Profile
Noam Lefler is a historian specialising in early modern Jewish history. He completed his PhD at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where his dissertation extensively explores the responses of a 17th-century Jewish Messianic sect following the death of their Messiah, Sabbatai Sevi.
Noam is currently working on the AHRC project "Hidden in Plain Sight," a major research initiative that employs innovative technologies to explore how ancient books were used, modified, and venerated.
Research
Research Interests:
Noam's research interests centre on religious responses to change, both in theory and practice. His current study focuses on material alterations in late medieval religious codices and the insights these changes provide.
Publications
Books
Cardoso, Abraham Michael. Drush Boker d’Abraham. Critically edited and introduced by Noam Lefler, Holzer Books, Jerusalem. 2024.
Yakhini, Abraham. Vavey ha-Ammudim. Critically edited and introduced by Noam Lefler, Cherub Press, Los Angeles, 2022.
Israel, Hazan. Commentary on Psalms. Critically edited and introduced by Noam Lefler, Cherub Press, Los Angeles, 2016.
Articles
Lefler, Noam. ‘Abraham Yakhini’s Dreams – Annotated Edition’. Jewish Thought Journal of the Goldstein-Goren International Center for Jewish Thought (5) 2024, pp. 114-133.
Lefler, Noam. 'Between Raza De Me’eimenuta and Me’eimenuta De Cula – secret and exposure in the late Sabbatian thought’. El Prezente: studies in Sephardic culture, 2024.
Lefler, Noam. ‘The emergence of the occultation doctrine in Modena’. In: Sabbatianism in Context: Jewish Messianism in Italy and the Mediterranean. Penn State University Press, In press.
Lefler, Noam. A critical edition of ‘Abraham’s vision’ and two different commentaries; a critical edition of Nathan of Gaza letter to Poland. In: In the Footsteps of the Messiah: by Gershom Scholem, and now reprinted with emendations and additions by Jonatan Meir, Jerusalem and Berlin, 2021.
Lefler, Noam. ‘A prophet of an absent Messiah’. El Prezente: studies in Sephardic culture (12-13) 2021. pp. 154-176.
Lefler, Noam. ‘When They Came to Take Her from the Clouds She was Already Adorned: The Homily of the Generation of the Flood in And I Came this Day unto the Fountain’. In: R. Jonathan Eibeschütz. And I Came this Day unto the Fountain. Critically edited and introduced by Paweł Maciejko, Cherub Press, Los Angeles, 2014.
Other
Lefler, Noam. ‘Non Deus ex Machina’. Sam Spiegel film and television school, Jerusalem, 2008.
Public Engagement
‘The Sabbatian theology, amulets for parturient and heresy’. Yad Ben Zvi, Jerusalem, May 2023 (online).
‘Converso Kabbalah: Avraham Miguel Cardoso as a Test Case’. Christian Kabbalah, April 2023, Baltimore, MD.
‘New Studies on the Sabbatean Doctrine of Occultation’. The 18th World Congress of Jewish Studies, August 2022, Jerusalem, Israel.
‘Five amulets four lands three communities two Rabbis and one Sabbatai Sevi’. The National Library of Israel, January 2022 (online).
‘Sabbatian Occultation Doctrine - re-examination’. El Prezente (12-13) Journal launching event, December 2020 (online).
‘Sabbateanism in Italy and its Mediterranean context’. The Italian theology laboratory or: the emergence of the occultation doctrine in Modena, January 2019, Rome, Italy.
‘A prophet of an absent Messiah’. From Gaza to Skopje: Nathan, the Prophet of Sabbatianism, in History, Literature and Philosophy, July 2018, Skopje, North Macedonia.
‘Abraham Michael Cardozo as a prototype of a professional excommunicated persona’. The theory and practice of the Herem, April 2018, Baltimore, MD.
