Rika Benveniste was born in Thessaloniki. She studied History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and completed her doctoral studies in Medieval History at the Université de Sorbonne (Paris I, Panthéon). She is at present Professor of European Medieval History in the Department of History, Archaeology, and Social Anthropology at the University of Thessaly, Volos. Her research in Medieval History includes issues of law and society, religiosity and conversion, Jewish history and historiography. She has also researched and published widely on the Holocaust. Her current research focuses on the history of Jews in the postwar years and the emigration of Greek Jews.