Miriam Shapira-Luria

Miriam Shapira-Luria, also known as Rabbanit Miriam, was a Talmudic scholar of the Late Middle Ages. According to academic Lawrence H. Fuchs, she was one of the "most noted" women Talmud scholars.

Family Miriam Shapira-Luria was born sometime in the 13th, Shapira-Luria's brother was the noted rabbi, Peretz of Konstanz. taught in Padua, Italy. She conducted a yeshiva (a higher institution for the study of central Jewish texts) and gave public lectures on Jewish codes of law. Female community teachers were rare in Jewish tradition but "not unheard of", according to Norma Baumel Joseph, who lists as other examples Huldah, Bruriah, Asenath Barzani, and Nechama Leibowitz (the latter's biographer, Yael Unterman, is a descendant of Shapira-Luria's herself).

Shapira-Luria was also known for her beauty, and she taught Talmud to elite young men from behind a curtain so that they would not get distracted by her appearance.

Descendants Shapira-Luria was the ancestress of the Luria rabbinical family, the grandmother of Solomon Luria (Maharshal), a posek (Jewish law decisor).