Miriam Udel is associate professor of German Studies and the Judith London Evans Director of the Tam Institute of Jewish Studies at Emory University. Ordained at Yeshivat Maharat in 2019, she holds a PhD in Comparative Literature and an AB in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, both from Harvard University.

A two-time winner of the National Jewish Book Award, Udel was most recently honored in 2026 in the category of Education and Jewish Identity for her critical study, Modern Jewish Worldmaking Through Yiddish Children's Literature (Princeton, 2024). She previously received the 2017 award in Modern Jewish Thought and Experience for Never Better!: The Modern Jewish Picaresque.

As a leading translator and editor, her work includes the Judaica Reference Award-winning Honey on the Page: A Treasury of Yiddish Children's Literature (2020) and the forthcoming collection Labzik: Tales of a Clever Pup (SUNY Press, 2026). Her research explores children’s literature as a vital engine for political formation and cultural transmission. Most recently, she served as the inaugural Robert S. Rifkind Senior Fellow at the Center for Jewish History in New York.