Dr. Emilie Amar-Zifkin is the Harwood Visiting Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. She just finished two years at McGill University as the Flegg Postdoctoral Fellow in Jewish Studies, where her work focused on medieval history, disability studies, and occasionally ghosts. She holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Studies from Yale University, an M.A. in the History of Judaism from the University of Chicago Divinity School, and a B.A in from Fordham University in Theology and Stage Management. Dr. Amar-Zifkin is currently finishing her first monograph, Acting out in Ashkenaz, which offers an analysis of Jewish-Christian relations in medieval towns that conceptualizes both the history and the primary sources as texts with their own theatrical components.
Last Updated
May 25, 2026
Books by the Author
Articles by the Author
After seeing the divine messenger who announces Samson’s birth, Manoah, his father, fears death. Captured by the Philistines and blinded, Samson seeks death. The parallel is deliberate: where Manoah sees the divine yet fails to understand, Samson loses his sight and only then recognizes YHWH. The reversal is sharpened by the role of prayer in the narrative: Samson’s parents never pray for a child, but Samson himself prays in his final moments, crying out for strength, vengeance, and death.
After seeing the divine messenger who announces Samson’s birth, Manoah, his father, fears death. Captured by the Philistines and blinded, Samson seeks death. The parallel is deliberate: where Manoah sees the divine yet fails to understand, Samson loses his sight and only then recognizes YHWH. The reversal is sharpened by the role of prayer in the narrative: Samson’s parents never pray for a child, but Samson himself prays in his final moments, crying out for strength, vengeance, and death.
On Rosh Hashanah, our judgment is written; on Yom Kippur, it is sealed; and on Hoshana Rabbah, it is sent out to be fulfilled. It is said that on the night of Hoshana Rabbah, those judged to die that year will lose their shadows. Sefer Chasidim relates that, in a final plea for forgiveness, even the spirits of the dead rise from their graves to pray for the living.
On Rosh Hashanah, our judgment is written; on Yom Kippur, it is sealed; and on Hoshana Rabbah, it is sent out to be fulfilled. It is said that on the night of Hoshana Rabbah, those judged to die that year will lose their shadows. Sefer Chasidim relates that, in a final plea for forgiveness, even the spirits of the dead rise from their graves to pray for the living.
