Dr. Avigail Manekin-Bamberger is a senior lecturer in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of Jews in antiquity, with a special emphasis on Jewish society in the Sasanian Empire and ancient Jewish magic. Her first book, “Law and Magic in Late Antique Jewish Society” (Yad Ben Zvi, forthcoming), concentrates on the interplay of ancient Jewish law and magic and argues that the modern dichotomy between the two, which typically distinguishes between “high” and “low” religion or elite and nonelite forms of cultural expression, is misleading. In practice, Jewish legal terms were often invested with a more “magical” meaning than has been perceived, whereas legal formulations constituted an essential part of magical texts. Her current research project deals with questions of the everyday lives of Jews in the late Sasanian empire, such as their daily concerns and fears, the spiritual world in which they lived, the place of rabbis and other religious elites, connections between Jews and non-Jews and more.