Menachem Kellner

Menachem Kellner

Menachem Kellner (born 1946) is an Israeli contemporary Jewish scholar of medieval Jewish philosophy with a particular focus on the philosophy of Maimonides. He is a retired Professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa and has taught courses in philosophy, religious studies and medieval and modern Jewish philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis, the College of William and Mary, the University of Virginia and the University of Haifa.

He is probably best known for his book Must A Jew Believe Anything? which was a Koret Jewish Book Award finalist.

Biography

He was born in Albany, New York in 1946, and studied at the Hebrew Theological College in Skokie, Illinois and Yeshiva Mercaz HaRav in Jerusalem, Israel.

He studied philosophy and Jewish philosophy at Washington University receiving a BA, Masters and a PhD. His PhD. dissertation was directed by Steven Schwarzschild. In 1980 he made aliyah to Israel.

Publications

Books

• Dogma in Medieval Jewish Thought: From Maimonides to Abravanel (1986)
• Maimonides on Human Perfection (1990)
• Maimonides on Judaism and the Jewish People (1991)
• Maimonides on the "Decline of the Generations" and the Nature of Rabbinic Authority (1996)
• Must A Jew Believe Anything? (1999)
• Maimonides Confrontation with Mysticism (2006)
• Science in Bet Midrash: Studies in Maimonides (2009)
• Torah in the Observatory: Gersonides, Maimonides, Song of Songs (2010)
• Reinventing Maimonides in Contemporary Jewish Thought (2019)

Translations

• He is the translator of Isaac Abravanel’s Principles of Faith, Gersonides’ Commentary on Song of Songs, and Maimonides’ Book of Love.

References

• http://hcc.haifa.ac.il/Departments/jewish_history/philosophy/staff/mkellner.htm

External links

• 'Who is the Person Whom Rambam Says Can be "Consecrated as the Holy of Holies,"' Seforim Blog [1]