Dr. Ágnes Vető
A scholar of Talmud and rabbinic literature, Lecturer in Jewish Studies at Vassar College, and teacher of the languages and literatures of the Jewish tradition from the biblical through the contemporary. A Hungarian-born ordained Orthodox rabbi.
Biography
Dr. Ágnes (Ági) Vető grew up in Budapest, the daughter of a Catholic mother and a father who converted from Judaism to Catholicism after the Shoah. Her burgeoning awareness of her father’s Jewish heritage moved her to engage in the “unofficial” study of Hebrew and Aramaic during the time that such language study was discouraged in academia, during Hungary’s period of “soft socialism.”
She began her graduate work in Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, under the five-year Hungarian master’s curriculum then in force, and continued it at Paris IV (Sorbonne) and the Institut Catholique in Paris before returning to Eötvös Loránd to complete her course requirements. She spent a research year at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies on a Rich Foundation Fellowship, and was awarded the M.A. at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, in 1994. She then spent a history-preparation year at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris and studied Talmud at the PaRDeS Institute, a co-educational yeshiva in Jerusalem, before taking a further M.A. in Jewish Studies at the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She completed her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. at New York University in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, where she also taught.
In 2020 she received rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Maharat, an egalitarian Orthodox rabbinic seminary in Riverdale, NY — the first institution to ordain Jewish women in the Orthodox world. She was the first Hungarian-born Orthodox woman to receive ordination. Since then she has been a Fellow in Maharat’s Halakhah in Action program, where she works on questions of female empowerment, economic justice, and Jewish–non-Jewish relations through the lens of Jewish law.
She has taught at Vassar since 2014, and is currently Lecturer in Jewish Studies, jointly appointed in the Program in Jewish Studies and the Program in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. She coordinates the Hebrew Language program, teaches language classes at Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced levels, and has taught Talmudic Aramaic and facilitated Yiddish language study for Vassar students. Her content courses span the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the history and culture of the Land of Israel, the Holocaust, women in Jewish law, contemporary Jewry in Europe, Israel, and America, and the history of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism.
She is fluent in four languages, and has been indispensable in conceptualizing, teaching, and guiding Vassar’s Jewish Studies Travel Seminar, which has enabled a diverse group of students to experience Jewish Vienna, Berlin, Prague, Paris, Budapest, Florence, and Venice.
Degrees & Ordination
- Rabbinic Ordination (semikhah), Yeshivat Maharat, Riverdale, NY · 2020 (Kollel Program, 2017–20)
- Ph.D., Hebrew & Judaic Studies, Skirball Department, New York University · 2015 (MacCracken Fellowship, 2003–15)
- M.Phil., Hebrew & Judaic Studies, New York University · 2015
- M.A., Hebrew & Judaic Studies, New York University
- M.A., Jewish Studies, Rothberg International School, Hebrew University of Jerusalem · 2003 (University Merit Fellowship, 2001–03)
- M.A., Hebrew & Jewish Studies, School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London · 1994
- Research Fellow, Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies · 1992–93 (Rich Foundation Fellowship)
- Graduate studies, Paris IV (Sorbonne) & Institut Catholique de Paris · 1989–90
- Graduate studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest · 1988–89, 1990–92
Additional study: Text-preparation year at the PaRDeS Institute, Jerusalem (Rimon Fellowship, 2000–01); history-preparation year at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris (1994–95); Halakhah in Action Fellowship, Yeshivat Maharat (2021–23).
Positions
- Lecturer in Jewish Studies, Vassar College (since 2014)
- Fellow, Halakhah in Action, Yeshivat Maharat (since 2020)
- Adjunct Faculty, History Department, SUNY New Paltz
- Adjunct Instructor, Hebrew & Judaic Studies, Seton Hall University
- Teaching Fellow, Skirball Department of Hebrew & Judaic Studies, New York University