin''.
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[Johnson, James Turner. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 81 (2) (2013), pp. 560–563. .]
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References
External links
HUC-JIR Faculty Page
{{authority control
20th-century Jewish biblical scholars
21st-century Jewish biblical scholars
American biblical scholars
American emigrants to Egypt
American emigrants to Germany
American emigrants to Israel
American Islamic studies scholars
American historians of religion
Antioch College alumni
Christian–Islamic–Jewish interfaith dialogue
Hebrew Union College alumni
Hebrew Union College faculty
Historians of Jews and Judaism
Islamic and Jewish interfaith dialogue
Jewish American historians
Jewish scholars of Islam
New York University alumni
Non-Muslim scholars of Islam
People in interfaith dialogue
Quranic exegesis scholars
University of Southern California faculty
Historians from California