A) Curriculum degli studi universitari in religioni antiche e medievali e relative ligue (ebraico, greco, latino, siriaco) fino al dottorato e al post-dottorato:

-1980: B.A, Bar-Ilan University, Jewish History and Land of Israel Studies.
-1985: M.A. studies in the Department of Comparative Religion in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar Ilan University, Jewish History in the Second Temple Period.
M.A. thesis: “Pilgrimage to Palestine in the Second Temple Period and in Greek Religion” (summa cum laude).
-1986-1991: Patristic Studies, Université de Paris, Sorbonne (Paris IV). Greek Religion, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris.
-1996: Ph.D., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dept. of Comparative Religion.
Thesis title: “Pilgrimage: Perceptions and Reactions in the Patristic and Monastic Literature of the 4th -5th Centuries” (summa cum laude).
-1997-1998: Post-doctoral fellowship at Wolfson College and the Oriental Institute at Oxford.

B) Incarichi stabili presso la Hebrew University di Gerusalemme:
-1/10/1998- Lecturer, Dept. of Comparative Religion
-2005- Senior lecturer with tenure in the Dept. of Comparative Religion

C) Altri incarichi presso la Hebrew University
-1999-2001: Acting Director of The Center for the Study of Christianity in the Hebrew University
-2002-2006 The Director of The Joint Center for Eretz-Israel Studies in Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and the Hebrew University
-2005-2008 Chair of the Dept. of Comparative Religion
-2006-2008 director and academic Head of Revivim, Honors Program for the Training of Jewish Studies Teachers
-2009-2010 Coordinatore con il Prof. L. Perrone di un gruppo di ricerca presso l'Institute for Advanced Studies in the Hebrew University su: Personal and Established Religion in Eastern Christian Thought and Praxis (5th-8th Centuries)
-Since October 2010-Director of The Center for the Study of Christianity in the Hebrew University

D) Altre attività
-2004-2008 Membro del comitato di redazione del "Journal of the American Academy of Religion"
-Dal 2007- Membro del Comitato scientifico di "Church History and Religious Culture" (Brill, Leiden).
-Dal 2007- Membro dell'Association Internationale d'Etudes Patristiques.

E) Premi conseguiti:
-1996, Kennedy Lee Prize for excellent Ph.D. Dissertation
-1997, Sir Sigmund Sternberg Prize for Interfaith Understanding, Dept. of Comparative Religion
-1997, Yad Hanadiv (grant for translation Ph.D. Dissertation)
-2000 Golda Meir Fellowship, the Hebrew University

F) Finanziamenti per la ricerca
-1997/98, Hebrew University, fellowship for post-doctoral research at Oxford
-1999-2003: The Israel Science Foundation founded by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, “The Monastic Community of Gaza in Late Antiquity.”


PUBBLICAZIONI (IN INGLESE, EBRAICO, FRANCESE)

Libri

1. Encountering the Sacred: The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity. The Transformation of the Classical Heritage Series 38. General Editor, Peter Brown (The University of California Press: Berkeley, Los Angeles, 2005).

2. in collaborazione con A. Kofsky, The Monastic School of Gaza. Vigiliae Christianae Supplements Series 78 (Brill: Leiden, 2006).

3. in collaborazione editoriale con A. Kofsky (eds.), Christian Gaza in Late Antiquity. Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture Series 3 (Brill: Leiden, 2004).

4. in collaborazione editoriale con Lorenzo Perrone (eds.), Personal and Institutional Religion: Thought and Praxis in Eastern Christianity (5th-8th centuries). Cultural Encounters in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages Series (Brepols: Turnhout, forthcoming).


ARTICOLI

1. “Sabas– Portrait of a Saint,” Cathedra 86 (1998), pp. 149-154 (Hebrew)
2."Penitence in Late Antique Monastic Literature,” in J. Assmann and G. Stroumsa (eds.), Transformations of the Inner Self in Ancient Religions (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 179-194.
3. “Attitudes of the Church Fathers towards Pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries,” in Lee I. Levine (ed.), Jerusalem: Its Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity and Islam (New York, 1999), pp. 188-203.
4. “The Pilgrimages of Peter the Iberian,” Cathedra 91 (1999), pp. 97-112 (Hebrew).
5. "Jérôme en Orient: une transformation identitaire," in M.A. Amir-Moezzi, J. Scheid (eds), L'Orient dans l'histoire religieuse de l'Europe. Bibliothèque de l'école des hautes études, section des sciences religieuses 110 (Brepols, 2000), pp. 37-48.
6. Bitton-Ashkelony and Aryeh Kofsky, "The Monastic Community of Gaza in Late Antiquity," Cathedra 96 (2000), pp. 69-110 (Hebrew).
7. B. Bitton-Ashkelony and A. Kofsky, "Gaza Monasticism in the Fourth-Sixth Centuries: From Anchoritic to Cenobitic," Proche Orient Chrétien 50 (2000), pp. 14-62.
8. "Pilgrimage in Monastic Culture," in M. Stone, R. Ervine and N. Stone (eds.), The Armenians in Jerusalem and the Holy Land (Leuven, 2002), pp. 1-17.
9. “Demons and Prayers: Spiritual Exercises in the Monastic Community of Gaza in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries,” Vigiliae Christianae 57 (2003), pp. 200-221.
10. “Imitatio Mosis and Pilgrimage in the Life of Peter the Iberian,” in B. Bitton-Ashkelony and A. Kofsky (eds.), Christian Gaza in Late Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 107-129.
11. “Imitatio Mosis and Pilgrimage in the Life of Peter the Iberian,” Le Muséon 118 (2005), pp. 45-65.
12. B. Bitton-Ashkelony and A. Kofsky, "Monasticism in the Holy Land," in O. Limor and G. Stroumsa (eds.), Christians and Christianity in the Holy Land (Brepols: Turnhout, 2005), pp. 257-291.
13. "Monastic Leadership and Municipal Tensions in Fifth-Sixth Century Palestine: The Cases of the Judean Desert and Gaza," in Annali di Storia dell'Esegesi 23/2 (2007), pp. 415-431.
14. "Counseling through Enigmas: Monastic Leadership and Linguistic Techniques in Sixth-Century Gaza," in S. La Porta and D. Shulman (eds.), The Poetics of Grammar and the Metaphysics of Sound and Sign (Leiden, 2007), pp. 177-199.
15. "The Limit of the Mind (NOUS): Pure Prayer according to Evagrius Ponticus and Isaac of Nineveh," Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 2010 (forthcoming), 30 pages.
16. "Territory, Anti-Intellectual Attitude, and Identity Formation in Late Antique Palestinian Monastic Communities," Religion and Theology 19 (2010), 18 pages (forthcoming)
17. "Pilgrimage to Palestine and Identity Formation: The Evidence of Late Antique Syriac Hagiography" (Hebrew, forthcoming).
18. "From Sacred Travel to Monastic Career: The Evidence of Late Antique Syriac Hagiography," Adamantius 2010 (forthcoming).
19. "Personal Religion and Self-expouser: From Pseudo-Macarius to Symeon the New Theologian," in Bitton-Ashkelony and Perrone (eds.), Personal and Institutional Religion in Late Antiquity (Brepols, Turnhout), 22 pages, forthcoming
20. " 'More interior than the lips': John of Apamea and Silent Prayer in Late Antiquity" (submitted).
21. "Dadisho' Qatraye on Pure Prayer and the Evagrian Legacy" (submitted).

*Work in progress: A book on: Prayer and Hidden Progress in Late Antique Greek and Syriac Christianity

TITOLO ITALIANO: Preghiera ed esperienza personale di Dio nel contesto multireligioso della tarda antichità
TITOLO INGLESE: Prayer and Personal Experience of God in the multi-religious context of Late Antiquity

PRESENTAZIONE IN ITALIANO:
In linea con gli studi precedenti dedicati all'interazione religiosa in Palestina e nel Mediterraneo orientale, questa ricerca concentra l'attenzione sugli scritti mistici giudaici, sulla letteratura cristiana, e sulla cultura monastica.
La sottoscritta è stata già in contatto con studiosi afferenti al PRIN diretto da Mauro Pesce, tra i quali Alberto Camplani, responsabile dell'unità locale. Ha partecipato agli incontri di questo gruppo di ricerca e ha contribuito con una relazione sul monachesimo palestinese.
Il metodo adottato in questo campo è innanzitutto quello fenomenologico, che si realizza attraverso lo studio di diversi tipi di preghiere spontanee ed individuali nel contesto multi-religioso della tarda antichità.
La ricerca si baserà in modo preponderante sulla letteratura delle Helachot (scritti mistici giudaici dal terzo al settimo secolo) e sulle opere di intellettuali, in particolar modo Evagrio Pontico e l'autore siriaco Isacco di Ninive. Da questo punto di vista, la ricerca sarà ben sostenuta dalla ricchezza delle biblioteche afferenti alle istituzioni universitarie e ecclesiastiche di Roma.
La ricerca sarà dunque condotta superando i confini religiosi, etnici e linguistici. La preoccupazione fondamentale non sarà la preghiera prescritta o la liturgia, ma la preghiera come veicolo verso il progresso spirituale, come parte dell'esperienza mistica.
Lo sviluppo storico di queste preghiere e il loro sottofondo filosofico sono al centro della presente ricerca.
La preghiera emerge come un nuovo fondamentale dispositivo per la "formazione del sé".



PRESENTAZIONE IN INGLESE:
In line with previous studies on religious interaction in Palestine and the eastern Mediterranean, this research focuses on Jewish mystical writings, Christian literature, and monastic culture. The approach in this domain is first a phenomenological one, studying various sorts of individual and spontaneous prayers in the multi-religious context of Late Antiquity.
The researcher has already been in contact with scholars members of the PRIN directed by Mauro Pesce, including Alberto Camplani, head of the local unit. She participated in meetings of this group of research and has contributed with a paper on the Palestinian monasticism.
The research will rely heavily on the Hechalot literature (Jewish mystical writings from 3th-7th centuries), and works of intellectual writers, especially Evagrius Ponticus and the Syriac author Isaac of Nineveh. From this point of view, research is well supported by the wealth of libraries associated with universities and ecclesiastical institutions in Rome.
The research will be conducted across religious, ethnic and linguistic borders. The main concern here will not be prescribed prayer or liturgy, but prayer as a vehicle in spiritual progress, as part of the mystical experience.
The historical development and the philosophical background of those prayers are at the center of the research.
Prayer emerges here as a major new device for "shaping the self".

TESTO ITALIANO: L'obiettivo di questa ricerca è quello di studiare la mentalità e la vita interiore dell'intellettuale tardoantico che vive nel mondo mediterraneo orientale secondo diverse tradizioni religiose.
La dimensione interconfessionale della ricerca permetterà di evidenziare le contiguità e le differenze tra i grandi moneteismi del Vicino Oriente Antico, nonché i possibili punti di incontro.
L'analisi delle preghiere dovrebbe portare a un'antologia commentata delle più significative, disposte secondo un ordine cronologico e geografico e indipendentemente dai confini che separano le confessioni.


TESTO INGLESE: The aim of this research is to study the mentality and the inner life of the intellectuals living in the Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean world according to different religious traditions.
Its interconfessional dimension will highlight the contiguity and differences between the great monotheisms of Near East, and possible meeting points.
The analysis of the prayers should lead to an anthology of the most significant ones, with commentary, arranged in a chronological and geographical order and independently of the religious confessions.