On October 19, 2026, Fordham’s Center for Jewish Studies hosted Dr. Michael Satlow, Professor of Religious and Judaic Studies at Brown University, at Walsh Library on the Rose Hill Campus. In his presentation, Dr. Satlow spoke about his exciting new digital humanities project that creates knowledge graphs with data drawn from classical Rabbinic literature, including the Mishnah, the Tosefta, the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds, and midrashic texts.
Using AI tools such as Gemini and Claude, Dr. Satlow and his team are exploring the connections between the rabbis mentioned in the texts listed above, who often refer to each other in “citation chains” — Rabbi X said in the name of Rabbi Y who said in the name of Rabbi Z. Using the generated graphs, scholars can visualize the social networks at play in Rabbinic literature. Of special interest are the “betweenness scores,” which indicate an individual’s overall contribution to the connectedness of the network; preliminary results show that only 4% of all the rabbis in the Babylonian Talmud hold 30% of the “betweenness,” and if these rabbis were removed the whole network would fall apart. Already, therefore, Dr. Satlow’s project reveals important information concerning the connected nature of Rabbinic society.
Dr. Satlow answers questions from the audience in the Q & A.
In addition, the graphs help visualize the transmission of knowledge between locations and generations, including identifying rabbis who cite from both Palestinian and Babylonian authorities, thus tying together the different Talmudic traditions. Dr. Satlow additionally hopes to use mathematical formulae to determine potential schools of thought based on subgroups which tend to cite within themselves.
In the following Q & A period, Dr. Satlow discussed the audience’s questions on how his project might also contribute to work on redactional studies and be a model for similar projects in other disciplines, such as Islamic studies. While this project is still in its early stages, it is already clear that Dr. Satlow’s work has many potential uses for scholars of history and Talmud. We are excited to see and to benefit from the results of his research.
