By Matthias Henze, Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner
Professor of Biblical Studies
This summer, Matthias Henze, the director of Rice’s Program in Jewish Studies, spent two months as a visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
During a casual conversation at the watercooler, a colleague of mine mentioned in passing that there was chatter in town about the war breaking out in the North this weekend, “probably on Shabbat, or on Sunday, I am not really sure.” It was the middle of June, and I was a visiting scholar at the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I must have looked surprised, so he went on, as if to reassure me, “Around here, you sort of know ahead of time.” “Okay,” I said, “good to know. And how exactly does one get ready for war?” “Well, you buy water, nonperishable food and toilet paper. And you pray. Ah, and in your case, you could leave the country.”
Leaving the country wasn’t really an option. And the war on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon didn’t break out, at least not that weekend — it would happen a few months later. A few years ago, I had received a Lady Davis Fellowship to be in Jerusalem for a semester. My wife and I had tried several times to travel to Israel, suitcases packed and apartment in Jerusalem ready and waiting for us. But each time our plans were thwarted. First, fighting erupted along the border with Gaza, and then there was the pandemic and Israel closed its borders. Finally, this summer and at long last, we made the trip. From mid-May to mid-July, we rented a small apartment in Jerusalem next to the Mahane Yehuda. On most days of the week, I would take the light rail to the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University to work in my office, and on others we would meet friends or explore the city.
There were two main reasons why I wanted to be in Jerusalem this year. The first was to be with my colleagues and friends, to spend some significant time in the city, and to experience Israel during these difficult times or “zemanim kashim” as the Hebrew saying goes. The other reason was my desire to deepen my understanding of Jerusalem. I had been there many times, and on several occasions had taken Rice students to Jerusalem. But Jerusalem is a complex city with many layers, and I hoped to deepen my experience of this endlessly fascinating city. Both objectives worked out better than expected.
Spending considerable time with dear colleagues and friends was truly a privilege. There aren’t many foreigners in Israel right now, few international colleagues and virtually no tourists. Many shops in the old city are closed — war is bad for everybody. And yet, the hospitality my wife and I experienced was overwhelming, so much kindness in the midst of trauma. The threat to Israel’s existence felt very real, at every step, everywhere. When I asked a friend what made the current situation so difficult for him, he replied, without missing a beat, “The many funerals. Earlier this week it was the girl across the street who served in the IDF, and the other day of a young man who grew up with my children.” In restaurants, my Israeli friends would routinely strike up a conversation with the young waiter who was home for a few days, to learn in which army unit she served and to which area of the country she would return the next morning. “I am anxious for my country,” was a constant refrain. When I asked yet another friend who currently has two children in the army how she could sleep at night, she replied, “Sleep? I haven’t slept in eight months.”
In the face of deep divisions, constant demonstrations and a real sense of fear, life continues, including academic life. Senior Israeli scholars, true giants in my field from whom I have learned immeasurably over the years, were exceptionally generous with their time and met with me for long hours to read and study together . . .
In the face of deep divisions, constant demonstrations and a real sense of fear, life continues, including academic life. Senior Israeli scholars, true giants in my field from whom I have learned immeasurably over the years, were exceptionally generous with their time and met with me for long hours to read and study together, often one-on-ones in their living room or in my university office. During my time at the Hebrew University, all Israeli departments of biblical studies co-sponsored a conference, titled “The Bible and Its World,” that was intended primarily for Israeli academics who hadn’t been able to travel abroad since Oct. 7. The meeting, which was held in Jerusalem and included some select international guests, was an enormous success, a powerful demonstration of academic resilience and hope. Now, plans are underway for an in-person, international symposium at the Hebrew University, tentatively scheduled for spring 2026, that will be jointly organized by Rice Jewish Studies and the University of Oxford. Furthermore, while in Israel, I was grateful for the opportunity to visit other universities, Ben-Gurion University in Be’er Sheva and Tel Aviv University. These university campuses were teeming with young life, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims, all studying together for a more hopeful future.
Our summer in Jerusalem also allowed my wife and me to go on long walks through the city, to experience the different neighborhoods of Jerusalem, to enjoy the amazing foods, to visit new archaeological excavations, and to experience and feel and smell the city in all its colorful diversity.
Before we left Jerusalem, I was invited to return next summer to teach an intensive, upper-level seminar on Aramaic literature in the Bible department, an invitation I was eager to accept. And then, a couple of months after our return to Houston, I received a letter from the rector of the Hebrew University, Tamir Shaefer, inviting me to become a distinguished fellow of the faculty of humanities.
He writes: “We believe that your affiliation with our university will significantly enhance our efforts to maintain an international and dynamic academic environment, especially during these challenging times.”
Since Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitism has been on the rise everywhere, and academia has been no exception. The calls in Europe and the U.S. to boycott Israeli academic institutions have been particularly troubling to me. The inadvertent targets of these boycotts would be the young students of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds whom I have met in Israel, aspiring Ph.D. candidates, and junior faculty across academic disciplines, though especially in the natural sciences, who depend on international collaborations in their research. Rather than boycotting education in Israel, what is needed is greater engagement with Israel’s universities and more collaboration with our academic partners. It is my great privilege and honor to contribute my small share to this endeavor.