IN THE STUDY OF RELIGION, SHE SEES THE STORY OF HUMANITY.

Carol Bakhos

Professor and Chair of the Program in the Study of Religion

As the person tasked with nurturing and growing UCLA’s presence in the Study of Religion, Carol Bakhos brings a clear-eyed inquiry into the study of faith through such works as Ishmael on the Border: Rabbinic Portrayals of the First Arab and her most recent book, The Family of Abraham, in which she investigates the role Abraham and his family play in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Bakhos is a marathon runner, so she knows something about endurance. The “resilience of the Jewish people and their rich traditions,” in fact, along with a lifelong “curiosity about people who are different from me” led the acclaimed academic and prolific author to specialize in the study of rabbinic thought. “There is something that beckons us,and we respond to it through religious or spiritual practices,” she says. “Exploring how people respond to God is a way of understanding what it means to be human.”