Shira Billet
Assistant Professor of Jewish Thought and Ethics
Phone: (212) 870-5856
Building Room: Kripke 603
Office Hours: By Appointment
Shira Billet is assistant professor of Jewish Thought and Ethics at 91快播, academic director of 91快播鈥檚 Hendel Center for Ethics and Justice, and the BA and MA advisor for the Jewish Ethics program at 91快播. Before joining the 91快播 faculty, she was a postdoctoral associate in Jewish Studies and Philosophy at Yale University, after completing her PhD in the Religion and Philosophy (Religion, Ethics, and Politics) subfield in the Department of Religion at Princeton University.
Dr. Billet鈥檚 research focuses on Jewish philosophy and Jewish thought, especially in 19th- and early 20th-century Germany and Europe. She studies Jewish philosophy in its historical contexts — including the history of philosophy and the history of Jewish studies scholarship — and in relation to contemporary conversations in Jewish thought, philosophy (especially ethics and epistemology), and religious studies. She is currently completing her first book, entitled The Philosopher as Witness: Hermann Cohen on the Virtues and the History of Philosophy.
Recent publications include:
鈥淔rom Volozhin to London: Elijah Zvi Soloveitchik鈥檚 Jewish-Christian Holy Spirit鈥� (Journal of Textual Reasoning, 2025)
鈥淗arry S. Truman鈥檚 Bible and Earl Warren鈥檚 Talmud: A Forgotten Story in the Encounter between American Law and Jewish Studies鈥� (Din茅 Israel, 2024)
鈥溾�楲et the Historian be a Philosopher!鈥�: Hermann Cohen鈥檚 Methodological Dispute with Spinoza鈥� (Spinoza in Germany: Political and Religious Thought across the Long Nineteenth Century; Oxford University Press, 2024)
鈥溾�楧o Not Grieve Excessively鈥�: Rabbis Mourning Children Between Law and Narrative in The Rabbinic Laws of Mourning and Soloveitchik鈥檚 Halakhic Man鈥� (Journal of Textual Reasoning, 2023)
鈥淗ermann Cohen鈥檚 Virtue Ethics鈥� (Jewish Virtue Ethics; SUNY Press, 2023)
鈥淏etween Jewish Law and State Law: Rethinking Hermann Cohen鈥檚 Critique of Spinoza鈥� (Jewish Studies Quarterly, 2018).
