Biography of Rabbi Leila Gal Berner

A Fulbright scholar, Rabbi Leila Gal Berner is a historian of Jewish life in medieval Mediterranean Spain. Her area of greatest expertise is the Jews of Catalonia, in northeastern Spain. She is working on a book on the social history of the Jews of medieval Barcelona which is based on original research with thousands of Latin documents from the royal archives of the Crown of Aragon. Dr. Berner often teaches about the cultural interchange between Jews, Muslims and Christians in medieval Spain and the lessons we can learn from this interchange for our own time.

Ordained at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Leila Gal Berner received her B.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles in medieval Spanish Jewish History. Dr. Berner has taught at UCLA, Reed, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr colleges, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Emory University.

In addition to her work as a historian of medieval Jewry, Rabbi Berner was the founding director of the Center for Jewish Ethics at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and continues to speak nationally on Jewish ethical issues as well as interfaith relations. Three presentations in the area of interfaith relations are:

• True Communication: The Dynamics of Jewish-Christian Dialogue
• Jews, Muslims and Christians in Medieval Spain: Symbiotic Societies or Parallel Cultures?
• Reading our Common Sacred Text: Jews and Christians Read the Hebrew Bible

Her most recent publication appeared in Daughters of Abraham: Feminist Thought in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, edited by Yvonne Haddad and John Esposito.

Rabbi Berner serves as co-Rabbi of Congregation Bet Mishpachah in Washington D.C. and teaches in the Department of Religion at George Washington University and American University. Furthermore she lectures Women's Studies at Temple University.