Ruth Langer |”Jewish Prayers for Divine Vengeance”

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.