Christian David Ginsburg (1825-1914) was one of the most brilliant and fascinating scholars of Judaism in the nineteenth century. He was certainly the first major scholar of Judaism to produce his academic works in the English language, and he was widely hailed as the preeminent Hebraist in Victorian and Edwardian England.He also had a fascinating personal life. Born as an Orthodox Jew in Warsaw, he converted to Christianity in his early twenties, and spent most of his life in England. Through advantageous marriages and his extraordinary scholarship, he became a high-society gentleman, friendly with many of the political and cultural elite of his day. This unlikely story of intellectual, social, and cultural success is the story of our lecture.

The speaker is J.J. Kimche, a PhD candidate at Harvard University, where he specialises in the intersection between European and Jewish Intellectual history during the post-Enlightenment era. He received his undergraduate education at Shalem College, Jerusalem, where he double-majored in Western philosophy and Jewish thought. Prior to that, he studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion and completed his military service in the 101st Division of the IDF’s Paratroopers Brigade. J.J. has been involved in studying and teaching Jewish ideas throughout his entire adult life. Over the past decade he has taught Jewish and Western thought in various religious and academic institutions, including a three-year tenure as the Orthodox educator at MIT Hillel. He has also taught academic courses at several universities, including Harvard, Brandeis, Case Western Reserve, and Gratz College. J.J.'s popular writings have been published in the Wall Street Journal, First Things, and City Journal. His articles have appeared in leading academic journals, and he currently serves as an editorial associate at the Harvard Theological Review. A writer and ghostwriter of numerous books in the field of Jewish thought, J.J.'s first academic work is due to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in November 2024.

He may be found conversing with other scholars on the Podcast of Jewish Ideas, which he hosts.