First Woman Talmud lecturer

Leo Baeck College is delighted to welcome Laliv Clenman, its first full-time woman lecturer in Talmud and Rabbinic Literature. In late August Dr Clenman successfully defended her PhD dissertation at the University of Toronto investigating intermarriage and Jewish identity in Rabbinic Literature. She will be lecturing at Leo Baeck College on the new MA Programme in Jewish Studies held jointly with Kings College, London, where she will be a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies. Dr Clenman previously taught at the University of Toronto.

Dr Clenman steps into the post vacated by Dr Moshe Lavee, now teaching at the University of Haifa.

On Tuesday 8 September Dr Clenman presented a shiur in Talmud to a combined meeting of the Assembly of Reform Rabbis and Liberal Rabbinic Conference. It is planned that she will lead a City shiur for businessmen and women in the City of London in the New Year.

Rabbi Dr Michael Shire, Vice-Principal remarked, “We are fortunate to have found a wonderful young scholar of rabbinic literature who is an excellent and exciting teacher of Jewish texts. As a mark of her charisma one of our graduating students on the search committee asked if she could come back to study with Dr Clenman.”