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Rachel Z Feldman

Associate Professor

Appointments

Associate Professor of Religion

Area of Expertise

Anthropology of Judaism, Messianism, Israel/Palestine, gender, digital religion

Biography

Rachel Z. Feldman specializes in the anthropology of Judaism, messianic movements, digital and transnational religion, contemporary Israel/Palestine, and gender studies. She holds a PhD from The University of California, Davis and an MA from the New School for Social Research. Her book Messianic Zionism in the Digital Age: Jews, Noahides, and the Third Temple Imaginary (Rutgers University Press, Spring 2024) received a Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion from the American Academy of Religion (2025) as well as a Jordan Schnitzer First Book Award (2023) from the Association for Jewish Studies. She is also the co-editor of Settler-Indigeneity in the West Bank (McGill-Queen's University Press, Fall 2023 ). Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. She is currently working on a new book project on contemporary Breslov Hasidism, with a focus on new Francophone Breslov geographies and is conducting ongoing fieldwork in Jerusalem, Montreal,  and Côte d'Ivoire. She was recently awarded a National Endowment for the Fellowship (2025) for her ethnographic research on Breslov Hasidism. 

 

Education

B.A. Franklin and Marshall College

M.A. The New School for Social Research

Ph.D. University of California, Davis

Departments

Religion