Scienceמשה אידל

Moshe Idel

Moshe Idel is a Romanian-born Israeli historian and philosopher of Jewish mysticism and an emeritus professor of Jewish thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

born 1947Research on Jewish mysticismStudies of Abraham AbulafiaKabbalah: New PerspectivesIsrael Prize for Jewish thought

Born: 19 January 1947, Târgu Neamț
Occupation: historian, philologist, university teacher, philosopher
Education: University of Haifa, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Moshe Idel was born in 1947 in Târgu Neamț

Moshe Idel was born on January 19, 1947, in Târgu Neamț, Romania. He studied in a cheder and then in a state school, and read widely in the local libraries. In 1963 he immigrated to Israel with his family and settled in Haifa.

He went to high school in Kiryat Ata and served in the Combat Engineering Corps. From 1967 to 1970 he studied Hebrew and English literature at the University of Haifa. He then entered the Hebrew University and earned his doctorate in 1976 with a thesis on Abraham Abulafia, under Shlomo Pines.

Idel began teaching at the Hebrew University in 1974 and became a full professor in 1987, later holding the chair of Jewish Thought. He was a visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and other institutions. His work, including the 1988 book Kabbalah: New Perspectives, revised the study of Kabbalah and examined links between magic, mysticism and liturgy.

He became a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in 1989 and a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2006. In 2013 he became president of the World Union of Jewish Studies. After retiring he became a professor at Safed Academic College. He is married to Shoshana, a painter and poet, and they have 3 daughters.