Scienceישעיהו גפני

Isaiah Gafni

Isaiah Gafni is an Israeli historian of Judaism in the Second Temple and Talmudic periods and a former president of Shalem College in Jerusalem.

born 1944Second Temple and Talmudic historyResearch on Babylonian JewryPresidency of Shalem College

Occupation: historian
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Isaiah Gafni was born in 1944

Isaiah Gafni was born in New York in 1944. He moved to Israel on his own in 1958.

He studied Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, earning a BA in 1966, an MA in 1969 and a PhD in 1978. His doctoral work, supervised by Shmuel Safrai, dealt with the academies of Babylonia. Because he also held an American passport, Nativ sent him to the Soviet Union to teach Judaism among Hebrew teachers and refuseniks.

Gafni taught at the Hebrew University for over 40 years, where he held the Sol Rosenbloom Chair of Jewish History, and was a visiting professor at Yale and Brown. His research covers Jewish political, social and religious life in the Second Temple period and the reshaping of Judaism after the Temple's destruction. His book on the Jews of Talmudic Babylonia received the Holon Municipality Prize for Jewish studies in 1992.

In 2016 he became president of Shalem College in Jerusalem. He is married to the painter Naomi Gafni, and they have 4 children. He lives in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem.