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“The Customs of Our Ancestors Are in Our Hands” European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2024-03-08 Simo Muir, Riikka Tuori
The Jewish community of Finland represents a continuum of Eastern European Ashkenazic Orthodoxy that survived the Shoah intact. During recent decades there have been significant changes in the demography of the local congregations, and these changes have influenced the religiosity of the members: while secularism and indifference to religion have grown, many members have turned toward stricter observance
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Tombstones, Stonemasons, and Mental Maps European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2024-03-08 Vladimir Levin, Ekaterina Oleshkevich
This article proposes a methodology for understanding the business networks and mental maps of Jewish communities in central and eastern Europe from the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. The methodology is based on scrupulous documentation of Jewish tombstones, especially the signatures of stonemasons. Through analysis of the signatures found in the Jewish cemeteries of Croatia
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Compelling Legends European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Uriel Gellman
This article contributes to recent discussions regarding the reliability and modes of historical usability of Shivḥei ha-Beshṭ—the earliest Ḥasidic hagiography about the Baʿal Shem Ṭov, the alleged founder of Ḥasidism, and his circle. It considers the biographical portrayal of one of the members of the Beshṭ’s circle as an example for the narrative construction of early Ḥasidism. An unknown text is
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Deciphering the Baʿal Shem Ṭov’s Legacy as Crafted by His Disciple Jacob Joseph Using Distant Reading Digital Tools European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Leore Sachs-Shmueli
This article aims to decipher distinctive conceptual characteristics attributed to the legendary founder of Ḥasidism, Israel Baʿal Shem Ṭov, as documented by his faithful disciple, Jacob Joseph of Polonnoye (1710–1784). I endeavor to demonstrate how a quantitative analysis of the earliest testimonies of Beshtian teachings can improve our understanding of the interplay between major concepts within
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Sewing Mothers: Re-envisioning Jewish-Christian Relations in Sholem Asch’s “On a Carnival Night” European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-10-09 Ruthie Abeliovich, Yonatan Moss
A close examination of early twentieth-century literature written in Hebrew and Yiddish reveals that many of its first representations of Christianity put a central emphasis on Mary. This fact has been overlooked in previous scholarship fixated on the role of Jesus. Our article aims to fill this lacuna by focusing on Mary’s appearance in a short, controversial story published in 1909 by Sholem Asch
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Footprints: A Digital Approach to (Jewish) Book History European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Michelle Margolis, Marjorie Lehman, Adam Shear, Joshua Teplitsky
This article describes and analyzes the methods of Footprints: Jewish Books Through Time and Place, a digital humanities contribution to book history. Footprints collects and aggregates information about the movement of copies of Hebrew books and books of Judaica in other languages printed in the early modern period (roughly corresponding to the hand-press era) and follows evidence of their movement
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L’École de pensée juive de Paris and the Idea of Fraternité: Re-reading the Stories of Brothers in Genesis European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Hanoch Ben-Pazi
This essay will present an analysis of the idea of ‘fraternity’ in the writings of two of the most dynamic Jewish thinkers of the Parisian School of Jewish Thought: Manitou (Rabbi Yehuda Leon Ashkenazi) and André Neher. They both examined the concept of “fraternity” in the book of Genesis. Apparently, the concept was borrowed from the motto of the French revolution: liberté, egalité and fraternité
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“A Native of Poland Professing the Arts in London”: The Unconventional Jewish Life and Thought of Solomon Yom Tov Bennett (1767–1838) European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-08-21 David Ruderman
This essay offers a new reconstruction of the fascinating life and works of Solomon Yom Tov Bennett (1767–1838), a Jewish engraver and biblical scholar who emigrated from Belarus via Copenhagen and Berlin to London. While Bennett’s intellectual path might appear similar to several other notable Polish Jewish immigrants to Western Europe, he is quite distinctive for his remarkable coadunation of art
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Slavuta, Zhytomyr, and Vilna: The Intersecting Stories of the Romm and Shapira Publishing Houses European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-08-08 Ada Gebel
The article outlines key intersections between two Eastern European Jewish printing businesses during the nineteenth century. The first is the Shapira printing house, located first in Slavuta, and later in Zhytomyr. The second is the Romm printing and publishing house, Vilna, the largest Jewish printing house in Eastern Europe at the time. The first significant interaction between these two printing
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Angels of Destruction (Mal’akhei Ḥabalah): Two Millennia of Jewish Horror European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-08-01 Kobi Kabalek, Nimrod Zinger
This article traces the meanings and uses of the Hebrew concept mal’akhei ḥabalah [angels of destruction], a common designation for monsters that has been mentioned in Jewish texts for over two millennia. Thus far, scholars have considered mal’akhei ḥabalah only in isolated contexts. In contrast, we examine these monsters’ long history, which provided Jews with familiar horror images and figures to
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Rabbi Kook in Žeimelis: A Big Data Analysis European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-04-28 Isaac Hershkowitz
In this study I demonstrate a distant reading of Rabbi Kook’s early writings from the Žeimelis period, using advanced tools of big data analytics. Analyzing frequent words and phrases in the Žeimelis corpus is coupled with a comparison to the most important corpus of Kook’s writing: Shemonah Qevaṣim. This parallelization illustrates the clear and consistent differences between the corpora—verbal and
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Hinko Gottlieb and the Beginning of Holocaust Literature in Yugoslavia European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-27 Krinka Vidaković Petrov
The article is dedicated to Hinko Gottlieb (1886–1948), who is introduced here as the first Yugoslav Jewish writer who dealt with the theme of the Holocaust in real time. The personal biography of this forgotten author presents his life in the historical context of the pre-Holocaust and Holocaust periods. The inception of Holocaust literature in Yugoslavia is manifested in Gottlieb’s works, imbued
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How Awe-Inspiring It Is: A Galician Maskil Responds to the Revolutions of 1848–1849 European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-14 Rebecca Wolpe
While the practical results of the revolutions that engulfed Europe in 1848–1849 were largely ephemeral, they elicited great excitement and anticipation. In particular, some enlightened Jews saw the revolutions and ensuing political developments as a great opportunity, hoping that they would lead to emancipation, equality, and brotherhood with their non-Jewish neighbors. Spurred on by the events, Abraham
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Gender and Memory in the Work of Serbian-Jewish Writer Paulina Lebl Albala (1891–1967) European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-03 Magdalena Koch
The article focuses on how Serbian/Jewish hyphenated identity, gender, and memory intersect in the writing of Paulina Lebl Albala. It explores the dynamics of these factors in three texts: Dr. David Albala as a Jewish National Worker (New York: Leo Baeck Institute, 1943), Tako je nekad bilo [That’s How it Once Was] (Belgrade: Aleksandar Lebl, 2005); and Vidov život. Biografija dr. Davida Albale [Vid’s
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Judeo-Spanish Proverbs from Bosnia: Compilers and Their Approaches European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-03 Željko Jovanović
This article deals with four unpublished Judeo-Spanish proverb collections from post-Holocaust Bosnia that were gathered there by four different members of the Sephardic community: three men (Binjo Samokovlija, David Baruh, and Jakov Konforti) and one woman (Flora Eškenazi). I specifically examine two working techniques that these authors/collectors applied in order to safeguard and disseminate this
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(Un)spoken Histories: The Second World War and Yugoslav Jewish Women European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-01-16 Katarzyna Taczyńska
The article discusses the experiences of Yugoslav Jewish women during the Second World War and the Holocaust. It presents little known texts (fictional, paraliterary and documentary works) written by Jewish women (Hilda Dajč, Elvira Kohn, Lea Abinun, Ženi Lebl, and Gina Camhy), one non-Jewish woman (Milojka Mezorana), and one Jewish man (Đorđe Lebović), during or after the Second World War. The main
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Jewish, Masculine, and Professional: Intersections of Profession and Masculinity in Yoshue Perle’s Novellas “Gelt” and “Nayn a zeyger inderfri” European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-01-13 Mariusz Kałczewiak
This article explores “Nayn a zeyger inderfri” and “Gelt,” two novellas by the Polish- Jewish Yiddish author Yoshue Perle. These novellas feature first-generation Jewish middle-class men who anxiously struggle to perform according to the bourgeois masculine standards that their new class positioning requires. The article argues that Perle creates a narrative where Jewish masculinities come into direct
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Serbo-Croatian as a Language of Sephardic Literature: The Cases of Isak Samokovlija and Jacques Confino European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-01-13 Željka Oparnica
The early twentieth century saw a rise in Jewish writers in what is traditionally considered non-Jewish languages in the Balkans like in the rest of Europe. In light of this phenomenon’s significance, we pose the question why and how Serbo-Croatian became a language of Sephardic literature. The article questions the accepted narrative of ‘linguistic acculturation’ of Sephardic Jews in the Balkans and
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The Vojvodina Gallery: Biographical Portraits of Four Jewish Cultural Workers European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2023-01-11 Olga Ungar
The article introduces four cultural workers of Jewish origin from Vojvodina, who were portrayed in the publication Vojvodina Gallery (1927). This unique biographical portrait gallery of influential people living at that time in the Vojvodina region, served as a starting point for this study. Vojvodina’s Jews were well represented in this publication; out of the three hundred and six individuals about
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“Beat the Copper Nail in the Eye with a Hammer”: An Ancient Magic Spell in Yiddish for Catching a Thief European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2022-11-07 Daniella Zaidman-Mauer, Sivan Gottlieb
Exposing a thief magically with the aid of a painted eye on the wall, has existed since antiquity. The spell includes instructions for drawing an eye, incantations, summoning up God’s help, and knocking a nail into the painted eye, thus harming the thief’s eye and exposing him. In this article we present the same spell written in Yiddish dating between the fifteenth to the sixteenth century. In tracing
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“Of Him Came a Prince”: Judah Remodeled by Naḥmanides European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2022-09-22 Miriam Sklarz
This article follows the character design of Judah in Naḥmanides’ Torah commentary, and explores its theological significance in the context of Naḥmanides philosophy.
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Sacred Poetry, Eternal Felicity, and the Redemption of Israel: Obadiah Sforno’s Commentary on Psalms in the Berlin Haskalah European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2022-06-14 Yael Sela
The article explores the philosophical exegesis in Obadiah Sforno’s sixteenth-century Psalms commentary and its reception in Berlin of the late eighteenth century, where it was reprinted in the Haskalah’s biggest bestseller—an edition of Moses Mendelssohn’s Psalms translation with Hebrew commentary. While the inclusion of entire commentaries by earlier exegetes was unique among all Haskalah Bible editions
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Christian Knorr von Rosenroth’s Anticipation of the Consolation of Israel: His Latin Translation of Isaac Abarbanel’s “Introduction to the Prophet Isaiah” and Its Possible Place within His Work European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2022-06-09 Anna M. Vileno, Robert J. Wilkinson
This article examines a previously ignored and unpublished manuscript of the Christian kabbalistic scholar Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, the compiler of Kabbala Denudata, restores it to its proper order, and conclusively identifies it as his personal translation into Latin of Isaac Abarbanel’s Introduction to the Prophet Isaiah prepared, we suggest, for this own use and not for publication. Though
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Gendering Experiences of Anti-Semitism: A Quantitative Analysis of Discrimination in Europe European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2022-05-20 Mie Astrup Jensen
Little is known about the gendered dimension of anti-Semitism. Emerging from a literature review on social identity theory, anti-Semitism, sexism, and Jewish feminism, I demonstrate the urgency of examining the link between gender and experiences of anti-Semitism, using the FRA’s 2018 dataset “Experiences and Perceptions of Antisemitism: Second Survey on Discrimination and Hate Crime against Jews in
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Dialogic Interactions: Communication between Human Being and God according to the Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-21 Talya Alon-Altman
This article examines the communication between human being and God in the Jewish philosophy of the German-Jewish philosopher, Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929). It observes Rosenzweig’s Jewish philosophy in light of communication theories and wishes to use the theoretical wealth of this relatively new discipline—communication—in order to deepen the philosophical discussion. The encounter described in this
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The Jerusalem Temple and Jewish Identity between Pseudo-Hegesippus and Sefer Yosippon: The Discursive Aftermath of Josephus’ Temple Ekphrasis European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-17 Carson Bay
Josephus’ Temple ekphrasis in his Jewish War (5.136–247) is a significant literary monument. The description of this quintessential Jewish holy place has a great deal to do with Jewish identity. In the late fourth century, the Latin Christian author Pseudo-Hegesippus, in his work On the Destruction of Jerusalem, rewrote the Temple description to emphasize Christian identity as central to the Temple’s
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Notes on R. Saadya Gaon’s Translation of the Torah, Part I – Genesis, written by Joshua Blau European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-02 Ani Avetisyan
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How the Art of Printing Transformed Kabbalah: Between Italian Courts and Polish Lands European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2022-02-07 Giulio Busi
In this article, I will first provide a brief discussion of the geographical development of how the art of printing transformed Kabbalah from Italian courts to Polish shtetlach, focusing on the relationship between Italy and Poland. I will then move to the theoretical aspect and try to outline the dynamics of kabbalistic thought involved in this phenomenon. From a temporal point of view, the focus
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“To Know Everything”: Encyclopedias and the Organization of Kabbalistic Knowledge European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2022-01-13 Andrea Gondos
The (re-)organization of knowledge concerning kabbalistic concepts constituted an important literary activity for authors, beginning with the late medieval through the early modern periods. The examination of the anonymous Ma‘arekhet ha-Elohut, Meir ibn Gabbai’s ‘Avodat ha-Qodesh, and Moses Cordovero’s Pardes Rimmonim, help to re-focus scholarly attention on the literary genre of kabbalistic encyclopedias
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The Philosophical Background of Yoḥanan Alemanno: Remarks on Logic and Psychology European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-23 Hanna Gentili
The convergence of philosophical and kabbalistic sources in the works of Yoḥanan Alemanno (ca. 1435–ca. 1504) attests to the richness of fifteenth-century scholarship in Italy, specifically its reception of sources that had characterized cultural debates across the Mediterranean for centuries. Beginning with a discussion of his personal notebook (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms Reggio 23), and focusing
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Transmission and Reception of Isaac ibn Sahula’s Kabbalistic Commentary on Two Psalms European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-23 Saverio Campanini
In his largely fabulous Historia eclesiastica, politica, natural y moral published in Valencia in 1610, the Dominican Luis de Urreta offers a brief survey of the riches of the Ethiopian imperial library with great admiration. The universal character of the Emperor’s library ensured that it also contained a good selection of Jewish authors and Hebrew books. Among them one can find two names that are
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Studying Ibn Sīnā, Performing Abulafia in a Mid-Sixteenth-Century Prison: Emotional, Medical, and Mystical Bodies between Italy and Silesia European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-16 Magdaléna Jánošíková
Historians often address knowledge transfer in two ways: as an extension and continuation of an established tradition, or as the tradition’s modification in an act of individual reception. This article explores the tension between the two approaches through a case study of Eliezer Eilburg. It traces the footsteps of a sixteenth-century German Jew and his study of the late medieval Hebrew medical and
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EJJS Special Collection: Yiddish in Europe European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2022-02-07 Bart Wallet
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Kabbalah and Knowledge Transfers in Early Modernity: Foreword European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2022-01-13 Agata Paluch,Patrick B. Koch
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The Jewish Reception of Aristotle’s Poetics in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-century Provence: A Survey of the Arabic Sources European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-23 Francesca Gorgoni
The last few years have seen a renewed interest in Aristotle’s logic in the Jewish tradition, giving a decisive impulse to the research on the Greek-into-Hebrew philosophical transmission in medieval and early modern times. The present article aims to contribute to the studies on Aristotelian logic in Hebrew by focusing on a less explored aspect, namely the reception of Aristotle’s Poetics in Jewish
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Or Ha-Shem from Spain. The Life, Works, and Philosophy of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas, edited by Esti Eisenmann and Warren Zev Harvey European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-13 Benjamin R. Gampel
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Jacob Ṣemaḥ, Humanist European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-11-02 J. H. Chajes
Jacob Ṣemaḥ (ca. 1578–1667), an erudite physician-kabbalist, was raised amongst the conversos of Viana de Caminha in northwest Portugal. He fled the country in his mid-thirties to live openly as a Jew, arriving first in Salonica. Ṣemaḥ was responsible for the consolidation of the Lurianic literary corpus in the second third of the seventeenth century. His contribution, I argue, should be situated in
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The Matrix of Understanding: Moses Zacuto’s Em la-Binah and Kabbalistic Works of Reference European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-08-19 Gerold Necker
The systematization of knowledge for educational practice entered a new era in the wake of Ramism. Innovative encyclopedic approaches and textbooks also surfaced in the field of Kabbalah. This article discusses Moses Zacuto’s approach to the kabbalistic genre of reference books and the impact of Lurianic Kabbalah. Against the backdrop of the reception of Ramist ideas and building upon the interaction
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Transmission and Transformation of Kabbalistic Knowledge in Italy at the End of the Fifteenth Century European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-07-27 Flavia Buzzetta
The article looks at the transfer of knowledge between Judaism and Christianity in the Renaissance, a period characterized by the encounter of different cultures and belief systems. In particular, it will focus on the Christian Kabbalah, which channels various philosophical and sapiential traditions into a universal, and at the same time, plural vision of wisdom. This convergence of ideas resulted
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A Printed Primer of Kabbalistic Knowledge: Sha‘arei Orah in East-Central Europe European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-07-13 Avinoam J. Stillman
This article explores the printed editions of Joseph Gikatilla’s Sha‘arei Orah in the broader context of kabbalistic knowledge in early modern East-Central Europe. Following its first Italian editions, the book was reprinted several times. The Kraków 1600 edition with commentary by Matityah Delacrut presented Sha‘arei Orah as a kabbalistic lexicon and study aid. The Offenbach 1715 edition included
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Dynamics of Remembrance across Time and Media: On Ruth Glasberg Gold’s Multiple Accounts of Her Holocaust Experiences in Transnistria European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-05-21 Dana Mihăilescu
This article considers the dynamics of the memories of World War II for survivors who give multiple accounts of their experiences over time. I compare five testimonies with different medial content given in 1944, 1983, and 1996 by Ruth Glasberg Gold. In November 1941, at the age of eleven, she was deported with her parents and brother from Czernowitz to the Bershad ghetto, Transnistria, where she lost
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The Language Question in Şalom (1947–1983): Linguistic Ideologies among the Sephardim of Turkey European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-05-06 Adrián Martínez Corral
Since the beginning of the Judezmo press in the second half of the nineteenth century, “the language question” has been a recurrent topic of debate. Throughout the pages of the many newspapers in Judeo-Spanish, several linguistic ideologies were exposed, often causing heated controversies. The aim of this article is to analyze the views, assumptions and conceptions regarding the many languages employed
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“Your Papers for a Tourist Visa”: A Literary-Biographical Consideration of Isaac Bashevis Singer in Warsaw, 1923–1935 European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-04-15 David Stromberg
This article focuses on two aspects of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s life and work from 1923 to 1935. First, it outlines his early career in Warsaw, focusing on his essays and tracing his efforts to establish a literary career independent from that of his older brother, Israel Joshua. Second, it considers Singer’s emigration from Warsaw, with a focus on his brother’s efforts to get him out, as found in personal
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Rabbi, Mystic, or Impostor? The Eighteenth-Century Ba‘al Shem of London, written by Michal Oron Missionaries, Converts, and Rabbis: The Evangelical Alexander McCaul and Jewish-Christian Debate in the Nineteenth Century, written by David B. Ruderman European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-05-21 Paweł Maciejko
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Sefer Hasidim and the Ashkenazic Book in Medieval Europe, written by Ivan G. Marcus European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Bill Rebiger
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The Characterization of Miṣwot and Conception of Halakhah in Rabbinic Non-Halakhic Literature European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Binyamin Katzoff
Scholarly discussion concerning rabbinic conceptions of the nature of halakhah—realist vs. nominalist—has for the most part focused on halakhic content and discourse. However, as Schremer has shown, non-halakhic passages may present conceptions that differ from those found in halakhic sources. Following Schremer’s suggested distinction, in this study I examine non-halakhic texts which use various metaphors
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Struggling for Religion in Jewish Scientific Research—Max Wiener’s Critique on Hermann Cohen’s Notion of Religion European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-01 Knut Martin Stünkel
The article examines Max Wiener’s thoughts on the relation of Judaism and religion via his critique of his former teacher, Hermann Cohen. This focusses on the notion of religion developed by Cohen in the context of Jewish Scientific Research [Wissenschaft des Judentums]. It discusses Wiener’s thoughts on religion in order to exemplify the specific kind of struggle a non-Christian religious tradition
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Wrestling with Spirits: A Medieval Internal Jewish Debate on the Nature of Biblical Angels and its Arabic and Latin Sources European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2020-12-22 Yossef Schwartz
The article’s point of departure is a debate that took place in about 1290 between Zeraḥyah b. Isaac Ḥen and Hillel b. Samuel, two Jewish-Italian thinkers, that presents us with a surprisingly great variety of Arab, Jewish, and Latin-Christian exegetical and cosmological approaches regarding angelic nature. Zeraḥyah, following the dominant attitude among Arab, Muslim, and Jewish philosophers, strives
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The Fifth Passover Cup and Magical Pairs: Isaac Baer Levinsohn and the Babylonian Talmud European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2020-12-02 Leor Jacobi
The Fifth Passover Cup is mentioned in a textual variant of a baraita in Tractate Pesaḥim of the Babylonian Talmud (118a), attributed to Rabbi Ṭarfon and another anonymous Palestinian tanna. Scholars have demonstrated that the variant is primary in talmudic manuscripts and among the Babylonian Geonim. Following a nineteenth-century proposition of Isaac Baer Levinsohn, it is argued that the fifth cup
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Liberal Judaism and Local Jewish Identity: The Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation (DJPC), 1946–1967 European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2020-12-02 Natalie Wynn
As a minority within a minority, the Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation (DJPC) barely features in the history of either Irish Jewry or Britain’s Liberal Judaism (LJ) movement. Any discussions of the congregation have been superficial; it is dismissed as religiously lax in the orthodox-led, largely anecdotal Irish Jewish historiography, but as conservative in the LJ context. This article critically
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Liberal Judaism and Local Jewish Identity: The Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation (DJPC), 1946–1967 European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2020-12-02 Natalie Wynn
As a minority within a minority, the Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation (DJPC) barely features in the history of either Irish Jewry or Britain’s Liberal Judaism (LJ) movement. Any discussions of the congregation have been superficial; it is dismissed as religiously lax in the orthodox-led, largely anecdotal Irish Jewish historiography, but as conservative in the LJ context. This article critically
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The Phenomenon of Dynasties of Jewish Doctors in the Mamluk Period (1250–1517) European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2020-11-19 Amir Mazor, Efraim Lev
This article discusses the phenomenon of dynasties of Jewish physicians in the Late Middle Ages in Egypt and Syria. Based on Muslim Arabic historiographical literature on the one hand, and Jewish sources such as Genizah documents on the other, this paper reconstructs fourteen dynasties of Jewish physicians that were active in the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517). Examination of the families reveals that
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Re-envisioning the Evil Eye: Magic, Optical Theory, and Modern Supernaturalism in Jewish Thought European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2020-11-19 J. H. Chajes
This essay is a case study in the modern emergence of the “supernatural.” I argue that pre-modern understandings of the evil eye were predominantly naturalistic, based on extramissionist, haptic concepts of vision. The need to believe in the evil eye first arises when sight becomes universally understood as the result of light entering rather than emerging from the eyes. In the Jewish context, rabbis
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Ostrich Eggs as a Conceptual-Symbolic Accessory in Jewish Synagogues European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2020-10-13 Abraham Ofir Shemesh
The current article discusses the origins and formation of the Jewish custom of hanging ostrich eggs in the synagogue. This habit has been more common in specific countries such as Yemen, and in cities in the land of Israel, such as Safed, Meron, and Jerusalem. The initial reason given for hanging the eggs was that they might arouse one to concentrate on prayers, as like eggs, prayers are fruitful
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Uncertainty as a Poetic Principle: A Reading of the Opening Scene in Joseph Ben Zabara’s The Book of Delight European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2020-10-05 Idit Einat-Nov
This article proposes a new reading of the opening scene of Joseph Ben Meir Ibn Zabara’s twelfth century (at the latest: 1209) The Book of Delight. This reading derives from the hypothesis that this art of storytelling is based on a poetic principle of uncertainty, and is therefore associated with the various forms of the ambiguous and the ambivalent (the grotesque, the uncanny, the ironic, etc.).
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The Karaite Mourners of Zion and the Qumran Scrolls. On the History of an Alternative to Rabbinic Judaism, written by Yoram Erder The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben ‘Eli on the Book of Proverbs, vol. 1, Edition and Introduction, written by Ilana Sasson Historical Consciousness, Haskalah, and Nationalism among the Karaites of Eastern Europe, written by Golda Akhiezer European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2020-08-17 Daniel J. Lasker
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Abraham Unbound: The Prefiguration of the Unconscious in the First Generation of the Musar and Hasidic Movements European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2020-07-16 Clémence Boulouque
This study examines the respective theological assumptions of two major forces in nineteenth-century Judaism—the Musar and the early Hasidic movements, and the way in which the budding concept of the unconscious illuminates both. Often translated as an ethical approach, the Musar movement originated from Lithuania and focused on Torah study as it deemed Talmud insufficient to create a deep, emotional
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Mysticism, Pietism, Morality: An Introduction European Journal of Jewish Studies Pub Date : 2020-07-15 Patrick Benjamin Koch