ORGANIZERS:

Vered Noam (Tel Aviv University)
Rami Reiner (Ben-Gurion University)

Interpretation is a major tool for legal change and a generator of Religious Law. The conference will address a number of questions regarding the relations between the law, the legal text, the role of the Interpretation and the interpreters. The main themes of the conference include:

• The role of Interpretation in legal change.
• Law’s tendency to expand itself and to “conquer” new areas of social life.
• Legal disputes and their interpretive roots.
• Interpreters’ self-reflection on their interpretive activity.
• Beyond the Edge of Interpretation: Explicit denial of the authoritative text.
• Art as interpretation.
• Plain Meaning and its status in legal thinking.

SPEAKERS:

Bernadette Brooten (Brandeis University)
Mordechai Cohen (Yeshiva University)
Lutz Doering (University of Münster)
Steven Fraade (Yale University)
Moshe Halbertal (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, New York University)
Katrin Kogman-Appel (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
Admiel Kosman (Potsdam University)
Frederick Lawrence (President, Brandeis University)
Berachyahu Lifshitz (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Timothy Lim (University of Edinburgh)
Shulamit Laderman (Bar-Ilan University)
Lena Salaymeh (Tel Aviv University)
Walid Saleh (University of Toronto)
Adiel Schremer (Bar-Ilan University)
Heeraman Tiwari (Jawaharlal Nehru University)