Meira Polliack is Professor of Bible at the Department of Biblical Studies, Tel Aviv University. She received her BA cum laude from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1988), and MPhil (1989) and PhD (1993) from Cambridge University, England. Her professional experience includes a research assistantship at the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library (1992-5); Lady Davis post-doctoral fellowship, Department of Arabic Language and Literature, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1995-6) and the Alon Fellowship Lectureship, Department of Bible, Tel Aviv University (1996-9). Polliack served as head of the Bible Program at the Department of Hebrew Culture Studies, Tel Aviv University, and Chair of the Teaching Committee of the D Department of Biblical Studies, Tel Aviv University (2006-9). She was Jacob and Hilda Blaustein visiting professor of Judaic Studies at Yale University (2009-10), and was head of the Interdisciplinary Program in Jewish Studies at the Department of Biblical Studies, Tel Aviv University (2010-13). She was chair of the Teaching Committee of the Faculty of Humanities, Tel Aviv University (2011-2014). Since 2008 she is the senior academic coordinator of the research project on the culture of Jews of the medieval Islamic world at the Center for Diaspora Research, Tel Aviv University.
Polliack’s Research Interests are Medieval Bible translation and exegesis; modern literary approaches to the Bible; Judaeo-Arabic literature; Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic sources in the Cairo Genizah; intellectual and cultural history of the Jews in the medieval Islamic world; historical development of biblical hermeneutics and notions of biblical narrative.
Select Publications— Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, Arabic Old Series (T-S ar.1a-54) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001 [with C.F. Baker]). http://www.cambridge.org/il/academic/subjects/religion/judaism/arabic-and-judaeo-arabic-manuscripts-cambridge-genizah-collections-arabic-old-series-t-s-ar1a-54.
— (Ed.) Karaite Judaism: A Guide to its History and Literary Sources (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2003. http://www.brill.com/karaite-judaism.
— (With Eliezer Schlossberg.) ‘Historical-literary, Rhetorical and Redactional Methods of Interpretation in Yefet ben Eli’s Introduction to the Minor Prophets’. In Exegesis and Grammar in Medieval Karaite Texts (ed. Geoffrey Khan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 1-39. http://global.oup.com/academic/product/exegesis-and-grammar-in-medieval-karaite-texts-9780198510659?lang=en&cc=us#.
— ‘Arabic Bible Translations in the Cairo Genizah Collections’, in Jewish Studies in a New Europe (ed. Ulf Haxen et al. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel A/S International Publishers, 1998, pp. 595-620.
— ‘Bible Translations: Judeo-Arabic (Ninth to the Thirteenth Centuries), in Encyclopedia of the Jews of the Islamic World, Volume One (ed. Norman A. Stillman. Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2010), pp. 464-469. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world/bible-translations-SIM_000115.
— with Ilana Sasson: ‘The Book of the Law in the House of the Lord is a Copy (‘nuskha’) Written by Moses: Yefet ben Eli’s Commentary on 2 Kings 22:1-23:3’, Ginzei Qedem 10 (2014): 157-190.
— with Marzena Zawanowska: “‘God Would not Give the Land, but to the Obedient’: Medieval Karaite Responses to the Curse of Canaan (Genesis 9:25)”, in The Gift of the Land and the Fate of the Canaanites in Jewish Thought, from Antiquity to the Modern Period, eds. K. Berthelot, J. E. David and M. Hirshman, Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 112–152.
— With Sivan Nir: “Many Beautiful Meanings can be Drawn from such a Comparison”: On the Medieval Interaction View of Biblical Metaphor in Exegesis and Poetry in Medieval Karaite and Rabbanite Texts, Karaite Texts and Studies Volume 9. ed. J. Yeshaya and E. Hollender. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2016,forthcoming), pp. 51-100.
— “Biblical Narrative and the Textualization of Oral Tradition: Innovations in Medieval Judaeo-Arabic Biblical Exegesis,” in A.A. Hussein and A. Oettinger (eds.), Ben ‘Ever la-‘Arav, Contacts between Arabic Literature and Jewish literature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times,Vol. VI, A Collection of Studies dedicated to Prof. Yosi Tobi on the Occasion of His Retirement (Haifa: The University of Haifa, 2014), 109-152 [in Hebrew].
— “On the ‘Literal Sense’ in Medieval Jewish Exegesis and Daniel Al-Qumisi’s Contribution to the Semanitc Study of the Hebrew Bible” in M. Avioz, E. Assis and Y. Shemesh (eds.), Zer Rimonim: Studies in Biblical Literature and Jewish Exegesis Presented to Professor Rmon Kasher (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature), 2013, pp. 390-415 [in Hebrew].
— “Semantics of Hebrew in Medieval Arabic Bible Translation and Interpretation”, in: Geoffrey Khan et al. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (EHLL), Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2013, 1-10.
— “The Unseen Joints of the Text’: On the Medieval Judaeo-Arabic Concept of Elision (Ikhtiṣār) and its Gap-filling Functions in Biblical Interpretation” in: A. Brenner and F. H. Polak (eds.), Words, Ideas, Worlds in the Hebrew Bible – The Yairah Amit Festschrift , Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012, 179-205.
— “Concepts of Scripture among the Jews of the Islamic World” in: Benjamin D. Sommer (ed.), Jewish Concepts of Scripture, A Comparative Introduction, New York: New York University Press, 2012, 80-101.
Editorial Work
From 2006 – Section Editor (Medieval Arabic Speaking World), Encyclopedia of the Jews in the Islamic World (Executive editor: Norman A. Stillman. Brill). www.brill.nl/ejiw.
From 2007—General Editor (with Michael G. Wechsler) of the Series Karaite Texts and Studies, in association with the series Études sur le judaïsme médiéval (editor: Paul Fenton, Brill).
From 2012 — Area Editor (Arabic Translations) of The Handbook of the Textual History of the Bible (general editors: Armin Lange, Emmanuel Tov. Brill).
