The Matanel Prize for Jewish Thought

Vision

The purpose of the project is to provide the World Union of Jewish Studies, at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the honor to offer the most important Prize in the field of Jewish thought.

Activity

Once every two years, $25,000 will be awarded to the writer of the book judged the best in the field of Jewish Thought. If the judges wish, they may divide the prize between two recipients. The Matanel prize for Jewish thought is open to scholars who hold a Ph.d. degree. The Prize committee, chaired by Prof, Moshe Idel and coordinated by Yaacov Deutsch, maintains the right to accept exceptional candidates.

Get ourselves a friend" (Mishnah Avot 1:6) "(that is) acquire books.

- Rashi

Moshe Idel

Currently Professor Emeritus, Max Cooper Professor of Jewish Thought, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. For his transformative research into Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism, for development of methodology which introduces phenomenological modes of investigation and the development of theoretical tools that have facilitated interchanges between his field and other domains of Religious Studies. Moshe Idel has dealt with relations between mystical and other trends, halakha, renewal and change in Judaism; he has delved into hermeneutics, placed religious practice in new light; and examined the place of ‘myth’, ‘ritual’ and mystical techniques at various stages of Jewish religious development. His work has evoked the interest of the greatest interpreters of intellectual and religious heritage of the West, including Umberto Eco, Harold Bloom and Jacques Derrida. He has authored over 20 books and edited eight volumes, and his books were translated in many languages. He has been instrumental in the development of Jewish Studies as an international academic field and in the revival of Jewish Studies in Eastern and Central Europe. Professor Moshe Idel was born in Târgu Neamţ, Romania in 1947. He holds the Max Cooper Chair in Jewish Thought at The Hebrew University. He is Professor Emeritus since 2008. He chaired the Department of Jewish Thought in 1992-1994. Professor Idel received his PhD in Kabbalah, summa cum laude from The Hebrew University in 1976. He has been a Visiting Professor at Yale, Harvard, and Princeton Universities, the University of Pennsylvania, at the College de France and at Ecole de Hautes Etudes en sciences sociale in Paris, at Dartmouth College, and UCLA, and taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. He has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Studies at The Hebrew University, and The Tikvah and Straus Institutes at NYU, and served as Head of the Academic Committee of Makhon Ben-Zvi and of the Centre of Jewish Music at the National Library of Israel. He is a member of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Among his numerous awards and honours, he received the Koret Prize, the EMET Prize, the Jewish National Book Award and the Gershom Scholem Prize for Research in Kabbalah at the Israeli Academy, and the Israel Prize for Jewish Thought in 1999.