Professor Ada Rapoport-Albert (Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies)

Ada Rapoport-Albert was born and brought up in Israel. She obtained her PhD in Jewish History at UCL, and in 1976 joined its Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, currently serving as its Head since 2002. During her long career at UCL, she has held numerous Visiting Professorships and Research Fellowships abroad, and has published extensively on various aspects of Jewish spirituality. Her Women and the Messianic Heresy of Sabbatai Zevi, 1666-1816appeared in 2011.

Female Bodies – Male Souls: Asceticism and Gender in the Jewish Mystical Tradition

The lecture probes the conflicted rabbinic evaluation of the ascetic life, arguing that it gave rise to a peculiarly gendered approach to asceticism. This, in turn, may well account for the virtual absence of women from the entire literary tradition of Jewish mysticism.

This valedictory lecture marks Professor Rapoport-Albert’s impending retirement, and celebrates her long and
substantial contribution to Hebrew and Jewish Studies at UCL.