Rachel Adelman
A graduate of Matan’s M.A. Program in Hebrew Bible, Rachel Adelman went on to complete her PhD in Hebrew Literature (with a specialty in midrash) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2007/8, she was the Ray D. Wolfe post-doctoral fellow in Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto and last year was a visiting assistant professor at Miami University, in Ohio. She teaches Hebrew Bible and Midrash at Matan, The Sadie Rennert Women’s Institute for Torah Study, in Jerusalem, and lectures widely in North America and England. In the fall of 2009, her first book – The Return of the Repressed: Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer and the Pseudepigrapha – was published by Brill. She is currently working on her second – The Female Ruse – Women’s Deception and Divine Sanction in the Hebrew Bible . Next year, she will be a Research Associate in the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard University.

Naftali S. Cohn
Naftali Cohn is Assistant Professor of Religion at Concordia University in Montreal. He received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Harvard University, his M.A. in Talmudic Studies from Yeshiva University, Rabbinic Ordination from Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, and his PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Pennsylvania. His research, which draws on ritual theory, narrative theory, feminist theory, and cultural theory more generally, focuses on the Mishnah as a text, on the Mishnah as a rabbinic discourse, and on the Mishnah in its ancient setting. His first book, The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis , is currently in the publication process.

Admiel Kosman
Admiel Kosman is currently a full Professor, holding the Chair for Rabbinic Studies at the University of Potsdam, and is the Academic Director of Geiger College in Berlin. His books include: Men’s Tractate (Keter, 2002); Women’s Tractate (Keter, 2007); Femininity in the Spiritual World of the Talmudic Story (Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2008); Men’s World: Reading Masculinity in Jewish Stories in a Spiritual Context (Ergon, 2009); and Studies in Male-Female Relationships (de Gruyter, in press). He is also the author of eight collections of poetry in Hebrew, and is the editor of an anthology of religious poetry (with Meiron Isakson).

Gail Labovitz
Gail Labovitz is Associate Professor of Rabbinics at the American Jewish University, where she teaches rabbinic literature and Jewish law for the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. Her book, Marriage and Metaphor: Constructions of Gender in Rabbinic Literature , was published by Lexington Books in 2009. She has also served as a Senior Research Analyst for the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project at Brandeis University and as the Coordinator of the Jewish Feminist Research Group, a project of the Women’s Studies Program at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. She is currently serves as the co-chair of the Women’s Caucus of the Association for Jewish Studies, and is the founder and coordinator of the Dr. Elka Klein Memorial Travel Grant.