J. H. Chajes

J. H. Chajes
Born	(1965-06-11)June 11, 1965 Detroit, MI, U.S.
Other names	Yossi Chajes
Alma mater	University of Michigan; Yale University
Known for	The Ilanot Project
Scientific career
Fields	Jewish history, Jewish culture, Kabbalah
Institutions	University of Haifa
Doctoral advisor	David B. Ruderman

J. H. Chajes (Josef Hillel/Jeffrey Howard; Hebrew: יוסף (יוסי) חיות; born June 11, 1965) is the Sir Isaac and Lady Edith Wolfson Professor of Jewish Thought in the Department of Jewish History at the University of Haifa. He is a Jewish cultural historian whose work has been devoted to the intersections of Kabbalah, magic, and science in the early modern period. In the last decade, he has become the leading scholar of visual Kabbalah, having founded The Ilanot Project and published the first major work on the previously unstudied genre of ilanot (scrolls featuring the arboreal diagram commonly known as the "Tree of life"). He is the author of Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism and The Kabbalistic Tree.^[1] In 2013, he was elected to the Executive Board of the World Union for Jewish Studies, where he serves as Division Chair for rabbinic literature, Jewish law, and Jewish thought.^[2]