Visiting Instructor of Religious Studies

Benedict Hall 108
315-859-4136
yshemesh@hamilton.edu

Yonatan Shemesh studies intellectual history and the reception of philosophy and science in medieval Jewish cultures. His research traces texts and ideas that originated in the Islamic world and later transformed the Jewish communities of Christian Europe. Shemesh is a co-editor of Maimonides’ “Guide of the Perplexed” in Translation: A History from the Thirteenth Century to the Twentieth (University of Chicago Press, 2019). He is currently completing a Ph.D. in the history of Judaism at the University of Chicago, where he previously earned a Masters in Religion. His dissertation examines Moses Narboni’s fourteenth-century commentary on Maimonides’ Guide and demonstrates the many ways in which Islamic philosophy shaped the interpretation of the Guide in late medieval Judaism.