Judaic Studies Faculty

Susan Shapiro

Director of the Religious Studies Certificate Program & Associate Professor of Judaic Studies

susan shapiro
Susan Shapiro specializes in Jewish philosophy and philosophy of religion, gender studies, and political and cultural theory.
susan shapiro
Aviva Ben-Ur

Professor of Judaic and Middle Eastern Studies

aviva ben-ur
Professor Ben-Ur is a historian specializing in Atlantic Jewish history, slavery studies, and the Ottoman diaspora.
aviva ben-ur
Olga Gershenson

Professor of Judaic and Middle Eastern Studies & Film Studies Adjunct Professor

Olga Gershenson
Olga Gershenson is Professor of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies and of Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a multi-disciplinary scholar, with interests at the intersection of culture, history, and film.
Olga Gershenson
Jordan Katz

Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies

Jordan Katz
Jordan Katz is a historian of early modern Jewry, with a focus on Jewish cultural history, history of medicine, and women and gender in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Jordan Katz
Ralph Melnick

Senior Lecturer in Judaic Studies

ralph melnick
Dr. Melnick specializes in the post-Medieval Jewish experience with particular interest in European and American Jewry, the Jewish-Christian relationship, Jewish intellectual and cultural history of all periods, as well as African-American history and the Jewish/African-American social and cultural encounter.
ralph melnick