Get to Know the Head of the Department

Prof. Barak Shlomo Cohen (49, married to Mali + 3 wonderful children) Born in Montreal, Canada, he currently resides in Givat Shmuel

Head of the Department of Talmud and Oral Law from academic year 2023/24

Bachelor's degree in Jewish History, The Open University

Master's degree in Talmud, Bar-Ilan University

Doctorate in Talmud, Bar-Ilan University

What's a surprising fact about you? I love ice hockey and am a fan of the Montreal Canadiens. I als enjoy reading spy novels.

What did you want to be in your childhood? Is there any connection to your research field today? I really wanted to study medicine. I volunteered at Magen David Adom (MDA) from a young age, in the mobile intensive care unit in Ramat Gan MDA (after completing a 72-hour MDA course). Unfortunately, the dream hasn't come true, at least not yet...

Share with us a special or funny experience from your student life or academic journey? In 2017, I wrote research on the contribution of an important scholar of rabbinic literature and the founder of research on the intellectual history of Babylonian Amoraim - Prof. Wilhelm (Benjamin Zeev) Bacher (died in December 1913). He was one of the three founders of the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest and among the most important researchers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During the research writing, I had the privilege of being hosted at his family's home in Budapest. His elderly grandson (Dr. Vilmos Bacher, an international law researcher) opened up his grandfather's personal archive to me, including his letters, unpublished research notes, and other personal matters. It was a very moving and special experience to meet Prof. Bacher from this unique personal perspective. From this material, I learned much about this personality (personal details unknown to contemporary researchers).

What was the last book you read? Which book have you read more than once? What are the three must-read books in your department's field? The last book I read is the new research by Prof. Judith Hauptman from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York (2023): Judith Hauptman, Halakhic Anecdotes in the Babylonian Talmud. The book reveals the halakhic role of legal anecdotes in the Babylonian Talmud and other important matters related to Talmudic terminology. A book I've read more than once is Dr. Hanan Gafni's 'The Simple Meaning of the Mishna': Studies in Modern Research of Rabbinic Literature. The book is important and provides background for understanding the historiographical writing methods that characterized researchers of rabbinic literature from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Three must-read books: (1) David Halivni, Sources and Traditions: Studies in the Formation of the Talmud (2) Isaiah Gafni, The Jews of Babylonia in the Talmudic Era: A Social and Cultural History (3) Richard Kalmin, Jewish Babylonia: Between Persia and Roman Palestine

What's the most surprising country you visited due to your research, and in what context? Hungary (see above).

If you weren't in academia, you would be a doctor.

Which thinker in your field, or among your teachers, or perhaps even among students, gave you special inspiration, caused you to change your mind, or motivated you to think or act? The head of the Talmud Department at Bar-Ilan University, and my actual advisor for my Master's and Doctoral work - Prof. Meir Simcha HaCohen Feldblum of blessed memory. He was a Torah scholar, a Holocaust survivor with a noble soul, possessed a classic Lithuanian sense of humor (sharp and witty), and someone for whom students were always the top priority. In 2003, while I was writing my doctoral dissertation, Prof. Feldblum became very ill and could no longer function. The most important thing for him in his most difficult hour was to give me his comments on the dissertation chapters with detailed guidance on research directions. He also informed me that he had taken care of all administrative matters in the department, including finding an alternative advisor. He passed away a month later. My son Meir Chaim is named after him. As head of the Talmud Department, one of the most important issues for me too is caring for students (optimal guidance for research students, quality of teaching in the department, and providing maximum service to students who enter the department). They should feel at home.