Miriam Udel

Miriam Udel is Judith London Evans Director of the Tam Institute of Jewish Studies and associate professor of Yiddish language, literature, and culture at Emory University, where she studies the Jewish encounter with modernity. She holds an AB in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and a PhD in Comparative Literature, both from Harvard University. Udel was ordained in 2019 as part of the first cohort of the Executive Ordination Track at Yeshivat Maharat, a program designed to bring qualified mid-career women into the Orthodox rabbinate. In the Jewish community, she enjoys teaching about narrative midrash and medieval biblical interpretation as well as Yiddish culture. With grace and imagination, she stages meaningful textual encounters between classical and modern Jewish literary sources. She uses “darshanit” (interpreter) as her rabbinic title, both as a descriptor of her contribution and in recognition of such historical figures as Rivka bas Me’ir Tiktiner, the first woman known to have published a book in Yiddish, identified as harabanit vehadarshanit.

https://miriamudel.com