Beth A. Berkowitz is Associate Professor of Rabbinic Literatures and Cultures at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Her first book, Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic and Christian Cultures, won the Salo Baron Prize for Outstanding First Book in Jewish Studies. She has published articles in the Journal for the American Academy of Religion, the Journal of Jewish Studies, Jewish Quarterly Review, the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, AJS Review and Biblical Interpretation. She has held postdoctoral fellowships in Yale University's Program in Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania's Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies and New York University Law School's Tikvah Center for Law and Jewish Civilization. She received her BA and PhD from Columbia University and her MA from the University of Chicago.