Jan 14, 2010 -- The Yeshiva University (YU) Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization (CJL) at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law will present their Annual Ivan Meyer Lecture in Jewish Law on Wednesday, February 3 at 6 PM in the Jacob Burns Moot Court Room, 55 Fifth Avenue at 12th Street, New York City. Dr. Isaiah M. Gafni, the Ivan Meyer Visiting Scholar in Comparative Jewish Law at Cardozo, will speak on “From Temple to Text: Rabbinic Judaism as Default or Destiny.” Dr. Gafni is the Sol Rosenbloom Professor of Jewish History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he has taught for 40 years, while also serving as visiting professor at numerous universities, including Harvard, Yale and Brown. He was also honored as the Louis Jacobs Fellow in Rabbinic Thought at Oxford University, where he delivered a series of lectures on the Jewish Diaspora in the Greco-Roman period. Dr. Gafni has written extensively on a broad range of topics relating to the 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. 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. To register online 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