Ruth Langer is Professor of Jewish Studies in the Theology Department at Boston College and Associate Director of its Center for Christian-Jewish Learning. She received her Ph.D. in 1994 from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati. Her research and writing focuses on Jewish liturgy and Christian-Jewish relations.

" A comprehensive treatment...This is not a book for students of ancient Judaism alone, but for anyone interested in Jewish-Christian relations more broadly...One needs to thank Langer for having devoted so much time to the careful examination of such a vast number of liturgical manuscripts." --AJS Review

"Enthusiastic about theology, cautious about history, and accurate about manuscript study, Langer has provided us with an impressive textual and theological histsory of an intriguing piece of rabbinic liturgy." --The Journal of Religion

"This is an exhaustive and definitive study of an important Jewish prayer. The author shows a remarkable combination of wide-ranging scholarship and common sense." ---John G. Gager, William H. Danforth Professor Emeritus of Religion, Princeton University

"Ruth Langer is the pre-eminent American scholar of Jewish liturgy. I highly recommend Cursing the Christians?. It is an example of first-class academic scholarship and will be of interest to students and scholars of Jewish-Christian relations. Her examination of the birkat haminim will become the standard academic work against which all future studies will be measured." ---Ed Kessler, MBE, Founding Director, Woolf Institute, University of Cambridge

"As fine a work of liturgical research as one is likely to find in a lifetime: a combination of ferreting out manuscripts, rereading the classics, reengaging with late antiquity, and tracing the evolution of an important prayer from then until now. Beautifully constructed and gracefully written, Cursing the Christians? will remain 'the state of the art' for a very long time to come." ---Lawrence A. Hoffman, author of Covenant of Blood: Circumcision and Gender in Rabbinic Judaism

"Cursing the Christians? is first-class liturgical scholarship and makes a powerful theological statement about modern Jewish-Christian relations. The book will be of interest to a variegated readership. It is the best and most comprehensive treatment of its subject available today and will remain the magisterial study of this topic for a long time."--Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations

"This is a very thorough and solid study of the Birkat ha-Minim...Recommended to interested scholars of Jewish liturgy and to academic and synagogue libraries."--Association of Jewish Libraries