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Michael A. Fishbane (born 1943) is an American scholar of Judaism and rabbinic literature. Formerly at Brandeis University, he is currently the Nathan Cummings Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at the Divinity School, University of Chicago.
Fishbane joined the University of Chicago in 1990, following approximately twenty-five years as a student and faculty member at Brandeis University. He subsequently relocated to Teaneck, New Jersey, to be closer to his family, including his son Eitan Fishbane, a professor of Jewish thought at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and another son, Elisha, who resides in Highland Park.
Fishbane (Ph.D., Brandeis University) is well known as a Hebrew Bible scholar, especially for his work Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel and his work on the JPS Tanakh. He has also written on the subjects of Midrash, mysticism, myth and Jewish theology. In 2015, Fishbane published a multileveled comprehensive commentary presenting the full range of Jewish interpretations on the Song of Songs (Jewish Publication Society).
He has received the Lifetime Achievement in Textual Studies award from the National Foundation For Jewish Culture.
Fishbane also undertook a project funded by the Templeton Foundation to compile a collection of Hasidic spiritual practices drawn from sermons, homilies, and disciples' records, with the aim of documenting both the physical and contemplative disciplines cultivated within Hasidic thought over the preceding two and a half centuries.
