Aryeh Cohen is an American rabbi and scholar who serves as a professor of Rabbinic Literature at

American Jewish University American Jewish University (AJU), formerly the separate institutions University of Judaism and Brandeis-Bardin Institute, is a Jewish institution in Los Angeles, California. Its largest component is its Whizin Center for Continuing Education in w ...

. His scholarship focuses on the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...

, Jewish ethics, and

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...

Education

Cohen received his BA in

Philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

and

Jewish Thought Jewish thought ( he, מחשבת ישראל, ''Machshevet Yisrael'', or ''machshavah''), also known as Judaic thought or Hebraic thought, is a field of Jewish studies that deals with the products of Jewish thought and culture throughout the ages, an ...

from the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

. He was ordained as a rabbi by the

Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies The Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, informally known as the "Ziegler School" or simply "Ziegler", is the graduate program of study, leading to ordination as a Conservative rabbi at the American Jewish University (formerly known as the Univers ...

and received his Ph.D. from

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

Career

Cohen has held appointments at

since 1995. He was Chair of Jewish Studies in the College of Arts and Science from 1995–2000 and Chair of Rabbinic Studies in the Ziegler School from 2001–2005. Cohen has also taught at Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion, the

Reconstructionist Rabbinical College The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) is a Jewish seminary in Wyncote, Pennsylvania. It is the only seminary affiliated with Reconstructionist Judaism. It is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Associa ...

and at

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

Activism

Cohen is also the Rabbi-in-Residence for Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice in Southern California. He has been active in protesting deportations carried out by

ICE Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaq ...

and “zero tolerance” US immigration policies. In 2017, Cohen was one of the rabbis who signed a statement by

Jewish Veg Jewish Veg is an international 501(c)(3) charitable organization whose mission is to encourage and help Jews to embrace plant-based diets as an expression of the Jewish values of compassion for animals, concern for health, and care for the environ ...

encouraging

veganism Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal product—particularly in diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is known as a vegan. ...

for all Jews. Cohen is one of the founders of the Shtibl minyan.

Scholarship

Cohen is the author of ''Rereading Talmud: Gender, Law and the Poetics of Sugyot'' and ''Justice in the City: An Argument from the Sources of Rabbinic Judaism''. Rabbi Alana Suskin has described ''Justice in the City'' as essential reading for the

Occupy movement The Occupy movement was an international populist socio-political movement that expressed opposition to social and economic inequality and to the perceived lack of "real democracy" around the world. It aimed primarily to advance social and econo ...

. Cohen is also co-editor of ''Beginning/Again: Towards a Hermeneutics of Jewish Texts.'' He has also written about modern figures including Aharon Shmuel Tamares and

Emmanuel Levinas Emmanuel Levinas (; ; 12 January 1906 – 25 December 1995) was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, focusing on the relationship of ethics to me ...

. Andrew Flescher has argued that Cohen's work on Tamares and Levinas "makes a compelling case in his own right for the counter-productive nature of violence under all circumstances." His articles and book chapters include: * “‘The Foremost Amongst the Divine Attributes Is to Hate the Vulgar Power of Violence’: Aharon Shmuel Tamares and Recovering Nonviolence for Jewish Ethics,” ''Journal of Jewish Ethics'', vol. 2. * “Justice, Wealth, Taxes: A View from the Perspective of Rabbinic Judaism,” ''Journal of Religious Ethics''. * “Hagar and Ishmael: A Commentary,” ''Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theolog'', 68:3 (2014). * “Land and Messianism,” ''Journal of Scriptural Reasoning'' Volume 10.1. * “A Response to Menachem Fisch’s ‘Berakhot 19b: The Bavli’s Paradigm of Confrontational Discourse’,” ''The'' ''Journal of Textual Reasoning'', Volume 4.2. * “Why Textual “Reasoning”?” ''Journal of Textual Reasoning'' (2002): 1.1. * “Giddul’s Wife and the Power of the Court: On Talmudic Law, Gender, Divorce and Exile,” ''RLAWS: Review of Law, Women and Society'', Volume 9.2. * “‘This Patriarchy Which is Not One’: The Ideology of Marriage in Rashi and Tosafot, ''Hebrew Union College Annual''. Volume 70 (1999). * “‘Do the dead know…’ The Representation of Death in the Bavli,” ''AJS Review,'' vol. xxiv, no 1, 1999. * “Towards an Erotics of Martyrdom,” ''The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy'', Volume 7, Number 2 1997. * “The Violence of Poverty,” in ''Wealth and Poverty in the Jewish Tradition'', Studies in Jewish Civilization, Vol. 26, ed. Leonard J. Greenspoon, Purdue University Press (2015). * “The Divine Voice of the People,” ''Cross Currents,'' September, 2014, 404–409 * “The Gender of Shabbat,” in ''Introduction to Seder Kodashim'', ed. Tal Ilan, Monika Brockhaus and Tanja Hidde, Mohr-Siebeck (2012) * “The Sage and the Other Woman: A Rabbinic Tragedy,” in ''The Passionate Torah: Sex and Judaism'', ed. Danya Ruttenberg, NYU (2009). * “Hearing the Cry of the Poor,” in ''Crisis, Call, and Leadership in the Abrahamic Traditions'', ed. Peter Ochs and William Stacy Johnson Palgrave Macmillan, (2009). * “Beginning Gittin/Mapping Exile,” in ''Beginning/Again: Toward a Hermeneutics of Jewish Texts'', ed. Aryeh Cohen and Shaul Magid, Seven Bridges Press (2002). * “The Task of the Talmud: On Talmud as Translation,” in A.A. den Hollander, Ulrich Schmid, Willem Smelik, eds. ''Paratext and Megatext as Channels of Jewish and Christian Traditions: The Textual Markers of Contextualization'', E.J. Brill, 2003. * “Response to ‘Revelation Revealed’,” in ''Textual Reasonings'', ed. Nancy Levene and Peter Ochs SCM Press, 2002.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Aryeh American Conservative rabbis Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Jewish ethicists 21st-century American rabbis