J. H. (Yossi) Chajes (Ph.D., Yale University 1999) is Sir Isaac Wolfson Professor of Jewish Thought in the Department of Jewish History at the University of Haifa.

Chajes’s research focuses on the intersection of Kabbalah, magic, and science in Jewish cultural history. He has written on spirit possession and exorcism, egodocuments, women’s religiosity, Jewish attitudes towards magic, and, most recently, on the visualization of knowledge. He co-edited The Visualization of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2020). Chajes’s first book, Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism (2003) was listed by the Wall Street Journal as among the top five books ever written on spirit possession, alongside Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun. Chajes’s foundational book, The Kabbalistic Tree (2022) has been lauded as a “monumental achievement that will be valuable to scholars and general readers interested in Judaism, religion, and art history.” In November 2023, The Kabbalistic Tree was awarded the Jordan Schnitzer Book Prize of the Association for Jewish Studies in the category of Philosophy and Jewish Thought. It is also a 2024 National Jewish Book Award finalist.

Yossi was a student and accompanist of R. Shlomo Carlebach for many years, and has been invited by communities around the world to teach and to lead inspirational, musical services. Yossi was the founding Hazzan of London’s revolutionary Grassroots Jews High Holiday initiative. He has also led Rosh ha-Shana and Yom Kippur services for communities in Dubai (UAE, 4 years), Stanford, Ashland, Jerusalem (“Leader Minyan”), and Zichron Yaakov.