Sabine Schmidtke Receives Honorary Doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
In a ceremony held today, October 19, 2026, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem awarded Sabine Schmidtke, Professor in the School of Historical Studies, an honorary doctorate.
Schmidtke is a scholar of Islamic intellectual history, known both for the geographic breadth of her research and its unprecedented discoveries. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem recognized these qualities and more, describing her “extraordinarily wide-ranging, original, and dynamic scholarship” that demonstrates “the multifaceted cultural contexts in which theology developed in the Islamicate world.” An emergent characteristic of Schmidtke’s work, the university goes on to describe, is “the unearthing of new findings which alter, at times dramatically, previously held truths.” This is exemplified, among other breakthroughs, by her reconstruction of tenth-century theological writings previously thought to be lost.
The citation also identified Schmidtke’s work in founding the Master of Arts program in Intellectual Encounters of the Islamicate World at the Freie Universität of Berlin. Schmidtke’s “warm and longstanding” ties to academic institutions and scholars across borders––including in the Arab world, Turkey, Russia, and Iran––have allowed her to “facilitate intellectual contacts where no other contacts exist.”
In addition to Schmidtke, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem also conferred an honorary doctorate on Shafi Goldwasser, Visiting Professor (2021) in the School of Mathematics. Goldwasser is best known for co-inventing zero-knowledge proofs and laying the theoretical foundations for modern cryptography, work for which she won the 2012 ACM Turing Award. She returned to the Institute in April 2025 to deliver the prestigious Emmy Noether lecture series, named for the revolutionary German mathematician who was a frequent IAS Visitor (1933–35) during her time at Bryn Mawr College.
Additionally, theoretical physicist Eliezer Rabinovici, Member (1992–93) in the School of Natural Sciences, was awarded the Bublick Prize at the ceremony, in recognition of “significant impact on the advancement and development of the State of Israel.”
Read the full list of honorees on the Hebrew University of Jerusalem website.
