I am currently an assistant professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Before that, I did a PhD in English literature at Berkeley. Before that, I was a Dorot fellow in Israel, and before that, I helped start Open Zion, a group blog that was curated by journalist Peter Beinart and based at The Daily Beast. I’ve written for The New Republic, TheAtlantic.com and The Jewish Daily Forward, inter alia. I occasionally tweet @RaffiMagarik; my work has been translated into Yiddish and Arabic. I graduated Yale with BA in English. I’ve studied rabbinics at Yeshivat Maale Gilboa and Yeshivat Hadar—where I have also taught—and I interned at “Room for Debate,” the online opinion forum of The New York Times. I used to teach for Kevah. I once lived in Uganda for three months, and I like to bake clafoutis.