Professor & Director of Jewish Studies
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA

Curator
The Dead Sea Scrolls

Risa Levitt Kohn is a professor of Hebrew Bible and Judaism at San Diego State University. Hers was the first Doctorate awarded from UC, San Diego in Ancient History and Hebrew Bible. Past president of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), Pacific Coast Region, she serves as Chair of its Committee for the Status of Women in the Profession. Levitt Kohn’s work includes A New Heart and a New Soul: Ezekiel, The Exile and the Torah (Sheffield Academic Press) and A Portable God, the Origin of Judaism and Christianity, co–authored with Dr. Rebecca Moore (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007). She lectures extensively on subjects including the world of the Hebrew Bible, Jewish and Christian Origins, and Judaism. The SBL honored her with a national Regional Scholar Award. Levitt Kohn was curator of the 2007 Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibition at the San Diego Natural History Museum and is currently preparing a new Scrolls exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada (opening June 2009).