Yehuda Liebes

Yehuda Liebes (; born 1947) is an Israeli academic and scholar. He is the Gershom Scholem Professor Emeritus of Kabbalah at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Considered a leading scholar of Kabbalah, his research interests also include Jewish myth, Sabbateanism, and the links between Judaism and ancient Greek religion, Christianity, and Islam. He is the recipient of the 1997 Bialik Prize, the 1999 Gershom Scholem Prize for Kabbalah Research, the 2006 EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture, and the 2017 Israel Prize in Jewish thought.

Biography Yehuda Liebes was born in Jerusalem. They had two children, a daughter (Tamar, today head of the Department of Communications at Hebrew University) and a son (Yehuda). Scholem gave Liebes access to handwritten note cards he had prepared for a lexicon of Zohar terminology that he never wrote, His work is said to be representative of "the Hebrew University's new wave of kabbalistic research". Liebes explores the mythic and messianic dimensions in Judaism and Kabbalah, and Christian and Sabbatean influences on Kabbalah.

Liebes has also translated Greek, Latin, and Arabic religious poetry into Hebrew. Liebes also finds Christian and Sabbatean inspiration in the ideas of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov He was awarded the 2006 EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture, in the category of Humanities, for his work on Sabbateanism. In 2017 he received the Israel Prize for his work on Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism.

Published works

(with Gershom Scholem)