Dr. Joseph David is a Senior Researcher at IDI. He is a faculty member of the Faculty for Oriental Studies at The University of Oxford and Leverhulme Fellow in Jewish Studies at Wolfson College. His fields of research and teaching include Religious Law and Constitutionalism, Jewish and Islamic Political Thought, Comparative Jurisprudence and Legal History.
Dr. David has holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Jewish History from the Open University, an LL.B. from Bar-Ilan University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy and Jewish Thought from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the editor of The State of Israel: Between Judaism and Democracy (Israel Democracy Institute, 2003), and Questioning Dignity: Human Dignity as a Supreme Moral Value in Modern Society, (Magnes Press, 2006). He is also the author of the forthcoming Between Logos and Nomos – Studies in Jewish Comparative Jurisprudence.
In the past, he held academic positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, New York University, Haifa University, The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Selected Publications in English
Books
- Between Logos and Nomos – Studies in Jewish-Islamic Comparative Jurisprudence - Accepted for publication by Brill Academic Publishers. (Based on Ph.D. Dissertation: “‘Knowing the Word of God': Error, Analogy, Memory and Transmission in Early Medieval Rabbinic Thought”, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Supervisor: Prof. Moshe Halbertal; Approved: 2006).
- Tolerating Jews: Studies on Religious Tolerance within Judaism – Co-authors: Martin Goodman et al. (Expected to be published by 2011.)
Edited Books
- The State of Israel: Between Judaism and Democracy (Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, 2003)
Articles
- "Legal Comparability and Cultural Identity: The Case of Legal Reasoning in Jewish and Islamic Traditions” Electronic Journal of Comparative Law 13:4 (2009)
- “Maimonides, Nature and Natural Law,” Journal of Law, Philosophy and Culture, 2: 2
(Spring 2009)
- “Judaism and Peace – Between Responsibility and Identity” in: I. Yusuf (ed.), The Role of
Religious and Philosophical Traditions in Promoting World Peace (Konrad Adenauer Stiftung,
2007), pp. 43 – 90. (Co-author: A. Roznak)
- “‘The One Who Is More Violent Prevails’ - Law and Violence from a Talmudic Legal
Perspective” Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 19:2 (2006), pp. 385 – 406. Reprinted in: William H. Leckie, Jr. and Ken Mondschein (eds), The Pen and the Sword: Studies in Early Modern European Martial Culture, (United Kingdom: Ashgate) (Forthcoming)
- “Beyond the Janus Face of Zionist Legalism: The Theo-Political Conditions of the
Jewish Law Project”, Ratio Juris, 18:2 (2005), pp. 206 – 235.
- “Between the Bible and the Holocaust: Three Sources for Jewish Perspectives on Mass
Destruction”, in: S. Hashmi and S. Lee (eds.), Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Interview with Dr. Joseph David
Contact: yossid@idi.org.il