Alexandria Frisch

Assistant Professor

Judaic Studies, Second Temple Literature, Dead Sea Scrolls

Dr. Alexandria Frisch holds a Ph.D. in Second Temple Judaism from New York University, an M.A. in Religion from Yale Divinity School, and an M.A. in Jewish Education from Baltimore Hebrew University. Frisch is the author of The Danielic Discourse on Empire in Second Temple Literature (Brill 2017), which examines empire in Second Temple literature through a postcolonial lens. Frisch has been a fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, The Tikvah Center for Jewish Law and Civilization at NYU, and The Yeshiva University Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization at Cardozo Law School. She is interested in the literary deployment of the representation of the body in Second Temple literature and is currently working on a book project that expands this interest to questions of purity, trauma and healing.

Selected Publications

“Defending Susanna: Reexamining Judicial Silence in an Apocryphal Courtroom,” in Diné Israel 38 (2024): 33-54.

“The Qumran Sectarians in an Imperial Context: A Postcolonial Reading of Pesher Habakkuk,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: New Insights on Ancient Texts, eds. Lawrence H. Schiffman and Alex P. Jassen (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), 199-224.

“On Animals, Autonomy, and Apocalypticism in Daniel,” in Humanimal: The Bible and ‘Animal’ Others, eds. Dong Hyeon Jeong, Suzanna Millar, and Megan Remmington, Biblical Interpretation 31 (2023): 546-567.

“The Apocalyptic Moses of Second Temple Literature,” in Essays on the Moses Tradition in Jewish Thought, eds. Mark Leuchter and Zeb Farber. Hebrew Union College Annual 90 (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 2019): 185-208.

Alexandria Frisch and Lawrence H. Schiffman, “The Body at Qumran: Flesh and Spirit, Purity and Impurity in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Dead Sea Discoveries 23 (2016): 1-28.

“Worms, Rotting Flesh, and Falling Bowels: The Power of Disgust in a Motif of Kingly Death in Early Jewish Literature,” Diné Israel 29 (2012): 33-56.

Education

Ph.D., New York University, Hebrew and Judaic Studies Department (2013)

M.A. Religion, Yale University, Divinity School (2006)

M.A. Jewish Ed., Baltimore Hebrew University (2004)

B.A. in Religion and History, The College of William and Mary (2000)