Dr. Isaac (Tsachi) Slater is a Research Associate at the Faculty of Theology, the University of Göttingen, as part of the DFG funded Emmy Noether research group Emancipatio Rabbinica. He holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Thought from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and served as postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hamburg and the University of Notre Dame. He edited critical editions of Aharon Shmuel Tamares’ (2020, 2022, 2025) and Shmuel Alexandrov’s (2024) writings, as well as the Maimonides Review of Philosophy and Religion (2023). His book In a Guilty Generation: Shmuel Alexandrov and the Redemption of Judaism is forthcoming by Magnes Press.
Last Updated
December 15, 2025
Books by the Author
Amazon paid links
Articles by the Author
The miracle of the jug of oil lasting eight days is first narrated in the Babylonian Talmud, centuries after the establishment of Chanukah. In 1891 Poland, Chaim Zelig Slonimski, an observant, science-minded Jew, denied the historicity of this miracle, claiming that he was following in the footsteps of Maimonides. Some of his enlightened colleagues—and even some secular Zionists—thought he was endangering people’s connection to Judaism and providing antisemites a pretext to mock the Talmud.
The miracle of the jug of oil lasting eight days is first narrated in the Babylonian Talmud, centuries after the establishment of Chanukah. In 1891 Poland, Chaim Zelig Slonimski, an observant, science-minded Jew, denied the historicity of this miracle, claiming that he was following in the footsteps of Maimonides. Some of his enlightened colleagues—and even some secular Zionists—thought he was endangering people’s connection to Judaism and providing antisemites a pretext to mock the Talmud.
