Shaul Magid

Shaul Magid
Born	(1958-06-16) June 16, 1958
Academic background
Alma mater	Goddard College, Hebrew University, Brandeis University
Academic work
Sub-discipline	Jewish Studies
Institutions	Rice University, Jewish Theological Seminary, Indiana University, Dartmouth College
Website	https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/people/shaul-magid

Shaul Magid (born June 16, 1958) is a rabbi, Visiting Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at Harvard Divinity School, and Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. From 2004 to 2018, he was a professor of religious studies and the Jay and Jeannie Schottenstein Chair of Jewish Studies in Modern Judaism at Indiana University as well as a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. From 1996 to 2004, he was a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; he was chair of the Department of Jewish Philosophy from 2000-2004.

Education

Magid received his B.A. from Goddard College. He received his semicha (rabbinical ordination) in Jerusalem in 1984 from Rabbis Chaim Brovender, Yaacov Warhaftig, and Zalman Nechemia Goldberg. He became a candidate Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and a graduate student in Medieval and Modern Jewish Thought at Hebrew University, where he completed his MA in 1989. He obtained his Ph.D. in Jewish thought from Brandeis University in 1994.

Career

Magid served as a visiting professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst, Clark University and Boston University. He was the Anna Smith Fine Chair in Jewish Thought at Rice University from 1994 to 1996 and then joined the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America before leaving for Indiana University. In 2023-2024, Magid was a Visiting Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at the Harvard Divinity School.

Major research grants include a 2015-2016 research fellowship at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at The University of Pennsylvania and 2017-2018 National Endowment for the Humanities, Senior Fellowship at the Center for Jewish History for a book project on "American Jewish Survivalism: Meir Kahane and the Politics of Pride." He is an elected member of the American Academy of Jewish Research.

He has served as the rabbi of the Fire Island Synagogue since 1997. He is a former contributing editor at Tablet Magazine and is the editor of Jewish Thought and Culture for Tikkun Magazine.

Magid's books include:

• Hasidism on the Margin: Reconciliation, Antinomianism, and Messianism in Izbica and Radzin Hasidism (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003),
• From Metaphysics to Midrash: Myth, History, and the Interpretation of Scripture in Lurianic Kabbala (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008),
• American Post-Judaism: Identity and Renewal in a Postethnic Society (Indiana University Press, 2013),
• Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Stanford University Press, 2014),
• Piety and Rebellion: Essays in Hasidism (Academic Studies press, 2019) and
• The Bible, the Talmud, and the New Testament: Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik's Commentary to the New Testament (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019).
• Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical (Princeton University Press, 2021)
• The Necessity of Exile (Ayin Press, 2023)

His book From Metaphysics to Midrash was awarded the 2008 American Academy of Religion Award for best book in religion in the textual studies category. He is the editor of God's Voice from the Void: Old and New Essays on Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav (SUNY Press, 2001) and co-editor of Beginning Again: Toward a Hermeneutic of Jewish Texts (Seven Bridges Press, 2002). His essays have been published in Moment Magazine, Open Zion, Religion Dispatches, Tablet Magazine, Tikkun Magazine, and Zeek Magazine.

Following the publication of The Necessity of Exile, Magid became a prominent voice for American Jews who wish to rethink the place of Zionism in their Jewish identities, recentering Judaism over nationalism and calling for "a return to religion as 'always the thing that's going to keep us together.'"

Shaul Magid at the "Jews and Black Theory" conference, Harvard Faculty Club, May 2024

In May 2024, Magid co-convened (with Terrence L. Johnson) an academic conference: "Jews and Black Theory: Conceptualizing Otherness in the Twenty-First Century." He gave opening remarks and chaired a session titled, "Blackness, Whiteness, and Double Consciousness."

Personal life

Magid grew up as a non-observant Jew in New York when, at the age of 20, he became interested in learning more about Judaism. He became involved with the Haredi movement and studied Modern Orthodoxy, but after several years he "...abandoned Orthodoxy more generally yet remained fascinated by, and deeply invested in, the complex nexus of Judaism and the American counter-culture". He is often quoted on such issues in the popular press; for instance, he recently discussed Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead in relation to Judaism, speaking from the perspective of "an ordained rabbi and a professor of Jewish and religious studies at Indiana University who was also present for the Dead’s legendary performance on the grounds of Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey on Sept. 3, 1977."

Magid has had a longstanding romantic and creative partnership with Jewish musician Basya Schechter, which whom he released a 2024 album of Appalachian and Jewish music with extensive liner notes. As noted in a review of the album in Musica Judaica, "Cantor Basya Schechter and Rabbi Shaul Magid developed a localized musical tradition of setting Kabbalat Shabbat texts to Appalachian old-time music... over the course of a decade" together at Fire Island, resulting in "a timeless, transcendent musical experience"