Dr. Orit Avnery is a Research Fellow of the Kogod Research Center at Shalom Hartman Institute and a graduate of the Hartman Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis, where she received ordination in 2018. She is a lecturer in Bible and Dean of Students at Shalem College, and holds both a BA and an MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

She received her PhD in Bible Studies from Bar-Ilan University, where her dissertation was entitled “The Threefold Cord: Interrelations between the Books of Samuel, Ruth and Esther.” Orit was a participant in the Academy for Torah Initiatives and Directions (ATID), a fellowship program for future educational leaders, and she served as the coordinator of its Yeud Beit Midrash for three years.

Orit taught Bible studies at Pelech High School for Girls and Midreshet Lindenbaum, and has studied at the Matan Women’s Institute for Jewish Studies, all in Jerusalem.

Orit’s book Liminal Women: Belonging and Otherness in the Books of Ruth and Esther was published by The Shalom Hartman Institute and Keter Press in 2015.