Elliot R Wolfson

Elliot R. Wolfson (born 23 November 1956) is the Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was previously the Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University (until 2014).

His main area of scholarly research is the history of Jewish mysticism but he has brought to bear on that field training in philosophy, literary criticism, feminist theory, postmodern hermeneutics, Eastern mystical traditions, and the phenomenology of religion. His publications have won prestigious awards such as the American Academy of Religion's Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Category of Historical Studies in 1995, the American Academy of Religion's Award for Excellence in Constructive and Reflective Studies in 2012, and the National Jewish Book Award for Excellence in Scholarship in 1995 and 2006. He has also published two volumes of poetry and has had a gallery show of his paintings.

Additionally, Wolfson has been the recipient of several academic honors and awards: he served as the Regenstein Visiting Professor in Jewish Studies in the Divinity School, University of Chicago (1992); Visiting Professor in the Russian State University in the Humanities (1995); a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey (1996); the Shoshana Shier Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Toronto (1998); a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University (2000, 2008–2009); the Crown-Minnow Visiting Professor of Theology and Jewish Studies, University of Notre Dame (2002); Brownstone Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College (2003); Visiting Professor in the Humanities Center, Johns Hopkins University (2005); Professor of Jewish Mysticism in Shandong University, Jinan, China (2005); the Lynette S. Autrey Visiting Professor, Humanities Research Center, Rice University (2007); and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania (2012); the Weinstock Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies, Harvard University (2016). He has also taught at Cornell University, Queens College, Princeton University, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Hebrew Union College, Bard College, and Columbia University. Wolfson is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Jewish Research, and the American Society for the Study of Religion.

Wolfson earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in philosophy at Queens College of the City University of New York, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University, where he trained under the supervision of Alexander Altmann.

Wolfson's son, Elijah Wolfson, was formerly a senior editor at Newsweek. and is now a Deputy Editor at Quartz.