Center for Jewish Law Presents Annual Ivan Meyer Lecture in Jewish Law on February 9 The Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization at Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law will present their Annual Ivan Meyer Lecture in Jewish Law on Sunday, February 9, 2014, at 6 p.m. in the Jacob Burns Moot Court Room, 55 Fifth Avenue at 12th Street, New York City.

Dr. Isaiah Gafni will deliver the Annual Ivan Meyer Lecture in Jewish Law on February 9.

Dr. Isaiah M. Gafni, the Ivan Meyer Visiting Scholar in Comparative Jewish Law will discuss “Punishment, Blessing or Universal Mission: Ancient Perceptions (And Some Modern Thoughts) on Jewish Diaspora.” Gafni is the Sol Rosenbloom Professor of Jewish History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he has taught for 40 years. Gafni has served as a visiting professor at numerous universities, including Harvard, Yale and Brown. In 2010, he was awarded the Shimshon Rosenthal Prize for Talmudic Studies by the Talmud Department of Hebrew University. Gafni has written extensively on a broad range of topics relating to social, religious and cultural history of the Jews in late antiquity, with a particular stress on aspects of Jewish self-identity and relations with other ethnic and religious communities. His publications include The Jews of Babylonia in the Talmudic Era: A Social and Cultural History, which was awarded the Holon Prize in Jewish Studies in 1992; Babylonian Jewry and Its Institutions in the Period of the Talmud; and Land, Center and Diaspora: Jewish Constructs in Late Antiquity. The lecture is named for the late Dr. Ivan Isaak Meyer, who practiced law in Germany and New York City and was a generous supporter of Jewish education in the New York area. Admission is free and open to the public, but advance registration is required. To RSVP, visit www.cardozo.yu.edu/cjl/registration or call 212-790-0258. For more information on The Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization visit www.cardozo.yu.edu/cjl.