Phil Lieberman is a historian of Jews in the medieval Islamic world and a professor at Vanderbilt University, currently on military leave, serving as a Professor of History at the United States Naval Academy. His work spans social, economic, and legal history, with notable books including The Business of Identity (2014), The Fate of the Jews in the Early Islamic Middle East (2022), and a 2024 translation of Maimonides,’ The Guide to the Perplexed. He has also contributed to major academic volumes on Jewish history.

D’var Torah: “Is it Permitted to Move to Egypt?” 
Saturday, April 19, during Morning Services
In May 1165, Moses Maimonides disembarked from a ship crossing the Mediterranean in the port of Akko, seemingly planning to make his life there. About a year later, he left the Land of Israel for old Cairo, where he would live out his days as a communal leader and thinker. In his writings, though, Maimonides emphasizes the commandment to move to Israel and rejected the idea of moving away from Israel. On Pesach, when we celebrate coming out of Egypt, we will explore Maimonides’ complex relationship with the Land of Israel and the legal (and personal) question of whether one is allowed to go back to Egypt to live.