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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

* * * * * * * * * * * *. 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''. * * * * * * *Johnson, James Turner. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 81 (2) (2013), pp. 560–563. . * * * * * * * *


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