Dr. Yair Furstenberg is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Talmud department at the Hebrew University. His main fields of research are early rabbinic law and literature, Jewish identity in the Roman World and Jewish Christian relations in the first centuries CE. His recent book, The History of Purity: Body and Community between the Pharisees and the Mishnah (Magness press, 2016 [in Hebrew]), surveys the changing significance of purity in Second Temple Judaism and early rabbinic culture. His articles further address the role of purity in early Christian literature in relation to Jewish traditions and practices. Other publications of Dr. Furstenberg examine the impact of the broader Greco-Roman culture on the evolution of rabbinic law and thought. His current project (supported by the Israel Science Foundation) is titled ‘Making Law under Rome: The Making of Rabbinic Halakhah within its Provincial Legal Context’ examines the various responses of rabbinic law to its Roman legal environment and standard of law making. As part of his study of the trilateral relationship of Empire, Jews and Christians, Dr. Furstenberg has edited a book on Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in the Roman World (Brill 2016).