Professor Susannah Heschel discusses the intellectual and personal foundations of her work in Jewish Studies, the history of biblical scholarship, Jewish intellectual history, gender studies, antisemitism, and interreligious relations. She explains how her early interest in the Hebrew Bible led her to examine the historical formation of modern biblical scholarship and the political, religious, and cultural assumptions that shaped the field in nineteenth-century Europe. Particular attention is given to Abraham Geiger and his influence on the academic study of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Heschel examines Geiger’s argument that the teachings of Jesus were rooted in Second Temple Judaism and that Jesus introduced nothing fundamentally new or original in relation to contemporary Jewish teachings. She also discusses the responses of Protestant scholars to Geiger’s work and the later racial reinterpretations of Jesus that contributed to the construction of an “Aryan Jesus” in modern German theology. The interview further explores the origins and principal arguments of The Woman Question in Jewish Studies, co-authored by Susannah Heschel and Sarah Imhoff. Heschel reflects on the exclusion of women from major academic projects, university appointments, conferences, journals, editorial boards, and scholarly networks. She emphasizes the importance of mentoring, intellectual diversity, inclusive academic practices, and greater attention to the perspectives of women, younger scholars, minorities, and researchers from different cultural and religious backgrounds. Heschel also discusses her research on Jewish refugee scholars who came to the United States during the 1930s, their contribution to American universities, historically Black colleges and universities, Jewish Studies, and the civil rights movement. She considers the contemporary growth of antisemitism, particularly following the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, and reflects on the responsibility of universities to preserve dignified, respectful, evidence-based, and critical academic discourse. The interview concludes with Heschel’s assessment of the European Hebrew Journal as an international diamond open-access project. She encourages scholars to submit innovative and interdisciplinary research, to engage with wider academic conversations, and to consider how Jewish experience and Jewish Studies can contribute to other fields. Finally, she presents scholarship as an art characterized by complexity, subtlety, careful distinctions, intellectual humility, and resistance to simplistic or definitive judgments.
Heschel et al. (Fri,) studied this question.