Dr. Eli Schonfeld

Philosophy & Jewish Thought
Chair of the Philosophy & Jewish Thought Department
Ph.D., Philosophy, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Masters, Philosophy, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Bachelor’s, Philosophy and Economics, Bar-Ilan University

Dr. Eli Schonfeld teaches Jewish and European philosophy in the Interdisciplinary Program in Philosophy and Jewish Thought at Shalem College.

Dr. Schonfeld holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Over the years, he was a pupil and personal assistant to Jewish-French thinker Benny Lévy and was involved in establishing the Institute for Levinas studies in Jerusalem. He was a post-doctoral fellow at New York University and at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Together with Yeeshai Mevorach, he founded the “Beit Midrash Shem Ve’Ever,” where he teaches an annual course for the general public. Among his books are The Wonder of Subjectivity: A Study in the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (Resling, 2007, in Hebrew), Mendelssohn’s Apology: The Birth of Modern Jewish Philosophy (Verdier, 2019, in French), and recently, The Remnant: Kafka’s Letter. A Study on the Limits of Judaism (De Gruyter, 2024).

Selected Publications

Books

The Remnant: Kafka's Letter. A Study on the Limits of Judaism (De Gruyter, 2024).

The Apology of Mendelssohn: An Inquiry into the Birth of Modern Jewish Philosophy (Paris: Verdier, 2016). [French]

The Wonder of Subjectivity: A Reading of Levinas’ Philosophy (Tel Aviv: Resling, 2007). [Hebrew]

Selected Articles in Books and Journals

“Making Sense of God: Samson Raphael Hirsch and Franz Rosenzweig on Translation and Anthropomorphisms,” Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy, 31 (2023), pp. 187-214.

“Consolation Beyond Theodicy: A Phenomenological Hermeneutics of Isaiah’s Prophecies of Consolation,” in M. Kavka, L. Levy, and A. Dailey (eds.), Unsettling Jewish Knowledge: Text, Contingency, Desire (Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023), pp. 117-132.

“The Tragedy of Tragedy: Levinas reads Hamlet,” Levinas Studies, 16 (2022), pp. 39-57.

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