​The Jewish Concept of Homeland: God Given or Originally Grounded?; Jewish Attachment to the Land from Biblical Times to Today; Judah Halevi’s Kuzari and the Modern Concept of Aliyah; Theological Issues in Modern Judaism: the Holocaust and the Founding of the State of Israel; Modern Hebrew Poetry between Jerusalem and New Orleans

Dr. Halper’s research examines topics at the intersections of philosophy and religion and of Judaism and Islam in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He focuses on the history of philosophical concepts and their use in mainstream religious texts and approaches Israel studies through the lens of the history of concepts.  He is particularly interested in the philosophical background underlying Zionist thought and the intellectual movements that drew from religious and philosophical sources to form the Zionist enterprise.

He grew up in the U.S. and made Aliyah in 2004 after completing a B.A. in classical studies and mathematics at the University of Chicago. He earned an M.A. in philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2006) and a Ph. D. (with highest distinction) in Jewish philosophy from Bar Ilan University (2010). He has held research and library fellow​ships at the Shalem Center (2005-2007) and at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute (2007-2010), where he directed work groups on philosophy, mysticism and poetry. For the last two years, he has been a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Liberal Arts at Tulane University in New Orleans and is now beginning as a Schusterman scholar at Tulane University.