Veranstaltung

Annual Josef Horovitz Lecture on Religious and Interreligious Dynamics 2026

The annual public lecture of the Frankfurt-Tel Aviv Center for the Study of Religious and Interreligious Dynamicswill take place as part of the internal Young Scholars’ Conference “The Dynamics of Religious Interaction”, which is jointly organized by the Buber-Rosenzweig Institute, the Frankfurt-Tel Aviv Center, and the LOEWE Center “Dynamics of the Religious” (DynaRel) in cooperation with Tel Aviv University and the University of Cambridge.

Omer Michaelis is an Associate Professor of Jewish Philosophy at Tel Aviv University, where he chairs the Department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud and serves as the Head of the Cymbalista Jewish Heritage Center. His research focuses on the history of philosophical and theological thought in the early medieval Islamicate world, the Judeo-Arabic literature of the Middle Ages, and the intellectual history of Muslims and Jews in Muslim Spain.
His recent publications include Crisis Discourse and the Dynamics of Tradition in Maimonides’ Oeuvre (Magnes Press), recipient of the 2025 Matanel Prize, and Interiority & Law: Bahya ibn Paquda and the Concept of Inner Commandments (Stanford UP), both monographs published in 2023.

Solomon Ibn Gabirol’s Keter Malkhut (Kingly Crown) ranks among the loftiest achievements of Jewish liturgical poetry. Yet nearly a century of scholarship has failed to resolve a fundamental question: for what liturgical setting was the poem composed? This lecture proposes a solution by turning to a largely neglected sphere of devotional life: nocturnal prayer. In the nights of medieval al-Andalus, Jews would rise from sleep to stand alone before God in supplication. Yet they did not keep vigil alone. Around them, their Muslim neighbours, too, rose in the depths of night to pray. By recovering this shared nocturnal landscape, the lecture will show how the Muslim setting can illuminate Jewish devotional practice—and help us restore Keter Malkhut to the place it may originally have occupied within Jewish prayer.

Herzlich willkommen zur diesjährigen Annual Josef Horovitz Lecture for Religious and Interreligious Dynamics an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt Dienstag, 28. Juli 2026, 18:15 Uhr an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Campus Westend, Casino-Gebäude, Raum 1.811

Die jährliche öffentliche Vorlesung des Frankfurt-Tel Aviv Center for the Study of Religious and Interreligious Dynamics findet im Rahmen der internen Young Scholars’ Conference „The Dynamics of Religious Interaction“ statt, die gemeinsam vom Buber-Rosenzweig-Institut, dem Frankfurt-Tel Aviv Center und dem LOEWE-Zentrum „Dynamiken des Religiösen“ (DynaRel) in Kooperation mit der Tel Aviv University und der University of Cambridge organisiert wird.

Prof. Omer Michaelis (Tel Aviv University) spricht zum Thema „Ibn Gabirol’s Kingly Crown and the Nocturnal Prayers of Jews and Muslims in al-Andalus“

Omer Michaelis ist Associate Professor für Jüdische Philosophie an der Tel Aviv University. Er leitet dort das Department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud sowie das Cymbalista Jewish Heritage Center. Seine Forschung beschäftigt sich mit der Geschichte philosophischen und theologischen Denkens in der frühmittelalterlichen islamischen Welt, der judäo-arabischen Literatur des Mittelalters sowie der Geistesgeschichte von Jüdinnen und Juden und Muslimen im islamischen Spanien. Zu seinen jüngsten Veröffentlichungen zählen Crisis Discourse and the Dynamics of Tradition in Maimonides’ Oeuvre (Magnes Press), das mit dem Matanel-Preis 2025 ausgezeichnet wurde, sowie Interiority & Law: Bahya ibn Paquda and the Concept of Inner Commandments (Stanford UP) – beides Monografien, die 2023 erschienen sind.
In seinem Vortrag widmet sich Michaelis Salomo Ibn Gabirols Keter Malkhut (Kingly Crown), einem der bedeutendsten Werke der jüdischen Liturgie. Ausgehend von den nächtlichen Gebetspraktiken von Jüdinnen und Juden und ihren muslimischen Nachbarn im mittelalterlichen al-Andalus eröffnet er neue Perspektiven auf religiöse Interaktionen und gemeinsame Formen religiöser Praxis.