The Xth Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies (Paris, July 2014): 'Roman Policy in the Aftermath of the Great Jewish Revolt: A Reconsideration in Light of New Evidence

Monday 21st July

Room: 01

Session: 001:

Jewish Philosophy -‐ Middle Ages

9.00-‐10.30

The Logic of Falāsifa in Judeo-‐Arabic and Hebrew Texts

Chair: Steven Harvey

Charles Manekin, University of Maryland, USA

Title: New Light on Alfarabi's Logical Writings in Medieval Hebrew Philosophy

Abstract: It has been argued that some of the logical writings of Alfarabi were among the first philosophical writings of the Arabic Aristotelians translated into Hebrew, antedating the translation of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed in 1199. They appear to have been studied throughout the Middle Ages, even after the logical doctrines of Aristotle were available via the commentaries of Averroes. My paper will present the results of my ongoing research into these writings and their transmission, with special emphasis on a short treatise on dialectic, the Art of Disputation, which seems to be extant only in Hebrew, and which, to my knowledge, has escaped the notice of scholars.

Ariel Malachi, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: Reason, Revelation and Logic: A New Perspective on Yehuda Hallevi and the Islamic "Falāsifa"

Abstract: Yehuda Hallevi's attitude towards rationalism and philosophy has been discussed in prior studies, and several approaches have been presented in relation to it. I wish to discuss a new perspective regarding this issue. The main arguments I wish to present are: (a) that in spite of the general notion that Hallevi was an anti-‐rationalist thinker, he nonetheless offered the learned reader a rational and coherent attitude towards reason and philosophy. (b) That this attitude relies directly on Aristotelian logic as presented in the writings of the "falāsifa". (c) That this attitude functions as a philosophical-‐methodological basis for establishing both the criticism of philosophy as well as the defense of Judaism. In this context, I will argue that as much as Halevi rejected the philosophical premises and as a result, the philosophical conclusions, he did not reject the philosophical method itself, i.e.: the contemporary principles of Logic. Reading the Kuzari, while paying the proper attention to the logical terminology used within, can show how Hallevi established the aforementioned critique and defense, and gives the reader a new perspective regarding the relation between reason and revelation. Furthermore, such reading can be used as a basis for a wider effort of answering some of the questions regarding the Kuzari raised in prior research.

Yehudah Halper, Tulane University, USA

Title: The Logic of Metaphysics in Hebrew Commentaries on Aristotle's Metaphysics

Abstract: Logic occupied a place of high accolade among medieval thinkers on the grounds that it provides the basis for scientific certainty and thereby the basis for a rational account of the universe. Metaphysics, too, gives the ontological ground for science, yet metaphysics was often opened to skepticism by medieval Jewish thinkers, including Maimonides. One source for this skepticism is that Aristotle himself opened up such basic questions as “what is being?” or “can there be a scientific study of being?” in the early books of the Metaphysics. In a similar vein, in the Long Commentary on Book Gamma of the Metaphysics, Averroes remarks that metaphysics has its own unique logic and suggests that this logic has a dialectical rather than demonstrative basis. That is, Averroes suggests that the unique logical foundations of metaphysics are not demonstrative, i.e., are not completely certain. This paper will examine three medieval and renaissance approaches to the question of whether Aristotle’s Metaphysics succeeds in developing a logic that could be used as the basis for other sciences. The first approach, found in Averroes’ Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, suggests that this foundational problem is surmountable and that a reliable logical basis for science can be made in metaphysics. Averroes’ Middle Commentary was widely circulated in Hebrew translation and was influential on medieval Jewish thought. A second approach, found in Abraham Bibago’s 15th century commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, is more skeptical, suggesting the unreliability of science, while still encouraging philosophical reflection. Bibago explains this position in detailed comments comparing Averroes’ Middle Commentary on the Metaphysics with his Commentary on the Posterior Analytics. For Bibago, philosophical speculation is an unending task and the ideal human pursuit. The third approach is that of Judah Moscato, the 16th century Italian thinker, who did not write a commentary on the Metaphysics, but displays knowledge of the work in his Nefuṣot Yehudah. Like Bibago, whom he read, Moscato treated the logic of metaphysics as not completely certain and questioned whether people could have any significant knowledge of it. Unlike Bibago, Moscato rejects Aristotelian metaphysical study as well as Aristotelian science. He replaces it, instead, with a Platonist-‐like way of reading Biblical passages as images of the divine. Moscato’s rejection of Aristotelian logic and metaphysics leads to a mystical turn.

10.30-‐11.00: Coffee Break

Session 002:

Cultural Contacts

11.00-‐13.00

Chair:

Montse Leyra Curia, Universidad San Damaso, Spain

Title: R. Shemuel Ben Meir and Hugh and Andrew of St. Victor’s ‘in hebreo’ interpretations in their commentaries on the Pentateuch

Abstract: In their Latin commentaries on the Pentateuch, the twelfth-‐century authors Hugh (1090/1100-‐1141) and Andrew (died 1175) of St. Victor ascribe many interpretations to the Hebrew text (in hebreo) or to the Hebrews (Hebrei, secundum Hebreos). Since the works of B. Smalley, scholars such as M. Awerbuch, R. Berndt and G. A. C. Hadfield have pointed out several close parallels to these interpretations in the

commentary on the Pentateuch written by R. Shemuel Ben Meir (1080/85 and 1160), one of the twelfth-‐century Jewish writers of the Northern French school of literal exegesis. S. Kamin and E. Touitoo have observed similarities in exegetical method between interpretations by the Victorines and those coming out of the Northern French School of Jewish exegesis, particularly interpretations of Rashbam. However, no systematic analysis of all Victorine’s in hebreo interpretations has been carried out with respect to the specific linguistic principles and literary-‐rhetorical devices found in Rashbam’s commentary. My first aim in this paper is to ascertain whether in their in hebreo interpretations Hugh and Andrew of St. Victor can be shown to have employed linguistic principles and literary-‐rhetorical devices that are characteristic of the Northern-‐French school and can be found in Rashbam’s commentary. Secondly, I shall try to point out further parallels between the Victorines’ in hebreo references and interpretations in Rashbam’s commentary. My intention is to determine whether Rashbam can be proved to have been a direct source for certain interpretations of the Victorines.

Ari Ackerman, Schechter Institute, Israel

Title: Taxonomy, Methodology and Scholastic Techniques in the Legal Writings of Hasdai Crescas

Abstract: Hasdai Crescas, the fifteenth century Hispano-‐Jewish philosopher, is justifiably considered one of the most significant and innovative medieval Jewish thinkers. In his day, though, his reputation and influence also extended to the sphere of Jewish law. Unfortunately, little of Crescas' literary output in this area remains. I will argue in my lecture, though, that part of the rich and inventive legal universe of Hasdai Crescas can be surfaced. This unearthing is made possible by our ability to ajar two windows that allow us to peer into Crescas' novel and noteworthy activity in the realm of Jewish law. These apertures are two brief discussions on halakhic matters that are embedded within his philosophic works. The first—a short treatment of the nature of codification, which criticizes Maimonides' Mishneh Torah—appears in the introduction to Crescas' philosophic work, or Hashem and was probably intended as part of the introduction to a legal compendium, entitled tentatively Ner Elohim, which Crescas intended to write. The second appears in his philosophic sermon, Derashat ha-‐Pesach. From these two texts, we can surmise the nature of the legal code that Crescas intended to write. I will focus on one particular feature of his intended code: a comprehensive taxonomy of halakhah through a series of dichotomous classifications. I will investigate the relationship between this aspect of his halakhic approach with his philosophic writings. In addition, I will argue that Crescas' methodology of codification draws from legal trends among Christian glossators and commentators in law schools of European universities in the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. Like the Christian glossators and commentators, Crescas aspired to provide an all-‐comprehensive taxonomy by classifying the law through a series of subdistionctiones.

Doron Forte, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: The Reception and Rejection of Latin Scholastic Wisdom among Jewish philosophers in 15th Century Spain

Abstract: The correspondence between Eli Habilio and Rabbi Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov as a test case". Rabbi Shem Tov, the last known scion of the Ibn Shem Tov Family, was one of the most prominent and prolific Jewish philosophers in the second half of the 15th century in Spain. As a full-‐fledged "old school" Averroist, who taught Aristotelian writings and composed elaborated commentaries on them, his attitude towards the expanding influence of Scholastic thought upon Jewish intellectual circles was characterized by suspicion and distrust. Eli Habilio, on the other hand, represents an opposite approach: Not only that he denied the irrelevancy of Scholastic knowledge, but he emphasized its crucial role to the continuity and

revival of Jewish philosophy. By translating many writings from Latin to Hebrew, Habilio himself took an active role in the presentation and distribution of Scholastic philosophy among Jewish readers. In the lecture I will review the general attitude of the Jewish philosophers towards Scholastic philosophy in 15th century Spain. I will examine if the correspondence (that survived in a single manuscript) between the figures mentioned above can be taken as a trustworthy representation of the varying approaches. The awareness to the diverse opinions towards Scholasticism is crucial, in my mind, for true understanding of the development of Jewish philosophy at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance era. Just as the personal relationship between Shem Tov and Habilio are not one-‐dimensional, and we cannot speak of complete devotion and dedication (as I suggest) -‐ so is the attitude of Jewish philosophers towards Latin Scholasticism. I think that this purposed lecture is very fitting with the keynote theme of the Xth Congress and I will be honored to take part in such a distinguished event.

13.00-‐14.00: Lunch meeting of the Ex-‐Com of the EAJS

Session 003:

Medieval Jewish Philosophy

14.00-‐15.30

Under the Crescent

Chair : Gad Freudenthal

David Lemler, EPHE/ENS, Paris, France

Title: Saadia’s Contradictions on the Creation of the World: a Conceptual Approach

Abstract: In his Commentary on Proverbs 30, 3 (CP), Saadia states that the creation of the world is part of « God’s science », a knowledge man is unable to access. However, he himself writes long developments on that issue in Part 1 of his Book of Beliefs and opinion (BBO) and the Commentary on Sefer Yetsirah (CSY) is entirely dedicated to it. Georges Vajda (« Sa’adya, commentateur du “Livre de la Création” ». Annuaire de l’EPHE, Sciences religieuses. 1960. p. 3�35) suggested that this contradictions might be explained by the different audiences of these diverse works, CP being a popular exegetical text while BBO and CSY adress the educated scholar. I would like to propose an alternative view on this problem. For theological (safeguarding the possibility of Torah and miracles) as well as philosophical (proving God’s existence) reasons, creation ex nihilo was a doctrine of fundamental importance for Saadia. This doctrine though raises a major epistemological problem, which Saadia acknowledges in all his texts on the issue. While it is possible to think about or to conceive of a creation from nothing, it is however impossible to have a proper representation of such a thing. All known process of genesis, with which absolute creation could be compared, always consist in the reorganization of pre-‐existing elements. Saadia thus constructs a purely intellectual concept of creation ex nihilo in his BBO, while recognizing the impossibility of imagining how such a creation took place. He thus offers a concept, devoid of any proper imaginative content. From that point of view, it seems possible to understand why a rationalist thinker like Saadia decided to write a commentary on Sefer Yetsirah (SY). The attempt at rationalizing the arcane teachings of the SY might be explained not only by polemical motivations against contemporary mystical and magical interpretations of this work (cf. BEN-‐SHAMMAI H. « Saadya’s Goal in his “Commentary on Sefer Yezira” ». In: LINK-‐SALINER R,

ÉD. A Straight Path: Studies in Medieval Philosophy and Culture. Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman. Washington D. C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1988. p. 1-‐9), but also as a response to internal difficulties of Saadia’s thought. CSY is an exegetical and philosophical instrument that allows him to « fill » his concept of creation ex nihilo. Saadia states that the view expressed in the SY is not identical with that of the Torah and that it merely describes the way Abraham imagined the process of creation. In his Commentary, Saadia offers a rationalistic interpretation of this imaginative cosmogony. Since it is both authoritative (attributed to Abraham) but not yet true (since it does not offer the view of the Torah proper), SY allows Saadia to elaborate a quasi-‐scientific discourse on an object, which, by its very nature, is outside the scope of science. Behind its apparent contradictions, Saadia’s approach to the question turns out to offer a genuine and thorough attempt at coping with the intrinsic problems raised by the concept of creation ex nihilo.

Almuth Lahmann, Universität Bern, Schweiz, Switzerland

Title: Saadia Gaon and Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī as Recipients of the Nicomachean Ethics?

Abstract: It is known that the Islamic philosopher of the tenth century al-‐Fārābī (ca. 870-‐950), who was based in Baghdad, overtly adopted concepts of the Aristotelian Ethics. These are, amongst others, the ethical and the intellectual virtues and the doctrine of the mean (mesotēs; tawassuṭ), which he mentions in his works -‐ perhaps most prominently in the Aphorisms of the statesman (Fuṣūl muntazaʿa) or in the Guidance on the Path to Happiness (at-‐Tanbīh ʿalā sabīl as-‐saʿāda). In this paper, I want to demonstrate that two of al-‐Fārābī’s contemporaries in Baghdad also refer to certain aspects of the Aristotelian Ethics. In 933 Saadia Gaon (882-‐942), then the former head of the Sura Academy, philosopher and grammarian, argues in his Kitāb al-‐Amānāt wa-‐l-‐Iʿtiqādāt (Doctrines and Beliefs) for a conduct of life, which is based on decisions and actions in just the right time. Unlike al-‐Fārābī, who follows his teacher Aristotle to conceptualize ethical virtues as a mean between two extremes, Saadia Gaon seems rather to transform this Aristotelian ethical concept. However, about in the middle of the 10th century the Syrian-‐orthodox theologian and philosopher Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (892-‐972), then leader of the peripatetic school in Baghdad composed his ethical treatise Kitāb tahḏīb al-‐aḫlāq (The Reformation of Morals). His approach also seems to refer to the Aristotelian doctrine of the mean, though criticizes it in some respect. However, there is a clear difference between Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī and Saadia Gaon regarding the context of moral conduct. Saadia Gaon seems to consider the individual in relation to the social in general whereas Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī relates the individual with what was then the society of the Abbasid Empire. This paper will mainly focus on the Aristotelian concept of the mean (mesotēs).

Mordechai Cohen, Yeshiva University, USA

Title: Halakhic Hermeneutics of a Poet: Moses Ibn Ezra vs. Maimonides

Abstract: Recent scholarship has revealed that Maimonides drew upon Muslim jurisprudence (uṣūl al-‐fiqh) to develop his bold halakhic hermeneutical model that integrates Bible exegesis and talmudic halakhah. Given its sophistication, it is not unreasonable to conjecture that precedents for Maimonides’ hermeneutical system had been circulating among earlier Andalusian Jewish scholars who adapted Muslim terms and concepts to describe the halakhic process. To date, brief discussions of this nature have been identified in the writings of Baḥya Ibn Paquda, Judah ha-‐Levi and, most recently, in the newly discovered fragmentary writings of the eleventh-‐century Granada dayyan David ben Saadia ha-‐Ger. I would like to bring to light some relevant remarks by the poet and literary critic Moses Ibn Ezra (born c. 1055, also in Granada). In his poetics, The Book of Discussion and Conversation, Ibn Ezra compares the intellectual

creativity of prophets and legal scholars. While the prophets employ their ingenuity to render God’s message in the most excellent poetic and rhetorical format, the legal scholars actually augment the Law by extrapolating new conclusions from what is stated explicitly in scripture—a concept he describes in terms borrow from Muslim jurisprudence. In my paper I aim to explore the unique literary perspective on this subject brought to bear by Moses Ibn Ezra by contrast with the legal-‐philosophical vantage point of Maimonides and his halakhically-‐oriented Andalusian predecessors.


Session 004:

Sins and Transgressions in Jewish Medieval Thought

16.00-‐18.00

Chair: Gad Freudenthal

Albert Van der Heide, Leiden University/Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands

Title: Five centuries of Aqedah Exegesis

Abstract: Nearing the completion of an anthology of Aqedah exegesis, I would like to present here some of the results of my analysis of those parts of Bible commentaries, homilies, and works of religious thought that deal with Abraham's trial, the sacrifice of Isaac, as told in Genesis 22. Apart from the various views on the influential topic of the Aqedah itself—their mutual influence and blending—a long-‐term survey from Saadya to Abrabanel has much to tell about the nature and history of medieval Jewish Bible exegesis.

Dror Ehrlich, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: The Status Principle in Medieval Jewish and Christian Discussions of Hell

Abstract: One of the main criticisms of the classic retributivist doctrine of eternal punishment in contemporary philosophy of religion is that it is not morally justified to condemn a person to infinite punishment when his wrong deeds and the amount of harm he can cause are undoubtedly finite. This criticism is based on the assumption that the severity of sin, which determines the level of the appropriate punishment, is measured according to the extent of harm caused or that was intended to be caused. One of the ways to address this problem is by changing the criterion for evaluating the severity of sin. Instead of measuring it based on the extent of damage, it can be assessed by the existential status of the object of sin – in other words, the importance of the entity toward which the transgression was directed. Philosophers and theologians who follow this line of thinking assume that in the religious context, the object of sin is God. Since God’s nature is infinite in essence, any sin carried out against Him is infinite in severity, and thus justifies infinite punishment, meaning eternal hell. In contemporary philosophy of religion, this principle is known as “the Status Principle”. However, it was already introduced and discussed in medieval Christian theology by Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas. In this lecture, I would like to show that three Jewish thinkers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, who were familiar with, and to some extent influenced by, Christian theology, also used this principle in their discussions of eternal punishment in hell.

The first two, R. Nissim Gerondi and R. Hasdai Crescas, mention it quite briefly, but their disciple, R. Joseph Albo, discusses it in a much broader and systematic manner. Apart of presenting and analyzing these discussions, I will try to indicate their contribution to the relevant philosophical discourse of our days.

Adiel Zimran, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Comparison of Adam’s Sin in Medieval Philosophy: Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Abstract: The story of the sin of Adam, the first man, appears in the holy scriptures of all three religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It describes the archetypal ‘sin’ and the ways in which it is to be corrected. Embedded within the story are many key concepts for understanding the theology and sociology of religion. For example, the Garden of Eden symbolizes the utopia to which humanity strives, while ‘sin and atonement’ describes the possible and appropriate relationship between man and God. In this lecture I will examine how the interpretation of the story of Adam’s sin developed in medieval philosophy, through a comparison of the three religions. This comparison is particularly interesting in view of the fact that the Moslem conquest led to the domination of the Arabic language throughout the empire and created an intellectual affinity between Jews and Muslims. During that period, some Muslim and Jewish schools of thought gave precedence to rationality rather than myth, leading to changes in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. In light of these changes, I will explore how the ethos of ‘the complete man’ and the fundamental concepts of sin and atonement changed accordingly. The lecture will focus on three great Jewish thinkers whose writings reveal differing attitudes towards sin: Maimonides (Spain and Egypt, 12th century), Nahmanides (Spain, 13th century), and Isaac Ibn Latif (Spain, 13th century). I will analyze the models presented by these philosophers in light of commentaries by the Christian theologian Augustine and the Muslim philosopher Avicenna.

Ram Ben-‐Shalom, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Isaac Nathan of Provence and the First Jewish Work on the Seven Deadly Sins

Abstract: Isaac Nathan lived in Provence during the fifteenth century. He was the most affluent merchant in the Jewish community of Arles, and one of the wealthiest figures in the city in general, a financier taking part in a wide range of business activities and a prominent leader of the Jewish communities in Provence. Nathan is best known as the author of the first Hebrew Concordance of the bible, Me’ir Netiv, a project of far-‐reaching importance undertaken in Arles between the years 1437 and 1447. My purpose in this lecture is to analyzed Isaac Nathan’s work Me’ametṣ Koacḥ (still unpublished), which is the first Jewish work on the seven deadly sins and the four virtues. Isaac Nathan came to the conclusion that the Christian method of the deadly sins and the virtues was the correct basis for the organization of Jewish ethics, rooted primarily in Scripture, but also in Rabbinic literature. He believed that Jews should not hesitate to adopt what is fitting and true in Christian theological literature. Beyond this bold step of accepting the “other”, we find, in Meʾameṣ Ko'aḥ, an attempt to devise a unitary ethical method that would be acceptable to Jews and Christians alike.

18.00-‐19.30: RFE Alumni Meeting

19.30-‐21.00: General Meeting of the European Association for Jewish Studies

Monday 21st July

Room: 02

Session: 001:

Modern Jewish Thought

9.00-‐10.30

Thinkers of Messianism

Chair: Myriam Bienenstock

M.A. Rosa Reicher, University of Heidelberg, Germany

Title: The Ethos of ‘Bildung’: Gershom Scholem on the Periphery of German-‐Jewish ‘Bildung’”

Abstract: ‘Bildung’ is a key concept in the German tradition of educational theory. Originally meant to indicate a specific state of mind and ideal of perfection, it now serves as a symbol of the unity of whatever refers to the field of education, particularly to its organisational and functional aspects. The aura of ‘Bildung’ is bestowed on its counterpart in the form of preparation for the needs of the day. However wrongheaded or deplorable that may appear in the light of traditional values and ideas, this alienated use of the concept of ‘Bildung’ may be a blessing in disguise: it keeps alive the memory of autonomous learning as opposed to regular training under the imperatives of the day. The paradigm of ‘Bildung’ survives in title if not in substance as a paradigm to regain. For Hegel, ‘Bildung is a crucial concept that unifies issues of development, education, and form, including logical, aesthetic, and ethical forms. The idea of Bildung expresses the emergent formative development of the natural biological individual by the institutions and practices of culture, including, but not limited to, explicitly educational institutions and their agents (e.g., professors), along with the development of culture by individuals. In this connection Amos Elon explains: "Their true home, we now know, was not 'Germany,' but German culture and language. Their true religion was the bourgeois, Goethean ideal of Bildung (high culture)." One of the main concepts that influenced the Jewish self-‐perception in the 19th century was ‘Bildung’ – the idea of self-‐cultivation and education. This cultural and philosophical "movement" focused on an ideal individual: enlighten, humanist and free; a man of the world, whose culture is not rooted in any specific religion or nation, he is the European par-‐excellence. Because of ‘Bildung's’ emphasis on the individual, many of the Jews in Germany perceived it as an ideal tool for full assimilation. According to ‘Bildung’ it doesn’t matter where one comes from, it only matters where one is headed, and therefore it is no wonder many Jews adopted ‘Bildung’ enthusiastically. The overall acceptance of ‘Bildung’ in the minds of German-‐Jewish intellectuals changed the content of both Judaism and Germanism for them. The very term ‘Bildung’ became part of their Jewishness; cultural artifacts that in the past were considered German and foreign, were now perceived as the very essence of their culture. In this presentation I will discuss the rise of a German-‐Jewish intellectual culture following the example of Scholems biography; this was a culture that prized ‘Bildung’ as an integral part of German ‘Bürgertum’ and which soon elevated ‘Bildung’ to a noticeably Jewish value, as well. I will explore the role of Gershom Scholem as a German-‐Jewish intellectual in relation to the larger culture focussing on what German-‐Jewish intellectuals shared with their non-‐Jewish counterparts and in what ways the differed, as never fully integrated individuals and groups. The educational system of the German Jewish society around the turn of the century was aligned with the conveying of humanistic ideals in language, scientific, technical and literary contents. Hans Georg Gadamer regarded Scholem as a “pupil of a great historical school of German and romantic heritage,” and George L. Mosse described Scholem and his concept of ‘Bildung’ as

self-‐cultivation in the sense of Goethe and Humbold. In addition I would like to describe Gershom Scholem as a theorist of ‘Bildung’. Aspects of his conception of ‘Bildung’ shall be worked out. The examination goes consequently essentially by three main emphases:

1. Scholem’s biography in the shade of the German-‐Jewish ‘Bildungsbürgertum’;

2. Theoretical reflection and dissociation of conceptualities to ‘Bildung’ and Zionism;

3. Scholem’s contributions and merits for the development of the science of the Judaism [Wissenschaft des Judentums] until today's time. A basic thesis of this examination is: Scholem requires a change of the German-‐Jewish paradigm of ‘Bildung’. Here, paradigm is understood as a pattern of thought which influenced the world view of the time then. Zionism, tradition and Jewish identity are included and examined as paradigms of ‘Bildung’. One main part of a successful Zionist education was for Scholem the Hebrew education. Learning Hebrew was a significant part of a successful Zionist education which influences the Jewish Identity. The paradigm change of ‘Bildung’ goes:

─ from the German to the Zionist orientation,

─ from the national/linear to the Zionist/associate thought,

─ from the partial-‐German (single factors) to the structural orientation to Eretz Israel,

─ from German language to Hebrew language as a symbol of Zionist identity,

─ from German to the German-‐Jewish and finally to the Zionist identity.

Aim of the research of my dissertation is to recognize Zionism as a concept of ‘Bildung’ and furthermore to define this concept as a new idea particularly from the view of Gershom Scholem. Following thesis is put forward to this: In the understanding of ‘Bildung’ of the Judaism Scholem sees the defining question of the Zionism and articulates an adequate criterion of its conception. The following questions arise from this coherence: Which function should fulfil a Zionist paradigm of ‘Bildung’? Does Scholem develop the theory of ‘Bildung’ as a political concept? How does Scholem discuss the various aspects of the concept of ‘Bildung’ and its function for the Zionism? Which role plays the conveying of Hebrew in a meaningfully frame of ‘Bildung’, Zionism and Jewish of Zionist identity? And finally according to Scholem what should be the essential component of a Zionist-‐‘Bildung’?

Rony Klein, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Des différents usages de la figure du Juif dans la pensée contemporaine: le cas de Derrida

Abstract: La pensée contemporaine, surtout française, a redécouvert la figure du Juif depuis une cinquantaine d'années. On a vu ainsi divers usages très divers de cette "figure". Le cas de Derrida, dans les années 60, est particulièrement intéressant en ce qu'il se sert du Juif pour articuler sa pensée de l'écriture, et ce dès son texte sur Jabès de 1964. Ce texte permet de mieux cerner certaines des grandes questions posées par la pensée juive, comme la question du lieu, de l'exil et de la terre, ou encore celle de l'écrit et de l'oralité. Enfin, il soulève le problème plus général de l'usage d'un certain judaïsme de l'extérieur de la tradition juive.

Vivian Liska, University of Antwerp, Netherlands

Title: A Same Other, Another Same: Maurice Blanchot and Walter Benjamin

Abstract: Even though Walter Benjamin and Maurice Blanchot are considered two of the most important theorists and literary critics of the last century – the two who grant literature the most radical and decisive role in critical thought – their affinity is not obvious and has rarely been examined. An analysis of their respective theories of language and translation reveals how Blanchot approaches and transforms the Jewish dimension of Benjamin's thought and what is at stake in this encounter.


Session 002:


11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Orietta Ombrosi

Judaism in “Gender Difference”. Different Paths of Women's Judaism

Chair:

Irene Kajon, “La Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy

Title: Margarete Susman as an Interpreter of the Bible

Abstract: Margarete Susman is a very interesting figure from different points of view: for her staying between 'Deutschtum' and 'Judentum'; because she at the same time was a poet and a profound thinker; for her work as a defender of women's emancipation and of Jewish people's culture and values. The paper will deal with her exegesis of the Jewish Bible, especially the Book of Job, in the context of the events of her times and in dialogue with other Jewish and non-‐Jewish interpreters (Maimonides, Kant, Buber).

Annabel Herzog, University of Haifa, Israel

Title: A Loveless Daughter of the Jewish People: Hannah Arendt and Jewishness as Pre-‐political Factuality

Abstract: In her entire work Hannah Arendt emphasized her Jewishness and her interest in the fate of the Jewish people. For her, being Jewish was a fact, as was being a woman. As she argued in her political philosophy, however, such facts were not enough for the constitution of a meaningful life. This paper will focus on Arendt's recently published "Jewish Writings" as well as on her well-‐known study Rahel Varnhagen to discuss her understanding of Jewishness in the context of her theory of political action.

Orietta Ombrosi, “La Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy

Title: Sarah Kofman: a Smothered Word

Abstract: In my speech, I would like to think about the question of femininity and of Judaism after Shoah, starting from French philosopher Sarah Kofman (1934-‐1994), a forgotten figure, for who the writing, and in particular the «writing of the disaster» (Blanchot), was essential. Essential was, for her, writing, Essential

was the word. A smothered word. But a word as memory, as a duty of memory of deaths. Foremost, the aim is to question this female Jewish thinker who posed philosophical conundrums – even if not exclusively by means of philosophical conceptuality – on Judaism after Auschwitz. What happened to Judaism after this event? How did she see Israel’s role and that of the Jewish people take shape? On the other hand, what happened to philosophy, to its “structures”, and to its “language”? Finally, why did a certain feminine sensitivity push this intellectual towards these questions in particular?

Marina Arbib, Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya, Israel

Title: "Flora Randegger : Patriotisme juif et littérature italienne"

Abstract: Ma présentation est axée sur une patriote juive de Trieste, Flora Randegger (1824-‐1910), qui, en brisant les limites imposées à la femme par la société du XIXème siècle, se distinguait par ses initiatives en Terre d'Israël et par ses écrits qui encourageaient l'esprit national juif dans la Diaspora juive. Le but de ma présentation est de montrer comment Flora Randegger a encouragé le patriotisme juif en prenant comme modèle la littérature non juive du romantisme et du "Risorgimento" italien.

13.00-‐14.00: Lunch Break

Session 003:


14.00-‐14.30

Panel: Orietta Ombrosi

Judaism in “Gender Difference”. Different Paths of Women's Judaism

Chair:

Chiara Adorisio, “La Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy

Title: “Without Regard to Gender”: Regina Jonas' reflections on the Halakha and on the History of Jewish Women.

Abstract: Regina Jonas, was the first woman who, after several denials, was ordained as a rabbi in 1935 in Berlin. In 1930 she had concluded her studies at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums with a thesis titled “Can a woman be a rabbi according to Halakhic sources?”. Deported to Theresienstadt in 1942, she met Leo Baeck and the philosopher and psychologist Viktor Frankl and held lectures in the camp. She died in Auschwitz in 1944. Regina Jonas' work has been only recently rediscovered, after a long period of oblivion. Using recently published studies about her life and her work, and some of her still unexamined lectures about the history of Jewish women, Talmudic topics, Biblical themes, and about Jewish beliefs and ethics, my paper intends to reconstruct Regina Jonas' reflections on women and Judaism.

Ancient Yiddish

14.30-‐15.30

Old Yiddish Literature

Chair: Jean Baumgarten

Hilde Pach, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Title: Arranging Reality. Editing Mechanisms of the Dutch Yiddish Kurant

Abstract: The Kurant (Amsterdam 1686-‐1687) is the world's oldest known Yiddish newspaper. Its main sources are Dutch newspapers. Did the makers of the Kurant use the selection and editing of the material from the sources as tools for defining the identity of the Kurant and for creating an imagined community of readers?

Claudia Rosenzweig, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: Elye hanovi and the Vampire in a Yiddish Manuscript from the 16th century.

Abstract: One of the oldest attested genres in Yiddish Literature is the Zauberspruch or refues, a collection of short recipes and folk-‐medicine, sometimes corresponding to the Italian libri di segreti, with the sporadic presence of narrative elements. In this paper I wish to present some first remarkes on a recently discovered manuscript dating from the 16th century.


Session 004:

Ancient Yiddish

16.00-‐18.00

Old Yiddish Literature

Chair:

Oren Roman, Haifa University, Israel

Title: The Narrator in old-‐Yiddish Biblical Epics: Between Spielmann and Darshn

Abstract: Bearing in mind the Yiddish "Shpilman Teorye" and its rejection by Khone Shmeruk, I will look into the literary figure of the narrator of various old-‐Yiddish biblical epics, and offer a close reading of his speech. I will trace the literary sources and models for his function as narrator, and show that these include elements from both German and Jewish literary traditions. The influence of German epic literature is evident at first sight, especially through the use of formulas originating from the language used in works like Heldenbuch, Jüngeres Hildebarndslied, etc. Still there are some differences in the use of these German

phrases in Jewish works that I would like to touch upon, first and foremost the narrative of religions, as well as other aspects and tendencies. On the other hand we see that the narrator is also deeply embedded in Jewish Ashkenazi oral traditions, such as those of the Darshn and the Melamed. The Darshn, or preacher at the synoagogue, spoke mainly in Yiddish in order to address the entire public present (including women, children, unlearned men, etc.). In the rather rare cases when his sermons were written down, they were translated to Hebrew and most likely edited, so that no sermon reached us in its original "popular" form. Similarly, there are no direct records of the melamed's methods of teaching children at the traditional learning Kheyder, only indirect evidence such as various Torah translations, historical sources dealing with education within the Jewish community, and modern recordings of traditional Kheyder settings. That being said, it appears that the narrator of old-‐Yiddish epics was not only influenced by Yiddish oral traditions, but in fact also recorded and preserved some of the authentic rhetorical tools of the Darshn and Melamed in the late Middle Ages and early modern period. The dual nature of the narrator in these old-‐Yiddish works, between German-‐Christian and traditional Jewish cultures and literatures, reflects the cultural duality of Ashkenazi Jewry in general. I will try to map in my paper the relationship between these two backgrounds of the narrator, and point on places where the two complement each other, and where they conflict.

Elisabeth Singer-‐Brehm, Jüdisches Kulturmuseum Veitshöchheim, Germany

Title: Yiddish Versions of the German Volksbuch in Franconian Genizoth

Abstract: In the genizoth of Franconia (Germany, Bavaria) there was found a large number of secular, not originally Jewish literature written or printed in Yiddish like adaptations of famous chapbooks (Volksbuch) or other popular literature. Although editions of famous works of fiction like “Herzog Ernst”, “Prinz Eugen” oder “Geschichten aus 1001 Nacht” (One Thousand and One Nights) were liked very much, only a few fragments are preserved until now. The genizoth now provide new fragments of this kind of literature. These texts belong to known, but also unknown editions, some of them are not listed in bibliographical catalogues and or are new proves of lost or forgotten editions. Some of the literature has been completely unknown up to the moment, when they were identified in a Franconian genizah. The paper will give an overview of these finds and of the relevance for different aspects of research.

Arnaud Bikard, Paris 4-‐Sorbonne, France

Title: Le "Seder Noshim" est-‐il une œuvre d'Elia Lévita?

Abstract: En 1927, dans ses "Bilder fun der yidisher literaturgeshikhte" (p. 145-‐148), Max Weinreich décrivait le manuscrit Cambridge add. 547 et précisait déjà que sa partie centrale dont il citait d'importants fragments présentait des particularités étonnantes, notamment un humour remarquable dans un texte qui commence comme un guide rituel de pureté pour les femmes ashkénazes. J. C. Frakes a édité en 2004 dans "Early Yiddish Texts 1100-‐1750", p. 115-‐119, une partie du début du manuscrit. Il apparaissait alors déjà clairement que le manuscrit constitue une collection de trois textes différents, dont le premier est un guide traditionnel à l'intention des femmes juives et le troisième une série de réflexions sur la mort d'un poète connu par ailleurs, Menakhem Oldendorf. En 2011, H. Fox et J.J. Lewis éditaient la partie centrale du manuscrit sous le titre "Many pious women": un poème dont près de 1200 vers ont été conservés et qui présente des caractéristiques littéraires remarquables dans le cadre de la littérature yiddish ancienne. Les éditeurs ne tranchent pas la question de l'auteur du poème, qui reste donc anonyme. Dans le cadre de nos recherches de doctorat, nous sommes parvenus à la conviction que ce texte pouvait être attribué, avec une grande probabilité, au poète yiddish le plus important de la période: Elia Lévita. Notre intervention vise à présenter les arguments principaux qui permettent de conforter cette attribution.

Karolina Szymaniak, Jewish Historical Institute, Krakow, Poland

Title: Prophets, Messiahs, and National Redemption. Polish Romantic Phantasms and the Modern Yiddish Literary Criticism

Abstract: In the paper, I would like to analyze different responses to Polish Romantic literature found in the Yiddish literary criticism prior to the Second World War and the Holocaust, with a special emphasis on the interwar period. This literature, influenced by diaspora experience and Messianism, played a central role in the formation of Polish national repertoires. These in turn, as recent scholarship has shown (mainly, however, with regard to Zionism only), were appropriated in different ways by the Jewish national discourses. Romantic imagery and phantasms seem thus a particularly important and fruitful area for explorations of patterns of multidirectional influence and Polish-‐Jewish cultural exchange. The responses to Polish Romantic literature, approving or critical, consist an important group in the corpus of Yiddish literary criticism dealing with Polish literature in general. That many of them appeared in the period immediately following First World War and the establishment of the Second Polish Republic, bears only witness to the importance literary criticism and the Romantic tradition had in renegotiating new terms of the Polish-‐Jewish coexistence in the changed political and cultural situation. Yiddish literature in Poland had to redefine itself under the new political realities in relation to the new political state organization with its developing network of cultural institutions. Literary criticism with its different agendas became one of the arenas used by Yiddish literature to negotiate and define its role with respect to the Polish literary establishment. The texts in question form a varied group. They consider the role Romantic literature played in forming modern Polish literature and culture and shaping Polish Jewish relations, as well as analyze the Messianic motifs and Diaspora experience expressed in this literature and their relation to Judaism and Jewish literary tradition. Some of the critics reveal a true fascination with Polish Romantic tradition, treating it as a model for the Yiddish/Jewish literature, while others reject it on different grounds – as one of the factors provincializing Polish literature or as a tradition shaping the oppressive Polish nationalism. The paper will include analysis of such authors as A. Tseytlin, S. Asch, Y.Y. Singer, L. Finkelshteyn, Y. Viltshinsky, and others. The close reading of critical texts and their cultural and political contexts, will help me examine the ways in which Yiddish culture, as a minority culture, strived to establish and negotiate its own position and independence in relation to Polish literature, responded to different forms of oppression, and resisted the hegemony of Polish culture, not denying, however, its cultural interrelations with it, but rather trying to redefine them on its own terms. The paper is part of a larger project concerning the multifaceted Polish-‐Yiddish cultural contacts seen through the lens of literary discourses.

Monday 21st July

Room: 03

Session: 001:

Rabbinic Exegesis/Traditions

9.00-‐10.30

Chair:

Tamar Kadari, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: "Honey and Milk beneath Your Tongue" (Song of Songs 4:11): On an Allegorical Code in the Rabbinic Commentary on the Song of Song

Abstract: In this lecture I will call attention to a unique and interesting phenomenon in rabbinic literature. A set of images in the Song of Songs relating to milk, nursing, and a mother's breasts and home were interpreted by the sages by means of a single allegorical code. The sages use the image of milk as a symbol of Torah, the mother's home as representing Mount Sinai, and the act of nursing as the process of teaching and transmitting the written and oral Torah. In my lecture I will analyze a passage from midrash Shir Hashirim Rabbah on the verse, "If only you were like a brother, who was nursed at my mother's breasts" (Songs 8:1), and I will compare it to its parallel in midrash Pesikta de Rav Kahana. Based on this comparison I will highlight the extraordinary ideas that appear in midrash Shir HaShirim Rabbah, and I will contend that they were influenced by Jewish-‐Christian polemic about the question of the rightful owners and interpreters of Torah. By invoking early Christian sources I will demonstrate that the question of who is the real Israel and who controls the true keys to unlocking the secrets of Torah stood at the heart of the polemic between Jews and Christians in the early centuries of the Common Era, and shaped midrash Shir Hashirim Rabbah as we know it.

Gerhard Langer, Institut für Judaistik Wien, Austria

Title: Leviticus Rabbah in the Context of the House of Study

Abstract: Burton Visotzky has shown, that Leviticus Rabbah functions as a collection of midrashic materials mostly known from other textual contexts, adapted to a Hellenistic form of proems and "gufa". Visotzky calls it "a fifth-‐century Galilean miscellany of rabbinic traditions tangentially related to Leviticus, with quasi-‐encyclopedic chapter divisions” (Golden Bells and Pomegranates, 179). In my paper I try to argue for a less pessimistic view regarding the thematical unity of different chapters, which on the first sight seem to be only loosely connected, but can be defined on a deeper level as organized and structured. I will focus on the element of study, learning and teaching, which binds different contexts together.

Adiel Kadari, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Did Elijah Show Respect to Royalty?

Abstract: Of all the Biblical prophets, Elijah was accorded a unique status in rabbinic literature. He is mentioned hundreds of times in the Talmud and midrash in various contexts, both aggadic and halakhic, contemporaneous and eschatological. In this lecture, part of a larger research project dealing with the depiction of Elijah in rabbinic literature, I will focus on an exegetical tradition that describes the figure of Elijah as one who showed respect to royalty. This exegetical tradition will be compared to early Christian injunctions to respect imperial rule. The Book of Kings relates that at the end of the description of Elijah’s dramatic confrontation on Mount Carmel, when a heavy rain started to fall, Elijah girded his loins and ran ahead of King Ahab’s chariot, an act that was explained in tannaitic sources as a gesture of respect for the monarch. This explanation, which does not accord with the Biblical depiction of Elijah as a zealous defender of God’s words who did not hesitate to offer scathing criticism of King Ahab, was accepted by medieval and modern Biblical commentators. In this lecture I wish to offer a critical examination of this exegetical tradition so as to uncover the ideological stance that it reflects and the conflicting ideas with which it is in tension. My discussion will focus on a passage from the Mekhilta d’Rabbi Yishmael, Bo, Masekhta d’Pisha, section 13, which is the earliest instance of this exegetical tradition. I will consider the redaction of this passage and the ideas that it expresses, and I will compare it to the figure of Elijah in Second Temple sources. In this context, I will compare the Mekhilta’s approach to the various New Testament charges to respect the imperial authorities, including “Fear God, honor the king.” (First Peter, 2:17). In addition, I will try to point to various layers within the Mekhilta passage, each of which expresses a different ideological stance with regard to the attitude towards the monarchy. Finally, I will offer a hypothesis regarding the historical context that gave rise to this exegetical tradition, and the identity of its authors, and I will point to the commonalities between Jewish and Christian religious and ideological ways of dealing with life under Roman pagan rule.


Session 002:

11.00-‐13.00

Survie et néant dans la longue durée juive

Organizer: Misgav Har-‐Peled

Misgav Har-‐Peled, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: Election, extermination et survie

Abstract: A Sinaï, au moment de la conclusion du pacte avec Yahvé, suite à « l’affaire » du veau d’or, l’Eternel souhaite exterminer Israël, son peuple. Cette anecdote nous servira comme point de départ pour observer le lien que le judaïsme antique faisait entre élection et la menace d’extermination. Il sera proposé que par le biais d’une réflexion sur la possibilité de l’extermination du peuple élu, le judaïsme pensait entre autre l’élection comme un état d’exception; une survie, vue comme une existence conditionnée qui oscillent entre la bénédiction et la malédiction, entre l’éternité et le néant. On s’interrogera notamment sur la contradiction entre les menaces d’extermination du peuple élu dans la Bible d’un côté et la négation de la possibilité d’une extermination totale du peuple, comme elle manifeste dans l’idée du reste d’Israël (« sherit Israel »). Dans un deuxième moment de la réflexion on proposera certaines hypothèses quant à la

manière dont la dialectique de l’élection entre extermination et éternité se développa dans le judaïsme rabbinique.

Amos Squverer, CRPMS-‐ Paris Diderot, France

Title: Le vœu totalisant de l’extermination et l’acte monothéiste: relecture du traité Avoda Zara

Abstract: Le vœu profond qui se cache derrière un discours d’extermination est la croyance en la totalité -‐soit une position intégriste. Dans l’extermination, on cultive l’idée d’un déracinement possible, d’une résolution définitive, d’une « solution finale » qui va nous débarrasser de ce qui empêche cette totalité. Nous proposons de saisir le judaïsme comme un discours qui, par structure, résiste à ce vœu de totalisation en ayant comme vocation de réintroduire un point manque qui échappe à la totalisation. L’acte monothéiste est celui de la de-‐totalisation par soustraction. A concevoir ainsi le judaïsme, on comprend pourquoi il manie un rapport très serré et intime avec un discours de l’extermination. Le discours juif se constitue comme l’envers d’un discours totalisant. Plus encore, on comprend pourquoi la structure même de la discursivité juive a pour nécessité ce fond discursif totalisant qui permet l’émergence même de la spécificité juive. En étant un discours qui émerge dans ce mouvement antitotalitaire, il est conduit inévitablement à former un couple avec des conceptions totalisantes. Le judaïsme peut même être conduit, dans certains contextes historiques, à inventer cette altérité pour réaffirmer le mouvement ou mettre en acte l’opération, qui crée son identité. Notre intervention propose de mettre en travail ce mouvement pour éclairer la posture rabbinique envers l’idolâtrie telle qu’elle est déployée dans le traité de l’idolâtrie (Avoda Zara). Il s’agit de saisir ce couple éternel idolâtrie/monothéisme comme une matrice qui donne à comprendre ce qui est en jeu dans cette dialectique ou tension discursive judaïsme/extermination.

Ron Naiweld, CNRS, France

Title: L’idéologie de survie et ses racines dans les discours juifs et chrétiens

Abstract: Je voudrais présenter la thèse suivante : les racines de l’angoisse de l’extermination (hashmada) dans le judaïsme médiéval sont à trouver dans la manière des auteurs chrétiens de l’antiquité tardive d’associer le peuple juif au judaïsme. Ces auteurs établissaient un lien existentiel entre les deux entités, ce qui fait que la disparition de l’une entraine l’extermination de l’autre. En effet, la lecture des textes chrétiens concernant les juifs, de Paul, Ignace ou Tertullien, nous permet de déceler comment le discours chrétien développe une structure dans laquelle le « judaïsme » devient un système de pensée et des pratiques qui prend du sens seulement dans la mesure où il est adopté par les membres d’une ethnie spécifique – les juifs. Ce lien entre la « religion » juive d’une part et l’ethnos juif de l’autre peut nous paraître évident aujourd’hui, mais les discours juifs antiques, comme de Philon ou des rabbins, font souvent preuve d’une tendance universaliste claire. Certes, dans les deux discours (Philonien et rabbinique), les juifs constitue toujours un groupe ethnique, mais il s’agit d’un ethnos qui ouvre sa porte aux membres d’autres peuples ; une personne appartenant à un autre ethnos peut se judaïser et appartenir, au moins de facto, au peuple juif, avec tous les avantages matériels, sociaux et spirituels que cela pourrait avoir. Cette acceptation de l’ethnos juif (ou du judaïsme) apparaît déjà, selon Shaye Cohen, dans l’époque des Maccabées. C’est seulement chez certains auteurs patristiques, et cela pour des raisons intérieures au discours chrétiens (notamment les conflits avec les autres sectes chrétiennes et la quête de légitimation dans l’espace romain), que l’on trouve un effort global de fermer les portes de l’ethnos juif. Le christianisme développe une image du monde où le « judaïsme » occupe un rôle déterminant – par sa fausseté, il est le symbole de la vérité ; par sa matérialité, il désigne l’esprit. Or puisque le judaïsme ne peut être soutenu que par des juifs, la disparition de ces derniers est une éventualité qu’il faut éviter à tout prix.

Un monde sans juifs est un monde sans judaïsme, où le christianisme n’a aucun support. La christianisation de l’empire romain fait que cette image chrétienne du monde se propage sur les plans juridique et idéologique. Les autorités chrétiennes conservent les juifs, tout en veillant (avec ou sans succès) à ce que le judaïsme ne se diffuse pas au-‐delà de ceux qui sont déjà juifs. Cette image, à son tour, est intériorisée par les juifs eux-‐mêmes en terre chrétienne, lesquels acceptent l’identification entre le « judaïsme » et l’ethnicité juive. En effet, au moins dans le monde chrétien, le judaïsme est littéralement ce qui maintient les juifs vivants !

Youval Rotman, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: “Extermination” of the converted believer as means of survival

Abstract: The following presentation will focus on the question of conversions as an existential threat to Judaism. While not a threat on the life of the individual on the private level, conversions from Judaism was formulated as a public death, and was regarded as an existential threat to the existence of Judaism on the public level. This was especially the case in the Middle Ages, when conversions to Christianity and to Islam became a cultural and political policy. Jews responded to this policy by perceiving conversions of Jews as an extermination de jure of the individual. Conversion out of Judaism became in the monotheistic medieval world to designate a symbolic death of the individual believer to the Jewish collective –shmad – a term derived from the Hebrew verb ‘to exterminate.’ However, the perception of conversion out of Judaism as social death, as the ‘extermination’ of the converted Jewish believer de jure to his community, must also be considered as means of survival of the Jewish collective. In other words, naming and marking the converted Jews as ‘self-‐exterminated Jew’ (mshumad), was aimed to identify conversion as a threat to the existence of the Jewish collective, and hence also as means of its survival. Putting the converted Jew ‘ex’ of the Jewish collective ‘terminus’ was aimed also to protect the existence of this collective and its borders. The paper will examine the particular way in which Jewish communities formulated and addressed the subject of conversion on the level of the Jewish collective.


Session 003:

Contemporary Israel

14.00-‐15.30

Satire, Humor, Language and Identity in Israel

Chair: Yonith Benhamou

Yonith Benhamou, EHESS, Paris, France

Title: Jewish Humor and Satire in the Yishuv: towards Israeliness (1925-‐1948)

Abstract: Only at the end of the 18th century with the emergence of the Haskalah movement (the Jewish Enlightenment) in Eastern Europe most Jewish parodic and satirical texts appear. Visual parody,

illustrations and cartoons come up relatively late in the Jewish press when we compare it to non-‐Jewish journals in a same country. In the Yiddish press, cartoons as well as satirical literature were built on religious traditional texts, used a subversive style, and were published in secular Jewish humoristic journals. Paradoxically, this practice combined texts considered as sacred with profane humor. It reminded about the traditional Purim-‐shpil (Purim plays) whose comical main resource was the parody of prayers and sacred texts which gave rise to the reversal and transgression of the prohibited. Although this whole world suddenly disappeared with the Shoah, taking away Jewish humor and its productions, this tradition persevered in the Yishuv (Jewish settlements in Palestine before the creation of the State of Israel). Several satirical magazines continued to be published during Jewish holidays and especially during Purim, and to make a mockery of the Passover Haggadah. The immigrants from the third and fourth aliyah continued to perpetuate the art of satire and developed it. At the end of the 20’s and the beginning of the 30’s, with the arrival of composers, actors, painters, and singers from Russia, Hungary and Poland, an artistic ferment was born. This cultural renaissance gave rise to the first satirical cabaret (Ha-‐kumkum) brought to Tel-‐Aviv by Avigdor HaMeiri, an immigrant born in Hungary who came to Palestine from Odessa. A similar revolution took place in the Hebrew press. The popular success of the famous column “Ha-‐tur Ha-‐shevii” (“the seventh column”) from Nathan Alterman in the daily newspaper Davar (Word) proved it. It had the particularity to deal with political affairs in rhymed prose. In Hebrew journals, some humoristic illustrations and cartoons started to appear, drawn by the pioneers of Israeli pictorial satire that were Arye Navon and Yehoshua Edri. Most of the caricatures were published in the Saturday editions of the daily newspapers. Yet, with the Westernization and secularization of the country, satire and parody distanced themselves from folklore and religious texts and ceased to be associated exclusively with Jewish holidays. They started to portray a “state in the making”, while they were progressively becoming more politicized. This allowed them to better embrace the Zionist cause and national values, as well as to leave the field of the sacred in order to better take root in the field of the profane, from Jewish to Israeli culture.

Juliana Portenoy-‐Schlesinger, Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil

Title: The Language in the Centre of the Identity Battle and the Last Stronghold of the New Israeli Arab

Abstract: This paper analyses the role language plays in Sayed Kashua’s chronicles in Haaretz newspaper. As tools of identity, both Hebrew and Arabic are, according to the interpretation of these chronicles, at the same time fixed and flexible ways to deal with the other and with oneself in the battle of cultural and moral integrity in Israel.

Jan Zouplna, Oriental Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences

Title: Culture, Language and Identity in early Revisionist Zionism

Abstract: The differences that existed in the views of the founders of the Revisionist Union (RU) and the official Zionism of the interwar era were not insignificant. No less apparent were those with Revisionist off-‐shoots, which were later to constitute the Israeli right. Interestingly, these differences went far beyond the realm of politics in the strict sense of the term. It was not the culture, but the social organism (state/polity) and territory that were regarded as the essential characteristics of nationhood by the Revisionist leaders of the 1920s and early 1930s. Small wonder, therefore, that criticism of the excessive “culturalism” of contemporary Zionism was enlisted early on. Its focus on cultural projects in Palestine, such as the one of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was met with high-‐handed contempt. In terms of language, early Revisionism was not shy of an unorthodox approach either. Nominally, the RU considered, in agreement with other Zionist factions, the “hebraization” of Jewry to be an integral part of its platform. In practice, RU

leaders objected to any form of subsidizing Hebrew language schools and culture. Overall, the RU founders displayed a clear preference for non-‐Jewish languages in both private communication and party propaganda. However, the identity of Revisionist acculturated elites was not based on a simple set of negative elements. The objective of establishing, to use their terms, a bridgehead of Europe in the East contained an affirmative identity component. Modern Jewish identity was seen as a fusion of Judaism and post-‐enlightenment Europe. Accusing rival factions of sticking to the mentality of the ghetto, combining a distrust of and servility in relation to non-‐Jews, the RU founders instead accentuated the existence of a community of historical bonds which had shaped the Jews and Europe alike.


Session 004:

Contemporary Israel

16.00-‐18.00

Media and Identity in Israel and the Jewish World

Chair: Yaakov Shavit

Gideon Kouts, Université Paris 8, France

Title: The Wanderings of "Ha-‐Levanon": The Palestinian and Oriental Connection

Abstract: Ha-‐Levanon (The Lebanon), the first Hebrew monthly in Palestine (1863) was carried by its editor, Yehiel Bril, from the Holy Land to destinations abroad shortly after it was founded. Its stops were Paris, where it appeared in 1865-‐ 1870 as a strictly Orthodox Jewish weekly; Mainz, Germany, where it was published in 1871-‐ 1882; and London in 1886, where it reached the end of its career and where Bril passed away. In his wanderings, Bril had to adjust to different countries and regimes-‐ a living example of the “wandering Jew” embodied in the press. Ha-‐Levanon’s “Palestinian” orientation was evident from the start. This is not surprising, since in his first journalistic “posting” Bril was the first Hebrew foreign correspondent in Palestine (of Ha-‐Magid). The subtitle of The Lebanon, published in Jerusalem and indicative of its contents as the tradition of this press warranted, was: “Messenger of Peace from Jerusalem, bringing news from the entire Holy Land, divulging secrets from Syria, Yemen and India: everything that an Israelite would want to know...”. The first two items in the subtitle were mirrored in the first two sections of the paper. The paper’s Palestinian-‐Oriental orientation was proclaimed openly by its editors (Bril, I.M. Salomon. Michal Hacohen) in an “announcement” that they published before Ha-‐Levanon made its debut, addressed specifically to the European public, and inspired by their wish to satisfy these distant brethren curiosity. The contents of the current-‐affairs articles, however, caused internal dissent. It was hard for Bril and his peers not to become “involved”, and Bril brought with him this involvement to Paris, Mainz and London as well.

Ouzi Elyada, University of Haifa, Israel

Title: Les récits de catastrophes dans la presse populaire hébraïque de Jérusalem : Le cas du ‘Titanic’

Abstract: Depuis l’apparition de la presse populaire moderne en Europe dans la deuxième moitié de XIXe siècle, les faits divers et notamment les récits de catastrophes y occupent une place centrale. Les producteurs de la presse populaire cherchent d’abord à émouvoir et à divertir le lecteur, et non pas à l’informer et ils trouvent dans les récits de catastrophes naturelles et humaines le matériel qu’il fallait pour créer une histoire spectaculaire et sensationnelle qui fait trembler le lecteur. Ce genre de récit, serve les rédacteurs pour propager une vision de monde déterministe et fataliste, une vision qui minimise le libre arbitre de l’individu et souligne l’importance du hasard et du destin. Eliezer Ben Yehuda et son fils Itamar Ben-‐Avi ont fondé en Eretz-‐Israel le premier journal populaire qui portait le titre « Hazevi », et plus tard, » Haor ». De son apparition en 1884, d’abord comme hebdomadaire, le journal accordait une attention particulière aux faits divers, et aux histoires de catastrophes en particulière. Cette démarche a été renforcée après la transformation de « Hazevi » en organe quotidien en 1908. Les histoires spectaculaires et sensationnelles de crimes et de catastrophes servaient comme moyen pour persuader et séduire le lecteur à acheter le journal populaire, jour après jour. Dans ce papier je vais examiner comment « Hazevi », devenu en 1910 « Haor », avait couvert en avril-‐mai 1912 l’évènement spectaculaire de la catastrophe du ‘Titanic’ et quelle signification il accordait à cet évènement.

Dan Caspi & Nelly Elias, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Media and Minorities in Israel: Four Research Traditions

Abstract: This paper enumerates four social science research traditions that impacted the study of media and minorities in Israel; melting-‐pot, pluralistic, multi-‐culturalism and hybrid tradition. Each was shaped in a specific sociocultural and historic context, based on the dominant social and academic paradigms of its time, yet remained intact even as circumstances changed. The survey of the following research traditions may reveal the maturation process of Israeli social science. In retrospect, it appears preferable to view the four research traditions as cotemporaneous and competitive.

Orly Tsarfaty, Emek Yezreel College, Israel

Title: Struggle between Identities: Chabbad Movement and the Israeli-‐Arab Peace Process

Abstract: The ultra-‐orthodox-‐Jewish society in Israel is a subculture preserving a traditional Jewish way of life founded on the Bible and on the Jewish Law Books. The Zionist movement’s concept of human redemption was an essential contradiction to the religious belief of miraculous messianic redemption. This controversy on a theological and ideological level between the orthodox and the secular-‐Zionist Jews lies at the foundation of the orthodox negation of the very existence of the State of Israel and of the secular democratic culture prevailing here. This society is however united in its struggle against the secular society and its cultural hegemony. The ultra-‐orthodox negate the modern way of life and everything it stands for, among others the use of mass media, particularly the visual media. An analysis of the communication patterns in this community shows the preservation of traditional communication patterns. The use of the newspaper is recognized by all factions of orthodox society as a legitimate medium. Though the Hassidic Chabbad movement, it is not the biggest court, it is the most active and the best known to Jews in the world and in Israel. Their Hassidic doctrine grants a central place to teaching the rules of Chassidism to all Jews, based on the belief that such activity will accelerate the messianic revelation. For this purpose, they make use of all the media, including visual media. In the second half of the Eighties Chabbad, began to publish her two own weekly papers: “Sichat Hashavoua” (The weekly conversation) and “Kfa Chabbad”. At the beginning of the Nineties, Chabbad Chassidim were undergoing a peak of messianic expectation. The papers were extensively broaching the subject and the preparations necessary for the Messiah’s

Revelation. With the beginning of the Israeli-‐Palestinian peace process, after the signature of the first Oslo Agreement (1993) Chabbad, began a public political struggle, unprecedented for them and for the whole orthodox community in Israel. Chabbad`s opposition to a peace process that would entail any territorial compromise, as expressed in their papers, opened the public discussion of the issues at the core of the controversy within Israeli society. The struggle for the borders of the State of Israel did not remain in the realm of political discussions, but took on a religious and cultural character. Chabbad contributed to a strong identification between religious/secular identity and ideology, by equating the “correct” Jewish identity with the opposition to giving up parts of the Land of Israel.

Monday 21 July

Room: 04

Session: 001:

Archeology

9.00-‐10.30

Chair: Paul Salmona

David Gurevich, University of Haifa, Israel

Title: The Question of Josephus' "Serpent's Pool" in Jerusalem

Abstract: An unroofed water pool was posited by scholars in a location north-‐west of the Damascus Gate, in the upper part of the Tyropoeon valley in Jerusalem. This pool cannot be found today. However, in 1901 Clermont-‐Ganneau suggested situating at this point the Lacus Legerii, a water reservoir mentioned in the Crusader sources. A pool at the discussed location was indicated on Wilson's map from the year 1902. Furthermore, a study conducted by Broshi in 1990, identified the pool with the "Serpent's Pool" mentioned by Josephus (War, 5.108). Nevertheless, based on the careful analysis of a cartographic material, rare photographs and German aerial photographs of Jerusalem from World War I, the present paper proposes to negate the existence of a pool in this location. Therefore, the former identification of the "Serpent's pool" shall be re-‐evaluated. Josephus's description (War, 5.108) suggests that the "Serpent's pool" was a prominent landmark in the area between Mount Scopus and the northern city walls of the late Second Temple period. Another water pool, known as "The Pool near the Tombs of the Kings", was located in the Upper Kidron valley. The pools was excavated partially in the 19th century by Wilson and Schick. However, this reservoir was ignored by contemporary studies, such as the Israel Survey, and its location appears to have been lost ever since the 19th century. The research conducted by the author has reestablished the location of this reservoir near the Nahalat Shim'on neighborhood, 1200 m. north to the Damascus Gate. Based on the above conclusions, the possibility of identifying the "Serpent's Pool" with "The Pool near the Tombs of the Kings" is suggested as a central source of inquiry for future studies.

Baruch Eyal, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: The Jewish Elite in Jerusalem and Roman Culture: Self Identity in Changing Circumstances as Reflected in a Palatial Complex

Abstract: The Palatial Building uncovered in the upper city of Jerusalem is one the most impressive buildings known from the Land of Israel in the Roman Period. The structure's size, dated to the first century BCE – first century CE, is more than 600 square meters, and it includes a large courtyard, a system of rooms, and ritual baths. One of the striking features of the building is the use of decoration – mosaics and walls plastered with stuccos and frescos. The decoration on the structure's walls includes two types which appear one after the other. During the first phase the builders applied colorful frescos, also known as the second style of Pompeii and are dated to the first century CE. This fresco was later replaced with stucco, imitating ashlar stones. This type of decoration is known as the first style of Pompeii, and was common in

Rome during the second-‐first centuries BCE. It appears, therefore, that the order of the styles was reversed – the more colorful, second style of Pompeii was used during the earlier phase, while the "older" and simpler first style of Pompeii was used later. Not only was this style used in the Palatial building in Jerusalem about a century after it went out of fashion in the Hellenistic world in general and in Italy in particular, but this style was adopted in this building after the newer and more modern style was known and used. I would like to suggest that it is possible that the phenomenon is connected with the social processes that were operating in Judea and Jerusalem on the eve of the Great Revolt. During this period the Jews redefined themselves vis-‐à-‐vis the Roman culture, as can be seen also in the "eighteen decrees" mentioned in Mishnah Shabbat 1:4 (and parallels) on the eve of the War of Destruction. It appears that the adoption of the archaic and "conservative" style was part of the Jews' renegotiation of their identity, in contrast and perhaps even in resistance to the contemporary Roman culture. The use of the "archaic" style is not a result of being conservative, if at all this is "active conservatism" on behalf of the head of the household, who wanted to show his wealth and status on the one hand, while on the other did not wish to be seen as "Roman" anymore. This goal was achieved by using decoration style which appeared archaic and rooted in the past.

Alexander Bar-‐Magen Numhauser, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

Title: A Supposed Coin with Hebrew Characters from the 8th Century CE Iberian Peninsula. A Numismatic and Historiographical Review.

Abstract: The relatively recent publication of a 19th Century manuscript written the numismatist D. Antonio Delgado y Hernández in 2001 presented new evidence over a coin (a gold solidus) parallel to "transition" Arab-‐Byzantine coins of the 8th Century with a unique central inscription in its obverse that received multiple interpretations. As Antonio Delgado's interpretation of the characters as Hebrew remained unpublished for a century and a half, later scholars discarded such interpretation without a satisfactory alternative reading. In this paper a physical and historiographical review of that rare coin series shed new light over the reading of such characters, their interpretation, and their potential relevance for the archaeology and history of the Jewish people. However it raises more questions regarding the context and reason why such coins were originally struck, particularly in a time where frontiers of cultural and religious nature were being broken and transformed in the Western Mediterranean.


Session: 002:

Archeology

11.00-‐13.00

Chair:

Enrico Tromba, EPHE, Paris, France – Università di Bologna, Italy

Title: The Synagogue of Bova Marina (IV – VI century CE): Analysis of the structure and the possible relation with the buildings of the land of Israel

Abstract: The project will seek to analyze the structure of the synagogue of Bova Marina, in the province of Reggio Calabria, southern Italy. The building lived two phases of life between the fourth and the beginning of the seventh century ce. We will present the structure of the synagogue, the various possible interpretations and the important archaeological finds: from ceramics to tomb structures, up to the mosaic of fine workmanship. At the same time we will present the possible case of a parallel with the contemporary buildings of the Land of Israel.

Roxane Amsellem, Paris Ouest Nanterre, France

Title: La symbolique de la couronne dans l'iconographie juive tardo-‐antique.

Abstract: La couronne est un symbole employé dès l’époque du second Temple. Elle apparaît notamment sur les ossuaires, les linteaux des tombeaux et les sarcophages retrouvés en Judée. Elle est également présente sur les pièces de monnaies juives dès la période maccabéenne. En diaspora, elle est attestée, dès le IIIe siècle avant notre ère, sur des stèles honorifiques de Délos de la communauté juive de Samarie. Elle est représentée, sur divers supports, en contextes variés, tout au long de la période tardo-‐antique, et ce, massivement en Palestine. Par conséquent, la couronne compte parmi l’un des symboles les plus usités du répertoire iconographique juif. Elle est communément figurée sous la forme d’une épaisse couronne de feuillages composites. Par ailleurs, cette dernière est, à maintes reprises, accompagnée de symboles adjacents. Ces combinaisons de motifs sont très diverses et aucune ne semble l’emporter sur l’autre : candélabres, aigles, poissons, volatiles, palmes, cédrats, conques, lions, fleurs, vigne. Deux courants se distinguent quant à l’interprétation de ce symbole : pour les uns (Rharmani, Hachlili), sa présence est essentiellement décorative, dénuée d’une symbolique particulière; pour les autres (Goodenough, Levine), ce symbole est extérieur au judaïsme et proviendrait de répertoire gréco-‐romain. De fait, elle symboliserait la Victoire (Niké) et ferait donc partie des symboles païens introduits dans le répertoire juif. Nous proposerons alors une autre lecture du symbole en nous appuyant sur la littérature juive antérieure et contemporaine de ces vestiges archéologiques. Après avoir présenté les principales occurrences de ce motif dans le patrimoine archéologique juif en Palestine et en diaspora, nous examinerons dans quelles circonstances apparait ce même symbole tout d’abord dans la bible, puis dans littérature intertestamentaire, rabbinique et mystique juive. Ainsi, nous démontrerons que l’étude de ces corpus littéraires s’avère décisive pour la compréhension de ce symbole, dont la dimension proprement juive fut ignorée jusqu’à présent.

Ben Zion Rosenfeld, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Stages of the Compilation of the Rekhov Inscription in light of Interdisciplinary Inquiry

Abstract: One of the most impressive inscriptions from the Roman Byzantine period in the land of Israel was uncovered in the ancient synagogue in the village of Rekhov in the Beit She'an valley. Since its publication forty years ago, it has been analyzed from various perspectives, and much progress has been made in understanding the text and its historical context. Nevertheless, it has been recognized that the text is compiled of various segments, and individual research of each segment has revealed difficulties and dilemmas that have not yet been resolved. In the current research the authors aim to contribute to understanding the way in which the segments were compiled and the process that can be traced through which the inscription reached the form that was uncovered. The research method is to utilize interdisciplinary methods, incorporating geographic perspective and literary comparison, to achieve the above objective. In order to provide an example for this approach it is important to highlight the period of Rabbi Judah the prince (Rebbi). It will be shown that the need to formulate the inscription is connected

with his emendations concerning the borders of the holy land regarding separation of tithes and observance of the Sabbatical year. Rebbi's directives related primarily to the Galilee, and reflect, in our opinion, demographic changes and shift of the Jewish population. These minor migrations from one area in Palestine to another were a result of economic processes that effected the feasibility and opportunities involved in residing in certain areas. This discussion of the borders of Palestine begins in the Tannaitic period and continues in the Jerusalem Talmud in which paragraphs found in the text our found in the Talmud in scattered locations. Each location discussed, indicates population shifts that require restating the borders of the county concerning Jewish law. Each part of the inscription was created locally and reflected the demography of that area. The parts were compiled in the third and fourth century locally. In the fifth century they were all inscribed on the wall of the synagogue, and in the sixth century they were inscribed on the floor in mosaic adding a paragraph relating to the Sebaste area. Our conclusion will be that the inscription in Rekhov reflects the last stage of a long process of compilation that reflects demographic, historic and economic processes that affected the Jews of the Galilee. The geographic viewpoint dictated the structure of each part of the inscription that was compiled locally and later recorded collectively in the inscription.

Esther Schneidenbach, Ludwig-‐Maximilians Universität, München, Germany

Title: The cultural Connection of the Jewish Congregations in Ancient Rome

Abstract: The inscriptions from the Jewish catacombs in Rome bear witness of the existence of several Jewish synagogue names in antiquity. It can be noticed that the different Jewish congregations of Rome had widespread cultural connections. These relations were expressed by the naming of the congregations. Based on an analysis of the congregational names mentioned in the inscriptions, the synagogues can be differentiated into several groups. This paper analyses the groups that can be distinguished and the cultural connections expressed by their names. Based on an analysis of the congregation names mentioned in the inscriptions, the synagogues can be differentiated in two main groups corresponding to their connections to Rome or outside of Rome expressed by their naming. It can be concluded that the different Jewish congregations of Rome either wanted to express a closer connection to Rome or else to towns and regions outside of Rome, as for instance in Asia Minor, North Africa, Syria or Palestine.


Session: 003:

Archeology

14.00-‐15.30

Les catacombes juives de Roma

Organizer: Cinzia Vismara

Cinzia Vismara, Università degli Studi di Cassino, Italy

Title: Les nouvelles recherches sur les catacombes juives de Rome

Abstract: Le point sur les activités de recherche menées sur les catacombes juives de Rome après "Archéologie et Judaïsme

Alessandra Negroni, Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, Rome, Italy

Title: The Inscriptions from the Monteverde Catacomb

Abstract: A new complete study on the Monteverde Catacomb and the inscriptions taken from it gives some addictional informations on the ancient Jewish community of Rome that used this cemetery.

Elsa Laurenzi, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Italy

Title: La catacombe de Vigna Randanini.

Abstract: Nouveautés concernant les catacombes juives de Rome


Session: 004:

Archeology, Middle Ages

16.00-‐18.00

Chair: Max Polonovski

Philippe Blanchard, Inrap, France

Title: Cimetières et pratiques funéraires des communautés juives médiévales en Europe : Premières synthèses

Abstract: Proposition de synthèse à partir de plusieurs sites funéraires fouillés en Europe.

Marco Milanese, Università Degli Studi Di Sassari, Italy

Title: Nouvelles données historiques et archéologiques sur les Juifs à Alghero

Abstract : La subvention vise à résumer les résultats les plus récents du projet d'archéologie et d'histoire de la ville juive de Alghero.

Hayah Katz, The Open University of Israel

Title: Religion and Archeology: the Attitude of Jews and Christians Societies to the Archaeology of the Land of Israel

Abstract: The beginning of the archaeological research in the Land of Israel began in the late 19th century by religious Christians, some of whom were officials of the Christian establishment such as Louis Hugues Vincent and Roland Guérin de Vaux who served as the directors of the L'École Biblique et Archéologique Française that had been established in Jerusalem in 1890. American researchers were also characterized by a religious worldview. The most important scholar among them was William Foxwell Albright, who was born in the Republic of Chile when his parents were missionaries. Moreover, many of the American archaeologists -‐ to the present -‐ have received their academic education in theological seminars. Apparently, one should expect as in the Christian world, religious Jewish scholars will assume role in the archaeology field also. But until the 1980's the Jewish religious society disapproved of engaging in archeology, both academically and publically. The aim of this paper is to examine what the reasons are for these differences between Jews and Christians societies, and what factors have led to the interest of Jewish religious society in archeology today.

Michaela Selmi Wallisova, The Czech Society of Archaelogy, Czech Republic

Title: The "Jewish Garden" in Prague -‐ New Perspectives of Research.

Abstract: A contribution to the burial rite of Prague Jewish minority during the Middle Ages, based upon a rescue excavation in modern Vladislavova street. The excavation revealed part of the former cemetery (the so called Jewish garden) with graves from 1274-‐1478. From the total number of 401 ex-‐posed graves some were scientifically documented. Apart from spatial analysis, information was also gained concerning burial practises, from which some have no analogies in European literature. Questions addressed by the excavation of this cemetery are of relevance to regions beyond Bohemia. In the years 2009-‐2013 we have new results from the other 3 excavations from the border of monument reservation (the so called "Jewish Garden"). The excavations were small but very important for archaeological dating of Jewish cemetery. Finding of three early medieval graves in street Na Perstyne (Old Town) open new question about the earlier Jewish cemetery that if it is the same with the cemetery in Vladislavova street.

Monday 21st July

Room: 05

Session: 001:

Visual Arts

9.00-‐10.30

Chair:

Carl S. Ehrlich, Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies, Toronto, Canada

Title: Shooting Esther

Abstract: Since the dawn of cinema as a narrative art-‐form, the biblical story of Esther has served as the source material for a number of dramatic film treatments. While the reason for this may be found in the book's paradigmatic juxtaposition of good and evil and its liberal dose of sex and violence, this paper will concentrate on the dialogue between the biblical source and its interpretative treatments on the silver screen as examples of the midrashic tradition. Particular attention will be paid to Raoul Walsh and Mario Bava's "Esther and the King" (1960), Amos Gitai's "Esther" (1986), Michael Sajbel’s “One Night with the King” (2006), and David White's "The Book of Esther" (2013). In what manner are these reworkings of the story faithful to their source material? In what manner do they deviate from it? May one distinguish Jewish from Christian retellings? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this presentation.

Jon Solomon, University of Illinois at Urbana-‐Champaign, USA

Title: Judah Ben-‐Hur, the Proto-‐Christian Jewish Hero, and Secular Commerce

Abstract: From its earliest conception Lew Wallace’s best-‐selling novel Ben-‐Hur (1880) depended on political, cultural, and theological conflicts between ancient Judaism and its Roman overlords. Wallace himself claimed that he conceived of the novel only after an 1876 encounter with Robert Ingersoll, “The Great Agnostic,” and primarily to explore the divinity of the Christ. However, my recent research has demonstrated that already by December, 1873, Wallace was researching ancient Judaism at the Library of Congress, and in November, 1874, he mentioned in his correspondence “a Jewish boy that I have got into terrible trouble and must get out of it as best I can.” Focusing on “Old Testament vengeance,” the Indiana lawyer had not yet inserted the Christian element into his novel. After the Ingersoll encounter, Wallace reconceived the novel to incorporate the passion of Christ, to which his protagonist Jewish hero is an eyewitness. At the novel’s climax and denouement, the formerly anti-‐Roman Jew has become a philanthropic proto-‐Christian hero but maintains his Jewish family structure. The novel sold millions of copies among the Anglo-‐American reading public and then, after being translated into many languages, most of Europe. For two decades a dramatic adaptation toured the U.S. and Canada as well as England and Australia, and then MGM’s 1925 film adaptation played in most of the European urban centers. As a result of its unparalleled popularity, dozens of companies, brands, and products were named “Ben-‐Hur.” My recent research in ephemera and other non-‐tradition scholarly resources has uncovered this long-‐forgotten

aspect of the book’s reception and has accounted for why most of these commercial applications ignored Judah Ben-‐Hur’s Jewish origins and culture.

Charlotte Klink, Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, Germany

Title: "Missed Encounters: Repetition and Re-‐Narration in the Works of Yael Bartana and Keren Cytter"

Abstract: “She came back. But I don’t mean in my head. I went back in time. And I didn’t have to need to keep moving on forward. The future could keep on waiting. Only the past, beautiful past. She was my past. And she is the present. And I was her. And she was with me. And when I looked at her and she looked at me, time stopped. Stopped. And if she would have stopped looking at me for a moment, I would have gone back in time, and she would look at me again.” (Keren Cytter, "Time", 2005, video, 19:20 min). In my paper, I discuss the video works of the two Isreali artists Keren Cytter and Yael Bartana and ask about their relation to the notion of repetition. Video art already manifests this repetition in its materiality: in the museum or the gallery, video art is usually presented in a loop. Video art thus presents a basic phenomenon within contemporary art that offers the opportunity to explore the concept of repetition in its relation to a new. Yet in the work of those two artists, it is possible to see another form of repetition that is not only based in the material condition of video art. In their works, Yael Bartana and Keren Cytter create, in very different manners, figures of re-‐narration. Keren Cytter’s famous trilogy And Europe will be Stunned re-‐narrates history by quoting the aesthetic of Nazi propaganda films and Zionist films by creating a fictional movement that demands the return of 3 million Jews to Poland and claims: “We need the other, and there’s no closer other for us than you! Come! The same but changed.” (Yael Bartana, Mary Kazmary (Nightmare), 2007, video, 10:50 min) Keren Cytter approaches repetition in her work from a different perspective, by fragmenting the loop and the narration in her videos. Cytter shows states of transition that are most of the time linked to a transition of countries, namely from Israel to European countries such as the Netherlands and Germany. Moreover, her works expose transitions in the love stories of their protagonists. In her works, the spectator is left alone in a position where he has to create a new narration from the fragments and shattered images he or she gets to see. What is the status of these re-‐narrations, what new is addressed by this demand “the same but changed”? Is this way of re-‐narrating, and, effectively, creating a new position to think, speak and act from, a result of working though repetition? How can this question be linked to the relation and encounter of Jewish and Non-‐Jewish after the Shoah? Following Jacques Lacan’s famous dictum that “what has been rejected from the symbolic reappears in the real,” (Jacques Lacan, Seminar III: The Psychoses, p.46) I’d like to ask in what way it is necessary for Keren Cytter and Yael Bartana to start from a repetition in order to be able to create a new narration and therefore a new reality that is precisely not a return of the real.


Session: 002:

Jewish Art and Heritage

11.00-‐13.00

Jewish Museums at the Intersection of Jewish and non-‐Jewish Cultures

Organizer: Kathrin Pieren

Kathrin Pieren, University of Southampton, UK

Title: From Roots to Routes, Nation to Migration -‐ Interpretations of Collections in British Jewish Museums in the 20th and 21st Century

Abstract: ‘The Ben Uri – The London Jewish Museum of Art’ and the Jewish Museum London have both operated through most of the 20th century and into the 21st. The former was founded in 1915 as an art society by middle class migrants from Eastern Europe to develop a Jewish style in art, promote Jewish artists often of immigrant background, and to form a collection of art by Jewish artists of all times and styles. The latter was also initiated by art connoisseurs, this time (1932) from among the British Jewish establishment, and by the first academically trained historian of Anglo-‐Jewish history, with the aim to rescue Jewish collections before they could be sold abroad and to display objects of beauty mostly for the religious education of British Jews in order to strengthen the community. Ever since, both organisations have made important changes in their acquisition policies and in the interpretation of their collections through display and programming. Many of these are related to changes in Jewish-‐non Jewish relations in the wider society and in the targeted and actual audiences. My presentation will draw both on my recent research about the early history of these institutions and my current project about their history in the last 60 years. I will identify to what extent changes in Jewish-‐non Jewish relations were responsible for this development and how these have interacted with changes in museology and historiography over the course of a century.

Otto Lohr, Bavarian State Office for Museums, Dep. of Jewish Museums, Germany

Title: Jewish Museums in Bavaria Created by non-‐Jews for a non-‐Jewish Audience

Abstract: There are around 20 Jewish museums in Bavaria which are run by cities, villages, a private association and a foundation. Only one belongs to a Jewish community. The conceptions are mostly done by non-‐Jews for a mostly non-‐Jewish audience. In my paper I will talk about how non-‐Jewish museum professionals are dealing with Jewish heritage, especially with the re-‐use of former synagogues as museums, showing the whole range of preservation from a complete restoration to the preservation of a status quo appearance, in which former synagogues become a testimony of local history. A second point will be a short analysis of the conceptions of the Jewish museums in Bavaria. They all focus on similar topics, dealing mostly with Bavarian-‐Jewish history, particularly from the 18th to 21st century. The permanent exhibitions talk about the peaceful coexistence of the diverse religious communities and the tensions between them. They focus on locally well-‐known Jewish persons or families and generally end with the transportation of the last Jew to one of the concentration camps. Some give an introduction into religious rituals and customs and document the festivals of the Jewish year. An issue that will be addressed is what the permanent exhibitions say about being Jewish today and how contemporary Jewish life is represented. A third point will be the question whether there are differences in conception and presentation to the only Jewish museum in Bavaria which belongs to a Jewish community.

Julia Roos, Network "Jewish life Erfurt", Germany, & Rebekka Schubert, Topf and Sons -‐ Place of Remembrance

Title: Jewish-‐German History and Presence in Erfurt" -‐ A Collaborative Project between the Network "Jewish Life in Erfurt" and the Topf

Abstract: In our lecture we will introduce the educational programme „Jewish-‐German history and presence in Erfurt“, which was conceived two years ago and since then has attracted some very diverse visitor groups. Our presentation highlights the relationship between unique elements of Jewish history and presence in Erfurt and shows how they are interpreted for the public. Various buildings, monuments and locations reflect Jewish history and presence in Erfurt. The Old Synagogue tells the story of the beginnings of Jewish settlement in Erfurt in the late 11th century when Jews and Christians lived next door to each other in the city center, but also gives an account of the devastating pogrom in 1349 when the whole Jewish community was killed by non-‐Jewish inhabitants. The Small Synagogue is a monument to the restart of Jewish life in the early 19th century. Built in 1840, by 1880 this synagogue was already too small and the Great Synagogue was built. In November 1938 the National Socialists burned down the Great Synagogue, but on its site was built the New Synagogue where Jewish life takes place today. In our project, we not only want to link these places to throw light on the particular history of the Erfurt Jewish community from the Middle Ages until today, but also to relate the history and presence of these monuments to the city’s non-‐Jewish history. For that purpose cooperation was established with ‘Topf & Sons – Place of Remembrance’ also situated in Erfurt. Their exhibition discusses the former J. A. Topf & Sons company’s complicity in the genocide of the European Jews, Sinti and Romany. As “the builder of the Auschwitz ovens” the company played a key role in the construction of the crematoria of several Nazi concentration camps and the ventilation system for the gas chambers in Auschwitz. Based on these historical sites we want to discuss three topics relevant to the present: (a) the history of the Old Synagogue – relating to “Jewish life in medieval Erfurt” -‐ serves to highlight problems of integration and exclusion. (b) The Small Synagogue – illustrating Erfurt’s Jewish history in the 19th century -‐ helps to ask questions about identity building. And (c) the example of Topf & Sons raises the issue of personal responsibility: here the lecture asks how a perfectly ordinary firm was involved in the Nazi mass murder in the concentration camps. The disturbing point highlighted by this example is that the involved persons were neither Anti-‐Semitic nor radical National Socialists and also the business with the SS represented no more than 2.5 percent of the company’s total sales. Based on these observations we reflect on responsibility in everyday working life and how we can transfer that learning into educational programs.


Session: 003:

Jewish Archives

14.00-‐15.30

New Perspectives on Jewish and non-‐Jewish Relations in Modern European Culture

Based on Judaica Europeana Digital Collections

Organizer: Lena Stanley-‐Clamp

Frank Mecklenburg, Leo Baeck Institute, New York, USA

Title: When German Jews were Germans: family relations, business and political involvement from 1871-‐1933 in the light of the Leo Baeck Institute Archives' collections.

Abstract: The sixty odd years prior to 1933 were a uniquely flourishing period for Central European Jews. Until 1933, and in strictly legal terms until the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, German Jews were Germans like all other citizens, equal before the law, increasingly involved and successful in business, in the professions, in education and in politics. Jewish communities in large cities were engaging in major projects right up into the 1930s, such as the Jewish adult education program of the Frankfurt Lehrhaus, in publishing at Schocken Verlag, or the Welt Verlag, or the construction of the Prinzregentenstrasse synagogue and the Berkaer Strasse old age home in Berlin. The emergence of modern Jewish social, cultural and religious institutions took place in a gradually more secular society with increasing contacts between Jews and non-‐Jews, most notable and significant in family relations. I will talk about the development of Jewish – non-‐Jewish relations in Germany during the period of 1871 until 1933 in light of the collections of the Leo Baeck Institute Archives. On the one hand looking at the different categories of documents donated to the LBI, collected and preserved in the archives, and what is currently still being donated; on the other hand, how did family relations, business contacts and cooperation, and political involvement develop during those six decades. I want to take a particular look, how does this appear from the perspective of 1933. Since the collections in the LBI Archives are largely based on the papers of individuals and families, they provide more of a citizen’s perspective.

Rachel Heuberger, Frankfurt University Library, Germany

Title: Jewish patronage in non-‐Jewish society. The history of the Rothschild Library in Frankfurt on Main from paper to online.

Abstract: In the 19th century many Jews were among the leading philanthropists of Frankfurt on Main and played an outstanding role in fostering culture and arts in the city. The Rothschild family exceeded them all, financing the largest number of social, cultural and scientific institutions. In focus here is the " Freiherrlich Carl von Rothschild'sche Bibliothek” (Rothschild Collection), founded by Hannah Louise von Rothschild in 1897 in memory of her father Mayer Carl von Rothschild. It was established after the model of the English Free Public Library and offered academic literature and modern fiction free to all. The library symbolizes not only the Rothschilds’ commitment to public education and culture, the important role of the Rothschild women and their joint action in this process, but points also to their modern approach and innovative actions. Starting with Mayer Carl's private collection of 3,500 titles, the library grew to 130,000 books in 1945, specializing in Art, Music and Modern Fiction in various European languages. It is part of the Frankfurt University Library, where it serves today as the indispensable historic resources for university disciplines such as German and English Literature, Philology, Linguistics, Art History and Music Studies. Under National Socialism the name of the philanthropist Rothschild family was erased, however the valuable collection remained undamaged. More than 20,000 press-‐clippings from newspapers all over the world about the Rothschild family and their business from 1886-‐1916 have been preserved, a unique resource of the family’s history. These clippings have been digitized and processed with optical character recognition and are accessible at http://sammlungen.ub.uni-‐frankfurt.de/rothschild/nav/index/all. A virtual exhibition tells the story of the library and the Rothschild family, see: http://www.ub.uni-‐frankfurt.de/judaica/vjv_01.html

Lyudmila Sholokhova, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, USA

Title: Evolving Yiddish audience’s interest in theater in Europe in the 19th -‐ 1st half of the 20th centuries: Yiddish plays in the YIVO Library digital collections.

Abstract: The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York, the first Yiddish academic institution in the world, was established in Vilna, Poland (now-‐ Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1925. It emerged in the midst of

blossoming of Yiddish culture, literature and social movements in Europe. The YIVO Library and Archives consequently reflected on major interests, activities and tastes of Yiddish speaking population that mostly resided or originated in Eastern Europe. Theater was among the most admired pastimes available at that time for the Yiddish-‐speaking Jews. Rich and vivid vocabulary of Yiddish language was able to bring out colorful humor in the simple shund-‐style Yiddish plays; but it would reach much higher levels in communicating sophisticated ideas of the Yiddish classical and contemporary drama works of Abraham Goldfaden, Sholem Aleichem, Isaac Leib Peretz, Mendele Moykher Sforim, Jacob Dinezon and many others. Theater was also a powerful vehicle for introducing Yiddish audience to the treasures of the world-‐class theater dramas. Yiddish translations and adaptations of European plays significantly extended repertoire of the Yiddish theater in general, played important role in educating the audience while simultaneously setting up new opportunities and challenges for the talented Yiddish actors. Among the famous authors whose masterpieces were made available in Yiddish translation were William Shakespeare, Alexandre Dumas, Henrik Ibsen, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, Emile Zola etc. The Library of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is proud to possess one of the world’s largest collections of Yiddish theater works from 1850 to 1950, the period that coincided with the flourishing of Jewish theater in Europe and the United States. Materials from the YIVO collections include many European editions often not available anywhere else in the world. Microfilms of the Yiddish theater works have been recently digitized and are now available online through the YIVO Library online catalog and Internet Archive’s website. This presentation is based on the YIVO digital collection of Yiddish theater masterpieces and aims at exploring the range Yiddish theater works’ editions in Europe and their influence on developing literary and artistic tastes of Yiddish-‐speaking population in European countries.


Session: 004:

Jewish Archives

16.00-‐18.00

Panel: “Yerusha” Endangered Archives

Chair Robin Nobel

Efim Melamed, Project Judaica -‐ Jewish Theological Seminary, Ukraine

Title: Jewish Archives in Ukraine: challenges of access to them in the Soviet period and now

Abstract: The paper will discuss various aspects of threat to which Jewish records were and are exposed in Ukraine and that’s why didn't survive or for many years remained in oblivion. In particular, in the Soviet Union when most of them were either destroyed or inaccessible to researchers because of unofficial taboo imposed on Jewish studies, and later because of acute shortage of specialists, lack of information about them etc.

Gabor Kadar, Yerusha Project RFE

Title: Endangered Jewish Archives in Europe

Abstract: The panel will explore the problem of endangered Jewish archives that are at risk of both decay in non-‐institutional settings and oblivion in massive state and regional archives.

Ivan Ceresnjes, Center for Jewish Art, Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Situation of Jewish Archives in Central Asia and the former Yugoslavia

Abstract: Since I have done some research in the National Library of Uzbekistan in Tashkent my knowledge about the content is limited to the part that is in Russian language, and only referring to the subject I am dealing with, the material remnants of the built Jewish heritage – a minor part covering 19. and 20. century. The majority of the content is in Uzbek and local Turan vernaculars so it was not accessible for my work without (limited) local assistance. Nevertheless, the accessibility to the material has largely improved in the last 15 years. In countries of former Yugoslavia I would like to talk about the Croatian Historical Archive in Dubrovnik that exist since early 15c, has been institutionalized in 18c, and is working till today. It consists of over 3000 volumes (each volume contains approx. 200-‐400 folios or 400-‐600 pages) or 8500 linear meters (120396 boxes). The mayor languages are the Dubrovnik’s Croatian vernacular from 17 18c, Italian and some Latin. In that Archive I am researching data’s about the everyday life of Jews living in the Ghetto in Dubrovnik until year 1808 – abolishing of the Free Republic of Dubrovnik. Aside of that, since the consequences of transitional period after the dissolution of former Yugoslavia are still affecting all fields of research and in many parts of new countries, especially in small provincial archives the access is often limited and difficult.

Jean-‐Claude Kuperminc, Alliance Israélite Universelle, Paris, France

Title: French Jewish Archives in Yerusha: a New Development

Abstract: Since 1965, the Commission française des archives juives has tried to preserve and give a better access to the archives related to the Jews in France. In 2014, within the Yerusha Project managed by the Rothschild Foundation Europe, CFAJ is assembling data to create a large mapping of French archive repositories dealing with Jewish subjects. The presentation will show the methods and state of advancement of the work.

Monday 21st July

Room: 06

Session: 001:

Magic

9.00-‐10.30

Jewish Magic from Antiquity to the Modern World

Organizers: Emma Abate and Gideon Bohak

Chair: Yuval Harari

Avigail Manekin-‐Bamberger, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: The Scribes of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls as Legal Magicians

Abstract: The Aramaic incantation bowls were usually designated to protect one's household by expelling demons. In order to do so the bowls employed different magical practices such as writing the divine names, curses and incantations. But alongside these anticipated magical practices, the incantation bowls also use legal formulae. Such formulae can be found in oaths and incantations, vows, pronouncements of excommunication and more surprisingly, divorce formulae. These legal formulae are not just allusive of legal discourse but employ specific terms and technicalities that have parallels in the Bible and Second Temple literature, Rabbinic literature and archeological findings. In my paper I shall discuss the nature of these common legal formulae by demonstrating verbal parallels in the divorce formula between the Talmud, archeological findings of divorce documents and the bowls. The study of these parallels will shed light on the nature of the bowl scribes, not just as magicians but as magicians with specific legal disciplinary knowledge, or in other words: legal magicians.

James Nathan Ford, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: 'Jesus the Healer' in the Jewish Magic Bowls

Abstract: Appeals to Jesus and his healing powers can occasionally be found in Syriac incantation bowls prepared by Christian practitioners, where they are to be expected. It is well known, however, that magic is eclectic and magicians often draw upon magical and religious traditions other than their own, even from sources actively opposed by their own orthodox coreligionists. A case in point is the Jewish incantation bowl Moussaieff 163, published by Dan Levene (1999), which opens with an appeal to the ancient Mesopotamian deity ‘Šamiš king of the gods’ and closes with a curse of the opponent ‘in the name of Jesus who conquered the height and the depth by his cross and in the name of his exalted father and in the name of his holy spirit’. It has been suggested that since the opponent, Isha son of Ifra Hurmiz, was a Christian, the Jewish practitioner may have invoked the power of Jesus here in order ‘to hit his opponent with the weapon most close to his heart’ (Shaked 1999). Other Jewish bowls occasionally mention Jesus in passing in lists of magic or divine names which the practitioner may or may not have recognized (see Bohak 2005/6 and Müller-‐Kessler 2005). In this paper I will present a series of new Jewish incantation bowls of a different

nature, in which an explicit appeal to ‘Jesus the Healer’ to act on behalf of the client holds a prominent position.

Marco Moriggi, Università degli Studi di Catania, Italy

Title: Jewish Divorce Formulae in Syriac Incantation Bowls

Abstract: In a series of Syriac incantation bowls published between 1913 and the present day a peculiar text is documented. It mentions Rab Joshua bar Perahya sitting in a court of law and performing an exorcism against demons, devils, liliths and other evil beings haunting the house of the client and causing illnesses and misfortunes to the members of his/her family. This spell is well attested in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic bowls and it is now evident that a Jewish Babylonian Aramaic model is at the base of what is found in Syriac bowls. Divorce formulas are frequently used in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic bowls to cast away demons and hateful supernatural beings. The new edition of the Syriac bowls featuring this formula which the present author is going to publish allows for a reconsideration of the theme of the Jewish divorce formula in Syriac incantation bowls, both on the linguistic and cultural points of view. In the light of all its features, including figures of speech referred to a heavenly ascension and a lot drawn, the formula does not seem to have been understood as a simple Syriac transcription of a Jewish Babylonian Aramaic model (or of an oral spell uttered in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic), but as a tool to be effectively employed in a Syriac magic context, where it had been well integrated with other non-‐Jewish themes.

10.30-‐11.00: Coffee break

Session: 002

Magic

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Jewish Magic from Antiquity to the Modern World

Chair: Yuval Harari

Alessia Bellusci, Tel Aviv University (TAU); Italian National Council of Research (CNR)

Title: The Ritual of Dream Request in the Late Antique Jewish and Graeco-‐Egyptian Magical Traditions

Abstract: In my lecture, I will discuss a specific dream technique of induced divination called “dream request,” which is attested in several cultures from antiquity. Known under diverse names and practiced in slightly different forms, the ritual of “dream request” corresponds in Old Babylonian, Graeco-‐Roman, Jewish, Christian and Islamic sources to a technique, with which users artificially induce a dream on a certain topic, in order to foretell the future or receive a certain answer to an issue pertaining to their life. Used for a wide range of different purposes, the recipes for “dream request," which reached us, generally prescribe to observe ascetic norms and recite specific formulae, and often present magical features. In my paper, I will focus on the technique of “dream request” within the Jewish tradition. Although of much more ancient origin, this technique – ‐-שאלת חלום is attested to in Jewish sources only from the tenth century C.E.

onwards. Later on, the “dream request” became a common practice in Jewish culture and developed in several variants, often corresponding to different cultural and ideological currents. Using late antique and medieval Jewish sources -‐ chiefly the magical fragments from the Cairo Genizah and Sefer Ha-‐Razim -‐ I will attempt to outline some stages of development of the Jewish technique of “dream request.” I will then compare my findings in the Jewish corpora to the recipes for “dream request” -‐ in “Ὀνειραιτητόν” -‐ preserved in the corpus of Greek and Demotic Magical Papyri, which exhibit close textual and ritual features. The evaluation of literary and ritualistic similarities, as well as differences, in the development of the Jewish and Graeco-‐Egyptian traditions on “dream request” will bring us to a better understanding of this specific oneiric technique in both cultures. Furthermore, it will provide a case-‐study for undertaking a re-‐thinking of the Jewish and Graeco-‐Egyptian magical traditions in light of a comparative re-‐examination of the relevant sources pertaining to these two cultures.

Gideon Bohak, Tel-‐Aviv University, Israel

Title: A Late Antique Babylonian Magical Text in Modern Jewish Amulets from Morocco

Abstract: The text known as the "Pishra de-‐Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa" is an anti-‐witchcraft spell, intended to dissolve all evil magic acts performed against a certain individual. It is written in Babylonian Jewish Aramaic, and displays the direct influence of older Babylonian spells against witches. Moreover, it seems to have enjoyed a great popularity in the Jewish magical tradition, as may be seen from its attestation in at least nine different fragments from the Cairo Genizah. It is also found in medieval Jewish manuscripts from Ashkenaz and from the Orient, and was thus far edited only from one, poorly preserved, Ashkenazi copy. But perhaps its most surprising attestation is on two twentieth century amulets from Morocco, which were beautifully produced by an experienced scribe. In my talk, I shall briefly survey the origins and transmission-‐history of the Pishra, but focus especially on the two amulets from Morocco, and on the ancient origins of some Modern Jewish amulets.

Joseph E. Sanzo, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: “Jewish” Elements on “Christian” Amulets? Toward a New Taxonomy of Late Antique Ritual Practice

Abstract: Scholars have long noted that the language on amulets and other “magical” artifacts from late antiquity often draws upon the sacred texts, liturgies, and other known traditions of Judaism and Christianity. In fact, one can even find specialized studies on “Jewish magic” or “Christian magic.” But the magical record does not always reflect such clear distinctions between these respective traditions. Indeed, traditional “Jewish” elements are sometimes utilized on otherwise “Christian” magical texts (and vice-‐versa). The intersections of “Jewish” and “Christian” magical traditions thus raise fundamental questions about the governing taxonomies of scholars. For instance, what is the best way to think about the categories “Christian” and “Jewish” as it relates to late antique ritual practice? In my presentation, I will analyze the use of (allegedly) “Jewish” elements on “Christian” amulets from late antiquity. I will demonstrate that certain official conceptions of “Christianity” (and “Judaism”) have guided scholarly classifications of amuletic language. As a result, elements that fall outside of the traditional definitions of “Christianity” are labeled as “Jewish” (or “pagan”). In contrast to this standard approach, I will establish a new taxonomy of “Christian” ritual practice, which is predominantly orientated around the language found on the late antique amulets themselves. This shift in reference will result in the incorporation of select “Jewish” (and “pagan”) elements into the category “Christian.” This new taxonomy will not only allow amulets to be understood on their own terms, but it will also require scholars to take into consideration a

larger (and more diverse) body of amulets when assessing “Christian” ritual practice and will thus provide a more robust framework for comparing “Christian” and “Jewish” magical traditions.

Rivka Elitzur-‐Leiman, Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Victim or Assailant? -‐ A New Understanding of the Ancient Smamit Legend in Light of an Aramaic Amulet from the Bible Lands Museu

Abstract: The Aramaic amulet to be discussed in the presentation was created to exorcize a child-‐killing demon from a pregnant woman. This amulet includes a legend, which is attested in several other magic objects (lamellae and incantation bowls), narrating the story of Smamit, a woman whose 12 children were killed by the demon Sideros. At first glance, the legend on this amulet seems to match its counterparts. However, a careful reading suggests that it offers a rather different version of the story. While in the other magic objects the story tells of three angels coming to Smamit's aid and subduing Sideros, the amulet under discussion describes how Smamit herself, full of sorrow and envy, has turned into a heinous child-‐killing demon, a metamorphosis which has caused the three angles to seize and adjure her. This amulet contains many significant features attested in a variety of other traditions and periods.


Session: 003

Magic

13.55-‐15.45


Chair: Bill Rebiger

Katelyn Mesler, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Did Medieval European Jews Practice ‘Envoultement’?

Abstract: When Christians of Late Medieval Europe discussed sorcery, they often referred to envoultement, which involved sticking pins into a wax effigy in order to cause injury, illness, death, or altered emotional states (such as madness or love). This practice is well attested in treatises of practical magic, condemnations of magic, and trials against sorcerers and witches. Notably, some of these texts also exhibit a tendency to associate envoultement with Jews. For example, there are sorcery trials of the fourteenth century that present Jews as hired professionals in the production and use of wax figurines. But did contemporary Jews actually practice envoultement? In this paper, I will consider the evidence of Hebrew sources to investigate medieval European Jews’ familiarity with the practice and, furthermore, to consider the extent to which envoultement figured in the repertoire of Jewish magic in the Latin West.

Ephraim Kanarfogel, Yeshiva University, USA

Title: Magical Practices in the Writings of the Tosafists of Northern France during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

Abstract: Although known primarily as prolific expositors of the Talmud and scholars of Jewish law, it has recently been demonstrated that the Tosafists, not only in Germany but in northern France as well, had ongoing interests in a series of mystical teachings and especially in magical practices and theories. Indeed, Isaac of Dampierre (d. 1189), arguably the leading Tosafist of his day, betrays such interests in a variety of texts and contexts. On the basis of a number of manuscript passages and a concomitant re-‐reading of printed Tosafist texts, this paper will trace and describe these interests and applications, focusing on three different aspects: curing the sick, catching thieves and contracting marriages.

Emma Abate, LabEx-‐Hastec/IRHT, Paris, France

Title: Sefer ha-‐Shorashim versus Raziel. Lexicography Facing the Magical Heritage.

Abstract: The purpose of my communication is to deal with the definition of “magic” and the representation of demons in the Middle Ages taking into account sources other than the traditional genres embodied by the magical heritage. In particular, the way in which different items related to magic (“sorcery”, “witchcraft”, “necromancy” etc.) and demonology (names of demons like Azazel, Samael, Satan, Lilith etc.) are treated in Jewish medieval lexicons and exegetical works will be considered. I will focus notably on the dictionary of biblical roots by David Ben Yosef Qimhi (1160-‐1235) known as Sefer ha-‐Shorashim, the most celebrated and widespread lexicon in the Middle Ages until the Early Modern Period. Sefer ha Shorashim was a source of inspiration of exegetical works by Jewish intellectuals from the Renaissance like Elia Levita (1469-‐1549), who was author himself of lexicons (such as Meturgeman and Tishbi), and by Christian kabbalists like Johannes Reuchlin (1455-‐1522), Sante Pagnini (1470-‐1541), Gilles of Viterbo (1469-‐1532), who translated it into Latin. Beyond its prestige and influence on the development of the Hebrew linguistic thought and knowledge, Sefer ha-‐Shorashim requires to be considered as a treasure trove of Jewish traditions, symbols, beliefs and memories, therefore including also the magical imagery. In Sefer ha-‐Shorashim, each entry provides a chain of biblical references according to different conjugations, grammatical forms and meanings of the Hebrew roots. Notwithstanding his rationalism and lack of interest towards the esoteric exegesis, Qimhi often adds interpretations and commentaries gathering information from rabbinic, philosophical, midrashic and popular sources. This way, he offers an external and outsider insight on different conceptions and approaches to magical themes. By examining a range of entries related to “magic” in comparison with materials taken from magical sources, I intend to present the way by which Qimhi’s definitions and exegesis on the topic developed during the Middle Ages reaching the milieu of the Christian Kabbalist of the Renaissance.

Flavia Buzzetta, Officina di Studi Medievali, Palermo, Italy

Title: La transformation de la magie juive en cabale chez Jean Pic de la Mirandole

Abstract: L’exposé se propose de prendre en examen l’acquisition de la magie juive et sa transformation en cabale chrétienne chez Jean Pic de la Mirandole, à l’aube de la Renaissance. Cette recherche vise à démontrer l’évolution et le passage de l’expression cabala practica en pars practica cabalae ou opus cabalae. La première est utilisée dans le Liber de homine (Vat. Ebr. 189 ff. 398r-‐509v), traduction latine d’un texte ashkénaze, effectuée par Flavius Mithridate pour Jean Pic de la Mirandole à la fin du ‘400. Compilé à l’origine dans le cercle d’Eleazar de Worms, ce traité considère la cabala practica comme une techniques de magie linguistique. L’identification de la fonction de cette pratique est développée sur la base d’une analyse des différentes typologies de magie qu’on repère dans le Liber. La deuxième expression

est utilisée par Jean Pic de la Mirandole dans les Conclusiones cabalisticae secundum opinionem propriam. Dans le système de pensée du Comte la cabala practica constitue le coté pratique de la scientia cabalae et deviendra un savoir totalisant qui pourra être considéré à la fois magie cabalistique ou cabale magique.


Session: 004

Magic

16.00-‐18.00


Chair: Bill Rebiger

Marco Simon Francisco, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain

Title: Solomonic Magic and the Inquisitorial Trials in Aragón.

Abstract: This paper aims to analyze several judicial processes that took place in Aragón at the beginning of the 16th century against some people accused of practicing nigromancy. Special interest has the proceeding against the priest Joan Vicente (possibly the best source for the knowledge of witchcraft in the Spain of the Renaissance), that brings to light some rituals transmitted from the Ancient World (such as the performing of magic circles, the uttering of voces magicae and the use of water containers or rings to invoke the demons). The possible ways of transmission of this ancient material are posed (the “Clavicula Salomonis” or the “Book of the Rings” are mentioned belonging to the nigromants), perhaps through the arrival of Byzantine texts from the 13th century, as well as the importance of the Ebro valley in the translation of works from Arabic to Latin, particularly in the first half of the 12th Century.

Giuseppe Veltri & Michael Kohs, Martin Luther Universität Halle-‐Wittenberg, Germany

Title: The Interplay of Writing and Images in Mafteah Shelomoh

Mafteah Shelomoh, the Hebrew version of the Clavicula Salomonis, the 'Key of Solomon', is a rather heterogeneous handbook of astral magic and necromancy. The very few extant manuscripts of Mafteah Shelomoh show, unlike other Jewish magical handbooks, a remarkably high amount of visual elements, probably because Mafteah Shelomoh is a translation from a Latin or Italian Vorlage and not a »genuine« Jewish text. These visual elements and their interplay with the text have not been addressed by scholarly research up to now. Based on the analysis of MS Gollancz (published by Hermann Gollancz as a facsimile in 1914) and MS British Library Or. 6360/Or. 14,759 we will take a closer look at the visual/graphic dimension of magical writing in Mafteah Shelomoh. We will demonstrate how visual or para-‐textual means are used to structure the manuscript and how magical and astrological signs, geometric diagrams, figurative images enrich the verbal text and contribute to its very textuality. Furthermore, in comparing the different manuscripts, we will try to elucidate the scribes' different strategies for implementing and, potentially, transforming their Vorlage. The two manuscripts show are different image repertoire and in some cases the

process of translating and writing is reflected by the scribe in the text, for instance, when he explicitly admits, not to understand the Vorlage or when he uses explanatory glosses. Finally, we are going to ask whether it is possible to identify specific Jewish visual elements in Mafteah Shelomoh, that might justify calling Mafteah Shelomoh an iconographically Judaized Renaissance handbook of magic.

Reimund Leicht, Hebrew University, Israel

Title: The Fragmentary Hebrew Translation of the Picatrix and its Sources

Abstract: Among the medieval Hebrew translations of the famous magical handbook Picatrix there are fragments of a version which has aroused considerable confusion among modern scholars. Although a colophon declares that it was not translated directly from the Arabic but from a Christian version, the text does not reveal any influence of the Latin Picatrix tradition. This paper will try to solve this riddle and will argue for an old vernacular version as a Vorlage of the Hebrew translation.

Tamar Alexander, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: The Prophet Elijah and the Virgin Mary, between Sephardic Incantations and Hispanic Incantations

Abstract: This lecture is part of a comprehensive project I am conducting with Dr. Eliezer Papo on Sephardic incantations. The corpus we have found consists of 200 incantations in Ladino, Hebrew, and Aramaic from 8 manuscripts and other printed sources in books such as collections of charms and folk healing. The incantations, just like other components of Sephardic culture, are influenced from the culture of the country of origin, Spain; from the culture of the countries in which the Spanish exiles lived (such as Turkey, Greece, or the former Yugoslavia) and from internal Jewish canonic Hebrew sources, such as the Bible, Midrashim, and the Talmud. The link to the sources is expressed, first of all, in the linguistic design of the incantations written in Ladino, Hebrew, or Aramaic, or in a mixture of languages. We found that the linguistic division is congruent with the gender division. Incantations offered by women are in Ladino; those written by rabbis are in Hebrew mixed with Aramaic, while those that mix Hebrew and Ladino were composed by uneducated men. In this lecture, I wish to look at the cultural links between Jewish incantations and Spanish Christian incantations: (a) parallel or identical incantations that moved easily from one culture to another; (b) incantations that underwent processes of change and adaptation to Jewish culture; and (c) uniquely Jewish incantations. We shall construct the comparison according to parameters of structure, form, and content, such as the figures appearing in the incantations, main motifs, and linguistic formulations, mainly openings and closings. We shall examine the correlation between the gender division and cultural influence and see that women’s incantations cross cultural boundaries more easily than those of men.

Monday 21st July

Room: 07

Session: 001:

Bible

9.00-‐10.30

Chair: Yigal Levin

Tracy Lemos, Huron University College, University of Western Ontario, Canada

Title: Archaeological Evidence for Interethnic Violence in the Iron-‐II Levant

Abstract: The violence that occurred between certain groups in ancient Israel and other parts of the Levantine region is well attested. Between the 9th and 6th centuries BCE, the Neo-‐Assyrian and Neo-‐Babylonian empires mounted several military campaigns in the area that often left clear marks in the archaeological record. But what of violence between the Israelites and other small groups of the ancient Levant? This violence is described or referred to not only in biblical texts but also in such extrabiblical materials as the Mesha Inscription. This paper will examine the difficult question of whether or not it is possible to trace this violence archaeologically.

Tziona Grossmark, Tel Hai College, Israel

Title: A Neo-‐Assyrian Cylinder Seal from Omrit and its Contribution to the Study of the Assyrian Military Presence in the Galilee

Abstract: During the 2010 season of excavations at Horvat Omrit, a Neo-‐Assyrian cylinder seal was found in space 4-‐2. Although found in a much later context (Roman Period), this find, as we will show hereinafter, contributes to both the establishment of the chronology of its glyptic sub-‐group and to the tracing of the presence of the Neo-‐Assyrian army in the Galilee.

Isaac Kalimi, Johannes Gutenberg-‐Universität Mainz, Germany

Title: The Love of God and Royal Apology: Solomon’s Birth Story in Its Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Context

Abstract: The birth story of Solomon (2 Sam 12:24-‐25) is a unique example of its kind in the ancient Israelite historiography about the kingdom era. Though the birth-‐name of the new born child was “Solomon,” he received an additional name by the divine messenger, Nathan: “Yedidyah,” stating that “the Lord loved him.” The purpose and meaning of this name and phrase should be understood as two complimentary approaches: within the immediate context (2 Samuel 11–12) as well as within the wider context of the story regarding Solomon’s rising to power (1 Kings 1–2). The purpose of this paper is to show that usurpers and kings out of a royal line of throne attempted to legitimize their kingship by introducing themselves as beloved/preferred of a patronage god(s) and occasionally sometimes taking a new throne-‐name. This

historical and literary phenomenon reflects clearly also from Mesopotamian, Anatolian, and Egyptian writings from different periods. The content and tendency of the text in Samuel is well correlated within the surrounding ancient Near Eastern cultural settings. This comparative-‐historical discussion also coheres and supports the literary-‐critical discussion of biblical texts in this and in my other study.


Session: 002

Bible

11.00-‐13.00

Chair: Isaac Kalimi

Yisca Zimran, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Isaiah the Son of Amoz and the Faith of the Nations.

Abstract: The eschatological vision of the “end of days” appears in Isaiah 2:2-‐5. In this vision, Isaiah foresees that all nations shall stream to the mountain of the Lord’s house, recognize the existence of the God of Israel, and walk in His paths. There are even those who argue that Isaiah actually declares that the nations will abandon their idols and worship only the God of Israel. In this prophecy, the God of Israel is depicted as a universal deity whose sphere of influence includes nations other than Israel, and as a righteous God. There is a measure of innovation in this presentation, as well as in the future that Isaiah foresees for the nations-‐-‐ an innovation that is present in several other prophecies in the Book of Isaiah. The idea expressed in Isaiah’s prophecy regarding the nations’ faith is adopted by several other biblical prophets, such as Jeremiah (in 16: 19-‐20) and Zephaniah (3:9). Others, such as Micah (4:5) and Joel (4:9-‐17) objected to it. I will begin this lecture by first examining whether Isaiah’s vision does indeed include an account of the future repentance of the nations. I will move from there to consider the connections between this prophecy and the various world views found in the Book of Isaiah, on the one hand, while on the other exploring its linkage to the historical context of the relationship between Israel and the nations during the eighth century BCE. As a part of this discussion, I will analyze how other prophets-‐-‐whether contemporaries of Isaiah or subsequent to him—regarded his worldview, and how their attitudes influenced the structure and formulation of their own prophesies dealing with similar issues.

Yu Takeuchi, Kumamoto University, Japan

Title: Genealogy of the Righteous Foreigners in the Hebrew Bible

Abstract: The Hebrew Bible, surprisingly enough to the eyes accustomed to see the Book as the history of the chosen, recounts non-‐ignorable number of stories of foreigners who behave apparently more righteously than the chosen people. Examples are not abundant, but not insignificantly few: Mechizedeq, Jethro, Naaman, Job, the foreign sailors and the Ninevites in the Book of Jonah, Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. The paper briefly introduces the curious ‘genealogy’ of these righteous foreigners, and discusses their quite subversive role, in contrast with the general schema that it is the chosen who are invited to know the divine

way, then places these curiously righteous foreigners among with two other types of ‘foreigners’ (the enemy or the rejected on one hand, the needy to protect on the other hand) to consider the ethical significance of these extraordinary figures in the Hebrew Bible.

Meir Bar Maymon, Sciences Po Paris, France/ Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: Living the Metaphor-‐ On the Ascription Process of the (Male) Biblical Research

Abstract: Biblical research, or any research for this matter, is perceived as objective, thus rendering the scholars as ‘academic’ and essentially non-‐political. I wish to demonstrate in this lecture how modern Biblical research takes part and ascribes itself to the metaphor of Jerusalem as the adulterous deviant woman in Ezekiel 16 and 23. These two chapters, through rhetoric of pornography, portray Jerusalem as a prostitute and punish her for her acts in a horrific manner of stoning, burning, rape, and cutting of her body. I will elaborate on these chapters by reviewing the meaning of metaphors and by analyzing Ez. 16, 23 as a pornographic literature. Moreover, by promoting meta-‐reading to different commentaries of the book of Ezekiel, I wish to show how different commentators identify themselves with the rhetoric of these chapters; and to demonstrate how scholars take part in the textual political process of metaphorizing the bad Israel as a deviant woman, and how their reading of the text help constitute their male self.


Session: 003

Bible

14.00-‐15.30

Chair: Arnaud Sérandour

Yigal Levin, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: Why did the Zerubbabel’s Adversaries Emphasize their Foreign Origins?

Abstract: Upon arriving in Jerusalem sometime after 538 BCE, the returnees led by Zerubbabel were approached by a group of people whom Ezra 4:1 refers to as "the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin", who requested, "Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of King Esarhaddon of Assyria who brought us here." Most commentators identify these "adversaries" as the people later known as the Samaritans, although other proposals do exist. An apparently similar group are mentioned in verse 10 as "the nations whom the great and noble Osnappar deported and settled in the cities of Samaria and in the rest of the province Beyond the River". This paper examines the question of their claim to foreign origin: why would they make this claim, rather than claim to be indigenous, YHWH-‐worshipping, Israelites? Is this claim simply Judean propaganda? Or would the leaders of the "adversaries" have considered it advantageous to be descended from foreign deportees? This question will be examined in light of Assyrian deportation policies and the archaeological record, and we will propose a solution that might shed light on the "ethnogenesis" of the Samaritans during the Persian Period.

Renate Egger-‐Wenzel, University of Salzburg, Austria

Title: Identity and Acts of Resistance as Reflected in the Book of Tobit

Abstract: The lecture will deal with the political background presupposed by the author, the Jewish reaction to the dominant environment, the maintenance of religious identity, and examples of peaceful co-‐existence and resistance with regard to the non-‐Jewish world.


Session: 004

16.00-‐18.00

La lecture juive des Psaumes en interaction

Organizer: Matthias Morgenstern

Chair: Steven Fraade

Giovanni Ibba, Facoltà Teologica dell'Italia Centrale, Italy

Title: L’interprétation des Psaumes dans les manuscrits qumrâniens 1Q16, 4Q171 et 4Q173

Abstract: Cette relation est dans la session "Psaumes et leur histoire de reception", organisée par Matthias Morgenstern. La relation se concentre sur les seuls commentaires des Psaumes trouvés dans les grottes de Qumrân. Les manuscrits qui les contiennent sont 1Q16/1Q171/4Q173 et ils sont tous très fragmentaires. Toutefois, en considérant surtout 4Q171, on peut avoir quelques éléments importants de l’idéologie judaïque de ceux qui les ont composés.

Christophe Batsch, Université de Lille, France

Title: Retour sur les pesharim des Psaumes à Qumrân Abstract: Dans le cadre du panel sur la lecture exégétique des Psaumes, nous ferons le point sur l'état des études sur les inteprétations (pesher) des Psaumes dans les manuscrits de Qumrân.

Matthias Morgenstern, Institutum Judaicum, Université de Tübingen, Germany

Title: "Sion comme mère de tous les peuples" -‐ Léxégèse midrachique de Psaume 87

Abstract: Léxégèse de Psaume 87 sera examiné et résumé à partir des textes midrachiques et talmudiques jusquáux adaptations modernes de ces dernières interpretations, notamment dans le commentaire du Rabbin Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808 -‐ 1888).

Annie Noblesse-‐Rocher, Université de Strasbourg, Faculté de théologie Protestante, France

Title: Le psaume 87 et son interprétation chez les Réformateurs du 16e s.

Abstract: Martin Bucer a conçu un volumineux commentaire du psautier, inspirateur et fonds documentaire pour les autres commentaires des psaumes. L'importance exégétique et herméneutique accordée par Martin Bucer aux sources juives médiévales est ici étudiée à propos de "Sion, mère des nations" ainsi que sa postérité dans les commentaires évangéliques de l’époque moderne

Monday 21st July

Room: 08

Session: 001:

New Testament / Rabbinic Literature

9.00-‐10.30

Chair:

Peter J. Tomson, FPG Brussels -‐ KU Leuven, Belgium

Title: Les Épîtres de Paul comme sources pour le Phariséisme historique

Abstract: Dans les études juives comme dans la théologie chrétienne, tant en ses branches exégétique que historique et systématique, l’Apôtre Paul compte depuis longtemps pour le grand pourfendeur du judaïsme et plus particulièrement de son ancien milieu spirituel, le Phariséïsme. En revanche, depuis l’éclosion de « la nouvelle perspective sur Paul » les exégètes, eux au moins, commencent à apprécier l’enracinement juif de l’Apôtre. La présente communication va explorer six exemples dans Paul, trois fois deux, des trois disciplines-‐type du judaïsme « proto rabbinique », halakha, midrash et aggada. Dans le domaine de la halakha, on étudiera (1) les lois concernant le divorce et le remariage en 1 Co. 7,39s. et Ro. 7,2-‐4 et (2) le concept de la συνειδησις (cf. ,דעת ( מחשבה en 1 Cο. 10,25-‐29. Dans le domaine du midrash, on va étudier (3) la brève allusion à Hosée en 1 Co. 15,54s. dans laquelle se cache une tradition trouvée aussi dans les targoumim, et (4) l’utilisation diversifiée du terme σπερμα Αβρααμ en Ro. 4,13-‐18 et Ga. 3,16-‐19. Dans le domaine de l’aggada, on s’occupera (5) de la tradition de la source voyageant en 1 Co. 10,1-‐5 et (6) de la parabole du corps en 1 Co. 12,14-‐27. Finalement, on résumera les conclusions que les épîtres de Paul nous permettent à tirer quant au caractère du Phariséïsme au milieu du premier siècle et à la relation entre la tradition pharisienne et la littérature rabbinique.

Eran Shuali, Université de Strasbourg, France

Title: « Rabbiniser » le Nouveau Testament : l’usage de la littérature rabbinique dans les traductions du Nouveau Testament en hébreu

Abstract: Pour le traducteur du Nouveau Testament en hébreu, la littérature rabbinique ancienne constitue un outil inestimable : il y trouve un grand nombre de mots et d’expressions et même des énoncés entiers qui sont très proches de ceux de son texte source et qui sont formulés directement dans la langue cible vers laquelle il traduit. Dans cette étude, j’examinerai l’usage que les différentes personnes ayant traduit le Nouveau Testament en hébreu au cours des siècles ont en effet fait de cette littérature. Notamment, je tâcherai de montrer en quoi cet usage a pu faciliter la compréhension du Nouveau Testament par les lecteurs juifs visés, et en quoi, en revanche, il risquait de fausser le sens du texte original. Cet examen des pratiques de travail des traducteurs permettra aussi de dégager certaines de leurs conceptions concernant les rapports historiques et théologiques entre christianisme et judaïsme.


Session: 002

Jewish / Christian Exegesis

11.00-‐13.00

Chair:

Moshe Blidstein, University of Oxford, UK

Title: Deed and Word in Late Ancient Christian and Jewish Biblical Exegesis

Abstract: Many Second Temple Period and Rabbinic texts attempt to relate the normative value of the actions of the biblical patriarchs to the law received by Moses at Sinai. Typically they uphold the Sinai law as primary, and seek to demonstrate the coherence of the patriarchs’ action with it. For late ancient Greek and Syriac Christian exegetes, however, the biblical ritual laws were seen as temporary and non-‐obligatory, even though the Hebrew Bible was an authoritative text. This had repercussions for the relationship between the normative value of the patriarchs’ actions and Moses’ law: At least for the more literally-‐minded exegetes, the former could be understood as relating to the actions of God-‐fearing men and women, worthy of imitation by Christians, while the latter, which bore the brunt of anti-‐Jewish polemic, were regularly attacked as temporary concessions to the stiff-‐necked Jews, or worse. Motivated by anti-‐Jewish polemic, some Christian exegetes took this further: contradictions between the actions of the patriarchs (even those later than the Sinai revelation, such as Moses or David) and the Sinai law were seen as intentional fissures in the text, which proved the secondary nature, or even essential hollowness, of the Sinai law. This perspective created a paradoxical bifurcation in the derivation of norms from the biblical text: valid laws and customs could be easily derived from implicit patriarchal action, while explicit legal injunctions in the bible lost their normative value. In my paper, I will explore this hermeneutic through a number of case-‐studies from Syriac exegesis of biblical passages speaking of impurity. I will demonstrate its connections to Jewish-‐Christian polemic on these issues, and compare it to the hermeneutic deployed by Jewish exegesis on these texts.

Koji Osawa, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Japan

Title: The Interpretations of the Golden Calf Episode in the Book of Exodus Ch. 32: A Comparative Analysis of Judaism and Christianity

Abstract: In this paper, I reveal the background of Jewish and Christian interpretations of the golden calf episode in the Book of Exodus chapter 32 by comparing and analyzing interpretations that existed up to about the fifth century C.E. The golden calf episode involved the Israelites’ worship of a golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai while Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments from God at the top. The episode was used by Christianity to attack Judaism but was also very problematic for Judaism on its own terms. Interestingly, for example, interpretations by both sides tend to defend Aaron, who, according to the account in the Book of Exodus, played a very important part. Their reasons for defending him are completely different, however. To show both perspectives, I draw on the Jewish traditions represented by

Tannaim and Amoraim and the Christian traditions represented mainly by the Church Fathers up to Ephrem the Syrian.

Andor Kelenhegyi, Central European University, Hungary

Title: Learning or born to be a sheep... A survey of the sheep-‐shepherd metaphor in early Jewish and Christian exegesis

Abstract: Perhaps the most influential Biblical metaphor describing governance and political systems is that of the shepherd and his flock. In the metaphor the shepherd guides the flock and protects it from the raids of savage beasts which threaten the well-‐being of the community. My paper examines the evolution of this metaphor which originates in ancient Near Eastern poetry and mythology and through the medium of Old Testament (OT) literature (e.g. Ezek 34, Ps. 78, 80) has found its way first to the New Testament (NT) (e.g. Mk 6:34, Jn 10:11-‐16) and then to both Jewish and Christian exegesis. The clarity and compactness of the metaphor enabled it to become the archetypical representation of the relationship between God and His chosen nation. Contrary to usual exegetical polemics, however, Jewish and Christian interpreters not only disagreed about the identity of the characters, but also concerning the nature of shepherding and political leadership as such. A parallel reading of Jewish and Christian interpretations of OT and, to a limited extent, NT loci of the shepherd-‐metaphor demonstrates that the two interpretational traditions constructed profoundly dissimilar models of political authority. The concurrence of two role-‐models, that of the messiah-‐king providing protection and that of the educator providing moral guidance, in the tradition concerning the figure of Jesus resulted in a transformation of the entire shepherd-‐metaphor. In Christian exegesis, the educational and proselytizing aspect became the primary context of interpreting the activity of leadership. And probably due to the Christian preoccupation with Jesus, the shepherd-‐educator, rabbis decided to accentuate the opposite model, in which shepherding correspond solely to political and institutional direction.

Miriam Ben Zeev, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Did the Romans Dislike the Jews? – Latin Literature on Jews and Judaism in the Republican Era

Abstract: The question to be addressed concerns Roman positions towards the Jews as early as the first century BCE. Cicero's testimony on the Jews and Judaism has been often taken as a sign of anti-‐Judaism, but it should be evaluated on the background of his political and forensic purposes, comparing it with the attitudes displayed towards other population groups. As for Varro's positive comments on Judaism, which follow a long tradition of Greek Stoic philosophical thought which censured the cult of images; it is doubtful that they attest to special esteem for Judaism. Both Cicero and Varro, it appears, did not have definite personal views regarding the Jews. The same impression we get from Livy's comments concerning the Temple of Jerusalem and from the longest and most detailed piece on the Jews written in the first century BCE, that of Pompeius Trogus, who draws both on Jewish and anti-‐Jewish sources, displaying no sign of anti-‐Jewish bias. As for Latin poetry, Horace’s and Ovid’s references to the Jews display not hostility but rather amusement, being kinds of jokes, comic and ironic allusions, passing jibes. In the first century BCE, it appears, the Romans did not relate to the Jews in a way different from how they felt towards other national groups.


Session: 003

Tannaitic

14.00-‐15.30

Chair:

Daniel Stoekl Ben Ezra, EPHE, France

Title: Mishna -‐ towards an Interactive Edition and Translation with a Historical Commentary

Abstract: This paper shall present the current state of the CTMishna project, a project dedicated to establishing an editio critica minor of the Mishna with a French translation and a brief historical-‐philological commentary using digital humanities. On the historical side, special attention will be paid to the relevance of Second Temple and early Christian literature (Aramaic Levi Document, Book of the Watchers, Josephus, Barnabas) in analyzing the historical and the rhetorical elements of mYoma. Comparing our results with previous and contemporary proposals (Cohn, Safrai, Neusner, Instone-‐Brewer), I shall argue for an origin in the Temple ritual for some traditions and the rhetorical retrojection of other late traditions. On the technological side, demonstrations of the use of the electronic platform shall be made. The project is undertaken with the generous support of the team of the Qumranwörterbuch Göttingen and in collaboration with the digital Mishna project by Hayim Lapin and the German Mishna project by Michael Krupp.

Hayim Lapin, University of Maryland/IIAS-‐Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Toward a Digital Critical Edition of the Mishnah

Abstract: Despite its great importance, there is no critical edition of the Mishnah. This paper describes a project to create a digital edition. The presentation will describe the project, preview the demonstration version of the project, outline the features that are planned for implementation, and discuss the implications of the project for the study of Judaism and for the digital humanities. The demo version is at www.digitalmishnah.umd.edu.

Emmanuel Friedheim, The Israel and Golda Koschitzky Department of Jewish History

Title: La perception du non-‐Juif dans la littérature tannaïtique au regard de la réalité historique des deux premiers siècles de l'ère commune

Abstract: L'objectif de cette communication, est de clarifier le rapport des Sages de la littérature mishnique vis-‐à-‐vis de la gentilité et de définir la perception du rapport identitaire entre Juifs et non-‐Juifs aux yeux des Sages. De relations extrêmement difficiles, dues manifestement au contexte historique accablant, relatif au soulèvement contre Rome de 70, motivant haine, suspicion et vigilance, les textes semblent toutefois montrer paradoxalement que le rapport idéologique vis-‐à-‐vis de l'étranger, fut globalement respectueux, défendant l'idée de l'humanité du non-‐Juif voire même celle de fraternité. Les frontières entre les identités religieuses et politiques pointent alors dans le sens de limites peu étanches entre les communautés. En effet, des Sages réputés "nationalistes" et appuyant les insurrections juives notamment celle de Bar-‐Kokhba feront preuve par ailleurs d'une très large tolérance vis-‐à-‐vis de la gentilité, tandis que d'autres, réputés

d'ordinaire pour leur modération, pourront partager des positions très critiques envers leurs voisins non-‐Juifs et leurs cultures. Les modes de discernement d'une réalité historique en évolution constante, seront susceptibles d'expliquer ces appréciations paradoxales et divergentes à l'encontre de l'environnement non-‐Juif de Palestine romaine.


Session: 004

Hebrew Literature

16.00-‐18.00

Jewish and non Jewish Elements in Hebrew Poetry

Chair: Masha Itzhaki

Dvora Bregman, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: On Hebrew Baroque Poetry

Abstract: Hebrew poetry acquired the baroque style merging Gongorism, Marinism, Kabala and Hebrew poetic traditions. Hebrew Baroque main poets are Moses Zacuto and the brothers Jacob and Immanuel Frances, but others also took an impressive part in it. All represent various streams within a common perception of the style, expressing its various conventions in a variety of individual ways.

Alexandra Polyan, Moscow State University, Russia

Title: Cross-‐Cultural Interactions as Reflected in Formal Structure of East European Mascilic Poetry

Abstract: It is widely known that till the very end of the XIX century Hebrew was considered the most natural vehicle for writing poetry. The metrical structure of the poetry in non-‐spoken Hebrew changed several times. The word-‐counting system (piyyut) gave place to quantitative prosody of Jewish poetry of the Golden Age in Spain, the latter yielded to syllabic prosody of Italian poetry. Its rules were formalized as late as in the XVIII century, by the first generation of Jewish Enlightenment in Germany. More than a hundred years later, it was replaced by syllabo-‐tonic prosody. All the metrical transitions listed were inspired by change of dominant high-‐status non-‐Jewish culture (Arabic -‐ Italian -‐ German -‐ Russian), and occurred with retardation. The fact that made these metrical changes possible was the assumption (which was not shared by all the poets writing non-‐spoken Hebrew) that there was no metrical structure inherent in Hebrew, and structure of any high-‐status poetic tradition could be adjusted to the language. In my paper, I will focus on the poetry of East-‐European Haskalah (I. Erter, I.B. Levinzon, A.D. Lebensohn, M.J. Lebensohn, Y.L. Gordon, A.B. Gotlober et al.). I will analyze its metrical structure, its language, and the poets' meta-‐linguistic reflection, and will trace in it the influence of polyglossia, of formal structure of German and Russian poetry, of the image of Hebrew as formed in the German Enlightenment.

Dorit Lemberger, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: Quasi-‐metaphor as Interaction between Jewish and Non-‐Jewish Culture in the Poetry of Yehuda Amichai

Abstract: In the poetry of Yehuda Amichai we find many expressions of original figurative language employing the language of classical Jewish sources, inspired by them to form a pluralistic position. This varied use also includes references to non-‐Jewish cultures, directly and indirectly as well. In some cases, this use expresses a dual position: on one level, the linguistic expression refers to the Jewish context; on the other, the expression constitutes a multicultural position of personal experience. The lecture will demonstrate how Amichai' poetic language operates at two levels: a dialogue between Jewish and non-‐Jewish sources and an event in the speaker's life, and an emblematic pluralistic dimension constituting a universal speaker. Several examples will be examined, drawing upon the concept of quasi-‐metaphor suggested by Frank Sibley (1959), as a methodical concept for demonstrating dual use of language [followed by Sam Glucksberg (2001) and Malcolm Budd (2008)]. The quasi-‐metaphor involves figurative forms which preserve the original meaning of their components and, at the same time, create new meanings, thereby reflecting semantic and grammatical clarity. The main claim is that the quasi-‐metaphor refers to a common denominator shared by speaker and readers, while the original use now shapes a personal experience emphasizing the significant difference between speaker and the original contexts.

Michèle Tauber, MCF Paris 3, France

Title: Hebrew Poetry, Arabic Poetry: a recovered Relationship?

Abstract: As a faraway echoing of the Hebrew poetry Golden Age in Muslim Spain, we recently assist to more and more frequent contacts between Hebrew poetry and Arabic poetry. As a matter of fact, several Hebrew and Arabic poets are sharing a mutual poetic experience in their publications and translations. Ronny Somek, an Israeli Hebrew-‐writing poet born in Bagdad has published two compilations of tri-‐lingual poetry (Hebrew-‐Arabic-‐French) that he shared with two Iraki Arabic-‐writing poets: Born in Bagdad, with Abdulkader El Janabi in 1998, and Bagdad-‐Jerusalem, on the Border of Fire, with Salah ‘Al Hamdani in 2012. The poets Miron Izakson and Naim Araidi (who is an Israeli Druze) also published together a trilingual compilation (Hebrew-‐Arabic, French): Born in Israel (2003). Besides Naim Araidi writes poetry both in Arabic and in Hebrew. Salman Masalha is also a bilingual author and translated Hebrew poets such as Hayim Guri, Yehuda Amihai and Aharon Shabtai into Arabic, and a compilation of Mahmud Darwich into Hebrew. Last year the poetess Hamutal Bar Yosef has published a tri-‐lingual compilation (Hebrew-‐Arabic-‐French): Painful Place. The translators into Arabic being themselves famous poets and writers : Naim Araidi, Nida’a Khuri – a Palestinian poetss who wrote eleven compilations translated into manu languages – and Mahmud Abassi who writes both Arabic and Hebrew, and wrote many short stories and children literature, a great part of which translated into Hebrew. Thus I will try to show in which way and around which themes contemporary Hebrew and Arabic poets create fertile poetic dialogues through which their cultures can converse, exchange ideas, meet and feed each other mutually.

Monday 21st July

Room: 09

Session: 001:

Anthropology and Folklore

9.00-‐10.30

Sharing the Rituals

Chair:

Harvey Goldberg & Hagar Salamon, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Jews and Muslims listen to the Ten Commandments in the Synagogue

Abstract: Historical Ethnography and Preliminary Analysis by Hagar Salamon and Harvey E. Goldberg. Ethno-‐historical interviews with former residents of small towns in southern Tunisia and Libya, currently living in Israel, reveal an unusual case of Muslim participation in Jewish synagogue liturgy. During the two days of Shavuot, it was customary to read aloud a Judeo-‐Arabic translation-‐commentary of the Decalogue at the time of afternoon (minḥa) prayer, and we received descriptions of Muslim notables coming to listen to the chanting of this piyyut. While there were some differences in the details describing these events, all interviewees stressed the intense attentiveness of the Muslim listeners who in many instances gathered together with the Jews within the synagogue itself. Together with a presentation of the main ethnographic features, we shall present initial lines of analysis regarding the significance of the occasion to the Muslim audience along with indications of how the local Jews viewed and interpreted the Muslim attachment to this liturgical event.

Lionel Obadia, Université Lyon 2, France

Title: Metamorphosis and Reinventions of Judaism in Contact with Buddhism

Asian religions, and more specifically Buddhism and Hinduism, are barely (if ever) considered as interlocutors of Judaism in the course of History, neither they logically range among the agents of transformations of the antique monotheism. In the last century, however, in different context (in the chronological order: Europe, North America and Israel) Buddhism (after Hinduism) has been appealing for thousands of Jews. Many of them have otherwise returned to Judaism and have injected elements of the Asian polytheism tradition in the ancient semitic monotheism. As a consequence, these "jubus" (Jewish-‐Buddhists) have partaken on a discreet yet significant changes.

Corinna R. Kaiser, Heinrich Heine University of Dusseldorf, Germany

Title: Buddha and Eliyahu HaNavi Meet at the Seder Table: Contemporary Religious Ritual as an Interfaith and Transcultural Contact Zone

Abstract: Contact zones, as defined by Pratt (1992), are spaces where different cultures meet and interact – and not necessarily in a friendly, egalitarian way. In my paper, which is part of a larger study of contemporary Passover rituals, I analyze the politics and power structures of the Passover Seder as one such space where people of different religions, cultures, ethnic groups, and individual and cultural memories meet in a religious ritual. Throughout most of medieval and modern times, encounters between Jews and non-‐Jews on or around Passover were characterized by hostility against the Jews that found its deadly expression in the blood libel; a bloody line of tradition that has not yet dried up (cf. blood libels in the FSU and the Middle East in the 21st century). Conversely, the traditional Haggadah with the Shfoch Chamatcha paragraph did also not develop with amicable interfaith encounters in mind. These obstacles have been overridden after WWII, and in particular in the US, by Passover’s universalistic theme of oppression and liberation that offers a common ground for transcultural and interfaith Seders. Inspired by an increasing Jewish interest in Eastern religions, philosophies, and spiritual practices as well as by the solidarity movement with Tibet, these ritual experiments may include non-‐Jewish cultural, ritual, and religious elements by way of cultural appropriation, but they also bring non-‐Jews themselves to the Seder table. Exemplified on Jewish-‐Buddhist Seders and Jewish-‐Buddhist encounters that are modeled after the Seder, the paper examines the historical and political conditions that made this shift from hostility to hospitability (Derrida, Lévinas) possible and attractive after WWII. Sources are not only the ‘Haggadah for Jews & Buddhist’ (2006) but also related writings by JuBus (Jewish Buddhists) and other leaders and attendants of these new Seders. I argue that, in spite of the historical and theological barriers, these contemporary religious rituals of the Passover Seder carefully balance the protective order of a ritual and the inherent ritual flexibility and may thus become a contact zone in which power relations have been inverted.


Session: 002

Anthropology and Folklore

11.00-‐13.00

Crossing traditions

Chair: Sylvie-‐Anne Goldberg

Maite Ojeda Mata, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

Title: Relations between Jews and Muslims in the Cult of the Saints under European Colonialism in Morocco

Abstract: Issachar Ben Ami has collected and analyzed splendidly belief and worship of the Jewish saints in Morocco, as well as relations between Jews and Muslims in the symbolic universe of beliefs. But, those beliefs, those practices and those relationships between different socio-‐religious communities in Morocco have always been so? By studying the impact of the European colonialism in Morocco I propose to address these practices from a social economic perspective, to approach its fluidly, that is, how beliefs and practices change, adapt, evolve, in order to explore, in this changing context that meant the landing of European colonialism in the country, its impact on relations between Jews and Muslims around the practice of Hilloulah or pilgrimage to the tombs of Jewish saints.

Noam Sienna, University of Toronto, Canada

Title: Henna’s A Jewish Thing? Jews, Non-‐Jews, and Henna Traditions in North Africa

Abstract: At a henna party hosted by a Muslim student group at an American college, upon learning of the author’s research on Jewish henna traditions, one participant said with surprise: “henna’s a Jewish thing?” A year later, in Jerusalem, at a henna ceremony for a Moroccan-‐Israeli couple, an elderly participant remarked in response to a question about non-‐Jewish henna ceremonies: “Do non-‐Jews do henna? No, no, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Henna is only a Jewish thing.” These contrasting episodes illustrate how particular rituals and practices are claimed simultaneously by both Jews and Muslims, and point to the cultural contact embedded invisibly in the genealogy of those shared practices. This paper investigates the development of henna ceremonies among Jewish communities in North Africa; it challenges simplistic binaries of defining ‘Jewish’ or ‘non-‐Jewish’ ritual, exploring both the similarities between Jewish and non-‐Jewish henna practices, and how Jewish henna ceremonies hold uniquely Jewish meanings and applications. Jewish henna ceremonies are often described using the language of ‘borrowing’ or ‘adoption,’ but this model does not do justice to the ways in which religious practices come into being at the meeting-‐point between communities. Rejecting a static and essentialized model of culture, where a homogeneous Jewish community absorbs pre-‐existing forms from its homogeneous surroundings, this paper explores how henna ceremonies among Jewish and non-‐Jewish communities each represent innovations formed out of the continual intermingling of diverse populations. Using examples drawn from fieldwork and historical records of henna traditions among Jewish communities of the Maghreb, this presentation pushes towards a consideration of the pluralism and dynamism of religious communities and their ritual creativity.

Maria Haralambakis, University of Manchester, UK

Title: Moses Gaster as a Collector and Translator of Romanian and Slavonic Folklore

Abstract: Moses Gaster (1856–1939) was an intellectual, bibliophile, rabbi, and activist for Jewish rights. As a scholar he was engaged in diverse fields of study, such as Romanian language and literature, folklore, Apocrypha, magic and mysticism, and Samaritan studies. Before his expulsion from Romania in 1885, he had published Literatura Populara Română (1883) and signed the contract for Chrestomatie Română, which eventually appeared in 1891. Soon after his arrival in England he was invited to present the Illchester lectures at the University of Oxford. They were published in 1887 as Illchester Lectures on Greeko (sic)-‐Slavonic Literature and its Relation to the Folklore of Europe during the Middle Ages. It includes paraphrases of a large number of stories (including apocryphal narratives around biblical characters), many of which also feature in Literatura Populara Română. The publications mentioned show Gaster as a collector, who brought together a wide range of material, often without providing exact references to his sources. Besides presenting his material, a prominent aspect of the publications is Gaster’s theory on the origin and development of folklore. These two aspects also feature in his work Romanian Bird and Beast Stories (1915). It consists of a very long introduction in which Gaster presented his views on folklore, followed by his translations of 119 numbered Romanian stories about animals, and three appendices with other material. Gaster continued his work of translating animal stories during the rest of his life. This is evidenced by his own copy of this work, now in the Rylands Library in Manchester. It contains handwritten notes, a copy of a letter from Queen Elisabeth/Carmen Sylva, reviews of the book from newspapers, and inserted leaves with additional stories. Gaster found the stories in publications of different Romanian folklorists, including Pauline Schullerus, Otescu, Vasiliu and various contributions to the journals Ion Creanga and Sezatoarea. An edition and analysis of the additional stories is in preparation. Based on a study of all four publications mentioned, and especially illustrated by Romanian Bird and Beast Stories, this paper

will provide insight into how Gaster worked as a collector and translator of Romanian and Slavonic folklore. It will become clear that on the whole Gaster’s collecting took place not in the field, but in the study. He did not collect oral stories from ‘the people’, but gathered them from publications and manuscripts. Several of Gaster’s sources have been traced in the course of the research. Gaster’s methods of collecting will be compared with those of some of his colleagues on whose work he draws. The evaluation of Gaster’s work as a translator is based on a careful comparison of some of the original stories with Gaster’s versions. It will be demonstrated that, rather than providing a literal translation, he usually paraphrased the stories, contextualizing them for their new audience. This paper is part of my project which evaluates Gaster as a scholar and a collector.

Marina Shcherbakova, Russian Museum of Ethnography (St. Petersburg)

Title: Insights into S. An-‐sky’s Political Shift based on his Writings between 1915-‐1917

Abstract: The legacy of the wartime writings of the Jewish Russian intellectual and ethnographer Semyon An-‐sky (1863 – 1920) incorporates his private correspondence and an unpublished diary he has kept between January – March and September – October 1915. The first part of the diary refers to An-‐sky’s wartime travel around the Polish Galicia, where he acted on behalf of the Jewish Committee to Help War Victims (EKOPO) willing to bring relief to the Jews caught between the Russian and Austrian armies. In the diary and in the correspondence with the Russian writer Fyodor Sologub and his friend Rosa Monoszon An-‐sky reflects the war’s brutality in general and the unrelenting violence of the Russian army towards the Jewish people in the battle zone in particular. The second part of the diary is written in Petrograd, it brings out the growing distance between An-‐sky and his fellow Jewish intellectual and political leaders. An-‐sky returns from Galicia with the realistic concept of helping operations that could improve the condition of the Jews, who fall victim during the war. However his views do not entirely fit into the armchair discussions and Jewish Political Committee meetings he attends in Petrograd. In his private writings An-‐sky expresses critics towards the activity of the Jewish Historical and Ethnographic society, the EKOPO and other organizations he has cooperated with in the 1910-‐s. At the same time An-‐sky supports Vladimir Jabotinsky’s idea of the Jewish Legion and develops enthusiasm about the Zionist movement, which has never appealed to him as a member of the Russian autonomist party “Folkspartei” before. In 1915 An-‐sky cooperates with the Society of the Jewish Legion in Petrograd, and it seems to meet his wish to see the Jew as unbowed and brave self-‐defender -‐ this concept can be found in an appeal to the Galician Jews (1914-‐1915, draft). Simultaneously An-‐sky reworks Chassidic apocalyptic legends that he collected in Galicia into an article (1915-‐1916, draft) and a book “Ten signs of the Messiah” (1916), where he reflects the crisis of the traditional Jewry. An-‐sky’s political shift seems to have grown from his wartime experience in Galicia, that revealed new threats to the existence of the Jews in the East-‐European diaspora and the need of confrontation on a new level.


Session: 003

Modern Hebrew Literature

14.00-‐15.30

Agnon's œuvre

Chair:

Omri Ben-‐Yehuda, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Agnon's Muselmann

Abstract: I am aiming in this lecture at bridging the gap between holocaust literature and Agnon's oeuvre. I am also aiming at a careful investigation of Agnon's greatest achievement, an immense book that was published only posthumously and never got a broad presence by the critics-‐ A City and the Fullness of Thereof. This book is also the venue in which Agnon dealt at length with the destruction of the Jewish community in his hometown in Galicia. Recently there were many attempts to reread the scope of holocaust literature not only as an aftermath but also with a presence before Auschwitz (if using diversely Adorno's famous remark). I will read Agnon's chronic while focusing especially on the story (the missing-‐one) from three main theoretical aspects: the discourse of "before" and "after" (John Hillis-‐Miller, Michel Rothberg), testimony theory (Andrea Frisch, Shoshana Felman) and bio-‐politics (Foucault, Agamben). Dan, the missing-‐one (and the protagonist of the story), is always reshaped by society's mechanism of defining and shaping one's body, and at the end he becomes a muselmann, as this concept is depicted by Agamben.

Brigitte Caland, INALCO, France

Title: Midlife Crisis and the Sadomasochistic Dynamic in SY Agnon’s Shira

Abstract: Through a psychoanalytical approach of SY Agnon’s Shira, the talk would investigate the material of Manfred Herbst midlife crisis and his “in-‐between” situation to see how it affects not only the structure of the story but also the sadomasochistic dynamic that determines his relationship to the other protagonists of the novel mainly his wife Henrietta and the two opposite characters: Shira, a free spirit, and Elizabeth Neu, an observant Jew, both “Objects of Desire”. Manfred Herbst, a Lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the main character of the novel Shira, is an Ashkenazi emigrant, who arrives in Palestine between the two world wars. The story takes place in the holy city, during the 30s where the outside struggle reflects the inner one Herbst is suffering through, trapped in between two women: his wife, Henrietta with whom he has built a family but who rejects him physically, and nurse Shira, who welcomes him but except for a few intimate moments, only flirts with him. This “In between” situation is the core of the novel: two languages, two cultures, a native country and the adopted one, the notion of foreigner and autochthone, life and death impulses, the explicit and the latent, the masculine and the feminine, fidelity and temptation, love and hate, disgust and tenderness, instinct and rational, attraction and repulsion, glory and servitude, religiosity and secularism, the academic world and the family, creating tensions, instabilities, vulnerabilities and frustrations within the couple as Herbst chooses to resist his impulses and stay with his wife. Couple deprived of sexual intimacy tied by years of shared memories that quarrels without altering the foundation of their solid marriage bound by moments of happiness and overcoming obstacles, ties a midlife crisis does not succeed to undo. But maintaining the couple creates a sadomasochistic dynamic in this uprooted generation that has lived through wars, carrying fears and daily uncertainties, matter that the presentation will analyze.


Session: 004

Jewish/Christian Calendar

16.00-‐18.00

Chair: Sasha Stern

Israel Sandman, University College London, UK

Title: Worthy Rival: Medieval Jewish Fascination with the Easter Calculation

Abstract: Most Christian observances are set on fixed dates of the solar calendar, year in year out. In contrast, the date of Easter is variable, being calculated in a way that largely recalls the Jewish roots, in Passover, of this most Christian observance. The Easter date is calculated using a system that synthesizes disparate calendrical phenomena: the season, which is an aspect of the solar calendar; the lunar months; and the days of the week. Part of this system of synthesis entails the intercalating of a 13th lunar month into seven years within a 19-‐year cycle. By the middle ages, the 19-‐year cycle was used by both Jews, in fixing the date of Passover, and by Christians, in fixing the date of Easter. Furthermore, both Jews and Christians intercalate according to the same sequence within the 19-‐year cycle, at years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, & 19. However, Jews and Christians begin the 19-‐year cycle two years apart. As a result, only five of the seven intercalations are shared by both religions. This mix of correspondence and difference sparked Jewish fascination, giving rise to Jewish analysis of various aspects of Christianity. I have found this recorded in two works that I have been critically editing from manuscript, annotating, and translating from Hebrew into English: the calendrical work by Abraham bar Hayya (or: Hiyya), written in France in 1123; and Yesod Olam, by Isaac Israeli, written in Spain in 1309/10. While each work is on the fixed Jewish calendar, each contains a substantial section on calendars of various nations, and on the Christian Easter calculation and related observances. One can see how the latter author developed the analysis initiated by the former. Aspects of Christianity upon which these Jewish authors dwell include: the Jewishness and humanity of Jesus and Mary; the degree to which Christianity is derivative from Judaism, including historiography of Christian origins and observances; and the balance between, on the one hand, respect for Judaically acceptable Christian exegesis of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian incorporation of Jewish practices, and, on the other hand, scorn for Christian deviance from these. In addition, the first author uses the literary device of citing discussion between him and Christian clergy; and this is deemed important enough to be cited in the latter work. The Jewish attitude is not all negative; both Jewish works combine confutation with respect for that which the Christian rival ‘got right’.

Justine Isserles, University College, London, UK

The Use of Vernacular and Latin in Julian, Bloodletting and Regimen Calendars in Hebrew Manuscripts from Western Europe (13th-‐15th c.): Written and Oral Transmission

This paper will focus on an intriguing selection of vernacular and Latin words which were recently uncovered during the editing of medieval Hebrew calendrical texts, within the framework of a Leverhulme Trust funded project at University College, London, entitled: Medieval Jewish and Christian Calendars from Franco-‐Germany and England (12th-‐15th c.), led by Prof. Sacha Stern. This presentation will unfold as a survey of le’azim (in Judeo-‐German, Judeo-‐French and Judeo-‐Provençal) and Latin words found in newly discovered Julian, bloodletting and regimen calendars in Hebrew manuscripts from Franco-‐Germany and Southern France dated between the 13th and 15th centuries. Highlights of theses numerous terms will be described within categories relative to calendars (months,

feasts, fasts, saint names, technical terms), commerce (markets and fairs), astro-‐medicine (zodiac signs, planets, humours, Egyptian days) and medicine (herbal remedies and potions). Moreover, particular attention will be drawn to the question of transmission, where examples of spellings of certain words will shed light on an oral and/or written reception of these calendars. Their description will attempt to display the wealth of subjects where vernacular and Latin languages appear in medieval Hebrew calendrical texts for didactic, socio-‐economic, astro-‐medical and medical purposes, revealing yet again new perspectives in medieval Judeo-‐Christian relations in Western Europe.

Jean-‐Jacques Wahl, European Association for Jewish Culture, France

Title: The Omer Calendar, Between Jewish and Popular Art

Abstract: If the counting of the omer is already recorded in the Bible, the calendar as a Judaica item is relatively new. There is no religious rules linked with its production leaving a large liberty to its producers. We will try through various examples to show how in many cases Jewish and non-‐Jewish artistic influences meet in its conception

Ilana Wartenberg, University College London, UK

Title: Non-‐Jewish Calendars in Medieval Hebrew Treatises on the Jewish Calendar

Abstract: We possess textual evidence for a rich calendrical literary tradition in Hebrew. Its roots were consolidated during the Hebrew Renaissance of the 12th century. This tradition was created by a chain of treatises on the Jewish calendar written by prominent Jewish scholars immersed in Arabic science. The leading figures are the Iberian polymaths Abraham bar Hiyya and Abraham Ibn Ezra (12th century) as well as Isaac Israeli (14th century). Some calendrical books encompass many layers, for example: algorithmic (i.e. how to reckon the calendar), scientific (e.g. astronomical theories), philological (discussion of scientific terms that are relevant to the calendar) and theological (e.g. religious elements in the determination of the Jewish calendar). It is extremely interesting to find chapters on non-‐Jewish calendars in some of these treatises. It is important to try to understand their role in a book on the Jewish calendar and whether their presence sheds any light on the connection between Jews and non-‐Jews in the Middle Ages. The answers may seem clearer in the case of the Christian and the Muslim calendars, but less so for other calendars. I will present the chapters on non-‐Jewish calendars in Abraham Bar Hiyya’s Sefer ha-‐‘Ibbur and Isaac Israeli’s Yesod Olam. I will discuss the Muslim and Christian calendars briefly, and will focus on the Persian Zoroastrian calendar in Sefer ha-‐‘Ibbur.

Monday 21st July

Room: 10

Session: 001:

Contemporary Jewish History

9.00-‐10.30


Session: 002


11.00-‐13.00

France post 1945

Chair: Anne Grynberg

Joël Sebban, Fondation pour la mémoire de la Shoah – Université Paris I, France

Title: “Counterhistories” or Common History? Jewish-‐Christian Dialogue in France during the emancipation era (1806-‐1940)

Abstract: In her work "Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus," the American historian Suzannah Heschel defines the historical analysis of the German theologian on the origins of Christianity as a “counterhistory.” This concept, first introduced into postcolonial historiography, and adapted to Jewish history by Amos Funkenstein and David Biale, refers to a form of polemics in which the sources of the adversary are exploited and turned ‘against the grain,’ in Walter Benjamin’s phrase.” Geiger tries to defend Judaism by writing a counterhistory of Christian counterhistory: in his eyes, Christianity is a mere paganized Judaism in contradiction with the Gospels themselves. Judaism is the authentic source of Western civilization. In the wake of this renowned predecessor, a founder of Jewish studies, Heschel aims at restoring contemporary Jewish studies to their initial function of counterhistory. This work questions this interpretation of Christianity as “counterhistory” by focusing on the French Jewish community in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century -‐ from the recognition of Judaism as a religion under the Napoleonic Empire to the founding of the first Jewish-‐Christian associations in the 1930s. As it was the first community to be emancipated in Europe, it provides a unique – and understudied – case for examining Jewish interpretations of Christianity. I argue that the Jewish reflection on Christianity cannot be considered apart from the process of acculturation of a minority within a Christian society. The adoption of the way of life and thought of the majority culture left an indelible mark on the interpretation of Jewish writers regarding Christian doctrine, history, and society. If this is so, should one see Jewish thought on Christianity and, more broadly Jewish-‐Christian dialogue in the age of Emancipation through the polemics of

“counterhistory?” Parallel to this polemical view, I put forth an alternative history which seeks to determine the communal heritage of the two traditions, linked by Biblical sources, against the rise of “new paganisms.”

Eliezer Schilt, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Dialoguer autour de « valeurs communes » ? Un des enjeux du rapprochement judéo-‐chrétien en France après 1945

Abstract: Le réseau des acteurs qui renouvelle le dialogue judéo-‐chrétien en France après la Seconde Guerre mondiale est essentiellement issu du milieu intellectuel français (Jacques Maritain, Emmanuel Levinas, Paul Claudel, Jean Daniélou, par exemple). Il agit dans le cadre de l’association, "L’Amitié judéo-‐chrétienne", fondée en 1948 par l’historien Jules Isaac, et l’écrivain Edmond Fleg. En marge de cette association officielle, des intellectuels comme Jean-‐Paul Sartre, Albert Camus ou François Mauriac s’expriment aussi sur les liens nouveaux qui se tissent entre Juifs et chrétiens. L’étude des échanges entre ces différents acteurs, de leurs écrits et interventions dans la sphère publique, permet de distinguer les enjeux sociaux et politiques des années 1950 et 1960 qui sont au cœur des relations judéo-‐chrétiennes d’alors : par exemple, les premières leçons tirées de la Shoah, le combat renouvelé contre l’antisémitisme et le racisme qui rejoignent les enjeux cruciaux soulevés par le colonialisme ou le pacifisme, et les réactions à la création de l’Etat d’Israël et les premières guerres arabo-‐israéliennes. Je tenterai de montrer dans cette communication qu’autour de ces débats, les contacts entre Juifs et chrétiens après-‐guerre ont fortement contribué aux réponses, proposées en premier lieu par les intellectuels juifs et chrétiens, puis reprises en partie par leurs autorités religieuses respectives, face aux changements profonds qui secouent les cultures juives et chrétiennes dans le monde d’après 1945.

Jane S. Gabin, United Nations International School, USA

Title: American Jewish Soldiers and French Jewish Civilians in Liberated Paris

Abstract: Inspired by the stories of my own father, who served in the US Army and was stationed in Paris 1944-‐45, I am studying incidents in which Jewish soldiers reached out to coreligionists in the liberated population. Was this a widespread practice? Did it facilitate increased visibility of the French Jewish postwar scene? How much assistance did American soldiers provide in the punishment of collaborators, or in the reunification of families? This area of research is still ongoing, as much of the assistance rendered was personal and not part of an official military program.

Anne Grynberg, INALCO, Paris, France

Title: Consensus et dissensus mémoriels sur la question des 'réparations' dans la France d'aujourd'hui

Abstract: Les années 1990 ont marqué une étape fondamentale dans la culture mémorielle de plusieurs Etats européens en ce qui concerne la persécution antijuive et les complicités de certains gouvernements avec les dirigeants nazis. Cela a été le cas en France notamment : en 1995, les plus hautes autorités de l’État ont reconnu officiellement les responsabilités du gouvernement de Vichy et à la suite du président de la République, diverses administrations ainsi que des dignitaires des Églises ont exprimé leur repentance. Deux ans plus tard, la Mission Mattéoli a reçu pour mission de mener une recherche approfondie sur les spoliations matérielles subies par les Juifs sur le sol français, lesquelles sont en cours de dédommagement depuis l’instauration de la CIVS en 1999. Les orphelins de parents morts en déportation reçoivent

désormais une pension ; la Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah (FMS) a été mise en place en 2000 afin de soutenir la recherche historique et l’enseignement de la Shoah, d’encourager la transmission de la mémoire et de la culture juives et, en outre, de développer des actions de solidarité envers les survivants de la Shoah ; elle contribue de manière permanente au financement du Mémorial de la Shoah dont les archives, la bibliothèque ainsi que les expositions sont extrêmement précieux et qui a récemment ouvert un mémorial à Drancy, face à l’entrée principale de l’ancien camp. Sur la base d’archives inédites et de témoignages recueillis dans le cadre du Comité d’histoire auprès de la CIVS dont je suis la directrice scientifique, je souhaite préciser et approfondir un certain nombre de questions, dont la principale a trait aux consensus et dissensus mémoriels dans la France d’aujourd’hui. La politique publique de « réparation » menée ces dernières années a-‐t-‐elle participé à ‘apurer la dette’ de l’État et de la société française vis-‐à-‐vis des Juifs, du moins en termes d’indemnisation financière ? Peut-‐on aller jusqu’à émettre l’hypothèse qu’en reconnaissant officiellement aux Juifs un statut spécifique de victimes, elle a permis à leurs descendants de mener un travail de ‘résilience’ indispensable à la réconciliation et à la (re)construction d’un vivre-‐ensemble ? Ou bien a-‐t-‐elle au contraire réactivé une sorte de « concurrence des mémoires », voire, en réactivant la prétendue collusion entre les Juifs et l’argent, a-‐t-‐elle parfois entraîné des effets pervers d’incompréhension voire d’hostilité ? Vingt ans après l’ouverture de cette ère nouvelle, quel bilan — provisoire — peut-‐on dresser ? Et comment s'inscrivent ces questions dans les contacts interculturels en ce début du XXIe siècle?


Session: 003

Hassidism

14.00-‐15.30

Chair:

Mark Zvi, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: "Even from the Stories of the Gentiles, God's Glory Cries Out": Influences on Rabbi Nachman of Breslav's Stories

Abstract: Rabbi Nachman of Breslav was the most significant creator of the Hasidic story. In his theoretical discourses, Rabbi Nachman discussed the significance of literature-‐-‐not only the Jewish genre dealing with the praise of the "tzaddikim" but literature in general, including that of the gentile world. Rabbi Nachman of Breslav viewed the latter as containing elevated spiritual matters, and he taught that the tzaddik must tell these stories in a form that will express those matters. In this lecture, I will address three points: first, the theological world-‐view of Rabbi Nachman of Breslav in whose framework a positive attitude to gentile literature developed; second, the stories to which he was exposed; and third, how-‐-‐ practically speaking-‐-‐ this ars-‐poetic, theological outlook expressed itself in Rabbi Nachman of Breslav's literary creativity.

Daniel Reiser, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Modern Psychology, Halacha and Hasidism in the 19th and 20th Century

Abstract: In this lecture I deal with the contact between Western European modern psychology and Hasidic (Eastern European) psychology. This is done through analyzing the rise of psychological practice and hypnosis in Western Europe and its influence on some Jewish and Hasidic figures in Eastern Europe, especially at the turn of the 19th century (1880-‐1920). Following the theory of Mesmerism (Pre-‐Hypnosis), founded by The German physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-‐1815; who established a clinic In Paris), the interest in the "Unconscious" and in the remarkable abilities of mental powers has been elevated. This interest was also a major factor in the development of Dynamic Psychiatry. Several German-‐Jewish Physicians took part in this development as Oscar Berger (1844-‐1885) who was a Prof. at the University of Breslau, being the first at that institution to lecture on nervous diseases. In addition we can find several Halachic Responses from the nineteenth century from Germany (as Rabbi Jacob Ettlinger 1798-‐1871) dealing with the question of whether mesmerism and hypnotism are witchcraft (and thus are defined idolatrous) or is it permitted to be treated by these methods. The change in the character of the Ba'al Shem (‘master of the name’), which occurred in the eighteenth century, from a physical-‐illness curer to a mental-‐illness curer, a change which appears for example in the image of the Ba'al Shem of Michelstadt, and the Ba'al Shem Tov can be better understood in the light of the development of western psychology and psychiatric practices. In the Austro-‐Hungarian Empire in the late 19th century Hebrew Books have been published on Mesmerism and Hypnosis (especially in Vienna which was a main meeting point between German culture and Jewish Culture), which enabled the exposure of these methods to Hasidic figures in East Europe (Galicia) as Rabbi Shlomo Aryeh Leib Vinshlboim (1847-‐1927) of Tyczyn and Rabbi Menachem Ekstein of Rzeszów (a Dzików Hasid 1884-‐1943). These Hasidic figures who represent traditional Jewish culture have succeeded, in a very surprising way, to adapt new German-‐Psychiatric practices into their Jewish religion culture and inner life.


Session: 004

Christian Hebraism: Jewish Mysticism and Hebraica Veritas

16.00-‐18.00

Chair: Saverio Campanini

Brian Ogren, Rice University, USA

Title: Jewish-‐Christian Discourse on Creation: Yohanan Alemanno and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Abstract: This paper will examine the uses of kabbalistic ideas of creation by the famed fifteenth century Italian Humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and the possible influence on these ideas by Pico's Jewish interlocutor, Yohanan Alemanno. Both of these thinkers, who were known to be in contact, wrote important commentaries on the first chapters of Genesis during the last decade of the fifteenth century. This paper will explore some of the commonalities of their respectively innovative ideas on biblical creation, in order to offer a new perspective on Jewish-‐Christian intellectual contact and the cross-‐fertilization of ideas.

Marci Freedman, University of Manchester, UK

Title: A Professor Controversiarum Judaicarum: Constantijn L'Empereur and the Jews

Abstract: Seventeenth-‐century Europe was a golden age of Christian Hebraism when Christian scholars both studied and translated many of Judaism’s religious tracts to achieve a deeper theological understanding of the Bible. Alongside the study of Jewish texts, many Hebraists wrote treatises, and spoke out, against Jews and Judaism. One such Hebraist was Constantijn L’Empereur who exemplifies this dual relationship to Jewish literature and the Jews themselves. L’Empereur was a Dutch theologian at the University of Leiden who styled himself as a Professor Controversarium judaicorum. A devout Calvinist, L’Empereur published a number of works many of which theologically attacked Judaism. He also made translations of Hebrew texts for a Latin-‐reading audience, such as Benjamin of Tudela’s Book of Travels printed in 1633, passages of which were used, in conjunction with Genesis 49:10, by L’Empereur to refute Judaism. And yet, L’Empereur had frequent contact with the Amsterdam Jewish community to perfect his knowledge of Hebrew and purchase Hebrew texts. This paper will thus explore how Hebraists navigated the tension between their theological stance against Judaism and their more practical dealings with the Jews.

Eveline Van Staalduine-‐Sulman, VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands

Title: Translating a Jewish Bible Translation into the Christian Scholarly World

Abstract: In the sixteenth century Christian Biblical scholars were interested in the ancient sources, including the Hebrew Bible and its (Jewish) Aramaic translations (= Targums). In order to study these translations scholars began to translate Targums into Latin and edit both the Targums and their Latin translations in polyglot Bibles and separate books. The Jewish culture of Bible interpretation thus became a part of the Christian culture of Biblical Studies. This lecture will (1) give a short overview of the editions and the Latin translations; (2) answer the question how the Targums were evaluated by Christian scholars during the sixteenth century; and (3) present a new line of investigation into the effect of these editions-‐cum-‐translations on other fields of Christian Biblical Studies, especially the rapid rise of Biblical commentaries.

Isaac Gottlieb, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Rupert of Deutz and Jewish Bible Exegesis

Abstract: Rupert of Deutz has several explanations that seem to rely on previous Jewish commentary, notably Rashi. On the other hand, certain twelfth century northern French exegetes might have been responding to his work. Are these cases evidence for contacts between Christians and Jews?

Monday 21st July

Room: 11

Session: 001:

History of Jewish Law and the Law of the Jews

9.00-‐10.30

Chair: John Tolan

Jerzy Mazur, RELMIN, MSH, University of Nantes, France

Title: “Iudicium Judaeorum” – Royal Court for the Jews in Medieval Poland-‐Lithuania

Abstract: The paper will analyze the importance of royal and princely courts created to deal with Jewish matters in Poland and Lithuania. This so called “iudicium Iudaeorum” comprised an important factor in development of the legal policies of the state towards Jews, and provided the minority community with an extensive juridical protection in their disputes with Christians. The sources under investigation will include the royal privileges, court records, as well as selected rabbinical responsa.

Tomaso Perani, RELMIN, MSH, University of Nantes, France

Title: The Legal Status of Jewish Communities in the Fragmented Social Polities of the Late Medieval Italian Cities.

Abstract: Tomaso Perani will address the question of the legal status of Jewish minority within the extremely fragmented society of north Italian cities. He will discuss the Jewish position in such important Italian urban centers as Bologna and Venice, and will look into the issue of their citizenship. He will also compare the status of the Jews with that of other migrants within the Italian context in order to establish how their origin, profession and religion influenced their legal status.

Luca Fois, RELMIN, MSH, University of Nantes, France

Title: Physical Separation of Jews and Christians in Papal Legislation and the Legal Commentaries of Italian Jurists.

Abstract: Papal legislation concerning the physical separation of Jews and Christians will be discussed in the paper. The survey of the well-‐known pontifical laws on the Jewish-‐Christian cohabitation will be augmented by the analysis of the legal commentaries produced in such university centers as Padua, Bologna, and the papal curia itself. Examining this legal and intellectual tradition concerning Jewish-‐Christian interaction will provide a valuable insight into the medieval legal reasoning on religious minorities and their place in society.


Session: 002


11.00-‐13.00

Chair: John Tolan

Ahmed Oulddali, RELMIN, MSH, University of Nantes, France

Title: Les juifs en terre d’Islam : réflexions sur le statut de dhimmī.

Abstract : Les juifs formaient l’une des minorités religieuses importantes du monde musulman médiéval. Bien que moins nombreux que les chrétiens et les zoroastriens, ils étaient présents à peu près sur tout le territoire. Dans certaines régions, le judaïsme était même devenu la deuxième religion. C’est le cas au Maghreb à partir du XIIIe siècle. En tant que membres d’une confession scripturaire (ahl al-‐kitāb), les juifs avaient le statut de « protégés » (dhimmīs) qui leur conférait des droits tout en leur imposant des obligations. Parmi les droits dont ils bénéficiaient dans ce cadre, il y a le libre exercice du culte et une certaine autonomie administrative et judiciaire. Notre communication se propose de réfléchir sur la portée et les limites de ce statut. Nous y intéressons également aux évolutions qu’a connues la situation des juifs en terre d’Islam.

Nadezda Koryakina, RELMIN, MSH, University of Nantes, France

Title: Jewish residents versus Jewish foreigners: the legal status of a minority within the minority in medieval Catalonia.

Abstract: This paper will concentrate on the legal and technical sense of the word “status” -‐ the legal status as determined by legal capacity that is the ability to be the subject of legal rights and duties, and to play a role in the legal system. Basing on Hebrew responsa of the 14th century, I will consider the relations between Jewish residents of Medieval Catalan cities and Jewish foreigners arriving to those cities for the purpose of commercial gain. Some of the questions I shall raise here include: Did the individuals of the Jewish minority have the legal status of “foreigners”? In particular, what was the status of minority merchants? Were they subjects of the kingdom or lordship, or foreigners? Did they preserve their liberties as residents of their native cities or they had to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the court in the city where they engaged in commercial activities? To what extent they contributed to the tax paying in the foreign cities? What was the primary criteria for their identification – belonging to the Jewish people or to the population of a particular city? On the other hand, it will be shown that the rights of the Jewish city residents vs Jewish foreigners were guaranteed by the Jewish law. They were protected by local regulations limiting the duration of foreigners’ stay in the city and by the right of local Jewish authorities to impose taxes on the property of the foreign businessmen found within the city limits. I will also look at the statutes of the foreigners in the laws of Jewish minority, i.e. in Talmudic laws interpreted by the authors of rabbinical responsa and the status attributed to the Christian authorities. It can also be examined to what extent the regulations concerning foreigners in the Christian laws were taken into account by Jewish legal experts. Ultimately the following question needs to be answered as a conclusion: did the Jewish minority constitute a distinctive legal entity within the public legal realm of Catalan cities?

Marisa Bueno Sánchez, RELMIN, MSH, University of Nantes, France

Title: Urban Space Divided? The Encounters of Religious and Civic Spheres in Medieval Castilian Towns.

Abstract: This paper deals with the analysis of the cohabitation of Christians and Jews in Medieval Ages and the origin of physical frontiers and the origin of separate neighborhoods for Christians and Jews in Medieval Hispanic societies. It will be offer some perspectives regarding this situation in some Castilian Cities (Burgos, Toledo, Ciudad Real…), showing the contradiction between official prescriptions and real society, through documents by both the Church and Crown and Archive documents which often shed a different light on the issue that what the specific laws and rules concerning cohabitation and the use of urban space. In fact on the level of everyday life activities, there were numerous contacts and in many cities many groups live together as neighbors and not as religious enemies despite much polemic to the contrary.

Emese Kozma, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany

Title: Methods for the Study of Parallels in Medieval Ashkenazi Jewish and Latin Christian Penitential Practice

Abstract: The lecture will present methods for the study of parallel phenomena in medieval Ashkenazi Jewish and Latin Christian penitential systems within a framework, which models the relation of the two cultures as “competitive cultural attitudes” and “competitive religious values”, given the fact that in this time in Western Europe the Jews not only lived among Christians, but the Christian culture became a challenge for their religious values for the first time in history. As for channels, the possibility of mutual, even literary influences can not be excluded: everyday contact and discussions with each other in the vernacular language between individuals of the two communities may have served as a medium of these influences. The methods within this framework include systematic, comparative phenomenological description of individual, parallel elements in the two systems, the establishment of similar and different motives etc. The methods will be illustrated by examples (e. g. penance for murder, adulterous woman, apostate, private confession etc.).


Session: 003


14.00-‐15.30

Chair: Jerzy Mazur

Tirza Kelman, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Different Motives Similar Outcomes: R. Joseph Caro's Organization of Knowledge

Abstract: For over three decades beginning in 1522, R. Joseph Caro was creating his halakhic magnum opus-‐ the Beit Yosef. Soon after he finished writing this monumental work, he wrote the well-‐known shorter Shulkhan Arukh wich he himself described as a summary of the Beit Yosef. It is clearly necessary to examine R. Joseph Caro's project in the light of the important researched developments concerning the organization of knowledge in the early modern period. In doing so, very interesting similarities and significant differences emerge. I shall explain these in the light of my assessment of R. Joseph Caro's work and declared motives.

Carsten Wilke, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

Title: Abraham Gomes Silveyra (1656-‐1741): a Sephardi Theologian at the Crossroads of Religious Modernities

Abstract: One of the most elaborate theological defenses ever written in favor of Judaism against Christianity is due to the Amsterdam preacher and poet Abraham Gomes Silveyra (1656-‐1741), who represents a Jewish facet of early Enlightenment thought. His monumental apology of more than four thousand folio pages, written during the first quarter of the eighteenth century in baroque-‐age Spanish and named Silveyradas after himself, survives in three manuscripts, respectively in possession of the Ets Haim Seminary of Amsterdam, the Royal Library of The Hague, and an American private collector. Reacting to the missionary advances of an exiled Huguenot pastor, Isaac Jacquelot (1647-‐1708), Silveyra's first volume gives a translation of the latter's Dissertations sur le Messie, the second imagines a dialogue with the Christian adversary, the third formulates objections, the fourth judges the controversy, the fifth asks counter-‐questions, and a final volume adds a reasoned index of theological loci and authorities. Silveyra framed his huge series around 1725 by a seventh, preliminary volume dealing with the rules of interreligious controversy and the ethics of tolerance. Though an article by Henry Méchoulan (1992) has made known this part of the Silveyradas, the bulk of the work has remained unstudied. In the framework of an ongoing research project, my lecture will deal with the cross-‐cultural effort undertaken by this Spanish-‐born controversist, who writes with the rhetorics and witticisms of Iberian Golden Age literature, reflects a vast reading in the different dogmatic strands of post-‐Reformation Christian theology, and is also among the first Jewish authors to discuss the implications of Descartes, Spinoza and Bayle for religious thought. Silveyra used his expertise in various types of non-‐Jewish discourse in order to propose a defensive alliance of all faiths against the new threat by a common enemy, irreligion.

Yoreh Tanhum, York University, Canada

Title: Abrahamic Approaches to Wastefulness

Abstract: Environmentalism has not yet made significant inroads into religious praxis, due, in part, to the inability to find a common language between environmentalists and religious communities. The prohibition against waste and wanton destruction is well-‐developed in the Jewish tradition. Studying the evolution of this prohibition provides insight into the historical, cultural and linguistic development of what might be considered one of Western culture's first environmental concepts. The prohibition against wastefulness is not limited to the Jewish tradition, but can be found throughout the Abrahamic traditions. The prevalence of an anti-‐waste concept in the Hebrew Bible (e.g. Genesis 9:5 and Deuteronomy 20:19), New Testament (e.g. John 6:12) and Quran (e.g. Al-‐Anaam, verse 141; Al-‐Araf, verse 31) offers a common point of reference between East and West. There are many such commonalities between the Abrahamic traditions. From an environmental perspective, however, the prohibition against wastefulness is arguably the most important ethic. In this paper I will present narratives from all three major Abrahamic traditions that demonstrate

both environmentally positive and environmentally questionable behaviour with regard to wastefulness. This paper argues that one reason that the prohibition against wastefulness has not been fully championed by adherents of these faiths is because of the checkered history of these traditions specifically with regard to this prohibition.


Session: 004


16.00-‐18.00

Chair: Joshua Teplitzky

Jay Berkovitz, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA

Title: The Social Foundations of Legal Pluralism: Litigation and Jurisprudence in the Pinkas of the Beit Din of Metz, 1771-‐1789

Abstract: The records of the rabbinic court of Metz (1771-‐1789) contain the rudiments of a new historical narrative that varies substantially from traditional accounts of the relationship between Jews and the surrounding society. In contrast to prescriptive legal codes, and unlike responsa that advance arguments based on nuanced readings of earlier legal opinions, rabbinic court records provide clear images of law as it was practiced and of life as it was lived. Brimming with details regarding the behavior of litigants and the conduct of the court, the Pinkas of the Metz Beit Din offers an exceptional opportunity to investigate the interrelationship between law and society. This paper seeks to demonstrate the value that these largely neglected records offer both to historians and legal scholars. In remarkable detail, the proceedings of the Metz Beit Din contain conclusive evidence that the engagement of Jews with the legal and economic dimensions of the society around them was far greater than is generally assumed. Examples of economic interaction and commercial collaborations with members of the general non-‐Jewish population abound. Like their non-‐Jewish neighbors, Metz Jews were compliant with the encroaching bureaucratic demands imposed by state and municipal authorities. To protect their legal interests, whether in the French courts or in the Beit Din, they often consulted French lawyers. Moreover, Jewish women took an active part in the pursuit of justice through litigation. Approximately twenty-‐five percent of the suits brought before the Beit Din were initiated by women and roughly forty percent of the cases recorded in the Pinkas involved women either as claimants or defendants. From the standpoint of law, the judicial practices of the Metz Beit Din represent a striking counter-‐example to the dominant historiographical assessment of Jewish autonomy in the Middle Ages and early modern period. This assessment closely resembled the self-‐image of the Kehillah, which rested on the illusion of communal self-‐reliance and self-‐containment. Although rabbinic courts were never the exclusive forum for the adjudication of civil disputes, communities in early modern Ashkenaz struggled persistently to sustain the myth of judicial exclusivity. The Metz Beit Din, quite remarkably, signified a dramatic turnabout from the paradigm that typified Jewish self-‐government and adjudication in the preceding decades. In the last third of the eighteenth century, as Metz communal leaders became more attentive to the complex relationship that drew the Jews, the state, and French society together, the rabbinic court proved itself responsive to practical demands and to shifting cultural

affinities by adapting to a world of multiple jurisdictions of comparable validity. Implicit in the rabbinic court’s adaptational approach was the acknowledgement that the Jewish population was heavily dependent on the surrounding society not only for its economic well-‐being but also for the innumerable services that it could not provide for itself. The degree of social, economic, and cultural integration experienced by the Jews of Metz entailed the fostering of a working relationship between the Jewish and French judiciaries.

Rachel Furst, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Unrecorded Justice: The Record-‐Keeping Practices of Medieval Jewish Courts

Abstract: Among historians of pre-‐modern European Jewry, the past decade has witnessed a renewed interest in the Jewish courts of medieval Germany; however, both new and older scholarship has focused mainly on the formal structure of this parochial court system and far less on what happened inside the courtrooms. This tendency can be attributed primarily to the nature of available sources. The only surviving court records from medieval Ashkenaz are fragments preserved in legal responsa. Jewish courts did issue written documents, from deeds of sale to bills of divorce; but litigants were expected to preserve their own copies, and the court did not maintain an official archive or repository of records. This was not an illiterate society, and the lack of record-‐keeping raises fascinating questions about the significance of judicial precedent, the importance of oral transmission, and the institutional nature of Jewish courts during this period. In the absence of court records, how did communities remember who had been divorced, or disenfranchised, or declared illegitimate? If the court itself did not remember how it ruled, how did laypeople acquire knowledge of the law, and how helpful was the knowledge they did acquire? How did the lack of records affect a local court’s claims to knowledge and authority? These types of questions have been debated by medievalists since the publication of Michael Clanchy’s From Memory to Written Record in 1979 but have only recently garnered attention in the subfield of medieval Jewish history. The proposed paper is an attempt to consider the implications of judicial record-‐keeping (or lack thereof) among the Jews of medieval Germany and its significance for our understanding of Jewish communal autonomy, which has often centered on judicial independence.

Verena Kasper-‐Marienberg, University of Graz, Austria

Title: Reflections of Jewish Daily Life in Non-‐Jewish Court Records: Case Studies from the Early Modern Viennese Supreme Court

Abstract: Jewish litigation in non-‐Jewish courts of the early modern period is a highly discussed topic in the current research of Jewish life throughout Europe. Although we are only beginning to gather statistical information regarding this phenomenon, it is already clear that it was a widespread one, involving all social strata of Jewish society. This fact challenges not only the common narratives of the cultural separation of Jewish communities from their Christian surroundings, but also the previously believed ideas about hierarchical structures and mechanisms within Jewish communities. The Imperial Supreme Court in Vienna — like other European local and higher courts— saw a peak of Jewish litigation during the 18th century. This presentation will highlight previously unknown forms and quantities of cases involving Jewish men and women at this court. Furthermore, it will investigate the potential of these records as sources of Jewish daily life and social practice, especially in their communal dimension. Cases from the Jewish community of Frankfurt on the Main will serve as examples for possible internal Jewish conflicts that reached Gentile courts. With them, we can widen our knowledge about the early modern Jewish use of competing judiciary systems within and outside the Jewish world.

Evelyne Oliel-‐Grausz, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne/EHESS, Paris

Title: The Court of the Massari in 18th Century Livorno: Jewish Autonomy, Delegated Justice, and Legal Pluralism

Abstract: According to the privileges granted to the Jews by the Livornina in 1593, the Massari (lay leaders of the community) were granted jurisdiction over civil and criminal cases involving Jews. The jurisdiction and the judicial procedure underwent some significant transformations during the 17th century: the prerogatives of the Massari were restricted in criminal cases, an appellate massari court developed, and internal rules were established around 1680 as to which cases should be judged according to Jewish law, and which according to mercantile and local customs. In every respect, the court of the Massari functioned in theory as an exclusive first instance Jewish court on the basis of a delegation of justice granted by the Grand Duke. However, the Massari court records, the supplications addressed to the Grand ducal authority and the records of the local courts show a definite discrepancy between norm and practice. Despite the supposedly autonomous jurisdiction of the Massari, court shopping, law hopping even between Jewish law and mercantile customs, and attempts at evading the judicial authority of the Massari were common. We will argue that legal pluralism offers a more relevant frame of interpretation than the classical concept of autonomy, and that the court of the Massari can only be understood when analyzed within the context of the Tuscan judicial system, of which it is an integral part.

Monday 21st July

Room: 12

Session: 001:

Jewish Languages

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Judeo-‐Neo-‐Aramaic

Organizers: Ofra Tirosh-‐Becker & Geoffrey Khan

Chair: Ofra Tirosh Becker

Geoffrey Khan, University of Cambridge, UK

Title: The Jewish Neo-‐Aramaic Dialects

Abstract: In this paper I give a survey of the current state of research on the Jewish Neo-‐Aramaic dialects. These were originally spoken by Jews in northern Iraq and western Iran. They are now highly endangered, since all the Aramaic-‐speaking Jews have left their original places of residence and have now mostly settled in Israel. The Jewish Neo-‐Aramaic dialects are distinguished from the Christian dialects in their grammatical structure and their lexicon, which includes a Hebrew component. They can be classified into two broad sub-‐groups, the 'lishana deni' group and the 'trans-‐Zab group'. All dialects exhibit ergativity in their perfective verbal forms, but the typology of this ergativity differs across the two sub-‐groups.

Eran Cohen, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Genitive Constructions in Neo-‐Aramaic and the Ezafe Construction in Kurdish

Abstract: The Jewish Neo-‐Aramaic dialect of Zakho shows a unique situation with regard to genitive constructions, compared with all other modern Semitic languages, including former phases of Aramaic. The functional extent of these constructions is analogous to Akkadian, four thousand years ago. This striking similarity between a modern Aramaic dialect and the most ancient phase of Semitic cannot be explained genealogically, since there is no evidence that Aramaic in its various phases has ever shown this dexterity of marking the dependent in its genitive constructions. The solution is to be sought in language contact with Northern Kurdish (Kurmanjî) whose ezafe constructions share some similarities with the dialect of Zakho and thus may account for the current state of affairs in the latter. The paper describes the highlights of the genitive construction in the Jewish dialect of Zakho and the ezafe construction in Kurmanjî, and discusses the possibility that the current state of affairs in Zakho exists mostly thanks to the situation in Kurmanjî.10.30-‐11.00: Coffee Break.

Lali Guledani & Tamar Kurtanidze, Ilia State University, Tbilisi Georgia

Title: Pronouns and Pronominal Suffixes in the Neo-‐Aramaic of Jews from Salmas

Abstract: In this article we would like to discuss structure of Pronouns and pronominal suffixes in the speech of Jews from Salmas. We will try to perform the forms which are used nowadays by native speakers,

to discuss particularities of the pronouns and pronominal suffixes in this Neo Aramaic language and also to compare them to the forms existing in the texts recorded by Rubens Duval in the beginning of the 19th C. The texts for our research are recorded from the native speakers, who were born in Georgia or in Iran and mostly are be-‐ or trilingual. We also will try to find influence of other languages of environment on the structure, formation and function of the pronouns and pronominal suffixes in the Neo Aramaic Dialect of Jews of Salmas. The article is the part of the PhD work, which is supposed to study phonetic, morphology and syntax of this particular dialect.

Session: 002

Jewish Languages

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Jewish Languages

Organizers: Ofra Tirosh-‐Becker & Geoffrey Khan

Chair: Geoffrey Khan

Reuven Enoch, Ariel University of Samaria, Israel

Title: Passive Forms of Possibility (Potential) and Caution in Judeo-‐Georgian

Abstract: In Georgian language forms of passive voice with a prefix “E”, occasionally with a prefix “I”, can provide different nuances of meaning: possibility -‐ caution of doing action (“metamasheba bavshvi” – “child is playing with me”, but “kals ar etamasheba chadraki” – “women can’t play chess “), willingness to do action (“emgereba bichs” – boy wants to sing “), position of a person doing action towards this action (“mebevreba mag pasi” – “I think it’s too expensive”) etc. In Judeo-‐Georgian, the use of such forms is much more widespread than in Georgian. Almost all forms of passive voice with a prefix “E” can have nuances of potential, either permitting or prohibiting action. For example, in the material that I recorded in Kutaisi in 1976 there is such a dialog: ”Abel kal tma geeshleba?” (is the women in mourning allowed to open her hair?) – “ras ambob, arc geeshleba da arc deebarcxneba!” (What are you talking about; she cannot open her hair or brush it). Apparently, this is connected to excessive regulation of life of Georgian Jews – according to religious laws, their customs and prejudices. These factors determine what is allowed and what is prohibited.

Ofra Tirosh-‐Becker, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: A Judeo-‐Arabic Translation of the Scroll of Antiochus from Ghardaia (Algeria)

Abstract: The Scroll of Antiochus, also known as the Scroll of the Hasmoneans, is a popular account of the wars of the Hasmoneans and of the origin of the holiday of Ḥanukkah. The scroll was composed in Aramaic, probably in Ereẓ Israel in the talmudic period. The scroll had been translated into Hebrew and also into Latin, German, Spanish, Arabic and Persian. A North African Judeo-‐Arabic translation of this scroll was first published in 1926 and re-‐published in 1953 by ‘Imran Ṣaban of Ghardaia (Algeria), a Jewish community which lies along the Wadi Mzab in the northern Sahara Desert. This community had a unique custom of reading the Judeo-‐Arabic translation of this Scroll in the synagogue on the Sabbath of Ḥanukkah,

immediately after reading the Torah and the Hafṭara. In this paper we will discuss the Judeo-‐Arabic language of this Judeo-‐Arabic translation and its characteristic features.

Benjamin Hary, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

Title: Loan Translations in Egyptian Judeo-‐Arabic

Abstract: Many Jewish religiolects share a special literary genre, the verbatim translation of sacred religious and liturgical Hebrew/Aramaic texts into the various Jewish religiolects (šarḥ, pl. šurūḥ, in Judeo-‐Arabic; šarʿ or šarḥ in Judeo-‐Neo-‐Aramaic; tavsili in Judeo-‐Georgian; tefila in Judeo-‐Italian; tamsir in Jewish Malayalam; ladino in Judeo-‐Spanish; taytsh in Yiddish; etc.). The translations include the Bible, Midrashic literature, Pirkei Avot (“Ethics of the Patriarchs,” a tractate of moral and religious teachings from the Second Temple period and the first centuries of the Common Era), the Passover Haggadah, the Siddur or prayer book, the Talmud, and more. In these translations the phenomenon of calque translation is evident. Borrowing, or the introduction of linguistic features from one language to another, is common in the texts of the šurūḥ. Borrowing is a gradual process: first a linguistic feature is introduced into the host language through a bilingual community and is not yet adapted phonologically or morphologically. Once it is integrated into the host language and adopted by the monolingual community, it becomes part of the host language (Mahootian 2006: 513). One type of borrowing is the loan, a “linguistic unit (usually a lexical item) which has come to be used in a language or dialect other than the one where it originated” (Crystal 2003: 275). According to Crystal, there are several kinds of loan processes: loan words, loan blends, loan shifts, and loan translations. Loan translations are common in Jewish religiolects; for example, the phrase “may her memory be for a blessing” in Jewish English (Benor) which literally translates the Hebrew /zixrona livraxa/. This paper investigates loan translations, which are also known as “calque translations,” in Egyptian Judeo-‐Arabic and especially in 18th-‐ and 19th-‐century šurūḥ.

Gabriel M. Rosenbaum, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Shabbat (Saturday) in Modern Egypt: Customs and their Reflection in Spoken Judeo-‐Arabic

Abstract: Egyptian Jews, especially those who lived in popular neighborhoods, spoke a distinctive Arabic dialect differing in a number of respects from the Arabic spoken by their Muslim and Christian neighbors. This paper is based on some sections from my larger study done in recent years on spoken Egyptian Judeo-‐Arabic in the twentieth century. The materials for this study were collected from a large number of native speakers, many of whom are no longer alive. The paper describes many lexical items originating in either Hebrew or Arabic that are connected to traditions and customs related to the holy day of Shabbat (Saturday); some of these items are in a mixed style (Hebrew-‐Arabic). This vocabulary, shared by the Jews of Egypt, was not understood by their non-‐Muslim neighbors. The paper also refers to some grammatical peculiarities of this unique vocabulary.


Session: 003

Jewish Languages

14.00-‐15.30

Panel: Nouvelles recherches sur la haketía: langue, histoire et littérature

Organizer : Line. Amselem

Chair:

Jacob Bentolila, The Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Humour et invention dans le lexique de la Haketía

Abstract: Ayant préparé un dictionnaire sur l'élément hébraïque dans la Haketía (le Judeo-‐espagnol de l'Afrique du Nord) j'ai constaté plusieurs cas d'invention ou innovation lexicales où se distingue une intention humoristique. Dans ma communication je vais présenter brièvement la conception de mon dictionnaire en général et, en particulier, un compte rendu de ces cas spécifiques.

Line Amselem, Université de Valenciennes et du Hainaut-‐Cambrésis, France

Title: "Yahasrá. Escenas haquetiescas de Solly Lévy (Montréal, E. D. I. J., 1992) : solennité et comique de la première œuvre publiée en haketía."

Abstract: La haketía, langue judéo-‐espagnole du Maroc, est demeurée principalement orale jusqu’au départ de la plupart des juifs du Nord du Maroc dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle. Le premier auteur à avoir véritablement écrit et publié son œuvre en haketía est Solly Lévy avec son recueil de saynètes comiques Yahasrá (1992). Nous voulons présenter l’origine du projet, son contexte, le caractère fondateur, mémoriel, voire politique de la publication, malgré sa tonalité à dominante comique.

Paloma Díaz-‐Mas, CSIC, Madrid, Spain

Title: Attitudes des écrivains et des journalistes espagnols concernant la haketía

Abstract: La présence coloniale espagnole en Afrique du Nord depuis le milieu du XIXe siècle a contribué à la connaissance de l'existence des séfarades du Maroc par les Espagnols. Bien qu'il existe des études sur les attitudes des Espagnols vers la haketía après les premiers contacts en 1860, l'attitude vers la haketia à l'époque du Protectorat espagnol du Maroc (1912-‐1956) a été moins étudiée. Dans cette communication, nous analysons comment la haketía a été traitée dans le oeuvres des écrivains et des journalistes espagnols, avec une attention particulière à l'époque du Protectorat.


Session: 004

Jewish Languages

16.00-‐18.00

Ladino

Chair:

David Bunis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Jewish-‐Turkish Linguistic Encounters in the Ottoman Empire

Abstract: From the very establishment of the Sephardic exile communities in the Ottoman Empire at the end of the fifteenth century through the twenty-‐first century, Judezmo (Ladino) speakers have interacted with speakers of Turkish. That interaction led to incorporation of thousands of Turkish elements in Judezmo. The proposed paper focuses on the earliest period of the Jewish-‐Turkish linguistic encounter, and the beginnings of the Turkish component in Judezmo.

Ora Schwarzwald, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Ladino Shulḥan Hapanim and Ḥovat Halevavot: Thessaloniki 1568 and Venice 1713

Abstract: Two important Jewish books were first published in Thessaloniki in 1568: Mesa de el alma (MA; in Hebrew Shulḥan Hapanim), and Ḥovat Halevavot 'Duty of the Hearts' (HL). While MA deals with issues of Halakha, HL is about Jewish moral behavior. Both books were translations from Hebrew into Ladino: MA by Meir Benvenisti from Shulḥan Arukh by Yosef Karo, and HL by Zadiq Formon from Ibn Tibon's Hebrew translation of Bahye Ibn Paquda's book written in (Judeo-‐)Arabic. Both books were printed again in Venice in 1713, and there are considerable linguistic differences between these and their earlier Thessaloniki versions (letter orthography, vocalization systems, choice of words, choice of biblical verses, and the general setup of the texts). These differences will be described in detail and possible explanations for these differences will be presented: the change in the Judeo-‐Spanish language between the times of publication; translation principle of explicitation and normalization in the later texts; and source vs. target population of the various Sephardic communities in Thessaloniki and Venice.

Katja Smid, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Ladino Practical Guides for Ritual Slaughter: the Case of Sefer Zebah Todah (Belgrade, 1860)

Abstract: Practical guides of religious observance written from the 16th to the 20th century by Sephardi Rabbis in Judeo-‐Spanish have been classified within the framework of Ladino rabbinical literature and, despite its importance in Jewish life, have barely been studied until now. One of the oldest fragmentary texts to be preserved in Judeo-‐Spanish, Hilkhot Shechita uBediqa (Constantinople, circa 1514), concerns ritual slaughter laws for consumption, and the examination of animals according to Jewish dietary laws. The aim of this presentation is to examine Sefer Zebah Todah, an aljamiado (printed in Hebrew Rashi script) Ladino book (82 pages) dealing in a comprehensive way with animal slaughter laws. The work was originally written in Hebrew by Yosef ben Abraham Molkho, and later translated into Judeo-‐Spanish by Refael Yosef Ben Sason (Belgrade, 1860). This paper will discuss the halakhic contents of the book, and the specific Hebrew and Judeo-‐Spanish terminology related to the subject. Ben Sason’s introduction will be commented, in order to disclose some ritual, communal, geographical, and social specificities related to slaughtering in a small community at the periphery of the Ottoman Empire, and the difficulties it involved in the mid-‐19th-‐century Sephardi community of Belgrade.

Iskra Dobreva, University of Sofia, Bulgaria

Title: Judeo-‐Spanish as a Reference Point to Study Common Balkan Vocabulary

Abstract: Unlike other Balkan people, Sephardic Jews were never dominated or conquered by the Turks; on the contrary, they were welcomed to the Ottoman lands and took over quite prestigious positions in terms of their religious and spiritual freedom and autonomy, and also in judicial and economic independence, within the limits of the respective Sephardic community. This led to the positive attitude towards Turkish culture and language and later on in the XIX and XX centuries Turkish vocabulary was reinforced in Ladino, in order to differentiate it from Modern Spanish. Quite the opposite occurred in the other Balkan languages: during the XIX and XX century a common purifying trend is created and aimed to ‘cleaning’ the languages of the newly established national states from the old Turkish words and expressions, although even today many remained at the level of archaisms, stylistically marked vocabulary, etc. and still in the XXI century thousands of words of Turkish and Greek origin exist in the Balkan languages. The Oriental Judeo-‐Spanish, as transferred at the end of the XV century by Sephardic Jews escaping from the Inquisition, joined the Balkan Linguistic Area later than the other Balkan languages, about a century after the start of the Turkish linguistic dominance, due to economic, political and social reasons. Simultaneously, this period was the apogee of Ottoman culture and the time of most intense linguistic borrowing from Turkish to the Balkan languages. As one of the languages of the Balkan minorities, side by side with Roma and Armenian, Judeo-‐Spanish is very prolific and strategic prism to target Common Balkan Vocabulary, as Sephardic communities were present in the town all over the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor. As it is well known, normally, urban language evolves and standardizes much faster than the language in rural areas. Sephardic communities were geographically dispersed across the Balkan Peninsula, Greek islands and Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor. But they were keeping personal, cultural and trade relations between these communities and simultaneously, they were in contact with the languages spoken in the respective area, namely Greek, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, etc. The presence of Latin/Romance substrata in the Balkans is very strong and it also contributed to the preservance of the Judeo-‐Spanish in the Balkans. Latin/Romance substrata existed till the times of Roman Empire, Balkans were part of the Roman Empire for some centuries and Latin, beside Greek was used as the language of scripture and administrative-‐military order. Modern Romanian, as the far eastern wing of Romances, as well as Dalmatian which was actively spoken in the Western coast of the Balkan Peninsula until the XVth century and later declined until its final disappearance at the end of the XIXth century, are enough to name some of the Balkan Romance languages. Several toponyms and direct Latin borrowings throughout the Balkan places and languages prove the solid existence of Latin/Romance substrata. Same refers to Greek substrata and direct borrowings, which were hugely spread at the Ibero-‐Romance varieties at the end of the XVth century, Judeo-‐Spanish being one of these varieties. When Judeo-‐Spanish joined the Balkan linguistic Area at the end of the XVth century, it found a fertile soil enriched with Greek and Roman substrata. Unlike the other Balkan languages, which were local or more precisely slowly introduced within the Balkan Linguistic Area, Judeo-‐Spanish is an imported language. It was transferred by Sephardic migrants in relatively short period from one geographic, political-‐economic and socio-‐cultural reality (the Iberian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, Portugal, Navarre, etc.) to another, namely the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, this event occurred comparatively late, since the end of the XVth century onwards. These are some of the main factors which led me to assume and take the Oriental variety Judeo-‐Spanish as a reference point to identify and analyze the Common Balkan Vocabulary. Common Balkan Vocabulary includes thousands of items. This vocabulary does not only include words from Turkish and Greek origin, but also from French, Italian and other European origin. Original Sephardic texts from the XIX and XX centuries, as well as bilingual dictionaries are used to illustrate this phenomenon.

Monday 21st July

Room: 13

Session: 001:


9.00-‐10.30

Shifting Paradigms Changing tradition

Chair:

Ido Harari, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Re-‐Orienting Jews: conversion, orientalism and the struggle to disjoin Europe

Abstract: In my paper I would like to examine some of the ways in which the move of Jews from secular, assimilated environments towards orthodox religious observance has served as a political form of rejection and subversion vis-‐à-‐vis the idea of Europe during the first half of the 20th century. This examination will take place through the conversion narratives of four people, all raised in Jewish families during the second half of the 19th century; all held, at some point in their early lives, non-‐observant identities while based in western-‐central Europe; and all embraced, sometime in their later life, orthodox religion in faith, practice and visibility – an embrace that was in all cases accompanied by a certain "turn eastward" and by writing positioning them in opposition to the European values underlying their previous lives. Three of these people became Haredi (Ultra-‐Orthodox) Jews: Nathan Birnbaum (1864-‐1937), born in Vienna to immigrants from Polish Galicia; Jiří (Mordechai Gerogo) Langer (1894-‐1943), born in Prague to an assimilated family; and Jacob Israël de Haan (1881-‐1924), born in northern Holland to an observant family. The fourth became a Muslim: Muhammad Asad (1900-‐1992), born as Leopold Weiss in Galician Lvov and moving to Vienna in his late teens. In the proposed paper I would like to offer the above-‐mentioned narratives a reading which sees them as occupying a position of both expressions of emergent subaltern thought and subjects to analysis through the prism of later postcolonial theory. This reading is based on explicit anti-‐European sentiments expressed in their texts, accompanied by erudite critique of what they saw as western/European values – thus deliberately placing their writers in different locations "outside the fold" of early 20th century mainstream West-‐European Jewry – just as it recognizes substantial elements of conventional European modes of thought directing various aspects of their reflection about their religious and cultural re-‐orientation. However, in my paper I hope to show that despite the undeniable (and understandable) "western" strands in their writings and worldviews (worldviews which were also very different from one another in ways I cannot begin to discuss here), they all offer radical reformulations of the relationship between Jews and Europe, between Jews and the east (Asian and European), and of the positioning of Jews and Judaism between these worlds. These reformulations, I believe, are at least as relevant today as they were when first put to print and paper.

Eliyahu Stern, Yale University, USA

Title: Catholic Judaism: The Eastern European Reception of Jacques-‐Bénigne Bossuet's Theory of Tradition

Abstract: Much has been written about the influence exerted upon nineteenth-‐century German and Western European Jewish thinkers by Protestant ideas. Scholars have described how German Jews reinterpreted Judaism as a “religion” based on universally held beliefs and ethics. Judaism’s national and political elements were ignored or dismissed with the hope of Jews being deemed worthy of being granted citizenship and civil rights in their respective locales. Studies on modern Jewish thought have focused on German Jewish thinkers’—such as Moses Mendelssohn, Abraham Geiger and Hermann Cohen—intellectual debts to Protestant theories proffered by the likes of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Immanuel Kant. Though the overwhelming majority of Jews lived in Eastern European lands largely comprised of Catholic and Orthodox adherents, only a few studies have charted the intellectual relationship between Jewish and Catholic thought in the modern period. This talk addresses this lacuna by exploring the influence exerted by Catholic and Russian Orthodox ideas on eastern European Jewry in the first half of the nineteenth-‐century. Specifically, it will bring to light new archival documents describing the way the enlighteners Isaac Ber Levensohn (1788-‐1860) and Shmuel Yosef Fuenn (1819-‐1891) appropriated the Catholic idea of “Tradition” as articulated by the French Bishop Jacques-‐Bénigne Bossuet (1627 –1704). This act of intellectual borrowing allowed Judaism to be understood in terms congenial to Polish and Russian audiences. It also provided Jews with a theory for the development and transformation of Judaism in modernity and perhaps most provocatively an acceptable mouthpiece for criticizing Protestantism.


Session: 002


11.00-‐13.00

German Perceptions of Jewish "Otherness" in post-‐Emancipation Era

Chair:

Aya Elyada, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Jewish Culture and the German Volkskunde at the Turn of the Century

Abstract: Already before the official establishment of Jewish Volkskunde in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century, various aspects of both ancient and contemporary Jewish culture were discussed and debated in the works of German scholars of folklore and ethnology, Jews and non-‐Jews alike. My paper will examine one aspect of Jewish culture that gained attention in several works of the German Volkskunde during the nineteenth and early twentieth century: the Yiddish language and literature, which served as the foundation for the cultural world of the broad masses of Ashkenazi Jewry for almost a millennium. By analyzing this topic in the writings of leading German folklorists such as Richard Andree (1835-‐1912) and others, the paper aims to advance our knowledge and understanding of the scholarly discourse on Yiddish in turn-‐of-‐the-‐century Germany. Moreover, by discussing a hitherto largely neglected aspect in the work of German Volkskundler, the paper aims to shed new light on their broader understanding and perceptions of the Jews, their culture, and their place in European society.

Ofer Ashkenazi, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: 'The Jew Has no Shame!': Jews and 'Jews' in the Popular German Film-‐Comedies of the 1920s

Abstract: Comedies with stereotypical "Jewish" characters constituted one of the most popular film genres of the Weimar Republic. Noting the clumsy, lazy and deceitful protagonists of these films (who exhibited “typical” Jewish gestures and physiognomy), scholars have read them mostly as an indication for the popularity of anti-‐Semitic sentiments in pre-‐Hitler Germany. The many Jewish directors, scriptwriters and actors among the filmmakers of this genre have been commonly depicted as “self-‐hating” Jews or mere opportunists. Contrary to this view, I will argue that this genre provided a useful arena for the contemplation of Jewish identity and its integration into the educated middle-‐class in modern Germany. In fact, most filmmakers of this genre appropriated anti-‐Jewish stereotypes in order to portray the experience of acculturation from the perspective of the assimilation-‐seeking “outsider.” My talk will suggest an alternative analysis of the films Family Day at the Prellsteins (Steinhoff, 1927), Hercules Maier (Schünzel, 1927) and Meyer from Berlin (Lubitsch, 1920). My analysis will demonstrate how, while comically exaggerating Jewish stereotypes, Weimar filmmakers introduced Jewish hopes and fears into the mainstream culture of modern Germany.

Tuvia Singer, Hebrew University, Israel

Title: From Detachment to Mobility – the Anti-‐Semitic Discourse on Jewish Nomadism in Germany and Austria at the Fin de Siècle

Abstract: The legend of the Wandering Jew, which crystallized at the beginning of the seventeenth century in Protestant circles and was based on a (mis)reading of the Gospels, featured a Jew named Ahasuerus who refused to let Jesus, on his way to being crucified, rest against the walls of his house, and was therefore doomed to eternal wandering. In the following centuries, the legend spread quickly all over Europe in dozens of languages and adaptations. However, the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries (fin de siècle), particularly in Austria and Germany, was unique in the multiplicity and diversity of works that centered on this legend. Above all, the discourse on the Wandering Jew greatly increased among ideologies and movements that were opposed to one another, such as anti-‐Semitic and Zionist discourses. I will compare the interpretation of the figure of the Wandering Jew at the turn of 19th and 20th centuries with the interpretation of the figure in previous periods. The anti-‐Semitic discourse at the turn of the centuries focused on the act of wandering, while the discourse of previous periods had concentrated on the result of the wandering – i.e. detachment. I would like to engage with the reason to this interpretative transformation from detachment to eternal mobility and its significance to the connection between "the Jewish spirit" to modernity, according to the anti-‐Semitic discourse.

Valentina Wiedner, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-‐University Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Title: Labeling and Self-‐definition of the German-‐Jewish Orthodoxy in ‘Der Israelit’ (1860-‐1880)

Abstract: The term “neo-‐orthodox” was – and partly still is – common in the scientific secondary literature to describe the small orthodox part of the German-‐Jewish society in especially the second half of the 19th century. In the contemporary period however it was interestingly used by the Reform Jews, as well as the term “hyperorthodox”, to define the German-‐Jewish Orthodoxy in a negative and pejorative way. Naturally it was vehemently refused in the considered time-‐frame by the orthodox Jews as self-‐description. The presentation will show how one of the most popular German–Jewish orthodox newspaper (“Der Israelit”) in

the period 1860 to 1880 explained the denial concerning the term “neo-‐orthodox” and will as well point out why the Jewish Orthodoxy for the most part insisted upon the self-‐definition as “law-‐abiding” as one of the central themes in their demarcation toward the Reform Jews. The paper will analyze the arguments used by the German-‐Jewish Orthodoxy to justify the preservation of the “religion of their fathers” in contrast to the development of the Reform Movement and the proceeding diminishment of faith. The talk is part of my dissertation project „Break-‐up and preservation: the German-‐Jewish (Neo-‐)Orthodoxy and its relationship to Tradition, State and Patriotism”, which will be finished in 2015.


Session: 003


14.00-‐15.30

Panel: Constructions of Jewish Identity at the Dawn of Globalization: Georgia and Germany

Organizer: Elisabeth Hollender

Chair: Elisabeth Hollender

Nino Pirtskhalava, Ilia State University Tbilisi, Georgia

Title: Georgian Jews between State and Homeland during the 19th and 20th Centuries

Abstract: With regard to the investigation of the historical experience and the question of a linguistic-‐cultural search of identity of the Jews in Georgia it is of extreme importance to take into consideration the issue of the political status of Georgia where Georgian-‐speaking Jewry is one of the oldest communities (with an approximately 2,600-‐year history in the region). The emphasizing of the importance of the last two centuries (the 19th and 20th) should enable a more systematic approach and the focus on the essential issues of Jewish identity in Georgia as a country that lost twice its independence, once after Georgian annexation by the Russian Empire in 1801 and later by the modernized Tsarist Empire as Soviet Empire. The research will concentrate on finding out the formation of the identity narrative of the Jews in Georgia as “Georgian Jews” within the Russian Empire as state including its whole oppressive system on the one hand and within Georgia as the homeland or fatherland on the other hand, where despite their attempts, the authorities could not completely annihilate the practice of Judaism and, even in the late 1960s and 70s, most Georgian Jews managed to observe their traditions. The Jewish population of Georgia has steadily decreased over the years during the last two centuries due to aliya. In the second half of the 19th century (1863), groups of Jews began the return to the Holy Land, mostly for religious reasons. Later, after the Russian Revolution the Red Army invaded Georgia in February 1921, prompting a mass exodus from the region. Approximately 1,500–2,000 Jews left Georgia. In the middle of the20th century huge numbers of Georgian Jews applied for exit visas in order to immigrate to Israel. In 1969, several families wrote to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations demanding permission to make aliya. This was the first public insistence by Soviet Jews for immigration to Israel. In July 1971, a group of Georgian Jews went on a hunger strike outside a Moscow post office. As a result, the determination of the Jews of Georgia led the Soviets to lessen their harsh anti-‐Jewish policies. During the 1970s, about 30,000 Georgian Jews have moved to Israel and thousands of others left for other countries. Approximately 17 percent of the Soviet Jewish population emigrated at this time. In this context one could argue that Georgian Jews left not their

fatherland, but the Soviet state, the modernized version of the Russian Tsarist Empire or the so-‐called “jail of the nations” (de Custine). The Georgian Jews perceived this state from the perspective of a double or even triple detachment. It is precisely the detachment obtained through this triple alienating experience that an acuity was gained that made the lack of intimacy with the state bearable. Because unlike Georgia as a fatherland, the Russian Empire could only be a state thanks to the chimeric functioning of the state machinery, but never become a homeland.

Irakli Chkhaidze, Iv. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgia

Title: The Issue of Georgian Jews in the Periodicals at the turn of 20th Century

Abstract: Beyond the well-‐described phenomenon of the Georgian Jewish community, the Georgian Jewish identity forming narrative and its peculiarities still remain poorly researched realm of study. History and culture of the diminishing Georgian Jewish community are less familiar for the world scientific circles as they are not placed in the wider context of the World Jewish Diaspora.The paper aims at analyzing the issue of Georgian Jews in the periodicals at the turn of 20th Century. The Georgian Jewish identity forming narrative is originated in parallel to the process of Georgian nation-‐building in the period of time. It’s important and interesting to explore how the process was reflected in the newly formed Georgian press. My PhD dissertation deals with the formation of multiethnic Georgian nation in the post-‐Soviet period. Origins of the process we have to search for late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jewish minority played important role in the process at the dawn of Globalization. Thus the issue is closely related to my PhD thesis in terms of methodological background as well as empirical research.

Nino Chikovani, Iv. Javakhishvili, Tbilisi State University, Georgia

Title: Historical and Historiographical Context of the Jewish Identity Forming Narrative in Georgia (Beginning of the 20th Century)

Abstract: The paper aims to present the historical and historiographical context of formation of the Jewish identity narrative in Georgia at the turn of the 20th century. This was a period when the process of formation of this narrative started in Georgia. The Georgian intellectuals – founder fathers of the Georgian nationalism – were the first who tried to comprehend the history of the Georgian Jewry. Their articles and essays on the Jewish Question were actively published in the Georgian periodicals. At the beginning of the 20th century, the idea of awaking of the Jewish consciousness was born among the portion of the Georgian Jews as well. Historical context of the above mentioned processes was defined by the developments of the second half of the 19th century. Under the Russian imperial rule, Georgia was reunited, first politically and then economically. Concentration of the growing number of Georgians in the towns, where the people with different faith and culture lived, forged a growing sense of the distinction between Georgians and other peoples, definition and re-‐definition of the ethnic boundaries. Contrary to his aims, the Russian Empire strengthened the national consent among the Georgian intellectuals. The end of the 19th century was the time of formation of the Georgian scientific historiography. As in other similar cases where the professional historiography was formed as a response to the imperial challenge, the Georgian historical master-‐narrative was aimed at strengthening of the identity of Georgians; therefore, history should depict their difference from “others” – inside of the country as well as outside of it. As different from the wider intellectual discourse, this narrative was mostly concentrated on the history of ethnic Georgians, although placing it in the wider context of the Caucasus and the Middle East. Different ethnic groups residing in Georgia were mentioned casually. The model of identity set by the Georgian historical master-‐narrative determined the framework for the formation of the Jewish identity narrative in Georgia.


Session: 004

Visual Arts

16.00-‐18.00

Panel: Absence and Presence of Jews in the Making of Visual Culture

Organizer: Michael Berkowitz

Chair: Joachim Schlör

Michael Berkowitz, UCL, UK

Title: European Jews and Photography: Autobiography, Evasion, and Integrity

Abstract: The presentation, based on archival research and little-‐examined literary texts, might be described as "between realism and fictions: retouching and the quest for honesty among Jewish photographers in Eastern Europe and beyond." It will concentrate on the autobiographical work of I. J. Singer (interwar Warsaw) and Bernard Gotfryd (Radom ghetto), and also draw on writings of Hans Keilson, Giselle Freund, Lotte Jacobi, Alfred Stieglitz, and H. W. Barnett. Special attention will be paid to articulated and unarticulated reflections on relations between Jews and non-‐Jews in the photographic realm.

Peter Leese, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Title: Ruminative Memory: the Late films of Robert Vas

Abstract: Born in Budapest, Robert Vas (1931-‐78) was thirteen at the time of the German occupation in 1944. He escaped the fate of many other Hungarian Jews when his family obtained ‘Schutz-‐Passes’ and moved into what he called a ‘privileged’ ghetto near the Danube. Shortly after the war his mother died and his father fled to Australia. He then became part of the postwar communist youth movement and later on, in the defining moment of his life, an active participant in the Hungarian Uprising in 1956. After the failure of 1956 he escaped to London and established himself as a highly original documentary film-‐maker whose work developed from the techniques of Humphrey Jennings. Vas’s films are at once subjective and ethnographic; edited with a brilliant eye for metaphor and surrealist juxtaposition. Today he is barely known except for his first film, Refuge England (1959), a semi-‐autobiographical short which follows a Hungarian refugee’s first day in London. This paper explores some of the themes in Vas’s late work, by which time he was a freelance director producing films for the BBC. Stalin (1973), Nine Days in ’26 (1974), My Homeland (1976) consider respectively the career of the Soviet leader, the General Strike of 1926, and Vas’s memory of Hungary and 1956. Despite their disparate subjects these films are held together by a particular mode of recollection. The director understood his art as political, and he saw imagination and self-‐expression as the most profound of human acts. Yet these judgments were also bound up with his past, and with his critical need to recall and testify. Vas’s later films are, then, about the techniques he finds to

transform his own focused attention on bad feelings and experiences (ruminative memory) into artistic reflection.

Shelley Hornstein, York University, Canada

Title: The World in a Picture: Albert Kahn, Architectural Tourism and the Archives of the Planet

Abstract: On the heels of the Dreyfus affair and an intense period of nation building, the Jewish French banker, Albert Kahn, established the Archives of the Planet, an ambitious project funding photographers to tour and photograph the world between 1908-‐1931. The collection (72,000 color photographs) demonstrates Kahn’s desire to capture the memory of places and disappearing sites in architectural photography and promote universal tolerance of other cultures primarily to his fellow compatriots. This transnational project – avant la lettre – made its way to French students and communities through slide-‐lectures by geographers, architects and photographers that he financed, thereby promoting human rights and cosmopolitanism through identity politics and outside of Jewish circles in particular. He spearheaded the use of the 1907 invention by the Lumière Brothers’ color “autochrome” photography on glass plates, the first industrially-‐produced color process in the world, yet only suitable as projections. His lifelong mission was to mobilize shifts in thinking about the “planet” through stunning images about architecture and indigenous cultures. Kahn was deeply influenced by his friend, Henri Bergson, whose ideas about memory and “spatialized” time shaped first, his travel scholarships, Autour du Monde (Around the World), 1898, then, the Archives project. This paper argues that Kahn’s vision of humanitarian ideals of people and places, internationalization and national identities across borders in a time of cultural modernity – well before the internet – was borne from his grounding in Jewish education. The ideas of this little-‐known revolutionary traveller, who also established a pioneering research institute (Centre de Documentation Sociale), 1920 at the Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, demonstrates his unwavering commitment to higher education and the evolution of mutual respect across cultures, races and religions through a grand photographic project.

Monday 21st July

Room: 14

Session: 001:

Books within Books: Medieval Hebrew Fragments in European Libraries

9.00-‐10.30

Chair: Martha Keil

Andreas Lehnardt, Mainz University, Germany

Title: Newly Discovered Hebrew Binding Fragments in Germany

Abstract: In the last months several new Hebrew binding fragments have been discovered and published. The paper will present the findings and discuss their significance for further research. The session will also celebrate the publication of a new volume of the "European Genizah: Texts and Studies" series. Together with Judith Schlanger / Andreas Lehnardt edited the proceedings of a 2011 EAJS colloquium in Oxford.

Ursula Schattner-‐Rieser, Instiute for Biblical Sciences and historical Theology

Title: New Hebraica Fragments from the Genizat Tirolensia

Abstract: In contrast to the East of Austria, its western part and especially the Genizat Tirolensia ist still widely unexplored. Until recently the Tyrolean libraries had never been checked systematically on Hebrew and Aramaic fragments of medieval Hebrew books and documents recovered from book bindings and notarial files and the 18 fragments of the University library are chance finds. However a systematically recording is promising: in less than a year eight new fragments have been found and identified. The establishment of Jews in North-‐ and South Tyrol is documented since the 13th century. Among the new finds are unique Talmud fragments, a Haftarah exemplary, Halakhah commentaries from Ashkenazic, Sephardic and Italian provenance shedding new light on the spiritual life of the Jews of medieval Tyrol. Further findings are to be expected and it is obvious that the history of the Jews of this border region has to be rewritten and completed. In this paper we want to present the new findings and the material for a new cross-‐border project within the European network "Books within books: Hebrew Fragments in European Libraries".

Magdalena Jánošiková, Oxford Centre for Jewish Studies, UK

Title: Moravian Hebrew Fragments in the Context of the Moravian Book Culture

Abstract: The paper looks at the Hebrew fragments incorporated into other bindings as the wider phenomenon that reflects the book culture in Moravia. Around a hundred of fragments are found in the oldest preserved bodies of books as well as in newer ones. We will focus on the book culture in Moravia to reveal what the unifying factors in the production of the binding could tell us about the Hebrew fragments. And, vice versa, what could fragments tell us about the books of the XVth-‐XVIIth century.


Session: 002

Books within Books

11.00-‐13.00

Chair: Andreas Lehnardt

Tamás Visi, Kurt and Ursula Schubert Centre for Jewish Studies, Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic

Title: Liturgical Fragments from Moravia

Abstract: The paper will examine Hebrew fragments of liturgical content that have been preserved in book bindings. On the basis of marginal corrections in liturgical fragments as well as rabbinic texts such as Eizik Tirna's Sefer ha-‐minhagim some trends in the development of Jewish liturgy in late medieval Central Europe will be identified and analyzed.

Tamas Turan, The Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary

Title: The Beginnings of the Research on Hebrew Manuscript Fragments in Europe -‐ A Centennial Tribute to Alexander Scheiber

Abstract: Hebrew manuscript fragments were occasionally found and described in scholarly literature already in the 19th century. The lecture will trace the increasing scholarly attention paid to this type of source material, which culminated in more systematic research projects aiming at finding and utilizing such fragments in recent decades. In Hungary Hebrew manuscript leaves were found and described since 1877. Alexander Scheiber (1913-‐1985), rector of the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest after WWII, not only continued this research but also pioneered in doing quasi-‐systematic investigations in Hungary since the early 1960s.

Alina Lisitsyna, Russian State Library, Russian Federation

Title: Undescribed Fragments from the Gunzburg Collection: Classification, Origin, Context

Abstract: The paper deals with more than 300 uncatalogued handwrtitten fragments from the barons Gunzburgs` collection, which is kept in the Russian State Librray in Moscow. The main part of the collection was described at the end of the 19th century by the Gunzburgs` librraians Senior Sachs and Samuel Wiener and this part still remains unknown to the public. It consists of fragments of different genres such as Biblical commentaries, Midrash, philosophical treatises, private letters, mariiage contracts in Hebrew, Aramaic and Judaeo-‐Arabic.


Session: 003

Books within Books II

14.00-‐15.30

Chair: Judith Kogel

Mauro Perani, University of Bologna, Italy

Title: An Incredible Romance Story at the University Library of Bologna: the Rediscovery of the Oldest Sefer Torah in our Possession

Abstract: An ancient scroll for liturgical use, 36 meters long, containing the Hebrew Pentateuch, copied at the end of the 12th century in an elegant oriental square script by a scribe in accordance with the writing and graphic Babylonian tradition is given as a present in 1304 to the friar Eimerico Giliani in Bologna when he becomes the General Master of the Order of the Dominicans at their convent. The Scroll was at that time already known to be very ancient by Jewish scholars, and shows graphic signs different from those of more recent Sifre Torah. Bernard de Montfaucon, in 1702 says that in Bologna in the convent of the Dominicans this Sefer Torah was shown and reported the information on its antiquity. About eighty years later Benjamin Kennicot in his Dissertatio generalis in Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum (Oxford , 1780) dates the Scroll to the end of the 11th century, and Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi, a few years later, in his Variæ lectiones Veteris Testament (Parma 1784) dates it from the beginning of the 13th century. When Napoleon extends his empire over Italy Northern, suppresses religious orders and delivery their manuscripts to public institutions: the booklore of the convent of St. Salvatore and that of San Domenico in Bologna, where the Sefer Torah was held, are deposited in the University Library of Bologna. Then almost all the Hebrew manuscripts, including our Roll, are brought to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, but with the anti-‐Napoleonic Restoration, almost all return to Bologna. In the 1889, the librarian in the Bologna University Library Leonello Modona, a Jews from Cento, writes the first catalogue of the small collection of Bologna. But some time before, after consulting the two Torah Scrolls, the ancient one and another from the 15th century, someone replaces the two scrolls swapping their containers and self-‐mark. For this reason, in the catalog of Modona, the data relating to the roll 1, the ancient one, are attributed to the roll 2, and vice versa. In 2013, Mauro Perani, wanting compile a new catalogue of the collection, realizes that what had become wrongly the roll 2 shows an ancient oriental square script, dating back to the 12 century, date confirmed by two carbon 14 exam, while the other Sefer can be dated to the 15 century. However, it is not yet clear the exchange, revealed by further research carried out by a Librarian charged with the manuscripts room, and started thanks to a suspicion arose following the sure date of our ancient scroll. It is copied in Babylonian tradition for the use of tagin, particular and curled letters, as well as the layout of some particular texts. The Bologna Sefer Torah is a rare example of the Babylonian tradition, disappeared after the 12th century, when the Palestinian one prevailed, but attested in Sefer tagin composed in the 8th century and quoted by Sa‘adyah Ga ‘on.

Silvia Di Donato, EPHE, Paris, France

Title: Themes and Forms of Re-‐used Hebrew Fragments in the so-‐called "French Genizah": New Researches on Parisian fragments

Abstract: New researches on nearly 150 Parisian fragments of re-‐used medieval Hebrew manuscripts and documents recovered from book bindings offer new material for the history of the Jewish knowledge and Hebrew book heritage of the middle Ages. I will present and analyse some historical, textual and material aspects of the French fragments I am studying within the project “Books within books: Hebrew Fragments in European Libraries”.

Silvia di Donato, Emma Abate and Elodie Attia,

Title: Books within Books database.


Session: 004

Books within Books II

16.00-‐18.00

Chair: Judith Kogel

Esperança Valls Pujol, Universitat de Girona, Spain

Title: The Last Fragments of Hebrew Manuscripts Recovered from the Historical Archive of Girona (2013)

Abstract: The Arxiu Històric de Girona, has a collection of Hebrew manuscripts were reused as book bindings of medieval notarial books. Between September 2012 and February 2013 has been restored 144 new fragments. Now the collection has a total of 1094 manuscripts. These new documents contain exegetical commentaries, resolutions adopted by the community, sale deeds, loans records, sales inventories of local merchants, a part of a testament, various issues of jurisprudence and fragments of poetic compositions. The aim of this paper is to present an overview of these new documents.

Donatella Melini, Università di Pavia, Italy, & Roberta Tonnarelli, EPHE, Paris, France

Title: Jewish Fragments and Musical Instruments: an Unusual Relation

Abstract: Our paper’s aim is to communicate the existence of a particular typology of fragments of Jewish codices: fragments held within musical instruments and their function. During an archival campaign about the 16th-‐17th lutherie a very interesting viol was found; inside it, in fact, we found some parchment strips coming from Jewish codices. This circumstance absolutely unusual both in the field of lutherie and in the field of the research of reused Jewish manuscripts stimulated many questions about their presence inside the instrument (when they were inserted, where they come from, etc.). An interdisciplinary approach immediately appeared as necessary; scholars of the Jewish culture could, in fact, help to trace the history of this musical instrument. A complete codicological and paleographic analysis of the strips will be conducted

considering these fragments within the phenomena of reused fragments, the so-‐called Genizah. Besides it would be very important to search for other instruments that share the same particularity; this could increase on one side our knowledge about a particular (and unknown) aspect of lutherie and on the other side could provide new research path in Jewish studies by considering the musical instruments as a place (an unusual place) for the retrieval of these fragments.

Piergabriele Mancuso, Medici Archive Project, Florence, Italy

Title: The "Natione Israelitica" Archival Fund: a Documentary and Material Source for the Study of Jewish History

Abstract: The "Natione Israelitica" is a 72 volume set containing virtually all sentences and cases passed by the Hebrew courts in Florence between 1620 and the beginning of the 19th century. These volumes which are now kept in the state archive in Florence contain an incredible source of information concerning the life, family ties and socio-‐economic status of the Jews of Florence and Tuscany. In spite of this and even thought the volumes of the "Natione Israelitica" are among the very few pieces of material culture produce in the Ghetto of Florence, and although this is one of the very few archival funds containing official texts and legislation written in Hebrew, they have never been the object of a systematic study. According to a recent survey, some of these volumes were bound using waste materials, among which music scores containing sections of a melodrama on a sacred subject and some instrumental music probably produced inside the ghetto around the end of the 17th century. The aim of this paper is to outline briefly the history of this fund, and to describe its main textual, linguistic and material features with special emphasis on the music scores recently discovered, probably the most ancient testimonies of artistic music production in the ghetto of Florence during the Grand Ducal age.

Monday 21st July

Room: 15

Session: 001:

Musicology

9.00-‐10.30

Chair: Hervé Roten

Hervé Roten, Institut Européen des Musiques Juives, Paris, France

Title: Conservation and Valorization of Jewish Musical Archives at the Numerical Era: The Example of the European Institute for Jewish Music (Paris)

Abstract: Transmitted only by oral tradition until now, Jewish musics constitute a complex and plural heritage characterized by Diaspora. Consequently, we have to speak about Jewish Musics, and not Jewish Music, each of them having a specific geocultural context. So, the study of Jewish Music is related to many other fields, as history, sociology, symbolism…To preserve Jewish Musical Traditions, to make them available to everybody, this is the goal of the European Institute for Jewish Musics, created in 2009, which owns today the most important collection of numerical documents online: about 50.000 audio and video recordings and more than 150.000 pages of scores, books and miscellaneous archives. This presentation will introduce to the different tasks of gathering, digitalizing and uploading of the archives of the European Institute for Jewish Musics.

Title : Préservation et valorisation des archives musicales juive à l’ère du numérique. L’exemple de l’Institut Européen des Musiques Juives (Paris)

Longtemps véhiculée par la seule tradition orale, les musiques juives forment un patrimoine complexe et pluriel caractérisé par le champ de la diaspora. Ainsi n’existe-‐t-‐il pas une musique juive, mais des musiques juives, chacune d’entre elles relevant d’un contexte géoculturel spécifique. L’étude des musiques juives est par conséquent riche d’enseignements dans un grand nombre de domaines : musical, mais aussi historique, sociologique, symbolique, etc. Préserver les traditions musicales juives, les mettre à la portée de tous, tel est l'objectif de l'Institut Européen des Musiques Juives (IEMJ) créé en 2009, et qui recèle, à ce jour, la plus importante collection de documents numériques accessibles en ligne, soit près de 50.000 enregistrements audio, vidéo et plus de 150.000 pages de partitions, livres, revues et archives diverses. Cette communication aura pour objectif de présenter le travail de collecte, de numérisation et de mise à disposition des archives numériques de l'Institut Européen des Musiques Juives.

Andreas Schmitges, University of Halle-‐Wittenberg, Germany

Title: Funem (sh)eynem vortsl aroys?!– Approaches to the Study of Parallel Eastern Yiddish and German Folksongs

Abstract: A considerable amount of folksongs in the Yiddish and German tradition share common roots in texts, motifs and melodies. This paper presents first results of a broader study and will give insight into the history of the research done so far by researchers of the twentieth century as well as outlining first results of the analysis of these parallels. At first sight, the existence of a parallel repertoire of Eastern Yiddish and German Folksongs is not surprising. It is rather astonishing that not much scholarly attention has been given to the topic in the twentieth century. This study hopes to gain scientific insight into the following themes: 1. Adding another layer to the research of Yiddish Folksong. 2. Development of a historically informed performance style for Yiddish Folk Song through intercultural comparison. 3. Intersections of the Yiddish-‐German parallels with a universal European repertoire. 4. New socio-‐musical perspectives concerning the European perception of Yiddish music 1. Adding another layer to the research of Yiddish Folksong Scholars like Y.L. Cahan have – in early twentieth century research – stressed the meaning of a parallel Yiddish-‐German Folksong repertoire. Beginning with the Ashkenaz I period, where many melodies were shared by the Jewish and the gentile population, the process continues in Ashkenaz II where many texts are still shared but the music develops its own Jewish identity. First answers to the question of how this repertoire developed historically, socially and geographically will be given. 2. Development of a historically informed performance style for Yiddish Folk Song through intercultural comparison The revival of Yiddish music has among musician-‐protagonists of this movement started a discussion on questions of style and expression. Very often this debate hasn’t been mirrored by scholarly research. The comparison of Yiddish and German Folksongs offers the unique possibility of gaining insight into stylistic and philological matters, as very often it allows a deeper understanding of the history of Yiddish Songs. This historical trace leads back to their earliest sources and helps understanding their development into important elements of Jewish identity and Jewish and Yiddish expression. To analyze these expressions on the basis of their early history and their German (and European) parallels will enhance a scholarly discussion on historically informed performance style. 3. Intersections of the Yiddish-‐German parallels with a universal European repertoire Some of the Yiddish-‐German parallels are part of a pan-‐European parallel song repertoire that has not been studied in full yet. In this field, the role of Yiddish culture as a transnational European culture is not to be underestimated as many musical elements may have been preserved over long periods and geographical changes. 4. New socio-‐musical perspectives concerning the pan-‐European perception of Yiddish music. The success of Yiddish Folk Music in the USA and Europe since the 1980s has started -‐ within and outside the Jewish Community -‐ a discussion on its authenticity, role and meaning. The fact that some of the musical and textual repertoire of this music is actually shared by many European cultures will add a new layer to the discussion as well as help to improve the understanding of the character of Yiddish versus other European Folk Music.

Alexandre Cerveux, Université Paris-‐Sorbonne & EPHE, France

Title: "Muzikologye" or sketches of Musicology in Yiddish: a Glimpse at A. Z. Idelsohn's Archives (1882-‐1938)

Abstract: The pioneering contribution of hazzan and scholar Abraham Zvi Idelsohn to the field of Jewish musicology is well known. His major works, Oẓar Neginot Israel (10 vol., 1914-‐1932) and Jewish Music In Its Historical Development (1929) are part of the original core of musicological writings concerning Jewish music. Thanks to his priceless efforts, through which we obtain a sense of the urgency he felt to record and save the traditional music of the Jewish people, we have the opportunity to rediscover the traditional music of the eastern European Jews.

By taking a closer look at Idelsohn’s archive, now housed in the National Library of Israel, one notes valuable paper cuttings and journal articles in Yiddish. Most of them originated from the USA or Canada, some from South Africa, mainly appearing in journals published in the late 1920s to the 1940s. This preliminary study aims to determine whether Yiddish has been used as a scientific language in the field of musicology. Alongside the efforts achieved by scholars in linguistics, Yiddish history or history itself, others contributed to the Yiddish press by submitting articles in Yiddish. A technical jargon is employed, mixing both neologisms and Hebraisms. Further attempts to use Yiddish in subsequent music writings in the USA, from the 1940s onwards, should also be mentioned.


Session: 002

Musicology

11.00-‐13.00

Chair: Hervé Roten

Rachel Adelstein, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, UK

Title: Feminine Overtures: Jewish Women Musicians Encountering Non-‐Jewish Society

Abstract: In encounters between Jewish communities and their host cultures, women have often played a key role as mediators. Historian Deborah Hertz has observed that the relative fluidity of women’s social status gave them much greater opportunities to cross European social borders, and they and their families took advantage of this mobility. Wealthy Jewish society hostesses in eighteenth-‐ and nineteenth-‐century Berlin negotiated and blurred the boundaries between German and Jew, Jew and Christian, Orthodoxy and Reform, and public and private spaces. Similarly, in the United States in the twentieth century, Jewish immigrant women’s relative familiarity with business practice helped them to make a place for their communities in American society. One highly public setting for such encounters has been the musical stage. In this paper, I explore the cases of two female Jewish musicians whose public musical lives allowed them not only to facilitate connections between themselves and their non-‐Jewish audiences, but also to provoke new questions about the changing position of Jews in their host cultures. I draw first on the case of Sara Levy (1761 – 1854), a maternal great-‐aunt of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, a harpsichord performer, and musical hostess, whose devotion to the music of the Bach family helped to bring about the nineteenth-‐century Bach revival. Next, I examine Sophie Tucker (1887 – 1966), the American entertainer whose rejection of blackface helped to complicate American ideas of race, Jewishness, and the public presentation of women. I argue that, for both Levy and Tucker, their status as socially fluid outsiders allowed them both the freedom to undertake important projects that were outside the norms of their host cultures, and also to draw attention to the question of what place Jews should have in those host cultures.

Merav Rosenfeld, Institute of Musical Research, University of London, UK

Title: Rabbi ‘Ovadyah Yosef and His Halakhic Rulings on Arabic Music in Jewish Worship

Abstract: Rabbi ‘Ovadyah Yosef, who was born in Baghdad in 1920 and immigrated to Israel at the age of four, grew up to be one of the most influential rabbinic figures in the political, religious and cultural life of the new state. He died only recently in October 2013, and according to press reports several hundred thousand people, from all walks of life and diverse political and cultural backgrounds, attended his funeral. In 1984, Yosef became the spiritual leader of the ultra-‐orthodox party Shas which aspired to restore the shattered identity of Arab-‐Jews. He brought to the public attention the phrase lehaḥzir ‘atarah leyoshnah [renewing the crown’s glory], which was understood by Shas’s voters as its agenda to revive their Judaeo-‐Arabic tradition as lived in their Arabo-‐Islamic diasporas. However, Rabbi Yosef’s aspiration seems to be quite different. Recent studies on Yosef’s halakhic rulings show that for him, lehaḥzir ‘atarah leyoshnah means to renew the nation’s life in the Land of Israel, cleared of any diasporic traditions, and united under the halakhic rulings established by the sixteenth century Rabbi Qaro of Safed. Yosef regard Qaro as Mara D‘atra, namely, the higher halakhic authority for Jews living in the Land of Israel. This paper examines Yosef’s view of music’s role in Jewish worship, as reflected in his monumental halakhic work Yeḥaveh Da‘at [Present an Opinion]. It presents him both as a gifted poet and cantor as well as a great admirer of Arabic music, and suggests that in matters of music, Yosef was a great supporter of diasporic traditions, and particularly of those inherent to Middle-‐Easter Judaism. The paper shows that Yosef appreciates that Arabic music is central to the Judaeo-‐Arabic tradition and hence should be preserved. He refers to Arab-‐Jews, both inside and outside Israel, discusses with great sympathy their beloved music, and analyses its varied aspects in the context of the Judaeo-‐Arabic heritage, both in the diaspora and in Israel. Furthermore, Yosef encourages using music in all types of worship, describing its benefit in worshipping God with joy and love.

Judith Cohen, York University, Toronto, Canada

Title: Singing together again: Performing Sephardic and Sufi women's Songs in Larache, Morocco

Abstract: The Judeo-‐Spanish speaking Jews of the former Spanish Protectorate in northern Morocco have all but disappeared: only a few dozen still live there. In April 2013 I had the unexpected opportunity of spending two weeks living in a Muslim household in the town of Larache (El Araïsh) and working with local young women Muslim singers who perform Sufi hadrá. Through the medium of old Sephardic wedding and hilulá songs, we worked through religion, language, age, cultural differences to present a joint concert of Sephardic and Muslim songs, given in the town's remaining Catholic church. Not only did this echo the (oft-‐contested) concept of "medieval three religions conviviality", it provided a new model of understanding and cooperation through traditional songs and traditional singing styles. In the summer of 2013, I returned briefly, during a research trip to Spain, to establish contact with traditional older women wedding and henna singers and explore further research possibilities. Because my own repertoire and performance style were based on my years of direct fieldwork and participant observation, as well as bibliographical research, while preparing my doctoral dissertation in the 1980s, at a time when many women were still alive who remembered the old songs and practices, I was able to relate to both these young singers who did not remember the Jewish presence in their town, and to older people, who did remember them vividly. On the musical level, I explored wedding song themes and performance practice, and parallels between Muslim and Sephardic Jewish customs, again referring to my years of fieldwork in Moroccan Sephardic communities in Canada and elsewhere. In this paper, I explore the possibilities afforded by combining scholarly inquiry as a trained ethnomusicologist with active education and performance activities, as a veteran singer and workshop leader, to further, as much as possible, both scholarly knowledge and human understanding. Note 1. The possible topics do not include Folklore/Anthropology/Ethnography, where I feel this fits better than musicology. Note 2. Although I have been informed that one or more concerts is/are already planned, I would like to offer an informal concert of music related to this topic. An alternate possibility is to offer this as, instead of a paper, a longer (40-‐45 minutes at least) combined performance-‐

lecture, which would include both live (by myself) and videotaped (in Morocco) excerpts of the music which forms the basis of this proposal.


Session: 003

Jewish History: Middle Ages

14.00-‐15.30

Jewish and Muslim Cultures

Chair:

Elisha Russ-‐Fishbane, Wesleyan University, USA

Title: Jews and Other Infidels in Sufi Literature

Abstract: Recent scholarship has explored the attitude toward Sufism in medieval Jewish literature and has called attention to a movement of Jewish-‐Sufism that flourished in thirteenth-‐century Egypt. Scholarship examining the image of Jews and Judaism in Sufi literature, by contrast, is a major desideratum, one which the present paper aims to address. A number of Sufi poems, from Nizami to Rumi to ibn Arabi, famously promote a universalism transcending confessional boundaries. A careful reading of classical Sufi literature, both in Arabic and Persian (including the above-‐mentioned authors), reveals the need for a more systematic and nuanced study of the question. In each of the different genres of Sufi literature (hagiographical, poetic, exegetical, and systematic), the Jew is depicted in typological fashion either as archetypal infidel, diabolical deceiver, or as ultimate symbol of humiliation and servility. Somewhat paradoxically, the image of Jewish humiliation was occasionally utilized as a model of ultimate humility to which the Sufi devotee must aspire. This paper proposes a fresh approach to the representation of Jews and Judaism in the Sufi religious imagination, adding a new dimension to the study of Jewish-‐Islamic engagement in the medieval Islamic world.

Renee Levine Melammed, The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Israel

Title: Jewish Women in Mediterranean Society and the Influence of Islamic Culture (950-‐1250)

Abstract: In what is known as Genizah society, the lives of Jewish women were influenced by Islamic law and culture in numerous ways, many of which have been examined by S.D. Goitein, Mordechai Akiva Friedman as well as by myself. Jewish men were imitating the surrounding culture when they wed more than one wife, had concubines or sexual relations with maidservants. Temporary marriage arrangements (iftida) occasionally took place. Yet there were additional ways in which their lives were affected by the Islamic surroundings: When and why would a woman go to or threaten to go to a Muslim court? Does the language they used, the less formal Judeo-‐Arabic noted by Joel Kraemer, reflect aspects of Muslim culture? Did they come into contact with Muslim women or men on a daily basis? Can any differences be discerned from these sources between women's lives in medieval Cairo and those in other Mediterranean Jewish

communities? This paper will attempt to answer these questions while looking at Jewish women's lives as reflected in legal and epistolary documents found in the Cairo Genizah (950-‐1250).

Roni Shweka, Friedberg Genizah Project, Jerusalem, Israel

Title: "And every day they are doing a quarrel, even in the synagogue": Disturbing Episodes From Jerusalem at the Beginning of the 13th century

Abstract: Almost one hundred years ago Jacob Mann published in his classic work "The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine Under the Fatimid Caliphs" (vol. 1, pg 241; vol. 2, pp. 304-‐305) a Genizah fragment (T-‐S 8J33.4) that contains the end of an epistle written by Yehiel b. Isaac from Jerusalem, around the turn of the 12th and the 13th centuries. The writer inquires a rabbi in Egypt what to do with the money the rabbi sent him for building a ritual bath. Yehiel argues they don't need to build another one, as the community has already one in his own house. With the use of the FGP module for joining fragments I succeeded to find more fragments from this epistle and from other writings of Yehiel which reveals a harsh controversy in the little Jewish community of Jerusalem at that time concerning the building of the ritual bath and other issues. It turns out that someone already started to build a bath in his yard, and Yehiel was willing to pay him all the expenses he had so far but to stop him from continue building the bath. Yehiel describes some other severe accidents in the community of Jerusalem in these unpublished fragments, altogether portraying an unpleasant picture of a community in a quarrel.


Session: 004

Contemporary Israel

16.00-‐18.00

Israel, Islam and Jewish-‐Arab Conflict

Chair

Nesya Shemer, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Bible, Quran and Anti-‐Judaism: Sheikh Yusuf al-‐Qaradawi on the Theological Roots of the Israeli-‐ Palestinian Conflict

Abstract: Sheikh Dr. Yusuf al-‐Qaradawi is considered as the most influential Islamic religious figure today. Born in 1926, Qaradawi graduated Al-‐Azhar University in Cairo and received his Ph.D. in 1973. He is acknowledged as the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and serves as a member of the board of prominent international Islamic organizations. Sheikh Qardawi is one of the greatest enemies of Israel in Sunni Islam. He sees the Israeli -‐ Palestinian conflict as a political conflict, since the Jews have occupied a Muslim territory, but not only politics are involved here. In Qaradawi’s view the conflict has long theological roots that reach through the complicated relations between Abraham and his two wives Hagar and Sarah. A straight line connects, in Qaradawi’s opinion, from the succession struggles of Genesis and the

Israeli -‐ Palestinian conflict. This lecture will discuss Qaradawi’s interpretation to Genesis stories such as, the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, the Binding of Ishmael and the buying of the tomb of the Patriarchs. In this lecture we will see how these Bible Stories went to a process of Islamization and Palestinization in favor the Palestinian struggle.

Elad Ben-‐Dror, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: The Jewish-‐Arab Conflict and the Demise of the Musta‘arib Communities in the Arab Villages in the Galilee Abstract:

Musta‘arib Jewish communities existed in the Galilee for centuries. The Jews spoke Arabic and looked much like the local Arabs, but were meticulous in their religious observance. Itzhak Ben-‐Zvi counted around 30 such communities during the centuries between the Crusades and the start of Ottoman rule. Persecution by local rulers, heavy taxes, and other hardships left only three Musta‘arib communities in the Galilee in the late Ottoman period: Kafr Yassif, Shefar‘am, and Peqi‘in. Muslims, Christians, and Druze lived there as neighbors; the intercommunal conflicts meant that the tensions were not focused on the Jews. Ultimately even these Jewish communities collapsed, one after another—precisely during the period of the Zionist settlement in Palestine. My lecture deals with the destruction of the last three Musta‘arib Galilean communities, especially Peqi‘in. The main thesis is that the intensifying Jewish-‐Arab conflict made survival of the centuries-‐long coexistence in these villages nearly impossible. The history of Peqi‘in illustrates this well. In the 1920s, the ancient Jewish community became a symbol for the Zionist Yishuv and was enthusiastically adopted by Ben-‐Zvi. Money was raised and JNF officials attempted to purchase land in the village for the Peqi‘in Jews. The Zionist efforts led to a steep rise in land prices and poisoned the atmosphere between the Jews and their non-‐Jewish neighbors. Later, especially after the 1929 Arab riots, the Zionists viewed the protection of the community as a test of the loyalty of the Druze, who were a majority in Peqi‘in. Senior Zionist officials pressured the Galilee Druze leadership to guarantee the Jewish villagers’ safety. On the other side, the local Arabs assaulted the Peqi‘in Jews and depicted the Druze as traitors to Arab interests. The Peqi‘in Jews were caught in the middle; in 1938 they were forced to abandon the village after a nearly fatal Arab attack. Centuries of coexistence in the Galilee and the Musta‘arib community came to an end precisely when new Jewish settlements were established in Palestine and the Zionist enterprise became entrenched.

Monday 21st July

Room: 16

Session: 001:


9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Foreign Writers in Paris: Avraham Shlonsky, Zalman Shneour and Blaise Cendrars

Organizer: Lilach Nethanel

Chair: Lilach Nethanel

Lilach Nethanel, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: The Poetic Difference The Problem of the Site in Two Poems by Zalman Shneour

Abstract: This paper addresses the literary representation of the urban site in two Hebrew poems by Zalman Shneour: 'On the Seine' (Al Hof Ha'Seine) [1907], and 'Vilna' (Vilnius) [1917]. These poems, framing the second decade of Shneour's poetry, were written in a changing biographical and ideological context. The restless mobility of Shneour himself, as of the generation of early 20th century modernist Hebrew writers, was pointed out in Shimon Halkin's critical writings [Halkin, 1980] as well as in Shachar Pinsker's recent book [Pinsker, 2011]. This mobility is also inscribed in the thematic outlines of Shneour's literary writings. The second decade of his poetry is introduced and concluded by the description of two urban sites, Paris and Vilna. The poem 'On the Seine' was written during Shneour's first stay in Paris, and it was included in the collection of poetry which he published in 1923 Berlin, under the title Gesharim [Bridges]. The poem 'Vilna' was probably written during World War I. It was first published in a special edition in post-‐war Berlin, and was later on included in a second poetry collection entitled Hezionot [Visions] from 1923. The reading of these 'local' poems describing Vilnius and Paris should refer to the context of the Hebrew publishing initiatives in Berlin, where they were edited and printed. Shneour's poems express what I shall call a 'poetic difference' regarding the actual presence in the represented site, its local language and the described historical time. His 1907 Hebrew poem on Paris is to be read by its linguistic difference from the proper names of the monuments mentioned in it; the 1917 poem on Vilna is to be shifted from Pre-‐war Jewish Vilna and be replaced in post-‐War Berlin, with the immigration wave of Eastern European Jews. This reading of the poetic difference is an introductive chapter to a future monographic study on Zalman Shneour's early years, as it evokes the fundamental problem of the mimetic representation in early 20th century Hebrew literature.

Roy Greenwald, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Shlonsky in Paris: From Post-‐Symbolism to Neo-‐Symbolism

Abstract: In 1930 the poet Avraham Shlonsky traveled to Paris to raise funds and increase subscriptions for Ketuvim, the literary magazine of which he was a leading member. His trip would become highly significant for the direction of Hebrew poetry in Eretz Yisrael. While in Paris, Shlonsky wrote the “Karchiel” poems, in which feverish trade is a defining feature of the urban landscape. The great metropolis in these poems becomes the site of a rampant inflation, which depletes the value not only of material assets but of the

spiritual ones of Western culture at large. The “Karchiel” poems were included four years later in Shlonsky’s book Avnei Bohu, a book that became a founding text for the neo-‐symbolist school in Eretz Yisrael. The rise of this school has always been – and largely remains – one of the great questions for the research of the history of new Hebrew poetry. My paper focuses on Shlonsky’s poetry in order to explain the rise of the neo-‐Symbolist school. It seeks to trace the influence of French Symbolism on Shlonsky’s poetics as well as to explore the way that the political and economic conditions in Europe at the time found expression in his poetry.

Amotz Giladi, Strasburg University, France

Title: Transnationalism and Nationalism in the Parisian Literary Field of the Early 20th Century: the Trajectory of Blaise Cendrars

Abstract: The poet and writer Blaise Cendrars (1887-‐1961), born in Switzerland, arrived in France in 1912 and became intensely active in the Parisian avant-‐garde circles. Highly internationalized, these circles included many foreign creators and maintained multiple relations with avant-‐garde groups across Europe. Cendrars’s double culture, both French and German, made of him a particularly adapted actor of the transnational avant-‐garde network. Jewish creators, mainly from Eastern Europe, were highly present in the Parisian avant-‐garde circles, which became an arena of cooperation between Jewish and non-‐Jewish artists. Let us mention, for example, the friendship between Cendrars and Marc Chagall, to whom the former dedicated a poem in prose, as well as one of his "Nineteen Elastic Poems". As for Chagall, he painted a portrait of Cendrars which is unfortunately lost. Yet, foreign avant-‐garde writers, who occupied marginal positions in the Parisian society and literary field, were subjected to the increasing French nationalism and xenophobia, which attained their paroxysm during World War I. In these circumstances, it was difficult for foreigners to stay in France without joining the French army. Cendrars did so at the very beginning of the war, after signing a manifesto inciting all foreigners living in France to join the French army as well. The war, from which Cendrars returned after loosing his right arm, was a major trauma for himself and for his generation of avant-‐garde creators, whose transnational vision was put to the test. During the 1920s, Cendrars drifted away from the avant-‐garde circles, passed from poetry to novel writing and started working as a reporter for major French newspapers. Thus, he left the margins of the literary field and moved towards a more central position. Moreover, having been naturalized, he tended hence forth to repress his foreign origins. He even adopted French nationalism and xenophobia, and during the 1930s, in the context of the Front Populaire’s government led by Léon Blum, he took anti-‐Semitic, far-‐right positions. Through Cendrars’s trajectory, I propose to deal with early 20th century Paris as an intercultural melting pot, but also as an example of increased cultural nationalization processes.


Session: 002


11.00-‐13.00

Jewish National Renewal

Chair:

Yoav Ronel, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Berdyczewski and the European Love: Hybrid Subjectivity and Identity in Miriam

Abstract: The writings of the 19th century Jewish author Micha Yosef Berdyczewski's were canonically defined by many (including Berdyczewski himself), as a project to found a modern Jewish identity and subjectivity. Berdyczewski famously claimed that the Jewish national revival should start not from the collective people, but from the subject, by founding a new Jewish subject, one that, unlike Orthodox Judaism, is not alienated from his body. This Berdyczewskyan reunion of body and spirit, as Hanan Hever states, will come through an opening up of theseparatist Jewish culture to non-‐Jewish modernity and thought in general, and to the fertile forces of erotic, romantic European love in particular. The modern Jewish national identity depends on the revival of the subject through romantic love. In my lecture I will offer a reading of Berdyczewski's Jewish adaptation and his interpretation of romantic European love, as portrayed in his final novel Miriam, a bildungsroman seemingly focused on the life of a young Jewish girl in a 19th Jewish community in Ukraine. As Zipora Kagan has shown, this novel serves as a monument or testament of a heterogeneous Jewish culture. I will claim that the novel offers an examination of romantic-‐erotic European love, as it clashes and integrates with a Jewish culture. Besides references to Flaubert Madam Bovary and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, the novel uses classic tropes and scenes from the European love arsenal: the structuring of the new, loving Jewish subject/identity. Thus, a non-‐Jewish essence flows into the formation of the Jewish subject. My reading of Miriam will deal with its unique and destructive love-‐discourse: I will try to show that Berdyczewski's reading of European love reveals the inherent destructive potential of the romantic love-‐discourse, what Zahi Zamir (following Denis de-‐Rougemont) refers to as a "tormenting love model"; furthermore, that this love serves as a volatile and problematic base for a national identity or modern subject. Through a reading of Freud’s Moses and Monotheism I will claim that this novel, written in the author's dying days, should be read as a will; one that will undermine the stable concepts of Jewish identity attributed to his earlier works. I will present Miriam as a destabilizing text: while the early Berdyczewski used romantic love as the vessel of the becoming of the modern Jewish identity, this novel presents love as a disaster, thus questioning the possibility of a stable national/subjective identity; as a text which deals with the impossibility of a stable, homogenous identity. Finally, I will claim that following this disaster, the novel’s finale and its heroine’s cultural choice, a hybrid one, opens up a possibility of a hybrid (following Homy Bhabha), Jewish/non-‐Jewish identity. An identity that isn't constructed upon an erotic and utopian homogenous concept of love and identity, but upon a culturally mobile and responsible, heterogeneous selfhood.

Shira Stav, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Food, Incest and Auto-‐Anti-‐Semitism in UN Gnessin's Short Stories

Abstract: This talk discusses two short stories by the great early 20th century Hebrew writer, UN Gnessin: "Pre-‐fast meal" ("Seuda Mafseket", 1905) and "In the gardens" ("Ba-‐ganim", 1910). I propose that the former, less-‐known story, contains a certain implicit structure that is fully developed in the latter, well-‐known story. In both stories Gnessin weaves ties between food and incestuous seduction and between sexuality and the self-‐perception of the Jews. "Pre-‐fast meal" depicts the relationship between a father and his teenage daughter. The time frame is the first Yom-‐Kippur's eve following the death of the mother. The main conflict in the story consists in the mourning father's request of his daughter to join him in eating meat at the Pre-‐fast meal, whereas she practices vegetarianism and holds secular views. "In the Gardens" tells the story of a young educated Jew who has just returned from many years of travelling and goes out to stroll in the countryside, where he has not been for years. There he encounters a vulgar Jewish vassal

farmer, who provides fish and other foods to the local urban community. The young lad experiences the silence and the blooming nature around him as a powerful attack on his being. At the climax of the story he secretly witnesses a brutal ritual, when the farmer has sex with his retarded daughter and lashes her. Incestuous desire in these stories is a theme that sharpens the tensions between urbanity and country-‐life, between seclusion inside definite borders and their transgression, between Anti-‐Semitism and Jewish self-‐perception. Following theoretical accounts of incest in Levi-‐Strauss, Kristeva, David Bakan, Sander Gilman and others, I will show how the non-‐obvious connection between the two stories is revealed through the incest theme, which expresses an anxiety of stagnation. Gnessin portrays incest as a disease: the disease of closed spaces and degeneration, 'the disease of the Jews'. Reading both stories together shows that Gnessin considered it an incurable disease. On this reading, in Gnessin's stories the tensions between tradition and secularization, between segregation and assimilation, and between disintegration and renewal overlay real and symbolic incestuous affairs. As opposed to the traditional view that incest is an obvious tool of creating psychological drama, the present proposal takes it to play diverse roles in literary structures: ideological, social, national political and gender roles. The juxtaposition of these stories highlights incest as a focal point where the main concerns and worries of Hebrew literature at the turn of the 20th century converge.

Rhona Burns, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: "Jews do not ride Horses!": On the method of symbols in Sussati by Mendele Mocher Sforim

Abstract: In modern western imagination, it seems that the image of the horse always carried with it some meanings of status. More than anything, when coupled to Man, from Napoleon on horseback to the Hollywood cowboys, the horse is associated, in western modern thought, with power and control. It seems then, that we shouldn’t be very surprised to find the image of a horse standing at the center of a literary piece (Sussati), which was regarded by Fichmann as "the greatest national poetry in the new Hebrew literature". For what would be more fitting than "national poetry", using this ancient image as a symbol? But how is the horse portrayed in the "Jewish Imagination"? "Jews do not ride horses!", states resolutely the Melamed in the Hebrew story Don Kishot Me'astropoley by Bucki Ben yagli. Avot Yeshurun expressed a similar notion when warning his listeners, in a recorded interview, that "it is shameful for a horse to be ridden by a Jew!". The biblical warning for the Israelite kings-‐ warning them against obtaining too many horses-‐ also comes to mind in this context. And indeed, as a loyal member of the "Jewish Imagination", Mendele's horse is no heroic horse-‐ rather it's a tortured and beaten up mare, which her owner (Israel by name) prefers walking beside her instead of riding her. This mare is presented to us as an "eternal mare" ( עולמית סוסה ), with no hope for change. Werses has already analyzed the piece as consisting of a "serial structure", an anti-‐linear structure, which clearly doesn't lead us to a "solution". How then does this fit with the national aim which stood behind the making of this piece? In this discussion I will examine the symbolic method in this novel. Following Amir Banbaji, I also will use the term Allegory as understood by Adorno-‐ but unlike Banbaji I will argue that precisely from this allegorical understanding of the piece, the Zionist meaning of the piece is sharpened rather than weakened. I will base my argument further on Dan Meron, and on his definition of Susassti as part of a project he called "The madmen's library". I will contend that the so called "unintelligible" narrative, with which Banbaji tries to save Mendele from what he calls "Mevak'rei dor ha'me'dinah", actually strengthens the national context and importance of the piece, and indeed serves to create a complex national image, loyal to the historical, political and cultural understanding of Abramovitch. I will suggest that its fragmentary character, which resists in many ways to any direct "symbolic" meaning, in fact contributes to the very understanding of this piece as a "national" one.

Riki Traum-‐Avidan, Fairleigh Dickinson University, FDU, USA

Title: A Non-‐Jewish Jew: The Case of Yoram Kaniuk

Abstract: The works of Yoram Kaniuk (1930-‐2013) are interwoven with the Zionist ethos and the history of the State of Israel. His narratives are imbued with references to the national, political and religious failure of the state to live up to the dream of Kaniuk and his generation. This failure had reached its radical manifestation in 2011, two years before his death, when Kaniuk petitioned the Interior Ministry to change his stated religion from “Jewish” to “No Religion.” For Kaniuk, the Jewish question is trapped in and inseparable from the national question. This presentation traces Kaniuk’s gradual separation from his Jewish identity, as expressed in “The Last Jew” (1982) and his last novella “An Old Man” (2012). I explore these two seminal works and the different forms of disappointment they present, in addition to prominent metonymies of despair that comprise the two novels. Kaniuk’s final novella, “An Old Man” presents the art of painting as a form of reclamation that repositions Kaniuk on a different level of belonging, where religion and nationality have no meaning. I discuss the transformation from “The Last Jew” to “An Old Man” as one that captures the conversion from an absurd, disintegrated identity that struggles with historical, national and religious bonds, to an old, failed rootless being who redefines his existence by means of art. The art of painting becomes a metonym of rebirth and recreation and it concretizes Kaniuk’s declaration of having “No Religion.” I attempt to place Kaniuk in a literary tradition of Jewish thinkers and writers who adopt a radical ethical position of reflective individualism, which is explored in Judith Butler’s “Parting Ways.” This ethical position denies the right of any collective to monopolize national, religious, or sexual categories, and instead demands individual autonomy. In a way, Kaniuk’s works present radical ethics as a literary manifestation of this demand for personal autonomy.


Session: 003


14.00-‐15.30

From Exile to the Statehood Generation

Chair:

Adi Orian, The Hadassah College, Israel

Title: Jerusalem as a Symbolic Nation – national discourse in the 19th century as reflected in Byron's Hebrew Melodies and its translation

Abstract: A significant part in the hold translations possess is in the "immersion, so far as we may experience it, in another language being as close as we can come to a second self, to breaking free of the habitual skin or tortoise-‐shell of our consciousness." Indeed the translators into Hebrew in the 19th century channeled and encouraged the wish of the Jewish people to change and to heal the Jewish soul and condition, returning them to their former Biblically-‐inspired pride and glory, as they viewed it. The unique situation of Hebrew literature in the 19th century cannot go unnoticed. The translations and their influence in a period in which Jews had no land and no spoken language of their own, became the only source of

unity, replacing theological concerns with sociological and national ones. Hebrew literature in this period became the means for an internal immigration to a spiritual Jerusalem awakening the nationalistic Jewish spirit, which ultimately led to a physical, external immigration to the land of Israel and later even to statehood. Lord Byron's Hebrew Melodies (1815) encompasses everything the Jewish society of the day tended towards: it is Biblically-‐based; focused on Jewish themes and concerns; dealing with the issue of crime and punishment and the possibility of a realistic-‐ Edenic hope based in a metaphoric and eventually a physical Jerusalem. These concerns supported the Jewish dissatisfaction with the weak, faulty, exilic, Jewish condition, a view which was paradoxically also based on anti-‐Semitic models. In this period, translators became the modern prophets of the day conveying a sociological rather than a religious voice. Translation became the way to decolonize and liberate the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew language and through them the Hebrew people. Most of the melodies deal directly or otherwise with the themes of exile, suffering and a wish for a return to an Edenic state. Whether Byron wrote about physical exile (which he also experienced) or regarded it as a metaphor for a spiritual, emotional exile from one's soul and self, his Jewish readers found their then budding urgent desire for change in the Jewish spirit, society and condition in these poems. The translators to these poems emphasized greatly this approach to the point of transforming even the 'neutral' love poems (such as "She Walks in Beauty" as a prime example) into poems about exile and the Jewish relationship with God through His Shechina. Byron's work served as mediator between mythology and Jewish Biblical pride and the modern age causing Joseph Klausner, for instance, to declare that no other European poet has enriched the new Hebrew poetry as Byron. It may be equally added that, since Hebrew culture was a central source of inspiration for the Jewish people, that Jewish nationality and possibly nationhood also owe Byron a great debt. Several translations into Hebrew for this work will be presented comparatively, emphasizing the Jerusalem trope, in order to show the ideological source and force of translations in the building of a culture, a people and a nation.

Dina Berdichevsky, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Y.H. Brenner, Modernist Aesthetics, and the Exilic Genre

Abstract: In keeping with the conference's keynote theme "Jewish and Non-‐Jewish Cultures in Contact" I propose a paper that addresses the unique relationship between a European modernist aesthetics, which saw a diasporic existence as the ultimate state of being, and the Jewish historical chaotic experience on the eve of First World War. My lecture demonstrates how the Hebrew writer Y.H. Brenner approached this confluence of ideas through what I will describe as his exilic genre. Brenner's typical hero is an eternal wanderer, living in a continuous state of homelessness and constant transition between cities and continents, never reaching his destination. But this diasporic state is as true to Brenner's concept of literature as it is to his heroes. Brenner constantly represents the published text itself as the "other" who comes from afar. Furthermore, I argue that Brenner's generic style, namely a preference for the unfinished and fragmentary qualities of the text, as opposed to the idea of the complete work of art, advocates for the exile of literature. When literature is doomed to the everlasting wandering of the nomad, it can no longer provide the experience of home and becomes instead the vehicle for fundamental alterity.

Chen Strass, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Political Metonymies: Hierarchy and Representations of Space in Israeli Fiction

Abstract: One of the most utilized figurative devices in prose, and particularly in the representation of space, is Metonymy. According to one definition, metonymy is an expression of an abstract or metaphysical state by means of a tangible and concrete state, or a reduction of a higher order of being to a lower one.

For instance, a representation of a house, a factory or alternatively a natural landscape, is conditioned by a higher order of meaning – the human subject. Metonymy is therefore not a “neutral” figurative device merely based on contiguity, but it also serves a hierarchic structure: the metonymic representation of a given element (space) presupposes the existence of a higher human order, and stipulates instrumental subject/object relations. In this lecture I will discuss the ways in which this supposedly self-‐evident hierarchy, which characterizes most uses of the metonymic representation in modern literature, falls apart and is reversed in the fiction of Israeli author Yeshayahu Koren, a member of the “statehood generation” (a group of writers mostly born during the British Mandate, who published their first works in the years following Israel's independence). A primary characteristic of Koren’s prose is the construction of a space that deviates from representation schemes which are common in realistic literature and Israeli prose in particular. One expression of this deviation is the naturalization of socialized space (such as the representation of an army base and a desert factory as natural spaces). This rewriting of space dictates a representation scheme which undermines modern conceptions of human-‐space relations, as presupposed by the Zionist spatial ideology. In this context, I will discuss the ways in which Koren's usage of metonymic representation is a poetic expression of his deconstruction of humanistic hierarchies; this leads, among other things, to an equivalence of the human subject and space. Koren undermines the subject whose consciousness and identity stem from modernist-‐nationalist conceptions, and whose efforts, accordingly, are aimed at conquering space and subjugating it. I would like to argue that Koren proposes an alternative conception of space as fashioned by non-‐Jewish, Palestinian notions of space. In this way he offers an intertwining of two differing conceptions of space. Accordingly, I will examine the ways in which Koren’s deconstruction of the metonymic hierarchy reflects a problematization of ownership and power relations in the Israeli-‐Palestinian space.


Session: 004


16.00-‐17.00

Feeling of Strangeness

Chair:

Tamar Wolf-‐Monzon, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: The Boundaries of Attraction to an Other -‐ A Discussion of Ya’acov Orland’s Unpublished Poem “Hannale from Dorohoi”

Abstract: “Hannale from Dorohoi” is a lengthy poem written by the poet Ya’acov Orland in the mid-‐1940s. At the center of the poem’s plot, the greater part of which is still in manuscript form and has yet to be published, is the story of the abduction of Hannale, the baby daughter and only child of R. Mendel Melamed and his wife Gendel, by a band of gypsies who swooped down on the town of Dorohoi, Hannaleh’s life among the band of gypsies and the circumstances of her return to her family after many years of being cut off from it. However, the subplot raises various cultural and spiritual questions, such as the boundaries of the attraction to the gypsy other, fear of and aversion to the gypsy culture, especially on

the background of the charm exerted by its sensuality, and on the other hand – emotional affinity and a sense of shared fate between the Jews and gypsies on the background of World War II. The lecture will explore the place of the poem in the context of a broader poetical project, one that may be called the “project of the otherness” in Orland’s oeuvre, which also includes his dramatic works, both his original plays, as well as those that he translated into Hebrew. In these works, Orland undermined the accepted definitions of the concepts of belonging and otherness, filling them with new content, which emanated from his own complex inner world as a Jew and a product of cosmopolitan culture.

Smadar Shiffman, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: The Pain and Joy of Two Homelands

Abstract: This paper presents Lea Goldberg's dual attitude toward the issue of Europe as a homeland. Perhaps the most often quoted line by Goldberg is the line from her poem "Pine Tree": "This pain of two homelands". I wish to use Goldberg's most "Zionist" play, "Lady of the Castle", to show that being planted in two soils, having two homelands, is, in Goldberg's view, a source of richness and joy as well as of constant conflict and pain. This play, which seems to present the triumph of Zionism over the choice of diaspora, also foregrounds the lost riches of European culture. Even the staunchest believer in the Zionist solution, Dora, who claims to miss the heat and sweat of Israel, also fears the lure of her original, European homeland. I would like to show, using this play as well as a few of Goldberg's poems, that Europe is the core and origin of everything worth preserving and cherishing, even when Israel is associated with life and Europe with death. Israel, just like the new world established on European ruins, is here presented as shallow and even vulgar when compared with the depth and history of European culture. Eastern European Jewry, whose national concepts were based upon European ideas, cannot but be torn in two between the new, "healthy", Jew, working the land of Israel, and the old books, Hebrew or Christian, Talmudic or philosophic, which give meaning to life.

17.00-‐18.00

Women in Literature

Chair:

Yonit Naaman, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Shiksappeal – The Gentile Woman as the Jewish Playground

Abstract: A bastard, a witch, an ominous vampire, a magnificent object of lust, a perfect lady and a whore, are among the many designations ascribed to the non-‐Jewish female discussed in this work. The presence of the shiksa (derived from the Hebrew ,שקצה the most accurate translation of which is abomination), is pivotal in literary works written by male Jewish writers from the end of nineteenth century to the early decades of the twentieth century (marked as the Tchiya generation). This study aims to characterize this cultural-‐historical-‐religious encounter through an analysis of several short stories, by H.N Bialik, Isaac Leib Peretz, Jacob Steinberg, S.Y Agnon and Shalom Aleichem. These writers were all born in Eastern Europe, lived among Christians and provided us with fascinating portraits of non-‐Jewish females that reflect the spectrum of conventions and perceptions of the shiksa in Jewish society. The power relations between the Jewish male and the Christian female inevitably place the latter in a weaker position, subjected to male

scrutiny, objectified and sexually exploited. On the other hand, she also emblematizes the threat to the purity of the Jewish blood and signifies a fiat for complete segregation between the two faith communities. In the literary works discussed in this study, the shiksa plays a double role, embodying both an outlet for aggression as well as resistance to what is perceived as Christian oppression. Each of the stories in this study depicts a shiksa which reflects some of the prevalent conceptions pertaining to the points of intersection between Jewishness and masculinity on the one hand, and femininity and Christianity on the other. In the stories I examined, the shiksa falls under the category of the “other,” at times even placed in an animalistic sphere, which takes two marked and even contradictory directions: she is (1) subject to dehumanization and alienation; and (2) a signifier for the exalted and unattainable, perhaps in light of the failure of Jewish assimilation.

Helena Rimon, Ariel University of Samaria, Israel

Title: "Eshet Hayil" and the Woman that "Will Stop a Galloping Horse": Images of the Russian-‐speaking Female Immigrants in the Multilingual Israeli Literature

Abstract: In this presentation we suggest to apply the Post-‐Colonial approach in Women's Studies to the group of texts that has been investigated in this context: the Russian and the Hebrew prose writings depicting the Russian-‐speaking female immigrants in Israel. Delving into the writings of Daniel Dotan, Alona Kimchi, Miri Litvak, Marina Grosslender, Dina Rubina, Lina Gorodetzky, Elena Minkina, Sofia Ron-‐Moriah, Anna Fain shows that descriptions of the same historical situation in different languages bring out and preserve entirely different cultural stereotypes which can be traced to different cultural traditions. In Israeli works written in Hebrew, the Russian woman immigrant usually is depicted as a poor creature, an object of lust, a victim of alienation, as well as – often – a victim of sexual aggression, that is, a total object. On the contrary, the Russian Israeli women writers depict the Russian women immigrants – that is, themselves – as strong and active, endowed with charisma and authority. At issue in the two cases is one and the same social-‐cultural group, the same group which in Western feminist discourse of the 1970-‐80s would have been defined as doubly marginal, disclosed, and adapted for suffering: both as women and as immigrants. This is precisely how Russian women are represented in Israeli literature written in Hebrew. As for Israeli women’s literature composed in the Russian language, it carries on an entirely different tradition which took shape in 19th-‐century Russian culture. This is a tradition of portraying the strong woman, the heroine who, in the words of the poet Nikolai Nekrasov, “will not be timid in the face of disaster but will come to the rescue, will stop a galloping horse, will walk into a burning house.” The Russian Israeli women writings contaminate the Russian national myth with the Israeli reality. In the writings of the religious women immigrants, Sofia Ron-‐Moria (who writes in Hebrew) and Anna Fain (who writes in Russian), the two national traditions – the Russian and the Jewish ones – come as close as possible. The image of "Woman of Valor" "("Eshet Chayil") from the Proverbs (31) and the woman that "will stop a galloping horse" turn to be the same ideal for the female protagonists in their search for identity.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 01

Session: 001:

Medieval Jewish Philosophy

9.00-‐10.30

Under the Cross

Chair:

Julia Schwartzmann, Western Galilee College, Israel

Title: Medieval Jewish Philosophers on Women Prophets: Smooth Talk Instead of Confrontation

Abstract: Medieval Jewish philosophers' infamous misogyny had little to do with their own personal experiences; in fact, they inherited their low views of women from a millennia-‐old philosophical tradition. This stereotypic negative attitude made sense to them when they dealt with femininity as an abstract concept, but it became burdensome when positive female characters of the bible were at stake. To make matters worse, the bible seemed to deliberately challenge philosophical doctrines by claiming that three of its heroines (Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah) had risen to the exalted rank of the prophets. Jewish Medieval philosophy is famous for having developed a sophisticated theoretical discourse regarding prophecy. The central doctrine of this discourse holds that intellectual perfection is a necessary precondition for achieving prophecy. The presence of women prophets in the bible constituted an obvious and profound challenge to the Jewish philosophical world-‐view: how could women, with their inherently inferior intellects, achieve the intellectual perfection required of prophets? Both Maimonides and Gersonides must have been aware of this paradox, but neither addressed it. Instead, they praised these women prophets without explaining how their achievements could be possible in philosophical terms. Our disappointment with this philosophical lacuna may be partially soothed by Isaac Abravanel's surprising change of heart. Abravanel has been known as a women-‐hater as well as a sharp critic of Maimonides' prophetology. However, the biblical Deborah inspired him to temporarily abandon both his misogyny and anti-‐rationalism in order to praise her exceptional intellectual and political qualities.

Renate Smithuis, University of Manchester, UK

Title: The Sermon as a Conduit for Philosophy: Jacob Anatoli's Goad for Students (Malmad ha-‐talmidim)

Abstract: Jacob Anatoli (c. 1194-‐1256) appears to be a relatively underexposed thinker of the intellectually turbulent period of the thirteenth century. Yet he played a substantial role in the Maimonidean controversy. Originally a student of Samuel ibn Tibbon in the Provence, he was invited to the illustrious court of Frederick II in Sicily, where he joined the company of a fellow admirer of the Guide for the Perplexed, Michael Scot (c. 1175-‐1232). Anatoli’s lasting fame rests on his collection of philosophical sermons, known as the Goad for Students (Malmad ha-‐talmidim). Israel Bettan’s verdict that “(...) Anatoli will always rank high, not for his contributions to philosophy, if such there be in his work, but for his homiletical powers and the significant role he played as a preacher (...)” (HUCA 9 [1936] 393-‐4) does not

seem to have been challenged fundamentally. Thus Martin Gordon in The Rationalism of Jacob Anatoli, having observed the “subtle inconsistencies in his argumentation,” ultimately characterized him as “typical of the mainstream Maimonideans” (1974: 374-‐6). Anatoli’s endeavour to popularize Maimonides’ philosophy via the pulpit brought him into conflict with synagogue goers and rabbis alike. This is perhaps unsurprising due to the traditional ban on offering philosophical insights to the uneducated. In this paper I will concentrate on the question of the purpose of Anatoli’s sermons, both as spoken and as written down in the Malmad ha-‐talmidim. Who were his most likely target audience and how did he try to reach it?

Jana Horáková, University of Ostrava, Czech Republic

Title: Meir ben Todros Ha-‐Levi Abulafia’s letters to scholars of Lunel

Abstract: This paper in general deals with problem of philosophy within Judaism. In particular case of Spain scholar Meir ben Todros Ha-‐Levi Abulafia shows possible discrepancies which philosophy can brings, when interprets religious teaching. Meir, more precisely his letters to scholars of Lunel, was the cause for rise of so-‐called Maimonidean controversies, the main dispute over philosophy and rationalism in the Middle Ages. In his letters Meir inquires question of resurrection of the dead and interprets this question in term of traditional Judaism. He is concern mainly about influence and impact of this conception on “common believers”, hence he argues against philosophical interpretation of resurrection which ejects the bodily resurrection. Meir is convinced that interpretation of resurrection if pure spiritual terms and denial of bodily resurrection is dangerous not only for belief of believers who are not educated in philosophy, but even for this religious doctrine itself. Because of this we can read his letters and subsequent reactions as an expression of dispute between two different traditions which challenge each other, and ultimately as an expression of dispute between two different identities.


Session 002:

Abraham ibn Ezra: Thought and Exegesis

11.00-‐13.00

Chair:

Ayelet Seidler, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: Biblical Psalms in the Light of Medieval Spanish Poetry – The Case of Avraham Ibn Ezra

Abstract: Arabic poetry has influenced and shaped the poetry of medieval Spanish Jewry. In this respect, Biblical poetry in general and the Psalms in particular challenged the Jewish poets of Spain. As the Psalms did not correlate with the laws of writing poetry as formulated by both Arab and Jewish poets, Spanish Jewish poets were pressed hard to mediate between the two poetic traditions. It is often claimed that poets of Spanish Jewry accepted the literary shortcomings of biblical poetry and argued that the virtue of the Hebrew hymns lay in there meaning (substance). Some studies claim that the prominent medieval poet and commentator Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra (ca.1089 -‐ 1164) was part of this approach. In my lecture I would

like to demonstrate that, contrary to this opinion, in his commentary on Psalms, Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra identified many different literary means and extensively referred to their usage. Ibn Ezra uses the code words "versus" ("keneged") and "contrary" ("hefech") to point to linguistic affinities that in his eyes bear literary value. I will compare the literary methods used by Ibn Ezra to those used in medieval Spanish poetry. I will argue that Ibn Ezra's exposure of these methods, especially in his commentary on Psalms, expresses his intent to stress the literary virtue of this ancient Hebrew poetry. In some cases it even appears that his attempts at defining and identifying literary methods in the Psalms anticipate the findings of modern literary research.

Mariano Gomez-‐Aranda, CSIC, Madrid, Spain

Title: Abraham ibn Ezra’s Commentary on Isaiah in the Context of Judeo-‐Christian Controversies

Abstract: In the history of Jewish exegesis, many chapters of the book of Isaiah were interpreted either as referred to events that had already passed in biblical times, such as the consolations from the threat of the Assyrians that took place at Hezekiah’s time, or to future events, such as the consolations for the future Messianic time. Abraham ibn Ezra (1089-‐1165) collects several of the Jewish interpretations in his commentary on Isaiah. In my paper I intend to prove that Ibn Ezra’s interpretations on the book of Isaiah must be understood in the context of Judeo-‐Christian controversies in which this book was used to prove that it refers either to Messianic times or to historical events that have already passed in biblical times.

Howard (Haim) Kreisel, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Some Comments on the Earliest Supercommentaries on Abraham Ibn Ezra's Torah Commentary

Abstract: The paper will briefly summarize the state of research regarding the earliest supercommentaries on the Torah Commentary by Ibn Ezra based on my project (now in an advanced stage) to publish five of these supercommentaries, written in the second half of the thirteenth century and the first half of the fourteenth -‐ those by Elazar ben Mattiyah, Joseph Kaspi, Moshe Nagari, Ibn Yaish, and the author of Avvat Nephesh (two of them written in Provence, one in Italy, one in Byzantium and one in Spain). The paper will focus on the purpose of these commentaries, their salient characteristics, and the use the commentators made of Maimonides Guide of the Perplexed and Hebrew translations of Averroes' commentaries. Special attention will be paid to the commentary Avvat Nephesh.

Chaim (Harold R.) Cohen, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Abraham ibn Ezra's Commentary on the Book of Genesis and Modern Biblical Hebrew Philology

Abstract: The present lecture attempts to demonstrate the most significant contribution made by the medieval commentator R. Abraham ibn Ezra to modern Biblical Hebrew philology by detailing some of his most innovative philological comments with respect to several specific textual problems in the Book of Genesis. In many cases, Ibn Ezra was the only medieval commentator who contributed philologically towards the solution of these specific textual problems, and overall, his philological contribution was surely the most significant of any commentator of the medieval period. When Ibn Ezra’s philological interpretation is in need of further evidence, modern Biblical Hebrew philology itself may often be used to provide the missing evidence (especially from ancient Near Eastern sources which of course were unavailable to Ibn Ezra). The following five cases from Ibn Ezra’s commentary to Genesis will be discussed in detail:

1. Gen 4:10 קול) “hark!”); 2. Gen 4:13 עוני) “my punishment”); 3. Gen 14:10 ( שמה ויפלו “they threw themselves down therein”); 4. Gen 37:2 נער) “assistant, trainee, servant”); 5. Gen 49:11 סותה) “his garment”). For example, Gen 4:10 reads as follows: ֹאמֶר ַּי ִיָך ּדְמֵי קֹול יתָ עָׂשִ מֶה ו ִים ָאח ֲֹעק דָמָה מִן אֵלַי צ הָאֲ : “Then he said, ‘What have you done? !קֹול The blood of your brother cries out to Me from the ground’.” Since the plural verb ִים ֲֹעק צ “cries out” requires a plural subject, namely ִיָך ּדְמֵי ָאח “the blood of (pl.) your brother”, the term קֹול cannot be the regular noun meaning “voice” here understood as a singular construct form. Ibn Ezra comments here as follows: ִים ֲֹעק אֵלַי צ cannot be connected to .קֹול A similar case is Cant 2:8:

ִים עַל מְדַּלֵג ּבָא זֶה ההִּנֵ ּדֹודִי קֹול ֶָהר קֹול: ‘! הַּגְבָעֹות עַל מְקַּפֵץ ה My beloved! Here he comes, leaping over mountains, bounding over hills’. [The verb ּבָא ‘comes’] refers to ּדֹודִי ‘My beloved’ [not to [קֹול as I have commented in my Canticles commentary. The meaning [of Gen 4:10] is that [God] heard the crying out of his [brother’s] blood that had been spilt out on the ground.” Thus in these two passages, קֹול should be understood as an interjection “hark!”, which is syntactically independent of both subject and verb. Other passages in which קֹול must be so interpreted for similar grammatical or semantic reasons are Isa 52:8; Jer 10:22; Cant 5:2. Etymologically, this interjection is best derived from the Akkadian verb qâlu “to pay attention, listen” (as first suggested to me by the late Prof. Avigdor Hurowitz ל"ז ).


Session 003:

Jewish Philosophy

14.00-‐15.30

Medieval and Modern Jewish Philosophy in Contact

Chair: Alessandro Guetta

Michela Torbidoni, Martin Luther Universität, Halle Saale, Germany

Title: The Usage of Classical Sources in Simone Luzzatto’s "Socrate"

Abstract: Simone Luzzatto’s philosophical work "Socrate overo dell’humano sapere" (1651) has been somehow neglected by recent and past researchers. This paper intends to enlighten the usage of classical sources, focusing more attentively on the many quotes from Lucretius’ poem "De rerum natura" and on the issue of Greek atomism. While presenting this classical issue, reintroduced in the XVII century intellectual debate by Pierre Gassendi, special attention will be paid to the possible connections with Luzzatto’s penchant towards Skepticism. Luzzatto uses these classical sources in order to support his philosophical argumentation, revealing the aspects of skepticism he shared and borrowed from that philosophical tradition. Inquiring the way the Venetian Rabbi deals with skeptical main themes is both useful and interesting in order to investigate Luzzatto’s evaluation of religious controversies and his role in the intellectual fights against pseudo-‐sciences, as well as in the antagonism between Aristotelian knowledge and “new philosophy”, which represented the main topics debated by skeptics during 16th-‐17th centuries.

Cristiana Facchini, University of Bologna, Italy

Title: Early Modern Jewish Responses to Blood Libel Allegations. Patterns and Models

Abstract: My paper aims to offer some new insights to the problem of blood libel in Europe, focusing on Jewish responses from the 17th century to the 19th century, claiming that these defenses provided a multi-‐layered model for defenses against other accusations as well, which comprises historical modes of thought and legal practices.

Moises Orfali, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: Les différents emplois de la Logique parmi les auteurs judeo-‐espagnols médiévaux

Abstract: A partir de conceptions communes parmi les auteurs judéo-‐espagnols médiévaux concernant l'essence et l'efficience de la logique aristotélienne, sont apparues diverses tendances ayant permis a ces auteurs un emploi soutenu de la logique. Je voudrais durant cette intervention traiter de ces tendances. Il sera donc question par exemple des exégètes rabbiniques qui utilisèrent la logique; des grammairiennes à fin d’établir leurs règles grammaticales; des polémistes qui eurent recours à la logique afin de mettre en forme leur argumentaire; des scientifiques – principalement des médecins – qui employèrent des textes de logique du fait de l’expansion de cette discipline en monde scolastique parmi les juifs afin, d'exercer la médicine. Des médecins juifs de la péninsule soulignèrent la nécessité d'étudier la méthode scolastique fondée sur la quaestio et la disputatio et le recours au raisonnement dialectique pour garantir nécessairement des conclusions vrai. Bien plus, pour obtenir leur licence, ces médecins, en Provance et en Aragon, devait passer un examen devant un jury mixte juif et chrétien, qui sélectionnait généralement les candidats au moyen du rituel scolastique de questiones et responsiones, disputationes, rationes et argumentationes. En plus d'attester l'acculturation des candidats juifs, cet examen leur garantissait la reconnaissance professionnelle de la part des autorités chrétiennes.


Session 004:

Jewish Philosophy

16.00-‐18.00

Panel: Jewish Thought in Vernacular Language in the Early Modern Period

Organizers: Giuseppe Veltri and Alessandro Guetta

Chair:

Giuseppe Veltri, University of Halle, Germany

Title: The language of Skepticism in Luzzatto's Socrates

Abstract: How stupid human intelligence can be, when it is not led by divine revelation is the declared subject of the “serious-‐playful exercise” of Simone Luzzatto, Venetian Jew”, titled “Socrates or on human

knowledge.” It is much more, a little encyclopedia of modern thought nourished by the arsenal of skeptical treatises, books and essays flourished above all in his time. The lecture focuses on the language of skepticism in the Socrates and the main ideas he was dealing with.

Alessandro Guetta, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris, France

Title: Italian Translation of Philosophical and Ethical Jewish Literature in the Early Modern Period

Abstract: The translations of Hebrew Literature into Italian in the Late Renaissance are less known than the parallel phenomenon in Castilian and Yiddish, in spite of their quality and abundance. I will describe the translations of philosophical and ethical Jewish works, asking the question of the potential public of these texts: Jews not enough familiar with Hebrew? Christians, in order to show the treasures of Jewish wisdom? Both Jews and Christians, in a cultural enterprise implying the attempts to connect between two intellectual and linguistic worlds?

Sina Rauschenbach, University of Potsdam, Germany

Title: On Free Choice of the Will – Christian Controversy and Sephardic Translation in the Early Modern Dutch World

Abstract: Early Modern Amsterdam was a prominent place for Sephardic publications "On free choice of the will" – "Del livre alvedrio". Not only Menasseh ben Israel, but also Abraham Pereyra, Daniel Levi de Barrios (Miguel de Barrios) and others devoted books, book chapters, poems or theater plays to such or similar discussions. Their interest, however, was mainly inspired by heated controversies about Original Sin, Divine grace, and human destination in Dutch Calvinist circles or in the Spanish world of the Catholic Reform. In my paper I make use of those controversies to analyse cross cultural adaptions of early modern theological thought as well as strategies of translation from Christian texts into their Sephardic, Spanish counterparts.

Asher Salah, Bezalel Academy of Arts, Israel

Title: Imaginary Libraries of Italian Maskilim

Abstract: The concept of “library awareness” has been elaborated by Avriel Bar Levav to express the gap existing between the books that were physically available to an author and those that were only mentioned in a specific text. The relationship between the imaginary libraries and the real ones changes over the course of time, depending on different local contexts and varying considerably from author to author. While most of the works dedicated to the reading habits of the Jews rely on what is known about their libraries, through books inventories, inquisitorial lists, private catalogues, much remains to be done concerning the textual references that appear in the works by Jewish authors. What is at stake in the reconstruction of the imaginary libraries of the Jews, through the overall analysis of the quotations and the sources used in their works, is not only our understanding of the intertextuality strategies enacted by the Jews in different cultural and historical contexts, but first and foremost our knowledge of their intellectual horizons and their interaction with surrounding societies. The interest of such a demarche is particularly high for the early modern and the Haskalah, when the traditional medieval literary canons were increasingly under attack, when the number of acceptable “auctoritates” exponentially expanded and when new techniques of standardized textual references made their appearance. My lecture is focused on the readership of gentile sources through the works of four main figures of Italian Haskalah Marco Navarra,

Lettere Orientali, Venezia, 1771, Elia Morpurgo, Discorso, Gorizia, 1782, Benedetto Frizzi, Difesa contro gli attacchi fatti alla nazione ebrea, Pavia, 1784, Samuel Romanelli, Masa Be-‐Arav, Berlin, 1792 raising the following questions: in which contexts, how and why Christian authors were quoted by Italian Jews? In order to confront these questions it is necessary to preliminarily establish a phenomenology of quotation that distinguishes first hand from second hand readings, forbidden from permitted references, citations in the original language from those in translation, trying to identify hidden and explicit sources and to quantify all the extra-‐textual evidence provided in a single work.

Keynote Lectures

18.30-‐19.30: Geoffrey Khan & Ben Outhwaite, The Reception of Biblical Hebrew in the Middle Ages

19.30-‐20.30: Anthony T. Grafton & Joanna Weinberg, Compilation and Observation in Johann Buxtorf's Synagogue of the Jews

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 02

Session: 001:

Panel: The Cairo Geniza

Organizers: Sarah Fargeon, Wissem Gueddich and Ben Outhwaite

9.00-‐10.30

Contacts in Practice: Law in the Genizah Society

Chair: Sarah Fargeon & Wissem Gueddich

Philip Ackerman-‐Lieberman, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Title: Are Jewish Court Decisions Bounded by Those of Muslim Courts?

Abstract: The judicial environment in Egypt during the Fatimid period gave Jewish merchants the option of forum-‐shopping—choosing their legal venue based on the expected outcome. Well-‐aware of the opportunities their constituents had for forum-‐shopping, Jewish courts were careful not to make rulings which would be reversed on “appeal” to a Muslim court. This care took at least two forms: (i) relying on techniques of mediation, which required agreement of all parties concerned, rather than arbitration, which required the court to make a determination which may or may not have been accepted by the litigants; and (ii) allowing for outcomes in the Jewish court which ran counter to codified Jewish law in order to approximate the expected “competitive” ruling in the Islamic court. These strategies were successful in insuring that Jews often made recourse to the Jewish court. Yet are the rulings of the Jewish court “bounded” by the competitive rulings their litigants could expect to receive in Muslim courts? If not, just how far were Jewish courts willing to stray from Jewish law? What, if anything, shaped the boundaries of Jewish law in practice?

Amir Ashur, Ben Gurion University, Israel

Title: Protecting the Wife: Stipulations in Jewish Marriage Documents from the Cairo Geniza and Parallel Arabic Sources and their Social Background

Abstract: In this paper I will analyze some stipulations commonly found in Jewish Marriage documents from the Cairo Geniza and in parallel Arabic sources. I will concentrate on the 'residence' stipulation that is: choosing the Place of Residence; travel restrictions and stipulations regarding the freedom of movement of the husband and stipulations aimed at supporting the wife financially during her husband's absence. I will try to suggest that these stipulations are found in both societies -‐ Jewish and Muslim -‐ due to their common social background.

Gregor Schwarb, Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate World, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

Title: Jewish adaptations of Islamic Legal Hermeneutics (uṣūl al-‐fiqh)

Abstract: The paper consists of two parts: 1) Uṣūl al-‐fiqh compositions by Muslim authors i) preserved in Jewish Genizah collections, ii) recorded in Jewish book&library inventories and/or iii) cited in works by Jewish authors: Historical and doctrinal contexts. 2) Two case studies: a) The reception of ʿAbd al-‐Jabbār b. Aḥmad al-‐Hamadhānī's (d. 415/1025) K. al-‐ʿUmad fī uṣūl al-‐fiqh in Yeshuʿah ben Yehudah's K. al-‐Tawriya; b) K. al-‐Mulakhkhaṣ fī uṣūl al-‐fiqh: an anonymous Jewish adaptation of Fakhr al-‐Dīn al-‐Rāzī’s (d. 606/1210) K. al-‐Maʿālim fī uṣūl al-‐fiqh. I shall conclude with a brief reflection on the "guiding thread" of the Genizah panel: To what extent do the documents/texts mentioned in my paper "reflect society as a whole" and to what extent is it sensible to ask such a question’.


Session 002:



11.00-‐13.00

Challenging the Notion of Contact between Jews and non-‐Jews

Chair: Norman Stillman

Elinoar Bareket, Achva Academic College, Israel

Title: Nuances in Social Involvement among Jewish and Muslim Societies according to Genizah Documents

Abstract: Pluralism and Heterogeneity were embedded in Muslim society since its beginning. A variety of Muslim ethnical groups lived side by side alongside Jewish groups. The Jews were not the only religious minority in Islamic territories. Islamic social discrimination was aimed toward the Dhimmis in general rather than Jews in particular. We can conclude from this that the low social status of the Jews did not usually affect them badly. The Muslim society relied on informal connections of loyalty and identification. The Jews in the Muslim world also adopted, on their side, an appeasing attitude towards Islam, especially due to its being a religion dedicated to an immaculate God. This tolerant perception of Islam by the Jews also reflected the respectful attitude of the Muslim society towards the Jewish "People of the Book". All these aspects resulted in a wide interaction between the two societies in economic and social matters, an interaction that blurred the lines between Jewish and Muslim. Many Genizah documents testify on wide Jewish involvement among Muslim society and the other way around. This blurring of lines is especially evident during the Fatimid period, but even during the Ayubids days, despite of the attitude being hardened, it is still difficult to identify in certain documented cases, who is a Muslim and who is a Jew.

Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: Contact with non-‐Jews in the India Book Documents

Abstract: An examination of data from the India Book on the circle of traders, Jews and trusted non-‐Jews. Information in documents significant for study of general, non-‐Jewish culture.

Stefan Reif, St John's College Cambridge, UK

Title: Attitudes to non-‐Jews reflected in Liturgical Texts from the Genizah and from other Manuscript Codices

Abstract: Was there a systematic approach to non-‐Jews in the medieval texts of Jewish liturgy? Or did composers of the prayers respond to political, religious and historical circumstances? Some Genizah texts will be closely examined in order to ascertain the degree to which these questions can be clarified by the historian and the extent to which such texts differ from other evidence.

Sylvie Denise García de la Calle, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, Granada University, Spain

Title: Christianity and Judaism in the Life of Obadiah, the Norman Proselyte, through the Prophecy of Joel

Abstract: In the Cairo Genizah there were manuscripts with Gregorian notation and Hebrew script. There also appeared documents that point to author of the scores at Giovanni-‐Obadiah, a twelfth century Christian monk, born in southern Italy, who converted to Judaism. Until now, the study of this personage has been realized almost exclusively from the Jewish point of view. Nevertheless, like Obadiah synthesizes the traditions Christian and Jewish in its notation when copying Hebrew melodies with Christian notation, also it does in his texts. Obadiah transcribed a Latin appointment of Joel to Hebrew characters. I pretend to oppose his conversion to Judaism with his ordination as a Christian monk through the prophecy of Joel, which implies an intense dialogue between the two traditions.


Session 003:



14.00-‐15.30

New Perspectives on an Old Problem: Transmitting, Editing and Identifying Genizah Texts

Chair: Mordechai A. Friedman

Rebecca Sebbagh, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-‐Universität Frankfurt, Germany

Title: Reworked She’iltot in the Cairo Genizah

Abstract: The textual transmission of the She’iltot of Rav Aḥa of Shabḥa shows that this literature was open to alterations for a long time. Israel Ta-‐Shma stated in his paper „The ‘Open’ Book in Medieval Hebrew Literature: The Problem of Authorized Editions”, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 75, 3 (1993), p. 18, that the She’iltot were by their very nature prone to the assimilation of additional halakhic material of a similar kind and to an ongoing process of editing. This editing process was often limited to only the addition or the erasing of – mainly halakhic -‐ textual blocks while the structure of the she’ilta was retained. In a few cases the texts were rewritten and reworked completely, including structural changes. Among the more than hundred fragments containing She’iltot texts from the Cairo Genizah, there are some texts which show a complete revision of the text and its structure. The examination of these reworked texts shows that the editors were mainly interested in certain parts of the text and completely ignored other parts. An analysis of their choices may help to understand how the She’iltot were read and received during the Middle Ages. In my presentation I wish to present an example of an altered and reworked she’ilta which was transmitted in the Cairo Genizah. The comparison of the reworked text with the standard (printed) text of the she’ilta will demonstrate how the functions of the structural parts of the she’ilta formular were changed by the editors and how they adapted the different parts into a new context. The presentation is based on one of the main chapters of my doctoral thesis which contains editions and analyses of the Genizah fragments of the She’iltot, to be presented at the Goethe-‐University, Frankfurt/Main, in 2015.

Moshe Lavee, The University of Haifa, Israel

Title: Geo-‐cultural Insights based on Applying Computational Tools in the Study of Midrash Fragments

Abstract: Recent advancements of computational tools enable us to apply edit distance and network research methodologies to the study of Midrashic texts in Genizah fragments. In this lecture I will present the outcomes of an examination of the texts of Leviticus Rabbah, that strengthen our understanding of the strong connection between early eastern rabbinic traditions persevered in the Genizah and the tradition documented in the cultural heritage of North West European communities. It is suggested that the use of this advanced technologies should not only be taken as a philological aid, aimed at establishing a stemma of the Midrash and reconstructing its most possible authentic version; they should also be considered as contributing to the understanding of historical process of cultural (and human?) immigration, probably at the turn of the millennium. The "European connection" of early genziah midrashic traditions is also evident when considering network research methodologies for the study of rabbinic enumerations, and when examined specific case studies that were recently found in unnoticed midrashic fragments. Both reveal strong examples for Genizah midrashic traditions (in lost works and in Judeo-‐Arabic adaptations!) that only has parallels and equivalent sources in European anthologies and scholastic deliberations.

Ariel Neri, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Towards Identification Methodology of Genizah Manuscripts

Abstract: During the late Geonic period, commentaries appeared in Judeo-‐Arabic on halakhic topics concerning formal and informal duties of the judges. This genre of monographs deals not only with court procedures but rather also with the jurisprudential proper behavior, or, the ethical code of Beit Din. In my research I challenge the attribution of relevant Genizah fragments made by prominent modern scholars and contend that the inaccuracy of their conclusions stems from inadequate standards and lack of clear-‐cut criteria in modern research. I analyze the aforementioned fragments in light of a methodological

framework which has been developed for this purpose, but which can be applied to the comparative study of Medieval Judeo-‐Arabic halakhic literature written in Muslim environments in general. It is far from my intention to claim that this study has made it possible to attribute henceforth every single fragment to a specific author or commentary, or even to identify it as belonging to the genre of "Judges’ Duties", which itself is not yet very well defined. Rather, it points to a need for a fundamental inquiry and puts forward a number of guidelines upon which such an inquiry should be based. Yet, through this methodological paradigm I have endeavored to identify several fragments which belong either to known or anonymous books from the late geonic period. The text which I would like to present and discuss through my lecture includes the end of the monograph א'אלקָצ אדב כתאב of rav Hai Ibn Shrira gaon. The Genizah contribution in the current case is clear as it enables the identification of four pages of Oxford manuscript (Ox. Bodl. Ms. Marsh Or. 509 (cat. Neub. 581.2) as a single copy in the world of this book which survived unfortunately solely in a very partial manner. This fascinating identification is confirmed furthermore by additional quotations from the Rishonim literature, including the text of Rav Hai Gaon in translation into medival Hebrew, mainly through the writings of Rabbi Yehuda Albarzeloni The contribution of the present work to this field of knowledge far exceeds the analysis of the texts under discussion, in that the theoretical model proposed in it has ramifications for future research. The identificatory system has crucial contribution to our understanding of the diverse scientific methodologies and perspectives of the geonic period research. As a result, the comprehension of the establishment of the Halakha and its development in general benefit as well from the extension and deepening of the medieval literacy outlines.


Session 004:



16.00-‐18.00

Widening the Boundaries of Genizah Research: the Cairo Collection and Genizot

Chair: Ben Outhwaite

Ronny Vollandt, Free University of Berlin, Germany

Title: On the Jewish Fragments of the Genizah of the Umayyad Mosque, Damascus

Abstract: On his visit to the Holy Land, Kaiser Wilhelm II was shown the qubba al-‐khazna, the Treasure Dome, of the Umayyad Mosque at Damascus and told of manuscripts it contained, shrouded in mystery and venerated by the locals to that time. By diplomatic means he negotiated with the Sublime Port that the dome should be opened and a German scholar be dispatched to sift through the material. Bruno Violet was chosen for that purpose. He spent about a year in Damascus and separated from the large bulk of fragments all texts of a non-‐muslim Muslim provenance. His selection, consisting mainly Jewish and Christian texts, was sent to Berlin in order to be photographed and supposedly got lost on the way back. For a long time it was believed that also the photographs got lost during the war, but luckily resurfaced

again at the Staatsbibliothek a couple of years ago. They are kept today in two folders, Or. Sim. 5 and 6, The former contain a Syriac translation of Theodore of Mopsuestia’s commentary on Qoheleth and the latter texts in contains various Semitic languages, Arabic (biblical and scientific texts), Syriac, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Hebrew, Samaritan (Bible), but also Coptic (Bible), Latin and Old French (a chanson de geste). In my contribution I will present the history of the collection. In particular, I will focus on the fragments in Hebrew script, including also Judaeo-‐Arabic texts, and their place in the study of Hebrew manuscripts.

Efraim Lev, University of Haifa, Israel

Title: ‘Exporting’ Genizah Studies beyond the Realm of Jewish Studies -‐ the Case of History of Medicine

Abstract: Identifying and studying Genizah manuscripts creates a window into the practical and theoretical medicine and pharmacology of the Jewish community. The resulting synthesis forms a unique reflection of the wider "Mediterranean Society" and the Arab world of the time. Given the strong multidisciplinary nature of the field, a decade ago we created a research team aiming to better understand practical medicine and pharmacology in the Mediterranean society. The initial main projects were: A. The reconstruction of the medieval inventory of the practical materia medica of the Genizah community (shedding new light on other issues such as theory vs. practice, linguistics and the commercial aspects); B. Study of original medieval prescriptions and list of drugs from the Cairo Genizah; C. Study of medical notebooks, new genre of medical writing, presenting the way in which medical knowledge was recorded, accumulated and transferred by Jewish practitioners. The results of these projects were published in more than a dozen articles in a wide variety of journals and in two books; they were was also presented in many scientific conferences and in various prestigious institutes around the world. At present, there are two more projects in progress (Prosopography of Medieval Jewish Practitioners in Islamic Lands, and Reconstruction of the Medical Library of the Jewish Practitioners), under the new “Interdisciplinary Centre for the Broader Application of Genizah Research”, that was established at the University of Haifa.

Micha J. Perry, University of Haifa, Israel

Title: 11th Century Hebrew, Arabic and Latin Letter Formularies from around the Mediterranean

Abstract: In this paper I wish to compare six Hebrew letters–all originating from Europe, but found in the Cairo Genizah–for their material; uses; style; structure; and word framing, in order to examine cultural exchange around the Mediterranean basin in the 11th century. This comparison will be accompanied by another comparison, to the art of letter writing among Christians (Ars Dictaminis) and Muslims (Inshâ?) – going back to its Classical roots – and to the practice of scribes to use Formularies. It will eventually lead to a new understanding of the mechanics behind the rise of Hebrew as a shared, unified, lingua franca among Jews in the medieval world.

Edna Engel, The Hebrew Palaeography Project, Israel

Title: The "Afgan Geniza" and the Cairo Geniza Documents: a Comparative Study of Diplomatic Characteristics

Abstract: Discovered in caves in the Smangan region of north Afganistan, the Afgan Genizah includes fragments dated to the 11th century, carrying texts in Judeo-‐Persian or Persian in Arabic letters. Among those is founde a lot of documentary material including commercial documents; personal and commercial correspondence. Its importance lies in enriching our knowledge of medieval Jewery in Afganistan. As such,

the comparison of diplomatic characteristics of the documents with those of contemporary Cairo Geniza documents may contribute to the research of Judeo-‐Persian culture, concerning its affinity with Mediterranean Jewish culture as well. In this presentation, I will discuss the Hebrew script of the Afgan documents, juxtaposing it with the script of the Jewish-‐Persian manuscripts in the Cairo Geniza on the one hand, and with stone inscriptions of the same region, on the other. I will also analize the codicology of the Afgan documents according to codicological parameters (such as layout of the text and folds) of the Cairo Geniza documents.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 03

Session: 001:

Medieval Hebrew Poetry

9.00-‐10.30

Studies in Medieval Hebrew Poetry in Memoriam Professor Ezra Fleischer

Chair: Tova Beeri

Yosef Tobi, University of Haifa, Israel

Title: Rav Sa'adia Gaon's Verse in the Scholarly Work of Professor Ezra Fleischer

Abstract: It may be unknown, but my research on Rav Saadia Gaon as a poet had been initiated by the late Prof. Ezra Fleischer, by choosing this subject for me, as his first doctoral student in 1975. Moreover, he provided me with a detailed and well thought-‐out program for the research. By that, I believe, he expressed his conception about Saadia the poet as an intermediary link in the long chain of Hebrew poetry, from the Eastern paytanic school to Spain. This was explicitly shown in his seminal paper about Saadia’s place in the history of the Hebrew poetry. It should be admitted that Prof. Fleischer published only a few studies whose main subject was Saadia’s verse. However, a quick glance at the entry Saadia in the indices of both magnificent collections of his articles made by Prof. Shulamit Elitzur and Prof. Tova Beeri will easily prove that Saadia’s verse was an important and frequent referential material in his research. The paper is intended, then, to sum up Prof. Fleischer’s conception in regard to Saadia’s verse as a mark stone in the history of medieval Hebrew poetry.

Elisabeth Hollender, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

Title: Italian and Ashkenazic Ofanim: Forms and Content Models

Abstract: The study of poetic forms and their development was one of the important fields of Prof. Ezra Fleischer's work. Among the genres he studied in depth were all parts of the Yotser composition. Focusing on the early development of the genre, he also analyzed the later developments of the forms in Sepharad, Italy, and Ashkenaz. The paper will investigate the medieval developments of one part of the Yotser composition for which the European authors had only a limited selection of classical models: Ofanim. Medieval Italian and Ashkenazic authors composed many Ofanim, developing models for form and contents that expressed their high regard for this liturgical position. Based on the selection of Ofanim for (special) shabbatot transmitted in medieval Ashkenazic liturgical manuscripts, preferences for the different poetic forms and the content models will be traced, showing the interdependences between payyetanim from different times and different places within the Italo-‐Ashkenazic school of liturgical poetry.

Avi Shmidman, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: Identifying Joins of Cairo Genizah Fragments: Traditional Methods versus Artificial Intelligence (A Tribute to Ezra Fleischer)

Abstract: One of Prof. Fleischer’s primary research accomplishments was the foundation of the Institute for the Research of Hebrew Poetry in the Genizah and the comprehensive cataloging of Cairo Genizah fragments containing piyyut material. Although the Institute itself does not pursue the identification of fragment joins per se, the raw data that it provides forms a basis from which scholars can quickly and efficiently identify relevant joins. In contrast, a completely different approach is suggested by Nachum Dershowitz and Leor Wolf, two computer science researchers from Tel Aviv University who have devised a method to identify Cairo Genizah joins by the use of artificial intelligence. In this lecture I shall compare and contrast these two approaches towards the identification of Genizah joins. My comparison of the two methods will demonstrate, on the one hand, that in a number of cases the mechanism provided by Dershowitz and Wolf succeeds in identifying joins that would have been impossible to identify using the Institute’s data alone. On the other hand, however, I will demonstrate that in many additional cases, it is only by appealing to the databases of the Institute that we are able to identify the relevant joins. Thus, far from being obsoleted by the new technology, Fleischer’s uniquely comprehensive database continues to remain essential in the field.


Session 002:


11.00-‐13.00

Medieval Hebrew Poetry, Parody, and Parable in Provence

Chair: Tova Rosen

Uriah Kfir, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: The Construction of Space in Isaac HaGorni's Poetry

Abstract: The thirteenth century Hebrew poet Isaac HaGorni is considered to be the most gifted Hebrew poet of Medieval Provence. This lecture is based on my forthcoming critical edition of his poetry and the poems he received from his counterparts in Provence. Not much is known about HaGorni. He himself stated that he wrote hundreds of poems; however, only 19 have been preserved in manuscripts. These poems tell of his travels between the cities of Provence and his encounters – for the good or more often for the bad – with Provençal Jewish communities and fellow poets. Wandering, landscape and space are major themes in the poetry of this roaming poet. However I will show that these themes are not used solely as a window onto HaGorni's life; rather they are also poetic constructions in which HaGorni carefully shapes and presents his self-‐perception as THE Hebrew poet of Provence as a whole.

Aurora Salvatierra, University of Granada, Spain

Title: Oheb Nashim by Yedayah ha-‐Penini: A Debate about Women?

Abstract: Since it was edited by Adolf Neubauer in 1884, this text, preserved in only two manuscripts, has received little attention. The work has been considered a continuation of the debate on women (and marriage) that began with Minhat Yehudah Soné ha-‐Nashim by Yehudah Ibn Shabbetay in the thirteenth century. However, in my opinion, this text is not merely one more example of the development of a literary modality structured around the attack on and defence of women in the Middle Ages. It also includes valuable considerations regarding the conception of poetic discourse, especially in the words that ha-‐Penini (13th-‐15th c.) dedicates at the beginning and the end of In Defense of Women to the work by his predecessor Ibn Shabbetay. The analysis of this discourse contributes to a better understanding of the poetics of the period and the evolution of the debate in medieval Hebrew literature.

Nili Shalev, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: "To Understand a Proverb and a Parable": R. Joseph Qimhi's Poems in His Commentaries on Proverbs

Abstract: R. Yosef Qimhi was one of the Jewish scholars of Muslim Spain who immigrated to Provence in the twelfth century and brought about an impressive transformation in the spiritual life of the Jewish community there. In his new place of residence Qimhi engaged in a variety of activities, including biblical exegesis. He was undoubtedly a distinguished representative of the unique Jewish biblical exegesis that developed in Provence. In his commentary on Proverbs he made use of Jewish and non-‐Jewish maxims and epigrams in the manner of the adab style. Thus he also included, anonymously, rhymed moral epigrams from his Sheqel HaQodesh, which was also composed in Provence. Almost forty poems from Sheqel HaQodesh were inserted by Qimhi into his commentaries in order to enrich the text, put its message in greater focus, and provide help in understanding it. Conversely, the insertion of epigrams from Sheqel HaQodesh into the commentaries can also be helpful in the opposite direction: It makes it possible in some cases to clarify certain obscure passages in the epigrams in light of the associated biblical verse, and in others to illuminate a certain perspective in the epigrams' interpretation. In this lecture I would like to demonstrate Qimhi's unique method for integrating his gnomic rhymed epigrams into his explanations of the verses in Proverbs. At the same time, I will try to illuminate the interrelationship between the biblical verses and the poems, while attempting to expose the message at their core.

Peter Sh. Lehnardt, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Literary Historical Reconsiderations to the Emergence of Hebrew Parody

Abstract: Reading Medieval Parody is a unique kind of challenge for modern readers. On the one hand similar to allegory as an extended metaphor parody is an extended event of intertextuality which has to be carefully expounded, on the other hand parody breaks off the boundaries of the autonomy of the text as its depends on the assumption of intention by the author to exclude an accidently mishap of intertextuality. The paper is intended to offer a model of reading, understanding and interpretation of literary parodies in the pre-‐romantic age with the help of examples from the cradle of Hebrew parody in 13th century Catalunya and Provence: Medieval parody was not intended to scrape off and overwrite the parodied text, to ridicule and exchange it with a 'new' one, but to live with a text identified with cultural or social authority from now on contaminated by the perspective offered by the author of the medieval parody.


Session 003:


14.00-‐15.30

Studies in Medieval Arabic and Hebrew Panegyric Poetry

Chair: Aurora Salvatierra

Jonathan Decter, Brandeis University, USA

Title: In Praise of God, In Praise of Man: a Problem of “Political Theology” in Medieval Hebrew Poetry

Abstract: In both medieval Hebrew and Arabic poetry, panegyrics directed toward men sometimes draw on scriptural formulae originally found within praises for God. The inter-‐textual technique is a variety of what was called “al-‐iqtibas” (kindling one flame with another) in Arabic literary criticism, a variety that was sometimes critiqued as theologically reprehensible. In this paper, I will consider many examples from the medieval Hebrew corpus alongside examples from the Arabic corpus and discussions from Arabic literary criticism. I will also discuss the literary phenomenon as a problem of “political-‐theology” by considering the ways in which human subjects are made to mimic, or intermingle, with the divine.

Uri Melammed, Academy of the Hebrew Language, Israel

Title: The Genre of Hallel in the Diwan Poetry of the Jews of Yemen

Abstract: Yemenite Poetry throughout the generations distinguishes between six kinds of genres of songs and poems: Nashid, Shira, Hallel, Hidduya, Zaffah and Qatsid. All of them are included in manuscripts of the oldest diwans and printed editions. One of the oldest types of this poetry, that survived only in the Yemenite Jewish community, is the Hallel; it can be found in every Yemenite diwan in separate called Halleloth. This term was chosen because each Hallel starts and ends with the word Wehaleluya ["and praise God"]. Here one encounters a set structure non-‐metred rhymed verses (pizmonim or hymns). They have very short and rather few hemistitches and have a fixed melody, in contrast to the other genres like the Nashid and Shira. These hymns are recited and sung as choral poetry. Their purpose is to praise and laud God, the people of Israel, or various other participants in any given occasion for celebration: the host of the event, the bride and the groom, the circumciszed newborn son, the ransomed son, etc. The Hallel can be written in one of three Semitic languages: Hebrew, Aramaic or Arabic. During my presentation, I will elaborate upon the traditional-‐historical structure of the Hallel; its use and transfer from a liturgical into para-‐liturgical framework; the way it has developed since the 17th century; and its use today in Yemenite Jewish singing. I will present a few of the Halleloth as eamples for analysis as well as compare this genre toan ancient Hebrew Palestinian type of piyyut in order to emphasize my conclusions.

Joachim Yeshaya, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

Title: Hebrew Poems in Praise of Moses and the Arabic Genre of al-‐mada’ih al-‐nabawiyya (Prophetic Eulogies)

Abstract: This paper will examine the Hebrew poems which the Karaite poet Moses Dar‘i composed in mid-‐twelfth-‐century Egypt in praise of Moses, and which recall the Arabic genre of al-‐mada’ih al-‐nabawiyya (“Prophetic Eulogies”), i.e., qasidas in praise of Muhammad that became popular in his time. In this paper, I will give an overview of the literary history of the genre of Arabic poems in praise of Muhammad, with the aim of attempting to determine to what extent Moses Dar‘i may have been familiar with this genre, even though he chose to write Hebrew poems in praise of Moses. I will primarily consider examples from manuscript NLR Evr. I 802 (fol. 69a-‐71a) devoted to the praise of Moses (and Aaron in the case of nr. 231; nrs. 232-‐233 are devoted entirely to Moses) but also call attention to other examples from manuscript NLR Evr. I 803.


Session 004:


16.00-‐18.00

Arabic and Romance Models in Medieval Hebrew Poetry in Memoriam Professor Angel Sáenz-‐Badillos

Chair: Masha Itzhaki

Haviva Ishay, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Classic Qasida—War or Peace?

Abstract: Abraham Ibn Ezra was the first to produce in Hebrew poetry a poem with a formal mannerist structure. He introduced arrangement of meters that were unknown in the poetry of his predecessors. He displayed virtuosity in designing complex Muwashat. On the one hand, he challenged the classical tradition that was based on the model of the prestigious qasida, while on the other, he yielded to the authority of that ancient model when he sought to introduce new topics to Hebrew poetry. The lecture will treat the debate Abraham Ibn Ezra waged with the model of the qasida as an individual case of his debate with the Andalusian poetic tradition.

Arie Schippers, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Title: Jewish literature as a Link between Arabic and Romance Poetry and Narrative: The case of Immanuel of Rome and his Mahbarot (Cantos)

Abstract: Immanuel of Rome (1261-‐1328), a poet contemporary of the famous Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-‐1321), was an Italian poet as well as a poet in the Hebrew poetic tradition. This Hebrew secular poetic tradition originated from Muslim Spain under the influence of Arabic prosody and grammar in the tenth century, due to the results of the study of the Hebrew language in Muslim Spain and North Africa. In the sixth Mahberet (Canto) Immanuel of Rome alluded to the different Hebrew poetic schools which he

supposed to have existed since then, leading to the production of rivaling Spanish, Provençal and Italian Hebrew poetry parallel to the development of the different Romance poetry schools in Occitan, Italian and French. Immanuel's other Cantos contain narratives in rhymed prose with many poems inserted. These poems can be sometimes metrically read according to the Arabic and Hebrew metrical system as well as according to the rules of Romance genres as for instance the sonnet. We will especially concentrate upon the introductory passages of Immanuel's Cantos, in which the narrator, in the company of his Prince or Maecenas, often refers to the beginning of an event in the days of his youth which is a motif known in Eastern Arabic Maqamah literature and Hebrew Andalusian rhymed prose narratives.

Tsuji Yoshiaki, Doshisha University, Graduate School of Theology

Title: The "Jawab" in Jewish Yemenite Poertry -‐ its character and technic

Abstract: The "Jawab" (in Arabic) or in Hebrew "Shir ha-‐maaneh", both mean "an answer", is a genre of Jewish Yemenite Poetry through ages. Usually those who make a poem in this genre, for example 16 century's Rabbi Zacharia al-‐Dahri, combine original verses with a well-‐known poem which already had been made before, and create new one, changing original meanings the antecedent poem had. Yemenite Jewish poets, who loved this technic, had made many poems in this genre, most of the cases using poems of The Golden Age of Spain, like Yehuda Ha-‐Levi and so on. However this interesting phenomenon hasn't attracted scholars' attention, and has been neglected so far except for some small but important studies. In this paper I exhibit some instances and analyze how the technic works, in other words how the new poem changes the meaning of the original poem.

Amina Boukail, Université de Jijel-‐Algérie

Title : La représentation de l’Autre dans les Maqamat de Judah AlHarizi (Tehkimoni)

Abstract : Les textes de Judah AlHarizi présente un champ riche d’étude et qui reflète bien la situation des Juifs dans le monde arabe médiéval et leur rôle culturel entre de différentes cultures. Notre propos est de mettre d’approfondir l’appréhension de l’altérité dans la littérature hébraïque médiévale à travers les textes narratifs de Judah Alharizi. Nous envisagerons l’« Autre » qui est surtout l’arabe ou l’islam par trois axes : 1-‐ Les référents de l’Autre dans la littérature hébraïque médiévale 2-‐ Les personnages arabes dans les Maqamat de Alharizi 3-‐ L’image de la littérature arabe dans les Maqamat de Judah AlHarizi.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 04

Session: 001:

Hebrew Language and Linguistics

9.00-‐10.30

Chair:

Samuel Blapp, University of Cambridge, UK

Title: The Diversity of the So-‐called Non-‐standard Tiberian Vocalisation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew

Abstract: The paper will make a contribution to the study of the medieval reading traditions of Biblical Hebrew. I shall present samples of vocalisation and accentuation that can be found in manuscripts, which have been classified by Davis as belonging to the non-‐standard Tiberian vocalisation tradition of Biblical Hebrew. This data will be compared to the Codex Leningradensis B19a (L) and the Aleppo Codex in order to highlight the differences. Furthermore, I shall attempt to organize them to show the diversity of features occurring within this tradition. Thus, I will subsequently suggest that there is a multitude of traditions rather than only just one. Although, they share some features, they also show important differences, which make it impossible to claim only one category. For instance, one can find evidence for the standard Tiberian vocalisation in these non-‐standard manuscripts but one can also find differences in vocalisation in L that deviate from the standard Tiberian tradition. Hence, the terminology used to describe the different vocalisation traditions and the diversity of these traditions should be reconsidered.

David Prebor, The Academy of the Hebrew Language, Israel

Title: Singular and Plural Hebrew Forms in the Commentary of Hizkuni to Genesis

Abstract: The northern French school of Jewish biblical exegesis is one of the most celebrated that developed during the medieval period. Rashi, the great scholar of Troyes, is the best known of this school. His biblical commentaries were even studied by Christian scholars. A few generations later Hezekiah ben Manoah (fl. 13th century in northern France) wrote his commentary to the Pentateuch, known as Hizquni. The publication of Chavel's edition of Hizquni (1981) contributed to the increased popularity of this commentary. However, the commentary of Hizquni has not received sufficient attention by scholars. One of the areas not yet studied is the many linguistic comments in Hizquni. In addition to his comments on the Hebrew and Aramaic languages, he brings many leazim (Old French glosses), distinguishes between French and Latin (see Chavel's edition page 521) and even brings a Greek term (comment to Genesis 40:1). In this paper I will examine the use of singular and plural Hebrew grammatical forms in the book of Genesis and analyze Hizquni's explanations of them. There are eight comments in Hizquni to Genesis dealing with singular and plural forms. Sometimes his comments reflect well known usage such as pluralis majestatis and pluralis tantum. Other comments are quite original. All of these linguistic comments will be presented, explained and examined in light of other commentaries and in light of modern day knowledge of linguistics.

Adel Shakour, Al-‐Qasemi Academic College of Education and Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: The Use of Arabic Words in the Hebrew of Arab Authors Writing in Israel

Abstract: The main subject of my lecture is to examine the impact of Arabic on the Arab authors writing in Hebrew. Specifically it examines their use of words and phrases borrowed from Arabic in literary works that they wrote in Hebrew and their literary translation from Arabic into Hebrew. These words and phrases, which are mostly from spoken Arabic, serve to increase the authentic sense of the Arab culture that the text depicts. Two methods are used to convey the flavor of Arabic culture in Hebrew texts: one involves using Arabic words and phrases without quotation mark, the other technique is less subtle and involves placing quotation marks around the Arabic words and phrases. I will report also on the phenomenon of Arab authors in Israel writing in Hebrew. "Writing in Hebrew" refers to literary works originally written in Hebrew or translated from Arabic to Hebrew, the scale of the phenomenon of writing in Hebrew, the bilingual literary works of Arab authors in Israel, and Israeli society's acceptance of Arab authors writing in Hebrew.


Session 002:

Hebrew linguistics

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Covert Hybridity in the Language of Israel

Organizers: Nurit Dekel and Gil’ad Zuckermann

Chair: Nurit Dekel and Gil’ad Zuckermann

Ghil'ad Zuckermann, University of Adelaide, Australia

Title: Universal Constraints in Language Revival: Lessons from Israeli and Other Hybrid Tongues Resulting from Reclamation

Abstract: After a brief analysis of the ethical, aesthetic and utilitarian benefits of language revival, this trailblazing paper will propose the establishment of Revivalistics, a new trans-‐disciplinary field of inquiry studying systematically and comparatively the universal constraints and global mechanisms on the one hand, and local peculiarities and cultural relative idiosyncracies on the other hand, apparent in linguistic revitalizations across various sociological backgrounds. With coca-‐colonization and homogenization there will be more and more groups added to the forlorn club of the lost-‐heritage peoples. Language reclamation will become increasingly relevant as people seek to recover their cultural autonomy, empower their spiritual and intellectual sovereignty, and improve their wellbeing. There is an urgent need to offer perspicacious comparative insights, eviscerated of ideological bias, e.g. from the so far most famous language reclamation movement: the Hebrew revival in Israel, which resulted in the hybridic Israeli language. This paper will also provide perspicacious insights from the Barngarla, Kaurna and Ngarrindjeri revivals in South Australia, and from many other revival cases such as Maori in New Zealand and Hawai’i in the United States.

Nurit Dekel, NSC -‐ Natural Speech Communication, Israel

Title: The European Elements of the Israeli Verbal System

Abstract: The verbal system of spoken Israeli Hebrew (Israeli hereafter; see Zuckermann 2006) is perceived as a Semitic root-‐pattern formation system. In this lecture I will show that this core system in Israeli is a hybrid system that contains both Semitic and European elements; I will concentrate in many European-‐like elements that are the basis of this system. I will review the following fundamentals of the Israeli verbal system: 1. the verbal system internal morpho-‐semantic interface. The morpho-‐semantic structure of the Israeli verbal system is based on aspectual (and minor modal) properties, similarly to European languages: aspect and modality are grammaticalized and correspond to constant morphological forms. The Israeli verbal system is commonly perceived as tense-‐based (Coffin & Bolozky 2005); in this lecture I will show that time is not grammaticalized in the verb system, but is expressed by independent lexemes, as in European languages. 2. The formation of new verbs, having Israeli origins I will bring examples of a new strategy for the formation of verbs that is used by the speakers, which is based on a noun + a verbal suffix, and not on a root-‐pattern formation. 3. The formation of new verbs, having foreign origin I will show that new verbs, originating in foreign words, preserve their original phonological distribution when becoming an Israeli verb; they are not automatically adjusted to a common pattern selected by the speakers. All these features of the Israeli verbal system make this system uniquely hybrid, having both European and Semitic properties. References: Coffin-‐Amir, E. and S. Bolozky. 2005. A Reference Grammar of Modern Hebrew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Zuckermann, G. 2006. A New Vision for "Israeli Hebrew": Theoretical and Practical Implications of Analysing Israel's Main Language as a Semi-‐Engineered Semito-‐European Hybrid Language. Journal of Modern Jewish Studies Vol 5, No. 1. 57-‐71.

Gitit Holzman, Levinsky College of Education, Tel Aviv, Israel

Title: Monotheism versus Hybridity: Clandestine Religious Mythology as Infrastructure for Allegedly Scientific & Impartial Linguistic

Abstract: Jewish religion is characterized by unique monotheistic faith as well as by peculiar set of commandments, aiming at distinguishing its adherents from other people and defining them as Jews. Many of these commandments deal with creating strict borders between different categories, such as between sacred and profane, pure and impure, allowed and forbidden, human and divine. In addition, large portion of the Jewish law is dedicated to defying mixture or hybridity as such -‐ these are the famous Shaatnez laws. Judaism thus admires purity, regarding its concept of deity and its adherents' daily conduct alike. It may very well be that this influential Jewish tradition resulted in typically perceiving 'hybridity' as being by and large an inferior quality, while 'purity' is a desirable one. The end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth witnessed the foundation of modern Jewish community in the land of Israel. The new settlers invested much time and effort not only in working the land and in its corporeal construction, but they also labored on creating Modern Hebrew culture. Eliezer Ben-‐Yehuda and other political activists, writers and intellectuals, insisted that this new culture would be Hebrew speaking, striving to transform Biblical Hebrew into a modern vernacular. This heroic effort seemed to be miraculously successful as the Israeli Jewish community deserted diverse Diasporic tongues and adopted what is believed to be Hebrew. However, Ghil’ad Zuckermann’s recent studies demonstrate that this ‘Modern Hebrew’ is in reality a Semito-‐European hybrid. Its grammar relies on Hebrew, as well on Yiddish, the revivalists’ mother tongue, and on a plethora of other languages spoken by its founders, e.g. Polish, Russian, German, Arabic and Ladino. Despite hard evidence proving the hybrid nature of ‘Modern Hebrew’, Israelis believe they use revived Biblical Hebrew. This paper will claim that this stance is not objective & scientific one, but rather a religious myth in disguise. The seemingly secular modern Israeli culture has allegedly detached itself from the ancient monotheistic belief. However, religious monotheism is alive and kicking within this culture,

preventing scholars and laymen alike to acknowledge the Semito-‐European hybrid character of modern Israeli language. The Zionist secular, anti-‐religious movement has actually shifted from worship of one God to worshiping the concept of one language, professing the unity of biblical Hebrew and modern Israeli.

Malka Muchnik, Bar-‐Ilan Universiry, Israel

Title: Did Gender Change from Classical to Modern Hebrew?

Abstract: Over the course of the long history of Hebrew, there have been many significant changes in the language. However, the grammatical structure, including gender restrictions, has survived virtually unchanged since the classical periods. Even the fact that Hebrew was not spoken for close to 1700 years did not cause radical changes in its morphology. In recent decades, some changes have been introduced in Hebrew, reflecting a more egalitarian attitude concerning gender. Nonetheless, despite the efforts made, the change achieved with respect to sexist language has been insufficient, as many attempts at change were rejected or at least ignored (Muchnik 2013, in pressa, b). The fact that Hebrew presents a very rigid grammatical structure could be viewed as a positive characteristic. The speakers are aware of the large number of gender markers in the language, and therefore, any change, and particularly grammatical changes, cannot go unnoticed. While this awareness frequently leads to negative reactions, it may also lead to a better understanding of the problem and to selection of a method for solving it. Although some gender differentiations have almost disappeared, and original masculine and feminine forms for the second and third person were unified, they did not develop into gender neutrality. The clear direction is for masculine forms to assume the feminine meaning as well, but not the inverse. This change leads towards a wider use of generic forms, which in reality presents an androcentric bias, and makes women less visible. As Cameron (1996) and Romaine (1999) asserted, nonsexist language cannot evolve naturally without social changes and commitment to equality. Linguistic reforms can only succeed if they are accepted by the public and officially published by authorities and institutions, but this is not the case with Hebrew. Of course, gender changes in the language are only one element of a more general social and ideological change. Eckert & McConnel-‐Ginet (2003) show that changes occur as an interruption of patterns set down over generations and throughout our own development. However, such sorts of interruptions do not come suddenly, but rather as small intentional or unintentional events. The lexicon is the part of the language that is the most likely to be changed, and this is important for the introduction of new ideas. In contrast, grammatical items are more stable, and although they may change, this occurs very slowly.


Session 003:

Hebrew Book History

14.00-‐15.30

Chair:

Annett Martini, Institut für Judaistik, Free University Berlin, Germany

Title: The Work of Heaven: Transcultural Oscillations within Ritual Writing in Judaism

Abstract: Looking at the material features of Torah scrolls and the small pieces of written parchment within the Mezuzot and Tefillin one immediately becomes aware of the serious endeavour of the scribes to avoid any kind of modifications. The quality of the parchment, the colour of the ink, the layout and the forms of letters remained unchanged during more than two thousand years except for slight variations. Apparently, the different cultural environments of the Jewish communities in the diaspora did not touch the world of Soferim STaM who were entrusted with passing on the holy scrolls within very tight halachic boundaries. However, the multifaceted scribal literature behind the written artefacts shows a different picture. Here we find reflections not only of internal Jewish tensions, halachical and philosophical trends, or mystical movements, but also of the cultural surrounding in terms of social, political, ritual, and aesthetical issues. The objective of this paper is to outline the most important facets of these reflections by means of almost unexplored sources of scribal literature written in Christian and Muslim contexts. It will be argued that, on the one hand, the engagement of Jewish halachists and scribes in their cultural environment resulted from the necessity to exclude non-‐Jewish influences from a religious realm that plays such a crucial role for preserving Jewish identity. On the other hand one can determine remarkable shifts with respect to ritual or performative aspects of the process of writing, to the reputation of the scribe in society, and to the circumstances of life of the scribes, which in some regions are reminiscent of Christian and Muslim scriptoriums and thus can be read as transcultural oscillations between Jewish and non-‐Jewish cultures.

Rahel Fronda, The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, UK

Title: Contacts between Jewish and Non-‐Jewish Cultures to do with Medieval Ashkenazi Bibles with Micrography

Abstract: The many ways in which non-‐Jewish culture has influenced the production of medieval illuminated Hebrew manuscripts are known and have also been studied recently. These include iconographical appropriations of non-‐Jewish models and involvement of Gentile artists. On the other hand, the relation of manuscripts with Hebrew micrography — that is a uniquely Jewish art form — to non-‐Jewish environment in 13th century Ashkenaz has not been dealt with. Hebrew manuscripts are known to reflect the practices of the places where they have been produced and so, even in the case of Hebrew micrography it is perhaps not surprising that 13th century Ashkenazi Bibles with micrography are in many ways closer to their local Latin manuscripts than to Sephardi Bibles with micrography. Talking about the making of medieval Hebrew manuscripts, it is crucial not to underestimate the role of their surrounding non-‐Jewish milieu. In my paper I shall describe a variety of contacts between Jewish and non-‐Jewish cultures to do with medieval Ashkenazi Bibles with micrography. These include their formats, codicology, contents and also contemporary historical events. As an example, the layout of Latin manuscripts has had an important influence on the legibility and arrangement of early 13th century micrographed Hebrew Bible manuscripts that were produced in Germany. New codicological practices and innovative methods to do with treating parchment that the producers of Hebrew manuscripts had borrowed from their non-‐Jewish colleagues are witnessed by an important dated manuscript of 1264 with micrographic decorations. Apart from these technical details, some 13th century Ashkenazi Bibles with micrography contain linguistic clues that reveal not only sporadic or professional contact with the non-‐Jewish culture but prove how well some patrons and scribes-‐artists were culturally integrated in their non-‐Jewish environment. Besides the progressive developments in the making of the medieval Hebrew book that are a result of direct contact between Jewish and non-‐Jewish cultures, some manuscripts bear historical events of hostility and persecution. Such an extraordinary chronicle is codex Hebr. 16 in Vienna — a 13th century micrographed Hebrew Bible — where the masorete Abraham tells the story of Rintfleisch massacre of 1298 in Franconia by writing it in large letters formed by micrography.

Ilana Tahan, The British Library, UK

Title: Matters of provenance: Hebrew manuscripts from the library of a distinguished French Archbishop

Abstract: In 1946 the British Museum acquired six important Hebrew manuscripts which are now part of the British Library's manuscript collection. All six manuscripts were copied in the 15th century most probably in Italy. Among them are found: Ibn Pakudah's philosophical work 'Hovot ha-‐Levavot' (Duties of the heart) and Joseph Gikatilla's kabbalistic treatise 'Sh'are orah' (The gates of light). This paper will explore: a) the manuscripts and the background to their acquisition; b) their fascinating provenance and their illustrious former non-‐Jewish owners.


Session 004:

Masora/Bible

16.00-‐18.00

Chair: Elodie Attia

Elvira Martín-‐Contreras, CSIC, Madrid, Spain

Title: The Image to the Service of the Text: Ornamental Masorah in the Manuscript 118-‐Z-‐42 (M1) from the Complutense University Library

Abstract: The codex M1 consists of 340 unpaged folios and contains the whole Hebrew Bible except for the folios which contained Exod. IX 33b-‐ XXIV 7b. According to its colophon it was bought by R. Yishaq and R. Abraham, doctors, in Toledo in 1280. This manuscript has been considered by Ch. Ginsburg as “a magnificent codex” and one of the codices which served as a model for the Hebrew text of the Complutensian Polyglot edited by Ximenez de Cisneros in the 16th century. The Mm is given in three lines in the upper margin and in four lines in the lower margin of each folio, and the Mp occupies the outer margins and the margins between the columns. Besides the Mm, a number of lengthy Massoretic Rubrics are given as Appendices at the end of the Pentateuch, Former Prophets, Latter Prophets and Chronicles. The upper Mm is mainly written in straight lines, sometimes combined with geometric patterns; and the lower Mm can be written in straight lines or in waves or in circles or in zigzag lines. In some cases, the Mm can continue on the left or right margins of the page in ornamental shape. This paper offers the localization and description of all the masorot in ornamental shape and those written in geometric patterns. The study of all of them allows me to formulate the following hypothesis: the form of the masorot is determined by their content.

Yosef Ofer, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Acrostics in Masoretic Notes

Abstract: Acrostics are common in medieval literature, where they usually serve to highlight the name of the poet or his patron, or to offer a prayer to a saint. The use of an acrostic to indicate authorship of a work

is widespread in many cultures and in different languages. In Hebrew, the practice of creating an acrostic to spell out the name of the author of a liturgical poem started in the classical period (5th or 6th century), and the earliest poets to do so were Yanai and Hadwata. The liturgical acrostic served to assert the poet's ownership of his work and protect his rights. The integration of his name as part of the work itself offered far better durability than an external notation of his authorship. An acrostic may sometimes indicate the name of the scribe who copied the manuscript: the highlighting of certain words in the text might allude to his name, or the structure of the copied text might be planned in such a way that the first letters of each line form an acrostic of his name. In recent years some examples of such acrostics have been discovered in the Masoretic notes accompanying ancient manuscripts of the Bible. (The Masora is a system of comments and rules established by the Masoretes to determine and preserve the precise text of the Hebrew Bible.) Dr. David Lyons exposed three acrostic signatures in MS British Library Or. 4445, which is a manuscript of the Pentateuch. I have discovered two further acrostics: one in a biblical manuscript, the other on a page of a Masoretic work. The lecture will address the ways in which the Masoretes create their acrostic signatures, and what we may deduce from these acrostics concerning the location of the manuscripts in time and place. All of this will be compared with acrostic signatures of liturgical poets and scribes.

Viktor Golinets, Hoschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg, Germany

Title: Editing the Text of the Leningrad Codex of the Hebrew Bible

Abstract: The text of the Leningrad Codex of the Hebrew Bible has been printed in several scholarly editions. A new edition, the Biblia Hebraica Quinta, is under way. There are many features of the hand written text that complicate making a diplomatic text edition. On many pages of the codex, the original text is worn out, and it has been re-‐inked sometime later. Because of this feature, the first hand of the manuscript is sometimes difficult to decipher, and the whole idea of a diplomatic text edition comes into question. In many places there are omissions of text signs due to the negligence of a scribe. These omissions often occur at the end of a word, and there are many cases of omissions of the same kind. The question arises, if it is useful to mention all such cases in the textual apparatus. There are also many morphological forms in the Leningrad codex that “contradict” some rules of the Masoretic grammar. However, contrary to the judgments of modern text editions, such forms are no mistakes but conditioned realizations. This lecture attempts to classify difficulties of editing the Leningrad Codex and to suggest new solutions.

Elodie Attia, Heidelberg University, Germany

Title: New Hebrew Documents from Southern France: an Overview

Abstract: In the last years, the discoveries in Archives and Libraries of new Hebrew Documents coming from restored old book bindings have increased. In this presentation, a new corpus of documents (register, account books, lists, letters, acts) originating from Southern France and Comtat Venaissin will be presented and analyzed, taking in account the recent researches made in this dynamic field of Jewish Studies.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 05

Session: 001:

Kabala

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Ronit Meroz / Tzahi Weiss

Sefer Yetsirah: Content, Context, Interpretation

Chair: Ronith Meroz

Ronit Meroz, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: Abraham in the Bosom of God

Abstract: Sefer Yezira ends with a poetic, though perplexing, description of God's love to Abraham, how He put him in His bosom and kissed him on his head. In this lecture I will discuss the possible sources of this image and their implication for a new understanding of the book's message.

Tzahi Weiss, The Open University, Israel

Title: Some New Observations Concerning the Context of Sefer Yetsirah

Abstract: The lecture will investigate the nature of the attitudes toward alphabetical letters in Syrian-‐Aramaic texts which were written between the 4th and the 8th century C.E. by Syrian church fathers. Following previous research which discussed the emergence of linguistic schools in Nisibis as well as the attitude of the Syrian church fathers to the holiness of the Aramaic language, the lecture will point to parallels existing between Sefer Yetsirah and the atmosphere which existed in this unique cultural area. During the lecture I will also present a new possible attitude towards the complicated way in which the three main versions of Sefer Yetsirah were edited.

Klaus Herrmann, Free University of Berlin, Germany

Title: How is the Text of Sefer Yezirah Connected with the Lost Commentary by Isaac Israeli? Some Speculations on a Highly Speculative Treatise

Abstract: There is no question about it: the text tradition of the Sefer Yezirah (SY) is downright complex and difficult. Nevertheless, in view of the oldest extant manuscript text-‐witnesses, it appears to be far less dramatic than scholars usually assume. Therefore the task of the present paper lies in reflecting on this oldest available text tradition of the SY and confronting it with the medieval commentaries. The no longer extant commentary by Isaac Israeli, Dunash ibn Tamim’s teacher, seems to play an important role in answering these questions.


Session 002 :

Kabala

11.00-‐13.00

Mysticism, Sabbatai Tzvi

Chair: Giacomo Corazzol

Annelies Kuyt, Goethe-‐University, Frankfurt, Germany

Title: Unravelling the Divine Message: Shlomo Almoli on Dreams and their Interpreters

Abstract: In his sixteenth-‐century Pitron Halomot, Almoli tries to establish the criteria for a correct interpretation of dreams, the dream comprising a small prophecy. He does so by means of his sources: Jewish -‐ ranging from the Hebrew Bible to his contemporaries, incorporating halakhic, philosophical and kabbalistic genres -‐ as well as non-‐Jewish sources.

José Alberto Rodrigues da Silva Tavim, Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, Lisboa; CIDEHUS, Universidade de Évora; CITCEM, Universidade do Porto, Portugal

Title: Sabbatai Zvi in motion

Abstract: The famous Sabbatai Zvi, the Mystical Messiah as his greatest scholar Gershom Scholem called him, was born in Smyrna in 1626. Scholem and other more recent scholars, who continue to keep an interest in this character and on his followers, see the unfolding of his movement as the typical produce Smyrna, a town where European commercial investment and the market dynamics implemented by Jews of Iberian origin helped to shape its cosmopolitan outlook. This multifaceted cosmopolitanism is perhaps one of the great dimensions of the mystical movement around Sabbatai Zvi, which make this the major episode of Jewish mysticism in the Modern Age. However, this movement spread beyond the narrowly defined but permeable Jewish universe into the European "Republic of Letters", influencing, for example, certain English millenarian millieu and absorbing elements of the Iberian millenarianism. Even in Islamic contexts, particularly in Morocco, this movement of the "Mystical Messiah" would be "integrated" and "interpreted" in the context of the local Jewish environment, but evolved into other dimensions transcending the real Sabbatai, though much of this information was spread via the Netherlands. We are primarily concerned to consider this movement around the "Mystical Messiah" as a major moment in the encounter between Islam and Christian Europe (to which the Jewish communities of Iberian origin were part), whose messianic dimension transcends the Jewish world, though the Jews are its leadings characters. In this context several questions arise: 1 -‐ How to understand the development of Sabbatai’s movement in the Islamic context, more specifically in the Ottoman Empire (Sabbatai eventually converted to Islam keeping his messianic proposals)? 2 -‐ How does the West understands this Islamic context? 3 -‐ How is regarded or absorbed in the West (by its supporters and detractors) the development of a movement which initially occurs in an Islamic context (Ottoman and North African)? 4 -‐ How is reflected in Sabbatai’s movement the Messianic queries of

the West (as exemplified in the case of the English millenarians and the Iberian messianism)? The answers to these questions will attempt to unravel the veil hanging over a huge volume of beliefs, riddles and emotions that characterized this movement that spread from the Mediterranean to Northern Europe in the Modern Age.

Shinichi Yamamoto, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Japan

Title: Turban and Tefillin in an Anonimous Sabbatean Text

Abstract: Turban, a symbolic term in Sabbateanism, signifies the sacred conversion to Islam. As the well-‐known portrat of Sabbatai Tzevi shows, he as well as some of his followers apostatized and actually put on the turbans on their heads. However it does not mean their unconditional adoption of Islam. They changed a couple of Jewish mourning days such as the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av into feast-‐days and created an idiosyncratic calendar to commemorate the messianic events. Forming some clandestine groups with such unique customs resulted in so-‐called Dönme sects, the members of which intermarried within the believers’ descendants. Their identity gradually turned into the indigenous ethnicity, which is different both from Judaism and from Islam. The origin of Dönme obviously has their root in the trial of 1666, where Sabbatai Tzevi put on the turban and became a cross-‐boundary redeemer. On the other hand, some testimonies have it that Sabbatai Tzevi put on tallith and tefillin even after his conversion to Islam. Considering his antinomistic inclination, his observance of the Jewish commandments seemingly deviates from the anticipated heretical behavior. It is noteworthy that at the early stage the number of the Sabbatean converts who took the same path as their messiah was relatively small. The main disciples of Sabbatai Tzevi such as Nathan of Gaza, Samuel Primo and Abraham Cardozo remained Jewish and kept away from the apostate followers. For instance, the group of Nathan lived a devotional life in accordance with kabbalistic customs. What is obvious is that there was also a conventional aspect in Sabbateanism. And from this vantage point it is possible to know why Sabbatai Tzevi still put on tallith and tefillin after the conversion. In my paper, an impressive Sabbatean interpretation of turban and tefillin will be focused on in order to clarify the twofold meaning. The anonimous text appears in Torat ha-‐Qenaot, an anti-‐Sabbatean book, which R. Jacob Emden published in 1752. According to the text, even the messeiah, putting on tefillin, were supposed to observe the Jewish commandments on weekdays. They play a redemptive role to purify the demonic elements before the holiest phase of Sabbath. On Sabbath, receiving the heavenly radiance, tefillin in turn envelop his head as Muslim’s turban. The text, referring to a rabbinical phrase “the Holy One blessed be He put tefillin”, lays an emphasis on observing the commandments as a preparatory stage for the true redemption, though it avoids giving a clear determination about the nature of the status quo. I will analyze the perspective the text shows by comparing it with two other Sabbatean sources. First, as the most eloquent source about putting on turban, the commentary of Psalms Israel Hazan wrote in 1678 or 1679 is to be examined. Israel Hazan belonged to quite a radical group which seems to have been close to Dönme in the messianic discipline. His focal point is on the mystery of turban possibly open to the followers of Sabbatai Tzevi. The second source is Sefer ha-‐Beriah, which was written by Nathan of Gaza in 1670 to explain the substance of the messianic frustration. He elucidates the inevitable nexus between the messiah and tefillin, and his core belief seems more or less similar to that of the anonymous text in question. There is no asserting that it was based on Nathan’s theory, but this comparison might shed light on the binary function of turban and tefillin in Sabbateanism.

Georges Koutzakiotis, Institut de Recherches Historiques / Fondation Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, Grèce.

Title: La kabbale et l’érudition grecque (XVIIe-‐XIXe siècles)

Abstract: Alors que l’intérêt porté à la kabbale par les érudits catholiques et protestants d’Europe au cours de l’époque moderne a été étudié exhaustivement, la relation des érudits chrétiens orthodoxes avec cette tradition ésotérique du judaïsme demeure terra incognita. En examinant pour les besoins de mon étude intitulée "Attendre la fin du monde au XVIIe siècle. Le messie juif et le grand interprète" (Athènes 2011 en grec, publication française en cours) la perception du mouvement messianique de Sabbataï Tsevi par les érudits grecs du XVIIe siècle, j’ai également été amené à me pencher sur l’attention qu’ils portaient à la kabbale. La présente communication a donc pour objet d’explorer la perception de la kabbale par l’érudition grecque au cours d’une période plus longue, s’étendant du XVIIe au XIXe siècle, afin de distinguer l’existence de continuités ou de discontinuations dans la longue durée. Parallèlement, elle vise à retracer les limites des connaissances kabbalistiques des érudits grecs de cette période et le cadre dans lequel s’inscrit cet intérêt.


Session 003:

Kabala

14.00-‐15.30

Panel: Emergence of Medieval Kabbalah in Intercultural Contexts

Organizer: Sandra Valabregue

Chair: Elke Morlok

Sandra Valabregue, Ben Gurion University of Negev, Israel

Title: Faith and Philosophical Heresy in early Kabbalah

Abstract: In this paper I propose to present some aspect of Kabbalah's theological renewal; that renewal, which I will present as counter-‐theology, was the result of the acceptance, struggle and rewriting of philosophical ideas. This counter-‐theology adopts philosophical models, albeit with major amendments, and molds them into a theosophical theology. Different test cases of heresy exemplify this ambivalence of Kabbalah toward philosophy. In this paper I will discuss mainly the categories of faith and heresy in Kabbalah and philosophy and more specifically the status of philosophical heresy in Kabbalah. This will help to exemplify that the tremendous influence of philosophy on Kabbalah was not merely in the reception of philosophical ideas, but philosophy also served as a catalyst for Kabbalah’s own theological renewal.

Adam Afterman, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: Maimonides and the Emergence of Kabbalah

Abstract: The paper will address the impact of Moses Maimonides on the emergence of early kabbalah in Provence and Catalonia (up until 1270). The extent of the impact of Maimonides on the development and the emergence of early kabbalah has been at the focus of several studies in recent years. In my talk I will reexamine the textual evidence of such impact in the writings of several of the key kabbalist writing up until

1270. My examination will address in addition the broader impact of Twelve century Jewish philosophy on the emergence of kabbalah and its significance in the articulation of key ideas and practices.

Yisraeli Oded, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: The Myths on the Origin of the Kabbalah in the Middle Ages – From Particular to Universal Stance

Abstract: The Questions where the Kabbalah came from, how does it appear and under what circumstances, bothered the scholars of the Kabbalah , but no less the Kabbalists in the Middle Ages themselves . In this paper I would like to signify three types of traditions in the thirteenth century Kabbalah, each of which reflects a unique stance concerning this topic. The first stance attributes the emergence of the Kabbalah to mystical revelation of Elijah to the ancestors of the first Kabbalistic circles in Provence. The other sees the Kabbalistic truths as part of the Torah of Moses and therefore as a national heritage. A third tradition however attributes the Kabbalah to Adam, the first person and the ancestor of mankind at whole. In this paper I would like to point out the self-‐consciousness behind each myth, the differences between them and the hidden discourse between these traditions regarding the notion of the Kabbalah as universal wisdom and its cultural context in general.


Session 004:

Kabbalah

16.00-‐18.00

Panel: Emergence of Medieval Kabbalah in Intercultural Contexts

Organizer: Sandra Valabregue

Chair:

Uri Safrai, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: 'Metaphors we pray by' -‐ Images of Prayer in Early Modern Kabbalah

Abstract: The sixteenth century is known for the emergence of Kabalistic prayer intentions literature (Sifrut Ha'kavanot). Many books were written in order to explain the technique in which prayer activates God. Research regarding these writings faces a challenge since they are written in great detail, and are very difficult to understand. In this paper, I wish to offer a new method to approach this unique issue which explores the metaphors the kabbalists used in order to describe the way prayer works upon divine worlds. Focusing on these metaphors reveals the cultural, philosophical and scientific background from which they emerged and shows that despite the esoteric impression of the Kabbalist literature it corresponded to the evolving environment in which the Kabbalist lived.

Mor Altshuler, Kibbutzim College, Israel

Title: The Messianic Image of the Ottoman Emperor Sultan Suleiman in the Writings of R. Joseph Karo

Abstract: Sixteenth century Ottoman emperor Sultan Suleiman I (1494-‐1566) was known as "The Magnificent" in the West and “El Kanuni” (The Lawgiver) in the East. The most successful military commander of his time, Sultan Suleiman's army conquered the Balkans and threatened the Christian coalition led by Charles V, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Suleiman was also a patron of fine arts and grandiose architecture. His canonical law, The Kanuns, was perceived as a divine law and a testimony of God's support of his realm. As Cornell Fleischer pointed out, Sultan Suleiman's "legislative persona constituted an apocalyptic gesture intended to show that his age… was in fact the Millennium and to suggest that he himself was the messianic ruler who would fill the world with justice as it had been filled with injustice." (Cornell Fleischer, The Lawgiver as Messiah, p. 164). The proposed lecture will discuss the influence of Sultan Suleiman's messianic image on the views of R. Joseph Karo (1488-‐1575). The author of Shulchan Aruch and the most prominent Hallachic legislator after Mainonides, Karo was educated in Sephardic Yeshivot that had been reestablished in the Ottoman Empire after the expulsion from Spain. His view of Sultan Suleiman reveals his generation's interpretation of their situation in the midst of an ongoing power struggle between the Muslim Ottomans and the European Christian realms. The lecture will begin with a presentation of Sultan Suleiman's influence on Joseph Karo's Hallachic perceptions. The Kanuns affect on Karo's motivation to compose an obligatory canonical law, which would function as the ultimate authorized codex will be examined. Similarly, the influence of Suleiman's "legislative persona" on Karo's self-‐image as a divine legislator will be presented. The second part of the lecture will delve into Sultan Suleiman's messianic image in Joseph Karo's mystical diary, Maggid Mesharim. In particular, the image of Suleiman, "The King of Tugar", as the contemporary "Ishmael" – the embodiment of God's Rage that had been sent to eliminate the satanic power of Christian "Edom" – will be analyzed. The apocalyptic drama continues with the image of the Ottoman triumphant army as the army of the Ten Tribes, whose temporary occupation of Jerusalem was a stage in the divine messianic plan that would dialectically enable the appearance of the Messiah Son of David. The lecture will conclude with a reflection on Joseph Karo and his contemporary Sephardic intellectuals' re-‐evaluation of the antagonism between Christians and Muslims. Their interpretation of the profound hostility as an apocalyptic struggle between mythical entities "Ishmael" and "Edom," which would clear the way for the true redeemer to appear will be clarified.

James Diamond, University of Waterloo, Canada

Title: Kabbalistic Reinventions of Maimonides' Apples of Gold Esotericism

Abstract: Many subsequent Jewish thinkers were compelled, due to the power of Maimonides’ reputation to forge their own direction through some type of engagement with him. This includes most prominently those drawn to the kabbalistic tradition who were particularly threatened by Maimonides' philosophical esotericism. Never again could they cite the biblical apothegm, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in silver filigree” (Prov. 25:11), without Maimonides’ hermeneutical use of it as a metaphor for the multilayered messaging of biblical writing hovering somewhere in the background. Its connotations of the external silver, the internal gold, the size of the filigree’s apertures that allow the internal meaning to peek through the external filter, and the intellectual distance between the reader and the text, all continue to inhere in kabbalistic, or really any, post-‐Maimonidean referencing of it. As such it could be examined in its role as a new intertext for later thinkers. What particularly irked kabbalists was that Maimonides’ hermeneutical “apples of gold” strategy of reading the bible and the rabbis raised the specter of their redundancy once their philosophical kernel was retrieved. Thus, what empowered the text and the reader with the interpretive latitude to survive the challenges posed by historical evolution, and philosophical and scientific progress, also endangered its authority and integrity. At the heart of the kabbalistic appropriations and engagements with Maimonides is this danger, which can be viewed as an interpretive irritant inspiring the recasting and reconfiguring of new apples of gold. This paper will trace these engagements with the very “apples of gold” metaphor itself beginning with the Zohar and on to modern

Jewish thinkers such as R. Abraham Isaac Kook. Maimonides is either adopted, opposed, reread, or subverted, but never ignored.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 06

Session: 001:

Qumran

9.00-‐10.30

Chair: Daniel Stoekl Ben Ezra

Steven Fraade, Yale University, USA

Title: “If a Case is Too Baffling for You to Decide...” (Deuteronomy 17: 8-‐13): Between Constraining and Expanding Judicial Autonomy

Abstract: An analysis of the law of the high court of Deuteronomy 17:8-‐13, as inner-‐scriptural interpretation and as interpreted by the Temple Scroll from Qumran and the early rabbinic commentary Sifre to Deuteronomy. The TS and Sifre are strikingly different in their understandings of the high court, especially with respect to the truthfulness of its decisions. Previous scholars have viewed this difference in terms of a polemic between the Temple Scroll and the Pharisees, as the latter are understood to be represented by the Sifre and other rabbinic texts. The present paper presents a more hermeneutical explanation for the differences and seeks to uncover the implications for conflicting views of judicial authority.

Antony Perrot, EPHE, Paris, France

Title: « La mise en page des titres des Psaumes dans les manuscrits de la Mer Morte »

Abstract: Le but de cette contribution serait de donner une vue d’ensemble de la mise en page des titres des Psaumes dans les manuscrits de la Mer Morte et d’en comprendre le sens. Nous chercherons tout d’abord à repérer des différences de mise en page au sein des manuscrits contenant des titres de Psaumes : 2QPs, 4QPs, 11Q5, 5/6Ḥev. En effet, on constate plusieurs schémas dans la mise en page des titres, définis par trois paramètres : la position du titre lui-‐même (gauche, droite ou centré), sa démarcation du reste du contenu des Psaumes (simple retour à la ligne, vacat en début de ligne, etc.) et sa typographie (l’usage d’encre de couleur différente). Nous tenterons de comprendre ces divergences dans l’histoire de la tradition manuscrite des différents témoins de la Mer Morte et les mettrons en perspective avec les méthodes anciennes de mise en page utilisées dans le monde gréco-‐égyptien (y compris les mss anciens chrétiens). Nous effectuerons un survol rapide des différents procédés attestés au sein des manuscrits hébraïques médiévaux (manuscrits de la Genizah du Caire, le codex d’Alep, etc.). Finalement, nous confrontons nos résultats avec l’histoire de la recherche et, plus précisément, avec les thèses d’Emmanuel TOV sur le sujet.

Roman Schuetz, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany

Title: Analytical study of the Temple Scroll

Abstract: Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, mostly written on treated animal skins, reached us in relatively good conditions, others were -‐ or meanwhile are -‐ badly damaged. No doubt, the most important source of the message that was transferred to us by the scrolls over centuries is the textual content. However, another very important source of knowledge is still hidden in the physical material itself that will probably be more accessible and implementable for the generations after us. It belongs to our responsibilities today to prepare the way in “reading the information from the material” and on the other hand to preserve the treasure that was entrusted to us for the generations coming after us. The majority of the scrolls has a darkish brown hue and is written on the hair side of the skins. Not so the Temple scroll (11Q19) called so by Yigael Yadin since its text is dedicated to the Temple. The longest of all the scrolls it has white to yellowish hew; it is written on the flesh side of the very thin parchment. Moreover, the writing surface was specially prepared. In this work we addressed two issues concerning the Temple Scroll: reconstruction of the preparation technique and assessment of the preservation state. For the reconstruction of the layered structure of the parchment we studied the elemental distributions using complementary techniques such as microXRF and EDX-‐mapping accompanied by FT-‐ and confocal Raman spectroscopy. Additionally, we developed a quantitative assessment for damage monitoring of collagen fibers on molecular scale by means of polarized Raman Spectroscopy.


Session 002:

Second Temple

11.00-‐13.00

The Books of the Maccabees and the Seleucid-‐Hasmonean Encounter

Chair: Sylvie Honigman

Jan Willem Van Henten, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Title: Space, Body and Meaning in 2 Maccabees

Abstract: Many scholars have studied the first two Maccabean books as a primary source for reconstructing the history of the Jews before and during the Antiochean persecution as well as the Maccabean revolt and its aftermath. Few scholars focus on how the history of the Jews during this period is told in these books. This contribution is an attempt to explore this second avenue by reading 2 Maccabees from a narratological perspective. I will discuss especially how the narrator of 2 Maccabees has used space as a narratorial tool to articulate his story. Because space foregrounds the body of the protagonists of the story, I will also discuss sections of the narrative that highlight bodies as a focal point of space within the story. Following the observation of Jonathan Smith that the relationship to the human body confers meaning to place, I also intend to analyze how the nexus of body and space contributes to meaning, i.e., the message of the story.

Katell Berthelot, CNRS, Université d’Aix Marseille, France

Title: Judas Maccabeus’ Wars against Judaea’s Neighbours in 1 Maccabees 5: A Reassessment of the Evidence

Abstract: The 5th chapter of the First Book of Maccabees recounts a whole range of wars waged by Judas Maccabeus against Judaea’s neighbours, who are depicted as threatening the lives of the Jews living in their midst. The account of these punitive expeditions contains the only explicit reference found in the book to an anathema (herem) against a foreign people, a reference which has led some scholars to see Judas as re-‐enacting the biblical prescription of the herem against the Canaanites. In contrast with this interpretation, I shall argue that the description in 1 Maccabees 5 is highly literary and rhetorical, that it is part of a strategy which aims at presenting Judas as the heir of the first kings of Israel, especially Saul, and that the historicity of these wars should therefore be re-‐assessed.

Kenneth Atkinson, University of Northern Iowa, USA

Title: The Hasmonean State and the Seleucid Empire: Jewish and Non-‐Jewish Cultures in Contact During the Second-‐First Centuries B.C.E.

Abstract: The Hasmonean family was a dynasty of Jewish kings whose ancestors, the famed Maccabees, fought to liberate Judea from Seleucid rule and create an independent state. What is not widely recognized is the extent to which the Seleucid monarchs of present-‐day Syria and Lebanon shaped Jewish religion, culture, and politics following the creation of the Hasmonean state. This presentation explores the encounters between the Jewish and non-‐Jewish cultures of the Hasmonean state and the Seleucid Empire, and how the Seleucids affected Judaism as reflected in the Qumran texts. It suggests that the Qumran writings show that contacts between the Hasmoneans and the Seleucids contributed to the rise of Jewish sectarianism, a period of messianic expectations during the reigns of John Hyrcanus and Alexander Jannaeus, and resulted in the creation of apocalyptic literature. The first section of this presentation examines relevant historical evidence to suggest that the Hasmoneans never achieved full political and cultural independence from the Seleucid Empire. The second portion explores how encounters between the Hasmoneans and the Seleucids contributed to the rise of Jewish sectarianism, messianism, and apocalyptic beliefs. It examines the pesharim and 4QApocryphon of Jeremiah Ce (4Q390), which either refer or allude to contacts between the Hasmoneans and the Seleucids, and which contain unique theological interpretations of these encounters. It suggests that the Qumran texts show that contacts between the Seleucids and the Hasmoneans contributed to Jewish sectarianism, and encouraged the development of messianic and apocalyptic literature that sought to determine the final days of Hasmonean and Seleucid rule. This presentation proposes that the historical and theological development of Second Temple Judaism cannot be understood without studying the unique encounters between the Jewish and non-‐Jewish cultures of the Hasmonean state and the Seleucid Empire, and that the Qumran writings remain a primary witness to these encounters.

Linda Zollschan

Title: First Impressions of Roman Politics from I Macc. 8.15-‐16

Abstract: The “Eulogy to the Romans” is generally considered to be riddled with errors and verses 15-‐16 have not escaped this criticism. In this passage four errors appear so grave and so contrary to what we know about Roman politics in the mid second century BCE. We are told that the senate met each day, that it consisted of 320 members, that the Romans had one man who ruled over them for a year whom they obeyed without envy or jealousy. All these errors strike a discordant note and at first glance seem patently wrong. This paper proposes to show how these errors are in fact an accurate reflection of unusual circumstances in Rome that can only refer to events in the year 162 BCE. The information in verses 15-‐16 bears all the hallmarks of a report by a witness to the tumultuous politics of that year. The only error the

writer made was in failing to understand that what he saw was not typical of the way Roman politics was usually conducted.


Session 003:

Second Temple

14.00-‐15.30

Panel: The Causes of the Maccabean Revolt:

New Perspectives from the Seleukid Imperial Centre, Babylonia and Egypt

Organizer: Sylvie Honigman

Chair: Katell Berthelot

Sylvie Honigman, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: The Causes of the Maccabean Revolt: New Perspective from Ptolemaic Egypt

Abstract: The paper draws a comparison between administrative and fiscal reforms that were carried on by the Ptolemies, and which included changes in the priestly personnel of Egyptian temples, and the circumstances that led to the deposition of Onias III, the high priest of Jerusalem, under and at the initiative of Antiochos IV.

Philippe Clancier, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-‐Sorbonne, Paris

Title: A new Seleukid Policy? How Babylon and Uruk became Poleis

Abstract: It is well known that Babylon became a “polis” during the very first part of the second century BC. There are some clues that Uruk followed the same way. Before that, the two main cities of Babylonia were lead by their local notability working for the main Assyro-‐Babylonian sanctuaries: the Esagil at Babylon and the Resh Temple at Uruk. When, how and why Babylon and Uruk were funded as poleis are important Historiographical questions which received many answers: from a violent royal act showing ethnic tensions between “Greeks” and “Non Greeks”; to a complete local will. In the panel organized by Sylvie Honigman, this paper will focus on the first part of the second century BC (at the exact time of the Maccabean revolt) in Babylonia. We will have a first look on the different theories concerning the “poliadisations” of Babylon and Uruk, and then we will propose a new chronology of the events and try to see what happened, afterwards, for the old Babylonian and Urukean notabilities. For that purpose, we will especially insist on the evolutions of the political, judicial and religious responsibilities of the sanctuaries and try to see the different local actors of those evolutions.

Hannah Cotton & Avner Ecker, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: The Causes of the Maccabean Revolt: New Perspectives from the Seleukid Imperial Centre, Babylonia and Egypt

Abstract: Aspects of Seleucid Administration in the Light of the So-‐called Heliodoros Stele.


Session 004:

Hellenistic Judaism

16.00-‐18.00

Chair: Jan Willem Van Henten

René Bloch, University of Bern, Switzerland

Title: Mythical Footprints in Jewish-‐Hellenistic Literature

Abstract: In the Greco-‐Roman period, both Jews and pagans had their showcases where objects from mythical times could be observed and visited: in Hebron bones of the Biblical giants were shown (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 5.125), and the emperor Augustus placed the weapons of ancient heroes on display in his villa on the island of Capri (Suetonius, Augustus 72). On Crete locals showed visitors the cave where Zeus was born, and ashes from the destroyed city of Sodom provided Jews with vivid evidence of the biblical narrative. In this paper I will discuss a number of such “show and tell” passages in Jewish-‐Hellenistic literature. A particularly telling example is the myth of Andromeda which lent itself to displays in Rome as well as in Palestine: The Romans recovered what they took to be the bones of the monster killed by Perseus and brought them home. Other visual traces of the myth, however, remained in situ in Joppe and were shown to the public there. Already in the Bible, there are a few hints of visual evidence for miraculous events, but we usually do not read about traces of key events being exhibited on location. Why do Jewish-‐Hellenistic authors show a conspicuous interest in the visual remnants of Israel’s mythical past? What might be at stake when remains of wondrous stories are showcased? And how does this concur with the often fierce denial of myth in Jewish-‐Hellenistic literature? I would like to argue that mythical footprints constituted contact zones where the past and the present, the real and the imagined convened.

Pieter B. Hartog, KU Leuven, Belgium

Title: Commentaries as Cultural Contacts? The Pesharim and Hypomnemata on Homer

Abstract: The relationship between the Pesharim from Qumran and commentary writing in the Greek world has only recently been subjected to scholarly investigation. Up to now, only a few scholars have examined the similarities and differences between in these two traditions of commentary writing and attempted to explain them. A definite answer to how these traditions are related, is still lacking. In an attempt to proceed in the discussion and shed further light on the extent and the nature of the cultural contacts between these two traditions, this paper compares the Qumran commentaries with Alexandrian hypomnemata on Homer. Three features of these corpora are taken into account in this comparison, namely: (1) their scribal

‘construction’ and transmission (that is, their materiality); (2) their form and structure; (3) their hermeneutics and exegesis. In this paper, the similarities and differences between these two corpora are discussed and categorized. The three-‐fold investigation enables an exact pinpointing of both the areas in which these corpora are similar to and those in which they are different from one another. This comparison, in turn, leads to a discussion of the connections and cultural contacts between these two corpora and their composers.

Ashley Bacchi, Graduate Theological Union, USA

Title: Jewish Appropriation of Pagan Authority: The Case of the Sibylline Oracles

Abstract: The pseudepigrapha consist of texts that were attributed to famous figures from the distant past, but were written by anonymous Jewish and later Christian authors dating from the second century BCE to the second century CE. This paper demonstrates the unique nature of the Sibylline Oracles within Jewish pseudepigrapha as not only deriving authority from a pagan corpus, but also choosing a female voice as a conduit for prophecy. The Sibylline Oracles are a masterful appropriation of Greek style in service to a monotheistic expression of the writer’s political views on contemporary power structures. Sibylline literature was written in epic Greek hexameter verse and the use of this genre reveals a writer with a mastery of Greek language, style, and cultural allusions that is not a superficial masking of biblical motifs. The resulting work is a strong message with an authoritative voice rooted in both Hellenistic and Jewish traditions. By establishing how the Jewish authors utilized the Greek oracular form, it is possible to question the elusive nature of identity constructions and what primary sources reveal about boundary formations and the complex spectrum between cultural acceptance and rejection.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 07

Session: 001:

Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature

9.00-‐10.30

Chair:

Stefan Goltzberg, University of Cambridge, UK

Title: Literal Meaning in Talmud Literature

Abstract: The literal meaning is a central notion in any legal system. This is why many scholars, from the Middle Ages up to now, perceived a need to develop a distinctive theory of literal meaning. My purpose is to examine that notion in Jewish law (from the Mishna to late Medieval materials), as well as in the various legal systems that had an influence on it, namely Roman law and Muslim law. Although the notion of peshat has been examined by at least two important authors (Weiss Halivni and Cohen), its history is yet to be comprehensively addressed. In this paper, I plan to suggest that the various theories of literal meaning, dependent upon the differents meaning of the concept of peshat sit easily with modern theories of literal meaning (Searle, Recanati, Bach). Robert Gleave has analyzed the status of literal meaning in Islamic legal thought in the light of these modern theories. I would like to analyze the status of literal meaning in the light of both Muslim hermeneutics of literal meaning as well as through more modern concepts in linguistic pragmatics.

Farina Marx, Institute for Jewish Studies, Germany

Title: The “Compilation” of Yalkut Shimoni on the Minor Prophets

Abstract: The “Yalkut Shimoni“compiles important annotations from rabbinic literature to each book of the Hebrew Bible. The voluminous commentary cites more than 50 traditional rabbinic texts including sources which have been lost. Most academic research on the Yalkut Shimoni has focused on reconstructing these lost sources such as “Midrash Jelamdenu”, other research issues about Yalkut Shimoni have been neglected. In my paper I will focus on the Yalkut Shimoni on the Minor Prophets. The author of the Yalkut Shimoni was not able to rely on consecutively commentaries on the Minor Prophets such as for example the commentaries on the book of Numbers. In my paper I will therefore focus on the question of compilation techniques. Consequently, the author had to use pieces of commentaries on the Torah or other biblical books where Minor Prophets are cited and then he compiles them to a new commentary. Furthermore, he puts these fragments together without naming the sources or introducing them to the text. The question is: Which sources does the author use? Is it a mainly Palestinian or Babylonian embossed commentary? Which key notes does the author employ for his new commentaries? Which association techniques does the author use and why does he sometimes just list rabbinic techniques of exegesis? In my paper I will analyze the techniques the author uses to compile these sources. By the help of selected examples I will point out how the author writes his own commentary which can be read independently

from the commentary of the used source. Consequently, the Yalkut text cannot be seen as a „just / mere“compiled text. Part of the discussion is if and how sources were changed to fit the exegesis. I will put the question up for discussion how the composed text functions in general and as how it functions as independent commentary.

Dagmar Boerner-‐Klein, Jewish Studies, Heinrich Heine University, Germany

Title: Israel are those who observe Tora: Yalkut Shimóni Numbers on Proselytes

Abstract: Yalkut Shimóni is a commentary on every book of the Hebrew bible based on quotes of the Talmudim and Midrashim. The anonymous redactor is on the one hand interested in solving grammatical inconsistencies of the Hebrew bible. On the other hand, he focuses on theological problems which he embeds into his commentary like a musician who composes a melody (solving textual problems) with a counterpoint (solving theological problems). In Yalkut Shimóni’s commentary on the book of Numbers, the anonymous compiler included several annotations on how to deal with proselytes. On the one hand, he quotes from Sifre on Numbers that God loves Israel -‐ “and whenever he renames Israel he calls them priests”. On the other hand, he points to the fact that after the destruction of the temple, priests do not longer perform their services. These services are replaced by the study of the Tora. Hence, everybody who studies Tora can be considered to be a priest, even a person who is not a member of Israel. In my paper I will present the commentaries of Yalkut Shimóni Numbers on proselytes in order to show how the Yalkut Shimóni deals with the reassessment of persons who study Tora and do not belong to the group of “native Israel”.


Session 002:

Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature

11.00-‐13.00

Chair :

Mireille Hadas Lebel, Université Paris 4, France

Title: Mashiah Ben Joseph. A Reconsideration

Abstract : L'apparition dans la tradition juive d'un Messie fils de Joseph dont la venue doit précéder celle du Messie fils de David a donné lieu à diverses hypothèses. La plus fréquemment retenue rattache ce personnage à la figure de Bar Kokhba car il est censé mourir au combat au cours de la guerre eschatologique qui sera suivie de l'ère messianique. Un examen de la première mention du Messie fils de Joseph dans le Talmud (Sukka 52 a) et des citations bibliques qui lui sont associées (sans rapport avec un quelconque combat) nous font totalement remettre en question les explications proposées jusqu'ici.

Avigail Ohali, Université Paris 3, France

Title: Les rabbins et les autres : à propos de l’humour dans les anecdotes tannaïtiques

Abstract: Depuis les années 1970, différentes sociétés savantes se sont consacrées à l’étude de l’humour. Les recherches pluridisciplinaires qui relèvent de ce vaste domaine ont tendance à englober dans la notion d’humour toutes les nuances des expressions qui relèvent du non-‐sérieux. J’adopte cette définition très large du terme humour. Les théories anciennes et plus récentes (voir Arie Sover, Humor, the Pathway to human laughter, 2009) qui expliquent les origines, les mécanismes et les fonctions du phénomène du rire et de l’humour s'accordent sur un point essentiel : l’humour est révélateur de vérité. En ce qui concerne les écrits rabbiniques anciens, ce domaine reste encore aujourd’hui peu exploré. Les écrits rabbiniques sont des ouvrages sérieux. L’objectif des rabbins n’est pas de faire rire, cette idée semble faire l’unanimité. Cependant, plusieurs savants ont déjà repéré et étudié les expressions de l’humour dans la littérature rabbinique classique (à commencer par A. Kohut en 1886). Les rabbins avaient bel et bien le sens de l’humour, comme le montrent D. Lifshitz (articles divers, 2000-‐2002) et B. Engelman («Humor in the Babylonian Talmud », 1998), en soulignant leurs moqueries, jeux de mots et autres mots d’esprit. En tant que rédacteurs, l’humour était pour eux un outil littéraire comme le montre Rella Kushelevsky (« Humor and it’s functions in the stories of R. Yehushua ben Levi», 1998) ou encore un vecteur idéologique dans leurs diverses polémiques externes et internes et un moyen d’interrogation épistémologique comme le montrent les études de D. Boyarin (Socrates and the Fat Rabbis, 2009), H. Zellentin (Rabbinic Parodies …, 2011) et A. Kovelman (« Farce in the Talmud », 2002). Ces études, pour certaines très intéressantes du point de vue de la méthode, restent peu nombreuses et n’ont aucun caractère exhaustif. Le champ couvert par le sujet est actuellement en plein renouvellement, mais aucun des auteurs ne met vraiment au centre de ses préoccupations l’humour rabbinique en tant que tel, dans son unité mais aussi dans la pluralité de ses manifestations. Aussi, les corpus tannaïtiques n’ont jamais été explorés dans ce sens, et à tort. Dans cette communication J’examinerai une sélection de récits tirés des recueils tannaïtiques, à la lumière des théories élaborées notamment par R. Kushelevsky, H. Zellentin et D. Boyarin. Je montrerai d’abord que malgré l’austérité apparente des textes tannaïtiques, l’humour n’y est pas moins présent, et que si l’humour était pour les amora'im de Palestine et de Babylonie, à la fois un moyen de s’affirmer et de douter de soi, c’était également le cas pour les tanna'im.

Shai Wozner, Tel-‐Aviv University, Faculty of Law, Israel

Title: Theology and Law: on Providence and Talmudic Law

Abstract: The aim of modern criminal law is to prevent harmful consequences that may result from forbidden activities. Almost all felonies are perpetrated against a victim and the primary aim of the legislator is to protect the victim. However, rabbinic literature assumes that Divine Providence controls all events occurring to a person even if the occurrence depended on the choice of another person. This assumption limits the freedom of choice in the behavior of one person to another. A could not possible kill or rob B if B was not destined to be killed or lose his property in any case. Hence, A has the choice to kill or rob B only if the harm to B was predestined. This concept appears in various sources in Talmudic and medieval literature. I would like to mention here only the well-‐known exegesis on the law of building a parapet: The School of R. Ishmael taught: "If any man (lit. faller) fall from thence" – this man was predestined to fall since the six days of Creation, for he has not yet fallen, and Scripture calls him a faller. However, reward is brought through a person of merit, and punishment through a person of-‐ guilt. (BT Sabbath 32a) So, the obligation to fence in one's roof was not intended to protect the would be faller, who would fall one way or another in any case, but to protect the morality of the roof's owner, and to redeem him from the responsibility of causing harm. So the focus moves from outcome-‐orientated morality to deontological morality, stressing individual's responsibility for his choices, even though they had no real influence on the outcome. I would like to examine how this move affects the aims of the law and the

concept of legal responsibility of felons in the criminal and civil spheres. The aim of the law is no longer to protect 'victims', since it is assumed that the Divinity, who takes care of the whole world, protects these interests. Hence, the focal point of the law is to offer guidance for moral conduct. The emphasis is on the action rather than the outcome. The deterrence of punishment is not for the protection of victims but for the benefit of felons – to prevent them from immoral conduct. Similarly, the law of the pursuer (i.e., if one was about to kill another person, he may be forcible prevented by anyone) was intended to save the pursuer from sinning and not to protect the pursued (Rashi. Sanhedrin. 73a) so, the role of law is limited to enforce personal morality.

Yoel Kretzmer-‐Raziel, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: The Imperialism of Purity Laws in Amoraic Legal Discourse

Abstract: The centrality of purity laws in Tannaitic literature is self-‐evident. The Tannaitic discussions of purity laws exceed discussions of other fields of law both in the quantity and the level of conceptual development. It is widely accepted that the Amoraic period saw a reduction in the attention given to purity law, leading to the absence of the Order of Purities from both the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds. Although numerous Amoraic discussions are devoted to the purity laws, Talmudic scholarship has shown that for the most part these discussions are the fruit of the early Amoraic period. This paper wishes to demonstrate that concurrently with the decline of purity laws another phenomenon arose in the Amoraic discourse, namely the influence of purity laws on other fields of rabbinic law. The textual legacy of the Tannaitic purity laws, it shall be argued, played a pivotal role in the development of other fields of Amoraic law. The intertextual character of Amoraic hermeneutics and legal reasoning allowed for the utilization of the highly developed and detailed purity laws in the expansion of other, less developed, fields of law. The influence of purity laws shall be demonstrated three-‐fold, through the laws of muqṣe – the rulings pertaining to the usage and handling of various objects on the Sabbath. Firstly, I shall show that quite often the subject matter tested in these discussions are borrowed from the Tannaitic corpus of purity laws. For example, the Amoraic rulings regarding handling of a pile of beams (s’var shel korot – PT Sab. 4:2; BT Sab. 125a) can be textually traced to the discussion regarding the same object in M Oh. 3:7. Secondly, I shall describe various Amoraic legal concepts in the field of the Sabbath laws as stemming from linguistically similar concepts in the Tanaitic realm of purity laws. Thus, the roots of the antonymic concepts (1) “Base for a forbidden object” (basis le’davar ha’asur) and (2) “Forget” (shoche’aḥ) can be traced to similar distinctions in the Tannaitic system of purity. Thirdly, I shall claim that novel legal principles in Amoraic Sabbatical laws were based on similar principles in the Tanaitic purity laws. A striking example is the appearance of “thought” (maḥashava) – active human conscience – as a determining factor in the laws of muqṣe in both Talmuds. Textual and linguistic evidence can be provided to link this innovation to similar principles in Tanaitic laws of purity. In conclusion, the paper shall suggest hermeneutic and cultural explanations for the above mentioned process.


Session 003:

Comparative Halakha

14.00-‐15.30

Chair:

Marton Ribary, The University of Manchester, UK

Title: Imposing Order on the World in Rabbinic and Roman Legal Thought

Abstract: Imposing order on the world: A study of classifying “damages” (neziqin) and “obligations” (obligationes) in Rabbinic and Roman legal thought. Based on a parallel reading of passages relating to the taxonomy of legal obligations, my paper offers an insight into the development of abstract thinking in Roman and Rabbinic law in Late Antiquity. The paper’s case-‐study analyses the classification of “damages” (neziqin) in the opening passage of tractate Bava Qama in the Talmud Yerushalmi (ca. 425 CE) which is juxtaposed by the exposition of “obligations” (obligationes) in Book 3 of Justinian’s Institutes (533 CE). This case-‐study investigates whether taxonomic thinking was present in these legal cultures of antiquity and if so, to what extent it contributed to the systematic exposition of law. With reference to the relevant passages in the Mishnah-‐Tosefta (early 3rd century CE), the Institutes of Gaius (ca. 165 CE) and the juristic commentaries collected in Justinian’s Digest (533 CE), the paper investigates how preceding materials have been adapted to the logical, rhetorical and legal patterns peculiar to the Yerushalmi and Justinian’s Institutes. Reconstructing the literary-‐legal evolution of the classification of neziqin and obligationes will allow a preliminary comparison concerning developmental models of Roman and Rabbinic legal abstraction. The paper seeks to highlight common features as well as significant differences of conceptualisation in Rabbinic and Roman law, and explores whether these can be explained solely by differences in the social, institutional and political settings (relativist approach) or whether they reveal some inherent characteristics of the Roman and Rabbinic mind (essentialist approach).

Barak Cohen, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: R. Nahman and Sasanian Law: Some Further Observations

Abstract: Rav Nahman b. Yaakov is a late third and early fourth century Amora and one of the most dominant halakhic figures among Babylonian amoraim. R. Nahman is closely associated with Mahoza, the Jewish and Christian suburb near the Persian capitol of Ctesiphon. In a series of papers, Yaakov Elman has shown R. Naman's high degree of acculturation in Persian culture. Elman characterized R. Nahman as the most "Persianized" of Babylonian Rabbis, and demonstrated how external factors such as the Manichaean polemics in Mahoza in the fourth century, and the religious atmosphere of the surrounding culture permeated the statements of R. Nahman and his pupil – Rava. My aim in this lecture is to continue this line of inquiry from a different standpoint. I will argue the following: (a) A systematic analysis of Rav Nahman's halakhic rulings and legal interpretation leads to the conclusion that this is part of a broader phenomenon which characterizes his personality and legal methodology in the Talmudim. R. Nahman tends to rule against the tannaitic halakha found in the Mishna and Baraita, on the basis of Sasanian Law. This legal methodology proves to be unique in comparison with and late Nehardean sages in the Sasanian period. (b) Occasionally scholars have been so stunned by Rav Nahman’s forced interpretation and Legal rulings that they have discounted these interpretations as actually being those of Rav Nahman and have ascribed them to the literary interpolations of later editors, conventionally called “stammaim” — the anonymous voice in the Talmud. In my opinion, the large number of such interpretations which are ascribed to Rav Nahman in comparison to the sages of his generation -‐ do indicate something about his unique methodology. I will demonstrate how R. Nahman's statements based on Sasanian law transforms tannaitic halakha in Sasanian Babylonia. Our study into amoraic interpretation, halakhah and discourse reveals that the tendency of an amora to offer a strained interpretation to a tannaitic text, or a tendency to rule in opposition to tannaitic

tradition, is an individual matter, and does not characterize all Babylonian amoraim or the entire Babylonian Talmud.

Monika Amsler, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Title: "What Can I Do to You?" Rabbis and Non-‐Rabbis Competing with Knowledge.

Abstract: It is within fictitious encounters between rabbis and non-‐rabbis that we learn about the competitive situation between proponents of rabbinic vs. such of non-‐rabbinic traditional knowledge. It seems that the rabbis were as much impressed by and attracted to the age-‐old wisdom of others as they may have been threatened by it. Focusing on the Bavli, the paper will examine some of these cross-‐cultural encounters and ask for possible ways of classifying the knowledge at stake.


Session 004:

Late Midrash

16.00-‐18.00

Chair:

Gilad Shapira, Haifa University, Israel

Title: Midrash in Yemen: between Aesthetic and Struggle

Abstract: We can look Midrash Hagadol and Meor Haafela as a paradigm of Contrasts concerning the context of living under a Muslim authority. Although these two Midrashim Organized according to the Torah portions, we can identify basic differences between theirs prefaces in some Aspects: structure, texture, styles and themes. The Comparison between them may characterize the double rule of poetic in Midrash literature looking inside and outside.

Yehudah Cohn, EPHE Paris, France, and Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York, USA

Title: Divine Inspiration as a Source for Rashi's Cosmogony

Abstract: In his books The Anxiety of Influence and A Map of Misreading, the literary critic Harold Bloom introduced the idea of creative misreading, which is perhaps most simply summed up in his statement that “great writing is always at work. misreading previous writing”. He described a swerve by writers away from the work of their precursors as “a corrective movement which implies that the precursor went accurately up to a certain point, but then should have swerved, precisely in the direction that the new poem moves”. According to this conception – which has proven to be useful far beyond Bloom’s original context of poetry criticism – a successful misreading of great predecessors allows the voice of later writers to be heard, and to surpass what came before. My research proposal entails using this lens to investigate Rashi’s commentary on the Pentateuch, as it relates to his late-‐Antique sources. As such it reassesses literary

entanglements and processes of canonization between Europe and the Middle East. Rashi of Troyes (Rabbi Salomon Yitshaqi, 1040-‐1105) is the towering figure of medieval French Jewry, and is best known for two works – his commentaries to the Pentateuch and the Babylonian Talmud – both of which assumed unique importance for Jews in Europe and beyond. Christian exegetes, from the school of St. Victor in Paris (founded by Pierre Abélard’s teacher Guillaume de Champeaux) were already using his interpretation of the Pentateuch in the twelfth century, and the great Nicolas de Lyre drew on it extensively in the thirteenth century. Rashi’s was the first Hebrew Bible commentary to be written in the Ashkenazi (Franco-‐German) Jewish center, and his comments on the Pentateuch were largely based on several discrete Midrashic texts that originated in Roman Palestine, as well as on Midrashic elements found in the Babylonian Talmud. (Loosely speaking, Midrash is a process that elaborates on the Hebrew Bible, and refashions it into the canonical source for rabbinic legend and law). Taken together with the Palestinian Talmud – to which Rashi had only incomplete access – these late-‐Antique works constituted classical rabbinic literature, which represents a significant element of the literary record of the Roman and Sassanian empires. Rashi’s work has played an unparalleled role in the reception history of this literature, and during the course of my research I will try to demonstrate the pervasive extent of Rashi’s creative misreadings, and provide a typology for them. In light of the considerable interest in appropriation / détournement in contemporary culture, such an analysis of one of its great past masters seems particularly timely. I would like to bring to the fore the frequent unspoken disagreements with his precursors that are embedded in Rashi’s commentary, as well as other ways in which he may be creatively improving if not subverting the above sources, while seemingly incorporating their content, if not their precise language. To a far greater extent than has been realized, it seems to me that Rashi’s commentary consists of such quiet engagement with these sources, rather than merely the selective transmittal of their substance in a succinct and stylized form (merged, as is universally acknowledged, with a measure of explicit disagreement). Given that some three-‐quarters of the commentary consists of material that has been viewed in this latter light, both by traditional and modern scholars, the proposed approach is designed to provide a new perspective for Rashi studies.

Shana Strauch Schick, University of Haifa, Israel

Title: Images of Pregnancy in Rabbinic Literature: The Innovation of Midrash Reishit ha-‐Parshiyot, a Geniza Fragment

Abstract: This paper examines how pregnancy and childbirth have been represented in rabbinic literature, and how these depictions reflect the wider cultural and intellectual contexts in which these texts developed. While pregnancy and childbirth have been subject to lengthy discussions in terms of the halakhic ramifications for the laws of purity as well as for the theological and philosophical issues which they generate, the rabbis of late antique literature generally subscribed to the prevailing Greco-‐Roman scientific understandings of pregnancy and childbirth and in turn described them in both objective and scientific terms. Not surprisingly, there is no attempt to depict the subjective experience of what a laboring woman might feel. An exception to this picture can be found in a Medieval midrashic compilation discovered at the Cairo Geniza termed “Midrash Reishit HaParshiyot (MRhP) in the section on parshat Toldot. MRhP on parshat Toldot is of particular importance because of its state of preservation as well as the thematic and literary unity which it displays. More significantly, almost all of the midrashim presented therein are consistently female-‐centric-‐ a true novelty in rabbinic literature. While most of these traditions may be found in other collections, only in MRhP have they been collated together in one passage, with the redactor of MRhP amending some of the sources so that they all convey this consistent message. Among these traditions is a midrash of unknown origin, which uses vivid imagery to describe the contractions felt by Rebecca in the biblical account of her unborn babies fighting inside her. What is truly fascinating about this passage is that not only does it feign to describe the sensations that women experience and feel, but it is accurate as well. We will explore what may account for this shift, considering whether it may be located

within the time and culture that this late midrash developed. MRhP thus offers a refreshing depiction of labor as actually experienced by women, and underscores the suppressed voices of women in rabbinic literature writ large in describing the distinctly female experiences of pregnancy and labor.

Lennart Lehmhaus, Free University of Berlin, Germany

Title: Late Midrashic Texts as Terra Incognita? – A Second Look on Literary Strategies and Developments in Jewish Traditions in in the Geonic Period

Abstract: In early scholarship the late midrashic traditions were often presented as governed solely by their anthological interest in as well as eclectic and narrative usage of older rabbinic traditions of all sort. While these observations hold true for parts of those midrashic texts, one also has to consider other complex strategies of literary transmission, adaptation, and innovation in order to grasp their transformative function as link between late antique and early medieval times. I would like to study such developments in late Midrash with a special focus on the texts of Pirqe de rabbi Eliezer (PRE), Seder Eliyahu Rabba (SER) and Zuta (SEZ). Those multifarious works, most probably to be dated in early geonic times, are mainly concerned with questions of ethical lifestyle and righteous conduct. Seder Eliyahu Zuta (SEZ), as well as its fellow-‐text called Seder Eliyahu Rabba (SER) combines with literary skilfulness different genres, literary structures and strategies which could have make the texts function for different audiences. The text integrates ethical and religious concepts with a complex discourses on Jewish or rabbinic identity and culture, against the backdrop of an emerging rabbinic Judaism within a context of Karaite, Roman-‐Byzantine, Christian, Persian and Islamic influences. The paper will address complex interactions with and modification of biblical and rabbinic traditions, hermeneutics and rhetoric in later midrashic texts in order to convey particular messages or pursue specific goals. Which intertextual references to religious narratives and figures are actualized? How were literary structures (genres) as well as hermeneutic and exegetical methods adopted and adapted to the thematic frame of the text? The answer to these questions will help to deepen our understanding of the similarities and differences vis à vis other rabbinic discourses (e.g. Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash) and to allocate these traditions within the framework of ancient Jewish literature.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 08

Session: 001:

Early Modern History

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Travel and Cultural Interchange in Pre-‐Modern Jewry

Organizer: David Malkiel

Chair:

David Malkiel, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: The Rabbi and the Crocodile: Nature, Empiricism and the Hermeneutics of Observation in the Age of Discoveries.

Abstract: Rabbi Ovadia of Bertinoro's journey to the Holy Land brought him to Egypt, where as he sailed down the Nile, he observed a crocodile. Reflecting upon this experience, the rabbi referred to the crocodile's relationship with the "trochilus," the bird which according to an age-‐old tradition eats detritus from the crocodile's mouth. Ovadia also cited the rabbinic tradition that identifies the crocodile as the "zepharde'a" of the Second Plague. This paper will trace the history of these two traditions from Antiquity to the 15th century. The discussion will present Ovadia's encounter with the crocodile as a classic example of the confluence of rabbinic tradition with the Italian Renaissance and the Age of Discoveries.

Ilaria Sabbatini, Ex-‐SUM, Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, Italy

Title: In terram quam mostrabo. L’itinérance de dévotion dans les religions d’Abraham.

Abstract: Le voyage est le mouvement d’un point à un autre de tout sujet. En tant que tel, ce mouvement comporte l’implication des dimensions de l’espace et du temps. Le voyage est la métaphore par excellence de l’existence qui se manifeste sous une durée et sous un parcours. Le vivant vit en mouvement et pour le mouvement de sorte que rien plus que le voyage dans toutes ses formes peut exprimer la condition de l’être humain. La question du pèlerinage est fortement ancrée dans la tradition biblique bien avant que dans les rituels coutumiers respectifs pour les religions du Livre. Il est possible de repérer les modèles du pèlerinage dans les personnages d’Abraham et de Caïn. Le premier, le père de la foi, en quittant Ur de Chaldée pour gagner la terre qui lui est indiquée, s’élève au rang d’exemple du parfait croyant. Le dernier, renié et sans paix, est éloigné de l’Eden et destiné à une vaine errance qui n’est que perte de soi-‐même. Les deux personnages sont deux prototypes de voyage irréconciliables qui représentent deux parcours, l’un étant l’opposé de l’autre. Abraham part d’un lieu sur Terre et se dirige vers une destination qui préfigure la promesse eschatologique. Caïn quitte l’Eden pour s’égarer au milieu de la Terre des hommes. D’une part, Abraham quitte sa terre d’origine avec une bénédiction. D’autre part, Caïn est exilé avec une malédiction (Gen XII, 1 ; IV, 12). Cette tension se manifeste non seulement dans les histoires des protagonistes bibliques

mais aussi dans les différentes attitudes à l’égard de la pratique du pèlerinage. Dès le VIIIe siècle av. J.-‐C., les prophètes Amos et Osée réprimandent durement cette pratique qu’ils estiment comme inutile (Am 5, 4-‐5 ; Os 12, 12). Les premières destinations sont corrélées avec les figures des patriarches et des chefs des Israélites: mémoires d’Abraham, de Jacob et de Josué. Le pèlerinage juif qui est à l’origine du pèlerinage chrétien, sera réglementé par la suite et codifié entre le Ve et le VIe siècle av. J.-‐C. Cette codification est à repérer dans l’Exode et dans le Deutéronome (Ex 23, 14-‐17 ; 34, 23-‐24 et Dt 16, 16). Pour finir, la réforme de Josias a tenté de supprimer tous les sanctuaires locaux et de diriger les pèlerinages vers le seul lieu de culte : Jérusalem (1Rois 23, 23 ; Dt 12). À travers les siècles, cette centralisation a fait ainsi que Jérusalem devienne la ville trois fois sainte. Le judaïsme, le christianisme et l’islam, tous vénèrent Jérusalem car ils reconnaissent leur racine commune dans la souche d’Abraham, le plus grand voyageur, pèlerin et déraciné de la tradition biblique. Quel est donc le lien que ces religions entretiennent entre elles en ce qui concerne la pratique du voyage de dévotion ? Quelles sont les différences et quelles les similitudes ? De façon différente par rapport au judaïsme et à l’islam, le christianisme ne reconnaît pas au pèlerinage une valeur fondamentale dans la vie spirituelle des fidèles. Le pèlerinage acquiert un caractère sacré contraignant dans l’Islam qui n’est pas propre au christianisme, alors qu’elle prend un sens totalement différent dans le judaïsme. Pour le premier, le hajj islamique adopte et modernise les pratiques existantes d’un peuple nomade pour les réglementer à la lumière du Livre. En revanche, l’aliyah juive est la traduction métaphorique d’une perspective de sédentarisation qui implique la dimension nationale. Tant le hajj que l’aliyah jouent un rôle identitaire que le pèlerinage chrétien ignore. Né au sein d’une société sédentarisée et enraciné dans un monde romain axé sur l’institution de la ville, le christianisme reflète plutôt une nature urbaine qui influe profondément sa relation avec la mobilité. Le rapport entre l’expérience religieuse et la valeur sociale du pèlerinage est donc le même dans le judaïsme, le christianisme et l’islam ? Quel rapport ont ces différentes cultures religieuses avec la dimension du voyage ? C’est à ces questions de recherche que je vais essayer de répondre dans mon étude.

Nils Roemer, University of Texas at Dallas, USA

Title: Jewish Travelers and Christian Interlocutors During the Early Modern Period in Ashkenaz

Abstract: My paper aims to analyze the interaction between Jewish travelers and Christian scholars and authors of travelogues. During the early modern period, Jews visited various local communities both as pious travelers making pilgrimages to revered graves before the High Holidays and also as curious travelers. Although less visited than Italy and France, German cities in the Rhineland attracted numerous Christian travelers, who inspected and debated Jewish historical sites and their meaning. Jewish and non-‐Jewish travelers interacted in varied ways that ultimately shaped their respective traveling cultures as I will argue in my paper.


Session 002:

Yiddish Literature

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Yiddish, the Language of Love:

Isaac Wetzlar's "Libes Briv" in the Context of Pietism, Enlightenment and Ethical Literature

Orgnaizer: Avraham Siluk

Chair: Shmuel Fiener

Rebekka Voß, Goethe University, Frankfurt Main, Germany

Title: A Carrot in Lieu of the Stick: A Yiddish Love Letter in the Context of Pietist Missionizing

Abstract: Isaac Wetzlar's only authored book, the ‘Libes Briv’ (Love Letter 1748/49) is a religious-‐ethical work that sharply criticizes contemporary Jewish society and offers ideas for social improvement and ethical-‐religious renewal. While Libes briv has to date been placed between the traditional genre of ethical Mussar literature and the early Haskalah, our project will focus on its relationship to German Pietism that deserves further investigation. This paper will in particular introduce a new aspect into the discussion about the relationship of Wetzlar's Libes briv to Pietism: that is, the Pietist missionizing of the Jews. It seems to have served as a framework for Wetzlar's involvement with the Christian movement and its ideals. Wetzlar's Libes briv in fact seems to have been influenced in form and content by the Pietist “love letter,” that Pietist missionaries addressed – often in Yiddish – to the Jews of Europe they wished to win over with a carrot in lieu of the stick.

Avraham Siluk, Goethe University, Frankfurt Main, Germany

Title: Isaac Wetzlar's Pietist Surrounding

Abstract: The author of the ‘Libes Briv’, Isaac Wetzlar, not only claims to have met with and to have had discussions with Pietist, to whom he refers to as Christian Chassidim, but he also asserts his readers that he has read some of their works. Furthermore, he seems to adopt Pietist critics, ideas and concepts of social reform in his work (in detail on this subject see the paper of Mrs. Voss). What brought the Jewish merchant to deal so extensively with this particular Christian religious movement? What could he have known about it, and wherefrom? The paper will illuminate the Pietist surrounding of Isaac Wetzlar and the possible encounter points and sources of information, he might have had, as he was sitting to write his “Love Letter”. By doing so, the paper would present an approach to the examination of Jewish-‐Christian interaction, which focuses on reciprocal impulses, rather than on immediate interreligious contacts.

Marion Aptroot, Heinrich-‐Heine-‐Universität Düsseldorf, Germany

Title: The Manuscripts of Isaac Wetzlar’s Libes Briv

Abstract: There are nine extant manuscripts of (parts of) Isaac Wetzlar’s Libes briv. In this paper I will discuss the different manuscripts, their form and their language. Not only the number manuscripts that have come down to us is significant: from their physical format, the changes the scribes made in spelling, vocabulary and content, and dedications in two of the manuscripts information about the reception of Libes briv by those who had the text copied and those who made the copies can be gleaned. This information can be useful – to a certain extent – in answering the following questions: What motivated the changes which were made to the text and what do they tell us? For whom were the individual copies intended? How were these copies used? To which extent are they related to the Christian genre of religious ethical ‘love letters’?

Noa Sophie Kohler & Ephraim Sicher, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: “The Jew’s Daughter in Germany in the Early Modern Period: Between Jews and Christians, History and Imagination”

Abstract: The 13th century Caesarius von Heisterbach, the Christian chronicler from Cologne, tells the story of a Jewish daughter who was seduced by a Christian man. The punch line of the story is that the Christian man convinces her parents that she is pregnant with the future Messiah, while in the end she gives birth to a daughter. Thus the Jewish community is being ridiculed and punished for its stubbornness. Later, in early modern German literature, we find a series of tales, adventure stories or farces, dramatizing the love between a beautiful Jewess and a Christian man, ending oftentimes in the conversion and subsequent marriage of the Jewess. Not only is this literary motif of the daughter of the Jew connected to the more general motif of the beautiful Jewess, but the pairing of the Jewish father, representing the Jewish Law and Jewish refusal to accept the Christian messiah, with his beautiful Jewish daughter who can be converted to Christianity, allegorizes the tension between Old and New Testaments, law and dispensation, obedience and rebellion, but alas, in problematic way, Christian morality and erotic desire. Yet, in fact, this motif, repeated in a number of medieval exempla and oral tales, hardly represents the reality of social relations between Jews and Christians. Interestingly, the actual number of conversions in German lands in the early modern period was very low (D.S. Hertz estimates from 1600-‐1650, there were two cases of conversion to Protestantism per year, from 1671-‐1708 approx. four, and from 1700-‐1750 around six). Additionally one has to take into account that it was common practice to offer Jewish delinquents conversion to Christianity to escape capital punishment, and that also the several cases of insincere conversions must be considered, where Jews later returned to Judaism without approbation. Only in the late 18th century, several of the Jewish “Salon Women” seemingly lived the literary motif of being beautiful Jewish daughters of observant Jewish men, who emancipate themselves from their fathers by converting and marrying Christian men. Against the backdrop of the development of the beautiful Jewish daughter in German literature, the paper will ask to what extent Jewish “Salon Women” used their conversion in order to emancipate themselves from their fathers and their former religious beliefs. We will argue that their disengagement from Judaism was less sensational than reflected by the literary motif, even considering their parents’ reservations and hurt feelings.


Session 003:


14.00-‐15.30

Panel: Crossing Cultural Borders in Early Modern Europe

Organizer: Shlomo Berger

Chair: Shlomo Berger

Irene Zwiep, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Title: On Culture, Borders and Crossings in Early Modern Judaism

Abstract: In my contribution I would like to contribute to the panel by addressing two methodological aspects of studying early modern Jewish-‐non-‐Jewish cultural transfer. Firstly, we should ask ourselves precisely what is the significance of the metaphor of 'border crossing'? What basic conception of culture does it imply, and what does this mean for our evaluation of early modern Jewish culture in particular? Secondly, we should explore how the very idea of cultural transfer (and related categories such as brokerage and entangled history) affect our interpretations of historical processes and the dynamic that shaped them. Both issues will be illustrated by examples from early modern Jewish biblical literacy in its complex Jewish-‐gentile context. How much (or how little) 'transfer' should we allow into our analyses of Jewish biblical culture, and on what grounds?

Shmuel Feiner, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: A Fire in the Theater and the Anxiety of the “New World” in 1772 Amsterdam

Abstract: On May 11, 1772, a fire broke out during a theater performance in Amsterdam, killing a few, including Jews. That disaster encouraged Israel ben Issachar Baer to compose one of the most critical essays against Jewish acculturation. His Hebrew manuscript, Olam Chadash (“New World”), parodic in style and full of anger, was written by a member of the Ashkenazi religious elite, who came to Holland from Poland and regarded himself as a guardian of the norms of Judaism. It is a rare document that describes the encounters between Jews and non-‐Jews, particularly wherever the city’s residents attended cultural events and spent their leisure time: the theater, the opera and the coffee house. Baer emphasizes the profound involvement of Jewish women in these practices (“they read books in French and other foreign languages and never set their eyes on Tze’ena ure’enai) and describes the open nature of the relations between the sexes and the power of Eros. If one listens attentively to Baer’s voice, the existence of an unprecedented cultural and religious conflict is revealed. “New World” not only identifies the temptations of the modern city, but also finds that the individual’s self-‐confidence is a major cause of the collapse of traditional authority. It is the individualistic ethos that enables Jews to rebel against religion, Jewish solidarity and the collective memory, and to relegate the religious elite to the sidelines even before the emergence of the Haskalah and without the direct influence of its values.

Zohar Shavit, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: Jewish Networking in the European Enlightenment: The Case of Shimon ben Zcharia

Abstract: This paper discusses the extent of Jewish networking – mainly of members of the Haskala movement – in the European Enlightenment. This networking included acquaintance with several Enlightenment texts, with the common methods of publications and publishing houses that brought out Enlightenment writings, and even with a few key Enlightenment figures. The paper analyzes the uses Jews made of this networking to introduce and disseminate Enlightenment values and ideas in Central European Jewish society. The paper also deals with the strategies they employed for that purpose. I maintain that the members of the Haskala movement were much more versed in European Enlightenment writings than is generally assumed. True, texts written in languages other than German were very often not accessible to them in the original language. They read them with the help of intermediate translations, mainly into German; the use of German intermediate translations entailed adopting the German Enlightenment’s

interpretation of enlightened French or English texts. In several cases, however, members of the Haskala movement did have full or partial access to texts in English or French.


Session 004:


16.00-‐18.00

Panel: Crossing Cultural Borders in Early Modern Europe

Organizer: Shlomo Berger

Chair: Shlomo Berger

Natalie Naimark-‐Goldberg, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Crossing Cultural Borders in Breslau: Interreligious Sociability in the Late Eighteenth Century

Abstract: In an oft-‐quoted letter, written during a trip to Silesia in1794, Rahel Levin (later Varnhagen) describes the cultural shock of a young, acculturated Jewish woman upon her encounter with the "backward", unrefined sights of Breslau. True, the Silesian relatives of this young Jewish woman lived in a more traditional environment than her own family in Berlin. But how accurate is the image conveyed by Levin, that when travelling to the Silesian capital, a German Jew – particularly from Berlin – would be moving into a totally different world? This lecture will examine this question by focusing on one central aspect: the social and intellectual encounters between Jews and non-‐Jews that took place in Breslau. This phenomenon will be analyzed based on data collected from various sources, which points at an unexpected scope of interfaith sociability and makes one wonder how exceptional the case of Berlin – and especially the Jewish salons in this city – really was. This evidence will be contrasted with a different type of source – an anti-‐Jewish farce written by a Breslau physician and premiered there in in1813: Unser Verkehr. This mocking depiction of Jewish attempts at integration and acculturation – which came to symbolize the futility of Jewish hopes of integration – precludes an idyllic interpretation of Jewish-‐non-‐Jewish encounters and compels us to reassess the extent and the prospects of interfaith sociability.

Avriel Bar-‐Levav, The Open University of Israel

Title: Crossing Bibliographic Borders: Shabtai Meshorer Bas and European Bibliographic Tradition

Abstract: It is known that Shabtai Meshorer Bas, author of the first Hebrew biblography, Siftei Yeshenim (Amsterdam 1680), used previous Christian bibliographies and was also influenced by them. Yet, the cultural meaning of this relationship was not yet studied. In my lecture I will examine the structure of the bibliography as well as some of its categories, in order to present the text as an attempt to build a unique Jewish literary identity.

Bart Wallet, VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands

Title: ‘Our Whole Nation is in Favour of the Prince’: Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Dutch Politics in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract: The two ‘Jewish Nations’ in the Dutch Republic had their own, autonomous position in society. In the course of the eighteenth century, however, they increasingly became involved in the internal political tensions that eventually resulted in a civil war in 1787. This paper will trace Dutch Jewry’s changing attitude towards (local and national) politics and explain why Sephardim and Ashkenazim overwhelmingly started to participate in one of the rivaling political factions, namely the orangists. This early ‘politicization’ of Dutch Jewry will, finally, be linked to Dutch Jews’ attitudes after the 1791 French invasion, the start of the Batavian Republic and the formal 1796 emancipation.

Joshua Teplitsky, University of Oxford, UK

Title: Scribes, Scholars, and Social Ties: David Oppenheim and the library of the eighteenth century

Abstract: Over the course of the eighteenth century, traditional Jewish study underwent subtle but significant changes, as previously un-‐studied medieval books (especially Sefardic works) penetrated the Ashkenazic yeshiva. Whereas scholars have dedicated attention to the impact of these works and their reshaping the curriculum of the study house, the means by which they began to circulate is no less significant, but often overlooked. This paper examines that circulation and its hub in the formidable book and manuscript collection of David Oppenheim (1664-‐1736) of Prague. More than a private collector, Oppenheim operated as a facilitator and patron of the book trade. With his sights set on the acquisition of new material, Oppenheim stood astride multiple Jewish worlds of the eighteenth century: the opulence of the Court Jews, the controversies of rabbinic courts, approbata and copyright, the threats and allure of crypto-‐Sabbatianism, and charity to the Holy Land. Situating Oppenheim against these wider currents, this paper examines his activities in these networks of exchange, and uncovers his crucial role in reshaping the Jewish canon both for the traditional yeshiva and later for the Haskalah.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 09

Session: 001:

Jewish Languages

9.00-‐10.30

Chair:

Alexia Duchowny, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brasil

Title: The Judeo-‐Portuguese Lexicon of Magia (Ms. Laud Or. 282, Bodleian Library)

Abstract: This is a presentation of the lexicon from Duchowny (2007) edition of De magia (Ms. Laud Or. 282, Bodleian Library), a Jewish manuscript of Portuguese origin, dating from the fifteenth century. It was elaborated at the College of Language and Literature at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. The format of the resulting product will be on line, on the Internet, to make the access easier, and it should be published by the end of 2014. The target audience of this lexicon is mainly diachronic linguists interested in the History and characterization of Iberian languages, especially Judeo-‐Portuguese. Nonetheless, it is also very useful for linguists and other scholars from other fields of knowledge: History, Sociology, Anthropology, Physics, Astronomy and Astrology. To analyze the lexicon of De magia, the words were collected and organized in alphabetical order by WordSmith Tools (Oxford University Press), and then classified and characterized. The theoretical and methodological basis of this research is Lexicography and Terminology. The development of this lexicon is an important contribution to better understanding not only of Medieval Judeo-‐Portuguese, but also of the components of other languages -‐ such as Portuguese, Catalan, Spanish and Galician. It also provides a reliable corpus for authors of historical dictionaries.

Valentina Fedchenko, State University of Saint-‐Petersburg, Russia

Title: Periphrastic Constructions with the Verb "ton" in Yiddish

Abstract: Periphrastic “do”-‐constructions is a quite widespread phenomenon in the languages of the world. Yiddish presents an interesting linguistic material in this field. In comparison with its host-‐language (German) the Yiddish verb system has been exposed to certain general changes as, from one side, the reduction of the grammatical forms of the host-‐language and, from the other side, the emergence of new grammaticalized constructions and new grammatical meanings due to language contacts. A diachronic development of a number of models with the Yiddish periphrastic “ton” auxiliary will be studied in the present paper. The constructions to be studied are the following: 1) ton + INF. di levone tut shajnen

“The moon shines” 2) hobn + ton + INF.

in lejen shrajbn hat er tun shtudirn

“he has learnt to read and to write”

3) ton + INDEF.ART. + SUB.

ix tu a kuk

“I look”

These constructions will be analyzed as tense and aspect markers, their emphatic functions will be presented as well. Different grammaticalization paths of the verb “ton” in Yiddish will be revealed and compared with similar cases in Germanic languages with special attention to contact-‐induced grammaticalization phenomena.

Ori Shachmon, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Non-‐Jews writing in Hebrew characters: Christian Minorities in Israel on the seam-‐line between language and culture

Abstract: The offered lecture will explore the linguistic hybridity which characterizes some of the Palestinian-‐Christian communities, which prefer to send their children to Jewish-‐Israeli schools where they are taught in Hebrew. As an outcome, these Christian Arab children speak and write Hebrew fluently, but -‐ while Arabic is their mother tongue, some of them are completely incapable of reading and writing it. When they need to write in Arabic (names, notes, text-‐messages -‐ but also religious prayers!) they transliterate the Arabic words using Hebrew characters.


Session 002:

Jewish Languages Medieval Europe

11.00-‐13.00

Chair:

Uličná Lenka, Charles University Prague, Czech Republic

Title: Judeo-‐Czech

Abstract: In the paper I will present the findings of the three-‐year project Canaanite Glosses in Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts with a Bond to the Czech Lands which ended last year. The research in manuscripts helped to correct some errors of the editions (ʿArugat ha-‐Bośem, Or zaruaʿ) and clarify the overall view of the so-‐called Knaanic language or medieval Judeo-‐Czech.

Ilil Baum, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Judeo-‐Catalan or Catalan of Jewish Use? Linguistic Integration vs. Differentiation of Catalonian Medieval Jewry

Abstract: Much has been written about Judeo-‐Spanish, but research of the other dialects spoken by Jews of the Iberian Peninsula is very limited. In fact, there is no comprehensive research describing the language of the Jews of Catalonia. The Catalonian Jewish community had yielded during its Golden Age some of the greatest Jewish sages, such as Ramba"n (or Nachmanides). It gradually declined during the Middle Ages until its final destruction in the Expulsion of 1492. After the expulsion, the Jews of Catalonia were assimilated among the Sephardi Jews and traces of their language can only be found in the Judeo-‐Spanish within the Ottoman Empire. Precisely because of that, it is of great importance to examine texts that reflect the distinctive Catalan characteristics of these Jewish communities based a on a less familiar and not-‐well-‐researched corpus. "Judeo-‐Catalan"? Whether the Jews of medieval Catalonia had their own language or dialect, or did "Judeo-‐Catalan" ever exist, is a question that requires a discussion on the term "Jewish languages" in general and "Judeo-‐Catalan" in particular. Researchers have argued that the Jews of medieval Catalonia spoke the same language as their Christian neighbors, but, in fact, so far Jewish-‐Catalan, hasn't been described. This paper will demonstrate some of the parameters that may distinguish between the language of the Jews from that of the Christians. Such as: the sophisticated use of the Hebrew component when in contact with the La’az (or Jewish Romance) of Medieval Catalonia; the use of Hebrew characters; the existence of unique phonetic, morphological, and lexical variants that are not or are rarely documented in Medieval Catalan. These would be demonstrated on examples from five rare wedding songs written in Hebrew characters from the XIV-‐XV century. These examples can attest to the degree of linguistic integration or differentiation of Catalonian Jews in the Middle Ages, serving as a great contribution to the research of Catalonian-‐Jewish community and its language.

Michael Ryzhik, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: Basilisk, Deaf Aspid (Aspido Sordo) and Dragon: the Reptile Names in the Judeo-‐Italian Biblical Translations

Abstract: There are six (or five) snake species that are named in the Bible and some other reptiles, such as crocodiles and varans. These names seem to be names of concrete really existing species living in the Land of Israel. The Judeo-‐Italian translations of the Bible have clear tendency to translate them with the names of fantastic creatures, taken probably from the medieval Bestiaries. This tendency exists already in the Vulgate (and may be in the Septuaginta, it will be shortly discussed in the paper), but it is much enforced in the Judeo-‐Italian medieval and early Renaissance translations even when compared with the Italian Christian biblical translations, such as Bibbia Volgare or Diodati. The same tendency we see in the Jewish Hebrew-‐Italian dictionaries of the Biblical Hebrew, such as Maqre Dardeqe or Semah David. It may reflect some more general linguistic approaches in the culture of the Jews of Italy.

Julia Krivoruchko, University of Cambridge, UK

Title: Hebrew/Aramaic Component in Secret Languages: the Case of Greek

Abstract: The use of Hebrew/Aramaic loanwords in argotic language varieties is a well-‐known phenomenon that has been sufficiently studied for many European languages. Recently, the use of the Hebrew/Aramaic component was highlighted in the articles of the ‘Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics’ (Brill, 2013). However, Greek material was not included in EHLL and remains largely unknown to scholars. The paper examines selected examples of Hebrew loanwords in the sociolect of Greek underworld. It is envisaged that these loanwords have been adopted into the argot varieties from the Judeo-‐Greek

sociolect(s). The data are sourced from the records of anthropologists researching Greek underworld, the author’s own field work, and internet.


Session 003:

Medieval Rabbinic Literature

14.00-‐15.30

Exegesis in Northern France

Chair: Judith Kogel

Léa Himmelfarb, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: The Ethical-‐Religious Perspective for Miracle Performance in Rashbam`s Biblical Commentary

Abstract: This lecture is devoted to Rashbam`s attitude towards miracles. I present examples from Rashbam’s commentary which illustrate his tendency to the theological perspective for G-‐d’s miraculous intervention. Each example is preceded by the narrative background necessary to understand it and Rashbam’s commentary in each case is delineated, with emphasis placed upon the philosophical principle he introduces.

Nava Cohen, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Rashbam's View of the Worldly Good in Qoheleth

Abstract: The "calls to hedonism" in the Book of Qoheleth (2:24-‐26; 3:12-‐13; 5:17-‐19; 8:15; 9:7-‐10; 11:7-‐10), in which the author encourages man to "live the moment", to eat, drink, rejoice in his labor, and make the most of what the present has to offer, caused discomfort and presented considerable difficulty to Medieval Jewish and Christian commentators. These scholars wondered how the "good" that Qoheleth endorses could be such a material, bodily, hedonistic good. The conventional religious view is that a material focus draws a person to regions from which the spirit is excluded, and that an emphasis on the value of material life may become an obstacle to proper conduct. My lecture will analyze the unique exegetical approach to these calls to hedonism adopted by Rashbam (Samuel ben Meir), and show how he integrates them within his overall literary perception of Qoheleth and its messages. In contrast to those commentators who reject these calls or express their reservations, Rashbam does not shun these recommendations, nor does he discount the pleasures that they entail, and he seeks no interpretation of them that avoids their plain sense. On the contrary, he views these calls as expressing a person's obligation to enjoy and rejoice in life in this world. His comments here are a good example of his unique approach in which the plain meaning of the text, as arrived at through linguistic and textual analysis, merges with the biblical world-‐view. Rashbam's position is that not only are these two spheres not mutually exclusive, but they nourish and complement one another.

Ingeborg Lederer-‐Brüchner, Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg, Germany

Title: R. Josef Kara's Commentary Versions on the Book of Ruth

Abstract: At least three versions of commentaries on the Book or Ruth are attributed to R. Josef ben Shim'on Kara (ca. 1055-‐1125) in medieval Hebrew manuscripts. All of them convey features that are exemplary for the exegesis of the Northern French School in the footsteps of Rashi. Like the latter, Kara is known for interpreting biblical texts according to their literal meaning and peshaṭ exegesis. However, at least one commentary on the Book of Ruth ascribed to Kara presents a broad usage of midrashic literature. As this is quite unusual for Kara's approach to biblical analysis, the phenomenon of citing various traditional literature is the main topic of my remarks. In addition to that, a choice of Kara's illustrations on the Book of Ruth by comparing his different commentary versions shall be discussed.


Session 004:

Shorashim

16.00-‐18.00

Panel: Roots on the Net: Towards a Digital Edition of Kimhi's Sefer ha-‐Shorashim and its Latin Translation(s)

Organizer: Judith Kogel

Chair: Judith Kogel

Judith Kogel, Institut de recherche et d'historie des textes/CNRS, France

Title: How is Qimḥī’s Shorashim different from the other?

Abstract: Less than forty years after Judah ibn Tibbon translated Ibn Janāḥ’s Kitāb al-‐Uṣūl into Hebrew, David Qimḥī availed himself to write a new dictionary of Hebrew roots, known as Sefer ha-‐Shorashim. This book achieved great success and consequently overshadowed the work of his predecessor which nevertheless served as a model to Qimḥī. A preliminary research based on the roots starting by the letter ṭeth seems to constitute a representative sample for the history of the text. First of all, it allows to better grasp Qimḥī’s motivation for writing a new dictionary. Further, the analysis of this relatively small corpus gives us clues to understand Qimḥī’s lexicological approach to the Hebrew root and his strategy in the organization of each entry. This corpus also includes genealogical variants allowing us to divide the manuscripts into two major families in the prospect of establishing a stemma codicum and therefore, contributes to understand better the methods of dissemination of this work in the medieval Jewish communities.

Saverio Campanini, Institut de recherche et d'historie des textes/CNRS, France

Title: “Thou bearest not the root, but the root thee”. On the reception of the Sefer ha-‐Shorashim in Latin

Abstract: Within the panel presenting the research project dedicated to the digital edition of David Kimchi’s Sefer ha-‐Shorashim, its transmission and translation, my communication will be concerned with the main chapters of its reception within the Christian world during the Renaissance: from Johannes Reuchlin adaptation of the lexicon in the books II and III of his De rudimentis hebraicis (1506) through the various adaptations of Sebastian Münster (1523, 1525; 1535; 1539) to the complete, largely augmented, version offered in print by Sante Pagnini in his Thesaurus linguae sanctae (1529), the Biblical dictionary had been the object of an intense confrontation, on the grammatical no less than on the exegetical and theological level, from the leading figures of Christian Hebraism in the first half of the XVI century. A less known testimony of this interest, blending critical examination and appropriation is the integral Latin translation made by, or rather for, Cardinal Giles of Viterbo preserved in two mss. (at the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome and at the University Library of St. Andrews in Scotland), probably during the second decade of the XVI century. The paper will offer, beside a rapid presentation of the situation of Hebrew lexicography in Latin at the beginning of the Renaissance and its deep change through the contested adoption of Kimchi’s model, a synthetic view of the principal features of the various approaches to Kimchi’s dictionary, from simple adaptation to the rather complex moulding of a bilingual dictionary of Biblical Hebrew, to the paradoxical phenomenon of the translation of a monolingual lexicon (with the notable exception of its numerous Provencal glosses) in a different language. In the latter case, represented by Giles’ of Viterbo’s Liber radicum, the semantic loss is evident: what remains worth investigating is the expected exegetical gain for the Humanistic understanding of the Bible in an age of upheavals.

Sonia Fellous, Institut de recherche et d'historie des textes/CNRS, France

Title: Kimhian Elements in Arragel's Bible

Abstract: The Biblia de Alba is an illuminated manuscript containing a translation of the Old Testament in romance from the Hebrew and Latin. The biblical text and its very rich iconography are enriched by many rabbinic commentaries sometimes followed by Christian glosses. Rabbi Moses Arragel Guadalajara is the author of this huge compilation. He works for the Grand Master of the Order of Calatrava, Don Luys de Guzman which imposes the control of two Christian supervisors Brother Enzinas Arias, a Franciscan, and Don Vasco de Guzman, a Dominican. Identification of the literary sources presented by the Rabbi is made difficult by the fact that they are often anonymous. However Moses Arragel mentions the name of the most famous authors; some are Christians, but the others are mostly Iberian Jews. Among them he quotes "Rabbi Joseph el Camhy", Rabbi Joseph Kimhi, but also Rabbi David Kimhi, although he does not mention his name. Nevertheless, David Kimhi‘s biblical comments and Sefer ha-‐ Shorashim are often used in polemics passages and enlighten Moses Arragel’s choices both in the field of translation and of iconography.

Naomi Grunhaus, Yeshiva University, Israel

Title: Radak’s Lexical Shorashim and his Biblical Commentaries: A Comparison of his Biblical Interpretations between the Two Works

Abstract: Radak’s lexical Shorashim and his later biblical commentaries belong to distinct, yet overlapping genres. It would be expected that in writing his commentaries, he would refer at times to his earlier linguistic work. While it is true that in the commentaries he does often rely on or even reiterate interpretations he had presented earlier, in many cases he actually contradicts explanations he had offered previously. This paper assesses the relationship between Radak’s approaches in the two works, by analyzing differences in actual interpretations of individual verses between the linguistic Shorashim and the

commentaries. Some of the contradictions in interpretation can be attributed to the difference in genres. However, in a considerable number of cases the most plausible explanation for the rejection of his earlier interpretation would appear to be a change in his own views. The paper confirms that when writing his commentaries, Radak did not feel constrained by the biblical interpretations he had offered previously in his linguistic Shorashim. These self-‐contradictions demonstrate his development over time as an exegete, as well as his flexibility and adaptability in being open to new interpretations—a tendency that may well have fostered his success as an exegete.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 10

Session: 001:

Jewish Literature

9.00-‐10.30

Chair:

Sarit Cofman-‐Simhon, Kibbutzim College, Tel-‐Aviv / Emunah College, Jerusalem

Title: Avraham Goldfaden and Vasile Alecsandri: Two Theatre Entrepeneurs in Iaşi (Romania) in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract: An innocent remark, reiterated in a number of sources regarding Goldfaden’s initial impetus to stage plays, has caught my attention and constitutes the basis for this presentation: "Goldfadn [sic] was staying at [Librescu’s] house, having just arrived in Jassy, and one day, all dressed up, walking stick in hand, he was on his way out to start making contacts for the newspaper, when the friend’s wife blurted out, “What do you need a newspaper for? There’s already a Yiddish newspaper in Rumania, and the editor starves to death seven times a day. [...] Listen to me: the Jews need a theater” (Nahma Sandrow, Vagabond Stars. A World History of Yiddish Theater, Harper & Row, New York, 1977, p. 42). I would like to propose that the idea which Madame Librescu mentioned in passing did not appear in a vacuum. Instead, it had everything to do with the cultural atmosphere of her surroundings. She lived in Iaşi at a time of a nascent theatrical activity, led by Vasile Alecsandri. This may have formed the background for her suggestion that an equivalent Yiddish theatre would be warmly welcomed. Alecsandri was to the Romanian theatre what Goldfaden was to the Jewish theatre: the founder of a new national tradition. The two remarkable men have in common theatrical endeavours in close temporal and spatial proximity to each other, and both were active in Europe’s geographic and cultural periphery, near the gate to the Orient, in languages which lacked Western theatre tradition. Vasile Alecsandri – journalist, poet, and prolific playwright – was the manager of the National Theatre of Iaşi from 1840 to 1842, and continued to write plays that were staged there much later. Avraham Goldfaden – also a journalist, poet, prolific playwright, lyricist and composer – launched the Yiddish theatre in 1876 in Iaşi, at Grădina Pomul Verde, next to the National Theatre where Alecsandri’s plays were performed. I find some poetic justice in the fact that, almost a century and a half later, each man’s statue stands in Iaşi just a few hundred meters from the other.

Rachel Burdin Steindel, The Ohio State University, USA

Title: List Intonation in Jewish English

Abstract: Jewish speech has been stereotyped as being “sing-‐songy” compared non-‐Jewish speech, pointing to a potential difference in intonation. In American Jewish English, Yiddish has been identified as a likely source of this difference; one contour in particular, a rise-‐fall contour, has been identified as distinctive as far back as 1956 by U. Weinreich. However, this distinctiveness, for this contour, and for others, likely lies in the details of the production of this contour and in its use, rather than in the shape of the contour itself, as

a phonologically equivalent rise-‐fall contour does exist in Standard American English (SAE). This paper concentrates on the use of this rise-‐fall contour, and others, in the production of lists by American Jewish women. Yiddish speakers from the Archives of Historical and Ethnographic Yiddish Memories used both falling and rise-‐fall contours on lists, while descriptions of SAE intonation indicate that a flat plateau is used on lists. This provides a possible point of differentiation in speakers whose first language is Yiddish, who may carry over their native patterns of intonation into their English. Lists were extracted from interviews with Jewish women from the New York City metropolitan area, who were divided into three groups: Yiddish/English bilinguals, monolinguals with some exposure to Yiddish prosody, and “pure” monolinguals. The list items were then prosodically annotated using Tone and Break Indices (ToBI) guidelines. While there were no significant differences between the three groups in the use of the rise-‐fall contour noted by Weinreich (ToBI transcribed as L+H* !H-‐L%), the bilinguals were more likely to use another rise-‐fall contour (L+H* L-‐L%) than the other two groups, and less likely to use the contour that had been previously noted for standard American

English lists (H* H-‐L%).

Michaela Mudure, Babes-‐Bolyai University, Romania

Title: Adriana Bittel: Writing Jewish, Writing Woman

Abstract: According to Radu Cosaşu, Adriana Bittel (born 31 mai 1946, Bucharest) is one of the few Jewish fiction authors still active in Romania. Extremely discreet about her Jewish origins – one of the few proofs in this respect – is the obituary she wrote for Amelia Pavel, the mother of the Romania born literary theorists Toma Pavel, Bittel is one of the best short story authors in contemporary Romanian literature. The present paper analyzes her best collections of short stories Întâlnire la Paris (Meeting in Paris), which was published in Bucharest, in 2001. The short stories focus on women’s lives during the Communist regimes. Ethnic indications relating the stories to the author’s Jewishness are rare but eloquent. They point to the survival of a minority group that suffered the imposition of totalitarianism and victimization as the “favourite” Other of the Romanian xenophobes. Bittel focuses on women and the way they are devoured in a petty domestic inferno created by the needs, the cares, and the claims of their family. Woman sacrifices herself both for her household and for her job. Without any exaggeration, woman is a martyr of a world (the Communist one) which pretends to have emancipated woman. Working hard from morning till evening she makes the domestic ship sail onwards and onwards. Bittel focuses on those everyday sacrifices that make life possible, the anonymity of female heroism, the few and petty joys of a life without any perspective in spite of ideological pretense that this is the best possible world. Still, we must not valorize Bittel’s fiction only as a sociological document about life under the Communist regime. On the contrary, in her short stories the grey of everyday life gets the irisations of rich psychological life. Without any exaggeration, Adrian Bittel belongs to that great family of women writers that includes Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Alice Munro, Elizabeth Strout and who are able to express the superb incompleteness of life and enjoy life in spite of everything.


Session: 002:

Jewish Literature

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Recovering Eastern Europe in Modern Jewish Literature

Chair: Justin Cammy

Organizer: Justin Cammy

Justin Cammy, Smith College, Northampton, MA, USA

Title: Between Languages: Régine Robin’s La Québecoite

Abstract: In Régine Robin’s La Québecoite (1983; trans. The Wanderer) language -‐-‐ or existing between languages -‐-‐ simultaneously performs and interrogates contemporary Quebec identity through the destabilizing presence of the immigrant, Jewish presence. Robin’s interest in the possibility of existing both “dedans et dehors” (inside and outside) helps to explain her hyperconscious employment of postmodern metafictions to interrogate fixed categories of national and ethnic identity, and Yiddish (functioning as both language and as Jew) as the agent and embodiment of this challenge. My paper argues that Robin inscribes texts by Yiddish writers (Hoftshteyn, Bergelson, Kulbak, Glatshteiyn, folktales, not to mention the neo-‐Yiddish Babel) alongside lists of French-‐Québecois words and expressions that her protagonist encounters as a new immigrant in order to explore a more hybrid, cosmopolitan, multilingual Québecois identity that puts to rest the traditional binary of the “two solitudes” of English and French Canada. The conspicuous presence of Yiddish inter-‐texts (more than just a Yiddish trace) in the heart of a Québecois novel suggests that collective memory is never really remembered (despite nativist arguments) and is always up for renegotiation and expansion. Yiddish performs not only the possibility of transnational escape, but also serves as the haunting golem of messianic narratives.

Kata Gellen, Duke University, USA

Title: Telling Jewish Stories in German? Mixed Temporalities and Literary Tradition in Edgar Hilsenrath’s Shtetl Novel

Abstract: Jossel Wassermanns Heimkehr (1993), by the controversial German-‐Jewish writer Edgar Hilsenrath (b. 1926), is a novel that depicts traditional early 20th-‐century East European Jewish life. Its narrator is a rich Jew, Jossel Wassermann, dying in Switzerland in 1939, who recalls a visit to his Galician homeland in 1932, which inspires him to tell the story of his ancestors and childhood. At the same time, Jossel’s nephew Jankl is in a train being deported to a concentration camp in the East, though he has just received notice of his impending inheritance from his rich uncle. I propose to read Jossel Wassermanns Heimkehr as a novel that is “passing” for a 1930s-‐40s East European German-‐Jewish Shtetlroman – in the vein of Joseph Roth, Soma Morgenstern, and H. W. Katz – at the same time that it adapts itself thoroughly to a non-‐Jewish contemporary German readership. Hilsenrath taps into what was already, in the novels of Roth, Morgenstern, and Katz, a complex belatedness: this includes nostalgia for the monarchy and traditional Jewish life, as well as depictions of Jewish suffering in pogroms and WWI filtered through the experience of the Nazi seizure of power. Hilsenrath thus reproduces what was already, 60 years prior, a mixed temporality, but at the same time thoroughly revises it so as to make this experience – and this literary tradition – accessible to a non-‐Jewish German-‐speaking audience in the 1990s. He achieves this through a narrative conceit: Jossel Wassermann is not telling his story directly to the reader, but dictating his testament to a lawyer and notary, the latter of whom is not Jewish. Consequently, each use of a Hebrew or Yiddish word or mention of a Jewish holiday or custom requires a clear explanation for the benefit of the notary, and non-‐Jewish readers. There is a further narrative complication, which is that the person charged

with writing Jossel Wassermann’s life story – as a narrative, not simply as a legal record – is the Torah scribe Eisik from Galicia, who we know will perish in the impending war, meaning he will never in fact write it. What are we to do with the knowledge that Hilsenrath, a Jew, writes it instead of Eisik? To what extent can we understand the presence of a Jewish author as a redemptive strike against the silencing of the German-‐Jewish literary voice? Hilsenrath employs complex narrative temporalities and recycles rich traditions of German-‐Jewish writing in order to reveal the tragic irony of his own uncommon literary identity: the only people left to read German-‐Jewish stories are non-‐Jewish Germans, but who exactly can still tell them? Hilsenrath’s novel bears witness to the struggle to produce literature that is authentically Jewish and at the same time legible to non-‐Jewish readers. More than merely an autobiographical reflection of Hilsenrath’s own Jewish childhood in the East, Jossel Wasssermanns Heimkehr is a subtle and painful reckoning with the limits and possibilities of Jewish writing in postwar Germany.

Marc Caplan, The Johns Hopkins University, USA

Title: “A Disenchanted Elijah: Language, Voice, and the Dissimulation of Self in S. Ansky’s Destruction of Galicia”

Abstract: Among the many achievements in the career of S. Ansky (Shloyme-‐Zaynvl Rapoport, 1863-‐1920), his 1920 account of the anti-‐Jewish pogroms at the border of the Russian and Austrian empires during World War I, Khurbn galitsye (“The Destruction of Galicia,” translated in English as The Enemy at His Pleasure, 2003), stands as one of his most complex publications. While focusing on the physical destruction of Jewish communities and the variety of duplicitous, hostile, or ineffectual responses from non-‐Jews in both official and informal capacities toward this violence, Ansky’s first-‐person narrative deploys numerous literary strategies and embedded narratives that trespass the borders separating conventions of journalism, political propaganda, or fiction. Though written in Yiddish, the welter of languages out of which it is constructed further contributes to the book’s unstable narrative voice. The author’s unsteady position within the contradictory social networks through which he moves conveys the extent to which his witnessing of anti-‐Semitic violence undermines his ability to locate himself as a political representative, a writer, and a Jew. The strangeness of this work is understandable, given its origins: as a political radical and official representative of Russian relief agencies, the author technically served as an officer in the government he wished to overthrow, in territories caught in a struggle among four warring powers—the old Austrian and Czarist empires, as well as the emerging Soviet and independent Polish regimes—none of which he identified with. Strategically, the narrator in Khurbn galitsye presents himself to his interlocutors alternately as a non-‐Jewish Russian, an observant Jew, a military officer, an aid worker, or a neutral observer. Like the rumors he records of mythical Jewish treachery and magical gadgets causing Russia’s defeat—both of which provide pretexts for pogroms in town after town—the narrator functions as a cipher for the intersection of mobility, technology, and stealth that constitute the new dislocations of modern warfare. In his earlier ethnographic work, Ansky recorded legends about the prophet Elijah, performing inscrutable deeds of kindness for pious Jews in the guise of a non-‐Jew. In Khurbn galitsye, Ansky presents himself as a disenchanted Elijah, whose presence signifies not the coming redemption of the Jewish people, but its imminent dissolution.

Rachel Seelig, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Relocating the Center: The Berlin Literary Journal 'Die Freistatt: Alljüdische Revue' (1912-‐1914)

Abstract: In April 1913 Fritz Mordechai Kaufmann inaugurated his Berlin-‐based journal, Die Freistatt: Alljüdische Revue (Sanctuary: Pan-‐Jewish Revue), with an essay proclaiming the desire to “blaze new paths

for western Jewry to a stronger Jewishness that encompasses the entire nation.” The only way to attain this goal, he maintained, was to “establish unmediated contact between the western periphery and the central national components.” Kaufmann’s mission statement was predicated on a new conception of Jewish geography according to which the center of European Jewish culture was located not in Germany, long held as the hub of reform and enlightenment, but in Eastern Europe. Appearing between 1912 and 1914, Die Freistatt reflected a serious reevaluation of the image of the so-‐called “Ostjuden” (Eastern Jews) on the eve of World War I. Long maligned as primitive and parochial, East European Jews were now lionized as the torchbearers of a pristine tradition that had been threatened and suppressed by ongoing secularization and assimilation in Germany. The only periodical of its kind to feature German, Hebrew, and Yiddish writing within a single forum, Die Freistatt promoted the vision of a unified Alljudentum (pan-‐Judaism) unobstructed by barriers between East and West. This paper traces the origins, goals, and achievements of this robust yet short-‐lived enterprise, and considers the ways in which the concept of Alljudentum contended with the existing German discourse on the language of the Jews.


Session: 003:

Jewish Literature

14.00-‐15.30

Panel: Jewish and Non-‐Jewish Cultures in Eastern Europe in the Age of (Post-‐) Modernity

Organizers: Klavdia Smola & Sabine Koller

Chair: Klavdia Smola & Sabine Koller

Olaf Terpitz, University of Wien, Austria

Title: Russian as Jewish Language. Cultural Transformations and Transgressions in (Post-‐)Imperial Times

Abstract: Literature produced by Jews in the Russian Empire is often (until today) described and analysed along notions and concepts such as assimilation, acculturation, change of generations etc. Those categories are usually historically and result orientated. But how to explain in this vein e.g. that the later Zionist Jabotinsky still wrote in Russian, that the Russian poetry of Semen Frug sounded to contemporaries as Hebrew, that Dubnov, finally, developed his ideas on history and historiography in dealing with ideas developed by German Jewish historiography, mainly Heinrich Graetz. The concept of „language culture“ attempts to cover the dynamics of interaction among various groups, literature and society. Culturally and process orientated it allows for a more nuanced view on the position of writers and their texts, on encounters that encompass processes of reception, perception and translation. Complying with demands of the Haskalah a central issue in Jewish Modernity was the canonisation (or re-‐conceptualisation) of knowledge, historical and literary likewise, based on a professionalisation of literary criticism and literary history. In my talk I will analyse various literary volumes, edited by the Zionist Leib Iaffe and the poet Vladislav Khodasevich, which represent metaphorically speaking a hub of cultural exchange. They include Hebrew poetry and prose in Russian translation, a task undertaken by renowned and less known Jewish and non-‐Jewish writers, but also texts of Russian contemporaries and of European literature. They thus form a meeting space for various spheres of Jewish and non-‐Jewish cultural production. In its semantic and aesthetic scope Russian had become a Jewish language.

Sabine Koller, Regensburg University, Germany

Title: The Death of King Lir: Salomon Michoels and Stalin

Abstract: In January 1948, the Jewish actor, stage director and leading figure of Soviet Jewry Salomon Michoels was killed on Stalin’s personal order. Because of his support of Yury Erenburg’s and Vasily Grossman’s Black Book about Hitler’s genocide in the area of the Soviet Union and his permanent commitment to the Jewish cause, he had to be eliminated. As a result of his death, bemoaned by thousands of Jews at his funeral in Moscow, a couple of texts in Russian and Yiddish were composed. They function as dirge and, partly, as inofficial testimony of his murder which was disguised as a car accident. Along with Perets Markish’s famous A ner tomed bayn orn (An Eternal Flame at the Coffin), the Yiddish author Mendl Man wrote the short story „Der toyt fun King Lir“ (The Death of King Lear), published in 1957. In my close reading of the text, I will examine the aesthetic devices Mendl Man makes use of in „Der toyt fun King Lir“ to fictionalize Michoels’ last days before his murder. Techniques of montages, polyphony, rhythmization, and combinations of sobre descriptions and streams of consciousness give a close-‐up of the actor who has become a pawn in the hands of the powerful. A complex intertextual net with Shakespeare and Chekhov at its center shows the enormous aspirations of participating in Russian and world culture, and in shaping Yiddish culture. At the same time, it gradually reveals the semantic shift in Soviet culture from interaction and inclusion of Jewishness to ideological exclusion. The line between reality and (theatrical) fiction gets blurred – with Stalin as the stage director of Michoel’s final act.

Klavdia Smola, University Greifswald, Department of Slavic Studies, Germany

Title: Russian, Jewish, (anti-‐)Soviet: Jewish Underground Literature in the Late Soviet Union

Abstract: In the Soviet Union the beginning of the Jewish national renaissance coincided with Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-‐Day War. This rebirth was inspired by the broadening struggle of Soviet Jews for the Aliyah. The emergence of a Jewish underground subculture resulted from this new Exodus movement. In the self-‐concept of the highly assimilated, ethnically de-‐rooted, nonconformist Jewish intelligentsia of the 1970s and 80s, this led to the gradual reintegration of the Jewish cultural heritage. The return to Judaism and the eastern Jewish tradition in the late-‐communist era led however inevitably to the reinvention of Jewish culture, which, after decades of uprooting and almost complete Russification – or Sovietisation, had to be created from almost nothing. The focus of my lecture will be on Jewish literature written in Russian which appeared in the late-‐communist period in the Soviet Union and after emigration to Israel (David Markish, Efrem Bauch, Eli Luxemburg, Efraim Sevela). I will examine the link between the Russian (or Soviet) dualistic, mythological patterns of thought and the new meaning of Jewishness in the situation of political, ideological and cultural conflict. My thesis is that the new Zionist literature created a mirror-‐inverted concept/ structure of the Socialist Realism literary canon.


Session 004:

Jewish Literature and art

16.00-‐18.00

Chair:

Luis Krausz, Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil

Title: David Vogel and Austrian Novels: a Comparative Approach

Abstract: Just like Robert Musil’s Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften; Joseph Roth’s Zipper und sein Vater or Die Flucht ohne Ende, and many of Arthur Schnitzler´s novellas, David Vogel’s Viennese Romance addresses the issue of what Carl Shorske calls „the amoral Gefühlskultur“ of fin-‐de-‐siècle Vienna. And yet this novel has been written by an author who received a traditional Jewish education in his native Satanov, in Russia, in a very delicate and refined Hebrew that points towards a deep knowledge of traditional texts. The theme of a young man being lost in the sensuous and decadent Austrian capital during the final years of the Habsburg Empire or during the early days of the First Republic is ubiquitous and already appears in several novels pertaining to the genre of Ghettoliteratur, which flourished during the 19th and early 20th. Centuries. As a matter of fact, Ghettoliteratur mostly deals with the theme of the decline of traditional moral values as a consequence of the passage from the Ghetto to the metropolis, and with the moral bankrupcy of those who are caught in a limbo between two worlds. My aim with this presentation is to confront Vogel’s novel with some of those written by the authors mentioned above as well as with exponents of the later Ghettoliteratur such as Jakob Julius David, Leopold Kompert and Leopold von Sacher-‐Masoch, in order to situate his work within the context of Austrian-‐Jewish literature, to which I claim it belongs in spite of the fact it that it has been written in Hebrew. Furthermore, I intend to investigate how the Freudian concept of moral masochism plays a key-‐role not only in this novel by David Vogel, but in the turn-‐of-‐the century Austrian novel in general. I argue that the Austrian idea of virtue imbedded in those novels involves a deeply engrained notion of duty and submission, of which the amorality and aestheticism of social life are a counterpoint. In David Vogel’s Married Life this contradiction appears in the disturbed relationship between the baroness Thea von Takow and Gurdweill; in Viennese Romance it appears in the abject realtionship between Rost and a woman and her daughter. These same contradictions between sense of duty and perverse sexual impulses still seems to appear, in another guise, in works of contemporary Austrian literature, such as those by Elfriede Jelinek, author of Die Klavierspielerin and Lust.

Natascha Drubek, U.S Holocaust Museum (Wash. DC)

Title: Schooling Jewish Actors for "Ethnic" Leads in 1930 and 1940s Hollywood Films

Abstract: In my talk I am aiming to reassess the significance of Eastern Europe theatre tradition for the Manhattan Yiddish theatre district, and the presence of its actors on Hollywood pictures of the 1930s and 1940s. An important aspect is the influence of the Russian MKHAT emigration onto Method Acting (Russia -‐ NY – USSR) and its Jewish representatives. I shall present questions of masking Jewishness and Jewish masks in the classical Hollywood film, mainly by the Warner Bros. studio. This is also the story of the development of roles played by Jewish actors moving from the Golden Boychiks to Prestige Picture character actors with an “ethnic” touch – mostly playing Europeans.

Alexander Shapiro, Institute of Psychological and Educational Problems of Childhood, Russian Academy of Education

Title: The Yiddish Language: Psychological Aspects of its Modern Revitalization.

Abstract: The Yiddish language today is usually referred to in negative, even depressive ways, or alternatively with superficial optimism and sentimentality. I propose in this paper that modern psychological knowledge, theories and practices can provide a deep analysis of the interactions of Yiddish with other languages and cultures (Jewish and non-‐Jewish). Recent developments in the various sections of modern psychology, in particular “trauma psychology”, “family psychology”, “personality psychology” were a significant help to my research. The first psychological dimension of the intercultural position of Yiddish is its deep connections with the Holocaust as the most people who died in the Holocaust spoke Yiddish, which leads us to the memories being consciously or unconsciously connected with considerable grief, ambivalence and guilt among survivors and their descendants. I believe that Yiddish revival is not the task of a particular country (U.S., Israel or Russia), and may not even be a task for the Worldwide Jewish community. Rather, perhaps a problem for humanity. However, my researcher focus must be my own experience, i.e. Russian-‐speaking individuals, families and communities and they were as such in my study of the psychological potential of modern Yiddish including psychological factors favoring its positive functioning and development. The preliminary results of this study I am going to present at the EAJS Congress. During my presentations I will try to answer the question whether Yiddish can help to establish a positive bridge between generations in families and communities and what are the limitations in this?

Marcin Wołk, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland

Title: The structuring of Jewish-‐Polish Identity in Autobiographical Fiction by Artur Sandauer, Ida Fink, and Hanna Krall

Abstract: Artur Sandauer (1913–1989), Ida Fink (1921–2011) and Hanna Krall (born 1935) represent three literary generations of modern Polish-‐Jewish authors, three different paths of life and three various attitudes to writing. Nevertheless, their autobiographical fiction shares an important common feature: they alternate the first-‐ and third-‐person narration in the process of creating the author’s self-‐portrait. These changes of perspective seem to constitute a textual representation of the complex Jewish-‐Polish (or Polish-‐Jewish) cultural and ethnic identities of the writers. In Artur Sandauer’s writings they also reflect the author’s tendency to look at himself from without, the tendency stemming both from his situation of a Jew assimilated into Polish culture and of his critical approach towards what he considered the “inauthentic” identity of a Jew-‐Pole. In Ida Fink’s autobiographical novel The Journey (1990) extensive use of the third-‐person narration (interchanging with the first-‐person one) reflects the situation of someone hiding their identity during the Holocaust, forcing alien, non-‐Jewish identities on themselves as the only chance to survive. Finally, in the autobiographical novel by Hanna Krall The Subtenant (1985) the identity of the main character, who had lived through the Holocaust as a child, remains split into two conflicting personalities, thus showing far-‐reaching aftermath of the Shoah. Here, the alternation of the first-‐, third-‐, and occasionally also second-‐person narration is a textual representation of the psychical trauma as well as a metaphor of the ambivalent attitude towards Jews and the Holocaust in the post-‐war Polish culture.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 11

Session: 001:

Jewish History

9.00-‐10.30

Assimilation, Acculturation and Conceptualizing the Jewish 19th Century

Chair: Mordechai Zalkin

Tadas Janusauskas, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary

Title: “Filled with statehood awareness and love for the fatherland”: Jewish Veterans in Bridging Jews and Lithuanians in the 1930s

Abstract: Willful Jewish participation in the Lithuanian Independence Wars in 1919-‐1923 is usually depicted as the perfect example of cooperation between Lithuanians and Jews. Idealization of that cooperation was established by The Jewish Soldiers Union (1933-‐1940) and carried on into today's historiography. In my presentation I would firstly like to question this narrative as there is ample evidence to doubt the willingness of the Jews to join the newly established Lithuanian army after 1918. Such doubt can open possibilities to speculate on what were the reasons behind this conscious choice of the Union to propose this narrative; in fact, the proclamations of Jewish willingness to fight for the newly established and still very unstable state is only one of many ways in which the Union propoted its agenda. This organization became the most prominent in "bridging the two communities", the objective that was declared as the main one by the organization in the 1930s. I would venture to explain the not at all obvious reasons behind the choice of the Union to promote the "Lithuanianness", or in other words, acculturation among the Jews.

Elena Keidosiute, Vilnius University, Lithuania

Title: Lithuanian Jewish Converts in the Interwar Period: Inherited and Transformed Patterns of Belonging

Abstract: The issue of the radical transformation of identity of a convert and the ambivalence of the act of conversion has always been framed within broader questions of identity politics, issues of social integration and assimilation. Employing previously unexamined baptism files from Lithuanian Catholic Curias of the interwar period this paper will consider what were the specificities of Jewish conversions to Catholicism in the interwar Lithuania. One’s involvement in the process of religious conversion, positioning when dealing with the Church representatives and means employed to bring the newly created self-‐image across will be as assessed by scrutinizing catechumens’ statements and ontological narratives. Simplistic at first sight they tend to reflect a more complex origin, unveiling a complicated relation between a Jew and his or her presupposed “Jewishness” which was revoked or transformed in the rhetoric employed. The paper will address such questions as what social entity did converts want to be a part of and how (or whether) radical religious conversion actually was? By the beginning of the 20th century the local Jewish community ended up in new nation states and thus the trends of their sociocultural orientation acquired entirely new elements defined by escalated modernization, nationalism and greater knowability of the Christian

surroundings. Nonetheless, at the same time some of the conversional patterns where inherited from the century long existence under the rule of the Russian empire and modes of integration maintained in the end of the 19th century, defined by a more traditional background.

Anika Reichwald, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Title: “Overcoming Jewishness” – Assimilation and its Representation in German Literature

Abstract: While in France and England the emancipation of the Jews was accomplished without further legal restrictions, in the German countries the process of Emancipation proceeded differently. Opponents as well as some supporters of Jewish Emancipation claimed that the Jews themselves had to earn the right to become citizens. Therefore, they had to assimilate themselves with German culture, namely language, behaviour and common habits. Although in various German states at the beginning of the 19th century Jews received the full rights as citizens and were emancipated, the period of Restoration withdrew existing legislations that confirmed political equality for the Jews. Since the political decisions suggest that the task of modernity was to claim national unity and uniformity, it was the political ideal to integrate Jews into the major society. Literature in the first half of the 19th century, as a presentation of the common perception, points out the gap in policy. German Romantic authors, such as Achim von Arnim or Wilhelm Hauff, use anti-‐Jewish stereotypes in their works to describe the inherent difference between ›Germans‹ and ›Jews‹. Especially in taking up the question of Jewish assimilation their texts demonstrate the persisting ›otherness‹ of the Jews. By way of example, Achim von Arnim’s Über die Kennzeichen des Judentums (1811) illustrates the idea of a backwards proceeding assimilation by revealing the true characteristics of the assimilated Jew. The paper reveals this process of assimilation and retraces how the text discloses German characteristics adopted by the Jews as their act of mimicry; still, concealed by the masquerade of assimilation the ›real nature‹ of the Jew is more than evident and manifest. Arnim clearly makes reference to the inherent ambivalence of assimilation, namely the challenge of assimilation can neither overcome Jewish identity nor Jewish›otherness‹.


Session: 002:

Jewish History

11.00-‐13.00

Converts, Missionaries and Jewish-‐Christian Relations

Chair:

Agnieszka Jagodzińska, Department of Jewish Studies, The University of Wrocław, Poland

Title: Missionary Reports: Genre and Context

Abstract: The London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews was established in 1809 in London. It was the oldest and the largest society in field of nineteenth-‐century British “Jewish missions.”

Seeking Jewish conversion, it operated not only among Jews in British colonial spaces but also beyond them. The Society expected its missionaries to write detailed reports concerning their activity among the Jews. These reports were sent to the Society’s headquarter in London where they were first edited and then published in the missionary press. In this paper I wish to discuss the missionary reports as a genre, determining its general characteristics, its function and style. The analysis will be based on the reports written by missionaries working among Polish Jews in the 19th and early 20th century. Apart from defining the genre, I will also attempt to answer more particular questions, for example: how did a missionary journal become a printed report?, how were reports changed in this process?, how many “authors” did one missionary report have?, is there a difference between reports prepared by missionaries who were “Christians from birth” and those by Jewish converts?, how did reports written by male and female missionaries differ? The paper will be accompanied by a ppt presentation.

Ekaterina Norkina, Petersburg Institute of Jewish Studies, Russia

Title: Jews and non-‐Jews in the Caucasus in the XIX – the beginning of the XXth centuries.

Abstract: From the prism of the individual relations between Jews and local bureaucrats/non-‐Jewish population we research the machanisms of socio-‐cultural adaptation of the Jews of the Caucasus in the XIX-‐beginning XXth. The Caucasus was the region of the Russian Empire ruled by governor. It was also one of the multinational outskirts of the Russian Empire on level with West outskirts of the state. Specific feature of the Caucasian region was poly-‐confessional population. Before the Caucasus became a part of the Russian Empire, the most of the population was Moslems. After the Caucasus was included in the Russian Empire as special region, the Christian population began settling. The Russian government formulated different directions of the national policy towards the local population which changed because of some socio-‐economical and political situations and other problems. By the middle of the XIX century some groups of the Jewish population lived in the Caucasian region. The first group was Mountain Jews (they appeared a long before Russians). The second one was Jews in Dagestan – special province of the Caucasus. The third one was Ashkenazi Jews (most of them Jews from the Russian Empire). The fourth is the Georgian Jews. We search the mechanisms of the socio-‐cultural adaptation of all groups of the Jewish population of the Caucasus.

Paola Ferruta, Université Paris-‐Sorbonne, France

Title: Thinking by Cases. Conversions to Christianity and reversion to Judaism in Trieste between the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century

Abstract: The paper explores how in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-‐century Trieste the “interstices” (Homi Bhabha) between Jewish and Christian society overlapped with heterogeneous spaces of “semi-‐neutral society”, as Jacob Katz defined it. Within this context, the dialogue between the Jewish world and the majority society can be considered an infinitesimally small segment which belonged to the sphere of everyday life, outside the control of state institutions and religious establishments. By way of the historical anthropological analysis, the female presence of converts “out of control”, which shaped daily life, becomes relevant. It is about case studies of failed conversion to the Christian fold as well as about attempts to revert to Judaism by women who belonged to the multitude of the “ordinary people”. Men take the step of conversion to Christianity in a more indifferent way or at least their conversion tends to create less problems of responsibility within the Jewish community and the larger society, as a less disturbing circumstance. The conflict and the dramatic tension would increase in the case of male conversions if a woman intervened. It seems that the difficulties created by the Laws of Tolerance

(1781/1782) and in some cases by the Jewish law would become particularly acute in relation to the fate of women who entered such “semi-‐neutral society”. These women's destinies, which remained in the shade for a long time, have been at present uncovered by historical circumstances, becoming truly complicated. Drawing upon State archive files, the paper aims to bring out the negative impact of the ambiguity inherent to tolerance – as to emancipation – on female cases.

Rumyana Marinova-‐Christidi, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", Faculty of History, Bulgaria

Title: Bulgarians and Jews through the Ages -‐ an Example of Tolerance

Abstract: Bulgarians and Jews live side by side for centuries providing a model of ethnic and religious tolerance. Looking for the roots of such tolerance, historical retrospection takes us back to the establishment of the Bulgarian state in the 7th century AD, when we already have reports of Jewish communities – initially Romaniotes Jews from Byzantium. Later and more important migrations of Jews in present-‐day Bulgarian lands, begins following their expulsion from Spain and Portugal at the end of the 15th century. Jews found tolerance in the Ottoman Empire and the exchange of cultural and trade relations between them and the Bulgarians began to intensify. In the newly liberated Bulgarian state (1878) the rights and political equality of religious minorities was guaranteed by the state, and the Jews actively participated in the social, economic, political and cultural life of the country. Bulgarian Jews became famous world-‐wide, like the painter Jules Pascin, the Nobel laureate Elias Canetti and many other representatives of the Bulgarian intelligence. Since 1880, the Jewish community has its own Chief Rabbi, while in 1909 the Bulgarian Tsar participated in the opening celebrations of the new, impressive synagogue in Sofia -‐ the third largest and one of the most beautiful ones in Europe. While the Bulgarian state was tolerant towards them, Bulgarian Jews proved to be loyal citizens, fighting side by side with the Bulgarians in all the wars of national liberation. The centuries-‐old co-‐existence and lack of animosity between Bulgarians and Jews manifested itself in the most dramatic way during the Holocaust. Although an ally of Germany, Bulgaria did not surrender its Jews to the Nazis, as Bulgarian society rose in defense of its Jewish compatriots, and as a result not even one Jew from the territories of the “old-‐Bulgarian Kingdom” was sent to the death camps. This noble example of compassion and solidarity made the salvation of the Bulgarian Jews a European exception.


Session: 003:

Jewish History

14.00-‐15.30

Revolutionaries, Activists and Fighters

Chair:

Magdalena Kozłowska, Jagiellonian University, Poland

Title: Troubled Future? Bundist Youth Movement in the Late Thirties

Abstract: Second-‐republic Poland witnessed a veritable flourishing of youth movements, with social, political, and confessional goals and agendas. While most scholarship has focused on the Bund, communists or the zionists — and how these movements could or could not have had an effect on government — my research centers on Tsukunft, the main Bundist youth organization in interwar Poland. Tsukunft grew into one of the most active and dynamic organizations within the Bundist movement. Its members (“Tsukunftistn”) were grouped in “circles” (krayzn). After age 18, participants were expected to join the Bund. Thus, not only did Tsukunft help the Polish Bund in its political campaigns, in particular during elections, but it also provided a constant source of new members for the party. In my presentation I will elucidate the approach of Tsukunft towards political and social landscape of Jewish and non-‐Jewish Poland in the late 30's. By placing Tsukunft in the greater context of the Bund, Jewish tradition, and other political youth movements of the period, I will show how political youth movements — and Tsukunft in particular — wanted to shape the social and political life of Poland in the 30's. My paper shows the benefit in focusing on "smaller" organizations to present the varied and chaotic Polish political landscape. Most Jewish history is occupied with the notion of Jewish modernity and the specific Jewish experience. Polish history, however, shows how we cannot examine the Jewish experience apart from the Polish experience, writ large. Tsukunft offers a unique lens on this problem of intertwined history because its activists and youth were themselves struggling with Jewish identity, with Polish identity, and with the possibilities and limitations of activist politics in a multi-‐ethnic state. I will mainly focus on the press and brochures published by the organization in the late 30's (in different languages) to argue about the role of youth organizations in the search for Jewish modernity in the troubled reality.

Mariusz Kałczewiak, Tel-‐Aviv University, Israel / University of Giessen, Germany

Title: Jewish Travelers in Argentina – Exploring the Unknown, Presenting it to Jewish Masses

Abstract: At the very beginning of 20th century Perets Hirschebein and Hersh Dovid Nomberg, two Eastern European Jewish writers, set out across Atlantic to explore Jewish life of rapidly growing Argentinean diaspora. They boarded the same steamships as did thousands of their fellow Jews in search of economic opportunities and freedom. They traveled to Buenos Aires and visited Jewish farming colonies, carefully observing local society, nature and culture. Their travelogues, published respectively in 1916 and 1924, have circulated among Eastern European Yiddish speaking Jews, being at the moment one of few comprehensive accounts on Jewish life in Argentina. Their travelogues (along Jewish press personal correspondence) have been possibly influencing their image of Argentina and discouraging against / encouraging to immigration. In my paper I examine the picture of Argentina presented in the travelogues of Nomberg and Hirschbeyn, critically looking at their narration about various aspects of Jewish life in Argentina: immigration, prostitution, farming colonies, and relations with non-‐Jews and with Argentinean state. I portray how European Jewish intellectuals describe “exotic” Argentina and the emergence of the largest Jewish Diasporas. I analyze what picture of Argentina Nomberg and Hirschbein present to the Eastern European Jewish readers. I embed my paper in the broader discussion on travelling and Jewish migration.

Gerben Zaagsma, Georg-‐August-‐Universität Göttingen, Germany

Title: In Search of the Jewish Freedom Fighter: Jewish Volunteers in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War & the Myth of Jewish Cowardice

Abstract: During the Spanish Civil War (1936-‐1939) around 35000 volunteers from many countries fought in the so-‐called International Brigades that were created and organised by the Communist International.

Roughly 5000 of these volunteers were of Jewish descent. In December 1937 the Jewish Naftali Botwin Company was created within the 13th Polish Dombrowski Brigade creating an explicitly Jewish military symbol on the Spanish battlefields. In much post-‐war historiography the participation of Jewish-‐born volunteers in the International Brigades, often symbolised by the Botwin Company, is inscribed in a broader narrative of Jewish resistance that aims to counter the myth of Jewish non-‐resistance in the face of the Nazi onslaught. To put it bluntly: ‘Spain’ serves to prove that Jews did not go like “sheep to the slaughter” but already resisted Hitler in Spain (the German government, after all, actively supported Franco). Yet to what extent do post-‐war representations of Jewish volunteers as Jewish resistance fighters correspond to the intentions with which the Jewish Left engaged itself with Spain in the period of the SCW itself? And how do such post-‐war commemorations relate to representations of Jewish volunteers that were forwarded during the Spanish Civil War? The aim of this paper is to put the history of Jewish volunteers, particularly the Botwin Company, back in the context of the history of Jews in the Left. The Botwin Company was created after lobbying of Polish-‐Jewish migrant communists in Paris. In their newspaper, the Yiddish daily Naye Prese, its existence became an important part of the propaganda battle they waged on the‚ Jewish street’ in support of the Communist International’s post-‐1935 Popular Front tactic. But while the propaganda was unmistakably communist, the subtext became increasingly Jewish in the course of the war: the editors and journalists of Naye Prese consistently emphasised that the fight of Jewish volunteers in Spain, symbolised by the Botwin Company, disproved age old allegations of Jewish cowardice. Linked to growing Jewish communist concerns about the position of Jewish immigrants in late 1930s France, the discursive construction of Jewish volunteers as Jewish freedom fighters in Naye Prese also served to propose and legitimize a model of Jewish action and thus provide an emancipatory example for Jewish migrants. This paper will thus argue that Spain might not have been the site where Jewish volunteers fought a battle against the future murderers of their people, yet it became the site where Polish-‐Jewish communists confronted a classic anti-‐Semitic stereotype: that of the Jew as a coward, dodging the fight and shying away from action when called upon. This micro-‐study ultimately problematises the often-‐heard contention that Jewish communists forsook Jewish for political concerns and instead underscores the complex and multifaceted history of Jews in the Left in the interwar period.


Session 004:

Jewish History

16.00-‐18.00

East European Soviet and ex-‐Soviet Contemporary Jewry

Chair: Elena Nosenko-‐Stein

Audrey Kichelewski, University of Strasbourg, Austria

Title: Last of the Mohicans ou New Marranos? Being a Jew in Catholic and Communist Poland, 1945-‐1989

Abstract: In the aftermath of the Second World War, the non-‐Roman Catholic religious minorities had dropped from more than one third in 1939 to a mere 2 percent of the overall population in Poland’s new borders. Within the Jewish community, 90 percent of which had been annihilated, the religious people

were the less likely to survive. In 1945, the revival of Jewish life, including the religious life, could hence only stem from thoroughly new foundations. Structurally, the Jewish population was not the same sociologically, physically and mentally while socio-‐political landscape had profoundly changed due to the forced imposition of a communist regime in a country that had become predominantly Roman Catholic. Circumstantially, the Jewish survivors were faced with the dilemma of staying in the cemetery of their beloved ones or leave a country that had welcomed them with open hostility. While a majority of the approximately 200,000 Polish Jews chose emigration, how did the "last of the Mohicans" adapted themselves in a community life firmly state controlled, yet while living in an essentially Catholic nation? Why did the strategy often adopted of living like a "Marrano" fail to protect those Polish citizens of Jewish descent from being scapegoated each time the "Jewish question" emerged in every political crisis of the regime, from its establishment until its fall in 1989?

Zsofia Kata Vincze, Institution: ELTE University Budapest, Hungary

Title: Socio Political Changes in the Self-‐Definition of the Jewish Communities in Post Socialist Hungary

Abstract: After the fall of communism the Hungarian religious and secular Jewish communities got re-‐established and reorganised with the help of Israeli and American institutional support. My presentation will analyse in an anthropological and sociological framework how this communities, and individual Jews reacted to the outreach in the last two decades. My paper will present the major trend shifts in changing concepts of what "real Jewishness" meant at different stages in post socialist Hungary. (After an intellectual discovery of one’s own Jewish identity, a trend of religious return happened until the mid-‐1990, what was followed by an ethnic/cultural self-‐definition of Jewish identity until approximately 2000, resulting slowly in a symbolic ethnic representations or festivalisation of Jewishness in the era of social media. Today -‐ in the midst of the raise of the openly political anti-‐Semitism -‐ we can witness a slightly more defined socio-‐political Jewish behavior. As I will build a theory of social dynamics and tendencies of collective self-‐definition of Hungarian Jews, I will also present illustrative case studies of people who went through the baal teshuva or born again Jewish identity and later on they discovered that there are secular ways to be Jewish and after they grew out of the hip, fun Jewish underground and "alternative" festival crowd they construct a left liberal politically Jewish identity to themselves.

Elena Nosenko-‐Stein, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences

Title: Social and Cultural Portrait of Reform Jew in Contemporary Russia: Identity, Memory, Non-‐Jewish Environment

Abstract: Reform Judaism has a relatively short history in Russia. It spread in the Russian Empire from abroad in late 19th c.; it did not practically exist in the USSR; it is newly built in today’s Russian. Drawing on both qualitative (texts of in-‐depth and expert interviews as well as on participant observation) and qualitative (data of a survey) approaches I explore various aspects of constructing a new – new – for Russia – Jewish identity and cultural memory in Russian Reform community. I briefly examine its sociodemographic profile (age, gender, education, and ethnic origins, social and professional statuses) as well as reasons of its members’ attachment to Reform Judaism. Analyzing patterns of constructing Jewish identity among Russian Reform Jews I also investigate the impact of their involvement into Reform Jewish life on Jewish cultural memory -‐ events, persons, dates, texts, etc., which Reform Jews in Russia prefer either to remember or to forget. I also suppose to examine contacts of Reform Jews with their cultural non-‐Jewish (Russian) environment in terms of their attitudes towards Russian culture.

Ildikó Barna, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary

Title: Jewish Identity in Transition: Changing Strength and Content

Abstract: This talk analyses the differences of Jewish identity among the generations of Holocaust survivors. It focuses on the dissimilarities and changes not only in its strength but also in the content of it. The last representative survey on Hungarian Jewry was conducted in 1999. It embraced three generations of Holocaust survivors. Hungarian Jewry went through sweeping changes in the lifetimes of these groups. The socialization of the first generation started before the Second World War and Judaism played an important role: in their early life Jewish identity was taken for granted. Then they experienced the Holocaust and this itself elicited a desire to be freed from the burden of Jewish identity. In Hungary, however, such a desire was strengthened by the social and political milieu. Among the second generation, in many cases, parents concealed their Jewishness and many members of this age-‐group were raised without any Jewish identity whatsoever. Additionally, many Jews from these two generations found themselves in a paradoxical situation: although they had lost their feeling of belonging to the Jewish people, nevertheless other Hungarians continued to view them as “a separate group,” as Jews. Thus, for many of them, Jewish identity took on a certain reactive nature. That is to say, many felt that it was the reaction of the majority that was forcing them to regard themselves as Jews. The main identity-‐forming element of these Jews' identity became the awareness of wartime persecution, i.e. the Holocaust. This was not the case for many members of the third generation. After the transition in 1990 among many of these third generation Holocaust survivors the reactive nature of Jewish identity weakened and it started to be filled with positive feelings. This phenomenon was often described as Jewish Renaissance, but the focus remained mainly on the changing strength of Jewish identity. My hypothesis is that according to the different socio-‐historical context also the content of Jewish identity has changed. However with ordinary quantitative methodology these differences could not be explored. Using structural equation modelling, a complex multidimensional statistical technique, these differences in the content could also be analysed. This was measured by three dimensions: religious, ethno-‐cultural and affective. The results show that there are major differences in the content of identity among the three generations of Holocaust survivors, i.e. the mixture of the above dimensions is different. This can be seen mainly in the relative weight of the religious and affective aspects. The analysis also revealed that in the case of the second generation two subgroups should be distinguished: those having reactive and those with some kind of positive Jewish identity. The aim of this talk is to show the detailed results of these analyses.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 12

Session: 001:

Jewish History

Antisemitism

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Coming to Terms with Postwar Antisemitism: Changing Patterns and Changing Jewish Responses 1

Organizer: Susan Glenn

Chair: Susan Glenn

Susan Glenn, University of Washington, USA

Title: “American Jews, the ‘Swastika Epidemic,’ and Politics of Interpretation”

Abstract: This paper examines the responses of the major American Jewish defense groups to the upsurge in antisemitism in the 1950s and early 1960s. It focuses in particular on the pivotal events of 1959-‐1960, when the so-‐called “Swastika Epidemic”-‐-‐a worldwide cycle of vandalism targeting Jewish cemeteries, synagogues, and public buildings at more than 2,000 sites in over 400 cities and towns, mainly in West Germany and the United States-‐-‐provoked a crisis on both sides of the Atlantic. In West Germany, the “epidemic” became a Cold War story played out against the backdrop of Eastern bloc tensions and the Adenauer government’s efforts to convince American Jewish defense groups that it was committed to eliminating the vestiges of National Socialism. In the United States, where the major Jewish defense organizations had already embarked upon an attempt to normalize the image and status of Jews though new strategic efforts in intergroup relations, media campaigns, social scientific investigations, and legal challenges to discriminatory practices, the “Swastika Epidemic,” coming on the heels of synagogue bombings in the American south and a nationwide upsurge in antisemitic and neo-‐Nazi activity, contributed new sources of anxiety about the problem of Jewish security. The various stakeholders—the press, the politicians, Jewish defense groups, and even antisemitic ideologues in the U.S—produced competing interpretations that reflected and mobilized Cold War era political anxieties, prevailing theoretical assumptions, contemporary preoccupations with the problem of juvenile delinquency, and postwar efforts to fit Jews into a narrative of democratic inclusion and tolerance that did not comport with facts on the ground.

Evelien Gans, Netherlands Institute for War-‐ Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Niod) & University of Amsterdam, Dpt. of History

Title: Giving Antisemitism the Cold-‐shoulder or Fighting it till the Bitter End. Shifts in Postwar Dutch-‐Jewish Attitudes.

Abstract: During Christmas Eve 1959 the newly opened synagogue in Cologne (Germany) was plastered by German neo-‐Nazi’s with swastika’s and the like. A wave of similar incidents – referred to as Schmierwelle -‐ spread throughout Western Germany. From there the antisemitic aggression fanned out all over the world.

To Austria, Italy, Australia, England, Belgium, Denmark, South-‐Africa, Belgium -‐ to Sweden and the United States. And also to Germanys’ neighbor country the Netherlands where, among others, an old Jewish cemetery was destroyed. Then, in 1962, one year after the proceedings against Adolf Eichmann had confronted the world with many details of the Holocaust, the ragging in the Amsterdam Student’s Union developed into a national scandal. The so-‐called freshmen had been, as usual, herded into one room, stripped to the waist, and heads shaved. One member of the ragging commission had told them: ‘We are going to play Dachau’. When one of the freshmen protested, he was snapped at: ‘Keep your mouth shut, you fucking Jew.’ The incident was made public, there were reports and letters to the editor all over the press, it came to questions in Parliament and some (modest) disciplinary measures were taken. In my paper I will elaborate on the question how Dutch Jews dealt with post-‐war antisemitism, and what changes occurred in their attitude. Because of an accumulation of incidents in 1962 of which ‘playing Dachau’ was the most serious the Jewish weekly Nieuw Israelietisch Weekblad (NIW) organised a debate. The participants ranged from 49 to 69 of age. Their discussion provides a fascinating insight into how those very self-‐conscious Jews dealt with antisemitism. They agreed at least on one big issue: antisemitism was a ‘problem of civilisation’ of Gentiles. To preoccupy oneself with it as a Jew was below Jewish dignity. If one couldn’t stand it: go and live in Israel. After the Six Day War in 1967 and the Jom Kippur War of 1973 – when the Netherlands were struck by an Arab oil boycott because of its pro-‐Israel stance -‐ things gradually started to change. The Dutch government decided to follow a more balanced policy in the Middle East; the position and aspirations of the Palestinians became a political issue. From a Jewish perspective the fact that Israel had proved strong enough to survive, meant a boost to Jewish self-‐confidence. At the same time, however, there was cause for concern: Israel became more controversial. This led to the foundation of several pro-‐Israel committees. All of them were confronted with the question when criticism of Israel and antizionism turn into antisemitism – for some it was all one and the same -‐ and more generally: how to deal with antisemitism. New established organizations came with widely divergent approaches, varying from explicitly militant, violent action to publications, campaigns and legal proceedings. All of them took the position that ‘Jews cán, máy and shóúld take action against antisemitism’. And then there were still those Jews who thought one shouldn’t make a mountain out of a molehill. One could say that, while antisemitism is a flexible phenomenon which grafts novel stereotypes onto old ones, and finds new points of attachment in changing historical contexts, it is per definition accompanied by differing approaches to its character and how to handle or combat it.

Helga Embacher, Fachbereich Geschichte, Germany

Title: Promoting the Ideal Jew (Idealtypischen Juden): Jewish Reactions to Antisemitism in Austria

Abstract: In this paper, I will analyze how the Israelitische Kultursgemeinde (Jewish Community, IKG) as the official representative of the approximately 10,000 Austrian Jews reacted to Antisemitism and Antizionism after the Holocaust. How were Antisemitism and Antizionism defined and did discussions take place within the Jewish community about the character and dimensions of Austrian Antisemitism? Another question I will deal with is how the Austrian Erinnerungskultur (culture of commemoration of Austria’s Nazi past) influenced Jewish reactions. Since reactions by international Jewish organizations and Israeli politicians to Austrian Antisemitism frequently led to outbreaks of new waves of Antisemitism, I will further analyze which international Jewish organizations (e.g. WJC, Simon Wiesenthal Center, the State of Israel) supported—and also instrumentalized—the IKG in its fight against Antisemitism. The final question I will address is the extent to which Antisemitism and Antizionism influenced the process of forming a postwar Austrian-‐Jewish identity. In going about this, I will concentrate on three phases of the history of postwar Austrian Antisemitism: 1) the immediate postwar period, when Antisemitism was discussed in connection with restitution negotiations that, in contrast to the BRD, lasted until the early 1960s. I will argue that, especially in the postwar period, Jewish representatives created the “ideal Jew”—a Jewish stereotype they

assumed would be accepted by Austrians. 2) The so-‐called Waldheim Affair, when Austrian Jews were not only among the most vocal opponents of Waldheim but also staunch defenders of Austria at home and abroad, especially when the country was being criticized by the WJC. 3) Reactions of the IKG during the Intifada (2000-‐02) and after 9/11, when representatives of the IKG frequently accused Austrian politicians and newspapers of Antisemitism in light of their statements concerning the Intifada and reporting about it.


Session: 002:

Jewish History

Antisemitism

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Coming to Terms with Postwar Antisemitism: Changing Patterns and Changing Jewish Responses 1

Organizer: Susan Glenn

Chair: Susan Glenn

Eva Maria Ziege, Universität Bayreuth, Germany

Title: Public Intellectuals and Antisemitism in the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract: In the course of the 1950s, an uneasy cooperation existed between the public intellectuals and scholars of the Federal Republic of Germany. While some of them had been in exile and returned, others had been part of national socialist society. Particularly in the social sciences, in political philosophy and sociology these matters were kept more or less latent, with prominent Jewish thinkers preferring not to address the rift too directly. Ex-‐Nazis were teaching at the same universities as the few Jews who had been expropriated, persecuted, forced out of the country and had yet returned to West Germany. With the eruption of violence against Jews and Jewish institutions in 1959/1960, this reality became hard to ignore. This paper looks at the interaction of Jewish and non-‐Jewish intellectuals in the public as well as the scholarly field in the context of the exile’s allegiance to the United States in the context of the Cold War and the debates emerging since.

François Guesnet, University College London, UK

Title: Comparing Antisemitism in Post-‐communist Poland and Hungary -‐ Theoretical Implications

Abstract: This paper will discuss the potential benefits of a comparative approach to the study of antisemitism, based on a collaborative research project investigating antisemitic attitudes in post-‐communist Hungary and Poland. The project combined an assessment of the 'longue durée' of antisemitic movements and their constituencies in these two cases, and compared the different trajectories of antisemitic organisations after the fall of communism. It will be argued that differences in political culture and economic development have a greater impact on the attraction of antisemitic attitudes and ideologies than possible responses from the Jewish communities confronted with hostility and rejection.

Robert Fine, University of Warwick, UK

Title: The Two Faces of Universalism: Emancipation and the Jewish Question

Abstract: Universalism shows two faces to Jews: an emancipatory face manifest in movements for legal recognition of Jews as equal citizens and for social recognition of Jews as equal human beings; a repressive face manifest in a reading of the ‘Jewish question’ as the question of what is to be done about the harm Jews do to humanity at large. While the former declares that human beings count as such, regardless of whether they are Jewish or not, and demands that all exclusions be contested, the latter turns ‘the Jews’ into a unitary category incapable of meeting the universal standards of humankind. This paper explores the intimate relation between Jewish emancipation and the Jewish question at three historical moments: 18th century Enlightenment, 19th century revolutionary thought, and 20th century cosmopolitanism. It addresses in particular the difficulties that the ambivalence of universalism has posed for Jewish radicals through a focus on the Jewish writings of Hannah Arendt.

Wassilis Kassis, University of Osnabrueck, Germany

Title: The Grey Zone of Antisemitism: An Empirical and Theoretical Analysis for Considering a Zero Tolerance Approach on Antisemitism

Abstract: To date, most quantitative field studies examining antisemitism in the EU and in North America identify antisemitic attitudes within narrowly confined survey categories, e.g. “agree somewhat,” “agree fully”. By contrast, the huge amount of participants’ answers on antisemitism which are not fully contradicting as, e.g. “disagree somewhat” or “somewhat unfavorable” are hastily summarized to a non-‐antisemitic attitudes pattern together with the distinctive “totally disagree” answers. The aim of this presentation is to test by two empirical studies if the “gray answer area” of participants’ answers which are not fully antisemitic have to be considered as non-‐antisemitic attitudes or more as a proliferation ingredient of the still wide-‐spread acceptance of antisemitism. The first study is “Formation of non-‐violent behaviour in school and during leisure time among young adults from violent families”, the STAMINA-‐project, funded from 2009-‐2011 by the European Commission Daphne III Program. The data were collected in the spring of 2009 from a random sample of N=5’149 8th grade students in four EU-‐countries (Austria, Germany, Slovenia and Spain) who completed a questionnaire anonymously. The data for the second study, “Public Opinions and Attitudes in Post-‐Secondary Institutions in Germany and Canada”, were collected in 2013 in Canada and Germany (n = 796 Canadian; n = 1,004 German). This is one of the largest studies with university students on antisemitism to date (N = 1,800). The core purpose of this survey was to examine how undergraduate students respond to the perceived offensiveness of social, cultural, and religious prejudice. We examined different forms and expressions of prejudice among post-‐secondary students within an intercultural cross-‐disciplinary framework. By both quantitative studies, even if samples and students’ ages differed, we’re able to show by multinomial regression analysis that even a vaguer acceptance of antisemitism (e.g. “disagree somewhat” or “somewhat unfavorable”) is highly increasing (from 5x to 20x) the odds of approving additional group-‐focused enmities as e.g. xenophobia, violence acceptance against minorities, gender role stereotypes. Due to that we state that only a zero tolerance of antisemitism should be accepted and this not just because of the prediction strength of antisemitism for a bright variety of additional group-‐focused enmities but also due to the proliferation of antisemitic prejudice and stereotypes among secondary and post-‐secondary students in the EU and in North America. Especially the noticed “gray area” on antisemitism was used in the past and will doubtlessly be used in the future as a misanthropic fishpond for the very active antisemitic demagogues, and not just in the EU.


Session: 003:

Jewish History

14.00-‐15.30

Memory and Remembrance

Chair: Carolyn Dean

Martina Steer, University of Vienna, Austria

Title: The Memory of Moses Mendelsohn in Poland and Germany in 1929 and 1936

Abstract: This paper seeks to compare and examine the entanglements between the commemoration of Moses Mendelssohn in Poland and Germany in 1929 and 1936 and hence sheds light on the commonalities, differences and interdependence of modern Jewish collective memories shortly before the Shoah. The destruction of European Jewry irreversibly changed the very basics of Jewish and non-‐Jewish collective memory. In order to conceive the dimension of that profound transformation it is necessary to examine the collective memory of communities which were – albeit under severe siege – still unaware of and unaffected by the catastrophe which befell them shortly later. In this context a comparative case study with regards to cultural transfers on the memory of Mendelssohn can be viewed as paradigmatic, since the Jewish communities of Poland and Germany differed significantly in sheer numbers, socially, religiously and culturally. The commemoration of Mendelsohn in both countries was the result of reciprocal processes of communication, acculturation, demarcation and migration between these two countries. The Jewish enlightenment philosopher was among the first intellectuals who were commemorated in such an intensive and variegated way. Since its emergence at the end of the 18th century, the commemoration of Mendelssohn did not only reflect the grade of secularization of Jewish identities, but was also an indicator for the relationship between Jews and non-‐Jews. It became a cultural instrument by which Jews and non-‐Jews postulated and established their fundamental principles and values concerning their relationship, and inscribed them permanently in the collective memory of following generations. Mendelssohn can also be regarded as a parameter for conflicts within various strands of Judaism (orthodox vs. liberal, western vs. eastern etc., Bundist vs. Zionist), and for contested attempts of Jews and non-‐Jews for emancipation and assimilation. Therefore, a comparative analysis of the lieu de mémoire Mendelssohn in Poland and Germany, its images and instrumentalization with an emphasis on entanglements can contribute to the conceptualization of a modern transnational Jewish collective memory which emerged before the Shoah.

Małgorzata (Gosia) Włoszycka, University of Southampton, UK

Title: Remembering the Jews of Mszana Dolna: memory of the dead or the memory of the living?

Abstract: A case study of a small town in Southern Poland, Mszana Dolna, shows how people from the town deal with the memory of its Jewish neighbours. In 1942 around 900 Jews were led through the town by German soldiers and shot in a meadow on the outskirts of Mszana. This traumatic event raises a question of whether the Jews are remembered by the inhabitants of Mszana and whether the physical absence of Jews has been compensated by the memory of them. The paper argues that although the memory of Jews

is present among the inhabitants of Mszana, it is dominated by the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, not the memory of the people who once were members of the community. This is represented in the physical space of Mszana, in the stories remembered by people from town, as well as the forms of commemorations the Jews by contemporary population of the town. An attempt will be made to show that the memory of Jews is not incorporated into the history of Mszana, but exists as a parallel one.

Agnieszka Alston, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

Title: Plunder of Jewish Cultural Assets in Kraków within the Context of Nazi Material Exploitation during WWII

Abstract: The presented paper confines to the time frame of 1867-‐1918, as the year of the December Constitution that brought political and social changes to Jews of Krakow and Galicja. This new period of great and rapid changes created a new stature to Krakow society -‐ Jewish plutocracy and intelligentsia. The end of the Great War, 1918, gave even more opportunities to Galician Jewry, especially to the rapidly growing Jewish intelligentsia, their involvement in new county politics, economy and culture. The years after the World War I brought an overwhelming bloom of this social group, whose patronage in culture was different due to advanced political and social modifications, but also to changes within the artistic scene in Krakow. While it was not likely to hear in Krakow about great collectors of the caliber of the Rothschilds or of benefactors as existed among the Warsaw or Lodz Jewish bourgeoisie (L. Kronenberg, J. Nathanson, J. Bloch, I. Poznański), Krakow was not lacking for there was a small but growing group of Jewish plutocracy and intelligentsia who took significant part in patronizing the local culture. Additionally, Krakowian cultural institutions were benefited by Jewry from Warsaw (M. Bersohn, F. Gebethner), Lvov (M. Goldstein), and elsewhere. The wide autonomy of the Grossherzgtum Krakau during the changes within the Austro-‐Hungarian Empire with the proclamation of equality of all citizens of Galicja and thus gave the opportunity to Jews to enter actively into the cultural scene of Krakow. The Krakow Jewish plutocracy: bankers, financiers, capitalists (rich members of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and Jewish intelligentsia (medical doctors, architects, and scholars) modeled their cultural patronage on the old aristocratic tradition. In other words they ordered family portraits (St. Feintuch, J. Oettinger, H. Rozenzwieg, J. Sare, A. Schwartz, H. Szarski, and others) from the renowned establish painters’ ateliers of T. Axentowicz, J. Fałat, J. Marczewski, L. Wyczółkowski, St. Wyspiański. Furtherer they created collections of fine arts that reflected accumulated wealth and which was also a financial investment (E. Beres, Blumenfeld, Z. Ehrenpreis, W. Fränkel, L. Holzer, S. Tiles). Having a distinguished collection it was highly regarded to be seen to loan or to donate art pieces or collections to the museum (F. Gebethner, M. Berson, Glicenstein, A. Sternschuss, J. Judkiewicz and others). In Kraków, artistic patronage was centered on the Society of Friends of Fine Arts (1854) and the National Museum (1879). Members of Krakow Jewry were chosen as distinguished members of exhibitions’ committees. They were frequent purchasers of exhibited works of talented students of the Krakow Fine Art Academy. In Krakow, unlike in Warsaw, there were not so many residential art salons belonging to Jewish collectors whose goals were to improve the prestige via presence of artists and cultural elite, again activity based on the Polish aristocracy. However, there was one such salon that was led by Henryk Frist (1875 Salon of Polish Painters). Additionally, a new to Krakow phenomena were art dealers like: Adolf Schwartz and Marcus Szwarc, who were active in cultural patronage. It must be mentioned that Jewish collectors not only focused on Polish artists, firstly they cherished Jewish artists such as M. Gottlieb, or Samuel Hirszenberg (E. Beres, M. Feldman). Most of all they paid homage to their heritage in preserving and collecting precious Jewish ritual objects, which often were on loan to the Krakow National Museum. Most of all they paid homage to their heritage in preserving and collecting precious Jewish ritual objects, which often were on loan to the Krakow National Museum (J. Judkiewicz, M. Szwarc).


Session 004:

Jewish History

Antisemitism and Jewish/non-‐Jewish Relations throughout the Ages

16.00-‐18.00

Panel: The Parkes Institute's approach to Jewish/non-‐Jewish relations, models for the future?

Organizers: Tony Kushner & James Jordan

Chair: Tony Kushner

James Jordan, Parkes Institute, University of Southampton, UK

Title: Dr Who and Jewish/non-‐Jewish Relations on British Television

Abstract: In a recent article for Tabletmag.com, Liel Leibovitz has suggested that the central character of the BBC's long-‐running television series Doctor Who is in fact ‘the most compelling Jewish character in the history of television.’ In his article Leibovitz situates the character of the Doctor as Jewish through an argument which is partly historical, partly interpretative, through, that is, both the off-‐screen story of the Doctor’s creation and his on-‐screen appearance, attitudes and enemies. This paper will look more closely at the show’s origins and content, arguing that the Doctor’s position and articulation of Jewishness is both more rooted and more ambivalent than Leibovitz suggests, and that the relationship between the Doctor and his Jewishness -‐ and indeed that between the Daleks and the Master and their Jewishness -‐ is revealing in terms of Jewish/non-‐Jewish relations more generally.

Tony Kushner, Parkes Institute, University of Southampton, UK

Title: The British in Auschwitz

Abstract: 1500 British prisoners of war were held in a sub-‐camp of the Auschwitz complex from 1943 to 1945. Until recently their experiences have been forgotten, but in the past few years their stories have been rediscovered and reinterpreted. Once placed within a prisoner of war narrative, they are now placed within the context of the Holocaust. Indeed, they are increasingly regarded as 'Heroes of the Holocaust' This paper will explore the implications when melding the British war effort with the plight of the Jews, especially with regard to the key categories that have been developed to explain the Holocaust: perpetrator, victim, bystander. The Holocaust becoming increasingly the most important morality story of modern times. This paper will ask whether the Reverened Dr James Parkes' (the pioneer of the study of Jewish/non-‐Jewish relations) concern over the development of Holocaust studies was justified. Using this case study, it will ask whether the attention given to the Holocaust is leading to dangerous simplifications in our understanding of the broader field of Jewish/non-‐Jewish relations.

Claire Le Foll, Parkes Institute, University of Southampton, UK

Title: Jews and Small Nations in Eastern Europe

Abstract: The relations between Jews and the other national minorities among which they lived in Eastern Europe have not yet been extensively researched, being overshadowed by works on the relations between Jews and Russians or Poles. In the framework of a panel discussion on relations between Jews and non-‐Jews, I would like to present my research project focused on relations between Jews and other national groups (Belorussian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian mostly) before and after the creation of the Belorussian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian republics (1905-‐1939), with a comparative analysis of the implementation of cultural national autonomy in the new states (Soviet and non-‐Soviet). Using more specifically the Belorussian case, I will argue that the cultural transfers, social interactions and political cooperation between Jews and these 'small nations' had no less impact, if not more, on the Jewish collective identity and history than the well-‐studied strategy of integration into the dominant society.

Helen Spurling, Parkes Institute, University of Southampton, UK

Title: Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic Traditions in Late Antiquity

Abstract: This paper will examine contacts between rabbinic and patristic writings in Late Antiquity through the medium of biblical exegesis and the concept of 'exegetical encounter' (Spurling and Grypeou 2009, 2013). The importance of apocalyptic and eschatological traditions within both Jewish and Christian literature as a response to historical events and a means of revealing attitudes to events is widely accepted (Alexander 1978, Reeves 2006, Bockmuehl and Carleton Paget 2009). By focusing on apocalyptic and eschatological traditions from select midrashic and patristic sources from Late Antiquity, the possibilities of contact and conflict over the interpretation of biblical motifs will be examined. The paper will investigate any possible theological relationship between different traditions, and highlight the development of eschatological thought in Late Antiquity in the context of Jewish-‐Christian relations. This contribution is part of a panel from the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-‐Jewish Relations, which will highlight the work of the Institute and its interdisciplinary approaches as a model for future research on Jewish/non-‐Jewish relations.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 13

Session: 001:

Jewish Literature

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Modern Jewish Spaces

Organizer: Murray Baumgarten

Chair: Murray Baumgarten

Murray Baumgarten, University of California, Santa Cruz

Title: Israel Zangwill and the Afterlife of the Ghetto

Abstract: Almost a century after the dissolution of the Ghetto, and just about 30 years after the unification of Italy into a modern nation state and the Jewish Emancipation that included the Jews among its citizens — Israel Zangwill published a novel about the Jewish immigrants flooding into London’s East End. Children of the Ghetto: a study of a peculiar people (1892), was at once fiction, social critique, and ethnography. In its title Zangwill underlined the relationship of the experience of these new inhabitants of England to their Italian ancestors, who in 1516 had been segregated in a Venetian campo that had once served as the city’s foundry. As we read this novel today, we can see Zangwill at the end of the nineteenth century using the Ghetto’s history to help him think through the spaces in which Jews live. As he traces the lives of this “peculiar people,” in his fiction, he brings the question of what constitutes Modern Jewish Spaces to the forefront. Children of the Ghetto: Zangwill’s title announced his intention to explore how the Ghetto experience had shaped these new English residents, who came from Eastern Europe and Russia. Instead of “Pale of Settlement,” the term for the residence of the Jews in Eastern Europe and Russia, he turned to Venetian Jewish history and the Venetian/Italian language to designate what the Jews had become in their long European exile. In Zangwill’s view, the Ghetto — the defining space of Modern Jewish life and the psychological power to dream it generated -‐-‐ was the key to the possibilities of modern Jewish experience. “People who have been living in a Ghetto for a couple of centuries,” Zangwill points out, “are not able to step outside merely because the gates are thrown down, nor to efface the brands on their souls by putting off the yellow badges. The isolation imposed from without will have come to seem the law of their being.” (Proem, Children of the Ghetto, p. x.) The Jews have been made other by the Ghetto: the consequences of the Venice Ghetto, devised in 1516 and mostly still in force till the unification of Italy in 1870 (and even after in Rome) continue to define them.

Lee Jaffe, University of California at Santa Cruz, USA

Title: The Jewish Anthology As A Jewish Place: Creating a Forum for Negotiating Jewish Identity

Abstract: Based on a comprehensive study of the contents of more than 300 anthologies of Jewish literature in English, this presentation will explore the role of literary collections in the process of identity formation, with a focus on how the genre has evolved in response to historical developments and the needs of the community. Starting with the earliest appearance of Jewish literary anthologies in English at

the turn of the 20th century, this paper will highlight milestones in the development of the genre and share findings about their correspondence to the historical moments that shaped them. The presentation will discuss the different functions anthology fills – rescue and revival, pedagogic and archival, canonical and existential – and, finally, will draw conclusions about the special role the Jewish anthology plays in creating a forum for the contemporary Jewish discourse about identity.

Dianne Harris, University of Illinois at Urbana-‐Champaign, USA

Title: Little White Houses: Displaying Jewish Identity in the Postwar American Home

Abstract: In 1959, the sociologist and rabbi Albert I. Gordon published Jews In Suburbia, a book that endeavored to help readers understand the nature of Jewish life in the postwar United States. Gordon investigated the lives his subjects increasingly led outside of the cities that had been home to previous generations of U. S. Jews. In shifting his focus to the metropolitan fringes, Gordon was not alone. Many sociologists of the period focused their studies on examinations of the newly built suburbs that seemed to appear almost overnight in locations across the United States after 1945. What did it mean, they all asked, to leave behind extended families living in inner-‐city brownstones and apartment buildings for a life lived without in-‐laws in a house of one’s own? What did it mean to leave ethnically-‐identified neighborhoods in favor of suburbs that were often restricted—through a variety of practices—to whites alone? In this paper, as in my recently published book, Little White Houses: How the Postwar Home Constructed Race in America, I study the relationships that existed between various forms of whiteness—including that formulated in connection to Jews—and ordinary houses. Following Stuart Hall’s assertion that racism is a “structure of knowledge and representations” that are based on ideas about and that are used to generate understandings of a fixed ‘us’ in opposition to and in a separate space from ‘them,” I examine the ways textual and visual representations of ordinary postwar houses continuously and reflexively created, re-‐created, and reinforced midcentury notions about racial, ethnic, and class identities—specifically, the rightness of associating white identities with homeownership and citizenship. By looking carefully at house form, the material culture of postwar domesticity, and at representations of house form, I examine the ways in which postwar domestic environments became powerful ciphers for whiteness, affluence, belonging, and a sense of permanent stability in the years between 1945 and 1960.


Session: 002:

Jewish Literature

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Modern Jewish Spaces 2

Organizer: Murray Baumgarten

Chair: Murray Baumgarten

Lisa Silverman, University of Wisconsin-‐Milwaukee, USA

Title: Vienna’s Jewish Geography: Imagining the Leopoldstadt

Abstract: The Jewish population was never evenly distributed throughout Vienna, but by 1934, when Jews inhabited nearly every one of interwar Vienna’s 21 districts, nearly half of the city’s Jewish population still resided in only three of them. In the Leopoldstadt, however, they formed almost 30% of the population before 1938 – and the persistence of the Leopoldstadt as Vienna’s “Jewish space” served a purpose for both Jews and non-‐Jews, then as now. Through analysis of the oral and written testimony of Austrian Jewish émigrés, this paper explores Jews’ affective responses to the city in response to their historical – and personal – exclusion from it. Recognizing their deep investment not only in the city’s history, but also its geography, can help us draw a map of Jewish Vienna that includes not only where Jews lived, but also points to its “Jewish-‐coded” physical spaces and how these shaped its legibility to both Jewish and non-‐Jewish Austrians. Focusing on how Jews remember past experiences in relationship to the city’s geography renders visible the contours of the Jewish and other social codings that ordered the city’s districts, the exclusionary practices that shaped Vienna’s urban landscape, and the power relationships involved in the development of Vienna’s built environment. As this presentation will demonstrate, it was not only Vienna’s cultural heritage that formed the basis of Jews’ attachment to the city, but also its geography.

Peter Kenez, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

Title: Jewish Budapest, 1900

Abstract: Visitors to Budapest are sometimes surprised that the city that has probably fewer than 80,000 Jews also contains the largest synagogue in Europe and one of the largest in the world. The explanation can be found in history. This building, constructed in the middle of the 19th century, and seats 3000 people, is a memorial to the enormously successful and optimistic Jewry of 19th century Hungary. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries Budapest was the fastest growing city in Europe and one quarter of the population was Jewish. Jews lived in distinct parts of the city: the richest among them in the 5th district, the middle classes around the largest boulevard in the 7th district and the poorest, mostly Orthodox around Sip, utca, Dob utca and Weselenyi utca. The Budapest Jewry was unique; its history was full of paradoxes and contradictions. Nowhere did Jews come closer to dominating the economy and cultural life of a nation, nowhere did Jews play a more crucial role in the leadership of Marxist socialism and nowhere was the gap wider between the assimilated and the Orthodox. It is precisely this uniqueness that makes the Budapest Jewry an excellent case study, for here in a particularly clear form we can see the different sources of resurgent 20th century antisemitism. The explanation for the uniqueness of the Budapest Jewry must be sought at the peculiarities of 19th century Hungarian society. The country, a part of the Habsburg Monarchy, was dominated by Hungarian feudal nobility, ruling over a multinational peasantry. The nobles, unwilling and unable to take the building of industry and commerce in their own hands but interested in modernization, were glad to leave to the Jews that task. Since the Jews were happy to use the opportunities offered, they came to be enthusiastic Hungarians Nationalists, unlike anywhere in the world, were glad to have the Jews as allies. The Budapest Jewry, highly acculturated, was different from their Western European coreligionists. In Western Europe the native middle classes were quite able to carry out the various tasks that we associate with modernization. The Jews nowhere in Western Europe dominated the economy. Those who came to be acculturated thought of themselves as belonging to the sizeable middle classes. In Hungary there was no native middle class. The Jews came to think of themselves as Jewish Hungarians rather than Hungarian Jews. Yet, they remained distinct. The opportunity to join the feudal aristocracy did not exist, and to assimilate to the peasantry was not an option. Jews thought of themselves as patriotic Hungarians, and yet they remained distict.

Michael Shapiro, Loyola University of Chicago, USA

Title: Shylock's House: Theatrical Representations of Jewish Space

Abstract: In Shakespeare's time, before the introduction of scenic design, interior spaces were usually indicated by portable properties, language, activity, and perhaps music. Even after the heyday of scenic design, the two short scenes in the Merchant of Venice which are set inside Shylock's house were not enough to justify elaborate scenic, although the exterior of his house could be so represented. More recently, in filmed and televised productions, the inside of Shylock's house is seen, and thus needs to be marked in some way as Jewish space, as can be seen in several recent productions, such as those starring Pacino, Olivier and Goodman.

Noam Gil, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: The Burden of Identity -‐ On Holocaust Survivors in the City

Abstract: In my paper I intend to discuss the cultural significance of the Jewish Holocaust survivor in the reshaping of postmodern identity in post Holocaust urban America. By discussing two novels by two European emigrants, Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Enemies, a Love Story" (1966) and Edgar Hilsenrath's "Fuck America" (1980), I will examine the survivor’s gradual subversion of his per-‐determined national, religious and communal identities. In each one of the texts the city and the urban environment have a double and seemingly contradictory effect on the survivors’ lives: as an obstacle and an opportunity at the same time. The multiplying sounds, languages, faces and architectures seem at first to be a threat to the protagonist’s existence but later on provide the means for the survivor’s radical liberation. As an eternal outsider, the survivor's past experiences correlate to the current urban life as these two periods and surroundings are constantly juxtaposed. This juxtaposition creates a conscious desire in the protagonist’s psyche for anonymity, as an immediate reaction to the unavoidable identity which was forced upon him during the war in Europe, identity which was tattooed on Jewish arms, marked on Jewish clothes, painted on Jewish shops and embedded on Jewish lives. In reading the two narratives in relation to the writings of urban theorists such as Edward Soja and Richard Sennet, I will examine the American city in correlation to the Jewish survivor. My main claim is that the protagonists I am writing about, Singer's Herman Broder and Hilsenrath's Jakob Bronsky, are literary models that offer, in their life stories, a new set of human relationships, personal behavioral characteristics and private day to day procedures that are emblematic to the deviant city’s schizoid features.


Session: 003:

Book History: Post-‐Medieval Manuscripts and Printing

14.00-‐15.30

Chair:

Gila Prebor, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Post-‐Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts – A Case Study: The Manuscript Collection of the Séminaire Israélite de France

Abstract: It is noteworthy that most of the research into Hebrew manuscripts has focused on manuscripts written until 1540. The Hebrew Palaeography Project, which has been active for approximately 50 years, has produced a typology of Hebrew manuscripts. This immense project has only dealt with manuscripts written until 1540. It is difficult to give a precise figure of the number of surviving Hebrew manuscripts, but it is estimated to be between seventy and eighty thousand volumes. Approximately half of these manuscripts were written in the Middle Ages, while the remainder date from the 17th to the 20th centuries. Research into post-‐medieval manuscripts could open a new world of manuscripts that has hitherto not been systematically researched as a corpus, with only individual manuscripts having been examined on a limited basis. How many works were composed in this period? Are these original works or copies of older works from other manuscripts or even from printed books? What types of works were hand-‐written in this period and for what purpose? To these questions and others we do not yet have answers. The manuscript collection of the Séminaire Israélite de France includes a number of manuscripts from the Middle Ages but most of the collection consists of relatively later manuscripts from the 17th, 18th, 19th, and even 20th centuries. This collection can be used as a case study to demonstrate the importance of post-‐medieval manuscripts and stress the need to continue the work of the Hebrew Palaeography Project.

Vered Tohar, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: The Contribution of the Portuguese Printer, Avraham Usque, to the Production and Distribution of Hebrew Books in the 16th Century

Abstract: Although the printing shop of Avraham Usque in Ferrara, Italy operated for only five years, 1553-‐1558, his workshop published important works that had a major impact on the Jewish world and left a literary mark on later collections. Usque came to Ferrara from Portugal, and according to scholars’ assumptions, he was a converso who fled the horrors of the Inquisition, and like many other Anusim in his day, managed to build a new life in Italy. Usque’s most important publishing venture, the one that brought him fame, was the translation of the Bible into Spanish for the use of Spanish speakers, Jews and non-‐Jews alike. Ironically, although he saw himself as serving both Jews and Gentiles, his printing shop was closed down when someone informed on him for printing an elegy composed by Jacob of Fano to commemorate the tragic burning of the twenty-‐four Anusim of Ancona in 1555. The purpose of the lecture is to present Usque's achievements and his contribution to the world of the Hebrew book in light of the fact that he was a multicultural person who travelled between the Christian and the Jewish worlds, and Between the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi Jewish Cultures. His literary works, especially his well-‐known Hebrew story anthology called 'Hibbur ha-‐Ma'asiot' demonstrate the contacts between the Jewish and non-‐Jewish cultures and present Usque's influence on the conservation and dissemination of the Hebrew story.

Chanan Yitzchaki, Efrata Academic College for Teacher Training

Title: Printing Jewish Books during the Printing Dacree in Russia

Abstract: One of the most famous commentaries on the "Shulchan Aruch" is 'Pitchey Teshuva' by Rabbi Avraham Tzvi Eisenstat (Lithuania, 1815-‐1868). The second part of the book (Even Ha'ezer) was printed without mentioning the publisher's name, printing place or printing date. At the first part of the lecture we will try to find out who the publisher was, and when and where the book was published. The second part

will deal with more important question: What was the part of the Russian censor on the fact that the publisher had to hide his name, address and the date of printing.


Session 004:

The Arab in Israeli Literature

16.00-‐18.00

Chair:

Geula Elimelekh, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Exile in the Works of a Muslim Writer and a Jewish One: 'Abd Al-‐Rahman Munif and Samir Naqqash

Abstract: "Exile" is an ancient word evoking harsh connotations of suffering, anxiety, uprootedness, alienation, dislocation, etc. Human history shows that exile – voluntary or imposed – is not limited to individuals from particular national or religious communities, but is a fate that can befall all humans, for various reasons – social, political, cultural or economic. Exiles from all backgrounds undergo similar experiences and suffer similar anguish. This lecture will deal with the theme of exile in the works of the Saudi writer 'Abd Al-‐Rahman Munif (1933-‐2004) and the Iraqi-‐born Jewish writer Samir Naqqash (1938-‐2004), both of whom wrote in Arabic. I will show that exile has similar meanings and implications in the works of both these writers. Naqqash, who immigrated to Israel in 1951, describes the trauma experienced by himself, his family and many other Iraqi Jews who emigrated from Iraq to the state of Israel shortly after its establishment. These Jews left Iraq and gave up their Iraqi citizenship in order to realize the dream shared by every Diaspora Jew for almost 2,000 years, namely to live in the Promised Land. Tragically, however, many of them discovered that assimilating into Israeli society meant giving up their language, culture and their traditional Jewish way of life. Torn from their roots, they found life in Israel to be nothing but a new form of exile, much worse than their "exile" in Iraq. Naqqash's decision to write in Arabic, rather than Hebrew, indicates how deeply connected he was to the Arab and Iraqi culture, and reflects the alienation he felt in his new homeland. Naqqash, then, describes a situation of exile within exile, namely a situation of complete hopelessness, with no way out. I focus on Naqqash's stories from the anthologies “I” and “They” and “Ambivalence” and “The Day the World Became Pregnant“ and “Miscarried”. 'Abd Al-‐Rahman Munif was also an exiled intellectual, and many of his protagonists are exiles as well. His works present the theme of exile from a somewhat different perspective than those of Naqqash: he focuses on the persecution, oppression and lack of freedom in the Arab world, which drive his protagonists to leave their homeland. (It should be mentioned that the Iraqi Jews suffered persecution and oppression as well in the years preceding their emigration to Israel, especially in the 1940s; however, that is not the focus of Naqqash's works). Like Naqqash's protagonists, many of Munif's characters try to settle in other countries, but often fail to assimilate, because the host society refuses to accept them and/or because they themselves feel a constant sense of alienation. I focus on three of Munif's novels: The Trees and the Murder of Marzouq, East of the Mediterranean, and Here and Now or East of the Mediterranean Revisited. Like Munif himself, the protagonists of these novels are all exiles in some sense: all of them are on the run,

either from their homeland or within it, and they are constantly on the move, whether by choice or out of coercion. Their sense of dislocation and homelessness is accompanied by feelings of fear and alienation, estrangement and isolation, which afflict them even within the confines of their community, their family and their own souls. They suffer from a lack of inner calm, since dislocation and homelessness are the antithesis of wholeness and harmony. This sense of dislocation is a universal condition that characterizes not only Munif's and Naqqash's characters but modern man at large.

Heidy-‐Margrit Müller, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium

Title: Re-‐Interpreting Trauma in Literary Memoirs Written by Jewish Authors from Egypt

Abstract: Decennia after leaving Egypt, Jewish writers started to write down their memoirs about their childhood and youth. Though each author has his or her own stylistic and topical preferences, there are a few central problems that are dealt with in all of these autobiographical novels: Alterity, Loneliness, Fear, Forced Exile, Deprivation, Pain and Trauma. A comparative approach can unveil, what mental strategies and ideological constructions help the fictional storytellers to cope with their multi-‐layered traumatic experience of uprooting, displacement or exile.

Èlia Romo-‐Terol, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

Title: Shlomo Alkurdi: Samir Naqqash's Struggle with Identity in a Convergence of Cultures

Abstract: Samir Naqqash was an interesting author from the perspective of the cultural studies and also an example of how initially confronted elements can conform an identity. In his last novel he presented the life of Shlomo Alkurdi, a Jewish Kurd, throughout the political and historical developments of the twentieth century in the Asia Minor region. The novel, although it is not autobiographical, expresses Naqqash own struggles and the main subjects of identity he had to deal with in a personal and a professional way. In his work, both the form and the content are telling us about these political struggles, for he made the choice of writing in Arabic language, a choice that would lead to his own alienation in Israel. The transformation and tagging of a person through the constant changes of the surrounding political power is the lead of this novel that does not only shows us the construction of the identity of the main character but what concerns Samir Naqqash, that is the idea of losing the identity. In this paper we will focus our analysis on how Samir Naqqash expresses the elements of the loss of the identity throughout complex political scenarios, nations fighting against nations, different languages, the identification with the others and the distinction from them.

Jordi Casals, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

Title: Aharon Almog: Oriental Aspects of the Literary Production of a Third-‐Generation Israeli

Abstract: Our author, Aharon Almog, a third-‐generation Israeli from a Yemeni family, saw a great world changes and he hadn't the perception of identification to that modern society. Through his literary talent, the author turns into a tool that adapts his cultural world to his literary necessities. He took part in the movement of young Yemenite Hebrew poetry in Israel and the way to write his protest writings against the injusticies was the poetry. However, at the end of his career he left it aside because it lost its efficacy. The objective of this session is to know how Almog reflects the social group of the "mizrahim" in his literary production, if their presence is implicit or explicit in his work and what the vision of the author was towards his own group of oriental Jews in Israel.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 14

Session: 001:


9.00-‐10.30

Panel: From the Synagogue to the Market Place: Aspects of Medieval Jewish Piety in Christian Europe

Organizer: Judah Galinsky

Chair: Susan Einbinder

Judah Galinsky, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: Between the Shma and the Credo: Understanding Jewish Religious Practice in Medieval Ashkenaz

Abstract: One of the more difficult tasks of the historian studying earlier societies is trying to understand the basic beliefs and ideals that inspired the religious devotion of the people. Much of the surviving materials from medieval times reflect the belief systems of the elite but rarely those of the common person, man and woman. One possible avenue to explore in attempting to get at the central beliefs is to examine the basic prayers of the religion. It was the liturgy, especially those prayers that were formulated in a straightforward manner, which bound the learned and unlearned together and created a common religious language. In my paper I will suggest that the three sections of the Shma, as understood by the medieval commentators, allow us to better understand the medieval religious world view of French Jews and help us to identify the ideological roots of their piety.

Sarit Shalev-‐Eyni, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Between Synagogue and Church: The Aural-‐Visual Prayer Experience in Medieval Ashkenaz

Abstract: The general construction boom in the Rhine valley and other German areas led to the erection of stone synagogues .These were built in close proximity to local churches in the town centers, where Jews habitually lived at that time. Although these structures were always modest in size and shape compared with the magnificent contemporary cathedrals and churches, they shared similar architectonic values. And yet, as we shall see, their inner design was based on an ancient Jewish tradition, which was foreign to local schemes and befitted a different aural-‐visual prayer experience, rooted in a non-‐Western worldview. The contrast between the plans of the interiors of Christian and Jewish worship spaces reflects an essential difference in the nature of the prayer service and its vocal results, though the diffusion of attitude prevalent in the general society had also an effect. This paper strives to combine some sparse testimonies left in written and visual sources, together with a few remnants of synagogue architecture of the time, into a mosaic of spoken words, voices, and sights that will enable us to suggest a partial reconstruction of the aural-‐visual experience that comprised the ritual domain of medieval Ashkenaz between the twelfth and mid-‐fourteenth centuries

Adam Davis, Denison University, USA

Title: Comparing the Charitable Impulse of Medieval Jews and Christians in Northern Europe

Abstract: During the 12th and 13th centuries, Latin Christendom experienced a charitable revolution, as new charitable religious orders were established and hundreds of leprosaria and hospitals were founded to house the sick and poor. There remains a need to examine how medieval Jews experienced and responded to this new charitable activity among the Christian laity and flowering of Christian charitable institutions. This paper will explore the religious and cultural meaning of charitable giving for medieval Jews and Christians in 12th and 13th-‐century northern Europe. How familiar were Jews and Christians with each other’s' charitable practices, and how did these two religious cultures of charity compare with one another? In particular, this paper will address Jewish and Christian perspectives on coerced charity, on the categories of the "deserving and undeserving poor," and on the relative importance of a giver's reward (including the role of the giver's intentions) versus a gift's impact on its recipient. This comparative analysis will be based on a close reading of medieval rabbinic responsa and the writings of Christian theologians and canon lawyers, as well as Christian and Jewish exempla (Jacques de Vitry, Caesarius of Heisterbach, and material from Sefer Hasidim).


Session: 002:


11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Jews in the City, Three Case Studies from Late Medieval Regensburg

Organizer: Eva Haverkamp

Chair: Eva Haverkamp

Eva Haverkamp, Ludwig-‐Maximilians-‐University Munich, Germany

Title: Introduction into the Panel "Jews in the City, Three Case Studies from Late Medieval Regensburg"

Abstract: The introduction into the panel "Jews in the City, three case studies from late medieval Regensburg" will provide the questions about the different realms of communications between Jews and Christians in the city of Regensburg, and in their larger contexts in medieval Bavaria and the Empire.

M.A. Astrid Riedler-‐Pohlers, Ludwig-‐Maximilians-‐University Munich, Germany

Title: Jewish and Christian Physicians in Late Medieval Regensburg

Abstract: The relationship between Jewish and Christian physicians will be discussed regarding central questions as for instance the knowledge each group had about the other. How was this knowledge used

and applied to in everyday life? Are there topics both groups had in common, did they differ in treating them? Other aspects which sources reveal concern medical fees, patients, medical qualifications, patients and treatments.

Sophia Schmitt, Ludwig-‐Maximilians-‐University Munich, Germany

Title: Networks in Regensburg around 1476

Abstract: Evoked by the ritual murder trial in Trent in 1475 the city council of Regensburg tried to press similar charges against their Jewish community in 1476 which led to years of trial involving different local powers such as the bishop, the city council and the duke of Bavaria as well as the emperor. The events following the accusations reveal the complex relationships between and among Jews and Christians on different levels and intensity also in wider geographic dimensions. These formal and informal networks will be analysed, their connection will be emphasized and evaluated with regard to the ritual murder accusations. Conclusions can be drawn concerning these networks in general and regarding the integration of Jews in these structures.

Veronika Nickel, Ludwig-‐Maximilians-‐University Munich, Germany

Title: The expulsion of the Jews from Regensburg in 1519

Abstract: The expulsion of the Jews from Regensburg -‐ starting on February the 21st 1519 and accomplished within a few days -‐ marked the end of one of the oldest medieval kehillot in Germany.

In contrast to most other communities, the Regensburg kehilla had never experienced any eviction from the city before. The decision of the Regensburg city council to expel the Jews was in a way abrupt. Nevertheless, over several years the town councils had undertaken various efforts to diminish the Jewish community or force them to leave. Most of these efforts were carried out on a judicial basis, more precisely before the imperial courts which at the end of 1519 declared the expulsion illegal. This long-‐winded process opens not only a deep insight into the relations between Jews and Christians in Regensburg but also in to the ways of juridical interaction between city council, Jews and the emperor.


Session: 003:


14.00-‐15.30

Panel: Rethinking the Boundaries of the Jewish Neighborhood: Medieval and Early Modern Times

Organizer: Simha Goldin, The Goldstein-‐Goren Diaspora Research Center, Tel Aviv University

Chair: john Tolan

Simha Goldin, The Goldstein-‐Goren Diaspora Research Center, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: The Boundaries of the Jewish Community: Jewish Perceptions of their Environment

Abstract: My lecture will focus on the question of the manner in which Jews perceived the Christian cities in which they lived. A traditional view is that Jews of the Diaspora longed for the Land of Israel, saw their sojourn in exile as a decree from Heaven, and of a temporary nature, and therefore may not have established a deep connection with the city and its space. In reality, the Jews of medieval Europe were very firmly rooted in the physical and social fabric of the Christian towns in which they lived. While I am by no means trying to claim that the Jews identified only with their physical surroundings and forgot their yearnings for the Land of Israel, there are nevertheless many expressions of propinquity between the Jews and their physical surroundings, and my lecture will explore and analyze them.

Merav Schnitzer, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: The Jewelry Connection: Tracing Jewish Women in the Medieval City.

Abstract: Jewish women's practices of adornments in Medieval Ashkenaz were debated by the Halachic sages of the period; these debates provide us a new perspective on women's daily life in the medieval cities. In my lecture I will follow these new perspectives: the role of jewelry and ornaments in Jewish women's life, the influence of their Christian neighbors and the conflicts between the role of Fashion and the role of Halacha.

Naomi Feuchtwanger-‐Sarig, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: Wedding Rites and Customs in Ashkenaz: The Christian Perspective

Abstract: Jewish life in the urban setting in Europe offered daily interaction between Jews and Christians on every level, resulting in mutual exposure to rites and customs. This paper will examine these interactions as seen from the Christian prism through the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, taking the Jewish wedding as a point-‐in-‐case.


Session 004:


16.00-‐18.00

Panel: Rethinking the Boundaries of the Jewish Neighborhood: Medieval and Early Modern Times 2

Organizer: Simha Goldin, The Goldstein-‐Goren Diaspora Research Center, Tel Aviv University

Chair: john Tolan

Joseph Isaac Lifshitz, Tel Aviv University and the Shalem College, Israel

Title: The Church and Laws of Jewish Ritual in the Development of the Jewish Street: A Symbiotic Relationship

Abstract: The symbiotic relationship between Jews and the German society is evident, though we do not know the extent of that interdependence. Regardless of difference of lifestyle and religion, the mundane and the necessities of life created friendships. But as Yaakov Katz has claimed, difference of religion was not always strictly an obstacle between the two groups. Laws of the Sabbath were also an influence on the relationship. In my paper I will show how laws of Mezuzah (a piece of parchment inscribed with a verse from the Torah and placed on the side of the door), and laws of Eruvin (a ritual enclosure that Jewish communities construct as a way to permit the carrying of objects outside the house during the Sabbath and holy days), serve as a catalyst of symbiosis between the Jews and the non-‐Jews. The Jewish street was actually property of the bishop, a fact that was used for leniencies regarding laws of Mezuzah and Eruvin.

Ephraim Shoham-‐Steiner, Ben Gurion University, Israel

Title: Reevaluating the Role of Cologne in Medieval Ashkenaz

Abstract: Most of the textbooks and most of the scholars that have discussed medieval Ashkenaz tended to focus on the SHUM communities of Speyer Worms and Mainz. With a textual legacy in the forefront, and in the case of Worms and Speyer with actual buildings and tangible remains like the famous "heilige sand" cemetery in Worms and the remains of the synagogue and mikvah accompanying the impressive and ancient literary legacy this scholarly and popular tradition was, and still is, followed by many. Cologne however is another matter altogether. Although it is almost always referred to as the older community, the one with an impressive Roman legacy "the oldest Jewish community north of the Alps" it is nevertheless in the shadow of the SHUM communities especially due to the absence of positive evidence to suggest a vibrant intellectual network the like of which we find with regard to Mainz Worms and subsequently Speyer. Even once Cologne eventually does "catch up" in the thirteenth century it is quite clear that it is an orbiter around the heavier and more powerful center in the SHUM communities. In the proposed lecture, reflecting work in progress based on a collaboration between Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Hollender of the Goethe University in Frankfurt and Dr.Ephraim Shoham-‐Steiner of Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheva, some preliminary results and some questions based on textual research will be made. These finds suggests that the Cologne Jewish community is indeed more ancient than the SHUM communities and is probably of a different nature as well. Recent archeological finds have brought these questions to the forefront of a scholarly debate. Without making a clear statement at this point about the controversial "question of continuity" of Jewish life in Cologne from late antiquity and into the middle ages it seems however that the new findings may indeed shed new light on texts that have been on scholar's desktops from the early days of the Wissenschaft das Judentums and who may now be read differently. Can it be that when the SHUM communities were first settled there was already a Jewish community in Cologne? Is it possible that this community was different in nature, less scholarly and more layman in its orientation? Did it follow a more northern French-‐Lotharingen tradition rather than a middle Rhine SHUM based tradition. These are some of the questions raised and the suggestions that will be made in the lecture.

Christoph Cluse, Universität Trier, Arye Maimon-‐Institut für Geschichte der Juden, Germany

Title: Arithmetics and the Image of 'Jewish Usury' in Late Medieval Germany

Abstract: The paper will take a fresh look at the tables of compound interest, spread in south-‐western Germany since about the 1460s both in manuscript and print, in which the adverse effects of taking out a loan from a Jewish moneylender are displayed in a drastic imagery of exponentially growing amounts of

interest. Its particular concern will be about their relation to the spread of numeracy and practical mathematics in this period. The paper will present some of these tables and explain their imagery as well as the arithmetic behind them. In a second step, I will look at various primers of reckoning that appeared in print during the late-‐15th through mid-‐16th centuries and describe the way in which they taught about compound interest. Finally, I will consider whether these arithmetic exempla were in any way related to the social reality of the Jewish loan business in late-‐medieval Germany (and propose that in fact they were).

Rella Kushelevsky, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Sefer ha-‐Ma'asim and the Medieval Renaissance: The Case of 'R. Meir and Yehuda of Anatot'

Abstract: 'R. Meir and Yehuda of Anatot' is one of 66 tales in Sefer ha Ma'asim, an impressive and unique story collection from 13th c. France, still unpublished. (A critical edition is now being prepared by me for publication.) While many of its tales are known from Earlier Jewish sources in the Talmud and Midrash, this one was probably composed or at least re-‐worked in Medieval Europe. Inter-‐textual clues suggest an influence of Marie de France's fables, specifically the tale of the 'Goat and the Wolf' (no. 89/90), which was probably mediated to the Jews through the Hebrew fables of her contemporary, Berekhyah ha-‐Naqdan (the Punctuator). 'Beware' warns mamma goat her kid. 'Don't dare to open the door for any one while I am away to fetch some food'. Her warning was tested soon enough, as the wolf hurried to the house, trying to tempt the kid to let him in. This episode of Marie de France and of Berekhyah was reworked as a Jewish narrative in 'R. Meir and Yehuda of Anatot' of Sefer ha-‐ Ma'asim, carrying a different moral. In my talk I will deal with these inter-‐textuality affinities from the broader perspectives of the story compilation as a whole and its cultural dialogue with the surrounding vernacular literature in France. I claim that sefer ha-‐ma'asim takes part in the medieval renaissance in Western Europe, by appropriating this literature, responding to and negotiating with it through two main techniques which I intend to elaborate on and exemplify.

Tuesday 22nd July

Room: 15

Session: 001:

Byzantine Jewish Life

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Jewish Life in Early Byzantium

Organizer: Nicholas de Lange

Chair: Nicholas de Lange

Anastasia Loudarou, The Jewish Museum of Greece,

Title: Jews, Christians and Pagans in Early Byzantine Greece: Exploring the Interrelations through Inscriptions: The Current State of Research and New Perspectives

Abstract: Inscriptions are an important – if not the only – available source of information for the study of the Jewish communities of Greece in the early Byzantine period (4th – 6th c.), revealing significant data as to the everyday use of the Greek language among Jews, their nomenclature and their religious and social concepts, reflecting to a greater or lesser extent the impact of the external environment. This presentation examines and highlights briefly the available archaeological data, sets them in relation with the legal documents of the period and makes a first attempt to draw some general conclusions on the interaction between Jews and their external environment, while also raising new research questions.

Alexander Panayotov, Independent researcher

Title: Jewish Everyday Life in Early Byzantine Asia Minor and the Balkans

Abstract: My paper will investigate the social, economic and political developments in the early Byzantine Empire that influenced the structure of everyday life of the Jewish communities in Byzantine Asia Minor and the Balkans. The scope of the paper is defined temporally and spatially. It is proposed to begin in the fourth century CE and end in the eighth century CE. This will allow the inclusion of the widest possible selection of epigraphical, literary and archaeological sources. I aim to clarify the place the Jewish community occupied within the social structures of Byzantine society and will focus my investigation on several aspects of Jewish everyday life such as communal organisation and leadership of the Jewish community, the social status, occupation and cultural concerns of its members. Evidence for everyday contacts between Jews, Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities in the areas concerned will also be presented. I plan to go beyond the published record and investigate unpublished sources with particular focus on the epigraphical and archaeological evidence. A number of unpublished inscriptions and archaeological data from Heraklion, Priene, Thessalonica, Corinth, Argos, Sparta, Stobi and Chios will be analysed. Data from the recently excavated synagogues in Andriake, the ancient port of Myra (Demre, Turkey), and possibly Limyra (near Turunçova, Turkey), Saranda (Albania) and Chios (Greece) will also be included.

Nicholas de Lange, University of Cambridge, UK

Title: The Greek Bible in the Early Byzantine Synagogue: Justinian's Novella 146 Reconsidered

Abstract: Novella 146 of Justinian (553 CE) is a key document for studying various aspects of Jewish belief and practice in the early Byzantine period. However many problems persist. This paper focuses on the vexed issue of the language of scriptural readings in the synagogue. We shall analyse the very different interpretations that have been proposed, and offer an interpretation based on the wider history of the Kulturkampf between Greek and Hebrew in the Byzantine synagogue.


Session: 002:


11.00-‐13.00, 14.00-‐14.30

Panel: Byzantine Karaite Culture



Julia Krivoruchko, University of Cambridge, UK

Title: Studying Hebrew Bible in the Fourteenth-‐Century Byzantium: New manuscript Evidence

Abstract: The paper aims to introduce to the scholarly public a little known manuscript containing an anonymous Hebrew-‐Greek glossary to Prophets. The manuscript is severely damaged and contains no explicit data about the provenance of the text or its author(s). The analysis shows that the glosses originate from a number of sources, from traditional Hebrew biblical commentaries to highly individualized reflections on local historical context. The Greek glosses are equally inhomogeneous, with some continuing\inspired by Aquila and others reflecting contemporaneous Greek. On the basis of the palaeography and codicology of the manuscript, the reconstruction of the dialect and analysis of its content it is argued that the work, to all probability, has been compiled by a Byzantine Karaite that lived in the Northern part of Asia Minor. Thus, it provides valuable data about the lower-‐level Biblical study in the region.

Ofer Elior, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Title: Attitudes towards the Study of Science in the Fifteenth-‐Century Jewish Constantinopolitan School: The Testimony of Joseph Baghi's Keter Kehuna

Abstract: In the course of history, Jewish cultures have evinced contrasting attitudes towards non-‐Jewish cultures: some advocated openness, while others insisted on maximal closure. The alternations of Jewish

cultural centers between these two basic attitudes are arguably one of the most significant aspects in understanding Jewish cultural dynamics. The primary aim of this paper is to shed light on attitudes towards a non-‐Jewish body of knowledge, namely science, in the Jewish community of Constantinople during the fifteenth century. As shown in several studies, in this geo-‐cultural environment developed and flourished a school of learned men, both Rabbanite and Karaite, who read, penned, and taught scientific texts. The proposed paper will uncover some of the ideological stances on which this scientific activity was founded. It will examine several passages in Keter Kehuna, a treatise co-‐authored by a scholar who was a product of the Jewish Constantinopolitan school, the Karaite Joseph ben Moses Baghi (born ca. 1490). In these passages Baghi, relying on Rabbanite and Karaite authorities, emphasized the necessity and explained the benefits of learning science. The main part of the paper will be devoted to an examination of Baghi's arguments. Additionally, I will discuss Baghi’s motivations for advancing these arguments. I will point to statements where Baghi confronts unnamed adversaries who allegedly opposed to teaching and learning sciences. I will suggest that these statements constitute an evidence for disagreements, hitherto unknown, on the legitimacy and proper place of the study of science, among contemporary Karaite and perhaps also Rabbanite scholars.

Golda Akhiezer, Ariel University of Samaria, Israel

Title: The Historiography and Historical Consciousness of Byzantine Karaites

Abstract: Karaites settled in Byzantine in the 10th century and were a minority among numerous rabbinic communities. Rabbanite leaders characterized Karaites as strangers who came from Muslim lands, studied from Muslims, and introduced innovations in Jewish tradition in an arbitrary way. These Rabbinic accusations served as a catalyst for the development of Karaite historiography. Byzantine Karaite historiographical literature tried to demonstrate the continuity and authenticity of their tradition by means of historical arguments, although these arguments were mostly of ahistorical nature. The paper focuses on two Byzantine Karaite treatises of different genres: The Cluster of Henna by Judah Hadassi (12th century) and especially on The Schism between Karaites and Rabbanites by Elijah ben Abraham (the late 11th to early 12th century). Both scholars tried in completely different ways to define Karaism, outline its tradition, and interpret the schism between Karaites and Rabbanites. Their historical and ahistorical arguments reflect certain tendencies of their historical thought and self-‐perception.


Bertram Schwarzbach, Independent scholar, France

Title: The Exegesis of Dr Aharon ben Yosef the Karaite

Abstract: As a medical man, R. Aharon had many difficulties with the Biblical texts, some of which he was able to resolve by recognizing the rhetorical elements in the texts. He was nearly a man of the Enlightenment centuries before Richard Simon and Mendelssohn.

Session: 003:


14.30-‐15.30

Panel: Crete



Martin Borysek, University of Cambridge, UK

Title: Jewish Self-‐Government and Mechanisms of Power of the Jewish Authorities in Venetian Crete as Documented in Takkanot Kandiyah

Abstract: Takkanot Kandiyah is a collection of legislative texts regarding the leadership of the Jewish community in Candia, the capital of the Venetian colony of Crete in early 13th to mid-‐17th century. The documents, most of which belong to the “para-‐halakhic” genre of takkanot kahal (communal statutes), were written by the successive generations of the leaders of the Jewish community and edited in a comprehensive collection in the 16th century by the prominent Jewish historian and Candiot communal leader Elijah Capsali (ca. 1485-‐ca. 1550). Communal statutes of the takkanot kahal genre are not an integral part of the canon of the halakhic law. Its specificity consists in the fact that the authority of the statutes is not derived from the Bible or the basic canonical text of Rabbinic Judaism (especially Mishnah and Talmud), but rather from the authority of the elected communal leaders themselves. As such, the statutes were legally binding only for the members of the community for which they were issued. In the pre-‐Enlightenment Jewish society, the takkanot kahal texts serve as an instrument of legal control both in respect to the principles of halakhic rules and the laws enforced by the non-‐Jewish ruling power. The statutes and ordinances collected in Takkanot Kandiyah regulate activities relating to all areas of Jewish life in Medieval and Early Modern Crete, covering halakhic topics as well as more general problems of economic and inter-‐personal relations within the community and between the Jews and non-‐Jews of Candia. Some of the texts address also the administrative questions and organisation of the communal politics. Thus, Takkanot Kandiyah provides a uniquely detailed insight in to the history of Jewish everyday life in Venetian Crete. As well as an historical source, Takkanot Kandiyah is also an important testimony on the functioning of Jewish communal administration and self-‐government in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period. This paper will address those passages of the collection in which the authors present themselves, directly or indirectly, as the rightful leaders of their community and defend the system of inner Jewish autonomy which gradually evolved in the Candia community, as the ideal way of life under the rule of law, properly interpreted and wisely enforced by the communal elders. It will be argued that Takkanot Kandiyah can be read as coherent “communal constitution”, a legal code with a unifying argument and an important moral dimension. This argument consists in the double role of the collection: its task was to be both a practical source of communal rules valid for the needs of the present day, and a reminder of former glory of the past times, with the potential to inspire and lead the future generations.

Giacomo Corazzol, University of Bologna, Italy

Title: The Judeo-‐Greek Translation of the Book of Jonah: A Custom from Medieval Candia

Abstract: In 1885 Adolf Neubauer announced a surprising discovery: the presence, within a «Corfu Mahazor», of what in his opinion was to be considered as «the earliest modern Greek text we possess in prose». Neubauer referred to the well-‐known Judeo-‐Greek translation of the Book of Jonah contained in ms. Add. oct. 19 (Neubauer 1144) of the Bodleian Library, another version of which is found in ms. Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, 3574 A, which was produced in Candia (Crete). The two texts are slightly different

versions of a calque-‐translation of the Book of Jonah of the type used in classrooms (and usually transmitted in oral form) for the education of children. In the following years, partly through Neubauer’s personal efforts, the news of the finding speedily spread. One hundred years later Malachi bet-‐Arié (immediately followed by Nicholas de Lange) pointed out that Neubauer’s assumption concerning the ancientness of this translation was based on a misinterpretation of a date found in a deed of sale at the end of the manuscript possessed by the Bodleian Library. Still, despite the doubts already expressed by Lazaros Belleli and Dirk C. Hesseling in the years 1901-‐1904, the assumption according to which this translation was read on the afternoon-‐prayer of Yom Kippur in the synagogues not only of Candia, as can be safely stated on the basis of a responsum by Me’ir Katzenellenbogen of Padua to Rabbi Eliyyahu Capsali of Candia (who had turned to his colleague for an opinion as to the lawfulness of the custom), but also of Corfu and throughout the Byzantine world at large has developed into a common-‐place in Judeo-‐Greek studies. The paper shows that Neubauer never produced any evidence demonstrating the Corfiote origins of the translation and its use on Yom Kippur in the Greek Synagogue of Corfu and that this notion, handed down and repeated uncritically, has risen to the status of an accepted truth despite all evidence point to the fact that the custom of reciting this translation of the Book of Jonah on Yom Kippur was limited to Candia alone, where, according to the testimony of Katzenellenbogen, it was an “ancient custom”. Only in a place where the use of such a translation had become integral part of the rite, could its text leap out of the classroom, as it were, and find its way into prayer-‐books. The only element that may have driven Neubauer to convince himself that the translation originated in Corfu is that he knew that the manuscript had been bought in Corfu: he did not consider that after the loss of Crete by the Venetians (1669), many members of the Jewish population had left the island and settled in Corfu and Zante. To conclude with, the paper explores the cultural and political reasons that may have led a Romaniote Jew like Capsali to promote the abolition of a peculiarly Romaniote custom.


Session 004:


16.00-‐18.00

Panel: Judah Hadassi's "Eshkol ha-‐kofer" in its Karaite and Byzantine Contexts

Organizer:

Chair: Daniel Lasker

Daniel J. Lasker, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: The Karaite Context of Judah Hadassi's Eshkol ha-‐Kofer

Abstract: The most prominent literary remain of Byzantine Karaism in the twelfth century is Judah ben Elijah Hadassi’s Eshkol ha-‐kofer (“Cluster of Henna”; cf. Canticles 1:14), a Hebrew repository of Karaite learning, law and lore which marks the end of the classical period of Karaism of the Golden Age of the tenth and eleventh centuries and the beginning of new Byzantine directions for the sectarian group. The German-‐Israel Fund is sponsoring a project which will produce a new partial edition (based on uncensored manuscripts) and studies describing the book's Karaite and Byzantine contexts. This lecture will discuss the Karaite context.

Saskia Doenitz & Sandra Goergen, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany

Title: Greek in Eshkol ha-‐Kofer: How to deal with Greek in Hebrew Letters?

Abstract: The intention of our lecture is to show a work in progress: We will show how we deal with the Greek that appears in the Hebrew manuscripts of Eshkol ha-‐Kofer. Our main task is to transcribe and translate the Greek words. But there is more than meets the eye: How to deal with different language Levels and difficult readings in the framework of the History of the Greek language? How does the Greek fit into the Hebrew context? What can be learnt from vocalization about the pronounciation of the Greek words? We will give an insight into our work in the joint project between the Byzantine Institute at the Freie Universitaet Berlin and the Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

Jannis Niehoff-‐Panagiotidis, Free University of Berlin, Germany

Title: Hokhma mi-‐Yavan: Access to Greek Education for Byzantine Jews

Abstract: It is evident that Yehuda Hadassi had access to Greek philosophical teaching, and this in the original language. Since his Eshkol ha -‐ Kofer is dated to 1148 Constantinople, it should be investigated which were the possibilities of learning philosophy there, and which kind of philosophy. Since our sources are, as the Byzantine part is concerned, quite good, a tentative sketch for a public consisting of specialists in Jewish studies will be presented -‐ in Byzantium, the teaching of philosophy was quite different from the Latin West. But the main question to be investigated is: How could a Jew, and a Karaite, have access to this learning? Were there not restrictions for non -‐Christians to do so? Far from being conclusive, a kind of preliminary result will be presented.

Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 01

Session: 001:

Discussion Group

Organized by Daniel Langton

9.00-‐10.30

Chair: Philip Alexander

Miri Freud-‐Kandel, University of Oxford / OCHJS, UK

Title: Jews and Judaism in the United Kingdom: Developments, Directions, and Threats

Abstract: A short contribution to a wider discussion designed to begin the process of establishing a strategic overview on the European situation. The focus of this contribution will be the UK.

Zsofia Kata Vincze, ELTE University Budapest, Hungary

Title: Jews and Judaism in Hungary: Developments, Directions, and Threats

Abstract: After the fall of communism the Hungarian religious and secular Jewish communities got re-‐established and reorganised with the help of Israeli and American institutional support. My presentation will analyse in an anthropological and sociological framework how this communities, and individual Jews reacted to the outreach in the last two decades. My paper will present the major trend shifts in changing concepts of what "real Jewishness" meant at different stages in post socialist Hungary. (After an intellectual discovery of ones own Jewish identity, a trend of religious return happened until the mid 1990's, what was followed by an ethnic/cultural self-‐definition of Jewish identity until approximately 2000, resulting slowly in a symbolic ethnic representations or festivalisation of Jewishness in the era of social media. Today -‐ in the midst of the raise of the openly political anti-‐semitism -‐ we can witness a slightly more defined socio-‐political Jewish behavior. As I will build a theory of social dynamics and tendencies of collective self definition of Hungarian Jews, I will also present illustrative case studies of people who went through the baal teshuva or born again Jewish identity and later on they discovered that there are secular ways to be Jewish and after they grew out of the hip, fun Jewish underground and "alternative" festival crowd they construct a left liberal politically Jewish identity to themselves.

Pavel Sládek, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

Title: Jews and Judaism in Czech Republic: Developments, Directions, and Threats

Abstract: The Jewish community of the Czech Republic belongs to those demographically most affected by the Holocaust and the subsequent Communist persecution. Counting 118,000 members at its peak in the late-‐1930´s, it has been reduced to the current 3,000 people, not counting an unknown number of unaffiliated persons with Jewish heritage. In the 1990´s, a temporary popular fashion of Jewish culture

resulted in a number of conversions to Judaism, not all the converts having had Jewish heritage. More importantly, some of those who preferred not to be affiliated during the Communist regime, became members of the Jewish communities. Despite the small numbers, the renewal of Jewish life is apparent not only in Prague but also in nine other towns which have an organized Jewish life. The following institutions have crucial role in securing the future of this tiny but vibrant community: the Lauder Schools provide Jewish education from pre-‐school to high-‐school level, the Federation of the Jewish Communities in CR takes care of the Jewish monuments throughout the country, especially in places with no Jewish presence, and the Jewish Museum in Prague organizes numerous educational programs both for Jewish and non-‐Jewish public. While the Czech foreign policy is vehemently pro-‐Israeli in the long term, we simultaneously witness the growing presence of explicitly anti-‐Semitic and generally racist or xenophobic groups in the public sphere, especially by the means of Internet. The mounting public acceptance of anti-‐Tsiganism in the Czech society appears to be also alarming, as it enables expressing racist sentiments without referring to Jews and thus creating collectively shared mental structures that can be easily translated into the language of Jew-‐hatred. The Jewish institutions in the Czech Republic are well aware of this threat and monitor not only the manifestations of anti-‐Jewish but also anti-‐Roma xenophobia.


Session 002:

Jewish Theological Thought in Modern Times

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: What is Jewish Theology?

Organizers: Miri Freud-‐Kandel and Daniel H. Weiss

Chair: Miri Freud-‐Kandel

Miri Freud-‐Kandel, University of Oxford, OCHJS, UK

Title: Louis Jacobs and the Development of Postmodern Approaches to Jewish Theology

Abstract: Louis Jacobs came to write his *A Jewish Theology* and indeed to examine and seek to interpret his Jewish faith primarily as a product of his engagement with "non-‐Jewish cultures", through his university studies. His encounter with an academic approach to the study of Judaism led him to question the beliefs and teachings he had imbibed in the yeshiva world. As the title of his seminal work indicated, his sense of a clash between two seemingly opposing cultures led him to seek continuing "reason to believe". This search for reason and rationality reflected the modernist focus and influence that came to shape his thought in response to the academic ideas he encountered. The proposed paper will consider the potential benefits of certain postmodernist approaches to the questions Jacobs faced and sought to address. In doing so, broader questions about the nature and role of theology in contemporary Judaism will be assessed.

David Pruwer, University of Cambridge, UK

Title: Alexander Altmann and the Construction of an Orthodox Jewish Theology

Abstract: Jewish Orthodoxy is often thought to be a movement which developed internally and in opposition to the external forces of change, be it from other strands of Judaism or from the outside non-‐Jewish world. It is also often claimed that Orthodoxy focuses uniquely on Halakhah and praxis rather than attempting to erect a constructive theology. This paper will challenge both these assumptions by focusing on an understudied persona in the history of Jewish Orthodoxy, Alexander Altmann. This paper will illustrate that Orthodoxy, specifically in its Weimar variant, was not as insulated as is often characterised and that it also was particularly concerned with the question of Theology. The Theology that Altmann, and indeed many of his Orthodox contemporaries, would construct had a uniquely Jewish character. In his Weimar years, Altmann developed a radically novel form of Jewish theology which attempted to combine revelation and Halakhah, as found in the Bible, with Jewish nationhood. Both these elements merge in Altmann’s thought to forge a specifically particular Jewish theology which also contained universal messages for humanity. This paper will show how Altmann engaged with the various theological movements of the twentieth Century, most crucially with Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger, to create a novel and fascinating form of Jewish Orthodox Theology.

Daniel H. Weiss, University of Cambridge, UK

Title: Formal Multiplicity and Conceptual Unity in Jewish Theology

Abstract: Since Moses Mendelssohn, academic scholars have frequently called into question the very notion of ‘Jewish theology.’ One factor that has contributed to such skepticism has been the apparently ‘unsystematic’ character of classical Jewish texts, as exemplified most strikingly by the Babylonian Talmud. Such texts are very often characterized by a multiplicity of different voices and opinions, with no apparent effort to come to a definitive unitary opinion or doctrine. This is particularly the case with haggadic material, which might otherwise seem a natural setting in which to put forth theological content. This lack of systematic presentation, moreover, contrasts sharply with the deliberate effort in Christian texts to put forth consistent and unitary theological-‐doctrinal views, and so it easily could seem (and has seemed) to many scholars that classical rabbinic literature was simply unconcerned with formulating a theologically unified position. In this paper, however, I argue that this modern scholarly judgment may be influenced by an externally-‐imposed and Christian-‐centric notion of *where to look for* theological unity. Instead, I aim to demonstrate, through an examination of Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 97b-‐98a (concerning theological reflections on the messianic future), that the redactorial level of the Talmud can be understood *deliberately employing* multiple ‘competing’ voices in order to put forth a unified and specific theological conception. In other words, the formal multiplicity is crucial and necessary for conveying the unified concept properly, whereas, for these particular ideas, an outward formal unity would end up conveying a one-‐sided and distorted theological concept. This examination will thus provide contemporary scholars with new methodological tools, enabling greater recognition of ways in which the absence the type of systematic presentation characteristic of Christian theology need not automatically imply an absence of theological specificity and unity.

Waldemar Szczerbiński, Institute of European Culture of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland

Title: Mordecai M. Kaplan’s Proposal of Judaism’s Renewal. Reconstrution or Deconstruction?

Abstract: Contemporary Judaism is not a monolith. Amidst all trends present nowadays, the latest and the most controversial appears to be the Jewish Reconstructionism, which was established by Mordecai M. Kaplan. Every other (Orthodox, Reformed, Conservative) varieties represent Jewish theism, which in the most crucial matters is faithful to the tradition. This is why in the Judaism we can speak of the theistic

conception of God, which in different shapes mirrors the heritage of the past. In the meantime, the starting point for the reconstructionist involves indeed the reconstruction of the traditional Judaism, which takes place basing on ideas taken from social and natural sciences. With such an approach it is not the faith, but the knowledge which provides the criterion of truthfulness of the concept of the God. Without a doubt, the Reconstructionism crossed the borders of Jewish theism and placed itself in opposition to it. The Judaism in the Kaplan's understanding is a civilization and not a religion, as it has been held up till now. The religion is only one of many elements of a civilization and it is not the most important, most significant and unconditional one. The concept of God in Reconstructionism not only may change, but has to be changing like other elements of the Jewish civilization. From now on, one does not have to be a theist to remain a believer in Judaism . This is an absolute novelty in the Jewish world. A reconstructionist does not accept the supernaturalism and, thus, he does not believe in divine origin of the Tora, nor the theory of creation, miracles, eternal life in the other world. The postulate of a non-‐personal God is a result of the negation of the supernaturalism and of the traditional Jewish soteriology. For some the Judaism created by Kaplan is absolutely unacceptable, for others it is possible to accept and even represents the only acceptable way of renessaince and strengthening of the contemporary Judaism. It is difficult to resolve the problem in the situation, when no authority can delineate limits of Judaism. The performed analyses permit to state (but not to conclude firmly), that Jewish reconstructionism is a specific Jewish theory, a way of living for a certain group of Jews, but it is not a Judaism. The transnatural conception of God, although Jewish, does not conform to the Jewish concept of God, moreover, nor it does conform to monotheistic faith in God. Such vision of God leads to a modern Jewish religion of a faithless character, in which every Jew will be able to identify himself/herself. The Kaplan's system, which represents a result of an intentional reconstruction and revaluation of the traditional Judaism, in fact becomes a deconstruction and a devaluation of Judaism.


Semi-‐Plenary Lectures and Workshops

Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme

13.30-‐15.30

Panel: Teaching Jewish Studies: Issues, Challenges and Solutions

Organizer: Alberdina Houtman

Chair:

Alberdina Houtman, Protestant Theological University, Netherlands

Introduction: The situation of Jewish Studies is changing fast in Europe due to new developments in Eastern Europe, the changing interests of students, the introduction of new media, drastic budget cuts and more. Consequently, there is a need for educational support. Teachers have to adapt to new student populations and to the use of new media, and they are often forced to teach subjects that are outside their own field of expertise. In this panel we will investigate the situation in different fields and in different parts of Europe. We will discuss the development of curricula and new ways of learning, and we will try to initiate the formation of a ‘community of teachers’, who can help and advise each other. Following on from this, the

EAJS will facilitate in the coming years workshops in different parts of Europe to support the development of new teaching material and methods.

Sacha Stern, University College London, UK

Introducing Judaism

Andres Piquer Otero, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

Title: Teaching Jewish Studies: Languages

Abstract: The teaching of languages related to Jewish studies is a particularly challenging realm, given a hardly avoidable academic fragmentation which appears in different but complementary levels: 1) tuition in very different programs and departments (e.g. Jewish Studies; Semitic Studies; Theology; Near Eastern/Oriental Studies; Religious Studies; Modern Languages); 2) different layers of centrality of a language for Jewish Studies (from the centrality of Hebrew and Aramaic, through distinctly Jewish languages or linguistic varieties such as Yiddish or Ladino, to languages and dialects of a more complex academic definition (e.g. Judaeo-‐Arabic); and, finally, to languages highly relevant for cultural contextualization of the Jewish people in different phases and locations of their history (to name a few, Ancient Near Eastern languages such as Akkadian and Ugaritic, Classical Arabic, or Greek.) Finally, teaching of Hebrew in particular presents a dichotomy of its own, as it is both a classical language in the history of Judaism and a modern, spoken and literary language (thus integrated into the EU standards of language learning and levels of proficiency.) This paper will try to present these challenges for reflection and propose some ideas or guidelines which imply flexibility, eclecticism, and the encouragement of interdisciplinary collaboration and structuring in the development of language curricula for Jewish Studies. All in all, the option taken in the syllabus and in the classroom should cater for vast scope of our discipline, but also for the equally rich and variegated interests and priorities of our students.

Pavel Sládek, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

Title: Teaching Jewish Religion and Jewish Thought in Prague

Abstract: Since the end of the dictatorship of the Communist Party in 1989, we witness an important growth of humanities in Czech academic institutions, including the emergence of programs of Jewish Studies of all levels. The present paper will address critically select problems of teaching Jewish religion and Jewish thought, concentrating chiefly on the following issues, some of which are not specifically related to the conditions of Czech academia: 1) Studentsʼ access to primary sources and the knowledge of Jewish languages: how much philology do we need? 2) Studentsʼ reading habits and the limitations imposed by the local intellectual canon: go local or global? 3) Teaching Jewish thought and culture out of the broader general context: the pros and cons of double-‐majors. 4) Teaching Judaism as an “extinct” culture: shouldn’t our students meet real Jews? 5) Encyclopaedic demand and curricular rigidity – Czech and Anglo-‐Saxon models compared: can we avoid teaching outside our fields of expertise?

Bart Wallet, VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands

Title: Teaching Jewish History: Contexts, Methods, Materials

Abstract: All over Europe universities are offering courses in Jewish history, both ‘grand narratives’ and in-‐depth courses focusing on specific topics, periods, countries etc. The contexts in which Jewish history is being taught – departments, audiences – differ greatly. Teaching a course in a history department demands another arrangement of the material than teaching in a Jewish studies context. Having rabbinical students challenges a professor in a different way than dealing with Christian theology students. This paper will analyse the main trends in teaching Jewish history, draw up an inventory of the existing methods and materials, offer best practices and articulate desiderata. It will e.g. discuss structuring Jewish history classes, relating Jewish history to general history, using the various textbooks, sourcebooks, working with new media etc. The presentation invites all who teach Jewish history to participate in the discussion, sharing their own experiences and reflect on how the EAJS and we as colleagues can help each other to stay updated and to respond to changing intellectual, pedagogical and academic conditions.

15.30-‐16.30

David Fishman, Jewish Theological Seminary, USA

Title: Launching 'Yerusha' Program of the RFE; Our Inheritance.

Our "Yerusha": Securing the Jewish Documentary Legacy in Europe

16.30-‐17.30

Francesca Trivellato, Yale University, USA

Title: Jewish-‐Christian Credit Relations and the Economic History of Early Modern Europe

17.30-‐18.30

Yaakov Shavit, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: The Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible: Worlds Apart?

18.30-‐20.30: Cocktail Party

Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 02

Session: 001:

Magic

9.00-‐10.30


Organizers: Emma Abate & Gideon Bohak

Chair: Gideon Bohak

Bill Rebiger, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany

Title: Midrashic Motifs in Magical Fragments from the Cairo Genizah

Abstract: The Cairo Genizah provides the research on Jewish magic with thousands of fragments stemming from the Middle Ages. But, the texts in these fragments show very often clear evidence of much older traditions as well. The paper focuses on midrashic motifs in magical fragments from the Cairo Genizah and tries to analyze their function in the magical framework and the relationship between midrashic and magical texts.

Blanca Villuendas Sabaté, CSIC, Madrid, Spain

Title: Geomancy in the Cairo Genizah: The Beginnings of an Enduring Tradition

Abstract: The divinatory technique known as Geomancy, or Sand Science, consists of answering questions by means of symbolic figures. The number of these figures is sixteen, since they are the result of combining within groups of four two values, odd and even, that are represented with one and two dots, respectively. The dots are placed in columns of four lines, and usually are drawn using a surface of sand or paper. The origins of this technique are still under discussion, but the earliest codifiers (circa 11th c. CE) are related to North Africa. After its transmission, Geomancy also became very popular in different places of the world and it has been practiced to the present day. The research I would like to present is based on the analysis of the geomantic manuscripts preserved, from the Middle-‐Ages, in the Genizah of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo. Special attention is given to the Judaeo-‐Arabic examples, being the best represented with a total amount of 24 fragments. For this study, I completed the edition and translation of the most significant ones. These writings are of relevant importance, because they allow us to become acquainted with the formative stage of a science and its literature, the history of which has been scarcely studied. At the same time, they indicate, from an early beginning, the participation of Jews in Geomancy, where they had and still have a notorious activity. However, only exceptionally it has been of interest to the scholars dedicated to the intellectual traditions performed by Jews. The talk I would like to give at the magic-‐sessions of the Xth congress of the EAJS, will consist of three parts: first, a summary of the particularities of this divinatory art and how they are attested in the Genizah manuscripts; second, a short introduction to its history and the role of these manuscripts within it; and, finally, a brief account on later representations.

Yuval Harari, Ben Gurion University, Israel

Title: Practical Kabbalah -‐ Between Emic and Etic Perspectives

Abstract: This paper will deal with the term "Practical Kabbalah" and the phenomenon denoted by it. I will first survey the emic use of "practical Kabbalah" from its very beginning until today, and then suggest etic indicators that may serve us in order to detect practical Kabbalah, in a strict sense of the term, within Jewish tradition of magic.


Session 002:

Magic

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Jewish Magic, later period

Organizers: Emma Abate & Gideon Bohak

Chair: Gideon Bohak

Agata Paluch, The British Library, UK

Title: ‘The Use of Divine and Angelic Names in the Early Modern Ashkenazi Kabbalah’

Abstract: It has already been claimed by scholars that in 16th and 17th century Ashkenaz and Poland, the kabbalah became part and parcel of the educational curriculum of the intellectual elite, even among the adversaries of kabbalah, whose critique often reveals extensive knowledge of the subject. At the same time, and especially in the course of the 17th century, the so-‐called ‘practical kabbalah’, often associated with magic and a talismanic approach to ritual, was attracting numerous followers. These two strands of the mystical tradition permeated early modern Ashkenaz, but while the sophisticated theosophical kabbalah of the elites did not exert much influence on the Jewish masses, popular magical traditions and practices did infiltrate the elitist speculative kabbalah, at least to some extent. What had been interpreted by scholars as the universal spread of Lurianic kabbalistic rituals may well be accounted for by the wide dissemination of much simpler magico-‐mystical practices, drawn out of an old stock of religious performance techniques, such as the invocation of angelic names, manipulation of the divine name, talismanic divinatory practices and the like. This magico-‐mystical kabbalistic strand, with its special interest in the mystical dimension of language – so clearly observable in some parts of the so-‐called Lurianic kabbalah – might in fact be a continuation of a much earlier tradition, first cultivated in medieval Ashkenaz and later on in early modern Ashkenaz and Poland. My presentation will aim to tackle the penetration of the medieval magical Ashkenazi tradition on divine and angelic names into the early modern Ashkenazi kabbalah, as represented in some writings of Moshe Zacuto, Nathan Neta Shapira or Shimshon of Ostropole.

Marina Caffiero, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, Italy

Title: Juifs et Chrétiens entre Magie, Démonologie et Kabbala

Abstract: Mon intervention vise à comparer les limites et les intersections entre les pratiques et les croyances de la magie et de la démonologie juives et celles des chrétiens, en Italie, entre les siècles XVIIe et XVIIIe. Á partir des sources documentaires des procédures de l'Inquisition romaine et des traités sur les anges et les démons, je vais examiner les croyances et les comportements qui étaient en commun et les relations entre les rabbins et les autorités religieuses catholiques au sujet des doctrines kabbalistiques. Enfin, j’analyserais la manière par laquelle ces relations et allégations ont exercé une influence sur l'identité juive, en la forçant à des justifications et des transformations. En particulier je traiterais les positions ambigües du rabbin et médecin romain Tranquillo Vita Corcos (1659-‐1730).

Alexey Lyavdansky, Russian State University for the Humanities

Title: Lilith in Kurdistan: Jewish and Christian Folk Traditions

Abstract: It appears that Lilith is known to the world as primarily Jewish mythological personage. Nevertheless Lilith is also found in the folk traditions of Aramaic-‐speaking Christians who lived in Kurdistan side by side with the Jews. The paper will discuss points of contact between Kurdistan Jewish and Christian folk traditions concerning Lilith. In the focus of the paper will be the oral Neo-‐Aramaic text from Betanure (province of Dihok) in Northern Iraq, recorded by Hezy Mutzafi. The text is unique because the Jewish informant combines Jewish and Christian traditions in his story about Lilith. The contacts between Christian and Jewish folk traditions in Kurdistan are exemplified by another mythological creature, cyclopean ogre Hambušaya, who appears in the story told by the same Jewish informant from Betanure and in a fairy tale, recorded from a Christian informant.

Maria Kaspina, Museum of the Jewish History in Russia, Russian State University for Humanities

Title: Ashkenazic Amulets against Lilith: Texts and Images

Abstract: The paper will discuss the texts and illustrations on the Hebrew amulets from Germany and Eastern Europe of XVIII – XX cc. The distinctive combination of magic incantation, images and apotropaic features makes these Hebrew amulets very special for the scholars of Jewish Folklore and Art. In the focus of the study will be the story-‐incantation of a meeting of Lilith and Prophet Elijah which is a Jewish variation of Byzantine legend about St. Sysinios. The magic formula and Biblical abbreviations and quotations together with different images on numerous amulets will also be studied. The special accent will be done on the analysis of the usage of the Names of Demons and Angels in the studied amulets.


Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 03

Session: 001:

Jewish Minorities

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Samaritan Studies

Organizer : Arnaud Sérandour

Chair: Arnaud Sérandour

Arnaud Sérandour, EPHE, Paris, France

Title: Un Pentateuque pour deux nations, Judéens et Samaritains. Pourquoi, comment?

Abstract: Ensemble hétéroclite de règles coutumières présentées de manière partielle au fil d'un récit légendaire, voire mythique, le Pentateuque dessine l'organisation politico-‐religieuse d'un peuple dit d'"Israël" du nom d'un ancien royaume sur les décombres duquel étaient apparues deux entités politiques distinctes: les provinces de Samarie puis de Judée. D'abord unies, à l'époque perse, sous la même "politeia de Moïse", qui fait d'un temple et de ses prêtres le centre institutionnel de chacune des deux provinces, les autorités religieuses des deux provinces sont devenues rivales vers la fin du IIIe siècle av. notre ère et se sont déchirées au IIe siècle avant que les deux systèmes religieux ne devinssent deux branches séparées issues du même tronc commun, évoluant chacun de son côté, tout en entretenant avec l'autre des rapports dialectiques.

Etienne Nodet, Ecole Biblique, Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Sanballat and his Gerizim Temple

Abstract: There was only one Sanballat, and the Gerizim Samaritans were in fact Israelites of old. Such a conclusion, which is the best hypothesis (Occam's Razor), involves a study of specific sources: Josephus' biases, the weakness of Ezra-‐Nehemiah, archeology (Elephantine, Gerizim, W. Dalieh).

Christophe Bonnard, Faculté de Théologie protestante, Université de Strasbourg, France

Title: "Les commentaires de l'Asâtîr et les traditions juives et musulmanes"

Abstract: L'Asfar Asâtîr, "le Livre des Légendes", est une chronique en araméen samaritain décrivant l'histoire du monde, et centrée sur quatre figures : Adam, Noé, Abraham et Moïse. Datable du Xè siècle, l'oeuvre est connue par quelques manuscrits dont le plus ancien est du XVIIè siècle. Le récit de l'Asâtîr, souvent obscur, est surtout compréhensible grâce à des commentaires et des traductions. Il s'agit, d'une part, de trois traductions en arabe de l'oeuvre, non datées, ainsi que d'un groupe de trois commentaires, dont l'un, rédigé en arabe et vraisemblablement post-‐médiéval, a inspiré les deux autres, écrits en néo-‐

hébreu samaritain du début du XXè siècle. Ces six commentaires présentent de précieuses expansions quant au texte de l'Asâtîr. Celles-‐ci témoignent de la circulation de traditions sur les générations antédiluviennes, les Patriarches et Moïse, analogues aux haggadoth de la littérature intertestamentaire, des sources rabbiniques et médiévales juives, ainsi qu'aux Histoires musulmanes des Prophètes. Ces traditions (devenus canoniques chez les Samaritains) sont ici exposées dans leur développement chronologique et selon une typologie.


Session 002:

Middle Ages

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: The Bible in Arabic among Jews, Christians and Muslims

Organizer: Meira Polliack

Chair: Ronny Vollandt

Meira Polliack, Tel-‐Aviv University, Israel

Title: Medieval Jewish and Christian Arabic translations of the Bible: Common Trends and Differences

Abstract: The paper focuses on common motives for Arabic Bible translation that lay behind the medieval Jewish and Christian enterprises, as well as the differences that can be perceived at this stage in their function and methodology. The purpose is to present these enterprises side by side and underline the cultural and linguistic significance of this common venture as well as its idiosyncratic features.

Ilana Sasson, Tel-‐Aviv University, Israel

Title: On Creation, Wisdom, and Angelology: A Karaite Commentary on Proverbs 8

Abstract: Karaism was a sectarian movement that originated in the ninth century in the midst of Jewish communities under Islam. Yefet ben Eli, a member of the Karaite movement, lived and wrote in Jerusalem in the tenth century, the golden age of Karaite intellectual activity. He was an authoritative and prolific exegete who translated the entire Bible into Judaeo-‐Arabic and wrote a commentary on the entire Bible. Only a few commentaries were written on the Book of Proverbs by Jews who lived under Islam. Yefet’s commentary on Proverbs provides not only a unique Karaite perspective, but a unique work on Proverbs in its own right. It is a valuable source for the study of Yefet’s world views, theology and ethics. In his commentary on Proverbs 8 Yefet grapples with three fundamental theological maters, creation of the world, the existence of wisdom in this world, and the rank and role of angels in the world. In this paper we will take a close look at Yefet’s commentary on Proverbs 8 and learn about his position concerning these major issues.

Marzena Zawanowska, University of Warsaw, Poland

Title: The Bible Read through the Prism of Theology: Spiritual Anthropomorphism among the Early Karaites Abstract: One of the crucial problems the Bible has posed over the centuries for its believing readers is its numerous boldly anthropomorphic descriptions of the Deity—God’s actions and interactions with “the crown of Creation,” direct references to the divine body, its organs, and parts, and anthropopathic depictions of His emotions. For many rationally oriented religious thinkers, philosophers, and exegetes, this constituted a major problem which called for a systematic and consistent solution. Jewish Hellenist philosophers, the Rabbanite authors of the Aramaic Targums, and some of the great medieval thinkers and Bible interpreters, such as Saadyah Gaon, all shared the same obsession with banishing anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms from the Holy Scriptures, though they reached different conceptual solutions. The medieval Karaite exegetes are known for their overall adherence to the literal meaning of the Bible and presumably valued fidelity to the source verses above all. It has been suggested that they could allow themselves to faithfully adhere to the original words of the source text—even at the expense of the theological appropriateness, let alone the linguistic correctness or stylistic beauty, of their renderings—insofar as their translations were intended to be read in conjunction with, and not independently of commentary, as was the case with the rabbinic Targums or the famous Arabic translation of the Torah authored by Saadyah Gaon, known simply as the Tafsir. In the proposed paper, I would like to investigate whether the medieval Karaite exegetes were indeed so much more literalistic in their dealings with explicitly anthropomorphic and anthropopathic verses than were their Rabbanite counterparts.

Miriam Lindgren Hjälm, Uppsala University, Sweden

Title: Early (9th-‐13th c.) Christian Arabic Translations of the Book of Daniel

Abstract: The Book of Daniel was translated into Arabic by and for Near Eastern Christians around the ninth century, as evident from extant manuscript sources. Approximately a dozen early (9th-‐13th centuries) Christian Arabic Daniel translations have survived until today. The majority of these are independent of one another and are all characterized by many non-‐literal translational features. It appears therefore that the early Christian Arabic Daniel translations were never standardized nor authorized (this in contrast to the development in many other Christian areas). We may surmise that they were not furnished in order to replace the traditional Greek and Syriac Bible texts but to explain them and make the main events of the biblical narrative available to the Arabic-‐speaking audience while the traditional texts were still in use and served as the measuring-‐standard. This function of the translations, i.e. to transmit into Arabic the biblical narrative of Daniel in a clear and concise manner, explains why we in the target texts encounter a large amount of omissions of repetitive information and explications of elliptic material in the source text. The Arabic translated texts are further subjected to an adjusting process wherein source units are sporadically altered in the target texts and brought in line with liturgical material, Bible commentaries, and wider cultural settings. They are written in clear and idiomatic Arabic, exhibit many Middle Arabic traits, and the vocabulary has an ‘Islamic cast’ to it. Should the preferences of style differ between source and target language, the former is normally opted for. The student of Judaeo-‐Arabic translations immediately recognizes many of the translational features identified in these texts. Especially interesting is the relation between these Christian-‐Arabic versions and Saadiah Gaon’s tafsīr on Daniel. Just like Saadiah, the Christian Arabic translators aimed at producing translations that were suitable for an audience acquainted with the norms of Classical Arabic and their interpretational framework was not confined to the biblical corpus itself but took into consideration the larger scope of the Orthodox/Oriental Tradition.


Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 04

Session: 001:

Talmud and Philosophy

9.00-‐10.30

Chair:

Maria Sokolskaya, University of Bern, Switzerland

Title: Philon, Platon et les Rabbins : Adam ha-‐richon et les Androgynes

Abstract: Dès lors que l’on considère le récit de la création de l’Homme, en Genèse 1-‐2, comme un récit suivi, certaines incohérences, entre autres en ce qui concerne les origines de la femme, ne sont pas sans poser des difficultés. L’exégèse rabbinique ancienne a cherché à résoudre celles-‐ci, notamment en recourant au mythe platonicien des Androgynes. Le mot grec « androgynos » (sous la forme (אנדרגינוס apparaît d’ailleurs dans la littérature rabbinique ancienne. Il a été proposé, de manière toutefois peu concluante, de considérer Philon d’Alexandrie, le célèbre philosophe platonicien juif, comme un relai entre Platon et les Rabbins. Si l’on observe bien les textes, toutefois, la chose paraît tout à fait impossible. Je chercherai à démontrer ici, en analysant les emplois du mot « androgynos » chez Philon, que les Rabbins ne peuvent lui avoir emprunté ce concept. Je montrerai aussi que difficultés spécifiques du texte biblique déterminent l'exégèse philonienne de l’histoire d'Adam, et donc que celle-‐ci, quand bien même elle utilise des notions platoniciennes, s’enracine d’abord dans une tradition exégétique juive.

Arkady Kovelman, Lomonosov Moscow State Univeristy, Russia

Title: Pleroma and Kenosis in Bavli Hagigah

Abstract: The notions of pleroma and kenosis are generally associated with Christian theology and Gnosticism. I suggest that these notions derive from Plato and appear both in Philo and in early Rabbinic Literature. Mishnah Hagiga and Bavli Hagiga provide clear examples of their usage in connection with epistemological and eschatological matters. Israel is both full of religious duties and empty, as a pomegranate is full of seeds and a vessel empty of sacred liquids. In another metaphoric twist, the righteous of Israel are full of good deeds while the sinners are empty. God loves the emptiness of Israel, but at the same time the emptiness prevents Israel from completing an eschatological pilgrimage, the latter a metaphor for the sacred rendezvous between God and Israel. Both tractates are utterly aporetic. They combine positive and negative understandings of fullness and emptiness. The salvation of all Israel (including the disciples of the sages) depends on the fullness and emptiness of the people. Moreover, these notions play a major role in the esoteric adventure of the four who entered Paradise.

Lorena Miralles-‐Maciá, University of Granada, Spain

Title: Midrashic Traditions through a Platonic Lens

Abstract: It is well known that Hellenistic culture had a deep influence on rabbinic Judaism, and played an important role as a source of inspiration in elaborating some of the midrashic and Talmudic narratives. Greek folklore, motifs and tales were included, after adapting them, in the writings of Classical Judaism. As part of this background, philosophy, or rather some philosophic conceptions, could be used as resources for explaining biblical passages midrashically. How much rabbis directly or indirectly knew Greek philosophical ideas about the world and the human being is a highly disputed question. This lecture aims at tracing a connection between rabbinic traditions and some platonic features to enlighten certain midrashic passages, mainly from Leviticus Rabbah, on the work of creation and the role of the soul.


Session 002:

Liturgy

11.00-‐13.00

Chair: Uri Ehrlich

Vered Raziel Kretzmer, Ben-‐Gurion University, Israel

Title: The Mystery of Pesukei-‐DeZimrah in the Palestinian Rite according to an Ancient Scroll from the Cairo Genizah

Abstract: The liturgical fragments found in the Cairo Genizah enlighten us with a whole new world of early medieval liturgy. The Palestinian rite, non-‐extant since the 13th century, is rediscovered piece by piece, uncovering a unique liturgical world, different in many ways from the known Jewish prayer books that follow the Babylonian rite. One of the interesting questions arising since the early days of Genizah liturgical research deals with the construction of the Pesukei-‐deZimrah unit in the Palestinian siddur. Jacob Mann, in his important study from 1925, was the first to claim that the Palestinian morning service did not include the Babylonian unit of Pesukei-‐deZimrah, namely the last 6 chapters of Psalms. Instead, he concluded, the ancient worshipers recited a selection of verses and not whole chapters, while one of the Genizah fragments published by him records yet a different custom of reciting a longer version of 30 chapters, Psalms 120-‐150. In his footsteps, Ezra Fleischer, the leading contemporary scholar of Genizah liturgy, claimed that the Psalms unit in the Palestinian morning service for weekdays was originally based on Psalms 120-‐134, known as 'Songs of Ascents'. According to Fleischer, any reciting of the last 6 psalms mentioned in Palestinian prayer books should be considered as a Babylonian influence, while the longer version containing 30 psalms is considered a special custom for Sabbath and holidays. In this paper I would like to challenge these assumptions, based on a few new findings. These unpublished Genizah fragments clearly show that the old Palestinian rite for the weekdays' morning service was not homogeneous, but held two main customs, a shorter unit of psalms consisting of the last 7 psalms (differed from the Babylonian rite which held 6 psalms) and a longer version of 30 psalms. The most fascinating finding I intend to present is a rotulus (a scroll rolled up vertically) which originally contained the weekdays' services according to the Palestinian rite. Four fragments of this rotulus have been found by now, revealing long parts of the morning service. The unique custom presented in this scroll can create a better understanding

of the developments in the Palestinian unit of Pesukei-‐deZimrah and will hopefully shed light upon the roots of the long forgotten Palestinian rite.

Luba Charlap & Yaakov Charlap, Lifshitz College of Education Jerusalem, Israel

Title: A Prayer in any Language? – The Prayer's Language in Light of Talmudic Law and Rabbinical Rulings in Ashkenaz during the 19th Century

Abstract: Tannaitic and Amoraic literature emphasized the importance of the Hebrew language in matters of sanctity, such as in the declaration of the first fruits (Miqra Bikurim) and in the priestly blessing (Birkat kohanim). However some rituals and Prayers, for example, Qeri'at Shema ("Hear O Israel" ritual), can be recited in any language, not only in Hebrew (Mishna Sota, 7, a-‐b; Palestinian Talmud, Sota, chap. 7, 5; Babylonian Talmud, Sota 32, b–33, a). Indeed, those were the halachic rulings of Maimonides in Mishne Tora and of Rabbi Yoseph Qaro in Shulhan Arux. Despite these rulings, Jewish religious authorities sided, for generations, with reciting the Prayer only in Hebrew, the Holy Language. In early 19th century in central Europe, a genuine debate has developed among the various streams of Judaism. Reform leadership relied on the Mishne Tora and the Shulhan Arux rulings, while Orthodox rabbis uploaded halakhic arguments to prohibit this practice in order to support the supremacy of the Hebrew language. For example, Rabbi Shmuel Eager (1768–1842), from Braunschweig, Germany, claimed that the Holy Language is the common thread that binds Jews in the Diaspora, emphasizing the necessity of Hebrew as the sole language for Jewish Prayer. Rabbi Shmuel Landau from Prague (d. 1834), emphasized in his book "Shivat Zion" (The Return to Zion) that the Holy Language is used as a shield against assimilation and contributes to preserving Jewish existence, therefore it must remain the only language of the Jewish Prayer. In this current lecture we will discuss ancient law sources and analyze the various aspects of the arguments that played a role in establishing Hebrew as the exclusive language of the Prayer. We will focus on the halakhic views of Rabbi Moshe Sofer, known as "Hatam Sofer" (1762–1839) as were published by him in the pamphlet "Ele Divrei Ha-‐brit" (These are the words of the covenant) (Altuna, 1819). To our opinion his views reflect a new halakhic vision in regards to these conflicted points of views. We believe that shedding a light on this powerful halakhic debate may contribute to a better understanding of the role of Hebrew language, as an existential value, in both the Halakhic world and Jewish society.

Jeffrey Hoffman, The Academy for Jewish Religion, New York, USA

Title: The Image of the Other in Jewish Interpretations of Alenu

Abstract: The superiority of the Jewish people's worship of God and the inferiority of non-‐Jewish worship is at the heart of the prayer "Alenu." Interpreters of this prayer over the centuries have engaged this theme in various ways from denial to reinterpretation to emphasizing it with a vengeance. The particular stance taken in a commentary on this prayer is an important indicator of the view of the Other of that particular writer, and possibly as well, of that writer's milieu and era.


Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 05

Session: 001:

Early Modern Jewish History

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Implementing the "Economic Turn": New Sources and Approaches

for the Economic History of Early Modern Jews

Organizer: Evelyne Oliel-‐Grausz

Chair: Jean Baumgarten

Evelyne Oliel-‐Grausz, Université Paris 1 / EHESS, Paris, France

Title: « Between Trade, Finance and Community: Community Agents in the Western Sephardic Diaspora »

Abstract: Within a panel intent on bringing to light new sources and approaches for the writing of the economic history of early modern Jewry, this paper intends to revisit the nexus between community and economy in the Western Sephardic diaspora in the 18th century. Both objects are rarely considered together as economic historiography of early modern Jews and the historiography of the kehillah usually operate in distinct spheres. A heuritistic approach based on archival material stemming primarily from Amsterdam, Curaçao, Surinam and London, that partition will be challenged, and it will be argued that community sources and funds may be used to write economic history of the Western Sephardim, and conversely, that mercantile sources may be of great interest for writing a history of the kehillah. The little known figure of the community agent, at the intersection between mercantile and community networks, will be analyzed : it allows for a new understanding of the way communal and merchant networks intersect and are intertwined, and constitutes a chapter in the still to be written economic history of the early modern kehillah.

Ingrid Houssaye, Université Paris Diderot, France

Title: Jewish Merchant Networks in Early Modern Mediterranean as Perceived through Florentine Business Archives

Abstract: Correspondences and account books left by Florentine merchants established in different places of the Mediterranean area in Early Modern time, such as Majorca or Constantinople, give a lot of information about their Jewish economic partners or clients. Sometimes containing some writings in Hebrew letters, the documents that I will present allow to identify Jewish people and networks, and to understand their spatial configuration.

Tirtsah Levie Bernfeld, Independent scholar

Title: Making Ends meet in Early Modern Amsterdam: People and Pawns at the Portuguese Jewish Loan Bank

Abstract: Following examples set among Jews and non-‐Jews throughout European history, a pawn bank was established within the Amsterdam Portuguese community in 1624, meant to give loans without interest to Jewish poor, later specified as Portuguese poor. The Portuguese loan bank grew in reputation since it was the only one in town to provide – albeit relatively small-‐ loans without interest as opposed to the non-‐Jewish ‘Bank van Lening’ of Amsterdam, to which Jews could turn to as well. The Portuguese Jewish bank apparently only served the genteel poor if we consider the pawns given to the bank. New findings in the Amsterdam City Archives give us a possibility, not only to specify into detail the pawns handed in but also to provide a more accurate picture of the people in need of cash who turned to the loan bank for help. This way, new insights are given into the financial strength of a marginal group and the economic crises they were confronted with. At the same time, research into the Jewish and non-‐Jewish financial institutions offers new economic data relating to the (Portuguese) Jewish clients of both banks. Finally seeing the nature of the pawns, new light is shed on aspects of material and religious culture of Dutch Sephardim in early modern Amsterdam.


Session 002:

Modern Jewish History

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Implementing the "Economic Turn": New Sources and Approaches

for the Economic History of Early Modern Jews 2

Organizer: Evelyne Oliel-‐Grausz

Chair: Evelyne Oliel-‐Grausz

Jean Baumgarten, CNRS-‐EHESS, France

Title: Solomon Hyman, un marchand juif à Paris (Fin du XVIIIe siècle) : Etude sociolinguistique de son livre de comptes.

Abstract: Solomon est un commerçant juif résidant à Paris à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Spécialisé dans les articles de luxe, il commerce principalement avec l'Angleterre. Ses correspondants se trouvent à Londres, Birmingham, Manchester, notamment la manufacture de Matthew Boulton. En raison de sa faillite en 1756, des papiers, dont son livre de comptes, sont déposés aux archives de Paris (D5B6 4376 ; D4B6 57 3493.). Dans cette communication, nous étudierons les traits linguistiques de ce document en relation avec les pratiques négociantes de Hyman. Caractérisé par le bilinguisme interne (Hébreu-‐yiddish) et externe (yiddish -‐ langues majoritaires, soit l'anglais et le français), l'allophonie, l'alternance des codes, le livre de comptes de Solomon Hyman est un intéressant exemple de la langue marchande qu'utilisaient les juifs à Paris au XVIIIe siècle. Le texte fournit un grand nombre de données, entre autres, sur son éducation, sa personnalité, ses habitudes comptables, les articles manufacturés, les réseaux commerciaux, les modes d'acheminement des marchandises qui nécessitent de combiner l'étude historique, économique et linguistique. Ce qui caractérise le plus cette langue, c’est la tension entre, d’un côté, le système de règles économiques, sociales, langagières auxquelles il doit se plier et, de l’autre, la manière singulière dont il se

situe, se meut à l’intérieur de ce système de normes contraignantes. D’où la production d’une langue (propre à nombre de minorités émigrées) qui oscille entre la difficulté à maîtriser les règles orthographiques, phonétiques, voire une résistance à la norme et, de l’autre, la volonté d’ajustement, d’accommodement, d’adaptation de Hyman. Une langue de négociants et de négociations. Cette tension explique les disfonctionnements, les hésitations, propres à la langue de Hyman, marquée par un désir d’intégration, des obstacles qui gênent, contrarient sa pleine adaptation et la persistance d’une identité socioreligieuse forte. La langue oscille entre ces différentes polarités, depuis l’intériorisation des exigences / restrictions structurelles de la société, de l’économie, de la langue, une évidente capacité d’adaptation, jusqu’à la créativité, l’inventivité à l’intérieur des normes langagières, les interférences entre sa langue première et les langues d’adoption et une forme de résistance à l’assimilation. La commercialisation fondée sur la recherche de débouchés européens est favorisée par l'insertion ans des réseaux transnationaux composés soit de parents, soit de courtiers, d'agents installés près des ateliers de fabrication. La mobilité marchande des artisans juifs travaillant au sein de réseaux familiaux et commerciaux européens explique la nature composite de leur langue commerciale qui constitue un aspect peu étudiée de l'histoire de la langue yiddish.

Isabelle Bretthauer, Labex Hastec / Université Paris Diderot, France, & Liliane Hilaire-‐Perez, University Paris 7, France

Title: The Jews and the Making of the Metropolis: Jewish Trade in Paris in the XVIIIth Century

Abstract: Whereas studies on Jewish business in Paris in the XVIIIth century are scarce, the archival sources are numerous, such as bankruptcies held in the Paris Archives (debt and credit lists, account ledgers) and reports established by Parisian police officers (National Library, Arsenal). The interest for research is twofold. First, these records provide a thorough picture of international Jewish networks in Paris, especially in the trade for consumer goods ranging from haberdashery to hardware and toyware – trades that were highly connected to industrious areas and to manufactures, as we will detail in the case of one Anglo-‐French network. Second, the Jewish merchants involved in these transactions proved very much connected to non-‐Jewish partners and extremely well integrated into the Parisian trades. As these Jewish actors were mainly Ashkenazim whom the historiography as long described as marginal and non-‐integrated in the Parisian society, these archives can help open new paths for understanding the part played by Jews in the French metropolis which also was the European capital of fashion and of the Enlightenment.

Orit Ramon, The Open University of Israel

Title: Maharal of Prague on Gentile Wine and Jewish Confessionalization

Abstract: One of the main issues that concerned Maharal throughout his life, to which he devoted many references in his various writings, is the use of wine produced by Christians – 'Gentile wine' -‐ by Jews. Maharal not only opposed drinking the wine by Jews, often in company of Christians, but also Jewish trade of that wine and the benefits derived from it. Chaim Soloveitchik in his book, Principles and Pressures: Jewish Trade in Gentile Wine in the Middle Ages (2003), wondered about 'Maharal's straggle to give new flavor to a prohibition that in the eyes of others already seemed devoid of taste and reason'. Jacob Katz and Chaim-‐Hilel Ben-‐Sasson debated on the meaning of Maharal's strong stance against this practice that prevailed especially in Moravia. Katz's interpretation emphasized the mystical significance Maharal gave the nature of Israel and argued that Maharal's thought, in general, was formulated in a reality of Jewish seclusion and apathy. Ben–Sasson, on the other hand, emphasized the significance Maharal gave the wine and claimed that Maharal's stance was a Jewish scholar's sharp and aware response to the reality of exile.

In the paper proposed, I intend to suggest that the explanation of Maharal's fierce opposition to the Jewish custom of using Gentile wine arises from the special historical context of the Czech lands in the 16th century. Except for the developing wine culture in Moravia, and the spiritual qualities attributed to wine by the new science, especially wine-‐spirits, important to this discussion is the confessionalization process experienced by the many and varied religious communities in these areas, ruled by the Catholic Habsburgs. Wine, especially the liturgical use of it and the theological significance tied to it in each of the Christian churches, was one of the unique features of each of the confessions and an important tool for defining confessional identity. I will argue that the desire to redefine the boundaries of Jewish identity in the multi-‐confessional environment, made Maharal revive the old Jewish prohibition that enabled him to define the Jewish community as a confession -‐ one of many. This definition made possible a continuation of a distinct Jewish communal existence in exile, while integrating as a Jewish confession in the Habsburg lands.

Orly C. Meron, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: “And They also Took Possession?” Jewish Businesses in Northern Greece during World War II, 1943–1945

Abstract: The proposed lecture presents a conceptualization of the Hellenization process of Sephardic Jewish-‐owned businesses that took place in northern Greece, where most of the Jewish community (about 80 percent) settled, particularly in the densely populated metropolis of Macedonian Salonika. The study is a continuation of extensive work I have conducted and been involved with, that is, creating a retrospective picture of Salonika’s Jewish business activities between the two World Wars. In my lecture I propose to trace the Jewish-‐owned businesses from their establishment to their final transfer into Greek hands. Based on a range of unpublished archival sources, the lecture reflects the Arianization procedure of the transfer of Jewish businesses through the German occupation regime into Greek possession. The documentation I have uncovered sheds new light on the eve of the destruction of Jewish businesses and provides the opportunity to trace the Jewish-‐owned businesses to their destruction.


Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 06

Session: 001:

Childhood and Education

9.00-‐10.30

Chair: Ephraim Kanarfogel

Hagith Sivan, University of Kansas, USA

Title: Jewish Childhood in Antiquity-‐how Jewish?

Abstract: Amidst the plethora of studies on the family, gender, and childhood in history, the absence of a full study devoted to Jewish childhood in antiquity is striking. I have set out to fill the gap with the following questions that I will be raising in my presentation: Can we speak of any kind of universal Jewish child or childhood in antiquity (or, for that matter, in modernity)? What were the components of Jewish identity in antiquity and how did family practices convey it? Were there communal institutions that contributed to the formation of Jewish identity? Were these strategies of identity formation in any way different from that of Greeks, Romans, and other peoples of antiquity of equivalent classes? Were boy and girls’ identities formed differently?

Shaul Regev, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: The Attitude to Education in the Rabbinical Literature of the Babylonian Jews

Abstract: From the middle of the 19th century, schools were developing at the same time as Talmud Torahs and Yeshivahs, which were the backbone of the educational system until then. There were general studies in these schools, as well as languages and Jewish studies. The Rabbinical establishment welcomed these programs and saw them as a continuation and development of the educational system, to prepare the students for a better economic and cultural life and thereby promote the advancement of Jewish society. However, when they discovered the secular influence of this system on the students, the rabbis began to speak out against it.

Joseph Levi, Jewish Community of Florence, Italy

Title: The Rabbinical Seminars in 19th Century Europe-‐ Models of Cultural Integration

Abstract: The Rabbinical Seminars in 19th Century Europe – Models of cultural integration. The history of the different rabbinical seminars established in Europe between 1823 and 1893 reflects the social and cultural changes European Judaism went through from the early modern to modern Jewish period. The French revolution and the emancipation changed the political and social reality of Jewish life determining also profound cultural changes. The process of integrating new scientific and cultural values from the environment was slow and varied from country to country. While in France and Italy the institution of

rabbinic seminars advanced by civil authorities was basically welcomed by the rabbinic community, the process in Germany Russia and East European countries was an argument of strong internal polemics between moderns and traditionalists. The idea of a new type of educated Rabbi was conceived as an external imposition and the integration between traditional Jewish ways of learning and teaching and modern scientific sensitivities to textual and historical study, was not accepted by various traditional religious leaders. A strong tension between assimilation or integration reading of the modern process was felt and debated. Yet, the internal ideological fight for a cultural change was related to a parallel but different process in the non Jewish civil society concerning the acceptance and recognition of Jewish culture as a particular cultural history with a distinctive characteristics of its own. The creation of Rabbinic seminars thus served a double bind purpose: integrating new cultural and scientific models from the developing local national countries on the one hand and promoting recognition in the general society of the specific values of Jewish culture and history on the other. The lecture will aim at presenting the particular lines of cultural development of Italian and French Jewish culture which facilitated the creation of the first rabbinic seminars in Metz (and then Paris) and Padova on 1829 and 1827 respectively. A process of change prepared already by the French revolution and the creation of the Napoleonic Sanhedrin, as well as by a long process of integrating early modern Humanism and scientific positions in the Italian case. Special attention will be given to the history of the Italian Rabbinic Seminar and its different periods and location in Padova Florence and Rome. As for Germany and East European Judaism the double fold function of separation and integration of the new Seminars will be discussed, exposing the gap between two basic positions: those who negated the need for a new type of a Rabbinic Seminars to mediate between the old and the new cultures, versus those who privileged the creation of academic Jewish studies programs in national universities rather than creating a distinctive rabbinic seminars. We will try to show how these different positions influenced and were reflected in the study program of the different seminars. In a conclusive remark we will argue that the debate between these distinctive positions concerning Jewish culture, its relation to other national cultures as well as its development and preservation is still reflected in the cultural debate between different groups in present day Jewish culture and the flourishing of new Batei Midrash and educational institutions.


Session 002:

11.00-‐13.00

TItle

Chair:

Yotam Cohen, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: The Hebrew Reception of Homer: An Example of Adopting of Non-‐Jewish Culture

Abstract: Since ancient times Homer, the great Greek poet, symbolized Jewish segregation from the surrounding culture. While the Christian ecclesia found a way to continue the reading of his Pagan literature, Homer was the only author whom the Jewish Sages mentioned by name, regarding a prohibition on reading books. In my opinion, this negative attitude towards Homer was retained for thousands of

years. Only with the nascent ideology of the Jewish Haskalah, which believed in exposure to the surrounding culture, was Homer introduced to the Hebrew reader in a positive way, and presented as the Parent of poetry. In my paper I will argue that in the late 18th to early 20th centuries Homer underwent a new and prolonged process of reception into the Hebrew culture. I will follow the changes in attitude of Hebrew literature towards Homer commencing with Ha’Measef, the first periodical journal in Hebrew that was published in 1783, and closing with the first complete translation of the Iliad by Shaul Tchernichovsky at 1934. As I will show, in order to be accepted into non-‐Jewish society, the Haskalah movement had to demonstrate initially to the Jewish community that the Greco-‐Roman culture in general, and Homer in particular, were the basis of European civilization. Acquaintance with the classical world, in this manner, contributes to acquaintance with their contemporary Christian culture and because of that was considered as appropriate and even necessary. In a similar way, in order to become a Nation like all nations, the National Jews tried to create role models for their new culture, models which included classical literature in general, and Homer in particular.

Cyril Grange, CNRS/Université de Paris IV Sorbonne, Paris, France

Title: The Choice of Given Names in the Parisian Jewish Bourgeoisie (1840-‐1940): Between Tradition and Assimilation

Abstract: Unlike Christian populations, Jewish communities in Old Regime France did not use a first name followed by a family name. The emergence of a public birth registry composed of one or more given names followed by a patronymic transmitted through the male line dates to the Napoleonic decree of 1808. It instituted a stable civil registry for the Jews of France. This paper will use given names as a means of measuring the degree of social assimilation of Jews. The source base is a corpus of nearly 10,000 first names given between 1840 and 1940 by families of the Parisian bourgeoisie. We will begin with a chart of the major evolutions in the pool of first names. In particular, we will focus on the dispersion and the pace of renewal. Then we will consider whether the Jewish bourgeoisie sought to follow trends among the upper classes or if, on the contrary, it considered the first name to be part of a private space in which its Judaism could be fully expressed. Did its members take advantage of the opportunity to give multiple first names by choosing a “neutral” name, placing a Jewish name in second place on the civil registry, or did it abandon it entirely? Taking account of successive cohorts, place of birth and professional status of the parents will allow nuanced responses to these questions.

Roni Be'er-‐Marx, Open University of Israel

Title: Tradition within a Changing Reality: The Case of Reformed Talmud Torah in Imperial Russia

Abstract: During the eighteen-‐seventies, a new form of educational institution emerged in Jewish communities in Imperial Russia: Reformed Talmud-‐Torah. Talmud-‐Torah is the term for a public Heder that was managed and funded by the community for the benefit of poor students. The Heder, inclusive of the Talmud-‐Torah, was the primary educational institution of East European Jewry. At the Heder, children acquired essential skills and ethics for integrating into a traditional society. For years, the Heder was the stronghold of traditionalist Jewish society. But, since the end of the eighteenth-‐century, and with the intensification of processes of Modernity, including Enlightenment and secularism, it was a fighting ground between traditionalists and reformers. The more the authorities tried to change it and the more Enlighteners tried to bring it up-‐to-‐date, the more did Orthodox Jewry insist on preserving it as it was. And yet, during the eighteen-‐seventies, several dozens of reformed religious-‐schools were created throughout

the pale-‐of-‐settlement under Orthodox auspices and leadership. These traditional institutions, which adopted reforms in the spirit of Enlightenment, were never censored by the Jewish Orthodox elite, and even enjoyed its support. Furthermore, The Jewish-‐Orthodox newspaper, Ha-‐Levanon, played a major part in leading this new trend and in promoting its acceptance among the traditional society. In this lecture I would like to examine these reformed institutions and to show how these reforms – aiming at the very heart of the traditional Jewish society – were derived from the political, social and cultural tendencies of the Russian society of the time and especially from the policy of Tsar Alexander II.

Shlomit Landman, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Cultural Interaction: Israeli Given Names in the Jewish Sector during 1948-‐2007

Abstract: In this study we analyze three thousand of the most popular names and six thousand rare names given between 1948 to 2007 to Jewish newborns in the State of Israel. The data was taken from the records of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The majority of the popular given names are Hebrew names and their meaning is therefore transparent for the speakers of the language. Examples include Biblical names such as Rachel (Lamb) and Daniel (God judged) and modern names such as Batel (daughter of God), Gai (valley) and Ron (singing). In contrast, the majority of the rare names are non-‐Hebrew and therefore not transparent for the Hebrew speakers. That applies also to non-‐Hebrew names whose origin from Hebrew such as John and Ivan derived from the Hebrew name Yochanan, Elizabeth or Isabella originating from Elisheva and Dawud from David (Collins 1967). Anderson (2007) noted that names assume a cultural significance, that observation may be even more pertinent in a multicultural society. Israel is a melting pot society in which numerous migrations from around the world have their own names and naming habits. Uniquely in Israel, compared to other melting pot nations, the common Jewish background of the majority of the immigrants is creating a similarity in naming habits among different immigrant groups. The historic line of the Hebrew onomastic began with the bible. Biblical Hebrew names are characterized by containing a component of the name of some God implying Divine providence over the child's fate. The Israelites used the naming components "ya" and "el" referring to the God of Israel (Ilan 1984). Some examples include the names: Avia, Yocheved, Yehonatan and Netanel. Nowadays Israelis still create similar names, as in the examples of the popular names: Odelia and Eliran, and the rare names: Eldan and Tsurya. In Second Temple era Jewish names involved ancestors exemplifies by Hilel's dynasty whose son was Shimon, grand-‐son Gamliel and great grand-‐son Shimon (Hachlili 1984). Such naming habits where preserved until the late nineteenth century for Jewish boys, most of whom carried at least one Hebrew name (Clar 1950). Whereas many Jewish girls had non-‐Hebrew names borrowed from local cultures (Gomperts 1956). The surprising results of this study is that since 1948 Hebrew names replaced traditional non-‐Hebrew names. In this manner names such as the Ethiopian Asrasa and Adana, Persian Shahrazad and Damuz, Russian Yelena and Oleg, and Hungarians Aniko and Atila were preserved as rare names in Israel but did not gain popular appeal. The few exceptions (non Hebrew popular names) are girl’s names of European origins including Lian, Natalie, Maya. This phenomena implies the remarkable influence of western cultures upon Israel, more important it shows the preference of Hebrew names for the boys as in the past.


Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 07

Session: 001:

New Technologies: Cairo Genizah, Talmud and the Dead Sea Scrolls

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Cutting-‐Edge Computer Applications for Jewish Heritage Research

Organizer: Roni Shweka -‐ Friedberg Genizah Project

Chair: Roni Shweka

Roni Shweka, Friedberg Genizah Project, Israel

Title: Joining the Cairo Genizah Fragments: Project Report

Abstract: One of the main obstacles which stand in the way of every Genizah researcher is the fragmentary state of the manuscripts. A typical Genizah fragment is no more than a single leaf, usually torn and damaged. Moreover, the scattering of more than 300,000 Genizah fragments in some 60 different libraries around the world adds another significant difficulty. A researcher studying a given fragment can never tell if there are some other fragments in the same library or in another collection, which either complements the missing parts of this fragment or represent other folios from the original manuscript. In the last three years a research group composed of researchers from Genazim, the Computerization Unit of the Friedberg Genizah Project, cooperating with colleagues from the School of Computer Science of Tel Aviv University, has been involved in a research which is addressing this problem of finding "joins" by computational means. A complex computer program was developed which compares pairs of fragments and mark every pair with a similarity grade based on the fragments' handwriting. In this presentation I shall report on the results of running this system on 160,000 fragments that were found suitable for such a comparison, comparing every possible pair of them, altogether about 12.4 billion comparisons. I believe that the results we have obtained will open a new era in the field of Genizah study, and may help us recovering the original state of the "Genizah Archive".

Yaacov Choueka, The Friedberg Genizah Project, Israel

Title: The Friedberg Project for Variant Readings of the Babylonian Talmud

Abstract: Establishing and effectively displaying the reading variants of the Babylonian Talmud is the mission of the project presented in this talk. The aim is to build a website freely accessible where high quality digital images, as well as their carefully checked transcriptions, of all manuscripts, fragments and first editions of the Talmud, available anywhere, as well as various and novel ways for presenting these variants, including new formats of synopsis that can be dynamically tailored to the needs of every user, will be available in the website.

Lior Wolf, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: From Caves to Cyberspace: AI Aids in the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Abstract: We have developed several computerized tools for the analysis of the new multispectral images of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Using multiple wavelengths from old and new images allows us to produce a more informative binary image. Combining results of several different binarization methods helps build a more accurate separator of text from background. We adapted a key point detection method based on the black regions in the binarized image to locate letters and then character spotting is used to search for similar letters to a given character image. Our approach is capable of distinguishing between different scripts in the scrolls and may help identify fragments written in the same hand. Another important challenge is that of aligning transcript letters to their coordinates in manuscript images. We directly match the historical image with a synthetic one created from a transcript, rather than attempting to recognize individual letters using OCR. This method is robust with respect to document degradation, variations between script styles and non-‐linear image transformations.


Session 002:

New Technologies

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Chemical and Physical Analysis of Writing Materials

Chair: Ira Rabin

Ira Rabin & Zina Cohen, BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Germany

Title: Towards a Unified Database of the Writing Materials used in Ancient and Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts.

Abstract: BAM material studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls led to the establishment of a methodology for the investigation of manuscripts written on parchment. Currently we are working on other types of the writing supports such as paper, papyrus, and palm leaves. Combining this methodology with the previously developed fingerprint model for iron gall inks characterization opens the door for a routine onsite analysis of the manuscripts. The results of the standard measurements conducted with mobile equipment (µ-‐XRF, µ-‐Raman, FTIR, NIR-‐reflectography and microcsopy) collected in one database would provide additional criteria for joining and grouping of the manuscripts.

Oliver Hahn, BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing

Title: X-‐ray Spectroscopy in the Analytic Studies of Historical Iron Gall Inks: the Erfurt Hebrew Giant Bible

Abstract: This contribution presents quantitative analysis of historical iron gall inks using micro-‐XRF spectrometry. Iron gall inks, the most commonly used writing materials of the Middle Ages, are produced

by mixing natural iron vitriol with gall nut extracts. Natural vitriol consists of a mixture of metallic sulphates (such as iron sulphate, copper sulphate, manganese sulphate, and zinc sulphate) with relative weight contributions characteristic of the source or purification procedure. We use this property of the iron gall inks to compare and to distinguish between them. To this aim we developed a model that takes into account the heterogeneity and the layer structure of the writing material and the writing supports. We used composition fingerprints to characterize distinguishable inks in the Erfurt Hebrew Giant Bible, to establish the chronology in this composite manuscript and to reconstruct the production process. The study of the Bible demonstrates how such technique provides corroboration, contradiction or clarification for codicological observation.

Michael E. Stone, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: The Study of Ancient Books: From Text to Technology in the Digital Age

Abstract: This paper discusses the multiple dimensions of the ancient book: considering some issues in the study of the text in its various aspects -‐-‐ content, meaning and significance; language and orthography; paleography; condicological techniques and dimensions (pricking, mis-‐en-‐page, etc). Equally, its artefactual character must be exploited to the full, including investigation of the material, ink, techniques of preparation, chemical composition and evidences, etc. It will be held that while the stress on the textual character of the book is completely appropriate, the study of its material aspects -‐-‐ in particular codicology, paleography, and material studies -‐-‐ have not been exploited adequately in the full for the understanding of the ancient book as a cultural product.


Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 08

Session: 001:


9.00-‐10.30

Interactions and Contacts across Cultures and Politics

Chair: Michal Galas

Victoria Khiterer, Millersville University, USA

Title: How Jewish was Jewish Culture in Kiev before World War I?

Abstract: Exploring the question raised by Moshe Rosman in his book How Jewish is Jewish History? I will analyze in my presentation how Jewish was Jewish culture in Kiev before World War I. I will show that the concept about “Jews in intimate interaction with surrounding cultures to the point where they may be considered to be embedded in them” works only for the Russified Jewish elite in Kiev. Wealthy Jews in Kiev educated their children in Russian schools and universities or European universities, so they were quite embedded in Russian and European cultures. However the poor Jews, who made up the majority of the Kiev Jewish population, were completely embedded in Yiddish culture. They generally could not study in gymnasiums and universities, not only because of the percentage quota for Jewish students in the Russian Empire, but also due to the high tuition, which these schools charged. Many poor Jews in Kiev barely spoke Russian and did not know any Ukrainian. So they could not be embedded in surrounding cultures, instead they had their own Yiddish culture. Kiev Jewish writers and poets quite well understood this, and consciously chose Yiddish for their literary works as the language of the Jewish masses. Often the cultural views of Kievan Jews were influenced by various ideologies. Kiev in the beginning of the twentieth century became an arena of heated debates between Yiddishists and Hebraists. Vladimir Jabotinsky delivered in the Kiev Literary Society a lecture in February 1911 where he argued that only Hebrew should be considered as the Jewish national language. So in the turn of the twentieth century Kievan Jewry was split in its cultural orientations between Russian, European, Yiddish and Hebrew cultures.

Nino Gude, University of Wien, Austria

Title: Assimilation or Segregation: The Galician Jews and Ukrainians in contact

Abstract: Jews and Ukrainians lived for centuries on the same territory, but yet there is a lack of studies which focus on the process of assimilation among Jews toward the Ukrainian culture. Instead, the international research environment dealt mostly with those Jews, who assimilated toward the majority or dominated groups like Germans, Poles or Russians. However, looking at possible tendencies to Ukrainians, Czech or other historical minorities seemed to be out of importance in the past by not taking it seriously. Due to the lack of such examinations we quickly get the impression that there was no alternative to be a “German” or “Russian” Jew. For a long time it was unthinkable that Jews perceived themselves as being “Ukrainian”. One reason why such tendencies among the Jewish people took little or no attention in

science and research was due to the fact that assimilation is closely associated with the term nation, but Ukrainian as nation was more a new phenomenon that only emerged and arose in the 19th century. Furthermore Ukrainian was more considered as a peasant dialect instead as a literary language such as German. Therefore any Jewish-‐Ukrainian rapprochement has been ruled out as unattractive. However, Yohanan Petrovsky-‐Shtern introduced in his book entitled “The Making of the Ukrainian Jew” five people of Jewish descent who wrote poetic verses in Ukrainian and embodied in that case so-‐called “Ukrainian Jews” on literary level. In fact, there were a lot of those Jews who spoke Ukrainian, used it as literary language and were convinced of cooperation in political matters. At this point one can mention among others the positive attitude among Galician Jews toward the proclamation of West Ukrainian National Republic in November 1918. Understanding that Ukrainians could guarantee broad national cultural autonomy to the Jews, they helped to establish West Ukrainian National Republic and supported its army as well in the hope that they get a real equality only when Ukraine will become independent. At the beginning of the 20th century the Galician Jews were far from identifying themselves with the predominant Ukrainian nationality, but it did not prevent them actively to support the Ukrainian cause. In this context I’d like to discuss the question to which extend the Jews on the historical Galicia were willing to turn their back on their fate and people and ready to adopt elements of Ukrainian culture. What role does intermarriages play to be a “Ukrainian Jew” and does exist such an assimilation process among Galician Jews apart from literature, are questions which I deal in my dissertation with.

Miri Freilich, Beit Berl College, Israel

Title: Jew and non Jews in the Polish Freethinkers' Movement

Abstract: The FreeThinkers masonic movement in interwar Poland (1918 -‐ 1935) advocated freedom of thought and anti religious ideas. Regarding religion, freethinkers hold that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of god. The leader of the movement in Poland was the linguist Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1845 -‐ 1929) who objected to any form of national exclusiveness and earned himself the reputation of a spokesman for peaceful and brotherly coexistence, cooperation and development of all ethnic groups, nations and nationalities, and in particular Poles, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Germans, and Jews. The Movement attracted Jewish Intellectuals and scholars in Poland's big cities (especially Warsaw) and enabled them to create social contacts with non Jewish Intellectuals. Although the Jews were equal members in the Polish branch, they fulfilled a unique role and accepted the role of those members who criticized the historical and religious characteristics of Judaism.


Session 002:

Enlightement and Discontent

11.00-‐13.00

Chair:

Evgenia Pevzner, The City Arbitration Court of St.-‐Petersbourg and Leningrad area, Russia

Title: About the Work of the Moscow Committee of the Society for spreading of Enlightenment between Jews in Russia

Abstract: The Society for spreading of Enlightenment between Jews in Russia (OPE) was opened in St.-‐Petersbourg in 1863 year. Student’s circles began already to appear in Moscow in 1864 year, who collaborated with OPE and gave benefits and loans to students. The group of Moscow students decided to involve by spreading of enlightenment between children in the Pale of Settlement in 1894 year. For this matter, the Committee was elected in 1896 year, in which entered, except students, famous public leaders. The Moscow Committee gave subsidies schools, ensured them by teaching aids, books. The Moscow Committee sent for the first time its authorized persons to subsidized schools for the inspection of schools and rendering methodical assistance in 1901 year. The circle “The Jewish School” was founded in 1903 year for the publication of popular books and booklets. This circle founded the first monthly pedagogical journal “The Jewish School” in 1904 year. This journal existed from 1904 to 1905 year. It was closed in connection with the revolution events of the 1905 year. The journal elucidated the problems of the national education and methods of teaching. The works about Jewish libraries appeared for the first time at this journal, was begun publication the standard catalogues etc. The Moscow Committee began to involve by issues of the out-‐of school education, particularly, organization of libraries. The Moscow Committee was registered as the branch office of OPE. During the years of the First World War, the Committee conducted the intensive work on opening of schools for refugees. Thereby, the Moscow Committee involved not only by the payment benefits to students, but rendered assistance to schools in the form of grants and methodical support, for the first time began to send authorized persons to subsidized schools for clarification of condition of schools and rendering methodical assistance, published the first in Russia Jewish pedagogical journal “The Jewish School”, organized libraries. During the First World War, the Committee organized schools for refugees.

Olga Potap, Boston University, USA

Title: The Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jewish Population (OSE): Social Integration into non-‐Jewish Society

Abstract: OSE was a Jewish Medico-‐social organization, which was founded in Saint Petersburg, Russia in 1912. OSE is the abbreviation for the name of the organization, and it is translated into English as “The Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jewish Population.” The society changed in its scope and mission throughout the early 20th century but its major transformation occurred during World War II, when the lives of Jews throughout Eastern and Western Europe were threatened. In her memoirs, Vivette Samuel comments on the transformation of OSE: “A large number of people were now ready to contribute, to resist in their own way. The deportation of children, arousing popular indignation, led the people to take action. The moment seemed favorable to mobilize non-‐Jewish in favor of the rescue of children.” Samuel calls the period of 1942-‐1944 a turning point in the chronicle of rescuing the children and she stated that after 1942 rescuing the Jewish children ceased to be only a Jewish problem. People had different motivations driving them to take part in rescuing children, such as: religion, politics, personal, idealistic, and humanitarian. It is my goal, therefore, to highlight the participation of Catholic, Protestant, and Secular non-‐Jewish organizations in the work of Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jewish Population (OSE) during World War II and after the war.

Rachel Manekin, University of Maryland College Park, USA

Title: Regulating Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Habsburg Galicia

Abstract: On January 16, 1783, a new law was promulgated in Austria, the Ehepatent, or the Marriage Law, which defined marriage in its opening paragraph as a civil contract and regulated the required steps to make a marriage legally valid. The application of the law for the Jewish society included such procedures as defining the role of the state in a Jewish divorce, and the question of divorce in case of conversion of one spouse. While being aware of the legal requirements, Galician Jews married in large numbers clandestinely and in violation of the law. In my talk I will discuss the development of marriage and divorce laws in regard to Galician Jews and offer some explanations on the Galician Jewish defiance.

Aleksandra Oniszczuk, Historical Institute, University of Wroclaw, Poland

Title: Policy of the Duchy of Warsaw (1807-‐1815) towards Jews: Borrowed Solutions and Their Grounds

Abstract: The author aims to present the variety of models used by the government of the Duchy of Warsaw in its policy towards Jews. During the short existence of the state (1807-‐1815), few decrees and thousands of administrative decisions shaping the particular Jewish legal status were issued. Although the Duchy was established by Napoleon and the legal order was to be a copy of the French one, those acts were not solely based on Napoleonic model. As a matter of fact, in some cases the French model was not sufficient, and in others Duchy’s government was trying to avoid its full implementation and looked for different solutions. Thus, regulations of Jewish life had various roots: some were based on old Polish-‐Lithuanian Commonwealth law, while others were taken from foreign legal orders (mainly Prussian, locally also Austrian). Until now, the historiography has merely noticed this melange of models in the policy. However, the surviving archival material, used only partially by the previous historiography, makes it possible to: 1) specify, in which cases solutions were borrowed, 2) define the scope of ‘originality’ of the Duchy’s policy towards the Jewish population and 3) answer the question why the government decided to borrow some solutions. As far as the third issue is concerned, already analysed sources lead to the following hypothesis: the legislation imposed by Napoleon was introduced without any ‘vacatio legis’, that would enable adjusting social reality (still largely feudal) to the legislative order. Any attempts by the government to carry out revolutionary changes, as envisioned by the constitution and Napoleon’s Code, would have spawned a very real threat of discontent on the side of the elites. Thus, the ministers decided to suspend the introduction of equality of Jews (as well as peasants). In order to avoid the monarch’s opposition (as he was a legalist attached to the order imposed by Napoleon and refused to approve some projects contradictory to the Constitution and Civil Code) they prolonged validity of some Prussian and Austrian acts, copied an internal French decree (‘décret infâme’) or took into consideration some old Polish regulations. As a result, the responsibility for their policy was diminished, as foreign or old acts were borrowed only ‘temporarily’. It was also a pragmatic solution; as it is testified in the sources, very often the ministers themselves did not know which general rule should be introduced or what decision should be issued in an individual case. Creating new acts would have taken more time and the government was preoccupied with a permanent financial and organisational crisis. The author will present findings from her PhD thesis, based on archival material partly unused in previous historiography (collections Rada Ministrów, Rada Stanu Księstwa Warszawskiego and Komisja Rządząca Spraw Wewnętrznych, stored in the Central Archives of Historical Records, Warsaw).


Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 09

Session: 001:

Modern and Contemporary Jewish History

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: The Jews' Admittance into the Liberal Institutions of Post-‐unification Italy: New Perspectives

Chair: Marco di Giulio

Elizabeth Schächter-‐Cheshire, University of Kent, UK

Title: ‘The “Jewish Question” in Post-‐Emancipation Italy’

Abstract: This paper explores the consequences of emancipation in the newly unified Italy. The Jewish minority contributed to the creation of a national identity and considered themselves to be among the founders of the nation state. Current consensus in Italian historiography argues that in nineteenth-‐century Italy there were only a few, insignificant episodes of ‘liberal anti-‐semitism’ in contrast to the political anti-‐semitism in other European countries. I challenge this view of a ‘harmonious integration’ of Jews and Italians through the examination of contemporary sources. 150 years after the Unification of Italy, there are still secrets and issues within the nation which have not been addressed, discussed or thought about. Public discourse today does not acknowledge that the Racial Laws of 1938 were not an aberration and a rupture with a past of harmonious integration of the Jewish minority, but that they had their roots not only in centuries-‐old Catholic anti-‐semitism but also in the discrimination against the Jews that lay at the very centre of political and public life of the new Italy.

David Lebovitch Dahl, The Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies, Austria

Title: The Roman Catholic Church, Education and the Entrance of Jews in Italian Academia after Unification

Abstract: This paper addresses the views regarding education of the Roman Catholic Church in Italy in the second half of the nineteenth century and the implications of these views for the attitudes of the Catholics to the entrance of Jews into Italian academia after unification. The national unification and the final emancipation of the Italian Jews happened concomitantly with the loss of temporal power of the Catholic Church when the Italian army invaded the Vatican State in 1870. Hence Jewish emancipation was seen by the Catholic establishment as a symbol of the anti-‐clerical policy of the liberal Italian governments. The Church reacted to the loss of temporal power and the advance of the liberal secular state by strengthening and unifying its structure and doctrine. This resulted in the adaptation of neo-‐scholasticism within philosophy and was accompanied by a gradual acceptance of antisemitism during the second half of the nineteenth century. The paper analyzes how the clerical attitudes to Italy’s Jews were related to the developments in Catholic philosophy and educational policy in the second half of the nineteenth century, discussing concrete examples of how the Roman Catholics debated the entrance of Jews in Italian academia.

Marco Di Giulio, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA, USA

Title: Jewish Academics and Cultural Politics in Post-‐Unification Italy

Abstract: The political unification of Italy coincided with a reform of its institutions of higher education, as these were assembled into a national system. The secretaries of education recognized that the educational reform provided an opportunity to integrate figures who had been instrumental in securing the political reform into the university system. Since the campaign for unification had long been identified with the campaign for Jewish emancipation, the educational reform also provided a way to introduce Jews into university faculties. How did the first Jews to receive academic appointments in Italy address their Jewishness? Jews seeking academic positions could not simply treat their Jewishness as an incidental or ethnic characteristic; rather, they felt that they had to give some account of it in their self-‐presentation, both as a candidate for academic office and as a practicing professor. Focusing on the first few years after unification, this paper discusses the recruitment of Jewish intellectuals for university positions, and the ways in which they presented themselves as suitable candidates. Three scholars working in different fields are examined. In combination with an analysis of unpublished sources, their inaugural adddresses as professors are compared as examples of how they acknowledged their Jewish identity as well as the way in which it contributed to their identity as Italian citizens.


Session 002:

Modern and Contemporary Jewish History

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: The Jews' Admittance into the Liberal Institutions of Post-‐unification Italy: New Perspectives 2

Chair: Marco di Giulio

Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti, Università di Pisa, Italy /Hadassah Brandeis Institute, USA

Title: Integration in the Political Sphere: Multiple Representations.

Abstract: This paper will investigate the careers, at a local and national level, of a handful of Italian Jewish politicians. In particular, it will explore the relation between their Jewish identity and their political activity, how it was depicted in Jewish periodicals, and how it was presented in the local and national press. From a methodological perspective, it will focus on the advantage of analyzing and comparing multiple representations, to expand our understanding of the integration of the Jewish minority in Italy and also our research on the diffusion of anti-‐Semitic stereotypes in the liberal period.

Adam Sutcliffe, King's College London, UK

Title: Response: 'The Jews' Admittance into the Liberal Institutions of Post-‐Unification Italy: New Perspectives'

Giuseppe Prigiotti, Duke University, Durham USA

Title: Challenged by Secularism: A Comparative Approach to Judaism and Catholicism in the Italian Liberal age (1870-‐1914)

Abstract: From Italian unification to the eve of the First War World, liberal politics and secular culture impacted Italian Catholicism and Jewry, provoking outcomes that, I argue, are the result of common challenges. The emancipation of the Jews and the contemporary end of the temporal power of the Popes offered agency to individual Jews and Catholics, to the detriment of ancient corporate privileges. I want to emphasize these trends through a close analysis of a number of articles and essays from the Jewish journal Il Vessillo Israelitico, the Jesuit La Civiltà Cattolica, and the satirical and anticlerical journal L’Asino. Jewish journals insisted on the full integration of the Jews in the national State. While reporting on examples of good relations among Jews and Catholics, they also complained, at times, of Catholic interference in Jewish spiritual life. La Civiltà Cattolica, instead, was largely engaged in a strategy of defensive modernization: it made great use of modern media and literary genres, such as serial novels, to advance the Catholic worldview for the edification of Catholics and non-‐Catholics alike. L’Asino, in turn, promoted forms of radical secularization by fighting all residues of religious views in the modern State, and by making the Catholic Church the object of its bitter anticlerical cartoons. Eventually, in order to avoid defections and become more appealing, both Jewish and Catholic institutions were obliged to capture the esteem of both their members and civil society as a whole. In that way, they contributed to redefine the space of Jewish and Catholic identities in Liberal Italy.

Alessandro Grazi, Independent Scholar

Title: Encounters with Secular Cultures: Jewish Secularization Modes and Nation-‐Building in Nineteenth-‐century Italy

Abstract: The present paper will illustrate the main elements of my ongoing post-‐doctoral project on Jewish secularization modes in Nineteenth-‐century Italy. The aim of this project is to explore the nineteenth-‐century Jewish transition from a traditional to a (secular) modern identity, with particular attention to secularization processes. The approaches to this transition were of course numerous and diverse. Hitherto, the predominant view has been to consider only two possible outcomes for the Jewish encounter with modernity: either from within tradition and religion, thus maintaining a strong attachment to Jewish identity, or, alternatively, full assimilation in the hosting society with a total rejection of Jewish identity. My post-‐doctoral project starts from a different assumption: there has been an alternative approach, which, in spite of its secular path leading to rejection of religion and tradition, entailed a strong attachment to both Jewish identity and Italian nationalism. Thus, the project’s importance lies in the study of this intertwinement between the secularization process and nineteenth-‐century nationalism. An ideal subject for this exploration is the Italian Jewish writer David Levi (1816-‐1898). Levi was from Turin, Piedmont, and has been defined as “poet and patriot”, as he was both a writer and an active protagonist of the Risorgimento. His great importance lies in his constant effort to amalgamate Italian and Jewish identity through a secularization process. Intriguing elements of his biography are his affiliation with Freemasonry and belief in the Saint-‐Simon’s doctrines. Due to the universalistic values of both Freemasonry and Saint-‐Simonism, it has been suggested that they functioned as a sort of secular substitution for Levi’s relinquished religious Judaism (Sofia, 2011). Hence, some of the questions the project will address are the

following: which role did Freemasonry and Saint-‐Simonism play in Levi’s secularization process? How did he manage to fuse his strong feelings for Italian and Jewish identity, yet abandoning his religious practices? The wealth of unstudied material I retrieved in his private archive at the National Museum of Risorgimento in Turin allows for a deep exploration of these themes.


Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 10

Session: 001:

Modern Genizot

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Genisa – Genizah

Organizer: Martina Edelman

Chair:

Martina Edelman, Jüdisches Kulturmuseum Veitshöchheim, Germany

Title: The Genisaprojekt Veitshöchheim: Providing Access to New Sources of Jewish History in Franconia

Abstract: In 1998 the Genisaprojekt Veitshöchheim was founded to establish a database for Genizah fragments of Bavaria (mostly Franconia). About 40 places of remaining genizoth in the Northern Bavarian region are known, one of them the large genizah of Veitshöchheim. After finishing the inventory of 15 genizoth the database now provides accessible information about authentic Jewish historic sources of live and culture. The lecture will give an impression of the functioning of the Genisaprojekt Veitshöchheim and will point out conclusions concerning the inventory of a genizah.

Linda Wiesner, University for Jewish Studies Heidelberg, Germany

Title: Textile Stories -‐ The Textiles of the Genizah of Niederzissen

Abstract: In 2010, while examining the former synagogue of Niederzissen, (Rhineland-‐Palatinate) amateur historians found an extraordinary and well preserved Genizah. Besides numerous scripts, the Genizah contained nearly 300 textiles. The textiles are dated from the 17th to early 20th century, with most findings originating in the 19th century. With pieces for personal use (Tallith katan, bag for the Tefillin) and also pieces for synagogical use (Torah curtain, Torah mantle, Torah binder), the textiles allows us an insight to the way of life of a rural community in the Rhinelande. In my talk I would like to focus on the textiles, an otherwise little considered field of research. With using only a small subset of the found objects I will demonstrate how textiles can be used to show specific aspects (exchange with the non-‐Jewish society, social standing of the Jewish community and other aspects) of everyday life of this rural Rhinelande community and I will expose the limits of research in the context of material culture.

Claire Decomps, Région Lorraine / Service de l'Inventaire général du patrimoine culturel, France

Title: La genizah de Dambach-‐la-‐Ville, une découverte inestimable pour la connaissance de la vie juive dans communauté rurale alsacienne

Abstract: Présentation de l'opération de sauvetage et analyse des éléments découverts fin 16e-‐1894 (250 mappot, livres, parchemins, objets.


Session 002:

Jewish Heritage

11.00-‐13.00

Creating and Using Collections

Chair: Anna Lebet-‐Minakowska

Anna Lebet-‐Minakowska, National Museum, The Czartoryski Museum Kraków, Poland

Title: Not only the Lady

Abstract: The Princes Czartoryski Museum in Krakow is usually known as the home of Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine. However, the collection contains also numerous precious Jewish objects. Judaica from the Czartoryskis Collection were acquired in 19th century, when the collection was managed by Prince Władysław Czartosyki, grandson of the foundress, Princess Izabella Czartoryski, née Fleming. Some of them took a long way from Poland to France and back. After the 1830-‐31 Polish-‐Russian War, the collection was evacuated from Puławy (then Russian Poland) to Sieniawa (then Austrian Poland) and settled in Hotel Lambert, Paris. Traces of the voyage can still be seen on the sephardic amulet case, Megilat Ester bound or besamin -‐ they still bore French import stamps from the years 1864-‐93. The Jewish museum objects are already mentioned in the first catallogue of Czartoryski Collection (written in 1869). A silver, gold-‐plated filigree binding for Megilat Esther was purchased on the brink of 18th and 19th century, we can assume therefore that it was Izabella Czartoryska herself who done it. The binding is made with great precision and it is an example of supreme goldsmith craftsmanship. Austrian tax stamps from 1806/7 point that it was made before that date. Another judaica went to collections in subsequent years: bonnets and "załóżkas" (women's clothing accessories) in 1882, the Jewish woman dress in 1888, and embroidered collars for Yom Kippur kittel in 1892 . It is therefore the oldest recorded collection of Judaica in Poland.

John Champagne, Penn State Erie, the Behrend College, USA

Title: Explaining Judaism to the Goyim: The Jewish Museum of Rome

Abstract: In 2005, the Jewish Museum of Rome specifically undertook a project of renovation and reorganization, the goals of which were, as the museum's website suggests, to “interpret” the works displayed, “translating them into effective experiences from an educational, intellectual, cultural and aesthetic point of view for an audience as wide as possible.” This paper will examine the ways in which the museum explains Italian/Roman Judaism to non-‐Jews in particular. It will argue that, caught between at least three competing agendas – the preservation of the Community's artifacts; the education of non-‐Jews in the religious practices of Orthodox Judaism and the history of Jewish Rome; a specifically twenty-‐first

century museological agenda of inviting commentary and controversy – the museum is necessarily marked by contradictions that constitute its very conditions of possibility.

Agnieszka Alston, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

Title: Jewish Cultural Patronage and Collections in Krakow at the Turn of the 19th and the 20th Centuries

Abstract: The presented paper confines to the time frame of 1867-‐1918, as the year of the December Constitution that brought political and social changes to Jews of Krakow and Galicja. This new period of great and rapid changes created a new stature to Krakow society -‐ Jewish plutocracy and intelligentsia. The end of the Great War, 1918, gave even more opportunities to Galician Jewry, especially to the rapidly growing Jewish intelligentsia, their involvement in new county politics, economy and culture. The years after the World War I brought an overwhelming bloom of this social group, whose patronage in culture was different due to advanced political and social modifications, but also to changes within the artistic scene in Krakow. While it was not likely to hear in Krakow about great collectors of the caliber of the Rothschilds or of benefactors as existed among the Warsaw or Lodz Jewish bourgeoisie (L. Kronenberg, J. Nathanson, J. Bloch, I. Poznański), Krakow was not lacking for there was a small but growing group of Jewish plutocracy and intelligentsia who took significant part in patronizing the local culture. Additionally, Krakowian cultural institutions were benefited by Jewry from Warsaw (M. Bersohn, F. Gebethner), Lvov (M. Goldstein), and elsewhere. The wide autonomy of the Grossherzgtum Krakau during the changes within the Austro-‐Hungarian Empire with the proclamation of equality of all citizens of Galicja and thus gave the opportunity to Jews to enter actively into the cultural scene of Krakow. The Krakow Jewish plutocracy: bankers, financiers, capitalists (rich members of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and Jewish intelligentsia (medical doctors, architects, and scholars) modeled their cultural patronage on the old aristocratic tradition. In other words they ordered family portraits (St. Feintuch, J. Oettinger, H. Rozenzwieg, J. Sare, A. Schwartz, H. Szarski, and others) from the renowned establish painters’ ateliers of T. Axentowicz, J. Fałat, J. Marczewski, L. Wyczółkowski, St. Wyspiański. Furtherer they created collections of fine arts that reflected accumulated wealth and which was also a financial investment (E. Beres, Blumenfeld, Z. Ehrenpreis, W. Fränkel, L. Holzer, S. Tiles). Having a distinguished collection it was highly regarded to be seen to loan or to donate art pieces or collections to the museum (F. Gebethner, M. Berson, Glicenstein, A. Sternschuss, J. Judkiewicz and others). In Kraków, artistic patronage was centered on the Society of Friends of Fine Arts (1854) and the National Museum (1879). Members of Krakow Jewry were chosen as distinguished members of exhibitions’ committees. They were frequent purchasers of exhibited works of talented students of the Krakow Fine Art Academy. In Krakow, unlike in Warsaw, there were not so many residential art salons belonging to Jewish collectors whose goals were to improve the prestige via presence of artists and cultural elite, again activity based on the Polish aristocracy. However, there was one such salon that was led by Henryk Frist (1875 Salon of Polish Painters). Additionally, a new to Krakow phenomena were art dealers like: Adolf Schwartz and Marcus Szwarc, who were active in cultural patronage. It must be mentioned that Jewish collectors not only focused on Polish artists, firstly they cherished Jewish artists such as M. Gottlieb, or Samuel Hirszenberg (E. Beres, M. Feldman). Most of all they paid homage to their heritage in preserving and collecting precious Jewish ritual objects, which often were on loan to the Krakow National Museum. Most of all they paid homage to their heritage in preserving and collecting precious Jewish ritual objects, which often were on loan to the Krakow National Museum (J. Judkiewicz, M. Szwarc).

Max Polonovski, Ministry of Culture, France

Title: Artistes juifs en France au 19e siècle, entre assimilation et revendication communautaire.

Abstract: La revue Archives Israélites, fondée en 1840, instaura, à partir de la seconde moitié du 19e siècle, une chronique artistique lors des salons de peintures annuels, prétexte à évaluer le succès de l’intégration des juifs dans la société française. A la fois signe de la volonté de s’assimiler, dans la droite ligne de la régénération opérée lors de la Révolution française, mais aussi témoignage de la contribution bénéfique des Juifs à la société, tant sur le plan de la participation des artistes à la création, que par les thèmes juifs et surtout bibliques. L’ethnicité des artistes ainsi mise en avant et différenciée dans un but positif semble contenir une contradiction interne avec le principe même de l’intégration. Cette ambigüité a perduré, tout au long du 19e siècle, puis du siècle suivant, lorsque la distinction des artistes juifs par rapport aux autres a changé de point de vue, pour tendre vers une revendication identitaire ou une stigmatisation. Une appropriation parfois abusive amoindrit la portée du discours. La volonté d’identifier l’apport des Juifs comme un phénomène lié à une appartenance ou une origine communautaire et non comme une expression individuelle fausse les tentatives de définir un art juif. L’origine des artistes par rapport à leur œuvre pose la question du point de vue auquel se place l’observateur. Elle interroge aussi sur la représentativité des artistes dans les musées d’art juif.


Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 11

Session: 001:


9.00-‐10.30

Continuity and Creative Response in an Age of Upheaval:

The New Edition of the Liturgical Poetry of Samuel the Third

Chair: Peter Lehnardt

Naoya Katsumata, Kyoto University, Japan

Title: The Research History of Samuel the Third’s Poetry

Abstract: Some of the poems and writings actually belonging to our poet were published during the first half of the 20th century by Jacob Mann, Meir Zvi Weiss, Israel Davidson, and Menachem Zulay. It was Zulay, however, who figured out in 1949 that the different names found in the above publications (shemuel yizke, shemuel he-‐haver, shemuel ha-‐revi‘i, and shemuel ha-‐shelishi) actually referred to a single individual. Zulay and others also understood the high literary quality of Samuel’s poetry. Ezra Fleischer, for example, was surprised by the extraordinary beauty of some of Samuel’s poems and claimed that Samuel the Third reaches heights which few Hebrew poets in the Middle Ages ever reached. Over thirty years ago, Joseph Yahalom first took upon himself the task of preparing a critical edition of Samuel’s poetry. In this lecture, I will describe how Yahalom and I carried out the making of this edition. We are dedicating this book to the blessed memory of Zulay, who, had he been able, would have published all of Samuel’s poems in a deluxe edition.

Joseph Yahalom, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Eastern Predecessors of the Great Andalusian School

Abstract: The paper deals with liturgical poetry located in the Genizah and written by leading figures such as Shmu'el ben Hosha"na from Jerusalem and Yosef Ibn Abitur which were active at the turn of the tenth century amongst Eastern communities. Questions of poetic style and figurative language form the main points of comparison between these poets and their Spanish Contemporaries.

Wout Van Bekkum, Center of Middle East Studies, Groningen University, Netherlands

Title: Lyrical Aspects of Samuel the Thirds' Poetry

Abstract: Samuel the Third is an outstanding and important poet whose entire oeuvre has now been collected and edited by Joseph Yahalom and Naoya Katsumata, reclaiming a tradition of synagogue poetry which for a major part had lapsed into the obscurities of medieval Jewish literary history. The

reintroduction of Samuel the Third by Yahalom and Katsumata enables researchers of Piyyut to read Samuel's hymns anew and to (re-‐)discover their richness and diversity. This contribution will focus on lyrical aspects representative of Samuel's personal creativity by which he brings Jewish religious themes into visibility. A study of Samuel's lyrical potential will demonstrate that he views Piyyut as an innovated prestige medium rather than a number of conventional synagogue repertoires.


Session 002:


11.00-‐13.00

Medieval Hebrew Poetry on the Move:

From the Cairo Genizah to Eastern Europe

Chair: Wout Van Bekkum

Sarah J. Pearce, New York University, USA

Title: Remembering the Handsome Doe’s Beloved: Rethinking Dunash’s Wife in Light of Documentary Sources in the Genizah

Abstract: This paper will offer a reconsideration of the Hebrew poem attributed to the wife of Dunash ben Labrat in light of documentary evidence in the Cairo Genizah pertaining to the lives of women abandoned by or living separately from their husbands. Rather than representing a solely sentimental farewell between husband and wife, the exchange of personal adornments and cloaks between the male and female figures in the poem, often read as the literary avatars of Dunash and his wife, in fact represents a concrete economic transaction that would have been readily recognizable to the medieval readers of the poem. The specific details of the items exchanged in the poem — a wife’s silver bracelet for her husband’s signet ring and the cloak of each spouse for the other’s — are evocative of the description of the economic value and practical usage of those same types of objects documented in in personal and business-‐related epistolary found in the Genizah cache. This proposed reading of the poem, then, seeks both to contextualize the poem in its historical setting and to draw down the gulfs between literature and history and between practical and sentimental interpretations of objects and acts represented in literary texts.

Riikka Tuori, University of Helsinki, Finland

Title: The Ten Principles of Karaite Faith in East European Karaite poetry

Abstract: The Karaite scholar Yehuda Hadassi (12th c., Constantinople) elaborated ten principles of Karaite faith a century before the more famous thirteen ones of Moshe Maimonides. The Byzantine Karaite scholars Elijah Bashyachi and Kaleb Afendopolo (15th c.) issued their version of the principles (in Bashyachi’s Adderet eliyahu (1532: 25a–30a). These principles became a major theme discussed extensively in later East European Karaite commentaries. Furthermore, while Maimonidean principles were a popular

theme for Rabbanite poets, Karaites, as well, wrote poems concerning the subject. Davidson (1970, Vol. IV: 493), for example, lists five East European Karaite poems written about the ten principles. In this paper, I will discuss poems dedicated to these principles written by East European Karaites in the 16th-‐18th-‐century. The poems have been culled from East European manuscripts and from various printed Karaite works.

Gabriel Wasserman, Yeshiva University, USA

Title: From Shené Zetím to Shnei Zeísim, and Beyond: A Sephardic Me'ora in Its Travels and Imitations

Abstract: This paper will examine the reception-‐history of the Me'ora "Shene Zetim" by R. Solomon ibn Gabirol, a poem for Hanukkah, which made its way not only into the Catalonian/Provençal Rite and the Cairo Geniza (our two main sources for most Sephardic piyyutim for occasions other than the Days of Awe and the period of the Ninth of Av), but also into the liturgy of Northern France, Ashkenaz (both East and West), and the various Greek Rites (Romania, Corfu, and Candia). This is especially astonishing for a Me'ora, a poem to be inserted right before the conclusion of the blessing "who fashions the luminaries" (yotzer ha-‐me'oroth) in the morning service -‐-‐ a genre of piyyut that was virtually unknown in France, Ashkenaz, and Greece. In some of the Greek rites, the genre of the piyyut was misunderstood (or consciously changed), and it was adopted as an Ofan, to be recited in the Qedusha section of the same blessing. On the other hand, in France and Ashkenaz it was retained as a Me'ora, and we know of three Ashkenazic imitations of it, which all deal with the same theme (the Menorah of the Temple), for the same slot in the liturgy, in the same meter -‐-‐ yet using Ashkenazic conventions, such as incorporating material from midrashim. Finally, we shall see how in the Modern Era, if not earlier, the original piyyut "Shene Zetim" became very important in the Ashkenazic consciousness, possibly because of the tunes associated with it, and became known as a quintessentially Ashkenazic piyyut, retained in Ashkenazic communities that had dropped virtually all other piyyutim, and even became the subject of a Yiddish joke.

Ophir Münz–Manor, The Open University of Israel

Title: Jewish and Christian Liturgical Poems on the Dispute of the Months

Abstract: The paper will be devoted to an examination of several Jewish and Christian liturgical poems in Jewish Aramaic, Syriac and Hebrew that narrate a dispute between the months of the year; each contender claims for its superiority. The poems under discussion represent an interesting case study of intercultural dynamics between the Jewish and Christian cultures in Late Antiquity and the early middle Ages. The paper will begin with a survey of the dispute poem genre in general and the disputes between the months of the year in particular. Then various themes concerning the dispute are explored in detail such as the relation between the verse compositions and prose version, the liturgical context of the poems and the relation of the poems to disputes concerning various calendric issues. The poems that will be discussed in the paper derive from the Syriac Christian tradition, while the Jewish examples are based, in part, on poems that were discovered in the Cairo Genizah and will be presented for the first time.


Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 12

Session: 001:

History of Hebrew Linguistics

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: The Hebrew Grammatical Tradition and its Interactions with Other schools of Grammar

Organizers: Nadia Vidro & Maria Angeles Gallego

Chair: Aharon Maman

Geoffrey Khan, University of Cambridge, UK

Title: Parallels between Medieval Jewish and Muslim Treatises on the Recitation of Scripture

Abstract: During the Masoretic period in the Middle Ages a number of treatises were composed concerning the vocalization and accents of the standard Tiberian reading tradition of the Hebrew Bible. In some cases they go beyond description and offer explanatory rules for differences based on their context of occurrence. Many of the early treatises of this nature were written in Hebrew. By the tenth century the treatises began to be written in Judaeo-‐Arabic. A focus in many of these treatises is the pronunciation of the shewa and some treatises are devoted entirely to this. The treatises concerning biblical recitation stood in a complementary relationship to the early grammatical tradition that was developed in the 10th century by the Karaites, since the Karaite grammatical texts related only to morphology and syntax. The most comprehensive treatise on recitation was Hidāyat al-‐Qāri’ ‘Guide for the Reader’, which was written in the first half of the eleventh century by the Karaite Abū al-‐Faraj Hārūn. A tradition of treatises on the correction recitation of Qur’ān, known as tajwīd, developed in the early Islamic period. These treatises exhibit a number of parallels with the treatises on Hebrew recitation. There are particularly close parallels between the tajwīd literature and the ‘Guide for the Reader’ of Abū al-‐Faraj Hārūn. These parallels will be examined in the paper.

Nadia Vidro, University College London, UK

Title: Grammars of Classical Arabic in Judaeo-‐Arabic: an overview

Abstract: Medieval Jews in Islamic lands spoke and wrote Arabic. The majority of literary texts in medieval Judaeo-‐Arabic are in more or less strict accord with grammatical rules and stylistic requirements of Classical Arabic. Yet did Jews study Arabic grammar as a discipline? Although Jewish grammarians were clearly familiar with works on Arabic grammar and borrowed concepts, terminology and entire book passages from Muslim linguists, knowledge of Arabic grammatical theory does not seem to have been wide-‐spread. Indeed, in the introduction to his main work Kitab al-‐Luma‘ (first half of the 11th century), a preeminent Hebrew grammarian Yona ibn Janah complained that Jews “conversant and skilled” in Arabic grammar were few. Moreover, book lists discovered in the Cairo Genizah do not mention grammars of Arabic. However, a number of grammars of Classical Arabic copied in Judaeo-‐Arabic were recently discovered in the Cairo Genizah Collection. In this paper will survey the small corpus of Judaeo-‐Arabic grammars of Arabic and will address some general questions posed by these works e.g.: 1) are the preserved grammars

independent compositions, adaptations of a single Muslim grammar, or compilations of Muslim grammars? 2) Whether independent compositions or adaptations, were the grammars produced by Jews, or by Arabs and then copied in Hebrew characters by Jews? 3) What was the target audience of the grammars?

Maria Angeles Gallego, CSIC, Madrid, Spain

Title: Jewish Reception and Transmission of Arabic Linguistic Ideas

Abstract: The main developments of Jewish linguistic ideas in the Middle Ages are generally connected and explained in the light of Arabic linguistic theories. In this paper I intend to explore and analyse this process by focusing on the literature that Jews seem to be especially interested in including the works of the Muslim Andalusi scholar al-‐Zubaydi.

Avi Tal, Tel-‐Aviv University, Israel

Title: Comparison to Arabic as an Exegetical Method in the Writhings of Tanḥūm ha-‐Yerūšalmī

Abstract: This paper will discuss the comparison between Hebrew and Arabic as an exegetical method in the writings of Rabbi Tanḥūm ha-‐Yerušalmi, an important biblical commentator and lexicographer (Egypt, 1219–1291). I will argue that it constitutes an example of the symbiotic relationship between the Arabic and Judaeo-‐Arabic cultures in the field of linguistics (for which Hava Lazarus-‐Yafeh coined the term Intertwined Worlds). It should be noticed that this method was rather controversial and some linguists criticized and condemned its very use. In addition, I will point out that Tanḥūm's commentary reflects an assimilation or an absorption of advanced linguistic knowledge, to which he was exposed to as an eclectic exegete knowledgeable in the Arabic grammatical tradition as well as in techniques from Quranic exegesis (for example, the extensive usage of ideas and technical terms, such as badal [= permutation of letters], taqlib or Qalb [= metathesis] and ḥaḍf [= elision of letters or words]). As I will show, Tanḥūm did not hesitate to adopt and even improve notions and insights that he had found in writings of Arab grammarians – ideas and terminology that he applied later on in his own works. It seems therefore that one should refer to him as an eclectic exegete who succeeded in innovating by suggesting some original commentaries, in a period which has been defined in the research as a period of stagnation (from 1250 to 1550 CE).


Session 002:

History of Hebrew Linguistics

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: The Hebrew Grammatical Tradition

And its Interactions with Other schools of Grammar

Chair: Geoffrey Khan

Aharon Maman, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: The Adaptation of Semitic and Latin Grammatical Theories and its Furtherance in the Study of Biblical Hebrew

Abstract: Major trends of Biblical Hebrew studies in the Middle-‐Ages consisted in adapting existing grammatical theories, initially developed for Semitic languages (Syriac, then Arabic) or for Latin. These theories were applied as far as possible -‐-‐ i.e. for those parts of Hebrew which were suitable to fit into the existing 'foreign' paradigms -‐-‐ for the description of Biblical Hebrew (to some extent in a speculative way). Hebrew philologists, however, made their own contributions, not only by fitting Hebrew into those paradigms, but by adding innovations and building other layers thus enhancing both the Study of Hebrew and the Bible in particular, and the study of comparative philology in general. In terms of historical judgement, large parts of those old studies lasted up to our time, whereas others where experimental and temporary only. Many names of great contributors to this process will be mentioned, such as, Saadia Gaon, Hai Gaon, Ibn Janah, Abu-‐l-‐Faraj Harun, Abraham de Balmes, to mention but a few.

José Martínez Delgado, Universidad de Granada, Spain

Title: The Isagoge by Porphyry and the Andalusi Hebrew Lexycography (10th-‐11th centuries)

Abstract: I shall show how the first Andalusi Hebrew lexicographers used the tree of live displayed by Porphyry in his Isagoge to the Biblical Hebrew in order to catalogue and rebuilt this branch of the Hebrew Language.

Jesús de Prado Plumed, EPHE, Paris, France / Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain / Herbert D. Katz for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Title: When in Rome, do as the Latins learn (Hebrew): Alfonso de Zamora’s ‘Epistle to the Jews of Rome’ (1526)

Abstract: The converso Hebrew professor Alfonso de Zamora (ca. 1474-‐ca. 1545) published what became a popular Latin grammar of Hebrew in Alcalá de Henares (Spain) in 1526. These Introductiones artis grammatice hebraice nunc recenter edite rely on and expand the Hebrew manual included in the sixth volume of the monumental Complutensian Polyglot (1515), probably authored by Zamora as well. In his pedagogically oriented grammar, Zamora interweaves Jewish medieval philological traditions with an exposition structured following the rules of Latinate grammatical conventions and a punctual anti-‐Jewish polemical tone. Humanism has traditionally been single-‐handedly as the right angle to tackle Zamora’s long-‐lasting contributions. “Humanism”, too often an ideologically loaded term, can fail to ascertain the richness and the ambiguities of the work of early modern Iberian scholars, of whom Zamora was one. In my paper, I will examine one of the several texts included by Zamora in his 1526 expanded and refined grammar: his במשובתם אתם לתפוש רומה במדינת אשר היהודים אל ספרד ממכלות המחבר ששלח אגרת , alternatively known in Latin as Epistola autoris ad infideles Hebraeos vrbis Romae, qua manifeste redarguit eorum perfidiam. It is a 48 pages long Hebrew epistle that Zamora says he had sent before (olim) to the Jews of Rome and which might have been circulating as a manuscript. Zamora’s argument is sustained by a consistent appeal to properly learning Hebrew by having recourse to the conventions of Latin grammatical tradition—a claim that is otherwise contradicted by the corpus of 30 manuscripts that he copied, restored or used, mostly made up by Jewish grammatical classics (the Qamhis, Ibn Caspi, Ibn Ezra), generally with accompanying Latin or Spanish translations. As it has been argued by recent scholarship, the Iberian

contribution to Christian Hebraism is a particularly neglected chapter of the history of early modern scholarship in Europe. In my paper, I will address whether a humanistic standpoint conveniently describes the work carried upon by early modern Hebraists, namely Alfonso de Zamora. I will also address the question of how interreligious polemics fruitfully and paradoxically pushed the interest in learning and teaching Hebrew and how teaching was shaped by this polemical interest. These are questions that seem relevant to ask in order to reassess the interactions between the Hebrew grammatical tradition and other grammatical traditions and to evaluate the role of Spanish Hebrew scholars in a Spain deprived of her (legal) Jews.

Yehonatan Wormser, University of Haifa, Israel

Title: New Ideas in the Traditional Hebrew Grammar: The Grammatical Theory of Rabbi Zalman Hanau

Abstract: Solomon Zalman Hanau (Germany, 1687-‐1756), was an important Jewish Hebrew grammarian. He wrote a few grammatical treatises, and he had a very brave and original ideas. He introduced many new grammatical methods and original points of view, which had a great influence on the grammatical ways of thinking of the scholars of his period and after. In the fore coming congress I would like to introduce a few of his grammatical innovations and their influence on later grammarian's way of thinking.


Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 13

Session: 001:


9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Jewish-‐Christian / Christian-‐Jewish Polemics in the Middle Ages

Organizer: Ursula Ragacs

Chair: Piero Capelli

Ursula Ragacs, Universität Wien, Austria

Title: Paris 1240: Christians and Jews defining Talmudic Aggadot

Abstract: Whenever referring to Jewish traditional literature in his Dialogus contra Iudaeos Petrus Alfonsi used the words doctrina doctorum vestrorum. The texts Petrus Alfonsi quoted under this heading were taken out of the Talmud and they were always aggadic ones. Petrus Alfonsi surely wanted his Christian readers to perceive the Talmud as the authoritative religious Jewish book per se. The translation of the Hebrew word Talmud with the Latin doctrina on the one hand transported this picture, while on the other hand fitted the need of a verbatim translation, as both words can be understood as simply meaning "teaching". But according to this we have to state, that, aside from translating the word Talmud as he did, Petrus Alfonsi never used the words halakhah or aggadah or translations of them. In the frame of the Christian-‐Jewish controversy the concepts of halakha and aggada were an issue for the first time in the so called first disputation on the Talmud in Paris 1240. As the encounter was carefully planned by the Christians it was more than likely that they must have dealt in some way with the terms Talmud, halakhah and aggadah before the debate really happened. I asked myself how this had been done and if it might have had any impact on their Jewish counterparts. My paper is an answer to this question.

Alexander Fidora, ICREA, Barcelona, Spain

Title: The Latin Talmud and Christian-‐Jewish Polemic

Abstract: The Latin Talmud is indisputably a landmark in the history of Christian-‐Jewish relations in the Middle Ages. This paper will briefly present our edition project of the so-‐called "Extractiones de Talmud" along with problems and first findings.

Harvey Hames, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Was Conversion on the Agenda? Reconsidering Barcelona 1263

Abstract: Was the famous disputation between Friar Paul and Nahmanides for the purpose of achieving the latter's conversion? Based on a re-‐reading of the Latin and Hebrew texts, I will suggest that the purpose of the disputation was not conversion, but the first significant attempt to use Rabbinic texts to bolster Christian faith and identity.


Session 002:


11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Jewish-‐Christian / Christian-‐Jewish Polemics in the Middle Ages

Chair: Ursula Ragacs

Piero Capelli, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italy

Title: Editing Thirteenth-‐century Polemical Texts

Abstract: Many Hebrew literary sources for both the history and the intellectual history of the Jews in the Middle Ages are still utilized, translated and interpreted based on nineteenth-‐century editions. In most cases, these are methodologically outdated and based on incomplete surveys of the manuscript evidence. This mars our understanding of the fortune and reuse of such literary documents by the Jews themselves during the late Middle Ages and throughout the modern era; it also prevents a full appreciation of the interpretive prisms through which the Jews read key historical events in their immediate aftermath. This paper will discuss two cases from the thirteenth century: the Hebrew account of the Paris trial against the Talmud and the letter of Ya'aqov ben Eliyyah to the convert Pablo Cristiani.

Görge Hasselhoff, Käte Hamburger Kolleg, Ruhr-‐Universität Bochum, Germany

Title: The Parisian Talmud Trials and the Translations of Rashi's Bibel Commentaries

Abstract: Before or in the aftermath of the Talmud disputations of 1239 an anonymous translator (perhaps Theobaldus de Saxonnia OP) provided Latin translations of excerpts of the Talmud. These excerpts are accompanied by a list of 160 excerpts taken from Rashi’s Bible commentaries. The oldest extant manuscript known (13th CE) is kept in Paris, but there are at least two further mediaeval and one early modern copies. In my talk I will introduce into the content of the translations. In a second step I will show which texts by Rashi are contained in the manuscript and how the translator translated. Although at first sight the texts seem to be rather free translations that have little in common with Rashi I will show that the translator was close to his 'Vorlage' which he abbreviated in many cases.

Alexandra Cuffel, Ruhr Universitaet, Germany

Title: Jesus, the Misguided Magician: The (Re-‐)emergence of the Toledot Yeshu in Thirteenth-‐Century Iberia and its Uses

Abstract: In both Mafteah ha-‐Shemot by the Jewish mystic, Abraham Abulafia (1240-‐post-‐1291 CE) and the Pugio Fidei by the Dominican Friar Ramon Martí (d. post-‐1284), full versions or elements of the Jewish anti-‐gospel, known as the Toledot Yeshu are clearly recounted for the first time in European sources since the

description by Agobard of Lyons in De Judaicis superstionibus in the ninth century. Passages linking straying Jews, Christianity, Egypt, menstruation and magic in other thirteenth-‐century Iberian kabbalistic and literary texts, such as the Zohar or Ibn Sahula’s Mashal ha-‐ Qadmoni provide less definitive but nevertheless tantalizing hints that some version(s) of the Toledot Yeshu were circulating among Jews in Iberia and gaining popularity there as a polemical tool to denigrate Jesus and those who might be tempted by Christianity, and as an entertaining tale, which portrayed Jesus, at best, as a pathetic, often impure, and ultimately unsuccessful magician. I will argue that versions of the Toledot Yeshu started appearing in Iberia because of the circulation and translations of Judeo-‐Arabic versions of the story. Jews in Iberia, having close contact with or being part of Arabic-‐speaking Jewish communities in Al-‐Andalus, the Maghreb, or the Middle East, were familiar with both oral and written (Judeo-‐) Arabic polemic against Christianity. They adopted and adapted such traditions in their search for effective polemic against Christianity, even as individual Christian polemicists, like Ramon Martí, devoted to the study of Hebrew and Arabic sources learned of these arguments and attempted to refute them. The case of the translation of a version of Qiṣṣat mujādalat al-‐‘usquf from Judeo-‐Arabic into the Hebrew Nestor ha-‐Komer in the late twelfth century is well known. The emergence of the Toledot Yeshu in the following century is part of the same impulse. Yet Iberian Jews adopted or emphasized different narrative sequences in the Toledot to suit their needs. Variations in what version of the Toledot Yeshu was known or used by individual authors may have been due to their knowing different version of the Toledot, however, I will suggest that the Toledot Yeshu tradition’s primarily oral nature made it extremely malleable and therefore appealing because of its adaptability. Jews chose elements based on what aspect of Christian anti-‐Jewish rhetoric they wished to refute: the anti-‐Jewish elements of the story of the true cross (the version in Pugio Fidei); Christian claims about Mary’s and therefore Jesus’ special purity (Abraham Abulafia); or Jesus’s capacity to perform miracles (all, but especially Ibn Sahula).

Liubov Chernin, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: The Jews Who Sold Spain: Image of the Jew in the Medieval Conception of Arabic Conquest of Spain

Abstract: Arabic conquest of 711 was a major event in the medieval Spanish history. It was more than once interpreted by the authors of all three denominations, inhabiting the Iberian Peninsula. Chroniclers and folk tradition elaborated several more or less “creative” versions of how and why it happened. One of them was related with the traditional image of Jews as traitors – the Jews allegedly made a complot with Moors and helped them to conquer Visigothic kingdom. This motive grew up from the accusation of Jews in the conspiracy with their transmarine co-‐religionists in 694 and from the reports of some Arab chroniclers that Jews collaborated with conquerors in some cities. Most of texts regarding this subject understandably were composed by Christian authors. The first references of these events in the Jewish literature appear only in the chronicles of Late Middle Ages, and their authors took them from Christian sources. We shall revise the roots of this story, which lie in the Visigothic tradition, how it was rethought in the popular romances and Christian chronicles, why it was revived in the Late Middle Ages, and how the “Jewish” line was interlaced with other popular plots about Moorish conquest, first of all with the famous story about king Rodrigo’s seduction of the count Julian’s daughter. These considerations can help to propose some new variants of solving of an old problem – why was Visigothic period “forgotten” in the historical memory of Jewish people.


Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 14

Session: 001:

Shoah and Antisemitism

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Jewish Responses to the Blood Libel through the Centuries

Organizer: Elissa Bemporad

Chair: Elissa Bemporad

Magda Teter, Wesleyan University, USA

Title: Between Ashkenaz and Sepharad: Jewish Responses to Blood Libels in Premodern Europe

Abstract: This paper will discuss the different responses by Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Italian Jews to blood accusations in premodern Europe. While Sephardic and Italian Jews were not shy to respond to blood accusations in print, Ashkenazi, and in particular Polish Jews, focused on political interventions. Indeed, Polish Jews did not respond in print until the second half of the 18th century, and then it was by publishing legal documents rather than apologetic and polemical treatises.

Emanuele D'Antonio, University of Udine, Italy

Title: Responding to the Myth of 'Ritual Murder' in 1850s' Italy. Jews of the Venetian and the Blood Libel of Badia Polesine.

Abstract: Proposal: Emerged from a periphereal area of Venetian in 1855, the blood libel of Badia Polesine is generally considered the last one in the history of Italian society. My contribution aims to reconstruct this case that took place in the age of Emancipation, focussing on Jewish responses to the spread of the myth of 'ritual murder' in Gentile society. I would like to analyze the (successful) defensive strategies undertaken by Jewish Communities of the Venetian area, -‐ their heads, rabbis and intellectuals, -‐ in their legal, religious, cultural and political aspects.

Elissa Bemporad, Queens College at The City University of New York, USA

Title: Confronting Blood: Jewish Responses to the Ritual Murder Accusation in Interwar Poland and the Soviet Union

Abstract: By focusing on Poland and the Soviet Union -‐ home to the two largest Jewish communities in pre-‐Holocaust Europe – this paper will take a new look at the ways in which Jews challenged the ritual murder charge, wrote about it, openly confronted the accusers, and turned to local and central authorities seeking justice and asserting their role as Polish and Soviet citizens. This study will examine the extent to which Jews living in two very dissimilar geopolitical systems felt empowered to act upon their rights as citizens by the new socio-‐political reality that followed World War I. In some cases Soviet Jews displayed a higher level

of assertiveness and self-‐confidence in demanding that fomenters of the blood libel be punished, unseen before in Russia, or elsewhere in Europe at the time.

Cristiana Facchini, University of Bologna, Italy

Title: Early Modern Jewish Responses to Blood Libel Allegations. Patterns and Models

Abstract: My paper aims to offer some new insights to the problem of blood libel in Europe, focusing on Jewish responses from the 17th century to the 19th century, claiming that these defenses provided a multi-‐layered model for defenses against other accusations as well, which comprises historical modes of thought and legal practices.


Session 002:

Contemporary Israel

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Chaim Weizman: between Britain, Germany and Palestine/Israel

Organizer: Meir Chazan

Chair: Meir Chazan

Naama Sheffi, Sapir College, Israel

Title: "Something close to miserable love": Weizmann and German Jewry

Abstract: Chaim Weizmann's contacts with German Jewry and German concepts are the focus of this talk, which will analyze Weizmann's studies period in Germany as the source of his intellectual and national thought and a significant influence upon his activities in the academy and his involvement in the efforts to rescue German Jews.

Uri Cohen, Tel-‐Aviv University, Israel

Title: From Political Rejection to Scientific Renewal: Chaim Weizmann and Founding the Sieff Research Institute in Mandatory Palestine

Abstract: The establishment of the Daniel Sieff Institute in Rehovoth in 1934 was a project of one man – Chaim Weizmann. It was a chemistry institute dedicated to scientific research only, with neither teaching nor granting academic degrees. That was its uniqueness in comparison to contemporary higher education institutes at that time in Palestine – The Hebrew University in Jerusalem (1925) and The Technion in Haifa (1924). The Institute was based on the assumption that only basic research can lead to significant scientific results, which in turn can lead to valuable applicable results. Some questions arise here, such as: Who supported the Research Institute, and who objected to it, and what were the motives? All along this

discussion I am fascinated by the trials of the Jewish community in Palestine to copy the models of leading scientific institutes in Europe. This desire to raise scientific institutes is not taken for granted when one considers the local needs of a comparatively small population with limited resources and poorly developed industry. The main argument in this essay is that establishing a chemistry Institute was not limited only to the work of the scientist in his laboratory. The new institute was part of a political project which was founded on the background of harsh conflicts between Weizmann the politician and key people at the Hebrew University on the background of his rejection from the leadership of the Zionist Organization.

Meir Chazan, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: The First President of the State of Israel

Abstract: The First President of the State of Israel In 1948–1952, Chaim Weizmann served as the first President of the State of Israel. He came to this position flush with disappointments and bitterness, after having been unseated as president of the Zionist Organization at the twenty-‐second Zionist Congress (December 1946) and deprived of much of his political influence at the initiative of David Ben-‐Gurion, head of Mapai and first Prime Minister of the State of Israel. His health problems overshadowed his ability to function and burdened his capacity to handle the duties of the presidential office. In historiography, it has become conventional wisdom to describe Weizmann at this stage of his life as a “lion in winter,” cloistered most of the time in his home at the eponymous institute in Rehovot, occasionally receiving guests who visited him chiefly for reasons of politeness and honor, and largely uninvolved in the fledgling country’s public and political life. My lecture challenges this convention and examines, on the basis of recent findings, Weizmann’s real contribution in his last years and the ways in which his persona filled the presidential function with content.

Glenda Abramson, University of Oxford, UK

Title: Ottomanisation and the Jews of Palestine in the First World War

Abstract: In 1909 military service was made compulsory for all Ottoman male subjects of a certain age. For the Ottoman Jewish communities before the First World War this universal conscription became a token of support for the Empire. In the Jewish Settlement in Palestine (yishuv) compulsory conscription also applied to foreign Jews who were forced to become Ottoman citizens in order to be allowed to remain in the country and avoid military service in their home countries. Other Jews, encouraged by the Zionist leadership, chose to enlist into the Turkish army in the belief that this would affect the political future of the Jews in Palestine. Yet for many, idealism could not withstand the brutal realities of army service, which often led to desertion and, consequently, severe punishment. Many men were sent to the dreaded Labour Battalions (tawabeer-‐al-‐amale), leaving their families to suffer the privations of the war in the yishuv. A large proportion of foreign Jews left to go into voluntary exile in Egypt. This paper will discuss the implications of Ottomanisation, which were far-‐reaching and which affected the entire social, political, economic and literary fabric of the yishuv.


Wednesday 23rd July

Room: 15

Session: 001:

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Jewish Reception of Josephus since c.1750

Organizer: Martin Goodman

Chair: Irene Zwiep

Martin Goodman, Oxford University, UK

Title: Themes, Problems and Issues in Jewish Reception of Josephus

Abstract: The paper will examine the themes and problems which have emerged during the research project and will indicate some of the remaining areas which would benefit from further research.

Tessa Rajak, Somerville College, University of Oxford, UK

Title: The AHRC Josephus Project: New Interpretations and New Findings.

Abstract: As of July 2014, our AHRC-‐funded Project on the Post-‐Enlightenment Jewish Reception of Josephus will have completed its programme of four International Workshops held at the Yarnton premises of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. It is a pleasure to share with the members of the EAJS Congress our first review of the outcomes of this part of our activities. The remit of the Workshops has been broad, including, in the first Workshop, the indispensable background, both Jewish and Christian, going back to late antiquity, and covering also the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Early Modern Period. Among the topics about which much has been learned, is, indeed, the inextricable connection between the Jewish and the Christian Josephus. Morevover, from the beginning and right down to our own time, the fate and the understanding of the enduringly popular Mediaeval Hebrew, Josephus-‐based history of Yosippon has been intertwined to a surprising extent with that of the ‘real’ Josephus. The rediscovery of Josephus among Jews has been an important part of the unfolding of the Enlightenment: he has been indispensable in providing Jews with a history that could both be seen as their own and connect them to the wider world of the classical part. The labours of a small number of scholars and interpreters who engaged particularly closely with Josephus were crucial in his dissemination, notably Heinrich Graetz, in his histories, and Kalman Schulman, through his Hebrew translations, published in Vilna from 1859 onwards. It is an achievement for which appreciation is due to the participants and discussants in our Workshops that the role of these individual protagonists, in their cultural contexts, can now much better understood.

Saskia Dönitz, Free University of Berlin, Germany

Title: Sefer Yosippon’s Reception in Medieval Hebrew Literature


Session 002:

Funding for Jewish Studies

11.00-‐13.00

Round Table

Organizers: Philip Alexander / Jonathan Starbrook

Thursday 24th July

Room: 01

Session: 001:

Jewish Philosophy

9.00-‐10.30

Long Term Evolution in Jewish Theology

Chair:

Abraham Melamed, University of Haifa, Israel

Title: From Law to Religion: The Evolution of the Term 'Dat' in the History of Jewish Culture

Abstract: My paper will outline the main findings of a book on this subject, which is due to be published in Hebrew in early 2014. It traces the manner by which the term 'dat', originally a Persian word, which means 'law', was adopted in the late biblical period, and the manner by which its usage and meaning evolved throughout the ages, always adopting to changing historical and cultural circumstances. In the late middle ages, it denoted law, even human law in particular; therefore, many scholars refused to use it in connection with divine law and the Mosaic constitution. With the advent of modernity, however, the meaning of this term radically changed, due to Christian -‐ mostly Protestant -‐ influences, and now denotes 'religion', in the meaning this term acquired in modern times. The meaning of the term 'dat', thus, radically shifted from law, even human law, into a set of theological beliefs. My paper will concentrate on the modern shift of the meaning of this term, its causes and implications.

Harry Fox, University of Toronto, Canada

Title: A Theology of Climate Change in Jewish Sources

Abstract: In this paper I shall demonstrate that in antiquity causes for global warming were considered to be sin and response to sin in the divine scheme of retribution. This, of course, is a highly violent understanding of the world and this theological construct is a far cry from the secularist response and discourse available today. Nonetheless, they do share certain surprising affinities. First and foremost is the belief buttressed by the best scientific assessment available that climate change is indeed caused by human beings who must take responsibility for their actions so as not to suffer the consequences of their behavior. Second these activities in either scenario, that is, whether good or bad, are considered to contribute to the welfare or detriment of the environment. Third, the suffering that results in relation to such may be widespread and go well beyond self-‐harm to the individual so as to affect all of humanity. Though not explicit in Scripture, the rabbis (commenting on Genesis 18:16 in bBaba Metzia 86b) see God as the controller of nature who lets the sun out of its sheath in order to increase the effectiveness of its heat now raised to full blast. With our secularly attenuated ears believing natural phenomena govern the weather obeying natural laws, it is strange to hear how God is considered by the rabbinic sages to be the direct cause of this depicted heat source. Yet this control over nature is precisely the one made explicit also within Scripture itself well before the idea gets poetically rendered by the rabbinic sages. The expectation

for sinful behavior in Judaism as a fiery hell which receives its best depiction in a visitation to hell and Paradise by Moses in a midrash based on Song of Songs (2:3). Frymer-‐Kensky comments on this environmental tension: "Humans depend on the earth's creative powers and the fate of the earth depends on human behavior." Frymer-‐Kensky sees the biblical response given in Isaiah 66:22 "a new heaven and a new earth" as a message of hope for Israel and humankind. Indeed Isaiah's vision of an apocalyptic end-‐of-‐days meaning is imbued with special significance in Jewish and Christian millinarianism. Unfortunately, however, this has led to a degree of anti-‐environmentalism in all three major monotheistic religions.

Jerzy Ochman, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

Title: Les transpositions du sacre dans le judaïsme du XXe siècle

Abstract: Au XX siècle il y avait dans le judaïsme quatre transpositions du sacré – du super-‐naturalisme aux thèmes importants pour la mentalité juive ou universelle. La première transposition a été faite par les sionistes, qui ont substitué à la religion – l’idée de la nation ou de la nouvelle patrie. Dans le sionisme politique, ce changement a été fait par Th. Herzl; Dans le sionisme socialiste – par A.D. Gordon, Ch. Zydlowski et J.Ch. Brenner. Dans le sionisme spirituel par S. Czernikowski, Achad Haam et S. Dubnow. Dans le sionisme culturel par M. Nordau et Eliezer ben Jehuda. Dans le sionisme pratique par M. J. Berdyczewski et A. Ruppin. Dans le sionisme israélien –par Z. Sh. Szazar et le courant sabra (J. Ratosz). La deuxième réinterprétation du judaïsme a été faite au nom du naturalisme. Ce processus a été commencé dans les siècles précédents (B.Spinoza) et a eu son cime dans l’œuvre de rabbin M. M. Kaplan Judaism without supernaturalism (1958). La troisième réinterprétation a été par les idées de l’humanisme. Le rabbin T. Sherwin Wine l’a fait dans l’œuvre Humanistic Judaism (1958). La quatrième réinterprétation a été faite par le rabbin M. M.Kaplan dans l’œuvre Judaism as a civilization (1934). Cette œuvre, outre qu’elle représente une “reconstruction” du judaïsme, propage la mise au point de l’idée de la civilisation et incite au travail pour la civilisation. Chaque transposition a été faite selon une méthode bien pensée. La méthode opérative de chaque opération a commencée par le changement de l’imagination religieuse en l’imagination (patriotique, naturaliste, humaniste et civilisatrice) proposée par les psychologues, qui disaient que tout changement d’idées doit être anticipé et préparé par un changement de l’imagination comme base des idées et des notions. Cette méthode a été proposée par le rabin R. L. Rubenstein dans l’œuvre The religious imagination. A study in Psychoanalysis and Jewish Theology (1971, 1985). Au début du XXe siècle, c’est la transposition “réconstructioniste” qui est en vogue et qui se répand chez les juifs et remplace les notions d’au-‐delà (par ex. Dieu) par les notions de la civilisation. C’est elle qui stimule les Juifs au travail pour la civilisation. Ils en résultent des grands succès des Juifs dans les inventions et dans le domaine de la culture contemporaine et les présente comme une “nation élue” pour le développement de la civilisation mondiale contemporaine. Là où l’imagination des Juifs n’était pas changée et là où la vie religieuse perdure, les nouvelles idées (patrie, nature, humanisme et civilisation) n’ont qu’une valeur théorique et restent à coté de leur religiosité. Là où ça a réussi, le travail et le dévouement pour la patrie, de la nature, de l’humanité et de la civilisation devient un sacrum des Juifs.


Session 002:

Philosohy, Religion and Politics I

11.00-‐13.00

Chair:

Ottfried Fraisse, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

Title: Martin Schreiner's Unpublished "Systematic Philosophy of Religion" – Continuity and Innovation Concerning Ignác Goldziher's Method of Researching Religion

Abstract: Martin Schreiner (1863-‐1926) came to Budapest in 1881 and registered at the Landesrabbinerschule and at the University Budapest. At the latter institution Ignác Goldziher was teaching Arabic. Martin Schreiner became a close pupil of Goldziher and from him he received decisive impulses and orientation for his later scientific work. They were even linked by a lifelong friendship as proven by their personal correspondence. Although educated as a rabbi Martin Schreiner felt more attracted by (medieval) Jewish thinking especially its dependence from Muslim thought. This interested was heavily inspired by Ignác Goldziher. Like Goldziher Schreiner located his research on the development of Judaism within the discipline and methodology of religious science. Like Goldziher he regarded the development of Judaism as being dependent on its surrounding cultures. However, while Goldziher was stressing the cultural-‐anthropological aspects of development Schreiner believed in the possibility to proof its underlying ideas. Therefore, he argued for the necessity to elaborate a comprehensive system of Jewish theology. The lecture wants to show how Schreiner in his (unpublished) "Systematic philosophy of religion" developed further Goldziher's notion of Jewish religion as outlined in his lecture series "Essence and Evolution of Judaism".

Daniel Conway, Texas A&M University, USA

Title: Arendt in Jerusalem: Plurality and the Future of Evil

Abstract: Largely overshadowed by the controversies surrounding Hannah Arendt’s reference to the banality of evil is her signal insight into the failure of modern morality to instill in human beings a fixed sense of personal responsibility. In an effort to retrieve this insight, I characterize banality as a condition marked by a socially useful but morally irresponsible self-‐division. As exemplified by Adolf Eichmann, banality thus suggests a semi-‐permanent condition of arrested moral development, wherein agents escape the full implications of the moral responsibility they apportion to themselves. They do so, moreover, while claiming, much as Eichmann did in Jerusalem, that they harbor no ill will toward those whom they have harmed in the process of honoring (what they take to be) their moral obligations. I thus aim to demonstrate that banality names a (defective) moral condition, wherein agents may assert their capacity for autonomous self-‐determination while simultaneously refusing any specific assignment of moral responsibility. Evil is banal, that is, in the event that agents hold (and understand) themselves to be morally responsible in a general, abstract sense—able, like Eichmann, to enumerate their good deeds while citing relevant moral authorities and duties—and morally irresponsible when urged to consider their concrete obligations to identifiable others. Evil is banal, that is, in the event that it is caused, furthered, or proliferated by professed creatures of conscience, i.e., agents who know and respect the difference between good and evil but who have been persuaded to reverse the customary valence assigned to these terms. As described, the banality of evil poses a formidable challenge to those of us who follow in Arendt’s footsteps. By presenting banality as potentially emblematic of late modern moral life, Arendt effectively exposes our regnant systems of law and morality as inadequate to the task of rendering a just verdict of the evils that may be traced to agents who, like Eichmann, are devoid of malevolence. Out of sheer thoughtlessness, Arendt contends, Eichmann committed a crime against humanity, which she elects to characterize as a crime against human plurality. Indeed, this is the precise sense in which Eichmann’s crime

may be said to be unprecedented: Never before has the plurality of the human condition been placed at mortal risk. Owing to the emergence of this new species of criminal, in fact, we late moderns have contracted a new, and heretofore unknown, responsibility: We are pledged to guard the plurality that is predicated of our worldly existence. In the case of Eichmann, Arendt believes, we have honored this new responsibility, albeit imperfectly. Despite her withering criticisms of the prosecution, in fact, she objects neither to the verdict pronounced in Jerusalem nor to the death sentence handed down by the judges. Justice, she avers, was served. At the same time, however, she believes that we late moderns are not yet in full, conscious possession of this new responsibility. The task she bequeaths to us, or so I wish to maintain, is to reform our laws and norms to accommodate this new responsibility, and to remake ourselves in the process. It now falls to us, in short, to become the legitimate guardians of human plurality, even after performing the signal act that reflects our accession to this exalted station.

George Y. Kohler, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Jewish-‐Christian Debates on Theology in Germany between 1830-‐1870

Abstract: It is commonly assumed that intellectual Christian anti-‐Semitism reached the level of 19th century German universities only with the published views of the Berlin historian Heinrich von Treitschke and the subsequent great public debate that evolved in 1880 about the “Jewish Question”. It can be shown, however, that controversies about religiously motivated anti-‐Judaism between Jewish and Christian intellectuals were widespread during at least half a century before the Treitschke-‐debate. Almost every important German Jewish scholar of the period was at some point in his life engaged in often unpleasant arguments with different Christian politicians or academics who had, from a Jewish point of view, spread slander and deprecation of specific theological aspects or of parts of the religious literature of Judaism. Jewish thinkers such as Abraham Geiger (against Heinrich Julius Holtzmann), Samuel Hirsch and Gotthold Salomon (against Bruno Bauer), Samuel Holdheim (against Friedrich Julius Stahl), Ludwig Philippson (against David Friedrich Strauss) and many others took up the challenge against these supposed attacks as volunteer defenders of the Jewish religion. The paper proposes to follow the argumentation of both sides as interesting and so far almost un-‐discovered expressions of Jewish-‐Christian academic debates about theology in 19th century Germany. It soon turns out that we encounter here a new and highly influential phenomenon: While the Middle Ages were still characterized by often ugly and simple polemics between the two religions, the modern age of reason and tolerance brought philosophical seriousness to these discussions – without that fundamental theological differences would in any way be diminished. For the first time Jewish thinkers now tried to find a universal, cultural justification for the continued existence of Judaism, positioning their religion within the history of world civilization as an important factor of general ethical and religious progress. Christian theologians, meanwhile, were forced to adapt their views on Judaism to their own new rational (Kant/Hegel) or emotional (Schleiermacher) concept of religion that would demand a re-‐interpretation of the traditional supersession-‐theory. Both sides, however, worked hard to strictly differentiate their respective modern and liberal theologies from each other, particularly because they had come so very close.


Session 003:

Philosophy, Religion and Politics II

14.00-‐15.30

Chair:

Silvia Cresti, School of Jewish Theology, University of Potsdam, Germany

Title: The Ghetto of Rome: Topography of Images and Relations

Abstract: My paper aims at analyzing how the Jewish ghetto of Rome has been represented by Jewish and Non-‐Jewish writers and intellectuals such as, for example, Ferdinand Gregorovius and Abraham Berliner, Leo Baeck, Cecil Roth or Elsa Morante and Giacomo Debenedetti during the 19th and 20th century. I will interpret these accounts first as historical sources on specific social relations and historical events. I will then draw inferences from these accounts about the writers themselves, questioning issues such as: can we speak about a Jewish as opposed or differentiated to a non-‐Jewish narrative? Where are the encounters, where the similarities and where the differences?

Benjamin Brown, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: The Platonic Republic of Da'at Torah

Abstract: The Ultra-‐Orthodox doctrine of Da'at Torah – that positions the 'the great Torah scholars' as the supreme political leaders of the community – is not only a political product of social circumstances: It is also one of the very few political theologies that were developed in 20th century Judaism. Even if it has never been formulated systematically (as is often the case in Haredi thought), its proponents give it various explanations that amount to full-‐fledged theory with a number of variants. The doctrine was developed in the Litvish (Lithuanian) circles of Agudat Israel, and therefore we can see it as a culmination of the Litvish ideal of the Torah scholar, or as a as a Litvish version of the Hasidic Tzaddik. However, besides these "internal" developments, we cannot ignore the basic resemblance between the doctrine of Da'at Torah and the Platonic vision of a republic ruled by the philosophers. Indeed, while the ultra-‐orthodox rabbis do not look like Greek philosophers and do not engage in philosophy, both of the doctrines share the nuclear idea is that the intellectual prodigies of the society are those who should rule. In my paper I will claim that this proximity is not altogether coincidental. Indeed, Da'at Torah developed from a the Litvish ideal of the Torah scholar, but that ideal in turn is not only an extrapolation of the Talmudic ideal of the Talmid Hakham, but also a late transformation of Maimonides' ideal of the philosopher. This is manifested by the fact that Litvish authors often use Maimonidean terms referring to philosophers in order to explain the work of the Torah scholars. Indeed, Maimonides himself left the ideal of the philosopher-‐king to the messianic utopia, but the Ultra-‐Orthodox thinkers did not base themselves on this vision but rather on the idealization of the Torah scholars as paragons of wisdom and integrity, who therefore deserve to govern the community. The post of the supreme Torah scholar was never institutionalized, but in spite of that, and maybe thanks to that, it gained considerable social and moral power. And so, 2,200 after Plato's death, the current political model that may be considered as the one of the closest to his "republic" lives and operates in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem.

Uriel Barak, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Rabbi A. Y. Kook’s Attitude toward Jesus and toward Interest in his Figure in Contemporary Hebrew Literature

Abstract: Several papers have been written about twentieth century Jewish philosophy’s attitudes and connections to Christianity, but the attitude of religious Zionist thinkers to Christianity has not yet been addressed with the scope and depth it deserves. Similarly, there has been no study on this issue comparing the responses of religious Zionist thinkers to those of other Jewish thinkers of that time period who did not belong to this particular theological trend. The purpose of this lecture is to show that studying the attitudes toward Christianity within religious Zionist thought discloses bold and novel approaches, uncommon within twentieth century Orthodox Jewish thinking. In this lecture, I will focus on elucidating Rabbi A. Y. Kook’s views on Christianity and the linkage of these views to his conception of the people of Israel’s fate and destiny in the world. I will also point out the philosophical and kabbalistic sources and theological roots of R. Kook’s positions. I claim that R. Kook’s thought oscillated between two poles: the first reflects the traditional Jewish view of Christianity, which already existed within earlier Jewish thought, and the second expresses a novel and even bold approach in kabbalistic-‐mystical grappling with Christianity. During this lecture I will examine the extent to which this intellectual tension influenced his conceptions by examining several theoretical components of his conception of Christianity: his attitudes toward Jesus, the theological approach of Christianity, etc. I will also broadly examine his unique reaction to the sympathetic attitude and interest that contemporary Jewish writers had toward the figure of Jesus.


Session 004:

Orthodoxy and Identity

16.00-‐18.00

Chair:

David Sorotzkin, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Jewish Orthodoxy in Modern Europe: New Perspectives on Its Meaning, Periodization and Relation to Modernization and Secularization

Abstract: In this paper, I will attempt to provide a new explanation for the development of Orthodoxy in Judaism. I will present orthodoxy as a key and formative element of Jewish modernization that preceded and effected modern secular movements in various ways. Instead of portraying religion and secularization in Judaism as opposing poles, I will present them as two sides of a single process, i.e.: Modernity itself, which was formed primarily by new configurations of religious tradition. I will question the common understanding of secularization, in Jewish historiography, as an autonomous agent that threatened authoritarian religion, and led to its fortification by those responsible for safeguarding it.

Yosef Salmon, Ben-‐Gurion, Israel

Title: The Attitude of Orthodoxy to Christianity

Abstract: In the middle ages the general attitude of Judaism to Christianity was negative, where they were considered as idolatrous. Some changes in this stance is being introduced in the Halakhic literature in case

of practical issue, which had to do with practical matters, connected to making a living. Radical changes in this principle can be found in the rabbinical literature since the late 17th century and more so during the 18th century. This trend stopped in the years 1815-‐1816. The attitude to Christianity became again full of animosity in the rabbinical Pesiqa, more so in middle Europe. The purpose of this paper is to follow that trend and to try explaining the motives and the historical circumstances that played a role in those movements.

Arye Edrei, Tel-‐Aviv University, Israel

Title: From 'Who is a Jew', To 'Who should be a Jew': The Current Debate on Giyur (conversion) in Israel

Abstract: The question of "who is a Jew" has been at the heart of the public discourse from the early days of the State of Israel. The Law of Return – one of the most important and fundamental law of the State of Israel-‐ establishes that every Jew has the right to immigrate to the State of Israel and receive citizenship. Yet, the legislator refrained from identifying the Jew who is entitled to benefit from this law. The question of "who is a Jew" ignited the public and became the most profound and divisive controversy among the issues of religion and state in Israeli society. This was true despite the fact that its practical implications were rather peripheral, particularly relative to other more imminent questions, such as those relating to Sabbath observance and to issues of family status. Indeed, the importance and centrality of the question derived from its symbolic and declarative significance, as it touched a most sensitive nerve – defining the essence of Israeli identity. Would the State of Israel define its identity in religious terms related to the halakhah and the tradition of the Middle Ages, or in modern terms related to the ideas of nationalism and the enlightened ideas of the Haskalah. The height of the polemic and the transition to its second phase came in response to the Shalit ruling of the Israeli Supreme Court (March 1970), and the amendments to the Law of Return that were adopted in its wake. The change in the law – accepting objective standards inherently connected to the halakhic Jewish tradition , i.e. lineage from a Jewish mother and conversion -‐ was the first shot in the second stage of the polemic on the "who is a Jew" question: "who is a convert?" In addition, there was another change in the Law of Return, which established that a family member of a Jew has the right of return even if he is not a Jew. The purpose of this article was to allow for the immigration to Israel of mixed families, which was particularly needed in light of the newly ratified definition of "Jew". Despite the fact that this change in the law was unrelated to the question of identity or conversion, it significantly impacted the controversy over conversion that intensified in the wake of the large wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union. Until this last wave of immigration, the various religious parties and the varied streams within orthodoxy – haredi and religious Zionist -‐ stood united in the opinion that the halakhic standards of conversion should be adopted by Israeli law. It goes without saying that this was the attitude of the entire Orthodox rabbinic world. This dynamic has changed radically in recent years, however, as a fascinating and stormy controversy over conversion has erupted within religious society and among the rabbis themselves. This controversy has divided the religious world in Israel into two camps. In this lecture, I intend to describe the current conversion controversy in Israel. I will focus primarily on the internal halakhic arguments by analyzing the positions of the more prominent rabbis who have participated in the debate. I wish to show that the ideas that are presented in contemporary halakhic literature are rooted in 19th century halakhic literature of Europe that debated conversion in the instance of mixed marriages that occurred in light of the emancipation. Then as now, the debate centered around ideological positions relating to inclusion and exclusion.

Thursday 24th July

Room: 02

Session: 001:

Kabbalah

9.00-‐10.30

Chair: Jean-‐Pierre Rothschild

Miquel Beltrán, University of the Balearic Islands

Title: The Instrumentalization of Christian Theology in Abraham Cohen de Herrera's Puerta del Cielo

Abstract: Puerta del Cielo, the Kabbalistic treatise written by Abraham Cohen de Herrera in Amsterdam between 1620 and 1632, contains many references to philosophical arguments found in the works of Christian scholastic and neoscholastic theologians. For this reason, Puerta del Cielo has been considered by some scholars as the epigone of the exacerbated syncretism between Christian and Jewish religions vindicated by supporters of prisca theologia in Renaissance Italy. To the contrary, the aim of the paper is to prove that, through this syncretism, Herrera did not try to argue in favor of an ultimate unique truth from which every religion sprouts, but that he used Christian philosophy as a mere instrument in order to prove the highest truth of Jewish Kabbalah, as he himself confessed in some passages of Puerta del Cielo. We shall also try to demonstrate that one of the reasons for Herrera’s resorting to Christian theology was his intention to show before the Protestant leaders of Holland that his Kabbalistic account of the emanation of the worlds was compatible with the doctrinal tenets considered by them as fundamental truths of Christianity. Beyond the notorious similarity between the definition of First Cause –the Infinite or Ein-‐Sof-‐ in Puerta del Cielo, and that of the God-‐Substance in the first part of Spinoza’s Ethics, the aim of this project is to demonstrate that the entire ontological system built by Spinoza can be defined as the last step of the attempt of syncretism between philosophy and kabbalah carried out by Herrera in his main work. Puerta del cielo is unique in its extreme pretension to reconcile philosophical traits of the Neoplatonic Renaissance and Hebrew mystic, particularly the Lurianic system. The singularity of this attempt converted him into a more original thinker than what has been thought during the last decades. His work constitutes a sublime epigone of the syncretism between knowledges founded in the Italian Renaissance, on a prisca theological whose nature was unveiled by such Jewish thinkers as Alemanno, Yagel, Kaufmann, or Moscato, among others, whose texts contained many of the topics later developed in Puerta del Cielo. As it is well known, Herrera also cites many Christian works, particularly those of kabbalists like Pico della Mirandola, and other Renaissance thinkers as Marsilio Ficino, Patrizi, etc. Their influence is also perceptible in the other kabbalistic work by Herrera, La casa de la divinidad. We are interested in proving, however, that Herrera is more inclined to use philosophical arguments as intruments to prove the highest truth or kabbalah, and that philosophy has a mere subsidiary role in order to arrive to the understanding of the nature of Ein Sof and of the emanative process which concludes in this world, something that could lead Spinoza to consider that philosophical terminology was the idoneous tool to propagate the ultimate truth of Hebrew mystical thought. We want to introduce historiographical and literal proofs that the capital topics that Spinoza affirms in the Ethics and his other works are the same that kabbalists maintained, and that they are, inversely, different of the ones which.

Hernán Matzkevich, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

Title: Abraham Cohen de Herrera's Porta Coelorum and its Anti-‐Cartesian Readers

Abstract: Around 1675, Francis Mercury van Helmont and Christian Knorr von Rosenroth worked on a colossal proyect: the translation, study and editing of the fundamental texts of the Jewish Kabbalah. The former had established his residence in Ragley Hill, property of the Conway family, where he practiced medicine and acted as the intellectual tutor of Lady Conway, who would be in direct contact with the aforementioned works. Van Helmont's and von Rosenroth's editorial proyect is placed in the interest which, since the 16th century, the educated European elites had shown towards the Hebrew studies, was it from the context of humanist erudition or the neoplatonic currents from the renaissance. These intellectuals believed that Jewish tradition had the key to every theological matter around the meaning of the scriptures. This way, the duet conformed by van Helmont and von Rosenroth was convinced of having found the key to accessing the knowledge of the divine and natural truth. Within the texts included in the compendium which was finally published in 1677 under the title Kabbala Denudata was one which specially caught the attention of Conway, disciple, patient and patron of van Helmont. This was the Porta Coelorum by Abraham Cohen de Herrera, originally written in Spanish in the first decades of the 17th Century. In the only work we keep from Conway, she develops a Vitalistic manifest against mechanistic materialism. Hobbes, Descartes and Spinoza are the target of her attacks. Conway's antimechanistic spirituality, which echoes that of van Helmont and von Rosenroth, but also on those of Leibniz and Newton, drinks directly from the fountains of Cohen de Herrera. We will put on display those elements of Cohen de Herrera's philosophy which were included in the scientific-‐philosophic debates of the 17th Century through Conway's opuscule, related to the theory of mater, the body-‐mind relationship and the nature of space.

Angela Guidi, Paris, France

Title: "Recondita theologia" et "perniciosa ars": cabale et cabalistes dans la Bibliotheca magna rabbinica de Giulio Bartolocci

Abstract: Un réseau complexe d’échanges et de médiations a contribué à façonner, de part et d’autre, les relations judéo-‐chrétiennes entre Renaissance et Réforme catholique. Le retour à l’hebraica veritas promu à partir de la fin du XVe siècle avait ouvert la voie à la naissance de la méthode historico-‐critique et de la science des religions et alimenté le discours théologico-‐politique de la modernité naissante, tout en fournissant à l’ancien antagonisme à l’égard des Juifs et de leurs textes des sources et des arguments nouveaux. Au XVIIe siècle, dans le contexte de la Réforme catholique, les outils de l’érudition et de la philologie sont systématiquement mis au service du programme missionnaire de l’Eglise romaine : dès lors, les paradoxes théologiques et herméneutiques se multiplient et la production des polémistes chrétiens devient le théâtre privilégié des tensions et des contradictions qui caractérisent le discours savant sur les Juifs et le judaïsme. Ces problématiques rejoignent celles abordées par le congrès 2014 de l’EAJS. On souhaiterait ainsi participer au débat en proposant une réflexion sur la réception des sources et des thèmes cabalistiques en milieu contre-‐reformé. Dans notre exposé, on se propose notamment d’examiner la place et le statut de la qabbalah dans la Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica du moine cistercien Giulio Bartolocci (Celleno 1613-‐Rome 1687) ainsi que l’apport de ces sources cabalistiques dans la construction des représentations des Juifs et du judaïsme véhiculées par cet ouvrage. Publiée, et conçue, au cœur même de l’Église baroque post-‐tridentine, la Bibliotheca se présente sous la forme d’un dictionnaire encyclopédique bilingue latin-‐hébreu qui range par ordre alphabétique les auteurs et leurs ouvrages, de l’antiquité biblique à l’époque moderne, en passant en revue l’ensemble des pratiques religieuses et des rites propres au monde juif. D’après son auteur, ce texte monumentale devait notamment fournir des outils efficaces dans

le combat que l’Église contre-‐reformée menait contre les juifs, « christianæ religionis hostes ». L’adhésion à cette idéologie militante et ouvertement antijuive n’empêche pas Bartolocci d’opérer, en matière de cabale, des choix qui revêtent une signification culturelle tout à tour différente et qui relèvent d’une pluralité de tendances et d’approches qu’il convient d’examiner. A la différence du Talmud, objet d’une hostilité plus marquée, les sources cabalistiques ont revêtu aux yeux des savants et des théologiens chrétiens un statut complexe et souvent ambigu: on pouvait les réfuter et les condamner; on pouvait trouver les démonstrations les plus convaincantes en faveur des dogmes chrétiens, ou encore voir un moyen d’enrichir l’interprétation chrétienne des textes sacrés; on pouvait enfin considérer la cabale comme un outil missionnaire en tant qu’elle offrait un riche arsenal d’arguments exégétiques pour convaincre les juifs de leur aveuglement. Héritière de toutes ces approches, l’attitude de Bartolocci envers la cabale demeure fondamentalement ambivalente. Dans la Bibliothèque, le mot qabbalah est ainsi associé à l’idée de tradition véritable, transmise depuis Moïse jusqu’à l’avènement du Christ – c’est le cas de la qabbalah dont il est question dans les ouvrages historiques de Ibn Daud, de Zacuto, ou de Ganz. Il s’agit alors d’une tradition vénérable et digne de respect, dont l’Eglise catholique reprendrait le flambeau, en opposition à la Reforme, assimilée aux « hérésies » karaïtes. La qabbalah est également considérée comme une « théologie élevée » et subtile qui traite de Dieu et de ses attributs. Influencé par les écrits du théologien dominicain Ciantes, Bartolocci l’identifie notamment à la cabale séfirotique de Moshe Cordovero. D’après Bartolocci encore, la qabbalah est une méthode d’exégèse des textes bibliques -‐ méthode douteuse qui s’approcherait dangereusement de la numérologie et de la magie. Or, c’est précisément à ce type de cabale, rabaissée au rang d’art manipulatoire et trompeur, que revient la tâche de convaincre les Juifs de la vérité des dogmes chrétiens. On pourrait alors dire que dans le discours antijuif de Bartolocci, les juifs ont l’exégèse qu’ils méritent : une cabala superstitiosa, que Bartolocci évoque aussi comme étant pratiquée par certains convertis. La plupart des matériaux cabalistiques cité dans la Bibliotheca sont par ailleurs de ce troisième type : amulettes, listes d’anges cabalistiques condamnés (et pourtant détaillés), applications de la gematria à la Bible, etc. Une partie de ces spéculations proviennent non des sources juives ni des textes des hébraïsants chrétiens, mais des traités réalisés par les Juifs convertis qui ont fourni à l’Eglise romaine un répertoire important de « preuves » cabalistiques relatives aux dogmes chrétiens.


Session 002:

Kabbalah

11.00-‐13.00

Chair: Elke Morlok

Elke Morlok, University of Mainz, Germany

Title: Context and Content: Isaac Satanow in Jewish and non-‐Jewish perspectives

Abstract: Isaac Satanow (1732-‐1804) is counted among among the few Jewish maskilim who tried to integrate kabbalisitic thought into their philosophical and scientific framework in a religious context. The paper will analyse the influence of both Jewish and non-‐Jewish approaches towards such concepts of

harmonization between rational and esoteric ideas and the consequences for the methodological organon such intellectuals require as an adequate method of research. As an underlying matrix Habermas' conception of "Lebenswelt" and its consequences for processes in building innovative Jewish traditions within a non-‐Jewish environment will be applied also with regard to the vital interactions between West European and East European Jewry of the maskilic and hasidic period.

Katharina Koch, Free University of Berlin, Germany

Title: Franz Joseph Molitor's Kabbalistic Legacy

Abstract: Studying kabbalistic texts and integrating them in his philosophy, the German Christian kabbalist F.J. Molitor (1779-‐1860) pursued the project of establishing theology as the queen of all sciences (Wissenschaften). Moreover he set out, with the help of kabbalistic insights, to integrate and regulate the new scientific discoveries, be it in the domain of nature or of social sciences and to prove the harmony of Judaism and Christianity. Among his legacy one finds three extensive translations from kabbalistic works, namely parts of the commentary on the Torah by Bahya ben Asher, the translation of Joseph Giqatilla's Sha'are Orah and Horowitz's Shefa tal. It is my aim to examine closely these three German translations and demonstrate their importance for Molitor's Philosophy of History or Concerning Tradition.

Andrea Gondos, Concordia University / Katz Center, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Title: Authorship and the Encyclopedic Mentality in Pre-‐Modern Kabbalah

Abstract: The printing of three systematic works of Kabbalah, the anonymous Ma’arekhet ha-‐Elohut, Meir Ibn Gabbai’s Avodat ha-‐Kodesh, and Moses Cordovero’s Pardes Rimonim, in the second half of the sixteenth century signaled a new direction in the organization of kabbalistic knowledge. Expansive in content, they constituted costly investments for consumers and addressed primarily professional scholars and wealthy patrons. Moreover, in terms of their thematic organization, the three works closely resembled the encyclopedic style that characterized Jewish scientific and philosophic works arising from the Middle Ages. In this paper, I argue that Ma’arekhet ha-‐Elohut, Avodat ha-‐Kodesh and Pardes Rimonim clearly display an “encyclopedic mentality” and as such they reflect a strategic choice on the part of the printers and disseminators of Kabbalah in the early modern period to delineate the boundaries of authoritative kabbalistic knowledge and establish the proper order for its study. In other words, the encyclopedia in the field of Jewish mysticism as in other fields of inquiry was a way to establish and reinforce scholarly authority. The encyclopedic impulse has four distinct manifestations in the works I examine. First, their writing style adopts the rigorous methods characteristic of encyclopedic writing with an emphasis on creating order in the vast array of kabbalistic knowledge available at the time by organizing their material into carefully constructed topical divisions. Second, while these kabbalistic works do not present great breadth of subject matter as some of their philosophic and scientific varieties do, they do excel in the detail and depth they provide on the topics they engage, for instance in regard to theories of the essence and function of the sefirot. Third, the arrangement of these systematic treatises is predicated on the reader’s close reading of the text. The reader is entreated not to jump from one topic and chapter to another, but rather read it in sequential form as each chapter is built upon familiarity with, and clear comprehension of, the previous one. Fourth, repetitive reading is emphatically encouraged as the most effective tool for optimal understanding this type of wisdom and as an effective safeguard against theological confusion and religious doubt. In this paper, I will trace these modalities in Moses Cordovero’s Pardes Rimonim.


Session 003:

Jewish Heritage: Synagogues

14.00-‐15.30

Chair: Vladimir Levin

Daniel Muñoz Garrido, University of Granada, Spain

Title: There is no greater pleasure that to wait at your gates, Jerusalem!

Abstract: The decoration of the 14th-‐century synagogue of Cordoba (Spain) shows a taste for Andalusian style. What is more, the inscriptions and decorative panels of the synagogue bear a strong influence of Nazari art. As in the Alhambra, decoration and epigraphy were selected to provide the place with simbology. Read together, they evoke images and meanings to the mind of the educated Jewish spectator. In this paper, I intend to show that behind the decoration of this sinagogue is hidden a representation of the gate of heavenly Jerusalem, a representation of the desired and expected city that filled of pleasure and joy the hearts of those attending the synagogue.

Anastasia Felcher, IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy

Title: Immovable Jewish Heritage in Eastern Europe: an Asset or a Trouble?

Abstract: The paper discusses current condition of Jewish architectural heritage in post-‐Soviet Eastern Europe from an academic and a practical point of view. Conservation or reconstruction of buildings that formerly belonged to Jewish community has not yet become a trend in Ukraine, Belarus or Moldova as it has happened, for instance, in Poland. One may still meet traces of Jewish presence in post-‐Soviet countries lying in ruins, be it buildings of former synagogues, buildings that once belonged to Jewish community or old Jewish cemeteries. The paper looks at this situation taking into account objectives of stakeholders involved, be it state institutions of heritage protection, ministries of culture, Jewish communities or NGOs and discusses the potential of immovable Jewish heritage in post-‐Communist Eastern European countries to become an asset for tourism attraction rather than evidence of neglect.

Eszter Gantner, Institute for European Ethnology, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany

Title: “Who´s Heritage? Jewish Tangible Heritage as a Space of Conflict” –The Case of Budapest Jewish Quarter

Abstract: After the changes of 1989/90 a process of reconstruction of the national consciousness started, in which the (re)discovery of the culture and the cultural especially -‐ architectural -‐ heritage of the European Jews can also be integrated. The ways of discovering the Jewish heritage and its institutionalization—just think of the scientific institutes in the ex-‐socialist countries for the research of the Jewry, or of the institutions of the Holocaust’s national reception, like Holocaust memorials—was, and still is defined by the non-‐Jewish society. This phenomenon is clearly characteristic in the case of Jewish architectural heritage. In

many European cities Jewish quarters, synagogues, previous bathhouses (mikwot) legitimize with their “Jewishness” the cultural and touristic space created around them by various agents like municipalities, heritage managements etc. But there is a danger, that the created homogenous image of the Jews and the constructed pseudo-‐Jewish culture around these sites not only oppose the process of Jewish self-‐interpretation but also obstruct the development of an authentic and plural Jewish cultural space. In the proposed lecture I would introduce the European Jewish architectural sites as spaces for interest collisions by Jews and non-‐Jews with a special focus on the case of the Budapest Jewish Quarter.


Session 004:

Jewish Heritage: Synagogues

16.00-‐18.00

Chair: Max Polonovski

Shulamit Laderman, Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, Israel

Title: The “Memory of the Temple” as the Central Idea Behind Symbols of Early Jewish Art and as a Possible Polemical Tool vis-‐à-‐vis Christianity

Abstract: The proposed lecture will discuss the idea known as zecher ha-‐mikdash “the memory of the Temple” as a central idea behind the choice of symbols in early Jewish Art and the possible polemical ramifications of those symbols vis-‐à-‐vis the Christian attitude toward the destroyed Jewish Temple. To understand why certain symbols appear in early Jewish art, such as is found in ancient synagogues and burial art, I will focus on an ancient scroll, Megillat Ta’anit, a short Aramaic document from the Second Temple period, which discusses the holiday of Hanukkah. As the name indicates, Hanukkah commemorates the dedication of the Temple after it was defiled by the Greeks and cleaned by the Hasmoneans, who freed Jerusalem in the year 165 BCE. Several explanations for Hanukkah are found in non-‐Rabbinic sources such as First and Second Maccabees and in the works of Josephus. But the earliest Rabbinic source concerning this holiday – Megillat Ta’anit with its Hebrew translation and commentary known as Scholium – describes the reasons for the celebration in terms of the “memory of the Temple.” My talk will relate to the various ideas found in Megillat Ta’anit and compare them to symbols in early Jewish art. Included are notions such as Hanukkah paralleling the dedication of the Tabernacle and Temple in the days of Moses and of Solomon, the idea that Hanukkah celebrates the building and dedicating of the altar in the Temple or the making of a new menorah to kindle the lights, and that the holiday was ordained to give praise and thanks to God through reciting the Hallel as is done on the eight days of Sukkot because the festival had not been celebrated during the years that the Temple was in the hands of the enemy. Discussing examples from ancient Jewish art, I will try to demonstrate the Rabbis’ concern for maintaining the centrality of the Temple and its memory. At the same time I will reflect on the possibility that these Temple symbols were also used as a polemical tool vis-‐à-‐vis the Christian attitude toward the destroyed Jewish Temple, as in Christian eyes it was proof of Jesus’ prophecy. I will argue that by using the symbols of the Temple in their art, Jews demonstrated that even though the physical structure no longer existed, its memory was alive in their minds, hearts and lives.

Vladimir Levin, Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Synagogues in Eastern Europe: Christian Middle Ages in Jewish Modern Times?

Abstract: Quite surprisingly, Jewish traditional society in Eastern Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries preserved or reinvented many practices and features characteristic for the Christian society in medieval Western Europe. Like medieval churches, the synagogues and synagogue’s courtyards (shulhoyfn) were in fact the main public space available for the community. They not only served as the place of social interaction between the members of a community, both in sacred and profane context, but the courtyards of synagogues housed such facilities as a communal well, communal outhouse, meat shops, shelter for ill and itinerant poor, and so on. Another Medieval feature is the emergence of Jewish artisans guilds (havarot), which were not only professional but also (or even mainly) religious associations. Their members united for performing religious rites together, donated collectively sacred objects to the communal synagogues, cared for proper burials of their members and for the fulfillment of rituals before and after the burials, etc. Initially such guilds received privileges in communal synagogues, in the next stage they established their own prayer houses, usually situated in one of the rooms in the communal synagogue and later built their own edifices. This phenomenon clearly resembles medieval guilds which had their own saints, performed religious rites, erected their own altars in city cathedrals and sometimes even built their own churches. The proposed paper will discuss the resemblance between the abovementioned medieval patterns, which disappeared from Christian society in Western Europe during the Early Modern Period, but reemerged among East-‐European Jews in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

Valeria Rainoldi, University of Verona, Italy

Title: Verona and its Synagogue between the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Abstract: The research analyses the building of a new synagogue in Verona (Italy) and the urban organization of the local Jewish Community between the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century. In that period, the Veronese Jewish Community, constituted by 1,400 members, was in its greatest splendor. Among those members, we could find lawyers, doctors, engineers and members of a new intellectual, economic and social élite. In 1864, after some solid problems which imposed the closing of the building used until that moment, the Veronese Jewish Community began to build “a new, sumptuous temple in contrada Ghetto”, whose plan was signed by the architect Giacomo Franco and the engineer Gaetano Mantovanelli. The new Jewish temple was developed along a rectangular hall, with a restricted area for the leader of the prayer above the floor accessed by four stairs and Aron ha-‐qodesh overlapped to the perimeter wall and emphasized by an architectural framework of two wings ending with three quasi columns. Plans found in the State Archive reveal the magnificence and the sumptuous decorations inserted in the former planning stage, with clear references to Romanesque and a European layout which recalls the Synagogue de la Victoire in Paris. Works finished in 1868 with a drastic reduction of the decorative elements and the abolition of the architectural dome originally planned. After the partial demolition of the Ghetto, started in 1926, the synagogue was planned again and placed in the new town layout by Ettore Fagiuoli, appreciate and active Veronese architect, who changed the nineteenth-‐century synagogue into a rationalistic temple, squared in shapes and volumes. Fagiuoli deeply changed the general structure of the worship hall, moving the women's gallery, raising the barrel vault, and changing the entrances. The new Jewish temple, assimilated to a Christian church for many architectural and functional points of view, was inaugurated in 1929. A great main entrance, emphasized by a couple of pilasters and bas-‐relief panels shows into a monumental and of great value temple, with a frescoed vault enriched by big decorative and symbolic elements like seven-‐branched candelabra and Maghen David. The

architect Fagiuoli was involved even in the plan of two pyramid-‐shape graves for the Jewish cemetery in Verona, characterized by strict and linear shapes. The ambiguity of the architecture, which was expressed by a harmonic and authoritative language, permitted to the Jewish Community in Verona to build near Piazza Erbe, trading and representative heart of the city, a temple of prayer, in opposition to the not so far Christian cathedral. The research of a social and religious acceptance is, however, perceptible in the thin architectural changes to which the new synagogue have to suit in Franco's plan and in Fagiuoli's work. The studies, in spite of some difficulties found for the lack of preservation of the archive in the Jewish Veronese community, were treated on unpublished documents kept in the State Archive and in the town hall Archive, giving a new interpretative dimension to the synagogue architecture and to the working of Ettore Fagiuoli, for a long time underestimated by history.

Jean Passini, CNRS, Paris, France

Title: De quelques synagogues pour les conversos à Tolède au XIV et XVe siècle

Abstract: L'étude des documents écrits entre le XIIe et le XVe siècle a fait apparaître l'existence, dans les maisons médiévales de la ville de Tolède, de caves soit sous les "palacio", soit sous les cours. Ces dernières caractérisent les maisons de la Juiverie. Les caves sous "patio" de la Juiverie médiévale sont couvertes soit d'une coupole octogonale à pendentifs, soit d'une voûte surbaissée à pilier central si le patio s'étend sur une grande surface. La lecture d'une chronique postérieure au XVIe siècle nous conduit à rattacher les caves sous patio de la Juiverie tolédane à la pratique du culte et de la vie des juifs, rendue difficile par les contraintes exercées par la religion dominante.

Thursday 24th July

Room: 03

Session: 001:

History of Sciences

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Jewish Medical Discourse(s) and Cultural Context(s)

Organizers: Lennart Lehmhaus & Matteo Martelli

Chair:

Federico Dal Bo, Free University of Berlin, Germany

Title: A Fetus Shaped like a “Sandal”: Metaphors, Morphology, and Embryology in the Babylonian Talmud

Abstract: Rabbinic and Talmudic literature does not usually manifest theoretical interest in medicine. It is rather concerned with the juridical issues that may be affected by specific medical conditions. As a consequence of this, medical conditions are usually described with a para-‐medical vocabulary that largely describes human morphology in metaphorical terms. The case of a fetus “shaped like a ‘sandal’” is an excellent example for understanding Talmudic medical language. This enigmatic expression occurs in several passages of Tractates Yebamot and Keritot and apparently describes the irregular morphology of a fetus that was miscarried. In my paper I intend to discuss the semantics of the expression “a fetus shaped like a ‘sandal’” with respect to its literal and metaphorical meaning. On the one hand, classical Talmudic commentaries tend to interpret the term “sandal” as a literal description of a malformed fetus. On the other hand, they assume that the term is metaphorical and therefore try to come to terms with it. With respect to this, classical Talmudic commentaries are unable to understand the original meaning of this expression and fail to provide a rigorous interpretation of the case of “a fetus shaped like a ‘sandal’”. My assumption is that this expression should rather be interpreted in a broader anthropological and comparative perspective. Namely, Talmud editors would implicitly have referred to some non-‐-‐Jewish sources from Near Middle East in order to describe a fatal syndrome that might affect embryos. On account of this, the term “sandal” would not simply be a metaphorical description a malformed human morphology. On the contrary, it would rather provide an actual “embryology”.

Reuven Kiperwasser, Open University, Israel

Title: The Cure of Amnesia and the Metaphoric Physiology of Memory

Abstract: In this presentation I will analyze stories from Rabbinic Literature about late-‐antiquity Palestinian Rabbis who forget their knowledge. Talmudic sages shared the views of the ancient Greeks that memory is an integral part of wisdom. Therefore its loss leads to flawed wisdom. The narrators of tales about sages, who forgot their knowledge, usually tend to see in loss of memory the consequences of something not quite right in the behavior of the sage. Nevertheless, on the marginalia of rabbinic literature, one can find opinions that forgetting is a benefit. Thus, stories regarding forgetting and the remembering, which I shall

analyze, are very revealing about the self-‐reflection Talmudic culture, busily debating what is allowed to its members, and what is forbidden. Some of these stories, from the relatively later layers of the literature, indicate the participation of certain sensitive organs, in particular the ears, in the processes of memory. Rather unexpectedly, literary parallels outside rabbinic literature shed light on the cultural nexus of these texts.

Kenneth Collins, University of Glasgow, UK / Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: The Fever that Nourishes: the Purpose of Fever in Rabbinic Texts

Abstract: Types of fever were mentioned in the Bible and there is a considerable rabbinic literature in the Talmud on the possible causes of fever and its treatments. The existence of different biblical names for fever suggests that it could be a symptom of different illnesses. The rabbis knew of fevers, possibly malarial, that occurred daily or less frequently, and described the symptoms of rigors. This study considers the Talmudic view that as febrile patients have a reduced food intake there is something in the fever which provides the missing nourishment. This was assumed as the patient was able to survive and to excrete urine and faeces. The Talmud also mentions that the warmth of the mother’s body provides nutrition to the baby if there is delay in the delivery and only the head is born. The rabbis understood that some fevers were relatively benign and might even prove to be beneficial to the body. This possibly indicated an understanding that body defense mechanisms were involved. Other fevers carried a higher degree of risk and could even indicate the presence of life threatening disease. This paper will also consider the Kitab al-‐Hummayat, the Book of Fevers of Isaac Israeli (c845-‐c945) of Kairouan, which has been described as one of the best medical works available in the Middle Ages. This work provided a comprehensive guide to fevers based on Galenic traditions and his own observations, including clear guidance on possible treatments. Israeli’s influence was considerable. His outstanding Muslim pupil Ibn al-‐Jazzar also composed a text on fevers and Israeli was widely quoted by Arab physicians such as Rhazes and Ali Ibn Ridwan. Israeli’s writings on fevers, in Latin translation, were also studied for some centuries in the mediaeval medical schools of Christian Europe. Contemporary physicians have attempted to identify the mechanisms controlling appetite suppression and the role of fever in illness. There may be value in the mediaeval adage that one should feed a cold but starve a fever. The fever that nourishes may again claim its place in modern medicine.


Session 002:

History of Sciences

11.00-‐13.00


Chair: Danielle Jacquart

Samuel Kottek, Hadassah-‐Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Caesarean Section in the Talmud and in Greco-‐Roman Culture: a renewed Examination.

Abstract: In the Talmud, a child born through caesarean section is called yotsē dôfen-‐ "one who came out through the wall (of the abdomen). In ancient times, caesarean section was indeed practiced on women who died in childbirth. This is documented in the Talmud and in the Graeco-‐Roman medical literature. However, there are no references on such operations practiced on living women. The Talmudists nevertheless discuss caesarean section on living women, as if it were a factual case, although never stating that they witnessed such a case. This historical problem has been discussed in the past, however a renewed examination of the question seemed to us worthy to be undertaken, while considering previous opinions. We shall refer to other ancient and primitive cultures, where such interventions were mentioned, however primarily in mythology.

Estēe Dvorjetski, Oxford Brookes University, UK

Title: Public Health in Jerusalem according to the Talmudic Literature: Reality or Vision?

Abstract: Special attention was paid to Jerusalem and to the Temple Mount in the urban by-‐laws in the Talmudic Corpus dealing with environmental pollution, which were meant to improve the health of the public. The city was highly estimated by Jews and non-‐Jews authors, and was said to serve as a model both for the citizens, the pilgrims, and for all the nations: ‘God will make Jerusalem a metropolis for all the nations’. The Talmudic literature demonstrates how the halakha was applied in Jerusalem in the Second Temple period: moderation of the odours from the animal sacrifices in the Temple; the possibility of pollution by the wind; the location of the outflow of the sacrificial ashes; the Dung Gate and its place in the ecological awareness of the people of the period; the concentration of craftsmen in special quarters; the attention paid by the authorities to upkeep, repair and cleanliness of the sewage system and reservoirs; the construction of synagogues for craftsmen whose odour was intolerable; and the public lavatory, a rare phenomenon in Jewish towns. It is natural that over the generations Jerusalem's special status as the location of the Temple led to its being particularly revered as a place whose exemplary purity was meticulously preserved, and impure elements excluded. The ecological reasons for dealing with such matters as sewage, refuse, air pollution, smoke, noise, and water pollution in the ‘ten maxims concerning Jerusalem’ and in other municipal by-‐laws, are part and parcel of the Talmudic literature. They prove that public health was a central concern of those who formulated the ancient precepts, a great many of which were crystallised into a body of compulsory law at the time of the Hasmoneans. The precepts and laws of Jerusalem, which constitute an ecological prototype, served as a classical model for urban laws in the Land of Israel, which were aimed at preserving the lives and health of its citizens and visitors. The purpose of this study is both to illustrate the way in which this matter was dealt with in daily life and to consider the ways in which the halakha was applied in the municipal planning of the city of Jerusalem, in which strict attention was paid to public health – the preservation of human life, which is a supreme value in the scale of values of Jewish law.

Aviad Recht, Inalco, Paris, France

Title: 'The Regimens of Health of the Sages' – A Hellenistic Medical Genre as Processed by the Sages

Abstract: Within the literary material of the Rabbinic Sages that relate to medicine, one can identify a distinct literary category, “Regimens of Health.” This genre of literature is characterized by medical aphorisms, the curative substances that are mentioned, and the audience it addresses. 'The Regimens of Health of the Sages' genre is characterized by aphorisms that teach medical knowledge in a direct way (as opposed to medical knowledge gleaned from halakhic or moral material) and are short and concise. Analysis of these aphorisms suggests the following: a. they do not include magical medical indications

(many of those are found in the Babylonian Talmud). b. the medical indications that appear are based on diet and exercise alone. Although these are medical indications they do not include medication (in other words, medication that is not food is not included in them). These characteristics are the characteristics of the genre of the regimen of health in the Hippocratic Corpus. In “Regimen in Health”, ”Regimen II” and “Regimen III”, the author teaches people who wish to preserve their health and avoid illness how to do so. There is no magic in his indications and they are based on nutrition and physical exercise. Galen, in his "On Hygiene" speaks of keeping healthy as the result of physical exercise and nourishment. It appears that there is a connection between the aforementioned aphorisms of the sages and the classical writings in the genre of regimen of health (characteristics that do not exist in other neighboring medical cultures). In spite of its major affinity to Hellenistic medical literature, the 'Regimen of Health of the Sages' has undergone a process of change and adaptation. Reading the aforementioned Hippocratic works, and especially the Galenial ones, it can be seen that a person's day consists of physical exercise in the gymnasium, massage, sleep and proper food. It does not include work. The audience to whom these works were addressed were probably the society's elite, who did not work anyway. In contrast, 'The Regimen of Health of the Sages' is completely different. It mentions simple foods of the kind found in an ordinary person's kitchen. The exercise recommended is not physical exercise in the gymnasium, but basic everyday actions, such as walking, sitting, sleeping, sexual intercourse etc. – in the correct and healthy manner. It seems that the sages adopted the classical method, but adapted it to the wider audience of their followers, an audience of working people. This phenomenon of The Regimen of Health of the Sages can be dated and geographically placed by using details that are known about their creators. While approximately half of the regimens of health are anonymous, the remainder is ascribed to specific sages, which allows the identification of the time and place of the regimen, (of course, nothing is completely certain). Most of them, some 70%, are brought in the names of sages in the Land of Israel (this fact is not so significant if we take into account that some 30% of the regimens are brought in the names of Babylonian sages, and, that half of the regimens are anonymous and are not included in the analysis, and these could tip the scale). Another fact to take into consideration is that the sages who composed these regimens are only early Tana'im or late Amora'im (mainly from the middle of the second to the beginning of the fourth centuries). This fact is even more significant than the previous one, since the anonymous aphorisms are also dated to this period. From this time onwards this literary phenomenon fades away quickly and then disappears (there only a few examples from the mid-‐fourth century onwards). The fact that the boundaries of the phenomenon are clearer cut chronologically rather than geographically, and the genre appears mainly in the Babylonian Talmud, undermines the automatic dichotomy: Israeli Jews -‐ Hellenistic culture versus Babylonian Jews – Babylonian culture. I would like to propose an explanation for the phenomenon of The Regimen of Health of the Sages, and its unexpected chronological and geographical characteristics by examining internal Jewish processes in the relationships of the communities in Israel and Babylon, as well as the non-‐Jewish cultural processes that occurred in the Roman-‐Byzantine empire and throughout the Sassanian empire, and seeing how they apparently influenced the medical culture in the Jewish community as reflected in the Babylonian Talmud.

Matteo Martelli, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany, & Lennart Lehmhaus, Free University of Berlin, Germany

Title: Transfer of Medical Knowledge in Late Antique Encyclopedic Traditions – a Preliminary Survey.

Abstract: Preliminary survey on the relationships between Byzantine medical encyclopaedias (Oribasius, Aetius, and Paul of Aegina) and the medical knowledge encapsulated in the Talmudic tradition.


Session 003:

History of Sciences

14.00-‐15.30


Chair:

Ronit Yoeli-‐Tlalim, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

Title: Asian Lore in the Hebrew Book of Asaf

Abstract: The Hebrew Book of Asaf (also known as Sefer Refu’ot, the Book of Medicines), is considered one of the earliest Hebrew medical texts. The text has numerous references to India and Persia. This paper will contextualize some of these references and discuss their significance.

Tamás Visi, Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic

Title: Uroscopy in Sefer Asaf

Abstract: The Book of Remedies attributed to Assaf (Sefer Refuot or Sefer Assaf) includes five shorter or longer sections on uroscopy, that is, prognostic and diagnostic rules on the basis of urine. Three of these collections are based on the uroscopic passages in Hippocrates' Aphorisms and Prognostics. A fourth collection is based on a pseudo-‐Galenic uroscopic compendium which can be traced back to a uroscopic treatise by Magnus of Emessa. The Hebrew paraphrases reveal the competences of the authors in utilizing Greek (and possibly Syriac) medical writings as well as the difficulties they encountered.

Carmen Caballero-‐Navas, University of Granada, Spain

Title: Women’s Secrets: An Assessment of the Early Stage of the Foundation of Hebrew Gynaecology

Abstract: This paper focuses on the early stage of the reception and accommodation of gynecological literature by Jewish authors and translators during the Middle Ages. Its aim is twofold: a. to probe into the factors that led to the incorporation of gynaecological texts, unlikely intended for male medical practice (at least at this early stage), to the incipient Hebrew medical corpus; b. and to analyse the Hebrew production and transmission of texts on women’s health care from the end of the twelfth and during the thirteenth century, with a focus on textual choices and their (un)popularity amongst Jewish medical writers and readers. To assess the later idea –(un)popularity of first Hebrew gynaecological texts–, I will particularly rely on Sefer ha-‐yošer. This is a comprehensive encyclopaedia of medical knowledge written in Provence in the last decades of the thirteenth century by a so far unknown, but very learned medical author and practitioner. The book is also one of the first and not very abundant medical works written originally in Hebrew, which reflects the perception of a Jewish physician during the early stages of the process of professionalization of medicine. In a very comprehensive section devoted to women’s conditions, the author quotes profusely other medical authors and works. An analysis of the quotations will offer us a glimpse to the gynaecological literature available in Hebrew to a learned Provencal physician, as well as the

preferences of this particular author. It is relevant to this paper to mention that he often uses the generic label “secrets of women” to refer to works or parts of works devoted to women’s health care, which point to the possibility and he and his audience perceived the Hebrew texts devoted to women’s conditions circulating at the time as a genre of medical literature.


Session 004:

History of Sciences

16.00-‐18.00


Chair:

Shulamit Shinnar, Columbia University, New York, USA

Title: The Experiments of Cleopatra: Rabbinic Attitudes towards Other Ancient Medical Traditions

Abstract: In Talmudic literature, there are many passages in which the rabbis show an interest in topics that we might classify as “medical.” The Rabbis describe anatomical features of the human body, detail its physiological functions, and prescribe treatments to maintain health. In the modern world, knowledge of the human body comes from a set of established accepted methodologies of inquiry such as scientific research, experimentation, and observation of the human body. The field of the history of science has repeatedly argued that knowledge of the natural world and the methods by which it is obtained are contingent upon and constructed within particular communities and specific social and intellectual structures. Therefore, when we approach rabbinic texts discussing medical facts, it is crucial to explore both their sources for this knowledge and what they considered the acceptable methods of obtaining medical knowledge. In this paper I will focus on a series of texts from the Babylonian Talmud m. Niddah which describe the development of the fetus in the womb. I will examine how the rabbinic texts themselves debate the appropriate sources of knowledge, specifically addressing the validity of other ancient, non-‐Jewish medical traditions. Through my inquiry, I hope to shed light on the epistemological framework through which the Rabbis approached the natural world.

Tirzah Meacham, University of Toronto, Canada

Title: Physicians, Expertise and Halakha: are Purity Issues Different?

Abstract: Rabbinic literature has a somewhat ambivalent relationship to physicians. According to mQiddushin, Pirqei Avot, Pirqei de Rabbi Natan and parallels "the best of the physicians to Geheinom." Medicine apparently was not considered the most honorable profession. The reasons for this attitude ranged from considering that physicians did not exert themselves in their labor, or lacked sufficient expertise, or despite expertise were still prone to error. Nevertheless the sages relied on the medical expertise of physicians when they needed help to make a medical-‐legal decision. This paper will trace cases

where tannaitic material seems to rely on the statements of the physicians while the later Yerushalmi and the even later Bavli limit considerably the impact of the words of the physicians on the halakhic decision making process. We shall especially examine the case of tNiddah 4:3-‐4, yNiddah 3:2 (50c) and bNiddah 22b where the physicians’ statement is not only limited in the Yerushalmi but additional proof is required before it can be accepted even in a more limited way by the Bavli. We shall also investigate other instances where physicians make medical statements impacting on purity issues which demonstrate that the sages either do not accept their words or establish additional criteria which essentially push aside the medical expertise and create more stringent halakhic decisions.

Thursday 24th July

Room: 04

Session: 001:

Second Temple

9.00-‐10.30

Chair: Katell Berthelot

Pieter Van der Horst, Netherlands

Title: Saxa judaica loquuntur: What can we learn from Ancient Jewish Inscriptions?

Abstract: In this paper the relevance of the study of early Jewish epigraphy for the history of ancient Judaism will be discussed. The focus will be on what information we can retrieve from these inscriptions that the literary sources do not yield.

Michael Avioz, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Josephus' Use of the Book of Chronicles

Abstract: The Book of Chronicles posed a great challenge for interpreters through the ages. On the one hand, it repeats much of the material contained in earlier biblical sources, and the question arises as to what purpose it serves. On the other hand, it diverges from these sources by means of omitting and adding materials. Thus, contradictions and discrepancies between the biblical texts are inevitable. Flavius Josephus makes constant use of the Book of Chronicles in his Antiquities of the Jews. He does not retell this book separately, but rather incorporates the material from Chronicles in his retelling of the books of Samuel and Kings. The purpose of this paper is to examine the various ways in which Josephus' makes use of the Book of Chronicles in his writings. The various uses may be classified into four categories: a. Josephus prefers the version of Chronicles over Samuel–Kings. b. Josephus prefers the version of Samuel–Kings over Chronicles. c. Josephus harmonizes the texts of Chronicles and Samuel–Kings. d. Josephus' account ignores both Samuel–Kings and Chronicles. I will analyze various cases from the books of Samuel–Kings and try to show how Josephus employs these categories. The analysis will also try to answer the following questions: Which text form did Josephus use: was it a text similar to the LXX or the MT? Were Josephus' motives exegetical or apologetic?

Carol Bakhos, UCLA, USA

Title: Transmitting Early Jewish Literature: The Case of Jubilees in Medieval Jewish and Islamic Sources

Abstract: In this paper, I will explore the appearance of early Jewish traditions, especially Jubilees, in medieval literature such as Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, the Qur'an and the Stories of the Prophets. How does one account for the appearance of Second Temple sources in medieval Jewish, Christian and Muslim sources? While the details of a complex Near Eastern circulatory system of stories, maxims, prayers, inter

alia, are impossible to detect, it is nonetheless worthwhile to interrogate the ways in which Jubilees traditions are retailored in later literary sources.


Session 002:

Late Antiquity

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Jews in the Roman Empire: New Research Perspectives

Organizer: Katell Berthelot

Chair: Martin Goodman

Gil Gambash, University of Haifa, Israel

Title: Roman Policy in the Aftermath of the Great Jewish Revolt: a Reconsideration in Light of New Evidence

Abstract: Available evidence has thus far suggested that the actions of Vespasian and Titus with regard to the first Jewish revolt proceeded uninterrupted from conducting the campaign for the conquest of Judea to commemorating it appropriately, in grand manner. Such a run of events does not contradict any of the theories which have been suggested for the Flavian conduct after the conclusion of the war, be it imagined to have been guided by private dynastic requirements (Goodman 2007); by the needs of a state torn until recently by civil war (Yakobson forthcoming); or, finally, by routine protocol in the aftermath of great campaigns of conquest (Gambash 2013). A newly discovered Flavian aureus, however, carrying the unique legend Iudaea recepta on its reverse, has been interpreted recently as undermining this assumed flow of events, presenting us with a brief moment of different Flavian policy, when a line of commemoration completely opposed to the one eventually adopted was considered and even initiated (Gambash, Gitler, and Cotton 2013). The coin presents Judea as a former province which had temporarily been lost to the empire and was now reintegrated into the provincial system. This would have been in line with Rome’s normal practice, which, in the aftermath of provincial unrest, sought to return as quickly as possible to the antequam situation (Gambash 2012). The suggested paper aims to reevaluate the circumstances in late 70 in light of the new coin and the policy it denotes, examining such aspects as the official status of Judea; the rank of its governor and the nature of its administration; the garrisoning of the province; and retributive measures taken against the Jews in the province and elsewhere.

Samuele Rocca, The Neri Bloomfield School of Design & Education, Haifa -‐ Ariel University of Samaria, Israel

Title: Researching the Impact of the Barbarian Invasions on the Jews of Roman Italy: New Perspectives

Abstract: For various reasons, there is no discussion of the impact of the Barbarian invasions on the Jewish communities of Roman Italy. Indeed, Roman Italy fall victim to a series of invasions. First the invasion of Alaric’s Visigoths in 410 C.E., and then that of Genseric’s Vandals in 455 C.E., which culminated in the sack of Rome. These were followed by the establishment of the Roman-‐Barbaric kingdom of the Ostrogoths, and the successive disastrous Gothic War, which brought back Italy under Justinian rule. The Barbarian

conquest of Italy ended with the Lombard invasion in the second half of the sixth century. In this short lecture, I shall argue first that the barbaric invasions much influenced the geographic distribution and the demographic development of the Jews living in Roman Italy. Indeed, a close look at epigraphic data, shows that the destruction that came in the wake of the Barbarian invasions probably resulted in the total destruction of the Jewish communities established in Northern Italy, a substantial decrease, even decline in the Jewish population of Rome, sacked twice by the Barbarians during the fifth century, and much damaged by Justinian’ Gothic wars in the middle of the sixth century. On the other side, it is possible to assist to a slow demographic and geographic increase, albeit difficult to measure, of the Jews living in southern Italy, as this part of the peninsula was much less damaged than the rest of the peninsula by the Barbarian invasions, as the epigraphic evidence from Venosa indeed attest. No less important is the influence of Barbarian legislation on the relationship between the Jews and the surrounding population. Barbarian legislation, contrary to Roman law, created for the first time a well-‐defined, clear cut ethnic boundary between the Jews and the rest of the population. This ethnic discrimination, evident in the Lombard legal code, defined anew the legal position of the Jews adding a racial overtone, which was totally absent in Late Roman Christian legislation, even in its discriminatory laws. Jews under the Barbarian overlords lost completely their status of Roman citizens, albeit second-‐class citizens, to become completely dependents from the whims of the Lombard overlord. The background was set for Medieval legislation on Jews.

Capucine Nemo-‐Pekelman, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, France

Title: The non-‐rabbinical Jews according to the Codex Theodosianus

Abstract: The Jewish populations living in the end of the Western Roman Empire outside the influence of the rabbis of Palestine have let too few documents about their internal organizations and their legal practices. That is why the Legal documentation furnished by the imperial laws should be used as a valuable source. Indeed, Roman laws shed light on many aspects of the Jewish world in the Roman provinces. For instance, they show that the Jews were far from presenting a unique face in front of the sovereign power, and that the internal instances of government sometimes had difficulties to impose their jurisdiction over their own community.


Session 003:

Late Antiquity

14.00-‐15.30

Panel: Public Spectacles in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (Zeev Weiss, Harvard UP, 2014):

A Book Review Session

Organizer: Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra

Chair: Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra

Nicole Belayche, EPHE, Paris, France

Title: Jews, Christians and Spectacles: a Focus on Archaeological and Epigraphic Data

Abstract: Rabbinical and patristic texts were unanimous for condemning officially spectacles as being ‘pagan’ demonstrations. And yet spectacles were a central part of social life in the Roman Empire, in Roman Judaea/Palestine as in any province. Thus all big cities were equipped with spectacles buildings from Herodian time onwards, and the ‘paganization’ (in terms of demography at least) of Syria-‐Palaestina after the second revolt increased the movement, even in cities with a large component of Jewish population like Sepphoris. The new Z. Weiss’ book on "Public Spectacles in Roman and Late Antique Palestine" offers a good opportunity for discussing the possible gap between normative positions and historical realities as reflected in archeological and epigraphic data and for enlightening religious relationships between the various communities (pagans, Jews and Christians) in the mirror of public entertainments.

René Bloch, University of Bern, Switzerland

Title: Jewish-‐Hellenistic and Christian Discourses on the Theatre

Abstract: In encyclopedias, ancient Judaism and theatre are often presented as an oxymoron: "Das jüdische Altertum kannte kein Theater" (Neues Lexikon des Judentums); "Until quite recent times, the Jew has never been homo theatralis" (The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies), "Le théâtre apparaît très tardivement dans la civilisation juive" (Histoire des spectacles). Yet a closer reading of the evidence suggests that in the Greco-‐Roman period Jews visited the theatre, performed on stage, and wrote plays. With the new book by Zeev Weiss on "Public Spectacles in Roman and Late Antique Palestine” as a starting point I will discuss the discourses on the theatre in Jewish-‐Hellenistic and Christian literature.

Günter Stemberger, University of Vienna, Austria

Title: Jews and Spectacles. The Rabbinic Data

Abstract: The generally negative attitude of the rabbis regarding theatres and spectacles is well known. But rabbinic texts also frequently use topoi and images derived from the world of the theatre, thus creating an ambiguous impression. Since the theatre is foreign to the cultural world of the Babylonian rabbis, it is of interest how Palestinian traditions in this regard are used and transformed in the Bavli. The paper will critically discuss Weiss’ new book on theatres in Palestine with special attention on the rabbinic sources.

Zeev Weiss, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Book Review: Public Spectacles in Roman and Late Antique Palestine, by Zeev Weiss. Scholarly Reactions and Author’s Response

Abstract: The session will review my forthcoming book, Public Spectacles in Roman and Late Antique Palestine, which reconstructs the role of Roman entertainment in Palestine from the first century BCE to the sixth century CE. It describes a world in which Romans, Jews, and Christians intermingled amidst a heady brew of shouts, roars, and applause while watching a variety of typically pagan spectacles. The invited reviewers will analyze the volume’s new insights, strengths, and weaknesses from three perspectives: Jewish and non-‐Jewish Graeco-‐Roman literature; archaeology and epigraphy; and Rabbinic literature. Following their presentations, I will respond accordingly and offer my point of view regarding various dimensions presented in the book.


Thursday 24th July

Room: 05

Session: 001:

Rabbinic Literature

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Late Midrash between Islam and Byzantium

Organizers: Ronit Nikolsky and Arnon Atzmon

Chair: Ronit Nikolsky and Arnon Atzmon

Marc Bregman, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA

Title: Tanhuma-‐Yelammedenu Literature. Contacts with Non-‐Jewish Cultures

Tanhuma-‐Yelammedenu midrash emerged at the end of the classical rabbinic period and continued to evolve well into the middle ages in a broad spectrum of geographical areas dominated by various non-‐Jewish cultures, including Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam. This presentation briefly surveys a number of indications of contacts with these religious traditions in the extensive and multifaceted Tanhuma-‐Yelammedenu literature.

Ulrich Berzbach, Otto-‐Hahn-‐Gymnasium Bensberg, Germany

Title: “and Rabba has 3 gates and 30 chapters and Zuta 12 chapters” : Chapter divisions and larger units in “Seder Eliyahu”

Abstract: In his “Arukh” -‐ using a responsum of Natronai Gaon -‐ Nathan b. Yehiel of Rome comments on the scarce details that bT Ket 106a offers on the two parts of “Seder Eliyahu” (SE), namely “Seder Eliyahu Rabba” (SER) and “Seder Eliyahu Zuta” (SEZ): He tells his 11th century readers that SER consists of three “gates” and 30 chapter while SEZ consists of twelve chapters. The paper will use this description as a starting point to discuss the role and character of chapter divisions and larger units in SE based on the manuscript evidence. Textual divisions in SE will be discussed as a representative example of late midrashim that do not base their own structure directly on a given textual structure of the biblical text commented on.

Constanza Cordoni, University of Vienna, Austria

Title: The Seder Eliyahu and Karaism

Abstract: In 1874 Wilhelm Bacher stated that an important feature of the late midrash Seder Eliyahu was the fact that in two passages the “author” depicts himself as a defender of rabbinic Judaism before the challenge Karaite antagonists. My paper is an attempt to critically re-‐examine this alleged response to

Karaism in selected passages of first person narratives of the Seder Eliyahu. Field: Talmud, Midrash Rabbinic Literature

Amos Geula, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: On the Question of the Cultural Context of 'Seder Eliyahu Rabba'

Abstract: Scholars opinions regarding the question of the historical and cultural background of the enigmatic composition "Seder Eliyahu" are varied. This lecture will not be able to solve all questions related to this work. The purpose of this lecture is to present new findings on this issue and solve some riddles in this composition, according to which rule out some of the opinions offered and suggest a way to resolve the problem.


Session 002:

Rabbinic Literature

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Late Midrash between Islam and Byzantium

Organizers: Ronit Nikolsky and Arnon Atzmon

Chair: Ronit Nikolsky and Arnon Atzmon

Sacha Stern, University College London, UK

Title: Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer and the 19-‐year Cycle

Abstract: The earliest evidence of a 19-‐year cycle in the Jewish calendar appears in a passage of Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer (c.8th century), of which a parallel source is cited as a baraita in various later medieval manuscripts as well as in Isaac Israeli’s Yesod Olam. This baraita presents a difference of opinions on the cycle and on when to make intercalations. In this paper, I shall argue that the earliest version of the cycle, as preserved in the best manuscripts of Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer, corresponds exactly to the Byzantine Easter cycle which was instituted sometime in the 7th century, and which was in use by Palestinian Christians. This suggests that the institution of a 19-‐year cycle in the Jewish calendar was the result of borrowing from the Christians. The Byzantine Christian origins of the Jewish 19-‐year cycle may also explain the origins of the Palestinian era of Creation which has become dominant today, in the year 5774 (= 2013/14 CE).

Arnon Atzmon, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: Editing and Meaning in Pesikta Rabbati and Tanhuma Midrash on "Vayehi Beyom Chalot Moshe" (num. 7:1)

Abstract: One of the most fascinating issues in the study of Midrash is the creation and editing of the Tanhuma corpus. In this paper I present a comparative analysis of the midrashic material found in Pesikta Rabbati [PR] with that found in Tanhuma on the verse, "And it came to pass on the day that Moses completed building the Tabernacle." The overall picture that emerges is that although the piska in PR and the Tanhuma passage are stylistically similar, they are dissimilar in terms of content, and occasionally even ideologically contradict one another. While PR adheres closely to interpreting the "local" verses from Numbers, Tanhuma more freely interprets verses from other passages concerning the building of the Tabernacle, mainly those from Exodus. In its totality, it seems that PR remains closer to the earlier midrashic base, that which is found also in Pesikta De-‐Rav Kahana, whereas the passage in the Tanhuma is slightly more removed. At times it even seems that the editor of this passage in Tanhuma responded in a certain, albeit restrained, manner to derashot that seem to him overly radical in PR.

Eric Ottenheijm, Utrecht University, Netherlands

Title: Punishing the Nations: the Tanhuma on the revelation of the Torah

Abstract: A famous midrashic exposition on Deut. 33:2 in the Mekhilta R. Ishmael explains the revelation of the Torah as a result of the moral incompetence of the nations. The nations are hampered in holding even those Ten Commandments that are part of the seven Noahide ones. A midrash on Hab 3:6 teaches that God released the nations after this ‘fact’ but a parable underlines the respective responsibilities even in the face of the alleged lesser value of the nations’ obligations. The Tanhuma (Tanhuma Buber, Devarim, Berakha 3) reworking of this tradition shows some remarkable changes. Firstly, it accuses the nations of outright unwillingness to accept or ‘hear’ the Torah. Secondly, it does not discuss the specific immorality accredited to them by the Torah nor their obligation to hold the Noahide commandments. Moreover, Hab 3:6 is read as proving that the nations are punished to hell for their unwillingness. Finally, the Tanhuma adds a prolonged midrashic exposition with a parable that ‘proves’ that the nations indeed did not want to ‘hear’ and God, who dies not act as a tyran, is justified in executing His judgment. This paper seeks to assess possible cultural conditions that may explain for these differences and the Tanhuma reworking of the tradition.

Lieve Teugels, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Title: Babylon and Byzantium, but no Islam in Aggadat Bereshit.

Abstract: Midrash Aggadat Bereshit (AB) has been dated to the 9th or 10th century by several scholars in the past. As to it’s place of origin, Jacob Mann suggested the Byzantine Empire outside Palestine. I further specified this to Southern Italy1 and more recently Ezra Kahalani has confirmed this location.2 These hypotheses are based, among other things, on the sources used by AB, later works that quote AB, the use of foreign, especially Greek words, the type of Hebrew used, and historical events that point in this direction. The use of some explicit anti-‐Christian polemic has also been brought to the fore as an argument. In an earlier study, in which I analyzed the three most obvious anti-‐Christian passages in AB, I stated that this polemic is indeed more explicit than in the older rabbinic sources, yet in terms of its contents, nothing in these texts refers to a specific medieval situation.3 In the present paper I will analyze the last chapters of AB which, in addition to general rabbinic sayings against ‘Esau’ and ‘the Nations’, do contain, in the form of midrash, explicit references to the persecution and killing of Jews and kiddush ha-‐shem (martyrdom).4 These data will be put against what is known of the history of southern Italy in the 9th-‐10th century, among others through the Ahimaaz Chronicle. The outcome will bring us closer to an answer to the question as to

why Islam seems to be a non-‐existing factor in this medieval work, whereas Christianity appears as a major enemy.


Session 003:

Rabbinic Traditions between Palestine and Babylonia

14.00-‐15.30

Chair:

Klaus Herrmann, Free University of Berlin

Discussant

Meir Ben Shahar, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Discussant

Tal Ilan, Free University of Berlin, Germany

Title: The Bavli as a Historian: Historical Traditions from the Second Temple Period and their Transformation in Babylonia

Abstract: The Bavli cites many traditions about the Second Temple period that have parallels both in the writings of Josephus and in tannaitic and Palestinian literature. In this paper I will examine what happens to these traditions when they reach the Bavli. Are they more or less like Josephus' version than their Palestinian parallels?

Ronit Nikolsky, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Netherlands

Title: Tracing Tanhuma in Europe

Abstract: My paper will concentrate on the cultural context of the Tanhuma as late midrash, and study some characteristics of the midrash.


Session 004:

Rabbinic Literature

16.00-‐18.00

Panel: Pirqe de-‐Rabbi Eliezer at the Crossroads of Cultures

Organizer: Gavin McDowell

Chair: Gavin McDowell

Rachel Adelman, Hebrew College, Boston, USA

Title: The Fate of the First Clothing

Abstract: Before Adam and Eve were banished from Eden, God clothed them in “cloaks of skin” (Gen. 3:21).In this paper I compare three different midrashic texts – Genesis Rabbah (18:6 and 20:12), Pirqe de-‐Rabbi Eliezer (14 and 24) and the Tanhuma (ed. Buber, Toledot 12) and suggest that each midrash must be understood in terms of the distinct characteristics of its genre – exegetical, narrative, and homiletic. The earlier exegetical midrash (Gen. Rab., redacted in 5th c. CE) realigns the chronology of the biblical text and presupposes that these garments were pre-‐lapsarian, worn in Eden before the sin. Pirqe deRabbi Eliezer (8th c. CE), on the other hand, adheres to the original sequence but audaciously rewrites the story as it fills in the gap – where did the skins come from? From the skin that the snake sloughed off. The question is whether these cloaks of skin are an extension of the “fig leaves”, sewn of shame, after the transgression, or whether they are a gesture of amelioration to soften the consequences of exile. I discuss the nature of the first clothing in terms of embodiment and sexuality, in conversation with early Christian exegesis on the 'garments of skin" (Gary Anderson). However, as narrative midrash, the author of PRE extends the life of the Adam and Eve's "tunics of skin” even East of Eden. As in the “preservation of biblical personalities” (Heinemann) applied to sacred objects, PRE expands the bearer of the garments from Adam to Noah, to Nimrod, to Esau, and even to Jacob. I analyze the narrative expansion in mythic terms as an expression of the opposition between Nature and Culture (Lévi-‐Strauss), between primordial man and his civilized counter-‐part.

Emmanouela Grypeou, Humboldt-‐University Berlin, Germany

Title: Apocalyptic Motifs in Pirqe de Rabbi Eliezer against the Background of the Christian Apocalyptic Tradition

Abstract: Pirqe de Rabbi Eliezer is known as one of the few rabbinic texts that develop an apocalyptic response to the Muslim rule. This paper intends to analyse the apocalyptic motifs of PRE with regard to early Islam in the context of contemporary Christian apocalyptic reactions to the emergence and expansion of Islam. Accordingly, the paper will address the question of commonalities and discrepancies in the Jewish and Christian reactions to early Islamic rule as reflected in their use of shared apocalyptic imagery.

Philip Alexander and Katharina Keim, University of Manchester, UK

Title: Pirqei de Rabbi Eliezer and Bere'shit Rabbah: Intertextual Relations?

Abstract: The paper will be jointly written by myself and my doctoral student Katharina Keim, who is about to complete a doctorate on PRE under my supervision at Manchester. Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer and Bere’shit Rabbah: Intertextual Relations? Prima facie it would seem likely that PRE, composed in Palestine in the early Islamic period, would have known and used Bere’shit Rabbah, a much earlier text, and one of the most impressive midrashic compositions of the school of Tiberias that covers much of the same ground. If it did not, then this in itself would be a significant piece of evidence regarding the reception of Bere’shit Rabbah. That there is some inter-‐textual relationship between the two works is borne out by the thematic and sometimes verbal overlaps between them. Our purpose will be to survey these overlaps and try to establish the precise nature of this relationship. We will argue that it is more complicated and oblique than one might at first sight suppose. On the one hand the overlaps are never such as to establish beyond doubt direct literary dependence. On the other hand there are grounds for thinking that at certain crucial points, notably in its exposition of the account of creation, PRE is quite deliberately reading against Bere’shit Rabbah, and offering a revisionist reinterpretation of the biblical text. PRE expects us to know at least Bere’shit Rabbah’s general approach to Genesis, and so to pick up its “correction” of it. We will suggest that this analysis throws light on the vexed question of PRE’s “sources” and is paradigmatic of its relationship to antecedent Rabbinic tradition in general. PRE marks a new turn in Rabbinic midrash: while loudly proclaiming its fidelity to Rabbinic tradition it, at the same time, is prepared to subvert it and “misprise” it for its own ends.

Gavin McDowell, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, France

Title: Christian Legend and Anti-‐Christian Polemic in the Pirqe de-‐Rabbi Eliezer

Abstract: The death of Haman in the book of Esther has a curious exegetical afterlife. In ancient Jewish interpretation, the hanging of Haman on the gallows becomes a polemical “type” of the crucifixion of Jesus. This identification, already explicit in Aramaic piyyutim of the 6th-‐7th century, is hinted at obliquely in the Pirqe de-‐Rabbi Eliezer (8th or 9th century): Haman’s gallows are constructed from a beam that belonged to the Temple of Solomon. Jesus was also believed to have been crucified on part of the original Temple complex, a motif that predates the Pirqe but did not become widespread in Christian literature until the Middle Ages. The implications of this apparent anti-‐Christian motif in the Pirqe have not yet been fully explored. I argue that the Pirqe is referring not only to the crucifixion of Jesus, but to the legend of the Wood of the Cross. It could be that the Pirqe, though Jewish, is an early written witness to one of the key legends of Latin Christianity.

Thursday 24th July

Room: 06

Session: 001:


9.00-‐10.30

Early Modern Poland

Chair: Michal Galas

Anat Vaturi, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: Beyond Theology: Jewish-‐Protestant Encounters in Early Modern Cracow

Abstract: "Despite the importance and the central character of the topic of the relations between the Jews and various churches in the Polish-‐Lithuanian Kingdom in understanding the history of the Jews in this country and in understanding the history of the Polish-‐Lithuanian Kingdom, the research in this field doesn't exist," wrote Yehudit Kalik. Although some years have passed since these appealing words were published, there has been no research giving a comprehensive picture of Jewish – Protestant relations in Polish-‐Lithuanian Commonwealth or even parts thereof. In the proposed lecture, I would like to take up this challenge and suggest a typology of probable every-‐day encounters between Jews and Protestants living among the Catholic majority in early modern Cracow. Sine theological encounters between the two religions have already been touched upon, in the proposed lecture I will examine meetings of other character (e.g. economic, legal and social) with special focus on their nature and context. Although limited due to the status of available sources, the presented typology of contact-‐patterns will hopefully shed some light on the nature of interreligious relations, suggest new paths of research, and offer an important contribution to our knowledge and understanding of Jewish and Protestant history in early modern Cracow and in Poland.

Arvydas Maciulevicius, Vilnius University, Lithuania

Title: Christians and Jews: Members of One City? Jewish Legal Status on the Radziwiłł Estates in the 17th to the late 18th Century

Abstract: In the privilege of the year 1607 to the Jews of Biržai, Krzysztof Radziwiłł has declared that he “hereby guarantees and demands the arrangements under which, where Jews face any threat in the city, Christians shall defend them as equals, for Jews are members of the city as well.” In the order of 1668 to the commissioners appointed by Ludwika Karolina Radziwiłł, the idea of both Christians and Jews being citizens of Biržai was even more pronounced. This attests to the existence of a tendentious policy of a unified community in the city of the Radziwiłł s. In this context, the Jews, just like their neighbours, Christians, were treated by the Radziwiłłs as citizens of equal rights. Compared to the legal and social status of the Jews in the state-‐owned (royal) cities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the case of the Radziwiłłs is unique, yet it has never been analysed throughout historiography. In his study conducted on the legal status of the Jews residing in the domains of Polish and Lithuanian magnates in the 18th century, Adam

Teller discerns three aspects concerning the legal status of the Jews, namely, the legal regulation of the settlement of the Jews in the domains of the aristocracy, the legal and social status of individuals granted a privilege of the Radziwiłłs, and the legal system of Jewish communities themselves. The present paper, therefore, seeks to reconstruct the model of the creation of the society in the city of the Radziwiłłs and distinguish the ways which were implored to unite the Jews and Christians into a civic society functioning in unison. For this purpose, the paper investigates the legal sources that reflect the existence of such a policy of the Radziwiłłs, as well as the requests of citizens and Jews to the owners of a domain (‘suppliki’), inventories, and correspondence reflecting the steps of the practical application of the politics of the unification of the city. Notably, nearly neither of them has been employed in historical research yet.

Anna Jakimyszyn, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland

Title: Jewish Community in Krakow and Kazimierz in the Light of Pinkasim (18th-‐19th Centuries)

Abstract: In my paper I will present one of the type of "internal sources" -‐ pinkas of Jewish community from Krakow with records dating from 1762: history of this court book (today this book is in National Archive in Krakow), information about community and the members, which we can find in this book. I will present differents aspects of this book (history, topography, urbanistic etc.)


Session 002:


11.00-‐13.00

Readmission and Legal Status

Chair:

Anna Lissa, Martin Luther Universitat Halle-‐Wittenberg, Germany

Title: The Conference for the Readmission of the Jews in the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily (1740)

Abstract: There and Back again: the Concept of Utility of the Jews for the Commerce and the Affirming of Secularism in Simone Luzzatto’ Discorso (1638) and in the Dossier of the Conference for the Readmission of the Jews in the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily (1740) This paper aims at retracing the ‘wanderings’ of some ideas of Simone Luzzatto. These ideas arrived to England from Venice and then possibly came back to Italy and namely to Naples. Possibly written in order to avoid a pending expulsion of the Jews from Venice, Simone Luzzatto’s Discorso focuses on the economic role of the Jews in the city of Venice and on their utility for the commerce of the Serenissima. Most striking and relevant is however Luzzatto’s approach to Jewish identity founded on the Jews political and economic role, while leaving aside the theological element. As it is known, these concepts resurfaced in John Toland’s Reasons for Naturalising the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland on the same foot with all Other Nations (1714). Later on, in 1740, Charles III king of Sicily and Naples, issued a decree allowing the Jews to come back to his kingdom. The concepts stated by

Simone Luzzatto resurfaced again, for the decree was the result of a conference held in Naples in 1739, where the readmission of the Jews was discussed mainly on the basis of their talent and utility for trade and economy. At the same time was affirmed the urge to challenge ecclesiastical authority where the Jews were concerned. The challenge to ecclesiastical authority, spreading superstition and hate against the Jews, and the seminal role of secular authorities as far as the Jews were concerned where mainly stated in Pietro Contegna, Nota per l’introduzione degli ebrei nelli regni di Napoli e di Sicilia (Note for the Introduction of the Jews in the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily) and in Celestino Galiani, Parere teologico sopra alcuni punti appartenenti alla reammissione degli ebrei nei due regni di Napoli e Sicilia (Theological Advice about some points concerning the readmission of the Jews in the two Kingdoms od Naples and Sicily). Both texts have never been published and are only available as manuscripts. At the current stage of the research it is difficult to positively state whether the intellectuals, politicians and reformist Catholics such as Celestino Galiani read Luzzatto’s Discorso or whether they became familiar with these concepts by reading Toland’s Reasons. They were, however, familiar with John Toland writings. The retracing of the itinerary of this ideas, resurfacing in the reformist milieu of Neapolitan intellectuals, is vital because this contribution will help to shed light on the history of political thought both in a Jewish and non-‐Jewish context.

Jonathan Immanuel, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Israel

Title: James Harrington, the Land Question and the Jews

Abstract: This paper will examine the use made of the Hebrew Bible primarily by political thinker James Harrington, his followers such as John Toland, and its influence on the evolution of thinking in England concerning the establishment of a Jewish state. In 1656, shortly after Oliver Cromwell failed to win support from London's merchants for Jewish readmission to England, Harrington suggested in the introduction to his Utopian work 'Oceana' that had Jews been admitted to Ireland to govern and farm it under their own laws forever, they could have ended their homelessness, enriched England's treasury and left trade in the hands of London's jealous merchants -‐ a win-‐win situation for all concerned. Expecting skepticism, he pointed out that Jews had been great farmers and legislators in Canaan and could be so again. Harrington hoped his out-‐of-‐the-‐box proposal would facilitate appointment as Cromwell's chief political adviser. It did not. It must have seemed impious to ignore the fact that many Englishmen, including Cromwell, claimed to support Jewish admission to England to facilitate their conversion which would be followed by English assistance in restoring them to Palestine. Harrington, a secular republican, ignored the conversionists. He also thought Jews could not be assimilated in England, but yet was no less fascinated than millennialists by the Hebrew Bible's potential political impact on England's future, as Eric Nelson has recently pointed out. However Harrington's biblical analysis closely followed the method introduced by Machiavelli who, after blaming the Roman church for Italian decadence, had convinced many anti-‐Catholic English thinkers that it was appropriate to compare Moses' political accomplishments with those of pagan legislators despite their divine origin. Harrington himself enhanced the political prestige of Moses in this pagan company and thought that had Jews maintained Moses' property laws their republic might have lasted forever. And so, in modified form, he implied, might the budding English republic. The supporters of land redistribution which Harrington proposed also tended to be more supportive of the idea of a Jewish restoration. The paper will therefore attempt to show that Puritan fascination with Mosaic Law had political as well as religious aspects which the Hebrew Bible was thought to reinforce without prejudicing their true Christian faith as Puritans saw it. This invited intense curiosity in the idea of a Jewish national revival and in what Jews at the time had to say about it.

Davide Mano, Tel-‐Aviv University, Israel

Title: Jewish Petitioning in the Age of Enlightened Reforms (late 18th century). The Case of Pitigliano in the Grand-‐Duchy of Tuscany

Abstract: My paper is based on a repertory of petitions submitted by the Jewish University of Pitigliano to the Grand-‐duke of Tuscany Peter Leopold. These records help explain the characters of the Jewish political struggle during the Tuscan age of enlightened reforms (1765-‐1790). Even more, they shed light on some of the specificities of the Jewish communitarian attitude toward Christian power. In this paper I will consider Jewish petitioners as political actors and their claims as essential tools for legal argument and negotiation, aimed at the abrogation of anti-‐Jewish discriminations. The communication between the emissaries of the “Jewish Nation” and the Grand-‐ducal authorities summarizes the history of the Jewish-‐Christian argument in its religious, juridical, socio-‐economic and political aspects. A closer approach to local sources calls into question the pertinence of those historiographical paradigms implicitly assuming Jewish inaction or political ineptitude along the early-‐modern age.


Session 003:


14.00-‐15.30

Ottoman [World]

Chair:

Ruth Lamdan, Tel-‐Aviv University, Israel

Title: Jewish Women Turning to Muslim Courts (16th-‐18th Centuries)

Abstract: Resort of Jewish subjects to Muslim courts in the Ottoman Empire was far more prevalent than is generally believed. The practice was condemned by rabbis and community leaders, who tried –unsuccessfully -‐ to curtail its prevalence through regulations. Not only men but also women resorted to Muslim courts on various matters, but primarily in order to circumvent the strict marital and inheritance laws laid down in Jewish halakha. This paper will review the main actions women brought before qadis in various Jewish centers in the Empire, discuss their motives and society’s reaction to this phenomenon. My conclusion is that despite social and rabbinical disapproval women were not totally powerless, and frequently found sympathetic ears in gentile courts.

Daria Shapira Vasyutinsky, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Moshe b. Yitzhak Çelebi Sinani: a 18th Century Saray Jew

Abstract: The paper presents results of the research work on the documents from First Firkowicz collection of manuscripts and is based on unpublished manuscripts. Moshe Çelebi Sinani (1665-‐1726) was a famous head of the Chufut-‐Qaleh Karaite community at the beginning of the 18th century. Chufut-‐Qaleh made part of the Crimean Khanate which itself was a vassal of the Osman Sultanate. Moshe acted as a Hofjude of

Devlet II Giray Khan (the Crimean Khan in 1699–1702 and 1709–1713) and even accompanied him during his exile to Rhodes in 1702. A balk of previously unpublished manuscripts from the First Firkowicz collection (F 946 op. 1 No 1064, the so-‐called Ravrebe catalogue) shed light on this outstanding figure, on the relations between the Karaites and the Ottomans and between the Karaite and the Rabbanite Jews (in the Crimea the Rabbanite community was subordinate to the wealthier and more numerous Karaites).


Session 004:


16.00-‐18.00

Religious Contacts between Christian and Jews

Chair:

Lucia Raspe, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-‐Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Title: Between Christians and Jews: Yuzpa Shammes and the Antiquity of Jewish Worms

Abstract: “Mayse nissim”, the Yiddish collection of some twenty-‐five tales relating to the history of Jewish Worms that was put together by the community’s sexton in the mid-‐seventeenth century and printed posthumously in Amsterdam in 1696, opens with two complementary tales that recount how the Jewish community in the city came into being. According to the first narrative in the collection, the Jews of Worms refused to return to the Holy Land when Cyrus put an end to the Babylonian Exile because they considered Worms a Jerusalem of their own. The second tale then fills in the details of how they had come to Worms in the first place when a member of the local nobility, who had taken part in the destruction of the Temple, brought them home with him because an ancestor stranded in Jerusalem many years earlier had been helped by a Jew. While similar narratives of the pre-‐Christian origins of a given Jewish community appear to have circulated elsewhere, testifying more often than not to the attempt of local Jews to avert an immenent expulsion, a particularly rich array of sources has been preserved in Worms. Drawing on a variety of Christian parallels to Yuzpa’s tales, my presentation will show that while the belief in the great antiquity of the local community was shared by Jews and non-‐Jews alike, opinions on the exact circumstances of their arrival varied greatly. I will argue that Yuzpa’s account, often taken as an expression of a somewhat naïve local patriotism, itself reacts to a far less flattering variant; in fact, it may reflect a dialogue on the Jews’ place within the late medieval German city that can tell us much about Jewish-‐Christian relations at the time.

Daniel Dobos Karoly, Pazmany Peter Catholic University of Hungary

Title: "De-‐mythologizing the Religious Other": Yehuda Aryeh me-‐Modena on the Acceptability of Some Christian Dogmas

Abstract: Three years before his death, in 1645, the great Venetian Rabbi, Yehuda Aryeh (Leone) me-‐Modena (1571–1648) composed a polemical work against the basic theological principles of Christianity, entitled Magen wa-‐Hereb (Shield and sword). The book belongs to a long-‐established genre of Jewish literature, however, it is a very special representative of the literary genre. To illustrate, first, our author tried to liberate Jesus from the legendary materials, which emerged around his person in the Talmud and the midrashim, by portraying the founder of the new religion as a positive character of the past, differing from the Pharisees of the Second Temple period only in minor questions. Second, delving into his analysis of different Christian dogmas, in two chapters of his book our author attempted to make the dogma under attack comprehensible for his Jewish readers. Speaking on the original sin and on the Trinity, he endeavored to find an understanding of the concepts, which seemed to be acceptable from a Jewish perspective, too. A really strange thing to find in a polemical writing! In the following lecture I would like to demonstrate how Modena's understanding of Christian theological principles was shaped, on the one hand, by his native Jewish tradition, and, on the other hand, by the influence of his Christian environment. In addition an attempt is made to answer the most important question: what kind of motivation can be detected behind his really unusual attitude?

Emmanuel Bloch, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Rabbi David Tsvi Hoffmann's Response to a 19th Century New Form of Anti-‐Semitism

Abstract: In 19th century Germany, the Emancipation did not only change the status of the Jews, but it also marked the beginning of profound transformations in the modes of expression of anti-‐Semitic sentiments toward them. Old preconceptions were dressed in a new, pseudo-‐scientific garb, and were expressed in congruence with the rationalistic spirit of the times – the ontological divide between Jews and non-‐Jews was thus explained as a result of a different biology, or as the expression of different racial characteristics. The same phenomenon manifested itself in yet another way: a number of German orientalists gave expression to their anti-‐Jewish feelings by studying the classical halakhic Codes, with the express intention of showing that the Jewish Law had largely adopted very discriminatory positions, favoring in multiple ways Jews over non-‐Jews. This argument was presented as a serious impediment to the integration of Jews into German society at large. This paper will address how Rabbi David Tsvi Hoffmann (1843 – 1921), German’s uncontested halakhic authority at the time and Head of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary, tackled this issue in his book “Der Schulchan-‐Aruch und die Rabbinen über das Verhältniss der Juden zu Andersgläubigen” [the Shulchan-‐Arukh and the Rabbis on the Relationship of Jews to other Faiths]. Hoffmann’s presentation is apologetic in essence but is marked by several unique features. His public stance will be contrasted with the very different overtones discernible in his more private writings in Hebrew, as well as with the differing tactics used by his successor at the Seminary, Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg (1884-‐1966).

Thursday 24th July

Room: 07

Session: 001:

Middle Ages

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Documentary Sources on Jewish-‐Christian Interaction from Western and Central Europe

Organizer: Birgit Wiedl

Chair: Birgit Wiedl

Eveline Brugger, Institute for Jewish History in Austria

Title: "Sealed with our Jewish signature" -‐ Jewish-‐Christian interaction in Austrian business charters

Abstract: Business charters are among the most important sources on Jewish-‐Christian interaction in late medieval Austria – both because a great number of them has been preserved, and because they cover a wide variety of economic, social and legal contacts between Jews and Christians that range from close cooperation to grave conflict. This paper will analyse these contacts as they present themselves in the charters, and the way in which the legal and cultural needs of both sides influenced the formal development of Jewish-‐Christian business documents.

Jörn R. Christophersen, Arye Maimon-‐Institut, Universität Trier, Germany

Title: Municipal Records in Late Medieval Germany. Cartularies and "Serial Sources" as a Means of Tracking the Jews in Middle European Urban Contexts.

Abstract: The paper examines the particular importance of cartularies and “serial sources” for research on the history of the Jews in northern and north-‐eastern territories of the Holy Roman Empire. The paper will focus on both the unusual features of the tradition and the level of Jewish involvement in the creation of known sources. Analysing these possibilities of the participation of Jews in the production or motivation of non-‐Hebrew written evidences in the urban context can only be successful when we take into account Jewish-‐Christian relations and the Jews’ relations to Christian administration. The phenomena to be examined are therefore closely connected with 1) the promotion of writing by religious institutions, particularly the clergy’s exercising of secular rule and 2) the ways Christian municipalities managed their own self-‐administration according to or contrary to the claim to power by princes or noblemen. Beyond the conurbation of Jewish settlement on the Rhine and Main rivers or in southern Germany, Jews lived in the towns of different territories and left traces in the municipal documentation. Because of a rather weak documentation in the area under investigation we have to use much more than charters only. An essential feature of the analysis of northern Ashkenas is the integration of serial sources containing references to Jews. This rather diverse type of documentation includes – e.g. – account books, council and guild meeting minutes, citizen rolls, tax rolls, and court registers. In the latest research, working with these sources led to numerous new insights into Jewish everyday life and the basic conditions of Jewish life within a Christian environment. Using examples from the eastern parts of the Holy Roman Empire and – though it will also be necessary at times – drawing on comparative material from other regions, the presentation is aimed at

figuring out the Jews having a specific stake in causing the production of written source material in urban provenances.

Birgit Wiedl, Institute for Jewish History in Austria

Title: Finding Jews in Unexpected Places: Rent-‐rolls, Land Registers, and Account Books from Southern Germany

Abstract: My paper will examine the appearance of Jews in serial sources such as rent-‐rolls, account books and land registers from late medieval Southern Germany. Although predominantly economic sources, these source types nevertheless shed light on many different aspects of Jewish-‐Christian everyday interaction, allowing not only to trace Jewish-‐Christian cooperation but also Jewish landownership as well as Jewish involvement in administrative procedures.


Session 002:

Middle Ages

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Documentary Sources on Jewish-‐Christian Interaction from Western and Central Europe 2

Organizer: Birgit Wiedl

Chair:

Juliette Sibon, Centre Universitaire d'Albi, France

Title: Legal Rule vs Practice? Reflections on the Presentation of the 14th-‐Century Provençal Jews' Sources

Abstract: Jews of Provence's sources during the Late Middle Ages are rich and diverse. This communication aims at presenting the nature of the Latin documents through the 14th-‐Century Marseilles' example, in order to compare them with the documents concerning other contemporary spaces.

Claire Soussen, Université de Cergy-‐Pontoise, France

Title: Religious and Legal Frames of Jewish-‐Christian Economic Relationship in the Medieval Crown of Aragon.

Abstract: The paper will examine the relationships between Jews and Christians through the normative frames of Jewish and Christian authorities. The documentation in Latin and in Hebrew will provide elements to understand the nature and quality of the links between them. Exegetical and theological texts, rabbinical responsa, will be examined.

Judith Olszowy-‐Schlanger, EPHE, Paris, France

Title: Hebrew Documents from England and their Role as a Source for Neighbourly Contacts between Jews and Christians

Abstract: The corpus of over 250 Hebrew and Hebrew-‐Latin legal and administrative documents written in England before the expulsion in 1290 contains a wealth of information about neighbourly contacts. Deeds of conveyance and other documents concerning real estate issues are particularly informative about spacial distribution in particular quarters of English medieval towns and about the structure and relationships within neighbourhoods. Some examples of such relationships will be studied in this paper.


Session 003:


14.00-‐15.30

Panel: Credit and usury. Jews and Christians against incertitude

Organizers: Javier Castaño and Claude Denjean

Chair: Javier Castaño

Javier Castaño, CSIC, Spain

Title: Translating Hebrew Documents in a Litigation Culture (Late Medieval Iberia)

Abstract: This paper will explore the practices of translating Jewish documents from Hebrew into vernacular in late Medieval Iberia in relation to court procedures, as well as the notarial legalization of these documents. The main purpose is to shift the focus from the analysis of formal documentary typologies to the uses of these documents and the practice at court, showing the interaction between Jews and Christian institutions. Attention will be devoted to instances where differences can be observed between the original document (in the cases when these were preserved) and its translation. Preference is given to Aragonese and Castilian 15th century examples (one of the results of the project Ginze Sefarad). Several explanations will be provided concerning the increasing practice of translating documents related to intergenerational transmission of properties, sometimes attesting to the existence of multirreligious familial structures and the presence of converts. On the other hand, this analysis may be instrumental for exploring the evolving notarial practices shared by Jews and Christians in the urban context, that have been the subject of study with varying scope and fortune.

Asunción Blasco, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain

Title: The Long Road from the Scribe to the Notary among Jews in the Kingdom of Aragon

Abstract: I have been studying the figure of the scribe/notary, among Christians and Jews, for which the documentary evidence is neither clear nor abundant. Early results of my research were published in 1993

(EAJS Troyes Congress). Since then, I have continued collecting additional information, both taken from the Chancery registers of the Archives of the Crown of Aragon, in Barcelona, as well as from Aragonese notarial records. Now, time has arrived to clarify some aspects, such as the process of transformation experienced by some Jewish communities in Aragon (the most important and populated) along the 14th and 15th centuries, concerning the system of writing juridical acts made by, and among Jews. This is a process similar, though on a lesser scale, to that experienced by Christians. In an early period, there were scribes of territorial character, appointed by the King, lord or Jewish community. The beneficiary could pursue the office himself or through a surrogate. They were mere scribes. Some have been identified and it is still difficult to determine when they started. From the late 14th century, documents start mentioning “notaries” appointed by the king, that draw up Hebrew documents according to the Jewish calendar (up until now, we only knew two, 1391 and 1424). From now on, these Jewish “notaries” are qualified by the king to draw up wills, sentences, attestations, minutes, and all kind of documents carried out among Jews (“quorumcumque contractum fuerint per et inter judeos dicte aliame fienda et quavis alias scripturas autenticas et pubicas easque scribere seu scribi facere per substitutum aut substitutos a te juratos de quibusquidem prothocollum sive capibrevia factas ut eterne memorie comendentur,” as attested by a 1424 document). According to the auctoritas conferred by the king, the documents drawn out by them, will serve as legal evidence “in judicio et extra inter nostros judices fides plenaria adhibeatur et omnimodam obtineant roboris firmitatem tanquam publica manu facta dum tamen subsriptionem tuam apposueriis in eisdem.” The figure becomes professionalized, and the, until then, scribe, becomes a notary. The appointment of the new notary was done by the royal (or seigniorial) chancery through a document including several clauses. The adoption of the notarial practice by Aragonese Jews, though less important than among Christians, becomes an important feature in the development of Aragonese Jewry.

Claude Denjean, Université de Toulouse-‐le Mirail, France

Title: Propter incertitudo. Jews and Christians on Medieval Markets.

Abstract: Ce travail s’appuie sur l’étude des pratiques scripturaires de gestion et de légalisation des juifs et des chrétiens catalans, majorquins et aragonais aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles jointe à l’analyse des sources judiciaires. Il s’agit de s’interroger sur la manière d’aborder l’incertitude sur les marchés par les hommes d’affaires, à l’époque où la notion de bon citoyen bon chrétien ou bon juif se construit. Dans cette société du tout à crédit, juifs et chrétiens sont liés par la fides, voire par l’amicitia. Ils s’associent ou se trainent en justice. Cette convergence ne présume pas d’influences religieuses destructrices pour la communauté minoritaire, au contraire. Les contextes légaux et familiaux restent parfaitement distincts entre prêteurs et courtiers de religions différentes ; ils dessinent un système d’influences et de choix qui renforcent les communautés, au sein d’une société où l‘échange marchand tend à l’uniformisation et la globalisation des valeurs.


Session 004:


16.00-‐18.00

Panel: Credit and usury. Jews and Christians against incertitude 2

Organizers: Javier Castaño and Claude Denjean

Chair:

Juan Vicente Garcia Marsilla, Université de Valencia, Spain

Title: The Movement of Capital and Goods between Jews and Christians in Late Medieval Valencia

Abstract: Although many publications have already shown the importance of medieval credit in Valencia, the large number of unstudied notary, legal and accounting records helps to provide new light to the subject of the second hand market, implying Jewish, and after Convert, brokers working by Christians. The role of these market brokers is essential in the fixation of prices and in the establishment of confidence. We can see the specialization for the members of two religions, but also a complex relationship between them, that break the traditional image of the wandering Jewish. Specially, the valencian case let to propose a synthesis on the scale of a major international port, including its agrarian hinterland, where the Jewish play an important role within the merchant class, as pawnbrokers or commercial agents.

David Carvajal, University of Valladolid, Spain

Title: Agreements and Conflicts: Credit Relations between Jews and Christians (Castile, ca. 1492).

Abstract: During the last 50 years before the expulsion in 1492, Jews and Christians strengthened their economic and financial relations. Despite important problems –the riots in 1449, for example–, the coexistence and the cooperation between both communities was intense until the Catholic Kings resolution. Traditional works about Castilian Jews have shown a well-‐known role, their business on royal taxation. However, the most recent studies from civil lawsuits, notary registries and other sources have opened new perspectives and fields of study such as the analysis of the social and economic ties which arose from credit relations. The aim of this paper is to study the importance of credit relations -‐understood as an agreement between Jews and Christians, which made possible their integration in networks and in the village economy, the conflicts and trials about arrears and the consequences of the expulsion in Castilian urban and country markets.

Ricardo Muñoz Solla, Salamanca University, Spain

Title: On a new Castilian Ketubbah from XVth. Century Spain: Texts and Contexts

Abstract: This paper will present the results of a research regarding a marriage contract or ketubbah from the Castilian village of Valencia de don Juan (León) conserved in the Manuscripts Section of the Real Chancillería of Valladolid Archive. It will analyze the key features of the text and its social context where it has been produced.

María Gloria de Antonio Rubio, CSIC, Spain

Title: Notarial Documentation as a Source of Knowledge about Judaeo-‐Christian Relationships: Loans in Medieval Galicia

Abstract: Galicia is one of the autonomous community that form the current map of Spain. Located in the Northwest of the country, throughout the Middle Ages it has counted with the presence of small Jewish communities, from which very few documents have been kept, most of them from the 15th century. Among these documents, the most numerous are the ones that are related to economic issues, especially the ones that are about loans. All loan contracts, except the ones made by people with a familiar or friendship relationship, are commercial in nature, that is, they pursue some profit for the loaner on account of the risk he takes by giving certain amount of money. Such activity between co-‐religionists was forbidden by either the Jewish or Christian culture. However, in adverse circumstances, both of them resorted to loans, therefore, loans became a meeting point between Jews and non-‐Jews. In Galicia, loan documents are mainly kept in notaries ńotebooks, so, as a consequence the aim of this paper is the analysis of those books in order to know the type of loan contracts made between Jews and Christians and the way to elude the prohibition of charging interests (including the profits in the amount of money lent that is agreed to be given back by the borrower, or giving back the money lent with some property or the value of that property in the financial market but not the money)-‐ from the Galician notarial documentation of late Middle Ages.

Thursday 24th July

Room: 08

Session: 001:


9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Borrowing from One’s Opponent:

Transmission and Appropriation of Polemical Motifs in Medieval Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Organizer: Pavel Sládek:

Chair: Dita Valova Rukriglová

Daniel Boušek, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic

Title: The Transfer of Muslim anti-‐Talmudism to Christian Polemic against Judaism

Abstract: The paper focuses on the problem of transmission of polemical motifs from Karaite polemic against Rabbanite writings to Muslim and subsequently Christian polemic against Judaism, Hebrew Bible, and rabbinical literature. Muslim Ibn Hazm of Andalusia (d. 1064) in his polemic against Judaism draws from Karaite polemic against rabbinical literature and especially Shiur Qomah in order to expose anthropomorphic notions of Judaism. He is the first Muslim polemicist who in this context mentions Talmud, Mishnah, or Shiur Qomah. The same polemical motifs occur subsequently in Petrus Alphonsi Dialogue against the Jews. The paper suggests the possibility of transfer of Muslim anti-‐Talmudic rhetoric to Christian polemic against Judaism in the 12th century Spain.

Daniel Soukup, Institute of Czech Literature AS CR, Czech Republic

Title: Host Desecration Legends in Czech Medieval Literature -‐ Violence against Judaism, Polemic against Hussitism

Abstract: The paper focuses on the group of medieval texts related to the cases of the Host desecration accusation in the Czech lands and surrounding regions. In the 15th century the narrative of Jews torturing Eucharist functioned on the one hand as a traditional tool of the legitimization of anti-‐Jewish persecutions, and on the other hand as a widely comprehensible theological abbreviation defining the Catholic doctrine against Hussitism and heresy in general. Although the Jewish elements of these profanation legends are largely topical and hagiographic, the essence of these stories is based on the real events of the anti-‐Jewish violence. The bleeding Host itself served as a symbol of the Catholic attitude to the theological definition of Eucharist, and controversy with the Hussite movement.

Milan Žonca, University of London, UK

Title: The Discourses of Heresy in Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen’s Sefer nizahon

Abstract: Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen (d. 1421) was one of the most important Ashkenazic scholars of the late Middle Ages. His works show remarkable openness to new intellectual trends flowing to Ashkenaz – he was influenced by the philosophical writings of Maimonides as well as by Sephardic Kabbalah – but he is best remembered as a polemist and apologist. His highly popular Sefer Nizahon, probably written at the beginning of the fifteenth century in Prague, is directed not only against Christians, but also against different other groups of dissenters. Lipman’s emphasis on the rationalistic dimension of the Jewish faith and his attempt to re-‐fashion the intellectual image of the Jewish community is unique in Ashkenazic context. In this paper I explore the reception of Christian discourses of heresy, especially anti-‐Hussite polemic, and inquisitorial practices in Lipman’s work. I suggest that Lipman articulated the need for a rational reappraisal of Jewish tradition in a manner that was shaped by contemporary Christian preoccupation with the influence of theological ideas among the laity and with orthodox and heterodox identities. He also responded to the challenges posed by the cases of Jewish conversion to Christianity and associated the liminal position of the converts in Jewish and Christian societies with Christian notions of heresy.


Session 002:

Jewish Languages Literature

11.00-‐13.00

Modern Yiddish Literature I

Chair:

Adi Mahalel, Columbia University \ University of Maryland College Park, USA

Title: Heine's Political Influence on I.L. Peretz

Abstract: According to his own account, the Yiddish and Hebrew writer I. L. Peretz (1851-‐1915) was deeply influenced by the work of the German poet of Jewish descent, Heinrich Heine (1797-‐1856). The great influence of Heine on Peretz's poetry is widely acknowledged, especially the influence of Heine's love poetry. In fact it was Peretz's collection of Hebrew poetry "The Organ" that sparked the debate in the second half of the 1890's over Heine's place in Hebrew literature. But Heine's influence on Peretz extended beyond his poetry to include his views on Marx and the socialist movement, and his writings in edgy feuilletons. Heine's political influence on Peretz is not often discussed. This omission is strange given the fact that both authors were deeply involved in the social-‐political currents and issues of their time. Heine knew the young Marx personally when they were both in Paris, and was exposed directly to his evolving mindset. Peretz became deeply involved with Jewish labor circles including the nascent Bund movement during the 1890's. Heine extensively discussed various socialist platforms and thinkers in his journalistic writings. He was a cultural hero not only to Peretz, but also to many Europeans of Jewish descent, particularly as more and more Jews joined the ranks of the European middle and upper-‐classes. My paper will discuss Heine's influence on Peretz, emphasizing the often neglected political aspects of its significance.

Laetitia Tordjman, Sorbonne Nouvelle -‐ Paris III, France

Title: L'avant-‐garde yiddish, une littérature transnationale et transculturelle : l'exemple d'Oser Warszawski

Abstract: Penser l'avant-‐garde littéraire yiddish en termes d'échanges, de transferts et d'appropriations permet de sortir des oppositions traditionnelles entre centre et périphérie ou modernité et tradition. La critique récente sur les avant-‐gardes [David Cottington, Benedikt Hjartarson, Harri Veivo, Lidia Gluchowska] s'est justement attachée à questionner ces cadres, et la littérature yiddish d'avant-‐garde tend à constituer une des figures paradigmatiques pour envisager ces nouvelles perspectives de recherche. L'expérience diasporique est au fondement des expérimentations littéraires d'un grand nombre d'écrivains yiddish d'avant-‐garde. Chez Oser Warszawski et Lamed Shapiro par exemple, les contacts culturels et linguistiques ont amené à l'élaboration d'œuvres éminemment hétérolingues, qu'il soit fait un usage important de mots et d'expressions en anglais dans Der amerikaner shed (Le Démon américain) de Shapiro ou en polonais et en russe dans Shmuglers (Les Contrebandiers) de Warszawski. Ces constructions de langues littéraires singulières mettent en question le statut à accorder au yiddish, à la fois mame-‐loshn et langue subversive, transgressive – tout autant vis-‐à-‐vis des langues dominantes que du yiddish lui-‐même, (re)devenu hybride et syncrétique, porteur des traits définitoires du langage de la modernité. Mais envisager l'avant-‐garde yiddish dans ses contacts interculturels contribue également à inscrire ce mouvement dans le champ plus vaste de la littérature non seulement européenne, mais aussi mondiale. L'enjeu n'est plus de se situer entre un centre et une périphérie, mais plutôt de repenser (en s'inspirant notamment des essais d'Edouard Glissant) la notion de « local » comme une ouverture dynamique au « nous », et partant à l'universalité. Ainsi, les revues comme Khaliastra pour Warszawski ou Studio pour Shapiro, participent à l'invention de ce que Benedict Anderson appelle une « communauté imaginée », en l'occurrence la construction d'une identité collective plurielle dans un réseau transnational. Il devient alors possible de penser l'avant-‐garde yiddish comme un mouvement plus global qui inclurait les autres avant-‐gardes diasporiques, et notamment celles de la diaspora africaine.

Ephraim Sicher, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Babel's Cultural Identity

Abstract: Isaak Babel (1894-‐1940), the well-‐known Soviet Jewish writer, wrote in Russian, but his prose is thick with Yiddish linguistic interference and intertextual references to Jewish texts, including Haim Nahman Bialik. This paper discusses the case of a write who grew up in Jewish Odessa and spoke Yiddish, but, like many Russian Jews of his generation, acculturated naturally to a Russian literary and social milieu before the Revolution and was accepted into Soviet literature of the twenties. Is he to be considered a Jewish, Russian, or Russian Jewish writer?

Judith Lindenberg, EHESS, Paris, France

Titre: Du témoignage yiddish au « témoignage de la Shoah » : deux cas de transfert au milieu des années cinquante.

Yiddish and non-‐Yiddish Testimony in the Aftermath of the “Hurbn”

Abstract: En 1946, Marc Turkow fonde à Buenos Aires la collection d’ouvrages en yiddish intitulée « Dos poylishe yidntum », qui fut publiée de 1946 à 1966 et comprend 175 volumes. La collection, qui fut inaugurée au lendemain de la Seconde guerre mondiale, contient une grande variété d’écrits qui témoignent de l’Histoire de la judéité polonaise avant et pendant la Catastrophe. Jusqu’à 1950, le « document sur le khurbn » (du nom yiddish de la Catastrophe) domine et inclut parmi les premiers

témoignages sur le génocide, pour quasiment disparaître par la suite. Alors que le procès Eichmann marque, en 1961, l’avènement du témoin sur la scène publique occidentale, la collection de Marc Turkow collecte des témoignages dans l’immédiat après-‐guerre, dans lesquels le témoin qui raconte est distinct de celui qui recueille, écrit et édite le témoignage. Ainsi, la forme de ces premiers « documents » modifie la notion de témoignage telle qu’on l’entend aujourd’hui. La collection contient en outre deux écrits, publiés quelques années plus tard (et constituant en cela une exception dans son évolution générique et thématique), qui deviendront des écrits fondateurs de la « littérature de la Shoah » : La maison de poupées de Katzetnik (1955) et la première version de La Nuit d’Élie Wiesel (1956). Dans les deux cas, à travers des différences dans l’écriture et dans les stratégies éditoriales, les versions yiddish et non yiddish de ces écrits (respectivement en hébreu pour La maison de poupées et en français pour La Nuit) offrent des visions très éloignées de l’expérience du témoin. En comparant les réceptions de ces ouvrages dans les mondes juifs et non-‐juifs, je vais tenter d’expliquer le décalage entre ces différentes versions. Ces deux œuvres sont devenus, dans le monde non-‐juif, chacune à leur manière, les modèles d’un nouveau genre de littérature. Quels modèles de « témoignages de la Shoah » offrent-‐ils et à quels types d’écrits vont-‐ils ouvrir la voie ? Je voudrais montrer, en inscrivant ces écrits dans leur contexte d’origine, de quel contexte historique et de quelles traditions d’écriture ils proviennent. Ces premiers écrits, qui ont été gommées par la suite, permettent de remonter aux sources des « témoignages de la Shoah » et d’en restituer la généalogie. In 1946, Mark Turkov founded in Buenos Aires the Yiddish book series Dos poylishe yidntum which spanned more than two decades and comprised one hundred and seventy-‐five volumes. Thus initiated in the immediate postwar period, this collection drew on a variety of genres to bear witness to the history of Polish Jewry both before and during the Holocaust. Until 1950, the “documents on the Hurbn” prevail and include some of the first testimonies of the Holocaust. While the Eichmann Trial in 1961 supposedly marked the advent of the witness, Mark Turkov’s book series sought to collect eyewitness accounts in the immediate postwar period—a singular endeavor perfectly embodied in the first volume of the series, which is a Holocaust testimony by a woman survivor. Yet, beyond providing a window into some of the earliest representations of the Holocaust, the form of these “documents on the Hurbn” alter the very notion of testimony as we understand it today. The series also contains two texts, published a few years later, which became founding texts of the literature of the holocaust: Katzetnik’s Yiddish version of The house of dolls (1955) and Elie Wiesel’s first version of The Night (1956) were published in this series. In both cases, through differences in the writing itself, and through different editorial strategies, the Yiddish and the non-‐Yiddish versions give a very different image of the witness experience. By comparing the respective receptions of these books in the Jewish and the non-‐Jewish world, I will try to see what happened, and, in both cases, explain the gap between the Yiddish and non Yiddish versions. These two texts became, in the non-‐Jewish World, models of a new kind of literature. What model does each book offer for Holocaust testimony, and which were the respective genres which followed them ? I will show, in putting these works in their original context, in which historical context and in which tradition of writing they emerged. This first situation, later forgotten, allows us to go back to the beginning of the writing of Holocaust testimonies, and to restore their genealogy.


Session 003:

Jewish Languages Literature

14.00-‐15.30

Modern Yiddish Literature II

Chair:

Saul Zaritt, The Jewish Theological Seminary, USA

Title: Sholem Asch’s Universal Tzaddik: Jewish Writing, World Literature and World Redemption

Abstract: By 1933, the Yiddish writer Sholem Asch was truly an international celebrity. Beyond success in the circumscribed world of Yiddish literature, Asch had made a name for himself in the world: he was a prominent member of PEN International; his plays on American and German stages had drawn rave reviews; and his sprawling epic novel (Three Cities), which documented the Bolshevik Revolution in St. Petersburg, Warsaw and Moscow, had been widely translated and compared favorably to the works of Balzac and Tolstoy. It appeared that Asch had achieved universal acclaim by embracing Western literary models and institutions. However, Asch never remained satisfied with such acclaim and instead sought to turn his universalism into a form of activism. Beginning in 1933 with his novel Der tehilim-‐yid (The Psalm-‐Jew), translated into English as Salvation, Asch confronted the political pressures of the period by imagining a Jewish spiritual tradition that could be universalized and globalized in order to bring about world redemption. Returning to the neo-‐romanticism of his early works, Asch aimed, ambitiously, to achieve a synthesis between the Jewish and Christian foundations of western civilization. This paper argues that while such universalism has been considered simplistic and naïve by Asch’s many critics, Asch’s work from this period represents an essential model for theorizing the global dimensions of modern Jewish writing. This paper will analyze Asch’s attempt to propose the tzaddik as the foundation of the world while also underscoring the conflicts and incongruities that come with translation and cross-‐cultural transmission.

Alexandra Herzog, Brandeis University, USA

Title: Queering the Shtetl: The Androgyne and the Cross-‐Dresser in the work of Isaac Bashevis Singer

Abstract: In « Queering the Shtetl, » I examine the interplay between sexuality and religion in the work of the Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902-‐1991). Though Singer himself came from a religious Jewish family, much of his literary corpus focuses on the subject of sexuality and its deviations. Analyzing selected pieces of fiction, I attend to Singer’s recreation of an erotic, subversive “underworld” in the Eastern Europe of his writings — one permeated with mysticism, magic, demons, and antinomianism. This paper analyzes Singer’s exploration of gender roles and looks at questions of androgyny, cross-‐dressing and same-‐sex relationships. In contrast to many Yiddish writers, Singer did not view himself as the legitimate heir of traditional Judaism, but he rather adopted a diametrically opposed attitude; for him, modern Yiddish literature became the vector to oppose traditional Jewish values. My argument in « Queering the Shtetl » is that Singer’s use of sexual imagery, despite its defiance of religious norms, paradoxically draws on traditional Eastern European Jewish — especially Hasidic — religious theologies. In Singer’s writing, it becomes evident that the pleasures of sex are in fact mixed with the terrors of guilt and sin with, in the background, an omniscient God who is watching from afar. Although sexuality represents a force for rebellion, Singer’s obsession with sexuality cannot be separated from the religious world he seeks to rebel against. In « Queering the Shtetl, » I argue that Singer uses the Talmudic definitions of gender categories and does not consider same-‐sex attraction unusual. For him, the world of the Yeshiva scholars was a homoerotic space; however, while he does not condemn gender fluidity, he does not encourage gay sex and often punishes his gay characters. I argue that while Singer’s writing invokes a certain cultural nostalgia for the shtetl, it simultaneously subverts normative concepts of gender and sexuality through its fascination with cross-‐dressing, androgyny and sexual deviances. Analyzing the original Yiddish texts, I propose a fresh

reading of selected short stories, illustrating the depth of his gender spectrum and the fact that the Talmud actually has a much more developed vocabulary than we have in English to talk about gender and sexual categories.

Khayke Beruriah Wiegand, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, UK

Title: Jewish-‐Polish Love, Jewish Popes and Post-‐Holocaust Jewish Demons in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Works

Abstract: Although the majority of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s works are set in Poland, they are almost entirely populated by Jewish characters, and very few of them deal with Jewish-‐Polish relations. However, there is one novel, _Der knekht_ (_The Slave_), which has a 17th century love story between a Jewish slave and the daughter of his Polish master at its core and which reveals much about the difficult relations between Jews and Poles at the time. It is significant to note that out of her love for the Jewish slave, the Polish heroine of the novel converts to Judaism at a time when it is forbidden by Polish law to do so, and the couple find themselves in the position of complete outsiders both in the Polish and in the Jewish community. Jewish-‐Christian relations are often dealt with mockingly in Bashevis’s works, and in his Yiddish originals, Bashevis tends to employ what is known as ‘lehavdil-‐loshn’ (‘not-‐in-‐the-‐same-‐breath language’) to distinguish all things Jewish from all things Christian. This technique is particularly prominent in his short story ‘Zeydlus der ershter’ (“Zeidlus the Pope’), which features the ‘Evil One’ tempting a Talmudic scholar to convert to Christianity and to become the first Jewish Pope. Of course, the situation becomes much more sinister after the Holocaust in Poland, when even the last Jewish demon, who proudly distinguishes himself from his non-‐Jewish counterparts, has no more Jews left to lead into temptation in a former Polish-‐Jewish shtetl like Tishevits, as in Bashevis’s story ‘Mayse Tishevits’ (‘The Last Demon’). At the end of the story, the demonic storyteller realises that all that is left of Jewish life in Poland after the Holocaust are the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and Yiddish words, from which a Jewish demon can draw his sustenance – just as a Yiddish writer like Bashevis.


Session 004:

Contemporary Israel

16.00-‐18.00

Zionism, Immigration, Integration

Chair:

Alexander Alon, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland

Title: “A very Tasteful Scene”. The 6th Zionist Congress as a Drama of Knowledge-‐Production

Abstract: The sixth Zionist Congress which took place in 1903 has been described as “the stormiest and most tragic“ (Getzel Kressel/Misha Louvish/Amnon Hadaryl) in Zionist history. “Tragic” being a term from aesthetic theory, namely the theory of drama, in my presentation I intend to highlight the aesthetic

dimension of this perspective. During the sixth Zionist Congress, the „El-‐Arish-‐Project“, a secret emergency plan that had aimed at directing the Jewish mass emigration from Eastern Europe to El Arish, Egypt, was publicly discarded by the board of the World Zionist Organisation, despite a surge of pogroms in Eastern Europe, most notably the Kishinev pogrom that had taken place in the same year and had pressured the WZO into action. In his opening speech, Herzl argued that a scientific expedition to El Arish had found the land unsuitable for mass settlement – a premise that was challenged by Davis Trietsch, an expert on El-‐Arish-‐settlement who had not been considered by Herzl. This opposition by Trietsch led to a fierce response by Herzl: The ‚Stenographic Protocols‘ of the Congress show, how Herzl showered Trietsch with scorn and depicted him with great rhetoric effort – and in front of a cheering crowd – as a person lacking the moral integrity to be entrusted with the a responsibility that goes with the task of acting as a scientific expert for the Zionist cause, thereby legitimating his own choice of experts and the decision to abandon the El-‐Arish-‐plan. Almost less than the bare argument, it was the form of Herzl’s speech that gave rise to fierce debates: Opponents like Alfred Nossig brought forward that Herzl had enacted ‚I would like to say a tasteless, but this might be un-‐parlamentary, so I should say: a very tasteful scene that would be of great effect on a provincial stage‘ in which Trietsch had been ‚murdered‘ [„abgemurkst“] (Ephraim Moses Lilien). Conspicuously, this debate was not only led by Zionist functionaries who were also dramatists (Herzl, Nossig) or theoreticians of drama or culture (Nossig, Martin Buber) or artists (Lilien); moreover, as I intend to show, it widely employed concepts of aesthetics (e.g. „taste“) and thereby referred to theoretical debates led in the history of European drama – namely, to debates on the choice and depiction of characters and on the role of drama in society. Considering this, my presentation aims at two goals: On the one side, I wish to show, how the Zionist discourse around the production of knowledge for the Zionist cause was at the same time a discourse on the characterization of a Zionist ‚type‘ and thusly on Zionist culture. On the other hand, I wish to show how this process is prefigured by a European cultural discourse around the tasks and the essence of drama in society.

Daniel Mahla, Columbia University, USA

Title: Nationalizing Orthodoxy: The Religious Zionist Movement and its Struggle with Non-‐Zionist Orthodoxy

Abstract: The first decades of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence of Orthodox Jewish politics, marked by the foundation of Mizrachi in Vilna in 1901, and the non-‐Zionist Orthodox Agudat Yisrael (Aguda) in Kattowitz in 1911. The struggles between religious Zionists and the Aguda are often analyzed on the background of their ideological conflicts about Jewish aspirations to build a Jewish state in Palestine (“Zionist vs. Anti-‐Zionist”). In contrast, I conceptualize the relations between the two movements as struggles for power and leadership among Orthodox Jews. Based on a quantitative analysis of over 1300 short biographies featured in the Encyclopedia of Religious Zionism, my paper will uncover the ways in which Mizrahi activists tried to fashion themselves as the ideal leaders vis-‐à-‐vis their main political opponent in the Orthodox field, the Agudat Yisrael. While Agudat Yisrael comprised many of the spiritual authorities of the interwar period, Mizrahi leaders defined and distinguished themselves by their social and political activism. Time and again, they stressed the significance of community work. In this context, I argue, nationalism served an important function. It helped the Mizrahi leaders in their political struggle against Agudat Yisrael and backed their own claims to leadership and authority. Thus, my analysis tries to uncover the political and socio-‐economic frictions that lay behind the ideological battles about Zionism. This, in turn, helps me to contextualize Orthodox political movements in their wider European and Palestinian contexts. Their struggle, I argue, was essentially a conflict between different forms of authority, comparable in many ways to struggles between spiritual leaders and political activists in other societies and groups, such as Catholic clerics and Polish nationalists. As such, their contentions have to be understood as part of wider secularization processes in early 20th century Europe.

Sara Airoldi, University of Milan, Italy -‐ Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: The Kibbutz of the Sun. Enzo Sereni reads the Dominician Tommaso Campanella

Abstract: The paper aims to present the re-‐reading of the thought of the Dominician friar and theologian Tommaso Campanella as it was elaborated by the Italian Socialist Zionist Enzo Sereni. The analysis is based on an unpublished manuscript written in 1919 where, clearly basing on Campanella's utopian essay "Civitas Soli" (1602), the young Zionist from Rome portrayed the advent of a new social and political order apparently depicted for humanity after World War I. It may be suggested that the archetypal model was actually conceived in order to flawlessly foresee the socialistic, democratic and egalitarian reality embodied by the kibbutz-‐system, of which Sereni himself was one of the most prominent souls in Italy and one among its first agents in Eretz Israel. As such the paper will tackle the issue of the contact between Jewish and non-‐Jewish cultures from the point of view of the history of ideas. It illustrates how, in that specific case, Zionism applied to and stroke up strong ties with the theoretical repertoire formulated in the peculiar frame of a heterodox wing of Catholicism, suggesting a possible reading of social utopias as field of intellectual encounter and exchange beyond, and at the same time within, cultures and religions.

Rachel Suranyi, former (CEU) and future (ELTE) student

Title: “If you want to adjust Israel to yourself, you will be disappointed.” Identification and Integration of Hungarian Jews in Israel

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to see how Hungarian Jews living in Israel identify themselves and what the level of their integration is. The Russian-‐speaking Jewish community is the reference group for the comparison in which the Hungarians are the focus. As a group of comparison, I picked Russian-‐speaking Jews because they arrived in several waves and by now make up 20% of the Israeli Jewish population. Concisely, my goal was to choose two groups that are essentially different regarding their situation in Israel. Regarding the methodology, there are 17 interviews conducted with Hungarian Jews who left in the 1990s for Israel. In order to be able to situate them within the Israeli context they will be set against the Russian-‐speaker immigrants who were thoroughly analyzed by other scholars thus serving as a meaningful control group. Hence, the goal is to see how the Hungarians differ from them. The importance of this project lies in the fact that Hungarians in Israel were not studied yet. The findings concerning integration will show the success or failure of these two particular migration flows. Answering the question about the reasons for migrating, it will be clearer whether Israel is pulling the immigrants for ideological reasons or it starts resembling other receiving countries. The results suggest that Hungarians are more advanced in their integration than the Russian-‐speakers but maintaining their Hungarianness also plays an important role. This manifests on the individual level as opposed to the Russians where both the community and individual level are important in maintaining Russian culture. What is striking, is that the phenomenon that instead of becoming part of the majority as Jews, they become from minority members (of a religious group in Hungary) to minority members (of an ethnicity in Israel).

Thursday 24th July

Room: 09

Session: 001:

History of the Jewish Book (Manuscript and Print)

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Legacy of Sepharad

Intellectual and Material Legacy of Late Medieval Sephardic Judaism

Organizer: Javier del Barco

Chair: Javier del Barco

Javier Del Barco, CSIC, Madrid, Spain

Title: The Poetic Sections in Late Medieval Hebrew Bibles: A Preliminary Study on Page Layout

Abstract: The poetic sections of the Hebrew Bible (Exodus 15, Deuteronomy 32, Judges 5, 2 Samuel 22) are clearly differentiated sections in all medieval codices of the Hebrew Bible. They present a page layout which continues and develops a textual disposition already known in Rabbinic sources and always followed in the liturgical copy of Torah Scrolls, as far as Exodus 15 and Deuteronomy 32 are concerned. Yet, very little is known about their actual page layout in Late Medieval Hebrew Bibles in particular. To what extent do they follow the Rabbinic and Maimonidean legislation on this matter? Are there different traditions which follow different models of page layout? Is there a difference between the different medieval Western traditions—Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Italian? What is the relationship, concerning layout, between these poetic sections and the surrounding text? How does the presence of the Aramaic text of the Targum affect the general layout of these sections? This paper will deal with these questions by offering the preliminary results of a much broader project concerning typology, text function and page layout of Late Medieval Hebrew Bibles.

Maria Teresa Ortega-‐Monasterio, CSIC, Madrid, Spain

Title: The Hebrew Bible of the Royal Palace in Madrid: A Sephardi Bible from the 15th Century

Abstract: The Royal Palace Library in Madrid keeps a single Hebrew manuscript. This is a bible dated 1487. The fifteenth century Sephardic Bibles share some characteristics that differ from those of previous centuries. And this particular Bible has a number of features that give it a unique character. This paper discusses some of these details, especially their micrographies and the masoretic information provided.

David Torollo, University of Salamanca, Spain

Title: The story of a Jewish Female Wineseller: an Example of Cultural Translation in Medieval Iberia

Abstract: Three men gather in a house to eat and drink. When they find themselves completely drunk and the wine is over, they decide to look for more from the house of a Jewish female wineseller. After obtaining

the wine, they kill the woman and kidnap her daughter, who is raped by the men in the house. Next morning and fearing the girl’s accusatory testimony, they kill her and run away from the town. This story appears in a chapter of the Mishle he-‐‘Arav, a Hebrew work on ethical and wisdom motifs by an unknown author who claims to be translating from the Arabic. The work has remained relatively marginal to modern scholarship and its importance lies in the fact that it is one of the first Hebrew works on its theme written sometime between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the Iberian Peninsula. The significance of the story is that it constitutes the only occasion in the book when the author/translator of the work depicts a character as a Jew. In this paper I intend to take the story of the Jewish female wineseller as a witness to the language translation phenomenon which was being carried out both in the Christian courts and the Jewish communities, and as a vantage point from which to raise broader questions on processes of cultural contact. I will examine the motivations that led the author of the work to stress the religion of the wineseller and the consequences this fact may have from a cultural translation perspective.


Session 002:

History of the Jewish Book (Manuscript and Print)

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Sephardic Book Art of the Late 15th Century: Tradition, Adaptation, Innovation

Organizer: Luís Afonso

Chair: Luís Afonso

Luís Afonso, University of Lisbon, Portugal

Title: The Cultural Meaning of Portuguese and Andalusian Sephardic Book Decoration

Abstract: If we compare two manuscripts produced around the same time in Lisbon and Seville we notice immediately the difference is outstanding. One is carefully decorated with coloured frames filled with exquisite vegetation and animals, has coloured filigree word panels and has a reasonable use of golden words and filets. The other is almost monochromatic, it does not have any figurative reference besides some vegetation, and is mainly decorated with geometric patterns and forms derived from Islamic artistic traditions, particularly seen in some exquisite micrographic exercises. In this paper the meaning of the Portuguese and the Andalusian different artistic solutions is addressed and their meaning is explored in order to understand what they can tell us regarding the relations between Jews and Christians in Late Medieval Iberia.

Debora Marques de Matos, King’s College, London, UK

Title: Mobility and Adaptability of Sephardic Book-‐makers in the Late Fifteenth century

Abstract: Notwithstanding the historical circumstances, there is a new dynamic in the production of Hebrew books in the Iberian Peninsula during the last decades of the fifteenth century. This was mostly due to the development of the printing press with Hebrew characters but also to a widespread interest in

luxuriously decorated manuscripts. The way Hebrew books were produced inevitably changed: jobs and tasks had to be restructured or created, and to a certain extent books begin to be produced ‘in mass’. Although it does not abandon completely the familiar and religious environment where it was prepared for centuries, the Hebrew book slowly moves to a new space — the workshop. While the mobility of scribes and other craftsmen as a consequence of persecution or expulsion has been amply explored in scholarship, the fact that they often moved in search for new opportunities has often been disregarded. However, it is possible to trace the work of scribes across several regions, in some cases taking new roles and learning new crafts. The following presentation intends to explore concrete examples of scribes and other craftsmen who can be linked to more than one area or production or workshop, and consider how they adapted to new roles and new ‘audiences’, to what extent they assimilated new styles, and what remained as the core of their work.

Tiago Moita, University of Lisbon, Portugal

Title: The Hebrew Bible from Moura. A Testimony of Mudéjar Art in Portugal

Abstract: There is no doubt that in the last decades of the 15th century Lisbon becomes one of the main Iberian centres for the copy and illumination of Hebrew manuscripts. However, this craft was not necessarily restricted to the capital and several examples attest the same activity in other parts of the country, at least since the late 1300s. Within the group of Portuguese Hebrew manuscripts there is one manuscript that deserves our attention, a lesser-‐known Bible copied in 1470 by Samuel ben Abraham Altires, in the small village of Moura (south of Portugal), for the renowned Lisbon merchant, Isaac ben Gabbay (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Can. Or. 42). Its copious micrographic decoration, with a grammar that is essentially mudéjar, establishes a connection with the ‘Andalusian school’, where the influence of Islamic art is more strongly felt (not only in manuscripts, but also in synagogal architecture); on the other hand, the decoration of this Bible is open to colour, particularly gold, a frequent feature of the manuscripts from Lisbon produced in the next decades. The purpose of this paper is the analysis of this manuscript by considering its historical, codicological and artistic aspects, in order to underline its cultural meaning as a link between the Andalusian and Portuguese production.


Session 003:

Jewish Art I

14.00-‐15.30

Chair: Liya Chechik

Katrin Kogman-‐Appel, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Jewish Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages and the Representation of the Holy Land in the Farhi Bible (Mallorca, 1366-‐83)

Abstract: The Farhi Bible in the former Sassoon collection includes a detailed colophon by the scribe and illuminator Elisha Bevenisti Cresques informing us that he produced the book for his own use. Apart from the biblical text the Farhi Bible contains 200 pages of what can be defined as Elisha Cresques’ personal library. As part of this “library” we find a group of miniatures that refer to the Temple of Jerusalem, a representation of Jacob’s tents, the City of Jericho as labyrinth and more. These images can, in many senses, be read as an itinerary of the Holy Land. Several iconographic links to the imagery in pilgrimage itineraries from the 16th c. On can, in fact, support that interpretation.

Aleksandra Buncic, University of Zagreb, Croatia

Title: Medieval Workshop as a Place of Encounter between Jews and Christians

Abstract: Through a careful analysis of miniatures from the medieval illuminated manuscript known as the Sarajevo Haggadah, my paper will explore the ways in which the medieval book workshop served as a locus of intense Jewish-‐Christian dialogue and debate. The miniatures of the Sarajevo Haggadah are the witnesses of this encounter and artistic and intellectual exchange. My paper will focus in particular on medieval Jewish and Christian interpretations on the Second Commandment against making images which were a topic of inter-‐religious debate since ancient times. By examining the extraordinary range of ways in which God’s presence is depicted in the Sarajevo Haggadah in light of contemporaneous Jewish and Christian iconography, it will seek to establish the origins of the Sarajevo Haggadah in mid-‐fourteenth century Catalonia, shed new light on the state of the Jewish-‐Christian relations in this turbulent context and, finally, suggest how the upheavals of this period in northeastern Spain may, in turn, provide the key to unlocking some of the Sarajevo Haggadah’s most intractable iconographic mysteries.


Session 004:

Jewish Art II

16.00-‐18.00

Chair: Katrin Kogman Appel

Gerbern Oegema, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Title: The Apocryphal Book 'Judith' in the Renaissance

Abstract: This paper will analyze and reflect on the portrayal of one key female figure in the Apocrypha, namely Judith, and how she has been portrayed by some of the most famous renaissance painters, namely, apart from Jan Sanders van Hemessen’s Judith of ca. 1540, which is kept in The Art Institute in Chicago, by Botticelli (The Return of Judith; 1470); Giorgione (Judith; 1504); Caravaggio (Judith Beheading Holofernes; 1598-‐99); Artemisia Gentileschi (Judith Slaying Holofernes; ca. 1620); Valentin de Boulogne (Judith and Holofernes; ca. 1626), and Johann Liss (Judith and Holofernes; 1628).

Guadalupe Seijas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

Title: The Iconographic Representation of the Book of Ruth

Abstract: Contrary to biblical women such as Esther or Judith, artists paid less attention to the figure of Ruth. In my paper I will analyze the iconography of this book of Ruth in Europe from Renaissance until our days. The focus of my research will be on chosen scenes, the representation of the characters and the political, social and cultural context.

Liya Chechik, Jewish Museum and Tolerance Centre, Moscow, Russia

Title: Hebrew Inscriptions in the Religious Paintings of the Venetian Renaissance

Abstract: When a work of art gets its individual value, as it happened in 15th century Italy, the need of specifying the meaning of a visual image with inscriptions and commentaries becomes obsolete. During the late Middle Ages a new quality of religious art is found with an increasing information capability, which did not need verbal concretization, and yet we find in it the presence of Hebrew inscriptions that consequently needs to be taken into account when analyzing the religious compositions of Italian Renaissance artists (Vittore Carpaccio, Cima da Conegliano, Giovanni Bellini, Rocco Marconi etc). The presence of Hebrew inscriptions in Renaissance paintings can be explained not only by a continuation or a reminiscence from the Middle Ages, but rather should also be connected with a change in the attitude of the humanistic milieu toward Jews during that period, the acknowledgement of their contribution to the system of book-‐making and diffusion of printed production, and the scientific collaboration between Catholic and Jewish scribes. As Robert Bonfil pointed out, the Jewish thinkers of this period, educated through rabbinates, became a natural part of the general cultural milieu of the regions of their residence along with Christian intellectuals. One of the features of this phenomenon is the high participation of Jews in the training of Christian scholars, interested in theology and the language of the Bible. Since there exists the point of view that in the art of the Renaissance inscriptions are traditionally given only in Latin (in contrast to the Counter-‐Reformation), the examples where Hebrew writings are used are particularly worthy of attention.

Thursday 24th July

Room: 10

Session: 001:


9.00-‐10.30

Interactions and Contacts across Culture and Politics II

Chair:

Eugenia Prokop-‐Janiec, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

Title: Modern Polish-‐Jewish Cultural Contacts

Abstract: The aim of the paper will be to characterize modern Polish-‐Jewish cultural contacts and to describe the topography of the resultant cultural frontier. The frontier will be definied here as a network of places, institutions, and texts, organized by the multifarious relations of influence, exchange, translation, interference, negotiation, and conflict. It will also be regarded as a sphere of inclusion and exclusion, of bonding and separation. The description will focus on selected phenomena of inter-‐group contacts. These will include places, such as the classroom-‐ Berek Mathias (Institute for the Study of Culture, Leipzig University, Germany), institutions, such as the modern Jewish press in Polish, and texts, such as textbooks for Polish-‐language Jewish schools.

Mathias Berek, Institute for the Study of Culture, Leipzig University, Germany

Title: “And then he hugged and kissed him”. A Jewish Prussian and Swiss Professor speaks in Vienna about the German Nation

Abstract: In 1865 the University of Vienna celebrated its 500-‐year-‐anniversary. During the event, particularly the delegate of the University of Bern, Switzerland, Professor Moritz Lazarus, a Jewish philosopher and psychologist from Berlin, elated his audience with his speeches about the unity of the "German spirit" and the progress of academia. Enthused by the speaker, the president of the Viennese university, Hyrtl, even hugged and kissed him. But while the press coverage about that event was unanimously reporting the applause, later on the papers diverged on who had been carried on shoulders at the evening banquet -‐ Lazarus or Hyrtl? At the same time his Jewishness had been mentioned in only very few articles. Why -‐ and why not? And how did the Swiss press react on his thesis that the Swiss universities would be part of the "German spirit"? The paper deals with the public coverage of the anniversary in regard to Lazarus in German, Austrian and Swiss dailies and discusses it against the context of Central Europe during the forming stage of the German Empire, the conflict between Prussia and Austria, the discourse about the nation and how it would be defined. It asks what part the Jewish intellectual Lazarus played as a public figure in these processes. Like other Jewish thinkers of his time he promoted a combination of particularism and universalism that saw no contradiction between being patriotic and humanistic. And already the interpretations of what he said in Vienna show how his public picked just the patriotic part and overlooked the universalist.

Alex Valdman, Ben-‐Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: The University of Tartu and the Origins of the Jewish-‐Russian Public Sphere

Abstract: It is widely accepted that the university – as a source of education and as a social environment – played a significant role in the shaping of the Jewish society in Late Imperial Russia. However, even with important works such as Benjamin Natans’ Beyond the Pale, relatively little is known about the Jewish students and Jewish student life in Russia. It is not always clear which ideological and social factors have turned some of these students into socially and politically committed intellectuals. In my paper, I examine the thriving hub of Jewish student activities, which had developed in the 1880s and the 1890s in the University of Tartu (then – Dorpat, or Derpt), where, unusually for the Tsarist Empire, student unions and fraternities were legally permitted. Due to their legal status, the Jewish student unions in Tartu were able to make and keep the records of their activities. Consequently, nowadays the archives in Estonia hold a substantial body of materials on these organizations. Drawing on these materials, I demonstrate how in the multiethnic and multilingual environment of late 19th century Tartu, the Jewish students developed various modes of self-‐identification and collective identity. The examining of these archival collections sheds new light on the student life in Tartu, but more importantly, it allows an intimate glance into a scene of ideological strife, where concepts of social activity and social commitment, which shaped the Jewish public sphere in early 20th century Russia, were conceived, debated and refined.


Session 002:

History of Sciences

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: History of Contemporary Medicine

Organizer: Rakefet Zalashik

Chair: Rakefet Zalashik

Rakefet Zalashik, Moses Mendelssohn Center, Germany

Title: Jewish Medical Refugees in Turkey

Abstract: The persecution of Jewish physicians in Nazi Germany and the migration of some of them to England and the U.S. was widely studied. However, little attention was given to Jewish medical professionals who managed to emigrate from German-‐speaking countries to Turkey. The paper examines the migration and absorption of Jewish medical refugees from German-‐speaking countries to Turkey with the emphasis on the uniqueness of this case. Due to the nation building project of the new republic and the reform in high education, Turkey was in a great need for Western academics exactly at a time when Jewish academics were persecuted in Europe and needed a safe haven. This special conditions have created a unique constellation of absorption and transfer of medical knowledge and its implementation in Turkey.

Michael Tal, Yad Vashem, Israel

Title: Personal Items that belonged to Professor Hermann Zondek: A Means of preserving his Persona in the Collective Memory and an Exam

Abstract: Changing historical perspective in the 1990’s made the curators of Yad Vashem’s new Holocaust History Museum opened in 2005 feel it essential to begin the exhibition narrative with the story of German Jewry. Central to this idea was to highlight the persona of a key individual from the Weimar Republic period who was forced to leave solely because of his Judaism in spite of his contribution to German society. This new frame of reference brought with it an urgent need to expand the number of items in the collection connected to German Jews and with this in mind, the community of ex-‐German Jews in Israel was contacted. This was not a simple change, because German Jews who had left Germany before the war were convinced that they were not part of the narrative. It was, therefore, not clear to them what place artifacts from before the war in Germany had in Yad Vashem. The figure of Professor Hermann Zondek was proposed in one of the curatorial discussions and a decision was made to contact his family and ask them to donate artifacts that could present his personality, background and fate with the rise of Hitler. Professor Hermann Zondek was one of the most senior physicians in Germany in the Weimar Republic. He was born in 1887 in Posen and though he originally had plans to become a Rabbi, influenced by his uncle Dr. Max Zondek, he studied medicine. He studied in Berlin and continued in Freiburg and Göttingen. Certified as a doctor in 1912, he served in the German army during World War I. In 1921 he received a professorship in endocrinology and advanced quickly in the hospital hierarchy. Professor Zondek received many awards for his research and served as professor of medicine at the Charité hospital in Berlin. In 1926 he was appointed head of the municipal hospital "am Urban” in Berlin. A long and respected list of renowned patients is further evidence of his outstanding stature. At the Paris conference of 1929 that culminated in the Kellogg-‐Briand Pact he served as the personal physician of the German Chancellor Streseman. Later, he was the physician of Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher. Professor Zondek‘s research brought him to the attention of various world leaders, among them Josef Stalin, who had him brought secretly to Moscow to attend to senior Politburo members. Professor Zondek‘s high standing in public medicine was a factor in his being among the elite among German Jews who was directly and immediately affected by the Nazi measures. In March of 1933 Nazi storm troopers entered Prof. Zondek’s hospital, locked him and other doctors “Jews and Communists” in a room and proceeded to inform the Professor that he was relieved of his duties as director of the hospital. Prof. Zondek left Germany for Zurich that same day, never to return. His wife and two children Birgit and Bernard remained in Berlin for a time. After a short stay in Switzerland, Professor Zondek traveled to Manchester, England where he found employment in the local Jewish hospital and his family joined him there. While in Manchester, Zondek was approached by Chaim Weizmann who invited him to Jerusalem. So it came to pass that Prof. Zondek took on the challenge of directing the Bikur Cholim hospital in Jerusalem. Prof. Hermann Zondek was one among the masses of German immigrants who were crucial in the advance of science and culture in Jerusalem and Israel at large. Gerda Zondek, Professor Zondek’s widow who still lived in her home in Jerusalem – a home whose furnishings continued to be those that had been brought from Berlin in the 30’s -‐ was a valuable contact and her cooperation was crucial in enabling Yad Vashem to obtain assorted items from their home. The artifacts, now displayed in the Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem, highlight an outstanding personality whose character and major achievements were forgotten over time. Only this display decision brought them to the public’s awareness and to the forefront of collective memory. The display of Professor Zondek’s personal items along with his life story highlights, not only his personality, but in the context of the museum exhibition, it makes his persona part of the collective memory of the rise of Nazi Germany, the crisis of German Jewry that followed in its wake, with its final chapter, the Holocaust of European Jewry.

Susanne Doetz, Moses Mendelssohn Center, Germany

Title: Flight and Emigration of Jewish Female Physicians of the Berlin Public Health System

Abstract: Out of 450 physicians that were expelled during National Socialism from the Berlin public health system due to "racial" and/or political reasons, 6 were females, who were defined by the NS-‐diction as "not-‐Ariyan". They shared some characteristics: they were so called a second generation female physicians, receiving their license to practice in period of the Weimar Republic; they worked in typical "feminine" medical fields such as infants, school medicine or pediatrics; many were members of the Association of the Socialists Physicians and were preoccupied with social-‐hygiene. What was the fate of these "New Weimar Women" in exile? To what extent could they continue with their profession? Were there differences in the migration process between female and male physicians?


Session 003:


14.00-‐15.30

Panel: Jewish Studies in America

Organizer: Rona Sheramy

Chair: Rona Sheramy

Pamela Nadell, American University, USA

Title: American Jewish Studies: The State of the Field

Abstract: In October 2013, Forward columnist Jenna Weissman Joselit bemoaned the second-‐class status of American Jewish studies in the world of Judaic studies writ large. While this field was indeed once marginalized both within Jewish studies and within American Studies, it has, especially within the past decade, taken an important turn towards moving its scholarship and research closer to the center of Judaic studies, at least in settings within the United States. In 1954, the momentum from the tercentenary celebrations marking three hundred years of Jewish life in America carried over into the academic pursuit of American Jewish studies. In 2004, energy from the celebrations surrounding 350 years of American Jewish life also spiraled outward. This paper surveys these developments both within the academy and beyond to argue that American Jewish studies has come of age in the wider world of Judaic studies. Field: Contemporary Jewish History: Western World

Rona Sheramy, Association for Jewish Studies, NY, USA

Title: Jewish Studies at a Turning Point: The Shifting Landscape of Jewish Studies in the U.S. Post-‐2008

Abstract: The field of Jewish Studies has experienced phenomenal growth in North America since the founding of the Association for Jewish Studies in 1969. There are more than 170 colleges and universities in North America offering some type of undergraduate or graduate certificate or degree program in the field, as well as more than 1800 individual members of the AJS, drawn from the ranks of Jewish Studies professors and graduate students. Since the economic crisis of 2008, though, Jewish Studies has witnessed

a slow down in hirings and in course enrollments. Some of these changes can be attributed to broader challenges to the humanities on college and university campuses, while others to the changing demographic of students interested in such courses. This paper will examine the challenges and opportunities facing the field of Jewish Studies in North America over the past half decade, and offer some suggestions as to how the field may take shape in the coming years.

Jeffrey Veidlinger, University of Michigan, USA

Title: European Jewish History in the Digital Age

Abstract: This paper will discuss some of the ways in which collaborative work in Jewish Studies, made possible by emerging digital and technological innovations, is changing the ways that scholars study different types of texts and expanding cooperation between European and American scholars and publics. In particular, the author will discuss his own project, the Archives of Historical and Ethnographic Yiddish Memories, which conducts videotaped life story and linguistic interviews with Yiddish-‐speakers throughout Eastern Europe. The project utilizing digital video in the field and presents its findings through the web, drawing upon the theoretical and practical knowledge of the "digital humanities." This collaborative project has allowed for historians, linguists, folklorists, ethnomusicologists, technical experts, and the general public in Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Israel, and the United States to communicate, share expertise, and construct shared narratives of the past.


Session 004:


16.00-‐18.00

Panel: Jews Seeking Justice in the Wake of the Holocaust

Organizer: Lisa Leff

Chair: Annette Wieviorka

Ari Joskowicz, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Title: Jews and the Romani Holocaust: Post-‐War Justice and Memory Politics

Abstract: In various European countries, Jews’ struggle for post-‐war justice shaped the representation of the murder of Europe’s Roma (or Gypsies). Jewish efforts often indirectly and inadvertently reinforced the exclusion of Roma from efforts to document and compensate victims. As Jews successfully fought for inclusion in post-‐war compensation schemes, for example, their case became the legal benchmark for the discussion of Romani claims. In Germany, restitution courts regularly rejected the claims of Romani deportees to Poland in 1940 by showing how their persecution differed from that of Jewish deportees. Jewish victims also became privileged sources of knowledge about racial persecution. In the early 1950s, Belgian government officials sought to reconstruct the experiences of people deported as tziganes by

asking only Jewish survivors about their fellow sufferers’ fate. Yet, while efforts at compensation and commemoration for Jewish suffering could have negative effects on Roma claims, the work of individual Jews and the example of Jewish victimhood were also crucial for the establishment of knowledge about the Roma genocide. The efforts of various Jewish activists, lawyers, and scholars were crucial in putting the Romani Holocaust on the agenda —from Raphael Lemkin’s attempt to define Nazi genocide in the Nuremberg trials as the murder of “Jews, Poles, and gypsies” to the inspiration that the Eichmann trial gave to later investigations of crimes against Roma. Drawing on examples from Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, and the Netherlands, my presentation will explore this complicated story of inclusion and exclusion emerging from experiences of parallel victimhood.

Lisa Leff, American University, Washington DC, USA

Title: Postwar Book Restitutions and the Return of Republican Franco-‐Judaism

Abstract: During the Nazi occupation of France, millions of books and archival documents were looted from Jewish individuals and institutions in France. In the aftermath of the war, many of these books were found in Germany and the Allies embarked on the largest restitution project in history, endeavoring to return as many of the materials as possible to their original owners. This paper examines how the French authorities handled these restitution efforts. The French adopted a “republican” mentality, treated the returned books as “French” rather than particularly Jewish (and therefore, for example, if an original owner could not be found, a volume would be donated to a public library rather than a Jewish library). This is not particularly surprising given what we know of the political climate for Jews in the immediate aftermath of the war. Although persecution of the Jews had come to an end, the government (and even Jewish communal leaders) was reticent to address problems particular to the Jews, leading to many difficulties. And yet nevertheless, as my paper will also show, the way restitution authorities enlisted the help of Jewish institutions and communal leaders in their efforts had an important effect on the re-‐emergence of Jewish cultural life later on, beginning in the 1960s.

Simon Perego, Institut d'études politiques de Paris / Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po, Paris, France

Title: Rebuilding through Purges? Communal Jurys d'honneur within French Jewry after Liberation

Abstract: Despite the wealth of academic publications dedicated to postwar purges in France, the Jewish dimension of this subject has hardly attracted the attention of historians. And yet the confrontation in the Jewish community after Liberation pitted those considered to have behaved with dignity and altruism during the war against those deemed to have acted dishonorably and to have caused direct or indirect harm to their co-‐religionists. Indeed, when liberation came, a number of Jewish groups and personalities called for an internal purge of the community. In particular some actors in the French Jewish community took it upon themselves to evaluate the conduct of other Jews under the occupation in the context of various proceedings that had no official status whatsoever. These proceedings were for the most part conducted by committees – often called “jury of honor” (“jury d’honneur”) – that various Jewish bodies created specifically for this purpose. They addressed difficult cases in which it was felt that although the persons implicated might have acted dishonorably, the gravity of their offense did not justify their automatic referral to the legal authorities. Tackling this subject will lead us to the intersection of two bodies of history that have not yet come together: studies of the liberation and purges in France [Novick, 1968 ; Rousso, 1992 ; Baruch, 2003] and studies of the revival of Jewish life in the country after the occupation [Weinberg, 1990 ; Wieviorka, 1995 ; Grynberg, 1998]. Although, as a political phenomenon, the purges in France were not limited to the postwar period, the process, which began in the summer of 1944, was the

first time that the purges involved both the Jews and French society at large, albeit with different levels of intensity. So when we analyze the full complexity of the internal purges in the Jewish community we must inscribe them in the general context of the purges in French society, while trying to understand the functions they may have played in the fabric of the group in question. To do this, I will look first of all at the strong inclination among French Jews to purge alleged Jewish collaborators with the Nazis and the Vichy regime from their midst. Next, I will consider the models and forms of the internal purges. Finally, I will try to evaluate the limits that marked Jewish initiatives to expel those considered to have been guilty of misconduct under the occupation. This will allow us to study an important—and yet underestimated—aspect of the reconstruction of the Jewish community in the specific context of the immediate aftermath of the war in France.

Sarah Federman, George Mason University School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, Arlington, Virgina, USA

Title: Aller Simple: Restoring Justice and the French Railroads -‐ SNCF vs. USA

Abstract: Case Summary: Between 1941-‐44, the French state-‐owned train company, the SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Francais) under the direction of the Vichy Regime deported 75,721 Jews to the German border where they were then taken to Auschwitz. The deportees traveled thirty-‐six hours packed in cattle cars with no food, water, light and sanitation. Few returned. The company continues to work in and outside of France to clear its name and make amends with survivors and Jewish groups. Archives have been opened to the public; the company contributes to commemorative efforts, and participates in other activities that could be considered transitional justice initiatives. A class action lawsuit based in New York has been in process for over ten years and legislation continues to be drafted within the United States to create barriers for the train company to bid for U.S. high-‐speed rail and commuter contracts. The most recent bill, sponsored by New York Senator Charles Schumer, reached the Senate floor this September. Based on over three years of research, this paper examines the case from a conflict resolution standpoint. Firstly, the paper examines why the French Jewish community seems to believe the company has made amends while some of the diaspora feels the company has not done nearly enough. The paper also explores the ways in which the on-‐going U.S. based lawsuit constrains productive dialogues between the SNCF and survivor diaspora. This case serves as a valuable opportunity to consider the ways in which corporations can make amends in post-‐conflict environments.

Thursday 24th July

Room: 11

Session: 001:


9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Economies and Images of Jewish-‐Christian Relations in the later Middle Ages

Organizers: Eva Frojmovic and Diane Wolfthal

Chair: Eva Frojmovic and Diane Wolfthal

Eva Frojmovic, University of Leeds, UK

Title: Feasting at the Lord's Table? The Economy of Salvation in the "Feast of the Tzadiqim" in the Ambrosian Bible

Abstract: The painted "Feast of the Tzadiqim", together with other eschatological images, completes the Ambrosian Bible (1236-‐8, South Germany) with a messianic conclusion based on rabbinic traditions. This banquet has been compared to Last Supper scenes without much thought for other than "artistic influence". I would like to argue for much more complex relationship between minority and majority culture. Yes, the painted "Feast of the Righteous" may reference (polemically) the Last Supper; but beyond that, we need to attend to the social meanings of banquets as constitutive of a fragile social order, as witnessed in the role of banquets in secular literature. Norbert Ott noted that almost no matter what a secular book is about (Tristan, Parsifal, you name it), illuminated versions will inevitably feature a banquet. But of course in the case of the Jewish messianic banquet there is a twist, as the belonging of Jews to that society is debated, and this banquet, as secular as it looks, is not. Nevertheless, I will argue that like its secular counterparts, the Jewish "Feast of the Righteous" encodes an ideal social order which can stand in for messianic re-‐ordering of society.

Diane Wolfthal, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA

Title: Complicating Medieval Anti-‐Semitism: Class as a Category of Analysis in Images of Christian Violence against Jews

Abstract: Miri Rubin justly concluded that “most remaining traces” of medieval atrocities against Jews “represent the position of Christian authorities – chroniclers, preachers, town officials – who were almost always writing in defense or celebration of the events.”But the exceptions to this rule are illuminating. This paper will explore images in chronicles and fable books produced for Christians that neither celebrate nor defend Christian acts of violence against Jews, and, indeed sometimes condemn them. These are certainly few in number, yet their existence complicates our understanding of medieval anti-‐Semitism.In exploring these images, my paper will suggest that sometimes class conflict trumps religious conflict.

Maya Irish, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA

Title: Ferrán Martínez and the Social Anti-‐Judaism of Fourteenth-‐Century Castile

Abstract: The devastating pogroms of 1391 in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon permanently altered the physical and spiritual landscape of Jewish life in Spain. The massacres took place in the midst of economic and political changes accompanied by social unrest and violence. The talk will argue that the crisis of political authority in the kingdom of Castile fostered the growth of social anti-‐Judaism, which built on the traditional themes of doctrinal anti-‐Judaism, but had an important social dimension: it firmly linked the Jews with the established order and its many failures, and aimed to change society by ridding it of the Jews. This ideology is most apparent in the preaching of Ferrán Martínez, the archdeacon of Ecija and a canon of the Cathedral of Seville, who for at least two decades prior to the attacks advocated strict social separation between Jews and Christians and confidently asserted that the king and queen of Castile would be “pleased” if the Jews were to be killed. Although Martínez’s impassioned preaching is rightly seen as the catalyst for the attacks in Seville that triggered a chain reaction of anti-‐Jewish violence throughout Spain, much about his life and career remains poorly understood. Was he a rogue priest, or a respectable member of the ecclesiastical hierarchy? How much did his preaching owe to the ideas already in circulation throughout Castile? By exploring the connection between Martínez’s preaching and the kingdom’s public discourse on the Jews, the talk will attempt to show how the idea of the Jews’ responsibility for the society’s troubles became entrenched in the Castilian political discourse, and why radical solutions – separating Jews from Christians, forcibly converting the Jews or killing them – came to be seen as the best remedy for ameliorating the ills plaguing the realm.


Session 002:

Jewish Middle Ages

11.00-‐12.00

Panel: Economies and Images of Jewish-‐Christian Relations in the later Middle Ages

Organizers: Eva Frojmovic and Diane Wolfthal

Chair: Eva Frojmovic and Diane Wolfthal

Aron Sterk, Manchester University, UK

Title: The Jew in the Polyptych: The image of a Jewish Courtier in late 15th c. Portugal on the Eve of the Expulsions in Nuno Gonçalves

Abstract: The Saint Vincent Panels are a masterpiece of the Portuguese Renaissance. Only rediscovered in the late 1880s they have been attributed to the little-‐known artist Nuno Gonçalves (active c.1450-‐90?). The panels depict members of the Portuguese royal house of Aviz and the various orders of Portuguese society; nobility, knightly orders, burghers, peasantry, and the church, both secular and religious. It also depicts a scholarly figure who is clearly Jewish, marked with a red star and holding a book with fake Hebrew writing. The exact identity of this figure depends on the identity of the royal figures depicted and there have been many theories as to who these are. Influenced by the resemblance between the central figure and the famous portrait, popularly but, probably erroneously, taken to be a portrait of Henry the Navigator, most interpreters have identified the central figures as members of the Ínclita generação (illustrious generation),

the children of João I and his wife Philippa of Lancaster. The many difficulties posed by all these theories are overcome if, as I propose, the central figures are interpreted as representing the later Afonso V (1432-‐1481) and his children the infantes Joana and João (later João II (1455-‐1495)). If this is accepted with a date c. 1469-‐70 then the Jewish figure may probably be identified as Joseph ibn Yahya, a confidant of Afonso V who called him as ‘the wise Jew.’ A courtier and patron of the renowned Hebrew manuscript school of Lisbon, Ibn Yahya fell foul of Afonso’s successor, João II and was forced to flee from forced conversion in 1495, two years before the mass forced conversions ordered by João’s successor Manuel I. The panels therefore not only have the earliest humanist portrait of a European Jew, but are also an important image through which we can understand the close dependency of Jews in Iberia on the monarch and on royal domestic and foreign policies in the period leading up to the expulsions from Spain and Portugal.

Anthony Bale, University of London, UK

Title: Documentary Culture and the Limits of Iconography in the 1233 Norwich Tallage Roll

Abstract: The image at the head of the 1233 Norwich tallage roll, now held in the National Archives, London, is one of the earliest and most forceful representations of the medieval English Jewish community. It shows Moses, Isaac and Abigail, Jews of Norwich, with various other figures. Previous studies of the image have focused on the iconography of the image, as if it narrates an iconographic 'story' amenable to art-‐historical interpretation. In my paper I will propose a different way of reading the image through its material form. Scholars have little considered the context of the drawing, or the documentary, scribal culture which engendered it. In my paper I approach the image through this scribal culture and offer new ways of thinking about its origins and public purposes.

12.00-‐13.00

Status of the Jews in Medieval Italy

Chair:

Pierre Savy, Université Paris-‐Est -‐ Marne-‐la-‐Vallée, France

Title: Jewish Particularism and Princely States in Renaissance Italy

Abstract: In Renaissance Northern Italy, princely states tended to be rather benevolent towards Jews, while surprisingly Republican regimes were more reluctant and sometimes clearly hostile to that presence. It is now admitted that princely states relied on various entities (universitates, "separate lands" and fiefs), which were an instrument much more than a limit to their powers. Can we conceive the Jewish presence as one of these particularisms? If so, one would understand better why Jews were more easily accepted by princely regimes, while Republics perhaps had more difficulty envisioning such a limit to the political body. A number of documents produced by the central authorities -‐condotte, privileges, and jurisdictions-‐ in the 14th and 15th centuries lend support to this contention.

Miriam Davide, Università di Trieste, Italy

Title: Types of Citizenship and Mode of Integration of the Jewish Minority in the North-‐east of Italy, Istria and Carniola between the Middle of the Thirteenth and Beginning of the Sixteenth Century.

Abstract: In my contribution I will examine the citizenship granted to Jews. Citizenship does not end in the territories in question to the one obtained in exchange for the loan interest. There are, in fact, tied to specific cases of citizenship "status" as the condition of the Jews imperial. I will examine the difficulties of understanding the Jewish communal organization on the part of contemporary society by analyzing the terminology used by notaries and public administrations.


Session 003:

Middle Ages

14.00-‐15.30

Panel: Biblical Study in late Middle Ages: between Jews and Christians

Organizer: Ari Geiger

Chair: Ari Geiger

Jonathan Jacobs, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: The Contribution of R. Tuvia ben Eliezer ("Lekaḥ Tov") to the Judeo-‐Christian Polemic

Abstract: R. Tuvia ben Eliezer ("Leka? Tov") was active during the second half of the 11th century in Greece. His exegesis has not been widely researched, and to date no scholarship at all has been devoted to his commentary on Song of Songs, which presents a systematic commentary on every verse of the text, mostly based on rabbinic midrashic teachings. However, his commentary is not a random collection of midrashic material, but rather a composition constructed in a manner unprecedented in the rabbinic tradition of his time or of earlier periods. In the lecture I shall examine its contribution to the Judeo-‐Christian polemic, in comparison with Rashi's exegesis. I will show that He focuses on one main theme throughout his allegorical commentary: most of his teachings deal with the situation of the Jewish People in exile, the memory of the past, and anticipation of the future. We may say that although R. Tuvia and Rashi lived in different geographical regions and in different cultural environments, there is considerable similarity in the way in which each of them addresses the events of their time.

Robert Harris, Jewish Theological Seminary, USA

Title: ‘Writing About Reading and Reading About Writing’: The Twelfth Century Renaissance and the Emergence of Peshat and Ad Litteram as Methods of Encountering the Bible

Abstract: During the 20th Century, scholars who wished to investigate the interrelationship among Jewish and Christian biblical exegesis most often did so by comparing and contrasting exegesis of identical or closely-‐related biblical passages, and would frequently seek out sources and influences. This worthwhile

and yet ongoing project is essentially exegetical in orientation. The present study, by contrast, will focus instead on hermeneutics. My paper will examine the ways in which Jewish and Christian biblical exegetes, contemporary during the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, incorporate discursive comments about reading, by which I mean the process of reading qua reading, and not necessarily approaching the Bible, in the time-‐honored ways and authoritative ways that both traditions had developed over centuries to discover or uncover religious Truth. I will evaluate those points of contact and contrast that exist among them. The Jewish scholars whom I research be include such “contextual, literary” exegetes (pashtanim) as Rashi, Rashbam, R. Joseph Kara and R. Eliezer of Beaugency, while among Churchmen who focussed on “literal exegesis” (ad litteram) I will examine the Victorines, in particular. My presentation will draw on recent scholarship that addresses emerging trends in 12th century literacy.

Gad Freudenthal, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Title: Jacob ben Reuben and the Introduction of Philosophy into Jewish Provence in the Second Half of the 12th Century

Abstract: In my paper I will argue for a precise identification of the place where Jacob encountered his Christian interlocutor, show that he depended only on Hebrew sources, and explain what we can learn from his book about the introduction of Jewish philosophy into Provence in the second half of the 12th century. Jacob ben Reuben completed his *Milhamot ha-‐Shem*, an account of his polemics with a friendly priest, in 1170. It is the first work that engages in a philosophically-‐informed discussion of theological subjects and also the first work to include Hebrew translations of passages from the New Testament. Jacob also was acquainted with contemporary Christian theological works. What is the cultural context in which Jacob wrote his work? Two answers have been offered: that he lived in Christian Spain and was knowledgeable in Arabic; and that he lived in Gascogne (southern France) and had access to Hebrew works only. The issue is important, because Jacob is contemporary with the beginning of the Tibbonid translations of the works of Judeo-‐Arabic philosophy, so that he is an important witness to the penetration of philosophical lore into the thought of an "average" Jewish intellectual.


Session 004:

Middle Ages

16.00-‐18.00

Panel: Biblical Study in late Middle Ages: between Jews and Christians

Chair: Gad Freudenthal

Ari Geiger, Bar Ilan University, Israel

Title: Brain Challenging or Religious Activity? Jewish and Christian Criticism of the Study of Religious Texts in Scientific Methods in 12th-‐13th Centuries.

Abstract: Scholarly research in recent decades has endeavored to examine the existence and the extent of a linkage between cultural trends in the Ashkenazic world (mainly in its two centers – Germany and northern France) in the 12th-‐13th centuries and the intellectual currents that were dominant in the Christian sphere which surrounded it. Scholars who took part in this effort discussed the literal school of northern France (11th-‐12th century) as a cultural phenomenon influenced by the spirit of the 12th century Renaissance (see, e.g. studies by Elazar Touitou and Sara Japhet), a possible Christian impact on German pietism (a thesis supported by Yitzhak Baer), and methods of learning and interpretation used both by the Tosafists and contemporary scholars of the prominent Christian schools (an issue discussed by Israel Ta-‐Shma and Efraim Kanarfogel). In this paper, I intend to explore another aspect of the Ashkenazic cultural scene, namely the criticism leveled against the schools of the Tosafists, probably by German pietists, a phenomenon reviewed by Ta-‐Shma. I will present similar criticism that was leveled against the use of dialectics and philosophical logic in the study of Christian theology (by scholars such as John of Salisbury [12th Century] and Bonaventure [13th Century]). In addition, I will compare the arguments made by conservative circles of both religions, examining the time and region in which they were made. Based on that information I will try to evaluate the level of similarity between these two acts of protest, taking into consideration their arguments, their motives, and the change sought by them. Finally, I will establish the historical context of Jewish criticism of the “scientific” study of Torah – whether it was a result of Christian influence, or a typical reaction to an innovative stream in a religious world.

David Rotman, Tel Aviv University and Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Author, Fiction, a Lamb and a Wolf: Hebrew Adaptations of “Aesop” Fables from the Middle-‐Ages through the Early Modern Era

Abstract: In Latin, as well as in vernacular corpora of the high middle-‐ages, one may find several versions, under different titles, of “Aesop” and “Aesop-‐like” fables. These tales stood as a cultural foundation of European heritage, second only to the Holy Scriptures. In fact, the “Aesop” collections were an identifying mark of the literate culture from the high-‐middle ages onward that many children from certain classes and circles were exposed to it from an early age. The popularity of the fables is reflected in the multiple versions in which they appeared -‐ in rhymed and metered forms as well as in prose. In Jewish literature, the presence of Aesop-‐like fables goes back to the Rabbinic literature of the late-‐antiquity. Some of them were integrated into the Talmudic and Midrashic narratives and appeared to be an important part of the sages’ cultural tool box. Considering that, the relative absence of the genre from the medieval Hebrew narrative is somewhat surprising. In fact, except for the famous poetic work of Berechiah Ben Natronai ha-‐Nakdan (end of 12th–13th century) there are almost no echoes to the presence of Aesop fables in the medieval Hebrew literature in general and the medieval Hebrew prose-‐narrative in particular. Only in the beginning of the age of Hebrew-‐print, in an anthology of folk-‐narratives first published in 1516/17 in Constantinople, one can find the first Hebrew translation of the collection of “Ysopet”, transmitted in prose-‐narrative form, and presented as “The fables of Ysopeto” ( איזופטו חידות ). In the proposed paper, I would suggest that the late appearance of the Aesop-‐like collections reflects a change in the status of two components of the Hebrew literature: Legitimization of the concept of “Fiction” transmitted in the form of prose narrative, and the rise of new concept of an “Author” of literary works in that same form. I would also like to examine the function and influence of the new technology of print as one of the possible causes for these literary and cultural changes.

Noga Cohen, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: The Gentile "Hangman" as a Symbol: Jewish Attitudes to Gentiles as reflected in the Medieval Hebrew Versions of the Judith Story

Abstract: The presentation will focus on the complexity of the relationship between Jews and non-‐Jews in the period of the 11th-‐16th centuries, as reflected in a Hebrew Medieval folk story – the Story of Judith. The Medieval Judith Story deals with a pious and beautiful Jewish woman from Jerusalem who saves her city – and thus all the Jews living in the kingdom of Judah – from the threats of the Greek enemy. The source of the story lies in 'The Book of Judith', an apocryphal Jewish book that was written in the Second Temple period. Surprisingly, even though the book was excluded from the Jewish Canon, the story reappeared in the middle Ages in various Hebrew versions. As I will argue, some of the medieval versions are direct translations from the Latin version of the story that is to be found in the Vulgate, and others are folk variations. Hence The Judith Story teaches us about the relationship between Jews and non-‐Jews in the middle ages. As my paper will show, not just that the excluded book returned to the Jewish tradition thanks to the cultural exchanges between Jews and Christians, but the account even became a popular story and acquired the status of an old "Midrash". Furthermore, I would like to show that The Judith story expresses the collective conscious of the Jews of that era, when contending with a minority status and suffering hatred and murdered. The story that deals with a war between two ancient cultures, the Greek and the Jewish, provides the medieval Jews with a way to enunciate their own feelings and their own struggle on keeping to retain their Jewish identity in a hostile environment. At the center of the discussion will be presented the way in which the Jews perceived the gentiles in the Middle Ages, and especially the collective Jewish hidden ideas and wishful thinking about their enemy's fate – as reflected by the Judith Story. These topics will be examined through several issues in the story, such it's link to the Jewish festival of Hanukkah and the Hasmoneans rebellion; the depiction of the Jewish neighborhoods, and the status of gentiles who believed in the verity of the Jewish religion.

Thursday 24th July

Room: 12

Session: 001:

Jewish History and Heritage

9.00-‐10.30

Panel: Jewish Heritage Tourism Rediscovering Jewish Past

and Encountering Jewish Presence in Europe and Beyond

Organizer: Magdalena Waligorska

Chair:

Magdalena Waligorska, University of Bremen, Germany

Title: Destination Belarus: Factoring Jewish Past into the Narrative of Belorussian Heritage

Abstract: Despite the fact that vestiges of Jewish heritage are impossible to overlook throughout Belarus, Jewish past is rarely being acknowledged in public spaces of the country deemed the last dictatorship of Europe. Once home to a vibrant Jewish community but today still off the track of the organized Jewish heritage tourism, Belarus struggles to factor its Jewish history into a new vision of the national heritage. This paper explores a few official and grassroots initiatives that attempt to bring Jewish heritage back on the map of Belarus: the Jewish Museum in Minsk, Ada Raychonok’s private museum of regional heritage in Germanovichi, the interethnic “Walk of Fame” in Glubokoe, featuring the monument of Eliezer Ben-‐Yehuda, and the ongoing project of the central Belorussian Holocaust memorial in Trostenets. Coordinated both by Jews and non-‐Jews and launched both as official projects of state authorities and as subversive oppositional activities, new museums and monuments devoted to Jewish culture are not only an attempt to create tourist destinations that are meant to educate the local population about the historic Jewish presence in Belarus, but also a negotiation terrain where different actors (local Jewish communities, state authorities, political opposition, foreign NGOs) try to find an appropriate form to exhibit Jewish culture and commemorate Jews in the conditions of an authoritarian regime. Framing Belorussian heritage in terms of ethnic pluralism, the initiatives devoted to rediscovering Jewish culture in Belarus both challenge and instrumentalise the dominant nationalist narratives and can be seen as part of a more wide-‐ranging project of acknowledging the “other” legacies of Belarus. Incorporating the multicultural heritage of the Polish-‐Lithuanian Commonwealth and recognizing the contribution of ethnic minorities into the cultural landscape of Belarus, the project of regaining the Jewish past is also one of renegotiating the Belorussian identity.

Magdalena Zatorska, University of Warsaw, Poland

Title: Hasidic Visitors to Ukraine and Poland: Space and Memory in the Jewish-‐Ukrainian and Jewish-‐Polish Encounters

Abstract: The rise of Hasidic pilgrimage to Poland and Ukraine in the last decade of the 20th century challenged the way the local residents came to formulate their attitudes towards the visiting Jews. The memory of the pre-‐Holocaust local Jewish communities and the often repressed memory of the Holocaust

itself became confronted with the real presence of Hasidim, who have transformed the cultural landscape of the towns they visit, and influenced in important way the everyday life of their inhabitants. Based on ethnographic material collected in Uman in Ukraine and Lizhensk in Poland, this paper addresses the way Hassidic pilgrimage affects not only the economy, but also the memory, identity and political strategies and tactics (DeCerteau) of the local communities vis-‐à-‐vis the visiting ‘Others’. This paper discusses these issues in a performative perspective, taking into account that social phenomena exist and change as a result of social action, that is, they are produced, processed and reproduced through the physical, symbolic, ritual, etc. practices. The performative dimension of the Ukrainian-‐Jewish and Polish-‐Jewish encounters in the context of the researched phenomenon is manifested most clearly in the spatial practices. The public spaces of Uman and Lizhensk, physically shared by visitors and residents, on the one hand, enable the encounter and determine the forms of contact and interaction, such as spontaneous conversations, taking photos together, drinking alcohol. On the other hand, because the same places become crucial reference points for the construction of collective identities of both the local populations and the Jewish visitors – they constitute a contested terrain, where symbolic, or sometimes physical, struggle take place, as competing identities, economic and political strategies become articulated.

Katka Reszke, Independent Scholar, USA

Title: In Search of the 'Real' Jew: Jewish Heritage Tourists and their Encounters with Young Jews in Poland

Abstract: A new, “unexpected” generation of Jews made an appearance in Poland following the fall of the communist regime. The pursuit of Jewish identity among representatives of this third post-‐Holocaust generation takes place after decades of oppression and accounts for an exceptionally poignant phenomenon in that part of Europe. These new Jewish identities are fluctuating and continuously dialogically reconstructed against the outside world. The idea of being 'authentically' Jewish in today's Poland is met with skepticism and confusion of the outside world. My analysis of 50 in-‐depth interviews reveals a peculiar rhetoric among young Polish Jews employed as a defense mechanism against accusations of inauthenticity. In this paper, I present some of the patters which emerge in how they narrate their experience maneuvering between the primordial and the constructed. Their 'uncertain' identities are confronted by multiple 'others', but perhaps most distinctively by Jewish North Americans and Israelis who visit Poland on heritage or Holocaust tours. In response to 'threats to identity', a unique self-‐authenticating rhetoric is applied. In other words, the narrative construction of identity among young Jews in contemporary Poland is greatly conditioned by their encounters with foreign visitors. Identity narratives constructed by representatives of the third post-‐Holocaust generation of Jews in Poland illuminate both the perceived “essence” of Jewishness, and its perceived periphery and boundaries. They call for a reexamination of the question of “Who is a Jew?” and they question the seemingly most obvious truths about what it means to be a 'real' Jew.


Session 002:

Jewish History and Heritage

11.00-‐13.00

Panel: Jewish Heritage Tourism Rediscovering Jewish Past

and Encountering Jewish Presence in Europe and Beyond 2

Organizer: Magdalena Waligorska

Chair:

Sophie Wagenhofer, Walter De Gruyter Edition

Title: Jewish Heritage Tourism in Morocco: Changing Perceptions of ‘the Jew’?

Abstract: The last three decades have seen a significant increase in Jewish heritage tourism in Morocco. Various institutions and actors with different economic, political and biographical interests influence and shape this trend. The initial impact for the emergence of Jewish heritage tourism came from the Moroccan Jewish diaspora, from Jews of Moroccan origin who rediscovered their ‘homeland’. In the early 1990s also the Moroccan government began using the potential of Jewish heritage tourism as significant economic factor but also as a means to promote the image of an open, tolerant, and divers society. The increasing number of tourists interested in Jewish heritage has an impact on actors and institutions within the tourist sector. Tour-‐operators offer special Jewish heritage tours with a very standardized itinerary, including the Jewish Museum in Casablanca and various former Jewish quarters with synagogues and cemeteries. Also local – predominantly Muslim – business-‐people, artisans, shopkeepers and restaurateurs try to cater the demands of this specific clientele. They provide kosher food and menus written in Hebrew, fabricate Judaica such as Hanukkah-‐lamps and Passover Seder Plates and sometimes even learn some Hebrew phrases to target Israeli customers. In my presentation I look at Jewish heritage tourism in Morocco as a kind of ‘contact zone’ (Mary Louise Pratt) for Muslims and Jews in Morocco. In so doing I trace the question to what extent this new ‘contact zone’ is shaping and changing perceptions of ‘the Jew’ among Moroccan Muslims against the background of the Middle East conflict.

Maria Giuseppina Mascolo, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, Italy

Title: Jewish Itineraries in Apulia and Basilicata: History, Ethno-‐anthropology, Architectures, Epigraphs, Documents and Archives.

Abstract: The project “Itineraries amongst Jewish traces: architectures, monuments, epigraphs, documents (Apulia and Basilicata)” starts from the identification of sources and traces concerning the Jewish presence in the Mediterranean using a multidisciplinary approach by means of technology (digitization and computerized consultation), so experimenting with innovative strategies in the application of the research results to cultural tourism. The project is inspired by the census, cataloguing and digitizing of the cultural heritage documenting the Jewish presence in Apulia and Basilicata, with the purpose of suggesting itineraries and a sustainable utilization through consultable data bases, virtual visits and more traditional kinds of museum-‐type displays reappraised in contemporary terms. It concerns an immense material and immaterial patrimony – unknown to most people – composed of very heterogeneous cultural pieces of work (monuments, epigraphs, documents, but also immaterial traditions) whose scientific analysis should move along a double path. On the one hand, the humanities, historiography and ethno-‐anthropology; on the other hand, the technical aspect (with digitization, laser scanning of epigraphs and photogrammetric surveys of monuments). The fabric of the historic centers is strewn with toponyms referring to “disappeared” giudeccas and synagogues which can be traced through cartography and documents. Besides the great amount of epigraphs which have been found, Basilicata (and neighbouring regions) is rich in traces of Jewish culture, and literary and poetic sources. The research could be extended to

contemporary times, taking a census in the municipal archives of the Jews interned in Apulia and Basilicata because of the racial laws.

Carol Zemel, York University, Toronto, Canada

Title: New Diasporas: Image and Imagination of Jewish Return in Poland and Germany

Abstract: Jewish return to Poland and Germany, the most conceptually potent sites of the Shoah, has gathered in speed and numbers in the last decade and a half. The phenomenon has not gone unnoticed in these countries or in the Jewish world generally. This paper considers the response to this Return in both countries through its visual and museological representation. Israeli artist Yael Bartana’s Polish Trilogy (2006-‐11) frames what some have seen as a startling call for Jewish return to Poland. The three-‐part work begins with a young leader’s dream (or nightmare-‐-‐Mary Koszmary), goes on to picture a Polish-‐Israeli kibbutz on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto, and culminates in a ceremonial pledge to the assassinated leader to build a multi-‐cultural society that will leave Europe “stunned.” On the same ghetto site in Warsaw, the new state-‐supported Museum of the History of Jews in Poland, encourages a new Jewish consciousness with a non-‐lachrymose account of centuries of Jewish settlement and achievement in Poland. In Germany, artist Anna Adam uses humour and mass-‐cultural tokens—buttons, postcards, and mock-‐souvenirs-‐-‐to assert a renewed German-‐Jewish presence. And the 2012 exhibition The Whole Truth, Everything you wanted to know about Jews…at Berlin’s Jewish Museum provoked pleasure and some indignation (largely outside of Germany) with its direct and candid approach to presumed Jewish difference. In both countries, these works and cultural events signal efforts to move beyond Shoah melancholy and construction of memorials. Relinquishing grief without abandoning memory, they affirm a vital new form of Jewish Diaspora.


Session 003:

Hebrew and Jewish Studies and its Teaching

14.00-‐15.30

Chair:

Maddalena Schiavo, Pontifical Gregorian University, Italy

Title: Hebrew Studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome

Abstract: The aim of my paper is to tell about my experience as a teacher of Modern Hebrew language at the Cardinal Bea Centre for Judaic Studies of the Pontifical Gregorian University. Born from a project started in 1978, the Centre takes its name and inspiration from the Cardinal Augustin Bea, the major architect of the Declaration of Nostra Aetate, whose aim was to promote a better understanding of Judaism and to foster the dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Jewish People. Today the Cardinal Bea Centre proposes a number of courses and seminars for students who intend to deepen their knowledge of Judaism or to specialize in the history of Jewish-‐Christian relations. The Centre is involved in

research programs and academic exchanges with prestigious institutions in Israel, Europe and United States and organizes meetings and international events to increase the dialogue among different cultures. In order to offer a complete preparation in the field of Judaism, it also organizes Modern Hebrew language courses. My aim is to describe the activities of the Centre with a particular attention to Hebrew studies, analyzing the method of teaching and exploring the reasons that encourage students to undertake this kind of studies and their purposes.

Mehmet Kalkan, Bozok University Faculty of Theology, Turkey

Title: Past and Future of the Master’s and the Doctoral Dissertation about Judaism in Turkey (from Ideology to Phenomenology)

Abstract: Interfaith relations have had an important place in the academic circles of Islamic societies since early Islam. Polemical language has dominant in these academic environments, without being independent from the socio-‐political context. Today this polemical language is gradually replaced to mutual understanding. It cannot be claimed that the historical polemics of Muslim thinkers were worse than members of other religions. However, nowadays it can be said that the major studies carried out in Turkey about other religions are being made within the framework of academic methodology. Moreover, analyses and evaluations are made without exceeding the limits of academic ethics. The purpose of this paper is to present statics of the ongoing and completed master's and doctoral dissertations in Turkey in the Department of History of Religions between 1990-‐2011 and to offer suggestions for the future studies within the framework of the data of the research. For the research, database of the Higher Education Institution of Turkey (YÖK) is explored, and dissertations made and approved in 1990-‐2011 dissertations were examined to turn into statistical data as author, supervisor, dissertation type, name and year of dissertation. Moreover, by comparing them with the database of the Islamic Research Center (ISAM) differences and inaccuracies have been largely eliminated. As a result, more than 650 master's and doctoral dissertations, which are about the study of Jewish history and faith, were determined for our research, which are based on the scanned database of libraries of YÖK and the ISAM. Since 1900’s the History of Religions, as an academic discipline, developed into an important position in the Western academia and the chairs were found about this academic discipline. In terms of studying Judaism in Turkey, unfortunately, it is impossible to bring back the history of religions with Western perspective before 1950s. In the study, primarily, the demographic distribution of the work will be presented. In the next section, analysis of the thesis will be made, and, in the last section the possible contribution of research for future studies will be discussed. This study is based on the analysis of statistical data in Turkey about the studies on Judaism in 1990-‐2012 in terms of following measures: dates, universities, degree (master’s-‐doctorate), dialogue, comparative religions, gender, subject, Islam – Jewish relations and so on. This analysis shows that dissertations made in Turkey about Judaism move away from an apologetic or ideological to more phenomenological tendency.


Session 004:

Jewish History

16.00-‐18.00

Historiography


Eva Tyrell, University of Bern, Switzerland / Tel Aviv University, Israel

Title: Literary Truth-‐Claims in Herodotus' Histories and the Hebrew Bible -‐ a Comparative Study

Abstract: Herodotus´ Histories and narrative history in the Hebrew Bible are rarely studied together, at least in Classics and Ancient History. A common assumption is that the ways in which those two ancient pieces of literature represent the past are fundamentally different. For a more nuanced view of these two sources, my research uses the comparisons of literary truth-‐claims as implied reasons for belief. A detailed analysis will show how the two narrative histories compare and contrast in their communicative setting, the relationship they establish between truth and types of knowledge, and the extent to which the narrators apply innovative ideas in philosophy and theology. Claims to truth are common both in what we today call fiction and factual texts; they can be made explicitly (e.g. claim to special sources of knowledge, use of the first person, showing a constant stream of reasoning, discourse based on accessible features of reality) and implicitly (e.g. unadorned style, text plays to reader’s experiences, narrator shapes the text in such a way that the audience does not think of asking the question ‘how does he know?’). For my contribution, I propose to present how a selection of literary truth-‐claims in a few samples of the two sources compare, and what this implies for their status as history writing. Herodotus does not make recourse to the Muses as a source of authoritative knowledge but rather to his own observation, research and reasoning. On the other hand, he at times displays more knowledge than his constrained empirical license would allow for. The Hebrew Bible implicitly derives its authority from divine inspiration, but nevertheless makes use of empirical truth claims at the same time.

Naoki Mukai, Kyoto University, Japan

Title: Heinrich Graetz’s Kohelet. Historiography, Translation and Commentary.

Abstract: In this paper I will deal with the attitude of Heinrich Graetz, the prominent historiographer of Wissenschaft des Judentums, towards the book Kohelet. From his biography written by Marcus Pyka (2009), we learn the construction of the master narrative in his Jewish history and the methods and strategies for its popularization. As Pyka has shown, the main text of his opus magnum was consistent among various editions, while the notes appended to each volumes were repeatedly revised and enlarged according to proceedings in studies in his days. Keeping his narrative steady was the strategy for popularization, however, with two exceptions: A chapter for Jesus and early Christianity on the one hand, some excursive paragraphs for the composition of Kohelet and its inclusion in the Hagiography on the other. Which cause changed his otherwise firm strategy? In the latter case, there was a modification of his concept of Judaism. As he confessed in preface for a work published in 1871, Kohelet imposed an unsolvable problem upon Graetz. Until he came to a hypothesis that it had been composed as satire against Herod the Great, he could not understand its religious value and the reason for its inclusion into the Hagiography. Although the hypothesis was supported solely by himself, he insisted on his new ‘finding’ and inserted the some paragraphs for Kohelet into the Chapter “Antigonus and Herod”. Apart from the question about accuracy in his philological analysis, his translation of and commentary on Kohelet shows us some interesting aspects. Through the analysis of “Kohélet oder der Salomonische Prediger”, I will point out some characteristics of Graetz’s concept of Judaism, which was to found a modern self-‐understanding of the Jews throughout the world.

Bernard D. Cooperman, University of Maryland, USA

Title: The Shift in Authority Paradigms among Jewish Historians

Abstract: There has been much discussion of the review by Haym Soloveitchik in the Jewish Review of Books 3:4 (2013) of Talya Fishman’s Becoming the People of the Talmud (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), discussion that has tended to focus on whether the review’s strident rhetoric was ill-‐mannered and whether its harsh criticisms were justified. I would like to broaden the topic to explore the central claim to intellectual authority implicit in the review and defended by its author. This claim, I would like to argue, is a reflection of a very specific moment in Jewish intellectual and religious history and helps us to understand the underlying metanarratives that informed the rapidly developing field of Jewish Studies in the United States, (as well as in Israel and Europe) in the second half of the last century. The nature of this claim and its special valence in the American Jewish university context can be fruitfully explored by rethinking Yosef Yerushalmi’s Zakhor, a personal mapping of the author’s location in the territory of Jewish knowledge. That slim volume makes some quite astonishing claims about the nature of Jewish historical thought, claims that deserve serious examination. But it also helps us to understand the kind of identity issues that were being debated by American Jewish historians as they strove to carve out a place for themselves in both the Jewish and the academic communities. Finally, I will argue that tracing shifts in the paradigm of authoritative knowledge allows us to understand better the continuities and ruptures of Jewish knowledge in general over the ages, and to assess the constant collection, rediscovery, and redefinition of Jewish scholarly knowledge since at least the Renaissance. The paper is meant as a contribution both to intellectual history and to the sociology of knowledge.

Daniel Langton, University of Manchester, UK

Title: Jewish Interest in Questions of Racial Superiority and Evolutionary Theory in the Late 19th Century England

Abstract: Among English proponents of Wissenschaft des Judentums in the 1880s were three with interests in the question of Jewish racial typing and evolutionary theory: the journalist and historian Lucien Wolf, the Oxford bibliographer Adolf Neubauer, and the folklorist Joseph Jacobs. This paper will attempt to compare and contextualise their respective views in relation to Anglo-‐Jewish scholarship in general and to Jewish engagement with evolutionary theory in particular.

Thursday 24th July

Room: 13

Session: 001:


9.00-‐10.30

Germany

Chair:

Anna Ullrich, Institut für Zeitgeschichte München, Germany

Title: Reflecting the End of Jewish and Non-‐Jewish Friendship in the Late 1930s

Abstract: My paper will focus on the question of who German Jews dealt with and judged the fact, that from 1933 on they lost more and more contact to their non-‐Jewish surroundings. Much has been written on how Jews were crowed out of the professional and the everyday life in Germany. However, when it comes to the questions of how Jews handled these situations and experiences, how they explained to themselves and their familymembers why they were treated that way, we are stuck with isolated cases like the diaries of Victor Klemperer or Hertha Nathorff. In my talk I want to choose a different approach. By analysing the manuscripts who were send in for the Harvard Library Competition in 1940, I want to carve out patterns of explanation who were choosen by German Jews to interpret – and often enough defend – the behaviour of their non-‐Jewish friends and acquaintances throughout the 1930s. In 1940 the sociology department of the Harvard University had called for auto-‐biographical notes under the headline ‘My Life in Germany before and after January 30th’. The majority of the some 250 papers that were send came from Jewish women and men who had only left Germany in the aftermath of the November pogrom in 1938. These notes are a rich source and a necessity when we want to take a closer look at the Jewish perspective of the developments in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. Without the knowledge of the yet to come Second World War and the Holocaust it shows how German Jews tried to find explanations, interpretations and excuses for the way the non-‐Jewish Germans acted. The recuring argumentations – like the fear for discrimination and the spying of children on their parents – was frequently used to transfrom the average German population into victims of the National Socialists as well. This argumentation functioned as a moral backup for the German Jews who clinged to the ideal of the continuity of German Jewish and non-‐Jewish friendship – and tradition.

Amir Teicher, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: Searching for Common Roots: Jewish Genealogy in Germany, 1890-‐1938

Abstract: The paper examines the scholarly collaboration between Jewish and non-‐Jewish genealogists in Germany from the late nineteenth century to 1938. No special clauses excluding Jews from genealogical societies existed before 1933. Nevertheless, cooperation between Jews and non-‐Jews in the field of family history research was infrequent, in large part due to a differentiation in the studied sources themselves (parish registers vs. Jewish sources). However, it is the areas where interaction and scientific cooperation

did exist which will stand and the center of the paper. How did anti-‐Semitic tones impact the general reception of innovative methods for genealogical inquiry offered by Jewish scholars? What kind of arguments did Jews and non-‐Jews raise for advancing scientific cooperation, and how did they explain away the relative lack of teamwork? How were Jewish genealogical societies and Journals treated by their Christian peers? And finally, what role did Jewish genealogists take in projects of racial mapping of local communities and in racial diagnosis after the Nazis’ rise to power? On the basis of exhaustive examination of the professional publications of Jewish and non-‐Jewish genealogists alike, the paper brings to light curious points of alliance, and exposes the futile attempts of Jews to become part and parcel of the German community of scholars in the face of ever growing anti-‐Semitic policies.

Doris Maja Krueger, Free University of Berlin, Germany

Title: Turning to Judaism as an Early-‐onset of Self-‐Assertion

Abstract: The German-‐Jewish Critical Theorist Leo Lowenthal grew up in an assimilated, anti-‐religious home. Due to the anti-‐Semitism and anti-‐intellectualism he experienced in World War I as a soldier in a Railway Regiment in Hanau, Germany he turned to Judaism. Retrospectively, he justified this turn by an anti-‐assimilative, zionist impulse; in his understanding, a Zionist is someone who faces the problem of being a Jew. Lowenthal did not differentiate between socialist, zionist and anti-‐assimilative ideas and interpreted his turn to Judaism as political, or more specifically: as oppositional to the status quo, as being on the side of the “losers in world process” (Walter Benjamin). Hence, the paper wants to point out how the turn to Judaism of Lowenthal and other German Jews of his generation is an early-‐onset of self-‐assertion.


Session 002:


11.00-‐13.00

Europe

Chair:

Sam Johnson, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Title: Seeing “the Jew”: French and Russian Antisemitic Caricature before the First World War

Abstract: This paper compares manifestations of antisemitic caricature in the French and imperial Russian press before the First World War. Such an exploration will be considered in light of recent approaches to visual culture, positioning caricature within the mass of visual images that deluged the public imagination in this period -‐ such as advertising, photojournalism and the cinema. It will explore how antisemitic caricature reflected other visual discourses, such as medicalised representations, those concerned with racial difference, and aspects of criminality. In addition, by comparing France and Russia, it will assess the

universality of antisemitic visual culture, and the extent to which it functioned in different linguistic, cultural and political contexts.

Małgorzata Domagalska, University of Lodz, Poland

Title: Somewhere means nowhere. The Idea of Jewish Emigration in Polish Antisemitic Press and Popular Novels at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries

Abstract: At the beginning of 20th century Zionism as an idea appears in the antisemitic press and popular novels in Poland. Firstly anti-‐semities support the idea in their writings and they treat it as a potential solution of „Jewish issue” in Poland. But soon they get disappointed and start to present Zionism in satirical and deformative way. They try to proof that Jews are not able to establish a country and create a „healthy” society, because they cannot be productive. In their novels anti-‐Semitic writers create a phantasmagoria of „Jewish land” and present it as a caricature. This kind of novels are also lampoons for baron Hirsch idea of Jewish settlement in Argentina. If emigration does not work, the different solution is needed. That is why slogan „bread for fellow countrymen” is spread by antisemitic press and novels. Instead of emigration the idea of separation Poles from Jews is popularized. It has a connection with emigration, because, as they argue, if there is no work for Jews, there is also no place for them. That is why the short –story of Antoni Skrzynecki is titled „The de-‐Jewed Homeland. Pictures of a Future that We Create”. The idea of emigration created in this „postitive utopia” is the most desirable dream of all anti-‐semites expressed by Skrzynecki. But at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries anti-‐semites know, that it is only a phantasmagoria and Jews treated as a scapegoat are useful for them and still within an arm’s reach.

Simon Mayers, Independent Researcher – doing research with aVidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism

Title: Myths and Stereotypes of “the Jew” in English Catholic Discourses (1850-‐1929)

Abstract: My recently completed PhD thesis (2012) examined the myths and stereotypes of “the Jew” that were present in English Catholic discourses at the end of the nineteenth century and during the early twentieth century (1895 -‐ 1929). With the help of a research grant from the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, I am currently extending this research to look at how Jews were portrayed in English Catholic discourses during the second half of the nineteenth century (1850 to 1895). In these discourses, Jews were often stereotyped as greedy, cowardly, unpatriotic, secretive and bolshevist. Constructions of “the Jew” derived from biblical and medieval myths were also pervasive. Jews continued to be cast in the role of the intransigent Pharisee, the Christ-‐killer, the ritual murderer, the sorcerer and the Antichrist. Jews were often portrayed in conjunction with Freemasons, and together vilified as secretive anti-‐Christian revolutionaries, and diabolized as Satanists and Luciferians. In some cases the language used to describe “the Jew” (and “the Freemason”) drew upon a vocabulary which suggested an apocalyptic war between the forces of good and evil. My paper will examine theses myths and stereotypes, discussing the form they took, comparing their prevalence, and the types of text in which they were found (as some were more prevalent in sermons and pastoral letters, others in communal newspapers, and some by particular organisations and individuals).

Hilda Nissimi, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: Caught between Conflicting Components: English Identity and Antisemitism 1870-‐1914

Abstract: The period between 1870 and 1914 is widely accepted to be a moment of "Englishness", the heyday of empire and the age of liberalism. This period is also a moment of recurring virulent Antisemitic attacks on the Jewish community in Britain. This paper suggests Antisemitism as a connecting point between the apparently different phenomena. Protestantism, liberalism and empire, ingrained tensions not withstanding, are accepted components of British national identity. At the turn of the 19th century Liberalism seemed to attack the very legitimacy of the other two. Liberal ideas were at the basis of the more inclusive political entity that was appearing by eliminating first the protestant and then the Christian exclusivity of British citizenship. Liberal ideals were also striking at the empire calling for more liberty for colonized peoples. And yet both empire and religion, although more precarious than before, were still central for national identity. The major political crises of the time seemed to cut through these three themes: the Eastern question, the Boer War, the Aliens Act, the Marconi scandal and the Indian money. The upsurges of Antisemitism during these crises were usually devoid of ostensible demands for political repercussions. Drawing on a longstanding tradition, they could serve as a pseudo-‐religious denominator, intuitively providing a bridge over the rift.


Session 003:


14.00-‐15.30

Post Second World War

Chair:

Rachel Brenner, University of Wisconsin-‐Madison, USA

Title: The Ethics of Witnessing the Holocaust: Polish Diaries from Occupied Warsaw, 1939-‐1945

Abstract: So far, studies of personal experiences recorded at the time of the Holocaust have focused on the diaries of the Jewish victims. This paper focuses on the responses of non-‐Jewish witnesses of the Holocaust to the annihilation of the Jews in the Ghetto and to Jews in hiding. The diaristic perspective of Jewish victimization by outsiders, which has received practically no attention, illuminates the authors’ evolving consciousness of the genocide and sheds light on its moral and psychological effect. The paper discusses the response to Jewish extermination in the diaries of the noted Polish Gentile writers – Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Maria Dąbrowska, Stanisław Rembek, Zofia Nałkowska, and Aurelia Wyleżyńska – who witnessed the Holocaust evolving in their city, Warsaw. Despite the similarities of age, social position, and progressive Weltanschauung, the spectrum of the diarists’ reactions to the Holocaust extended from insistence on empathic interaction with the victims to resentful detachment from the Jewish suffering. Whereas some defied the dehumanization of the Jews and insisted on relationships of affinity and friendship with the victims they were striving to rescue, others evinced deliberate insensitivity to the Jewish plight. The paper examines the extent to which the ideologies of humanism and nationalism informed the perceptions of the diarists, and proposes that the reality of the Final Solution exposed the limits of both orientations. The world in which a group of human beings was declared subhuman and was sentenced to extermination transformed the ethical landscape shaped by the tradition of the

Enlightenment, which premised the equality and the fellowship of all human beings. In a variety of ways and in differing degrees of intensity, the diaries expose the authors’ evolving realization that the unprecedented event of the Jewish genocide brought about a transformation of their deepest beliefs.

Ana Bărbulescu, The Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania

Title: The Holocaust as reflected in Romanian Post-‐communist Textbooks: Competitive Identities and Dangerous Memories

Abstract: Until August 23, 1944 Romania was a loyal ally of Nazi Germany and an active participant in the process of solving the ‘Jewish problem’. During these years between 180000 and 300000 Jewish men, women and children were killed or died by illness, hunger and/or cold in the territories found under Romanian authority. After 1948 the communist regime was established in Romania and for the next 50 years the Holocaust became a taboo topic: nothing happened to the Romanian Jews during the war and we even forget that not so long ago in our past, 800000 Jews were our neighbors and co-‐citizens. Starting from here and given the silence of our textbooks during the communist era we are interested to reconstruct different models of remembering the Holocaust in post-‐communist Romanian textbooks and more so to unveil the strong connection that exists between constructing memory and constructing identity as the answer to the question: How we chose to remember our past and what we agree to include as part of it? is determined by the answer to the question: How we chose to describe us as people? From this perspective, our analysis will focus on what we may call ‘competitive memories and competitive identity models’, as what we are looking for is to reconstruct the determination that might exist between different manners of reconstruction our past (heroic or not, important/not important on the historic scale, etc) and different manners of remembering the Holocaust (categories of victims, categories of perpetrators, the involvement/ non-‐involvement of the Romanian authorities, number of victims, etc). The analysis will be focused on the Romanian History textbooks edited after 1989 while the methodological approach will be a qualitative one.

Joelle Hecker, IEP de Paris, France

Title: Times and Modes of Recognition. German Reparations to the Jews, 1950 – 1990

Abstract: This paper explores the impact reparations have on groups by focusing on the question of time. When works on reparations deal with the topic of time, they do merely take it as a fixed variable that has no need for further clarification. Here we intend, to the contrary, to deepen our understanding of the reach of reparations by applying Paul Ricœur's distinctions made between objective, narrated and perceived time. Thus we can show that reparations function as the primary vehicle for recognition due to their rephrasing power. Though they cannot undo the irreparable, they are capable to change the narrative and through this the perception of time. The case study chosen to prove this point are the German reparations to Israel and to the Claims Conference from 1950 to 1990. The German reparations are first related to the theories of recognition. The claims of the victims are identified as a struggle for recognition, while the reactions of the perpetrators are described as a journey towards the recognition of responsibility. Then the functioning of recognition is specified through a detailed study of the different forms that reparations have taken over time. The 1950s were the years of civil justice, taking the form of monetary reparations. This form of recognition was characterized by an elliptic way of telling the events. In the 1960s, criminal justice took the place, and made a more specific narration of the past possible thanks to the testimonies and verdicts. In the 1970s and the 1980s, symbolic acts, essentially narrative, predominated. To sum up, every form of recognition constitutes its distinct mode of telling the past and modifies as a consequence the perception of time.


Session 004:


16.00-‐18.00

Post Second World War

Chair:

Daniel Lemler, psychoanalyst

Title: Tous des survivants: De l’héritage subjectif de la Shoah

Abstract: La pratique de la psychanalyse confronte parfois le praticien à une situation singulière : l’irruption brutale chez un sujet de graves pathologies organiques qui sont immédiatement associées par ce dernier à un non-‐dit dans la transmission concernant la Shoah. Cette situation trouve sa pleine expression lorsque le psychanalyste est lui-‐même juif, le plus souvent de la deuxième génération, parfois de la troisième. L'héritage de la Shoah chez l'être humain est un aboutissement, mais aussi une introduction. C'est évidemment par cette voie que la plupart d'entre nous en sont venus à travailler cette question. En en étant plus ou moins conscient, en le découvrant, après des années d'exercice, en s'y trouvant confronté par une parole d'autres qui a eu valeur d'interprétation... Mais aussi par la voie du symptôme qui fait plus ou moins bruyamment irruption dans la sphère subjective. Cette question se pose et se traduit différemment selon les générations. L’impact de cet héritage, ses enjeux, ne sont pas les mêmes selon que l’on soit de la deuxième génération ou des suivantes. Elle est affectivement et émotionnellement plus sensible pour ceux de la deuxième génération. Alors que pour la troisième génération, elle est soit plus intellectuelle, soit apparemment silencieuse, absente, et fait irruption par la voie de symptômes physiques bruyants et souvent inquiétants. Comment interpréter ce retour dans le réel du corps d’un sujet de la troisième génération d’un non-‐dit, d’un silence ?

Cristina Spinei, "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iasi, Romania

Title: Doron Rabinovici's "Suche nach M." and Marcel Beyer's "Flughunde": a Transcending Bond in the Narrations of Collective Terror

Abstract: Doron Rabinovici and Marcel Beyer dare the huge risk of facing the woebegone past and the confrontation with National Socialism and to tackle it narratively. Rabinovicis novel "Suche nach M." speaks about the fate of those who survived the Holocaust and of the generation of their children. It is a matter of overcoming a narrative inhibition. Rabinovici is mainly concerned with the idea of sacrifice -‐ the younger generation is doomed to continue their parents' lives in a more insightful variation: the acceptance of the guilty plea and the overcoming of the narrative inhibition. Rabinovici has captured concisely not only the problem of his generation, but also that of his parents' generation, and on the backdrop of awareness of these survivors from Krakow who do not speak about the past from an excess of memory, he has thus rendered a verdict on those whose virtue requires memory and who are still veterans in oblivion. Marcel

Beyer also explores the pain points of the history: In the center stands also the question on how history can be narrated in the first place, even if from a diametrical opposite perspective. It is about the history of those who were near the Nazis. Beyer counts on a special form of authenticity, which is produced mainly by the voice. We are brought very close to the Goebbels family, we are in the heart of darkest crime and experience an increasingly endangered family idyll. It is with this tension that the novel calculates its effect. We are witnessing the horror from the voice of Goebbels' children. Thus we are the informed readers that can learn the history of the individual from the bigger history. With the discovery of the voice, especially with their reproducibility, the author provides his own view on history, and creates a completely new ground of authenticity. Beyer and Rabinovici have both taken the risk upon themselves of telling the story of an era that seemed to have made the telling impossible for many. The two different stories report on an unimaginable horror, for which the language fails; their solution attempts deserve nevertheless our attention and a more intrusive analysis.

Thursday 24th July

Room: 14

Session: 001:

Gender Studies

9.00-‐10.30

Chair:

Jennifer Langer, SOAS Centres for Jewish and Iranian Studies, London, UK

Title: The Struggle for an Iranian Jewish Female Identity

Abstract: My paper is set within the question of alienation and belonging in Iran and in exile as it arises in the representation of cultural memory in contemporary literary texts by exiled Iranian Jewish women. The protagonists, who fled from Iran to America and Belgium, before, during and after the 1979 Revolution, were members of the Jewish community established in Iran for 2,700 years. I establish a contestation between the protagonists’ Jewish, Iranian and female identities and exile as a mnemonic site for attempting to negotiate a fusion of identities. Yet belonging is elusive in Iran and in exile and involves an exploration of multiple, layered home and exilic spaces. A perpetual conflict exists between self-‐definition and definition by individuals and various collectives, Jewish, Muslim, Iranian, American and Belgian. Given the Iranian Jewish protagonists’ ambivalence of identity in exile, the two buried layers of Jewish and Iranian memory represented by palimpsests, provide insights into the protagonists’ Jewish and Iranian identities. These layers underlying the literary texts, reveal the complex, agonistic relationship of my authors to their homeland. Through the dimension of palimpsests, I explore Iranian Jewish female identity through the authors’ embedded Jewish and Iranian religious and cultural sources represented by the Hebrew Bible and Holocaust, and the Iranian literary tradition. Although Harold Bloom claims that the presence of the Hebrew Bible is palpable in work by Jewish writers, the literary texts reveal the ambivalence of Jewish identity and Jewish female identity which adds to the critical question as to what in fact constitutes Iranian Jewish identity. I investigate whether the ambivalent relationship to the Jewish palimpsest is similarly represented in the relationship to the Iranian literary palimpsest. I highlight the important conflict between personal and collective memory through recourse to intertextuality, critical theory and interviews.

Haya Bar-‐Itzhak, University of Haifa, Israel

Title: Women in Times of Persecution in Jewish Folk Legends

Abstract: Many Jewish folk legends are set in times of persecution due to the history of the Jewish people. In some of these legends women act as heroines. In this lecture I will discuss Jewish legends from Eastern Europe since the 17th century until the Holocaust. Although we could assume that women in these legends will be passive victims, the opposite is true. In the lecture, I will discuss the reasons behind the phenomenon of the Jewish patriarchal society legitimizing women acting in the public sphere as active and brave heroines precisely in legends set in times of persecution.

Claire Katz, Texas A&M University, USA

Title: “…until water fell down on the corpses” Gender and Forgiveness in 2 Samuel

Abstract: In the 1986 film, The Mission, set in mid-‐18th century South America, the slave-‐trader, José Mendoza, seeks penance for the murder of his brother. Having been legally acquitted, he is not absolved nor does he feel himself to be absolved of the moral transgression. He joins the Jesuits on their trek back to the mission. In this scene we see Mendoza acting out a physical response to the moral crime: he has set for his penance the task of carrying an extraordinary load on his back up the falls. After collapsing once, one of the Jesuit priests cuts the load off his back. He returns down the falls to reclaim his weight and continues the journey. Having reached the top, Mendoza is now face to face with the very people he spent his life selling into slavery. In one swift moment, a Guarani cuts loose the bundle from Mendoza’s back. Mendoza is absolved not only of the immediate moral violation for which he had taken on the penance in the first place but also his entire previous life as a slave-‐trader. Is absolution this easy? These individuals Mendoza murdered or enslaved are not present to offer forgiveness. Can one “do enough” to appease a moral crime and can a perpetrator make amends even when the victim will not acknowledge these amends as enough? Where does justice fit into these questions? This essay will examine these questions but with a particular eye toward the two intertwined themes: what can Jewish philosophy offer us in thinking about forgiveness and what role does gender play in the way we understand the act of forgiveness? To accomplish this task, I turn to Emmanuel Levinas’s Talmudic commentary, “Toward the Other.” Presented in 1963 to the Colloquium of Jewish Intellectuals, this commentary offers an analysis of repentance and forgiveness in response to the question of German guilt for the Holocaust. This essay, though it ostensibly focused on Judaism's views of atonement and forgiveness, could also be a discussion about the complexity and potential horror of justice. His discussion in “Toward the Other,” complicates an already complex Talmudic passage by including discussions of atonement and forgiveness from sources that are not included in the Talmudic conversation. He turns to 2 Samuel, which tells of the three-‐year famine during the time of King David. David finds that a wrong had been done to the Gibeonites by Saul. To appease them, he must give them the blood they demand. He has seven descendents of Saul nailed to the rocks. Rizpah, the mother of two sons, watches over all of the corpses, covering their bodies and protecting them from the animals that would attack them. Although she appears a minor figure in the story, Levinas sees her action as facilitating the resolution to a cycle of justice and revenge that might otherwise not see an end. By bringing together Christian and Jewish readings of Rizpah, my paper explores the role of gender within philosophical accounts of forgiveness.


Session 002:

Gender Studies

11.00-‐13.00

Chair:

Judith L. Goldstein, Vassar College, New York, USA

Title: The Traffic in Images: Middle Eastern Jewish Women In and Out of Focus

Abstract: Photographs of Middle Eastern women have been extensively analyzed as visual artefacts central to colonial Orientalist constructions of the Middle East. Following in the footsteps of nineteenth century painters such as Delacroix and Dehodencq (and for mostly similar reasons of access), many of the early twentieth century photographers used Jewish women as models. When these images have been later published in books or exhibited in shows, the same images of the same women-‐-‐whether studio portraits, postcards, or 'ethnographic’ documents—appear in one set of texts and venues as generically local, while in others they are labeled as Jewish. In this paper I will present and analyze images that have been captioned differently: images, in short, that appear in some contexts in which they are marked as Jewish, and in others in which they are unmarked as such, representing instead a generalized exoticism. In The Colonial Harem (1986), Malek Alloula reproduced three postcard pictures, taken of the same model in the same outfit and location, who “represents in turn a ‘Young beduin woman,’ a ‘young woman from the South,’ and a ‘young Kabyl Woman’” (Alloula: 62). The photographer, according to Alloula, thus located the model geographically wherever he chose. I will argue in this paper that, in a similar fashion, curators and writers have placed the Jewish women in the early images in different contemporary discursive sites. I will explore the theoretical implications of these choices, locating them in ongoing discussions of regional histories of absence and presence.

Lilach Rosenberg-‐Friedman, Bar-‐Ilan University, Israel

Title: The Jewish Society in Mandatory Palestine as a Junction of International Cultures: The Issue of Abortions

Abstract: In this lecture, I want to discuss the characteristics of the Jewish society in mandatory Palestine (hereafter: the Yishuv), as a meeting place of international cultures, through analysis of the dominant influences which shaped the abortions phenomenon that was prevalent in that society. Indeed, although the Yishuv was a nationalistic community in which birthrate was of great importance, it was characterized by a low birthrate. This was due, mainly, to the prevalence of abortions. Factors that played an important part in the phenomenon of abortion in the Yishuv included cultural initiatives and modern approaches from Western European countries; socialist and traditional gender perceptions from Eastern European countries; policies of the British mandate; and diverse immigration experiences. The Yishuv was a society of immigrants. Analysis of the local phenomenon of abortion in comparison to that of the western societies (especially France, Germany, Russia and the United States (as a state of immigrants)), provides an in-‐depth understanding of the contact and the relationships between cultures of Jewish and Non-‐Jewish as a main factor in shaping the local phenomenon.

Evyatar Marienberg, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

Title: Marital Sexuality according to Contemporary Modern Orthodox Manuals

Abstract: My paper will examine several Modern Orhodox marital manuals published in Israel and in the US in the last thirty years (1983-‐2013), all of which include significant discussions on sexual relations. Often written for a specific audience (men, women, sephardim, ashkenazim, etc), some of these guides became best sellers (and common wedding or engagement gifts). These manuals present a certain view of the way marital sexuality is prescribed in today’s Modern Orhodox world. Among other questions, we will try to understand what made some of these specific works so popular, and what changed in the style and content of these manuals over the last three decades. Joining the general theme of the congress, some of these works will be compared to contemporary Christian Evangelical manuals of marital sexuality.

Taragin-‐Zeller Lea (Lisa) (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)

Title: Religious Reproduction: A Sociological Analysis of Orthodox Fertility Management in Israel

Abstract: My study discusses the contemporary discourse and practices about family planning and fertility management among Ultra-‐Orthodox (Haredi) Jews in Israel. To do so, I have been conducting extensive research in the Ultra-‐Orthodox community through fieldwork, interviews and text analysis. Through the analysis of my findings, I argue that Haredi Jews are currently reassessing the ideology, norms and practices that are accepted in their world about fertility and family planning. Israel is an exceptional case-‐study in which Israeli-‐Zionist pro-‐natalism ideologies are intertwined with a Jewish tradition which posits fertility as a religious ideal, a link that is mirrored in government and medical policy as well as through the religious authorities discourse (Birenbaum-‐Carmeli, 2003, 2004; Gooldin, 2008; Irshai, 2012; Ivry, 2010; Kahn, 2000; Sered, 2000). As such, the average of total fertility rate is Israel is 2.96, about 50% higher than that of European women. Also, fertility rates are consistent with religiosity as Haredi woman are having at least 7 children, while increasing proportions of secular Jewish women are childless (Okun, 2013). My findings show how Haredi couples are currently criticizing the ideology, norms and practices that are accepted in their world. They disapprove of the strict religious education that idealizes unacheivable levels of fertility as well as stringent rulings regarding child spacing, and permissible contraceptives. Thus, this research will examine the ways in which members of this group adopt modern patterns of behavior, on the one hand and religious innovation on the other. Whereas the basis of orthodox society revolves around the commitment to the commandment to “Be Fruitful and Multiply”, how does one keep this commandment while also holding modern ideas like rational and calculated family planning and modern ideas of personal growth and career pursuit? How do halachik (Jewish Law) debates about contraception deal with contemporary ideals of a balanced society, health, nutrition, as well as economic concerns about education and child upbringing? In addition, this study will analyze the new interpretations of religious texts that are part of the contemporary discourse as well as the way in which these interpretations are forming new creative practices.


Session 003:

Cosmopolis

14.00-‐15.30

Panel: The Practice of Jewish Cosmopolitanism

Organizer: Julia Phillips Cohen

Chair: Julia Phillips Cohen

Julia Phillips Cohen, Vanderbilt University, USA

Title: The Bazaar Identities of Ottoman Jews: Jewish Merchants of Oriental Goods

Abstract: During the second half of the nineteenth century, as the global market for Eastern-‐style items expanded, Ottoman merchants began to reorient their business to buyers abroad, repackaging wares such as carpets, tapestries, jewelry, lamps, divans, pillows, tables, armor, and later, “Turkish” tobacco and coffee, as Eastern curiosities and luxury items. Trips to Ottoman concessions at world’s fairs as well as a

growing tourist industry within the empire increasingly brought these merchants into direct contact with a foreign clientele. Among the various individuals involved in the selling of things Oriental in the late Ottoman world were a number of Sephardic Jewish merchants resident in the Ottoman capital, as well as the Ottoman port cities of Izmir and Salonika. This paper follows these late Ottoman Sephardic merchants from their native cities to various European and American destinations. While many initially travelled to represent their empire and sell their wares during international exhibitions, some decided to strike roots in the new locales they visited, making homes in cities such as Paris, Berlin, London, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. In the process, these late nineteenth-‐century Ottoman Jewish merchants became part of new global networks, with family members and business partners stationed in different continents. As self-‐declared experts in Ottoman and Persian art forms, these individuals represented and translated Eastern styles for Western audiences. Yet even as they acculturated to life in Europe or the U.S., their professional profiles also required that they remain aloof from their new homes: their position as Oriental ambassadors and cultural translators depended on their continued exoticism and links to the Middle East. My presentation aims to understand the effects that these networks had on their individual members. How did the products they sold, their business connections, and their marketing of Orientalism affect the self-‐image these merchants projected, both within the empire and abroad?

Jonathan Karp, Binghamton University, SUNY, USA

Title: Jewish Émigré Music Publishers and the Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll

Abstract: This paper shows how Jews built an "ethnic niche" in the prewar business of popular music publishing in both continental Europe and the US and reconstituted it in the late 1940s and 1950s as an international publishing network that helped lay the groundwork for the global emergence of rock ‘n’ roll. The paper first examines Jewish involvement in New York’s Tin Pan Alley publishing industry in the early twentieth century. It explains why, once international copyright laws were established and accepted, music publishing became perforce internationalized to a high degree. The paper offers a case study in why and how Jews developed international family and ethnic networks to accommodate and facilitate this development. The focus then turns to the spread of Jewish music publishing firms in pre-‐World War II central Europe and the subsequent movement of Jewish refugee and Holocaust survivor music entrepreneurs to the UK and the US during the 1930s and '40s, including such notable figures as Jean and Julian Aberbach, Freddie Bienstock, Eddie Kasner and David Platz. With this background in mind, the remainder of the paper shows how Jewish music publishers in the US and UK (as well as a smattering of others in France and West Germany) helped supply the musical repertoire utilized by musicians and recording artists like the Coasters and Elvis Presley, and in England the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Kinks, pioneers of hugely influential new popular musical styles. While “cosmopolitan” may not be the obvious word associated with rock ‘n’ roll, these Jewish publishers seem to have been especially open to gambling on new genres and styles. They understood the dynamic between exploration and formulization that was key to creating new pop music markets. This openness, I argue, reflected in part their own personal experiences moving between different cultures and subcultures, brokering and accommodating shifting environments and cultural trends.

Allison Schachter, Vanderbilt University, USA

Title: Conversion, Cosmopolitanism, and Hebrew Modernism: Elisheva Bikhovsky

Abstract: My talk examines the appeal of Jewish cosmopolitanism, or a certain substrate of that cosmopolitanism, for a non-‐Jewish artist and intellectual, Elisheva Bikhovsky. Elisheva is a singular figure of

Jewish literary modernity. Born Elizaveta Zhirkova in Riazan in 1889 to a Russian Orthodox father and Irish Catholic mother, she studied Yiddish and then Hebrew, and transformed herself from a minor Russian poet to a major figure of Hebrew literary modernism. She later married the Zionist thinker and writer Shimon Bikhovsky and emigrated with him to Palestine in 1925. Although, or perhaps because she was an outsider to Jewish culture and Hebrew, she became the first woman to publish a Hebrew poetry collection Palestine. Although Elisheva identified herself primarily as a poet, it is in her novel, Simta’ot (Alleyways) that she grapples with her strange position as an outsider to a literary culture in which she thrived. Through her novee, I argue, we can understand her choice to embrace the marginality of Jewish literary culture as both a cosmopolitan practice and a gesture of self-‐marginalization.


Session 004:

Cosmopolis

16.00-‐18.00

Panel: The Practice of Jewish Cosmopolitanism

Organizer: Julia Phillips Cohen

Chair: Julia Phillips Cohen

Sasha Goldstein-‐Sabbah, Leiden University, Netherlands

Title: Jewish Cosmopolitanism in Baghdad 1921-‐1951

Abstract: The Jewish community of Baghdad is unique in that, up until its dissolution between 1948-‐1951, it represented the oldest Jewish Diaspora community. Current academic literature has often focused on the process by which the Jewish community of Baghdad began to read and write in standard Arabic during the British Mandate and early years of the Iraqi State whereby they became more integrated into the general Iraqi society. However this process of Arabization is only one part of the metamorphosis that the Jewish community of Baghdad underwent in the post-‐Ottoman Middle East. My research discusses this process of Arabization as part of a larger phenomenon of cosmopolitanization whereby the Jews of Baghdad were exposed not only to Arabic, but to multiple languages becoming comfortable in various cultural and social settings. My paper compares the Arabizing trends encouraged by the Iraqi state and society with the various foreign Jewish channels that were also responsible for transforming the Jewish community of Baghdad from a largely local Jewish community in the 19th Century to a cosmopolitan Jewish community during the first half of the twentieth century. Key factors in this transformation include education, foreign philanthropy, and communication with Baghdadi communities in the Far East. These foreign Jewish influences coupled with the Arabizing tendencies which developed during the British Mandate and the early years of the Iraqi state led to a Jewish community which could negotiate and feel part of the new Arab Middle East in addition to European society present in the Middle East, and Jewish transnational culture.

Rina Cohen-‐Muller, INALCO, Paris France

Title: L'école de Yosef Krieger à Jérusalem (1868-‐1870) – une tentative de modernité non conformiste

Abstract: Le développement du réseau scolaire juif en Palestine au XIXe siècle, l'un des enjeux essentiels de la bataille pour la modernisation du yishuv et de son positionnement dans un contexte de rivalité entre les grandes puissances et l'empire ottoman, a été l'objet de nombreuses monographies. Elles constituent un corpus de connaissance de l'ancien et du nouveau yishuv et sur les rapports entre eux, qui vont déterminer le caractère de la société hébraïque future. Ce développement s'inscrit aussi dans un mouvement plus large de créations d'écoles modernes par des intervenants extérieurs – juifs ou chrétiens – en faveur des minorités non-‐musulmanes. Le processus est facilité par les réformes ottomanes et se situe dans un contexte d'ingérence croissante des grandes puissances. Celles-‐ci, même si elles n'ont pas de visées d'expansion coloniale immédiate, cherchent à élargir leur influence dans la région. Nous proposons d'étudier particulièrement l'initiative d'un juif local, Yosef Krieger. Ce drogman du gouverneur ottoman s'inspire du modèle de l'AIU pour l'école qu'il fonde en 1868 à Jérusalem tout en l'intégrant dans la modernité ottomane. Contrairement au sort réservé aux autres écoles juives fondées par des étrangers, il parvient à résister à l'hostilité souvent violente des structures communautaires qui refusent tout changement. Krieger bénéficie du soutien du consulat de France. En revanche l'AIU parviendra à mettre fin à l'expérience, l'école n'étant pas son œuvre et, de ce fait, échappant à son emprise. Cette étude se base, of course, sur les études déjà réalisées comme sur les archives de l'AIU, mais aussi et surtout sur les archives du ministère des Affaires étrangères français.

Thursday 24th July

Room: 15

Session: 001:


9.00-‐10.30

Panel: "Xarxa de Calls". A Macro-‐research Project about Medieval Catalan Jewish Communities

Organizer: Esperança Valls Pujol

Chair: Esperança Valls Pujol

Tessa Calders Artís, University of Barcelona, Spain

Title: The 'Xarxa the Calls'. Description of the Project and the Objectives

Abstract: Presentation of the project ‘Xarxa de Calls’, and the research projects they form integral part of this, dedicated to the recovery, transcription and regest of the documents relating to the Jews remaining in the different archives of the Catalan Countries.

Clara Jáuregui, University of Barcelona, Spain

Title: A Tale of Two Neighborhoods: Being a Converso in 14th-‐century Barcelona

Abstract: After the riot of 1391 and the destruction of the Jewish quarter, a substantial part of the Jew population of Barcelona chose to be baptised as a strategy in order to avoid death. What was probably considered just a temporary solution at the moment, soon became? More permanent than it seemed. A lot of those Conversos chose to adapt in their new Christian condition, but they obviously kept on going with their professional lives and their personal relations with other Conversos as they usually did, mostly echoing the same Jewish tradition. Those connexions between Conversos were as common as those of the Jews: they married and behaved as if they still belonged to the same? Community as they lived together in a new neighborhood, repeating the same patterns they had in the old Jewish quarter.

Oriol Saula, Museu Comarcal de l'Urgell, Tàrrega, Spain

Title: Tragedy in Tàrrega (Catalonia) during the Black Death

Abstract: This paper deals with a clear example of interdisciplinary work between documentary and archival research, archaeological excavations and anthropological studies, which has produced a deeper knowledge of a fact related to the Black Death: the pogrom that in July 1348 suffered the then flourishing Jewish community of Tàrrega. It’s true that news from medieval pogroms related to the plague are well known, but in this case it’s the confirmation through archeology and anthropology and also the prior discovery of the Jewish cemetery owing to some documents no related at all to Jews or Black Death what makes Tàrrega so exceptional.


Session 002:


11.00-‐13.00

Panel: "Xarxa de Calls". A Macro-‐research Project about Medieval Catalan Jewish Communities

Organizer: Esperança Valls Pujol

Chair: Esperança Valls Pujol

Eulàlia Vernet, Museu d'Història de Barcelona / Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

Title: The Medieval Jewish Quarter of Barcelona: towards a New Museography (Museu d'Història de Barcelona).

Abstract: The purpose of this communication is to explain the new project that, from the History Museum of Barcelona, has been designed and is ready to implant in the MUHBA Jewish medieval quarter Center of Barcelona (Centre MUHBA-‐el Call). This new museography aims to offer visitors a historical, topographical and cultural travel through the legacy of the most important and influential Jewish comunity of the Catalan Crown of Aragon.

Josep Xavier Muntané, Institut d'Estudis Món Juïc, Spain

Title: A medieval Jewish community recovered: Verdú (Catalonia)

Abstract: Most of the studies done about the Jewish medieval past of Catalonia have focused on either some of the big communities, as Girona or Barcelona, or in one of its most prominent members. The smaller communities, often underrepresented in the documents preserved in the central archives, have been outside the interest of historians. Being absent in royal documentation means being absent in modern scientific research. This paper brings the results of the first year and a half of research in the parish archive of the small town of Verdú, which has uncovered hundreds of documents related to the Jews who once lived there or went there for business.

Constantino Vidal Salmeron, Institut d'Estudis Món Juïc, Spain

Title: Jews Serving Christian Secular Power in Terrassa (Catalonia): Shealtiel Gracià and Maimon Desforn

Abstract: This paper will introduce two Jews who served at the royal and lordly administration in the medieval city of Terrassa (Catalonia): Shaltiel Gracià and Maimon Desforn. Saltell Gracià was "lloctinent" (lieutenant) of Guillem de Cardona, lord of the castle of Terrassa and Maimon Desforn was the local royal "batlle" (mayor). It will deal with their identity, activities and family.


Session 003:


14.00-‐15.30

Medieval Ashkenaz


Josef Barzen Rainer, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Title: The Dwelling Places of the "Sages of Lotir". Hebrew Terminology and Political Geography in Latin Europe in the High and Late Middle Ages

Abstract: The "land of Lotir" is known from medieval Hebrew literature to be a term for a certain geographical area. Since the beginnings of Jewish studies this term has been equated with the German "Lothringen" and/or its French counterpart "Lorraine". Nevertheless the term "the sages of Lotir" was especially difficult to deal with. Where should they be looked for? With the limited knowledge from Hebrew sources about the history of Jewish settlement and Jewish scholars of the area, the tendency has been since the 19th century to equate the sages of "Lotir" with the as yet young community in Mainz. This relationship was also taken into account even though Mainz never belonged to Lorraine. But what do we mean when we talk about "Lorraine", or "Lotir" in the high and late Middle Ages? Which geographical and political area did the 11th and 12th century Hebrew authors have in mind when they referred to "Lotir"? Which Jewish communities claimed this name and were also seen from outside as the Jewish inhabitants, the people of "Lotir"?

Shmuel Shepkaru, The University of Oklahoma, USA

Title: Midrash Lekah Tov and the Persecutions of 1096

Abstract: Tuvia ben R. Eliezer of Kastoria, Greece, concluded his Midrash Lekah Tov (also known as Pesiḳta Zuṭarta) by the early 12th century. The midrash makes a short reference to the massacre of the Jews of Mainz in 1096. My paper will examine additional references and allusions to the 1096-‐events in the Rhineland. These references and allusions address the same theological issue of sin-‐punishment-‐miracle/salvation that appears to be part of the dialogue between the Jewish and Christian chronicles of the First Crusade. With respect to Judaism, Christian accounts presented the “miraculous” victory of the First Crusade as a proof that Christianity represented the chosen people. My paper will show how Tuvia refuted some of these Christian theological interpretations to alleviate potential Jewish concerns in the wake of the First Crusade. This attempt was part of his comprehensive message of hope. His refutation of Christian arguments and the encouragement and solace that he provided added to the popularity of Midrash Lekah Tov in Ashkenaz.

Ethan Zadoff, CUNY Graduate Center, USA

Title: Public Practice/Private Law: Marriage Negotiations in Medieval Ashkenaz

Abstract: Studies of the convergences between the composite nature of medieval Jewish and Christian marriage law, practice, and custom in Ashkenaz are not new in the historiographical consciousness. But their recent as well as their more antiquated confederations and entanglements have focused on the “content of the form” eschewing a deeper comparative model of the two legal cultures. Consequently, these studies have been generally ineffective in imagining new possibilities for thinking about shared legal and cultural spaces, the dynamic between law and custom, and as result the nature of the “legal” during the long twelfth century. My paper seeks to draw further comparisons between medieval Jewish and Christian perceptions of marriage by examining the nature of the public/private dichotomy concerning marriage negotiations and nuptial engagement and its consequences for the ways medieval legalists perceived and realized the nebulous divide between law and customary practice. Beginning in the early twelfth century, Halakhists in Northern France and Germany negotiated through a changing emphasis in the constitutive nature of marriage, articulating a transition of pre-‐marital negotiations and nuptial engagements to a public forum, while solemnizing marital agreements within communally sanctioned public contexts. This renewed emphasis developed against wider debates by Italian and transmontane canonists and Decretists, begun in earnest during the closing decades of the eleventh century, concerning the occasion to conduct marital negotiations and betrothals in public and 'ritualistic' settings, questions of ecclesiastical approval of marital matches, and debates concerning the nature and practice of clandestine marriages. Taking into consideration the shifting perception of marriage during the long twelfth century, I explore the ways Halakhists and canon lawyers shaped, negotiated, and perceived the dividing lines between ‘law’ and ‘customary practices’ regarding marriage negotiations, and its implications for understanding the nature of the legal in the long twelfth century. By examining the development of the legal as a negotiation and fluid construct, and by comparing the perspective of the Halakhists and canonists, I hope to show that marriage law represents a site of negotiation between social action and cultural perceptions on the one hand, and inherited traditions, teachings, and norms on the other.


Session 004:


16.00-‐18.00

Provence

Chair:

Susan Einbinder, University of Connecticut, USA

Title: Piyyut and the Pastoureaux: A New Perspective

Abstract: Crusading militias bearing shepherds’ insignia and referred to as Pastoureaux passed through France and Aragon in the spring through late summer of 1320. Georges Passerat has recently revisited the social composition (not entirely rural) and ideology of these groups, and the anti-‐Jewish violence that accompanied them. As did other scholars, his study relied largely on the evidence of contemporary Christian chroniclers and (much) later Jewish ones. The work of Passerat, Barber, Simonsohn, Wolff, Nirenberg and others leaves a combined impression of the chaos and terror of Pastoureaux violence against local Jewish communities, especially in the region of Toulouse (the consensus that the papal

Comtat-‐Venaissin was relatively free of violence may be overly generous). This paper proposes to examine a different set of contemporary sources hitherto ignored by scholars, commemorative laments (qinot) that have been preserved in a number of liturgies from Provence and the Comtat. In particular, I am interested in how these laments present and preserve the historical events they commemorate, how they interpret and respond to them in theological and polemical terms, and how these relatively late exemplars of martyrological verse adapt or adopt existing conventions of the genre. Two laments constitute the focus of this study, Shlomo bar Yosef’s “Abi’ah miqreh” and Emanuel’s “Ez’aq bemar,” neither of which has been properly situated in the historical context it deserves nor examined as a source of insight into the historical and literary questions I am asking. Additional laments may become part of this study as I locate them.

Pinchas Roth, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Title: Medieval Jewish Mourning and Jewish-‐Christian Relations in the Midi

Abstract: Death, burial and mourning are ostensibly universal phenomena, but they are performed in culturally specific ways. The Jewish communities of medieval Provence and Languedoc had distinctive practices and customs regarding death and burial, some of which reflect their complicated relationship with their Christian neighbors. My paper will examine these customs, based on manuscript sources, and will consider their historical context and implications for Jewish-‐Christian relations in Southern France during the High Middle Ages.

Masahiro Shida, University of Tokyo, Japan

Title: Letter to Apostate: Jacob ben Elijah and Profayt Duran

Abstract: This paper will discuss two polemical letters in the middle ages. The first is “Letter of R. Jacob from Venice” written by Jacob ben Elijah, probably a rabbi from Provence. The second is “Letter ‘Do not be like unto your fathers’” by Profayt Duran, a rabbi from Perpignan. Both of them were sent to the authors’ familiar apostates, the former was to Dominican friar Paulus Christiani; the latter to David Bonjorn. My point of view is on the images of apostate in these letters. Although these two authors refer to various elements in the Christendom, such as legends of the saints, historical changes of the dynasties in the Mediterranean world and the doctrine of the Transubstantiation, they do not attack Christianity directly for themselves. Instead, they give this role to their addressees, and have them criticize Christian culture. Therefore, this paper will clarify the tactical discourses on apostate.