Mara Benjamin | |
---|---|
Occupation | Jewish studies scholar |
Partner | |
Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship (2024) |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | |
Thesis | Franz Rosenzweig and scripture (2005) |
Doctoral advisor | Arnold Eisen |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Jewish studies |
Sub-discipline | Modern Jewish studies |
Institutions |
Mara H. Benjamin is an American scholar of modern Jewish studies. A 2024 Guggenheim Fellow,she is the author of Rosenzweig's Bible and The Obligated Self and is Irene Kaplan Leiwant Professor of Jewish Studies at Mount Holyoke College. [1]
Mara Hillary Benjamin was born to Judith Benjamin,a North Seattle College ESL teacher,and Kenneth Collins,a Los Alamos National Laboratory senior security advisor. [2] Her paternal grandfather,Samuel Carl Collins,was born to Jewish parents from Brownsville,Brooklyn,who had previously emigrated from Odesa in present-day Ukraine. [3] [4] She later adopted the surname of her stepfather,environmental engineer and University of Washington professor Mark M. Benjamin. [2] [5] She attended Garfield High School,during which,amidst warming Soviet Union–United States relations,she was part of the KING-TV/Gosteleradio Teen Space Bridge project with students in 1988. [6]
Benjamin obtained her BA at Hampshire College and her PhD (2005) in modern Jewish thought at the Stanford University Department of Religious Studies,as well as a diplomat in Jewish studies at Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. [7] [8] Her doctoral dissertation Franz Rosenzweig and scripture was supervised by Arnold Eisen. [9] She was the 2004-2005 Hazel D. Cole Fellow at the University of Washington Stroum Center for Jewish Studies [10] and the 2005-2007 Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University. [11] In 2008,she joined St. Olaf College as Assistant Professor of Religion. [12] In 2017,she moved to Mount Holyoke College,where she had previously worked as an auditor for Mount Holyoke professor Lawrence Fine while studying at Hampshire,and subsequently became the Irene Kaplan Leiwant Professor of Jewish Studies. [13]
Benjamin specializes in modern Jewish studies. [1] In 2009,she published her first book,a monograph on Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig named Rosenzweig's Bible . [1] She won the 2019 American Academy of Religion Book Award in Constructive-Reflective Studies for her next book The Obligated Self (2018). [14] In 2024,she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Religion. [15]
In 2004,Benjamin entered a partnership with social worker Miryam Kabakov. [2]
Originally frequenting a Conservative synagogue,Benjamin later shifted towards being shomer Shabbat after meeting Kabakov. [16] She also planned to attend a Jewish seminary but decided against it after realizing that she would have to work on Shabbat as a rabbi. [16]
Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley,Massachusetts,United States. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges,a group of historically female colleges in the Northeastern United States. The college was founded in 1837 as the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary by Mary Lyon,a pioneer in education for women. Mount Holyoke is part of the Five College Consortium in Western Massachusetts.
Franz Rosenzweig was a German theologian,philosopher,and translator.
Mary Mason Lyon was an American pioneer in women's education. She established the Wheaton Female Seminary in Norton,Massachusetts,in 1834. She then established Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley,Massachusetts,in 1837 and served as its first president for 12 years. Lyon's vision fused intellectual challenge and moral purpose. She valued socioeconomic diversity and endeavored to make the seminary affordable for students of modest means.
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Nahum Norbert Glatzer was an Austrian and American scholar of Jewish history and philosophy from antiquity to mid 20th century.
Paul R. Mendes-Flohr was an American-Israeli scholar of modern Jewish thought. As an intellectual historian,Mendes-Flohr specialized in 19th and 20th-century Jewish thinkers,including Martin Buber,Franz Rosenzweig,Gershom Scholem,and Leo Strauss.
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