Jewish StudiesLanguages, Literatures & Cultures
Noam Cohen
Visiting Assistant Professor, Modern Hebrew & Jewish Studies
Education
- PhD, New York University
- MA, New York University
- MA, Brandeis University
- BA, Brandeis University
Teaching Interests
I teach elementary and intermediate Hebrew language courses, where we not only learn Hebrew, but also explore Hebrew-language culture, including music, comics, and news. I also teach a variety of Jewish Studies courses, including courses on antisemitism, wine in Judaism, and local Jewish history.
Research and Scholarship
My scholarship focuses on ancient Israel and surrounding cultures. In particular, I explore how gendered violence was portrayed in the Hebrew Bible and in cuneiform texts, aiming to learn not only about historical violence, but also how and why people talked about violence.
- Antisemitism Past & Present
- Elementary Hebrew I
- Elementary Hebrew II
- Intermediate Hebrew I
- Intermediate Hebrew II
- Jewish Allentown: American Jewish History in Local Experience
Peer-reviewed Publications
- “Turning Men into Women: Sexual Violence and Constructions of Gender in the Middle Assyrian Period.” With Samantha Rainford. Forthcoming in Interdisciplinary Approaches to Identity and Violence in the Ancient Near East, edited by Shane Thompson, Anthony Soohoo, and Laura Battini (Oxford: Oxbow).
- “A Married Woman’s Right to Intercourse: Schoolboys, Law, and Female Sexuality,” in The Bloomsbury Handbook on Religion, Gender, and Sexuality in the Ancient Near East, Shawna Dolansky and Sarah Shectman, eds. (July 2025)
- “The Iltani Archive and the Messiness of Spousal Violence,” Avar 3.1 (January 2024)
Popular Publications
- “Laughter! Between Isaac and Aqhat’s Birth Pronouncements.” TheTorah.com, November 2025. View article.
- "Hosea’s Characterization of Jacob." Published on TheTorah.com, December 2019. View article.
Recent Conference Presentations
- With Samantha Rainford, “Could a Man Say ‘No’ in the Ancient Near East? On Grammars of Adultery, Gender, and Sexual Predation.” 7th Workshop on Gender and Methodology in the Ancient Near East, Sapienza University, February 2026
- “Hormone Monsters and Personal Gods: Anthropomorphized Libidos in Mesopotamia and the Netflix Series Big Mouth.” ASOR Annual Meeting, November 2025 (Gender unit)
- With Samantha Rainford, “Gender Identity and ‘Grammars of Violence’ in Middle Assyrian Law.” ASOR Annual Meeting, November 2025 (Violence in the Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible unit)
- “Taming the Unbridled Hero: Divinely Orchestrated Assaults against Inana, Gilgamesh, and Jacob.” Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) Annual Meeting, November 2024 (Assyriology and the Bible unit)
- “Plant-based Blood: Animalizing the Grapevine through Metaphor in the Ancient Levant” SBL Annual Meeting, November 2024 (The Bible and Animal Studies unit)
- With Samantha Rainford, “Turning Men into Women: The Grammar of Gender and Violence in the Middle Assyrian Laws.” 6th Workshop on Gender and Methodology in the Ancient Near East, The University of Malta, April 2024
- Discussant, Roundtable Discussion on Women and Biblical Law. Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference, December 2023 (Bible and the History of Biblical Interpretation division)
- “Tablet-room Talk: Sex, Violence, and Scribal Training in OB Nippur and beyond." ASOR Annual Meeting, November 2023 (Gender in the Ancient Near East unit)
Jewish Studies
Languages, Literatures & Cultures
Professional website: noamcohen.org
Contact: [email protected]