Ronit Irshai is a lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the gender studies program at Bar Ilan University and a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman institute in Jerusalem. She has been a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School during the academic year of 2007-2008. Irshai was educated in the fields of Jewish Philosophy, Philosophy of law and Gender Studies. She was also trained in Talmud and rabbinic studies. Her research focuses on gender and Jewish Law (halakhah), philosophy of halakhah, religious feminism, bioethics, and feminist jurisprudence and its relation to Jewish law. She is the author of over fifteen articles and her first book: Fertility and Jewish Law – Feminist Perspectives on Orthodox Responsa Literature was published by Brandeis University Press in 2012.

Research

• Gender and Modern Halakha (Jewish Law).
• Philosophy of Halakhah; Jewish sexual ethics.
• LGBTQ and halakhah; Religious Feminism.
• Theology and Gender.
• Fertility and halakhah.