What research are you working on during your time at the IIAS?

In my book, The Art of Listening in the Early Church, I argued that we need to remember that the works of the early Christian theologians which are now read in books were often spoken and intended for a listening audience. We miss a good deal of the nature and purpose of these texts if we forget that they were originally voiced and heard.

In the book I am currently writing, I want to take a step back and argue that the same is true of God’s words. The dominant metaphor in Christian theology is of the word. It is used to describe the nature of God; His creation and providence; His incarnation; His inspiration of the prophets, Scriptures, teaching and worship. I would like to suggest that in attending to the Word/words of God, we need similarly to remember that we are not so much reading a text as listening to a voice; that God does not write, He speaks.

In emphasising the voice of God, the book will also reflect on the relation of the voice and words. It will argue that, in contrast to words, the voice – whether pre-linguistic, linguistic, or post-linguistic – avoids any sense of fixed, static, definition but rather entails and invites open-endedness, relation and participation, all of which are essential in theological reflection on the unknowable, ineffable, limitless God, who cannot ultimately be grasped by human words.

The book will engage with scholars and artists across the disciplines who, like the theologian, struggle with the challenge of expressing what words and texts cannot fully capture, and who have similarly emphasised the role of performance, and of the tacit, affective, participatory ways of communicating and knowing which are characteristic of the voice.

How did you first get involved in this area of research?

I was led there by my book on listening, but even more by my last book on St Augustine and music. Music is the best example I can think of the sort of qualities of the voice I want to explore.

Can you share an interesting or thought-provoking fact that you have uncovered in your research?

Some early Christian theologians maintain that, before the Fall, Adam and Eve didn’t need a voice but directly and intuitively knew God’s will and each other’s minds. Imagine if someone could read our thoughts! That gives you a sense of how fallen we are!

Were you always interested in going into academia?

I didn’t have a plan to go into academia – it happened as I drifted through the educational system, enjoying what I was doing and always wanting to pursue it further. I was very fortunate to get funding for my doctoral studies, and to get my first job when I was 27 on the strength of one article and no teaching experience! Thankfully, I found that I enjoyed teaching and haven’t looked back.

How has your experience been so far at the IIAS?

The IIAS is paradise before the Fall for academics, and even though we can’t read each other’s minds we do seem to enjoy communicating our ideas and thoughts. It is an exceptional place in every way. I’ve particularly appreciated the fact that the administrative team have thought of just about everything a visiting fellow might need – practically and academically – from a corkscrew and shopping on arrival; to Fellow’s trips to get to know the country; to excellent food and time to socialise. Above all, they have created a relaxed and friendly environment in which to get lots of thinking and writing done, while sharing this with others on a daily basis. It is a happy place (which is more than I can say for many of the environments I’ve worked in).  

Do you have any hobbies outside of your research?

I’m obsessed with paper and love trying to re-create the marbled papers you find on the covers and end paper of old books. I’ve tried bookbinding too. My big passion is music; I’ve played many instruments – badly – and was learning the lute before I left, but it wouldn’t fit in the overhead locker to bring with me. My husband is a mountain guide, so it’s just as well I share his love of the wild outdoors (the only thing I don’t do is rock climbing – except to belay from the ground). We’ve done lots of trekking and wild camping while we’ve been here and some of the most special moments have been looking out from our tent at dawn on the Sea of Galilee or the Dead Sea and walking some of the Wadis.

How are you finding living in Israel?

Complex, challenging, disturbing – and wonderfully diverse, endlessly fascinating, stunningly beautiful. It is totally and utterly different from life at home (especially the weather!).

What is your favourite spot in Jerusalem?

I love my daily walk to and from the Institute through the Rehavia Park, past the Monastery of the Holy Cross. It’s a chance to appreciate the changing seasons, the birds and, at the moment, the wild red anemones and cyclamen. We picked and cured olives from the trees in October and I’m still excited by it – especially as they now taste so good.  

The sounds of Jerusalem are also very special – especially the chants, singing and calls to prayer from the different religions, which, in some places in the Old City, you can hear all at the same time.

And lastly, give us a book recommendation:

A novel by the Scottish writer, Muriel Spark, called the Mandelbaum Gate – set in Jerusalem, in all the sites we’ve been visiting. (Reading it here has been like watching Inspector Morse on TV at home in Oxford!)

What research are you working on during your time at the IIAS?

The phenomenon of the Spanish New Christians – Jews who converted to Christianity often under duress in 1391 – has been, and continues to be, studied from many perspectives. Yet, one feature remains somewhat neglected, that of the relationship between the changes in the mentality and attitudes of members of this group and their behavioural manifestations, including the authorship of literary works. My research at the IIAS deals with a specific group of New Christians, those who rabbinical jurisprudence treats as “apostates” or “renegates” (mešummadim) for being engines of change, creating a mentality quite distinct from that of their ancestors. These cognitive changes found expression in new attitudes as well as new identities and frequent participation in anti-Jewish behaviour, ranging from religious polemics, proselytising, Christian apologetics and the incitement of riots, among others.

How did you first get involved in this area of research?

Ever since I wrote my doctorate on the attacks of a New Christian on Jews and Judaism, one of the questions that remained in my mind concerned the psychological reasons that led him, and other New Christians like him, to such anti-Jewish actions. Undoubtedly, the external climate of suspicion and the struggle for integration by New Christians in Iberian Christian society were sufficient to engender a set of mechanisms that guided the New Christians attitude. I have focused on three psychological concepts – ego ideal, shame, and cognitive dissonance – that appear to be particularly apt to describe the mechanisms that influenced the construction of identity and behaviours.

Can you share an interesting or thought-provoking fact that you have uncovered in your research?

My selection of the analytic framework was motivated by the multidimensionality of the conversion process and by the aim of my Research Group devoted to the multi-disciplinary study of New Christians’ and New Jews’ Discourses of Identity between Polemics and Apologetics. As an historian who is trying to apply a psycho-historical approach in my research, I was fortunate to find at the IIAS a parallel Research Group on "Meta Reasoning: Concepts, Open Issues and Methodology", whose members I could consult, and who graciously advised me on cognitive dissonance processes, particularly on the cognitive states of individuals who convert. I am especially grateful to Prof. Klaus Fiedler from Heidelberg University who introduced me to the different paradigms of cognitive dissonance, and to Prof. Monica Undorf from the University of Mannheim who provided me with a useful bibliography and introduced me to different patterns of psychological behaviours and defence mechanisms. I would not be able to find such genuine and fruitful cooperation even in my own university.

Were you always interested in going into academia?

To be honest, my academic studies were firstly in educational administration and then in Jewish history. As the subject of Jewish history was emotionally ingrained in me, my advanced studies have tended to be more historical than administrative. Although my main occupation in academia has been teaching and researching Jewish history, I have no regrets about the time I invested in studying educational administration, as over time I was able to apply some of the theories that I learned in various managerial positions that I held in academia and in the Jewish community in Madrid.

How has your experience been so far at the IIAS?

It has been an outstanding opportunity to develop my research project as well as to finish two articles that were pending, and if it were not for the motivating and encouraging research atmosphere provided by the IIAS I would not have been able to advance all these and conclude some of them so quickly. Our group seminars were interesting, and the organizers, Prof. David Graizbord and Prof. Claude Stuczinsky, to their credit, knew how to choose interesting and leading researchers in their field, and for that, they are to be congratulated. The administrators, from the Director, Prof. Yitzhak Hen, to each one of the staff, generously gave of their time to meet all my needs.

Do you have any hobbies outside of your research?

Volunteering, photography, cooking and visiting museums.

What's your favourite spot in Jerusalem?

The city itself is for me a favourite spot. I have lived in Jerusalem for 36 years and very much love its unique climate with its surreal splendour, the Israel Museum’s special ambience and the Cinematheque's largest collection of Jewish and Israeli films.

And lastly, give us a book recommendation:

I recommend reading Yuval Noah Harari's Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, in which he explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will affect the 21^st century, from overcoming death to creating artificial life. He asks fundamental questions as to where we go from here. How will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.

What research are you working on during your time at the IIAS?

My current work examines logical intuitions; emerging evidence that people’s intuitive inferences are not always subject to error and bias. This evidence arises from the metacognitive judgments that accompany the responses that people give on reasoning problems, such as the confidence we feel or how much we like the solution that we arrive at. My research at the institute has focused on how people combine such metacognitive cues and how these guide their judgments, together with the degree of insight that people have into the accuracy of their responses.

How did you first get involved in this area of research?

I was lucky enough to secure a research assistant position shortly after I completed my undergraduate degree in Psychology. The project focused on meta-deduction; how people reason on problems that require reflections about the truth or falsity of assertions. I spent three years working on truth-teller/liar puzzles, of the kind developed by Raymond Smullyan, a philosopher who used the liar paradox as a means of illustrating some fundamental principles of mathematics and logic. I always liked logical puzzles as a child and didn’t realise at the time that you could build a career examining how people solve these sorts of problems. I now understand how study of reasoning can provide deep insights into how the cognitive system operates and the capabilities and limitations of human thought.

Share an interesting or thought-provoking fact that you have uncovered in your research.

I think my most interesting discovery is that, contrary to many of the dominant models in the psychology of reasoning, people’s intuitions are often logical and align with rational principles. Reasoning well does not always require deliberate, effortful thought. This is a much more optimistic view of reasoning which contrasts with the idea that much of human thinking is error prone and subject to systematic biases. I like discoveries that challenge the status quo, that require us to think about things in a different way, rethink theories and challenge dominant narratives. 

Were you always interested in going into academia?

No, not really, but I have always been fascinated by research. My father completed a PhD in chemical engineering as a precursor to a career in the brewing industry. I remember coming across his thesis as a teenager and being captivated by the idea that he had discovered something new, a discovery that would influence the brewing industry for many years. So, although I had never considered academia as a potential career, the idea of completing a PhD, committing many years to engaging deeply in a research question, was a very attractive prospect. It just took a few more years, a little bit of good luck and serendipity before I found myself following in my father’s footsteps!

How has your experience been so far at the IIAS?

The experience has been extraordinary, both professionally and personally. Working with an internationally renowned group of scholars from around the world in a newly emerging field of research is a unique opportunity. To be able to dedicate oneself to deeply engaging in a research topic for an extended period, to the relative exclusion of other concerns, is unusual in the life of a senior academic. It reminds me of my PhD, the only other period in my academic career in which I felt a similar level of engagement, commitment and immersion in purely research pursuits.

Do you have any hobbies outside of your research?

About 20 years ago I started running and rapidly progressed to completing really long-distance races. My proudest achievement was running 220 km as part of a 24-hour race, running around a 400m athletic track, many, many times. Running has taught me some fundamental things about people’s capabilities. When you’re running, you get to the point where you think you can’t move another metre; that your body’s breaking down, but you learn that you can hit the ‘wall’ many times in a long race and still keep going. It teaches you something about resilience; whatever the adversity or no matter how terrible you feel physically or emotionally, if you persevere you will get through it. You can always find new energy to keep moving forward!

Can you give us a book recommendation?

The book I have enjoyed most whilst on the fellowship is called The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis. The book traces the relationship between Danny Kahneman and Amos Tversky from their first meeting in 1960’s Israel to the publication of their transformational research in behavioural economics. Reading about two of the most influential researchers in your field whilst working at the University and the city in which they met is pretty special. It is a great read; I would strongly recommend it!

How are you finding living in Jerusalem, and what's your favourite spot?

It is so unusual to have an opportunity to spend an extended period of time in a place with such a rich cultural and political history. I have enjoyed immersing myself in the city, its people and its extraordinary places. The location that sums up the special character of Jerusalem for me is the Dominus Flevit Catholic Church on the Mount of Olives. The window of this church perfectly frames a view of the Old City, with the altar cross in the foreground and the Temple Mount in background, the embodiment of three cultures and religions in one frame.

I had never visited Jerusalem before the fellowship and I will be sad to leave, but I have no doubt that I will return soon to this wonderful place. I’d like to express my gratitude to the IIAS for offering such opportunities – it has genuinely been life changing!

What research are you working on during your time at the IIAS?

I am in the middle of a large project examining the impact on Judaism of predominantly Protestant biblical criticism—the idea that the Bible should be understood as a book in history, and with a history, like other ancient Near Eastern texts. I am working on this together with Professor Edward Breuer, who is also a Fellow at the Institute.

This project has an unusual form: a collection of 50-60 programmatic pieces written by Jewish scholars from the late eighteenth through the early twenty-first century. Each piece is annotated and introduced, and if necessary, translated into English. We aim to make this material better known to scholars of both biblical studies and Jewish intellectual history, so more people appreciate the wide variety of Jewish attitudes toward biblical criticism, sometimes called the “scientific study of the Bible.” Using a wide variety of material, including lectures, post-cards, books, and articles, we try to show that the Jewish reactions to these critical methods are complex, and cannot be described in a linear fashion, as is often the case.  Our texts are penned by professors, rabbis, educators, and community leaders, by a wide variety of individuals living in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Mandatory Palestine, the State of Israel, and the United States.

How did you first get involved in this area of research?

This project is a total (and wonderful) accident. Twelve years ago, Professor Breuer, whom I knew casually from the time we were both graduate students in Massachusetts forty years ago, contacted me. He told me that he was asked to write an article on modern Jewish biblical studies for The New Cambridge History of the Bible, and was looking for a partner to complement his strengths in Jewish intellectual history, and in eighteenth-nineteenth century Jewish history; he approached me since I am a Bible scholar familiar with twentieth-century biblical scholarship. We “clicked;” we had fun researching and writing the article together, but also realized that there is a much longer and complex story to tell, and that many of the striking primary texts dealing with this issue are inaccessible, either because they are not in English, or because their historical context, which is so crucial for understanding them, is not well-known. So we began this project five years ago, and we hope to complete it in about five years.

Can you share an interesting finding that you have uncovered in your research?

The most important Jewish scholar who reacted (negatively) to biblical criticism was, arguably, Nehama Leibowitz (1905-1997), who had a tremendous impact, especially (but not only) in Israel, through her lectures, radio show, classes, and immensely popular written works. Her niece was kind enough to share a (Hebrew and German) postcard that Nehama wrote to her father during her first week as a PhD student in Marburg, Germany, where she notes her impressions of the biblical scholar, Gustav Hölscher, and her logic teacher—Heidegger! I knew Nehama when she was in her seventies, and it was remarkable to read this postcard from her youth.

Were you always interested in going into academia?

Even as an undergraduate I was interested in pursuing an academic career. As a first-year student at Brandeis University, I took a course on the biblical book of Psalms with Nahum Sarna, and was bitten by the Bible bug. The text suddenly became so much richer and more interesting when it was viewed within an academic, historical-critical framework. And there is not much to do with such an interest other than becoming an academic! My older brother was a math professor, so I saw an academic career as something possible and normal.

How has your experience been so far at the IIAS?

This experience has been unlike any of my previous sabbaticals—in a most positive sense. It is great to have an office in a beautiful building containing (real) ancient mosaics and first-century CE storage jars from King Herod’s storerooms. I walk in and I feel the past—where I live. The staff really facilitates getting work done. I was nervous starting, since we “must” come to lunch with the other fellows, and I am a shy person. Aside from some other individual fellows, most of the people here are part of two groups: one on meta-reasoning (a new area in cognitive psychology), the other on Converso identity. I have learned so many things that I never would have learned just by talking to these Fellows over lunch, and have been so enriched and broadened, and have acquired many new, I hope, lifelong friends.

Do you have any hobbies outside of your research?

On and off I have been doing pottery (both wheel and hand building) for the last ten years. One of my favorite projects was fashioning a modern Judean pillar figurine based on ancient models. I love the feel of clay and the challenge of getting it to do what I want—usually the clay, rather than I, wins.

How are you finding living in Israel?

I was twelve years old when I first visited here, and have spent much time here; my partner lives here, so for me Jerusalem is a home in many ways. I was a visiting graduate student at Hebrew University from 1978-1980, and most of my classes were in the Maiser building, which is now the Feldman building, the home of the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies. Those were two wonderful years—I was not pursuing a degree, and just took all the courses that interested me, at a time when the University was at its strongest in Bible and Semitics. Walking into this building, and to the National Library not even five minutes away—these are my favorite Jerusalem spots.

Lastly, give us a book/podcast recommendation:

I have become addicted to the Three Pines mysteries of Louise Penny. They are fun and psychologically insightful. (The Amazon version, on the other hand…) And I am an NPR (National Public Radio) junkie, especially enjoying “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross; one of my really fun and unexpected experiences was being interviewed on her show. 

What research are you working on during your time at the IIAS?

I am working on the history and thought of early modern Iberian Jews, converts, and their descendants. After the mass conversions and expulsions of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula in the 14^th and 15^th centuries, those who left – together with thousands of converts and their descendants – constituted a new diaspora with important networks in the Ottoman Empire, North Africa, the Mediterranean, Western Europe, and the Atlantic World. Some features of this so-called Sephardi diaspora (Sepharad = Spain) were very unusual and have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. Most remarkably, there was a high rate of conversion and re-conversion. Especially in Western countries, a high percentage of early modern Sephardim had actually grown up as Christians and they had been educated in Christian institutions. Their ancestors had once converted to Christianity and their families had sometimes continued to keep their Jewish traditions in secret. Even though their conception of Judaism was often explicitly anti-Christian, they were also deeply rooted in a Catholic Iberian world. As a consequence, many of them had a very pronounced knowledge of Christianity. This made them helpful mediators in Jewish-Christian scholarly exchange. Others developed certain notions of skepticism which brought them into serious conflict with their contemporaries (both Jewish and Christian) but tend to feel very “modern” for researchers today.

My particular interest in recent years has been in Conversos and Sephardim in the early modern colonial Americas. Coversos, who secretly kept the Jewish traditions of their families, and Sephardim, who had founded Portuguese Jewish communities in Western Europe, were among the first Jews to participate in European colonial enterprises. In the 16^th and 17^th centuries, there were important secret Jewish networks in the Iberian viceroyalties in the Americas where Jewish life was officially forbidden and persecuted by the Inquisition. In the 17^th century, Portuguese Jews were the founders of the first open Jewish communities on American soil – in Dutch Brazil, the Dutch, English, and French Caribbean, and later in the English colonies in North America. I study how the experiences in the “New World” changed these Jews and how they and their descendants influenced the “making” of the Americas: How did they perceive the Americas and how did they look back at Europe? How did they relate to indigenous and enslaved people? How did they adapt their religious traditions to the new continent and how did these changes translate back into Europe? How did their relations with non-Jews and other Jews differ from European relations? And last but not least: How does their history provide us with examples to draw a more differentiated picture of early modern colonialism and how does it urge us to reframe some of the narratives that we have all too often taken for granted?

How did you first get involved in this area of research?

It took me a long time to discover what I really wanted to do. First, I studied mathematics. After my diploma I decided to switch to philosophy for my PhD. The recommendation to study Iberian Jewish philosophy and thought came from my supervisor, and I will always be thankful for that. After my PhD, I continued working on Sephardi and Converso thought but switched from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic world, and I moved from philosophy to history. My Habilitation (my second book and its defense) was in early modern history. Since 2014, I have been a professor in Religious Studies and Jewish Thought, yet I continue to see myself as an early modern historian with a special interest in Jewish-Christian history and thought.

How has your experience been so far at the IIAS?

It is wonderful to be at the IIAS; the atmosphere is so inspiring and friendly. It very much reminds me of the Berlin Wissenschaftskolleg where I had the honor to spend an academic year a long time ago. In addition, our Research Group is just wonderful. It feels as if we were all one team. I can’t say how much I regret that I only applied to stay for five months.

Do you have any hobbies outside of your research?

When my husband was still here, we used to walk around in the evenings, exploring parts of the city we did not know until now. Both of us love traveling and meeting colleagues and friends. Since my husband has left, I do a lot of yoga and reading, and I enjoy watching documentaries and listening to music. Before I got my position, I used to play the piano and the harp but it became difficult to reserve time for daily practice. One of my plans after my return to Germany is to reorganize my daily routine and reserve more time for family, hobbies and leisure.  

What's your favourite spot in Jerusalem?

My favourite spot is the reconstruction of the Surinamese Zedeq we-Shalom synagogue in back corner of the Israel Museum. Over the last few years, I have begun to work on Jewish thought in colonial Suriname. I had always seen photos and shown them to my students, but I was overwhelmed when I first saw the synagogue in the museum. It is so similar to the Amsterdam Esnoga, and at the same time, so different. This is exactly what fascinates me when studying Caribbean Jewish history.

Lastly, give us a book recommendation:

As I have just mentioned Suriname, Cynthia McLeod’s The Cost of Sugar (2013 [1994]) might be a good recommendation. It is a fascinating novel and gives you an idea of how Jewish life in 18^th century Suriname could have been.

What research are you working on during your time at the IIAS?

My field is modern Jewish intellectual history, and I am looking at the way in which Jews responded to new ideas that they encountered as they integrated into European societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I am now focused on one set of ideas that would prove challenging not only then, but to this day, namely new ways of understanding the Hebrew Bible. Beginning in the eighteenth century, European scholars – overwhelmingly German Protestants – began to raise all kinds of questions regarding the Bible: did the Hebrew text undergo any changes through the millennia? If so, can we recover the original readings? When were the various biblical books written, and under what circumstances?

The field of study spawned by these questions – biblical criticism – presented a serious challenge to traditional notions of the Bible. Many assume that traditional Jews in the 19^th and 20^th centuries stood in opposition to biblical criticism, and that those who sought to reform Judaism, or those who began to espouse a Jewish nationalism that turned its back on traditional Judaism, were more open to it. But the historical picture is more complicated, more nuanced, and far more interesting. Many Reform leaders of the nineteenth century expressed hostility to biblical criticism, in some cases espousing a mild variety of biblical fundamentalism.  Important thinkers like Solomon Schechter tried to articulate a nuanced response – only to have that nuance largely miss its mark. Jewish nationalists and Zionists were also initially hostile to the critical study of the Hebrew Bible, or deeply ambivalent about its conclusions. On the other hand, there were traditionalists who demonstrated an openness to the notion that the biblical text was in need of careful emendation, and later, those who felt strongly that no one could ignore the results of this scholarship. All these positions shifted over time, and that is very much the point of this project: if one traces the ways in which Jews handled these questions over the past two and a half centuries, we are presented with a fascinating tableau – really a moving picture – of the modern Jewish experience.

What materials and resources are you using to explore this?

One of the interesting aspects of our project is that in casting our net broadly, we have encountered all kinds of texts: beyond the obvious – editions of the bible, or essays about how to study the bible – we are also including speeches, popular writings, dissertations, letters home, responsa literature, and more.

How did you first get involved in this area of research?

It began with a book chapter written with Marc Brettler, a Bible scholar at Duke University. We not only realized just how interesting the question was, but how important it was to work as an interdisciplinary team.

How has your experience been so far at the IIAS?

Everyone will tell you that their experience at the IIAS is wonderful – and everyone is right. But for this project, the fact that the IIAS is now accepting Individual Fellows has been a godsend. The fact that Marc and I could arrive at the IIAS and work together, and only a few hundred meters from the National Library of Israel, is an incredible opportunity.

I would only add that the mix of scholars and fields at the IIAS makes for an incredibly stimulating environment. We all come to work on our well-defined projects, but we get to interact regularly with scholars of so many different fields and of such varied interests and perspectives. This social-intellectual aspect is very special.

Do you have any hobbies outside of your research?

As someone born and raised in Canada, I developed an early passion for canoeing; in recent years, I turned to kayaking, and as my family will tell you, once I am out there it is hard getting me back to shore.

What's your favourite spot in Jerusalem?

Truth be told, I don’t have a favourite spot – I really love walking all the streets of this city. We live in a really complex place with no small number of serious issues, but there is nothing like Jerusalem in its variegated beauty and character.

What research are you working on during your time at the IIAS?

The Meta-Reasoning Research Group has 11 researchers from different countries, and we are all studying the mental processes underlying reasoning from diverse perspectives, including cognitive, social, and educational psychology, as well as philosophy. Meta-Reasoning research is nascent, and we are aiming to expand and enrich this research domain by raising novel research questions and adding new perspectives.

How would you define 'reasoning', and what is ‘meta-reasoning’?

Reasoning is about drawing inferences or conclusions that go beyond the given information. It includes logic challenges, problem-solving, and decision making. For instance, a doctor who is engaged in diagnosis has to take the described symptoms and the already available test results, and decide whether and how to act. The information processing itself is the reasoning part. The meta-reasoning part of the process is the assessment of whether the available information is solid enough to make a diagnosis, or if additional tests are required for distinguishing between several alternative diagnoses. It is the subjective assessment of the completeness or reliability of the information that is at the core of the domain our group is studying. This is what guides people in their decisions on how to act, and thus is very important. Any bias in this assessment will misguide following decisions. In my own research I try to identify situations which tend to be particularly misleading and lead to non-optimal decisions, premature decisions, or waste of long time without advancing the chance to find the correct solution to the problem at hand. In my research typically I use riddles of various types to demonstrate how people cope with reasoning challenges.

How did you first get involved in this area of research?

My Ph.D. research dealt with answering knowledge questions based on memory retrieval. Already then, I focused on the role of confidence in the correctness of retrieved information when phrasing answers in social contexts (e.g., a friend asking a question about a past event). In my postdoc, I extended this research into similar confidence-guided processes in problem-solving. Reading the reasoning literature, the overarching domain including problem-solving, I discovered a huge gap in research into confidence as a guide for people's reasoning behaviour. Then I came across a paper by Prof. Valerie Thompson from Canada who addressed this very same gap in the literature. I got in touch with her, and since then we have worked together to establish the Meta-Reasoning research domain and bring in more and more researchers, including our current group members at the IIAS.

Can you share an interesting finding that you have uncovered in your research?

I have an extended line of research with several colleagues dealing with performing cognitive tasks on screen vs. on paper. Participants received identical tasks, learned texts or solved problems, either on computers or printed on paper. Overall, we found robust screen inferiority across tasks and populations. Screen inferiority means not only lower scores in the task, but also larger overconfidence and less effective time management on screens than on paper.

Moreover, we conducted a meta-analysis, which integrated research published from 2000-2017 from many labs around the world, using a diversity of methods and populations. In this large-scale integrative analysis, we found robust reduced success when performing the tasks on digital devices compared to performing the same tasks on paper. This was consistently the case across age groups, including children and young adults who were born as "digital natives". We also found that this screen inferiority did not lessen with technological advances and the population acquiring digital-oriented habits, but actually increased along the examined years. This finding is highly worrisome, as it might suggest that younger generations do not develop or do not apply effective thinking strategies when working in digital environments, despite their daily use.

Were you always interested in going into academia?

No – I was sure that my career would be in hi-tech. I studied Computer Science at university, but at the time it was not offered as a major. I didn't want to study Maths as most my peers did, and chose to study Psychology as my major just because it was interesting, and I had no intention to use it for work. I worked in software companies for many years, leading large software development teams. However, I reached a point where I felt that the state-of-the-art data management tools of that time were not satisfactory. I decided to learn more about human knowledge management, in an effort to improve computerized data management. I applied for a graduate program in Cognitive Psychology to delve into human knowledge management. I was already 35 years old with three children when I started graduate school. During my studies I learned that scientists know little about human knowledge management. This led me to stay in the academia for better understanding how these processes function, the sources for biases, and how to improve human thinking.

How has your experience been so far at the IIAS?

Fantastic. This is a dream come true. It is an unimaginable opportunity to devote the time to research with wonderful team members, who are totally devoted to develop the Meta-Reasoning nascent domain. I sit here in my office, surrounded by my colleagues from all around the world. We work a lot as a group and also develop research agenda in small teams. Our group collaborative thinking certainly should not end when our group activity at the IIAS ends. We already have plans for how to continue this group momentum after getting back to our home institutes.

What's your favourite spot in Jerusalem?

The Jerusalem Forest on Mount Herzl.

Do you have any hobbies outside of your research?

I do quite a lot of sports: running, mountain biking, hiking, and yoga.

Lastly, give us a book recommendation:

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang. It tells the story of three generations of women living in China and the challenges they face. It spans a hundred years, starting at the end of the 19^th century, when China, and the world in general, went through a dramatic cultural revolution. The story interweaves the personal experiences of these women with the historical events and political changes at the time, such as the Chinese experience of the two world wars, and its interactions with the changing western world.

What research are you working on during your time at the IIAS?

Currently, I am writing a book on Psalms, a project which developed serendipitously. I became interested in Renaissance psalms translations thanks to my IIAS colleague, Emilie Murphy, who is researching the reception of the psalms in the 17^th century. Together, we discussed the Geneva Bible, an English translation from 1560, written during the Marian exile, and persecution of Protestants. To my mind, it remains one of the best and most precise English translation that exists.

The figure of David focuses his thoughts and emotions frequently through representing the differences between sight and hearing. In Psalms, so much of his experience of founding the People of Israel is based upon hearing. Seeing has a different status, more reflecting the individual fear of God. I've become very interested in both senses in the English translations, and also how these text reflect the original Hebrew text.

Psalms is the most challenging of the books of the Old Testament, because David not only allows for, but cultivates multiple meanings. As a translator, you have to choose one interpretation. The rabbis of the Talmud understand that Psalms provides different angles on the figure of the David, and so many of them are mediated through sight and hearing.

What other projects are you working on?

This year, I finished a book that I started writing over the pandemic, called Literature and the Sacred: God and Reading in a Time of Pandemic. The book is about the way in which Midrash, more particularly midrashic method, has been adapted over the centuries. Although it is a homiletic genre created by the rabbis, in the 17^th century, figures such as Milton and Rembrandt adopted Midrash in their work. For example, Milton's most well-known work, Paradise Lost, is pretty much a Midrash on the Old Testament. Milton knew Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer, a Midrashic commentary translated into Latin in 1644. And Rembrandt lived down the block from Menasseh Ben Israel who was a scholar of Midrash – painting his portrait and a frontispiece to one of his theological works. My book focuses on Rembrandt's four paintings of the Samson story, and Milton's 'Samson Agonistes'. I focus on the Midrashic method, rather than the stories, the ways in which Midrash brings past into present.

The project most explicitly related to our group’s work on early modern representation of the senses tells a story that goes from John Milton to Isaac Newton, from the priority of poetry to philosophy. When the authority of Milton and his age ends, there's a movement away from a world based upon time, story, and hearing, into a place of space, experimentation, and seeing. This represents a way of understanding the modern: as we stop telling stories because they are fiction, we become interested in a new kind of truth that we can see and verify with our eyes. The transition from story to sight is really a transition away from the sensibilities of Milton and Rembrandt, in which people would find themselves through reading and writing, through story. There's some tragedy to prioritizing sight, in that we no longer think that reading matters because we are told by scientists that stories don't matter. Not only the stories that we see other people tell, but primarily the stories that we tell ourselves, through which we narrate past, present, and future. In psalms, David is the main storyteller. His contemporaries say to him, "You have no story, and no future. You're done." The Sages say that David invented repentance, because he responds by persisting to write his story. There's a lesson in that for people today. Only through narrative is there a future.

How does your religious background contribute to your academic work?

I think the blessing that I have is that I know how to read into different traditions. Living in the Jewish world, I was constantly exposed to the languages of the Jewish sages. And I internalized them; they are a part of me. I was Haredi and learnt in a kollel [institute for full-time advanced Talmudic study] for 15 years, but the languages of Milton and Shakespeare are in some ways even more important to my self-identity.

I see a responsibility to the people who I teach, because I see that they also want to be part of their traditions, and they want to learn how to read in active creative manners. Great writers who tell stories leave room for your interpretations; they're teaching you how to read, and Milton is the apotheosis of that. Hamlet is the best Midrash on David (don't tell people in my synagogue!) because he's like the 17^th century David. Any emotion – joy, shame, depression, guilt, nihilism – has already been written about by David.

Another thing I realized when I started to study Midrash is that David is behind every conception of individualism that exists in the western world. I teach 17^th century English literature, so I always saw the individual as beginning with Paul, Augustine, and Luther, and continuing with Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Milton. I always wondered: where is this in the Jewish tradition? I realized that all these figures are reading psalms. It's coming from David. Shakespeare would have heard the whole psalm cycle sung in church every thirty days, and so it was a part of him.  Western and Hebraic traditions are intertwined through David’s Psalms.

How has your time been at the IIAS?

The Institute gives you the luxury to do what you want to do, without being distracted. On the first day, Yitzhak [Hen, the Director of the IIAS] said, "We don’t make any demands: we don't mind what you write, and we're not going to ask you", because he knows that that's how scholars thrive. It’s the exact opposite of every other academic context where nervous administrators are always looking over your shoulder.

Do you know what an incredible place this is? It's scholarly paradise! Academics never have this. I haven't told Yitzhak this yet, but I'm planning on locking myself to this desk at the end of July.

What research are you working on during your time at the IIAS?

My work is divided between editorial work and research. For the editorial part, I am a member of the editorial board of a few international journals, and I'm the Editor-in-Chief of the BioControl academic journal.

For my research, I use theoretical approach to understand insect behaviour. We want to understand what behaviour these insects are using to maximize their reproductive success, so we are using theoretical models to see what is the optimal behavioural strategy used by animals to help maximizing the number of progeny they produce. We build models, use mathematical equations and sometimes complex computations, and then design experiments to see if the insects follow the model’s predictions. Funnily enough, most of the time their behaviour does follow our models, and we want to understand why this is.

Insects are short-lived: most of the time they live for a couple of hours, and sometimes a couple of days, so they have to be really accurate in the way they organize and manage their time. The insects that we are investigating are parasitoids, which means that they lay their eggs in other insects, and kill the host when the eggs produce larvae and eat the host. These parasitoids therefore act as insecticides, and so we are using them for biological control of the nasty insects that are attacking our crops. When we are studying what pushes those insects to optimize the number of progeny they produce, we also understand how they maximize their impact on the pest, and so our research has an applied perspective.

I spend a lot of time on really tiny insects, less than a millimetre long. These are the most intensively produced animals on the planet, with “factories” that produce zillions of insects. In Europe, we release about 300,000 insects per hectare of corn, and we treat several hundred thousand hectares of corn all over Europe.

What is an example of insect reproduction behaviour that you're researching?

The insects we are working with are able to do a lot of things that we, humans, cannot do. For example, they are able to decide the sex of their progeny, and they have a specific mechanism that allows them to choose whether to lay a male or a female egg. We want to understand how they use such mechanisms to maximize their reproductive output. We have found that they lay males and females in specific sequences that we can describe statistically. Hence, we produce mathematical models to predict whether a male or female will be laid in a specific situation, and then we test these models by creating experiments that place the insects in such scenarios.

Insects are really convenient to experiment on. You have a new generation each week, it costs almost nothing to breed them, and you can do really accurate experiments in a lab with cameras, computers etc. Although the biological models we use could also, hypothetically, be tested on other animals, it is definitely easier to experiment on insects than elephants!

How did you first get into the field of ecology?

My university career has been in a field that lies somewhere between maths and biology – biometry – which applies mathematical tools, especially statistical tools and computer science, to biology. I have always been more interested in the mathematical approach.  Biologists spend their entire life collecting data, which they have to analyse it in the correct way, and this is my niche. The fact that I'm more on the theoretical side means that there are always people knocking on my door trying to ask me how to develop theoretical models for their own insects, so I am working on a lot of insect species.

How has your time been at the IIAS so far?

It's a really great opportunity. I was extracted from my day-to-day work and I can really focus on my research. Together with Tamar Keasar and Michal Segoli, we were able to build a dream team. Most of the members of our group have all known each other for decades, and we are all friends, so it is not only scientific and academic activity here, there is also the social dimension, which is lovely. I am really enjoying it. Our group is here for 5 months, but I wish we were here for longer!

What do you like to do outside of your research?

I am a guitar player, but I am a really poor guitar player. I enjoy bossa nova, which is Brazilian jazz music that was famous in the 60s and 70s, and that is the style of music I like to play. I also love art, and have enjoyed visiting the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Israel Museum.

Can you tell us a bit about the short film you created?

A few years ago, I received a grant from the European Science Foundation to make a 30-minute film on parasitoids. The film explains the theoretical models used to make predictions about the efficacy of the parasitoids when trying to control pests.

The film was made for the general public, and was created with open access, so anyone in the university system can use it for teaching. The film is made in a Sherlock Holmes detective story style that surveys Europe. We designed some cartoons for it, and we also had a musician to compose the music. It took eight months to write, and four months to shoot, so it was a whole year of work! I was in charge of the scientific part, and I connected with professional filmmakers for the production. The movie was a real success, and we received some international awards for it.

Click here to watch Eric Wajnberg's 2009 film on parasitoids

What research are you working on during your time at the IIAS?

My Research Group is working on the topic of biological control, which is the method of controlling agricultural pests through natural predation. This method reduces the use of insecticides, which are unhealthy, costly, and are becoming less effective over time, because the pests are evolving insecticide resistance. The question is how to do biological control in the best way. Previously, people have experimented with different forms of biological control, with some success and some failure, and without using theoretical insights to plan biological control programs.

An alternative method is to look at the basic science of ecology, which describes how populations behave and interact. There are many models that predict what would happen if you were to put two populations, or several populations, together. So our groups is integrating those two methods: to use experimentation alongside ecological models to improve the practice of biological control. Our group is composed of experimental biologists who go out to the field and do biological control in practice, as well as biologists who come more from a theoretical background and have an interest in biological control. So we're trying to get everybody to collaborate and exchange ideas in order to develop improved theories and practices.

Are you focusing on a specific pest species?

We are looking at a broad range of species. We meet with different people here in Israel who are working on specific pests and specific biological control programs, and discuss with them what's bothering them and where they need solutions, so this gives us additional ideas for species to study.

For example, we have a colleague who is an applied biologist working on a specific moth species. The larvae of this moth bore into tomato fruits, and cause a lot of damage. This is a huge issue, because tomatoes are widely grown in Israel and are a big cash crop, so any harm to this crop creates a lot of economic damage. The moth has a natural predator, a predatory bug that is naturally present in those fields, and feeds on the pests. The challenge we were posed was to figure out what population size of predatory bugs is needed in order to sufficiently keep the moth population under control, so that insecticides don't need to be used on the crops. Our group worked together, and made the calculations, and we met with her to discuss our results. This is an example of a specific problem that we can tackle with the help of mathematical modelling.

Do you have a lot of opportunities to visit farms as part of your research?

Yes, we work with real farms and real farmers, and part of the job is learning to talk to them and get their cooperation, because they are really important for these studies. We are trying be useful and to address people's needs. It is also important to talk in a language that they can understand and accept, because sometimes academics use fancy terminology which is unclear to the farmer, so communication is really important.

How did you first get interested in this field?

My PhD was on insect behaviour, and the research didn't have any applied use, it was trying to understand what dictates decision-making in bees as a model for learning about other animals, and maybe even humans. When I did my postdoc, I switched to behaviour, learning and decision-making in parasitic wasps, which are actually natural enemies of agricultural pests. When I started my own lab, new students presented their ideas and their research interests, and I found that many of them were interested in these applied topics, and wanted to make a difference in the world. I adopted their point of view and got into more applied research, which I have really found fascinating. So I learnt from my students.

What's an example of how the behaviour of bees can be reflected in human behaviour?

One finding from my PhD research was how bees allocate their efforts between searching for food in known food sources, and trying out new locations. It's a question of curiosity: would curiosity for something new be a constant in all situations, or would it be situation-dependent? And I found that there is some dependence on the situation. When the bee knows that its environment is very variable and uncertain, then it will be more willing to try new things. And when it is very confident that everything will stay the same, then that tendency decreases. And I think humans work in the same way too, so it's nice to see that it’s a common principle.

How are you enjoying your time at the IIAS so far?

It’s a really lovely opportunity to have time to think, and to write. I really enjoy the interactions with my Research Group, and also with the other Research Groups at the Institute. I don’t normally have many interactions with academics from the Humanities, and so this is really exciting for me. Also, I did my PhD here at The Hebrew University, two buildings away, so it's great to be back on this campus!

Outside of your research, what do you like to do in your spare time?

I like hiking and gardening. Now, in the spring, I spend a lot of time in my garden.

Do you have a favourite hiking trail in Israel?

The Negev highlands and the area of the Ramon crater are very dramatic, and the landscape is different to anything else. It's such an open area, and there are very few people, so it’s the perfect peaceful place to walk, and think, and enjoy the view.

And finally, do you have a book recommendation for us?

Before I came to the IIAS, I spent a few months in London. I read a few books about London, written by people who'd visited London, and one of them is London Observed by Doris Lessing. It’s a collection of short stories, all set in London, and they show different parts of the city and different people in the city, from an outsider's viewpoint. The author immigrated to London in the late 1950s, and she wrote this collection of stories during her first years there when she didn't know the city well. She observed it as a visitor, and so when I came as a visitor to the same city 50 years later, it was very exciting to read her perspective.

What research are you working on during your residency at the IIAS?

My area of research is medieval Jewish history, focusing mainly on the social life of the Jewish communities in 'Ashkenaz', that is, France, Germany, part of Italy, and England. I'm looking at the interactions within the Jewish community, as well as the interactions and conflicts of Jews with their Christian neighbours.

I am curious as to how the Ashkenazi Jewish communities survived during the Middle Ages, despite internal and external threats. I am also interested in the role of women and children in this survival process. In my book Yihud ve-ha-Yahad (Uniqueness and Togetherness), I argued that the survival of the Jewish communities throughout the Middle Ages was thanks to the creation of massive and unique organizations that allowed successful socialization processes. Through these, individuals were taught beliefs, values and behaviours. Since these processes took place in the synagogue, I have studied the synagogue as a social institution, rather than as a place of prayer. 

The socialization processes are also evident in the prayers. Jewish prayers in the Middle Ages are a unique source of information. It appears that prayers were constantly added to the main section of the prayerbook, and these prayers contain numerous hidden messages pertaining to everyday life, as well as hinting to the Jewish community's relationship with Christianity. Hence, liturgy can profitably be used for the study of social history. By looking at liturgical poems in prayerbooks and by using medieval commentaries on these poems, I try to understand how Jewish socialization processes evolved, and what made them so effective.

Can you give an example of a prayer that hints towards these socialization processes?

An excellent case in point is the liturgical prayer for Shavuot (Pentecost). One of the main themes in the celebration of Shavuot is the reception of the Torah from God on Mount Sinai. In the 12^th century, the Christians claimed that the covenant between the Jews and God had become void with the passion of Christ, and that the Torah had been passed on to the Christians – the 'New Israel' – instead. In response, the Jewish paytanim [i.e. authors of the liturgical poems] composed a liturgical poem based on Midrashic sources, describing how God used the Torah to create the world, thus implying that the connection between the Torah and the Jewish people precedes even the creation of the world, and as such, the bond between God and the Jews is unbreakable. In this example one can see how the paytanim used liturgical poetry to challenge Christian beliefs and theological claims, and at the same time strengthened the Jewish faith.

Such liturgical poems are often accompanied by illustrations, and, as can be seen in numerous handwritten prayer books, these drawings contain hidden messages as well. Hence, studying these liturgical poems with their commentaries and illustrations is an interdisciplinary enterprise that combines history, theology, literary studies and art.

Your research also touches upon the relationship between Jews and ex-Jews in the Middle Ages. Could you please say a few words on that topic?

My book, Apostasy and Jewish Identity in High Middle Ages Northern Europe: 'Are you still my brother?', explores the relationship between Jews who kept their faith, and Jews who converted to Christianity in the Middle Ages. Throughout the 11^th and 12^th century, the Jews who remained Jews were mainly trying to bring the ex-Jews back into the fold. But the 12^th and the early 13^th century was a challenging period for the Jews of Eastern Europe, featuring the violence of the Crusades and the emergence of blood libels. Consequently, by the end of the 13^th century, the idea was not so much to bring the ex-Jews back to the community, but rather to keep them as ‘distant brothers’. I would submit that the historical circumstances and the ever-growing tensions between Jews and Christians had a huge effect on the attitude of Jews towards their converted brethren.

You have also explored the role of Jewish women in your book, Jewish Women in the Middle Ages – A Quiet Revolution. Were there any surprising outcomes of your research?

Although the cheder [i.e. Jewish elementary school] was for boys only, in the 11^th and 12^th century Jewish girls were able to receive a solid good education at home. In addition, contrary to the assumption that women-only prayer services are a modern Jewish phenomenon, it appears that according to our sources, women-only prayer services were performed as far back as the 13^th century!

How has your time been at the IIAS so far?

Being at the IIAS reminds me of my sabbatical time at Cambridge University, where there is a friendly, social environment, and you can't help but bump into all your colleagues as you walk around the building. It’s fantastic! Not to mention that my current research requires access to manuscripts in the National Library of Israel [located on the Givat Ram campus of The Hebrew University], so the IIAS has given me a great opportunity to further my research in the optimal academic environment.

How would you describe the research that you're working on?

I'm working on my second full book monograph project, 'Renaissance Undead: Reanimating the Past in Early Modern England'. I'm a scholar of Renaissance and early modern literature in English, and my expertise in my field specifically looks at travel and trade, and the role of classical antiquity in Renaissance literature and culture.

In this book, I'm exploring the notion of Renaissance, the rebirth of the classical past. I'm looking at uncanny moments where something that was dead and buried, usually an object or a body part, might be cajoled into bringing back the past. Each chapter in the book looks at a different object that is used to bring back the past in different ways. Each of these moments of resurrection or reanimation, of raising the dead or bringing back the past, is a highly sensory experience. The senses, which is the theme of my Research Group, are the key to understanding this period.

What are some objects that you're exploring?

One chapter, on the theme of restoration, is about mummy – ground-up human remains that were used in medieval and early modern medicine. The most prized version of this came from the pyramids at Giza. Mummies were imported to Europe and sold in apothecary shops as a cure for everything. They also appeared in culinary and cosmetic recipe books, so it was very widespread. I discovered that they were interested in the ingredients used to preserve the mummies, particularly bitumen, which is a really sticky, resinous substance that you can still buy on eBay as a homeopathic remedy. Europeans thought that the only way they could access this substance was by digging up ancient Egyptian cadavers and extracting it. It's really, really weird. So this chapter is looking at the trade in mummia from a historical point of view, but also questioning what this tells us about early modern people's relationship to the past, if the past could be ingested and incorporated.

I have another chapter on the theme of resurrection, looking at lace bracelets – love tokens – that were made from human hair in the early modern period. There was a practice to bring your hair to a lace maker, to be woven into lace. You can see these big lace cuffs in the Victoria & Albert Museum – it’s amazing! A lot of these bracelets have been lost to time, because they decompose quite easily, but they feature in a number of lyric poems by John Donne and others. The interesting thing about these bracelets is that in the poems, they're animated with the soul of the beloved. Most of the poems are written from a perspective where the beloved is gone: either the writer has been dumped, the beloved has died, or the writer imagines a time when they have been separated by death. In Donne's poems, these hair bracelets become tools at resurrection day to bring back the beloved. He has this Harry Potter-esque belief that every part of the body contains a part of the soul, so if he has his beloved's hair bracelet, it doesn't matter if she dumped him, or if she died, because her body will return to him on resurrection day, looking for its missing part. So the hair bracelet becomes a vehicle for resurrection.

How did you first get into this whole area of research?

My PhD supervisors were really interested in material culture, studying objects from the early modern period, and looking at what humans' relationships were to those objects. Material culture includes exploring material texts: treating the book as an object and the ink on the page as something in three dimensions, rather than as an abstract idea. I got into my research through that, when I realized that I could do something that wasn't just textual analysis. I've always thought of classics and the Renaissance period as very interdisciplinary, and if I'm going to be writing about Shakespeare, I can't do that without thinking about it in more than one dimension. It's a little bit anthropological, a little bit like museum studies, and part of it is that I wish I had been an art historian!

How has your experience been at the IIAS so far?

There's not a day that goes by that I don't feel tremendous gratitude for the opportunity to be here, and for the culture of inquiry here, and the conversations that we're having which are operating at a level higher than I've ever experienced. We have weekly seminars where we're either workshopping something, asking a question and sharing ideas, reading a text together, or listening to an invited speaker, and the conversation is always at the highest level. And there's so much love and respect for everyone.

Four of us in my Research Group are mothers of small children, and so I'm grateful to the Institute for taking a chance on us, because I think that it's difficult for working moms, especially academics, to get an opportunity like this. So I think that the culture of the Institute has just been so supportive, and I'm really grateful for that.

What do you like to do outside of research?

A lot of my research is about travel and trade, and so I really do like exploring new places and walking the city, going to the Old City, tasting new tastes… the senses are how I experience the world. So I'm a huge fan of spice shops and spice markets, and interacting with as many different people as I can. If there weren't a pandemic, I would be going to the theatre a lot. I'm also a musician, and I play the piano.

What kind of music do you like?

All kinds. I play classical. I'm just getting into some Israel music, like Idan Raichel. I'm also into Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish) music. One of the assignments I give my students is to make a Spotify playlist related to one of the texts that they've read, which can be a great way to think through scholarly analysis in a contemporary context.

What research are you working on at the moment?

I've been working on a new project about the use of martyr accounts – passions and texts about martyrs – in a period after the time of Constantine (d. 337 CE) when persecutions had supposedly ended. The martyr texts developed when the Romans were persecuting Christians (mostly 3^rd century CE), so the question is why Christians continued to use these texts once the persecutions had stopped.

I've been studying Roman North Africa and early-Christian North Africa for a while, especially the Vandal period. The Vandals were these supposedly barbarian groups who came in and controlled North Africa in the 5^th century, and from the Catholic perspective they're seen as heretics. I'm doing a case study of the Vandal period, and a little earlier, in the 4^th century after Constantine and the 5^th century.

What have you found so far?

There are two things I'm playing with at the moment. The first is that I'm using insights on memory from anthropology and sociology, which focus on identity and community membership, to construct a view of the past. In this case, the martyrs were heroes of the past that were fighting this 'other' – the evil Romans – so there was a polarized view of the world, whereas in reality, people were more cooperative. We used to think of identity in binary terms, and there is now a lot of work to debunk this, and to show that people have various identities and that various elements can be activated in different contexts. I'm applying some of these insights to texts authored by bishops and theologians, who saw the world in black and white and believed that everyone needs to be Christian, and they used these texts to push their Christian identity agenda.

I’ve also found that the different Christian groups share the same heroes. In North Africa, the two popular saints are Perpetua and Cyprian, and they are reused over and over again across centuries by different groups, even in their conflicts against each other. The same texts and heroes are used as models for themselves and their own communities, by all of these Christian groups. I think that scholars have been obsessed with these groups fighting each other – Vandals and Romans, Catholics and Arians, heretics – and we don't see the similarities they share. So that’s part of what I'm studying – these heroes and the texts about them that they all share, despite their use in hostile contexts.

How does your research link to the themes of Purity and Pollution?

One of the disputes, between Donatists and Catholics especially during the 4^th and early 5^th century, was all about purity. During persecutions, Christians were not the target, as in trying to eliminate them, rather Romans were trying to coerce all inhabitants of the Empire to perform state rituals. This involved offering a public sacrifice of an animal, or burning incense, which Christians objected to, and yet many Christians did it. Christian elites and authority figures called this lapsing, and this created a dispute over how to readmit lapsed Christians into the community. One faction was more understanding, and said that doing a little penitence (well, years really) is enough to come back into the fold, whereas the zealous Donatists said that these lapsed Christians could not return until their deathbed. But the real fight was whether someone who lapsed during the persecution could become a bishop. The new bishop of Carthage, a role similar to the head of the church in North Africa, was labelled a lapsed bishop, and Donatists decided to elect their own bishop. Over a century, across all of North Africa, there were two bishops in many towns, because of that initial purity question.

Within my larger project about the lives of saints, there are Donatist passions with passages about purity and pollution, which links to the identity theme of imposing a polar perspective on the world. That’s what they're really pushing in these texts with these passages using the language of contagion and disease. If you're in the other group, you carry this pollution and spread it to the people, so it's very important for them to maintain this purity, which Donatists attempt to do by rebaptizing Christians baptized by their opponents (Catholics).

How did you become interested in this area of history?

Once I discovered Roman history, I became very excited about the period of early Christianity and the late Roman empire, especially because I come from a Catholic background. I found it fascinating that historians started looking at religious texts of this period from an anthropological perspective, to understand cultures and mentalities, in contrast to the monks and theologians who mostly had been reading these texts at face value for centuries. This transformation of perspectives was energizing to witness.

People have this image of history as unchanging; you study facts, and events, and dates, and you just memorize them. But my research has pushed me to realize that history is actually what historians think of the past. Each generation has its own perspective, and this changes over time. Once you see it in what you're reading, you can't unsee it. That’s the most fascinating part of history to me by far.

How has your time been at the IIAS?

Having the opportunity to devote myself completely to research is something that I've been craving, because I usually teach four classes a semester, so time for research is few and far between. But also, it's been great to have the opportunity to exchange ideas and meet new people. I realized that we had some overlap with the other research group here at the IIAS, "Sensing the Truth": some of their members are also using similar theoretical literature on memory and trauma, and are working on themes of persecution, albeit in different periods. Cross-pollination between fields is always inspiring and invigorating, so that’s been great. Even in our own seminars, having external speakers, and studying the same topic from different periods and perspectives, and brainstorming, and playing with ideas… that’s what I really enjoy.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I ski (in the winter, at home), and play tennis a lot. Yaniv Iczkovits and I realized that we both play tennis, and we've been hitting the courts at least once a week here on campus. That’s been really fun.

I also love to travel. Before I started grad school, I saved up some money and went travelling, with the goal to visit a site or a museum every day for three months. I started in Rome, and toured Italy, Sicily, Tunisia, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and then finished my trip here in Israel. In Syria, I went to places that have since been destroyed and we can no longer return to, such as Palmyra. In hindsight, I feel very fortunate that I was able to visit these places, but I never imagined that I wouldn't be able to go back to these places, which is tragic.

Now that I'm back in Israel, and studying early Christianity, it's fascinating to see all these really important historical sites. When my wife visited about a month ago, we rented a car and went to places such as Beit She'an, Galilee in the north, and Timna Park in the south. By North American standards, Israel is a really small country. Everyone was telling us, you’re crazy for driving six hours in one day, but for us it's not that big of a deal!

You also spent 10 years as a ski instructor – how did that come about?

Skiing was our family activity growing up, and so I took a lot of lessons and had finished all the courses by age 15. At 16, my mom gave me a newspaper clipping of an ad that the local ski hill was hiring ski instructors, so I registered for the training and started working there. I continued throughout my studies until I started my PhD. It was a pretty good job, and it allowed me to continue skiing while being paid for it!

Read more about Eric's Research Group here

What research are you working on at the moment?

My main project is called The Reformation of the Soundscape in Early Modern England. The central premise is that sound is the key way that religious knowledge was disseminated in early modern England, and I'm looking at that in a few different ways.

I'm finishing an article on the role of sound and hearing in the accounts of Anglophone travelers, which argues that travelers discuss the things they've heard to bolster their credibility, just as much as when they discuss what they've seen. People talk about eye-witnessing, and what I'm exploring is 'ear-witnessing'.

I'm also looking at the reception of The Whole Book of Psalms, which was the most popular book in early modern England. Just before I came to Israel, I went to several archives and photographed surviving copies, looking for signs of ownership and use. One of the main things I've found so far is how much of a treasured object this was in the home. There's one amazing copy that was passed down through the women of the family, and it has lots of autobiographical women's writing. The women wrote their initials next to particular psalms that they liked, underlined parts of psalms, and wrote religious verse and prayers in some of the blank spaces. It supports the existing scholarship on the significance of the psalms in people's lives during this period.

Lastly, I'm finishing a piece on language learning by early modern Catholic women who became nuns in exile. All of the work is informed by a sensory methodology, which is the theme of the Research Group. That's what ties it all together.

How did you venture into researching nuns?

My PhD thesis was on English Catholicism, including English Catholics who chose to leave England and live on the continent. Thousands of English women travelled during this period to join convents, and music was such an important part of convent life. My postdoc was on women's writing, and one particular archive that I worked with was at a Benedictine convent in Brussels, Belgium. Their archive is filled with several hundred letters from a period where there were many disputes in the convent. The nuns kept writing to their archbishop to inform him of the problems with the abbess in the convent, but the abbess was censoring and circumventing a lot of the mail. There was a lot of drama in this convent, which is great for historians, because often records are left when there is drama!

How do you recreate or rediscover historic sounds?

The problem with studying sound is that it is very ephemeral, so you have to rely on how a sound is described on paper, whether in literal sheet music, or in references to melodies. One of the popular genres in early modern England was the ballad, where a verse would be written on a page, and then the tune is written at the top as "To the tune of…". Occasionally you have the melodies written down elsewhere, so historians can figure out what the melody is, but in many cases, the melody has been lost – but it informs us that the text was sung, and to a tune that was also used in other texts. In my work I'm not trying to reconstruct how something sounded exactly. I'm more interested in the way a particular sound has made someone feel, and their impression of a sound.

You were on an episode of Countryfile a few years ago – how did that happen?

A researcher from Countryfile contacted me because they were doing an episode on Northamptonshire, and they found out that I was researching the architect of the Rushton Triangular Lodge, a man called Thomas Tresham. I was asked to talk on the show for a few minutes about the symbolism of the lodge, and as I was chatting to the researcher, I also shared that I was working on some symbolic Catholic music that was associated with Thomas Tresham. So that developed into a larger segment on the program where I brought a group of singers from York, and we performed the piece in the lodge, which was very exciting. It was a fun experience. Although on my first foray into television, I foolishly decided on my outfit before I checked the weather, and I wore something that was not warm enough at all for a freezing day in January! But no regrets. The camera didn't catch my shivering.

How has your experience been at the IIAS?

I haven't had this level of dedicated research time for over five years! I'm so grateful to be able to sit in my own beautifully-equipped office, and to have these conversations with colleagues, and chat about issues with what I'm working on. It's been really nice.

How is life in Jerusalem?

It's so hilly! It’s the hilliest place I have ever been to in my life. But it's amazing to visit the places described by the travelers whose narratives I'm reading, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Some of the English-speaking travelers I'm researching went on tours of Jerusalem led by Franciscan friars 400 years ago, and they still do those tours today! So it’s an incredibly historic place, and it's really wonderful to experience it.

I hadn't been to Israel before, and one of the reasons why my husband and I wanted to come with the kids for a year was just to see what life is like here. People talk about Israel and the Middle East back in the UK, but I think most of them have never actually been here. So we wanted an opportunity to experience living here – and it's been good!

What do you like to do outside of work?

Music is also a big part of my extra-curricular life, and pre-corona, we used to go to a lot of gigs and concerts. I like a whole range of music, from 16^th-17^th century early music, performed by groups such as The Sixteen, to more normal contemporary stuff, such as indie, folk, and pop. My two favourites at the moment are the British groups KAWALA and Oh Wonder.

View the summary of Emilie's Countryfile episode here.

What research are you working on at the moment?

I'm exploring the ways in which early medieval bishops in Gaul and Spain used biblical exegesis to define heretics and heretical communities living in their midst, particularly Arians. They would weaponize the language of the bible to condemn heresy, and by doing this, they gave their communities the tools to more clearly define themselves: who is part of our community, and who is not? Who is the right kind of Christian, and who is not? And this was all happening during a time where there was a battle for hegemony between various strands of Christianity in the West.

How did you get into that field?

The best explanation I can give for my interest in early medieval history is because I played Dungeons & Dragons as a kid! This particular strand of inquiry started when I came across a heretical community in Gaul and Spain called the Bonosiacs. They appeared for a brief period in the 4^th century in what is now Bulgaria and Serbia, and then they disappeared and reemerged a century later in Burgundy and Spain, so I was curious as to why these heretics vanished from one place and reappeared in another. I then started looking at the use of heretical language: when are people called heretics and what kind of terminology is used to refer to these heretics? This led me to investigate how the language of purity and pollution is used in the writings of early medieval bishops to talk about incorrect faith, or the pollution of faith by heresy. The two strands converged, and this is the result!

So is that what inspired you to create the Research Group?

Exactly. Purity and pollution seemed to be a recurring theme in the way that people talked about heresy, using these paradigms of hygienic language, and of defilement and uncleanliness. So I started reaching out to scholars whose fields were linked to this question, which led to the formation of the group: six scholars are now tackling this question from different perspectives, time periods, and geographical locations.

Can you share an interesting medieval purification ritual?

The most talked about ritual is rebaptism. A person would be baptized as an infant or as an adult to Catholicism, and if this person decided to cross into Arianism, he would have to be rebaptized – in essence, undoing the first baptism. For Catholics, rebaptism was the iconic emblematic act of heresy, because baptism was perceived as a one-time ceremony that undoes original sin. In Catholic eyes, to rebaptize was to undermine Divine grace.

What is your experience of the IIAS so far?

Academically, it's invigorating. The early medieval community in Israel is small, and so I'm not usually able to talk about the micro aspects of my research with close colleagues because they're from different disciplines. So being here, surrounded by people who are also researching medieval history, has been really great. Every lunch, and every informal coffee in the hallway, leads to interesting discussions. We're also closely collaborating on the organization of our upcoming conference, and we've taken some field trips together, so our group dynamic has evolved from a professional relationship to a friendship, which is really nice.

What do you like to do outside of work?

First of all, I have 3 kids, so that takes up a lot of my time! In terms of hobbies, I'm an avid runner, and I do 3D-printing. My wife got me a 3D printer for my birthday a few years ago and I've been printing away ever since. During the first lockdown when things started to break around the house and all the stores were closed, I printed a door knob replacement that I designed, and since then, I've printed all kinds of things for the house.

Can you recommend us a good book that you've read recently?

Haggai Erlich's "Yam Suf: HaYam Ha'atzuv" ["The Red Sea, the Sad Sea"], which is a chronological review of the Red Sea. Unlike the Mediterranean Sea, which allowed communities dwelling along the coast to exchange ideas and trade, the Red Sea historically has had the opposite result of being an unbridgeable obstacle between societies. The book spans early medieval history to the Israeli-Egyptian wars in the 1950s and 1960s and shows how the Red Sea has acted as a barrier – hence the name, "The Sad Sea".

I also enjoyed "The Sweet Spot" by Paul Bloom, which explores why people do things that are painful or uncomfortable, and what we can learn about human psychology from looking at those who climb mountains or do things that terrify them. It’s a very interesting read.

Do you have a favourite musician?

Music is very connected to the time in your personal history when you were really into that musician. So when I hear Metallica, I immediately think of high school, and when I hear Fleet Foxes, I immediately think of my post doctorate at University of Cambridge. There's music for every chapter of my life, but if I had to choose, there's one singer/songwriter called Laura Veirs. She's a folk rock musician with great music and lyrics.

Read more about Yaniv's Research Group here.