Programme
“Maimonides on Wholesome Living”, Professor Tzvi Langermann, Department of Arabic, Bar Ilan University
Introduction and Vote of Thanks by Professor Elio Riboli, Director of the School of Public Health at Imperial College London
“Maimonides in Jewish Thought”, Dr. Naftali Loewenthal, lecturer in Jewish Spirituality at UCL
“Philosophical Aspects of Maimonides”, Dr. Israel Sandman, Research Fellow at Dept. of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, UCL
Biographies
Professor Tzvi Langermann
Born and raised in the vicinity of Boston, USA, attended Maimonides School, Boston University, and earne a PhD in History of Science from Harvard. In Israel worked at Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, Jerusalem, before joining the Department of Arabic at Bar Ilan in 1997. Author of many books and article, etc., most recently edited (and contributed a chapter) to Monotheism and Ethics, published by Brill in November 2011
Dr Tali (Naftali) Loewenthal
Born in Haifa, he was brought up in London, attending Hackney Downs School. He studied Hebrew Literature and Jewish History at University College London (1968-71), followed by a PhD on Hasidism (1981). He is the author of Communicating the Infinite: the Emergence of the Habad School (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1990) and many articles, both academic and popular.
Dr Loewenthal lectures part-time in the Department on topics in Jewish Spirituality such as Hasidic Prayer, Rabbinic Eschatology and the concept of Jewish Self-Sacrifice. However his main focus for the past few years has been on Hasidism and modernity, since he has been working on a broad research project on this theme and writing a book about it.
The students taking this course are therefore helping to produce a book. This will hopefully be published with the title Hippy in the Mikveh.
Tali Loewenthal frequently lectures at academic conferences, in this country and abroad. His wife Kate-Miriam is Professor of Psychology at Royal Holloway University of London. They are both active members of the Chabad-Lubavitch educational movement and have a large family.
Dr Israel Moshe Sandman
His areas of research include medieval Jewish thought, and medieval Hebrew manuscripts. As part of the team working on the Arts and Humanities Research Council project ‘Medieval Hebrew Monographs on the Jewish Calendar’ (together with Dr Ilana Wartenberg, directed by Professor Sacha Stern), he critically edits the Hebrew texts from the manuscripts, renders the text into annotated English translation, and explores literary, paleographical, cultural, and historical issues that emerge from the textual work.
Dr Sandman received his PhD from the University of Chicago’s Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations in 2006. His doctoral dissertation, The Meshobeb Netibot of Samuel Ibn Matut (‘Motot’): Introductory Excursus, Critical Edition and Annotated Translation, is the editio princeps of this 14th century Sephardic work that synthesizes Kabbalah and philosophy.
Before arriving at UCL, he taught Jewish studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at Loyola University Chicago.