Chaya Halberstam is a Professor of Hebrew Bible and Judaism in the department of Religious Studies at King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario. Her research focuses on the legal cultures of Israelite and Jewish antiquity, with an emphasis on early rabbinic literature. Her work explores the role of legal discourse in shaping cultural attitudes and practices – and its limits. Her first book, Law and Truth in Biblical and Rabbinic Literature, came out in 2010 and received the Salo Baron prize for best first book in Jewish Studies. Her most recent book, Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity: Counternarratives of Justice came out in 2024 with Oxford University Press.
