Scholar-in-Residence in Jewish Studies and Jewish-Christian Relations

Benny Bar-Lavi, Ph.D (2023-24)

Benny Bar-Lavi, Ph.D. is Providence College’s inaugural Scholar-in-Residence in Jewish Studies and Jewish-Christian Relations. He is a member of the Department of Theology for the 2023-24 academic year.

The scholar-in-residence program is the culmination of years of effort by PC’s Jewish-Catholic Theological Exchange, which was established by the theology department in 2007. Its goal is to bring together academic expertise and teaching excellence in Jewish studies with a commitment to interreligious dialogue, and to advance the college’s mission by fostering interreligious learning, understanding, and friendship through intellectual engagement and personal encounter.

Bar-Lavi is co-teaching a course, Jews and Christians in Dialogue, with Arthur Urbano, Ph.D., professor of theology and director of the Jewish-Catholic Theological Exchange. The two also will teach a Development of Western Civilization colloquium in the spring semester, Judaism as an Idea in Western Civilization. Also in the spring, Bar-Lavi and Urbano will offer a course on the development of Judaism and Christianity in late antiquity for Delve Deeper, an educational initiative sponsored by a consortium of local synagogues and Jewish organizations that brings college-level courses to a diverse group of adult learners in Rhode Island.

As part of several outreach events for the campus and public communities, Bar-Lavi plans to host informal campus meetings on the history and teachings of Judaism, a spring mini-conference, and a forum on the influence of Moses Maimonides on Thomistic theology.

Raised in Mexico City and Israel, Bar-Lavi earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where he also taught courses in Jewish civilization and in the history of political thought. His research interests include early modern European history, Judaism and Islam in Christian and post-Christian thought, and political theology. He is writing a book, Politics Against God: Judaism and Islam in the Political-Theological Discourses of Early Modernity.