Theology Department Faculty
Ruth Langer
Professor; Director of Graduate Studies
Ruth Langer
Ph.D.
Contact
Stokes Hall 411N
Telephone: 617-552-8492
Email: ruth.langer@bc.edu
ORCID 0000-0001-6862-3966
Education
- A.B., Bryn Mawr College
- MAHL, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion
- Rabbinic Ordination, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion
- Ph.D., Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion
Courses
- Judaism and Christianity in Dialogue
- Jewish Prayer
- Passover in Midrash and Talmud
- How Does Israel Matter?
- Jews and Christians: Understanding the Other
- Jews and Christians: Reading the Bible
Research Interests
- Jewish liturgy
- Christian-Jewish relations
Biography
Ruth Langer is Professor of Jewish Studies in the Theology Department at Boston College, its Director of Graduate Studies, and Associate Director of its Center for Christian-Jewish Learning. She received her Ph.D. in Jewish Liturgy in 1994 and her rabbinic ordination in 1986 from Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Her scholarship addresses two primary areas: the development of Jewish liturgy and ritual from antiquity to today; and Christian-Jewish relations. Her book, Cursing the Christians?: A History of the Birkat HaMinim (Oxford University Press, 2012), combines these two interests, tracing the transformations of a Jewish prayer that was, until modernity, a curse of Christians. Several articles similarly trace the history of other prayers that were objects of Christian censorship, including the aleynu.
She is also author of To Worship God Properly: Tensions between Liturgical Custom and Halakhah in Judaism, published in 1998 (Hebrew Union College Press). This book examines the interplay between liturgical law and custom in the medieval world, investigating the tensions between rabbinic dictates and the actual practices and understandings of the community. She also published Jewish Liturgy: A Guide to Research (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), an annotated bibliography of over 1000 entries of English-language studies of Jewish liturgy accessible to those from outside the Jewish Studies world. She also co-edited Enabling Dialogue About the Land: A Resource Book for Jews and Christians (Paulist Press, 2020) and Liturgy in the Life of the Synagogue (Eisenbrauns, 2005). She has also published over 100 articles.