General Information
The Berkowitz Fellowship was created thanks to a generous gift by Mr. Ivan Berkowitz. The Berkowitz Fellow is typically awarded to a more senior scholar. The area of research addresses issues from a broad spectrum of Jewish learning and civilization. The Fellowship will facilitate research and scholarship into areas that examine the historical, cultural and political forces that helped shape the intellectual atmosphere in which the integration of varying traditions of law into an operative jurisprudential system was affected.
The Fellow will become fully integrated with the intellectual community of the Law School, regularly attending events at NYU School of Law, including the faculty colloquia and other similar events. The Berkowitz Fellow will present their research in progress once in the Fall semester and once in the Spring at a Workshop, which will be open to the intellectual community of the Law School, the University as a whole and other interested individuals by invitation.
Current Berkowitz Fellow - AY 2024-2025
Joseph E. David is a Full Professor of Law at Sapir Academic College in Israel. He is the author of The State Rabbinate: Election, Separation and Freedom of Expression (2000), The Family and the Political: On Belonging and Responsibility in a Liberal Society (2012), Toleration within Judaism (2013), Jurisprudence and Theology in Late Ancient and Medieval Jewish Thought (2014) and Kinship, Law and Politics- An Anatomy of Belonging (2019). He edited The State of Israel: Between Judaism and Democracy (2000), Questioning Dignity: Human Dignity as Supreme Modern Value (2006), Nomos and Narrative for the Hebrew Reader (2012), The Gift of the Land and the Fate of the Canaanites in Jewish Thought (2014), and Strengthening Human Rights Protections in Geneva, Israel, the West Bank and Beyond (2021).
Joseph is a co-editor of the Journal of Law and Religion (Cambridge).
Joseph has held academic positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, New York University, University of Oxford, Yale University, Emory University, Hebrew University, Reichman University, and The Max Planck Society.
CONTACT: jd133@nyu.edu
Research Title
Data, Divinity, and Doubt: Navigating Law and Religion in the Information Age
Research Synopsis
The research explores the intricate interplay between law, religion, and technology through the lens of Jewish law, thought, and philosophy. By delving into the rich intellectual tradition of Judaism, the study seeks to unravel the profound implications of technological advancements on religious normativity, practices, and existential experiences.
Drawing from the well-spring of Jewish legal and philosophical sources, the research investigates two complementary trajectories:
1. Technology and its Religious Dimensions: This avenue examines the similarities, tensions, and transformations that arise when technology assumes quasi-religious characteristics. Through a comparative phenomenological approach, the study explores the competitive or complementary relationship between religion and technology as providers of meaning, hope, and responses to existential needs. Additionally, a genealogical analysis sheds light on how religious imageries, visions, and values have shaped technological progress and predictions throughout history.
2. The Impact of Technology on Religious Life: This trajectory focuses on the implementation of innovative technologies on traditional religious life within the Jewish tradition. The research delves into the profound impacts of technology on religious practices, such as rituals, spiritual leadership, and congregational life. Furthermore, it investigates how technological advancements have necessitated the re-imagination of fundamental religious concepts, including humanism, divine transcendence, mystery, idolatry, salvation, sacredness, commitment, truth, knowledge, free will, agency, responsibility, eschatology, and mortality.
By integrating insights from Jewish law, thought, and philosophy with emerging theories from the fields of technology, ethics, and environmental studies, this research endeavors to develop a novel theoretical framework for scrutinizing the profound modifications imposed on human conditions by the ascent of data science and artificial intelligence applications.
Previous Berkowitz Fellows
- Marjorie Lehman
- Hanan Mazeh
- Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg
- Shulamit Furstenberg-Levi
- Yosef Sharabi
- Yuval Blankovsky
- Yobu (Job) Jindo
- Eli Schonfeld
- Jonathan Yovel
- Shai Wozner
- Marc Hirshman
- Gabriella Blum
- Rabbi Saul J. Berman
- Joseph David
- Leora Batnitzky
- Shahar Lifshitz