Dr. Benny Porat is an IDI researcher involved in the Religion and State and Judaism and Democracy projects. A graduate of the Or Etzion hesder yeshiva and MerKaz Harav in Jerusalem, he received a B.A. (magna cum laude) in the Humanities from the Open University, and an M.A. (magna cum laude) in Philosophy and Jewish Law from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His PhD dissertation on "Contract Interpretation in Talmudic Law" (2009) was submitted to the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was awarded distinction.
Dr. Porat's areas of research are Jewish Law and Jewish Political Thought. He has taught Jewish Law in the Law Faculties of the University of Haifa and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has served on the Board of the Shnaton ha-Mishpat ha-Ivri (The Jewish Law Yearbook), as a research fellow at the Shalem Center, as a researcher for the Keter Institute for Economics According to Jewish Law. He also conducts research in Jewish Law for the Israeli Ministry of Justice.
Among his Hebrew publications, Dr. Porat edited the IDI anthology Reflections on Jewish Democracy, in cooperation with Aviezer Ravitzky.
English publications by Dr. Benny Porat include:
- Haninah Ben-Menachem and Arye Edrei (eds.), Benny Porat (co-ed.), Selected Topics in Jewish Law (forthcoming – Boston University Press)
- Benny Porat, "Charity and Distributive Justice," in Arye Edrei and Hanina Ben-Menachem (eds.), Selected Topics in Jewish Law (forthcoming – Boston University Press).
Dr. Porat is married and the father of five children.