Uriel Aiskovich, M.A.

Research Profile

Uriel Aiskovich is a doctoral candidate at the School of Jewish Theology, University of Potsdam. He is supervised by Prof. Dr. Jonathan Schorsch (University of Potsdam) and Prof. Dr. Frederek Musall (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg). His dissertation, Digital Games as Tools for Ethical Learning, Identity Formation, and Intercultural Dialogue in Contemporary Jewish Education, examines how commercial and independent digital games can be deployed as pedagogical media in contemporary Jewish education.

The project develops a critical framework for analysing digital games — not as transparent instructional tools, but as culturally mediated texts that demand sustained interpretive engagement. Drawing on Jewish traditions of dialogical learning — machloket, elu v'elu, and chevruta — alongside critical pedagogy and game studies, the research argues that digital games, including those with ambivalent or culturally complex representations of Jewishness, can serve, when appropriately mediated, as productive sites for ethical reflection, identity formation, and intercultural dialogue. Particular attention is given to the gap between games designed specifically for educational purposes and the pedagogical possibilities embedded in commercially produced titles — a distinction that has received little attention in existing scholarship on religion and digital media.

The research is supported by a doctoral fellowship from the Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk (ELES).

Research interests: digital games and religion; game-based learning; Jewish education; critical thinking and dialogical pedagogy; intercultural dialogue; identity formation; media representation of minority cultures; Frankfurt School critical theory and Jewish thought; the reception of Jewish intellectuals in Latin America; pedagogical applications of interactive media.

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Curriculum Vitae

Uriel Aiskovich holds a Master of Arts in Jewish Theology from the University of Potsdam and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science  from the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). He also completed the Senior Educators Program at M² – The Institute for Experiential Jewish Education. Prior to joining the University of Potsdam, he taught Philosophy and Methods of the Social Sciences at UBA and Political Theory at the Universidad de Ciencias Empresariales y Sociales (UCES) in Argentina.

Coordination

Jewish Activism Summer School (JASS), University of Potsdam

Since January 2026, Uriel Aiskovich has served as a research assistant at the School of Jewish Theology, where he is responsible for the development, planning, and coordination of the Jewish Activism Summer School (JASS). JASS brings together students and practitioners engaged with questions of Jewish identity, activism, and pluralism in the European context, offering an intensive interdisciplinary format at the intersection of Jewish learning and civic engagement.

Talks

• "Stepping Into Another's World: Digital Games, Critical Thinking, and Educational Possibilities in Contemporary Jewish Education." Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Network for Research in Jewish Education (NRJE), Maryland, US, June 2026. [NRJE is the leading scholarly organization dedicated to advancing research in Jewish education, bringing together researchers and practitioners from across the field.]
• "Game Over, or: Can a Video Game Be Jewish?" Session presented at Limmud Deutschland, May 2026. [Limmud Deutschland is part of the international Limmud movement, a volunteer-led festival of Jewish learning and culture.]

Publications

2024 Aiskovich, Uriel. "La fuerza no está en los cielos: conversaciones entre Milei y los maestros del Talmud." In Las fuerzas del cielo. Argentina, Milei y los judíos, coordinated by Raanan Rein and Pablo Méndez Shiff. Buenos Aires: Milena Caserola, 2024. ISBN 978-987-8392-91-3.

2021 Pittaluga, Mariana, and Uriel Aiskovich. Puño y Letra: un cruce interdisciplinario entre Poder y Caligrafía. Co-edition: Experimenta Libros (Madrid) / Wolkowicz Editores (Buenos Aires), 2021. ISBN 978-84-18049-57-6 / 978-987-4117-66-3.

2012 Aiskovich, Uriel. "Pragmatismo y Judaísmo. Fuentes talmúdicas de la filosofía pragmática." Diversidad 4, no. 3 (June 2012): 1–19. ISSN 2250-5792.

Forthcoming

Aiskovich, Uriel. "Stepping Into Another's World: Digital Games, Critical Thinking, and Educational Possibilities in Contemporary Jewish Education." In Religiöse Bildung und Künstliche Intelligenz, vol. VI. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, forthcoming 2026.

Aiskovich, Uriel. "Erich Fromm and the Shaping of Modern Jewish Thought in Argentina: Reception and Influence within the Jewish Community (1940s–1990s)." Fromm Forum (English Edition). Tübingen: International Erich Fromm Society, in preparation.