Rate My Professor Dov Weiss

Dov Weiss is an Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and a Conrad Humanities Scholar (2021-2026) in the Departments of Religion, Classics, and Medieval Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He joined the university in 2011 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018. Weiss earned his Ph.D. with distinction in the History of Judaism from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 2011, where his dissertation, “Confrontations with God in Late Rabbinic Literature,” was advised by Michael Fishbane. He also received rabbinical ordination from Yeshiva University in 2000, an M.A. in Modern Jewish History from Yeshiva University in 1999, and a B.A. cum laude in Political Science from Yeshiva University in 1995. Earlier in his career, he served as the Alan M. Stock Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Jewish Studies in 2012, a visiting instructor in Religious Studies at Northwestern University in 2011, and a visiting instructor in Jewish Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2007.

Weiss specializes in rabbinic theology and rabbinic biblical interpretation, with additional research interests in the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, medieval Jewish mysticism, medieval Jewish philosophy, and modern Jewish thought. His first monograph, Pious Irreverence: Confronting God in Rabbinic Judaism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), won the 2017 National Jewish Book Council’s Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award in Scholarship. He is currently writing his second book, Rabbinic Inferno: Hell in Classical Judaism. Notable publications include “Divine Concessions in the Tanhuma Midrashim” in Harvard Theological Review (2015), “The Sin of Protesting God in Rabbinic and Patristic Literature” in AJS Review (2015), “The Sins of the Parents in Rabbinic and Early Christian Literature” in Journal of Religion (2017), and “The Rabbinic God and Medieval Judaism” in Currents in Biblical Research (2017). He has contributed chapters to edited volumes such as “Olam Haba in Rabbinic Literature: A Functional Reading” (Purdue University Press, 2017) and encyclopedia entries on topics like Midrash and Kingdom of God in Rabbinic Judaism. Among his honors are an NEH Summer Stipend (2020) for his book project, an Associate position at the University of Illinois Center for Advanced Studies (2020-2021), the Harry Starr Fellowship at Harvard University (2012), the Martin Marty Fellowship at the University of Chicago Divinity School (2010-2011), and the Targum Shlishi Dissertation Fellowship (2010-2011). Weiss teaches undergraduate and graduate courses including World Religions, History of Judaism, Jewish Sacred Literature, Readings in Rabbinic Midrash, and History of Jewish Theology.