Salon Jewish Studies Blog

The conference Jews of Arab Culture, 1948-2009 will be held from 22 - 24 June 2009 at Cambridge University. The conference is organized by the Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations (CMJR) and the Department of Middle Eastern Studies.

"While the study of medieval and early modern Judaeo-Arabic culture & literature is a comparatively well established field in Western academia, there exists so far no comprehensive study of the more recent Arabic literature written by Jews. Central aspects of the last sixty years of Jewish-Arabic culture and literature have not yet been systematically surveyed and studied.
The conference will attempt to fill this gap and explore various aspects of the process of 'De-Arabization' of the literary culture of "Arab Jews" since the 1940s. How did Jews (Jewish writers) who emigrated to Israel from different parts of the Arab world react or even resist this transformational process and how did it impact on the Palestinian literature? The conference will consist of six sessions, five of which will be dedicated to a specific region in the Arab world and explore the literature and culture within the respective Jewish community:

The conference Hebraic Aspects of the Renaissance, held from May 11-13, 2009 at Haifa University "will explore the rich and multifaceted interactions of Jewish and Hebraic culture with the Renaissance world, roughly during the period 1350 to 1650. Following several fruitful RSA panels devoted to the theme, we now hope to bring the subject into sharper focus." (via H-Judaic)

Timetable:

Day 1
8:30-9:00
Registration and gathering, coffee

9:00-9:45
Welcome notes
Chair: Ilana Zinguer
Ambassadeur de France / Attaché Culturel
Dean / Rector
Ilana Zinguer (Centre de recherche de Civilisation Fran?aise)

9:45-10:45
Keynote I
Chair: Ilana Zinguer
Georges Molinié (Président, Sorbonne, Paris IV)
Postures et images juives par rapport à la culture baroque

Pause-------------------------

11:00-12:30
Kabbalah I
Chair: Bernard Cooperman
Lina Bolzoni (Scuola Normale di Pisa)
Giulio Camillo’s Memory Theatre and the Kabbalah
Roni Weinstein (University of Pisa)
Sixteenth-Century Jewish Mysticism as a Catholic Baroque Phenomenon
Yossi Chajes (University of Haifa)
It's Good to See the King : Toward an Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Jewish Cosmological Cartography

12:30
Lunch break

14:00-15:30
Kabbalah II
Chair: Lina Bolzoni
Bernard Cooperman (University of Maryland)
Kabbalistic Enthusiasms of a Rabbi for Hire. The Sermons of Isaac di Lattes
Sheila Rabin (St. Peter's College)
Pico, Astrology, and Kabbalah
Dvora Bregman (Ben Gurion University)
Notes on the Poetry of Moses Zacuto

Pause-------------------------

15:45-17:30
Religious Identities and Contexts I
Chair: Frank Lestringuant (Paris Sorbonne)
Ilana Zinguer (University of Haifa)
L'implicite à propos des Juifs de Rome (Journal de Voyage, Montaigne)
Annie Molinié (Sorbonne, Paris IV) and
Béatrice Perez (Université de Rennes)
Les premiers jésuites d'origine "conversa" (deuxième moitié du XVIe siècle): Diego Lainez, Polanco et les autres
Giuseppe Veltri (University of Halle)
Defining Jewish “Rituals” in the Early Modern Period: History of a Philosophical-Political Concept

17:30-18:00
Coffee break-------------------------

18:00-19:00
Keynote II
Chair: Abraham Melamed
Joanna Weinberg (Oxford University)
Jewish Wisdom and the Limits of Christian Hebraism

20:00
Reception (Consul de France, Haifa)
Frank Lestringant (Sorbonne, Paris IV)
Kabbale et cosmographie, de Guillaume Postel à Jacques d'Auzoles-Lapeyre

Day 2
8:30-9:00
Gathering, coffee

9:00-10:30
Hebraism, Poetry, and Drama I
Chair : Ofir Haivry (The Shalem Center)
Lauren Silberman (CUNY)
Aaron, The Brother Who Proves the Rule: Typological Negotiations in Titus Andronicus
Konrad Eisenbichler (University of Toronto)
Ancient Israel in the Religious Theatre of Renaissance Italy
Nancy Rosenfeld (University of Haifa)
'The Law of Moses as well as the Devil, Death, and Hell': John Bunyan and Christian Kabbalah

Pause-------------------------

10:45-12:45
Hebraism, Poetry, and Drama II
Chair: Dvora Bregman (Ben Gurion University)
Elliott Simon (University of Haifa)
From Maimonides to Sir Philip Sidney: The Poet’s Prophetic Voice
Chanita Goodblatt (Ben Gurion University )
"Thy Firmness makes my Circles Just/And makes me end, where I begunne": Abraham Ibn Ezra and John Donne as Poet-Exegetes
Noam Flinker (University of Haifa)
“Free as the Road”: George Herbert’s Hebraic Texts
Philip Ford (Cambridge University)
The Place of Hebrew Poetry in the Teaching of Charles Utenhove

12:45
Lunch break-------------------------

14:15-15:45
Hebraism and Scholarship I: Antiquarianism and Philology
Chair : Philip Ford (Cambridge University)
Arthur Eyffinger (Huygens Institute)
Biblical Philology at Leiden University
Daniel Stein-Kokin (Yale University)
Egidio da Viterbo and Christian Hebraism in High Renaissance Rome.
Jonathan Elukin (Trinity College Hartford)
The Urim and Thumim and Christian Hebraism

Pause-------------------------

16:00-17:30
Hebraism and Scholarship II: Chronology and Geography
Chair : Jonathan Elukin (Trinity College Hartford)
Avner Ben Zaken (Harvard Society of Fellows)
Hebraist Motives, Pythagorean Itineraries, and the Galilean Agendas of Naples: On the Margins of Text and Context
Zur Shalev ( University of Haifa)
Benjamin of Tudela, Spanish Discoverer
Fabrizio Lelli (University of Lecce)
The Role of Early Renaissance Geographical Discoveries in Yohanan Alemanno’s Messianic Thought

17:30-18:00
Coffee break-------------------------

18:00-19:15
Religious Identities and Contexts II
Chair: Myriam Yardeni (University of Haifa)
Sina Rauschenbach (University of Halle)
Dealing with Jewish Knowledge: Menasseh Ben Israel and the Christian Respublica Litteraria
Alessandro Guetta (INALCO – Paris)
The Debate on the Immortality of the soul in Early Modern Italy:
a symptom of closer Jewish-Christian dialogue?

Day 3
8:30-9:00
Gathering, coffee

9:00-10:45
The Hebrew Language and Its Practice
Chair: Noam Flinker (University of Haifa)
Arthur Lesley (Baltimore Hebrew College)
Yohanan Alemanno's Formulation of Hebrew Rhetorical Practice.
Kenneth Stow (University of Haifa)
Negotiating Self-Governance: Hebrew in the Service of Running the Jewish Universit?.
Yaacov Deutsch (Hebrew University and Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University)
Converting the New Testament: Hebrew Translations of the New Testament in the Early Modern Period

Pause-------------------------

11:00-12:30
Hebraism and Political Theory I
Chair: Arthur Eyffinger (Huygens Institute)
Lea Campos Boralevi (University of Florence)
The Rise and Fall of the Respublica Hebraeorum as a Political Model in Early Modern Europe
Meirav Jones (The Shalem Center)
Philo Judaeus and Jewish Harmony in Grotius’ Laws of War and Peace
Yitzhak Lifshitz (The Shalem Center)
The Revival of the ideas of Medieval Ashkenaz in the 15th Century Political Thought of R. Yisrael Iserlin

12:30
Lunch break

14:00-15:00
Hebraism and Political Theory II
Chair: Zur Shalev (University of Haifa)
Ofir Haivry (The Shalem Center)
Jewish Sources of John Selden’s Idea of Church-State Relations
Fania Oz-Salzberger (University of Haifa)
The social reading of the Bible by English thinkers of the mid 17th century

Coffee break-------------------------

15:15-16:45
Isaac Abravanel
Chair : Arthur Lesley
Cedric Cohen Skalli (Tel Aviv University)
Isaac and Yehudah Abravanel on Genesis: A Case of Jewish Reception of Florentine Platonism
Vasileios Syros (University of Helsinki)
The Political Function of Rhetoric in Don Isaac Abravanel’s Political Thought
Abraham Melamed (University of Haifa)
The Reception of Abravanel in Early Modern Political Thought

16:45-17:15
Coffee break-------------------------

17:15-18:15
Yehudah Abravanel
Chair : Georges Molinié (Sorbonne, Paris IV)
Tristan Dagron (CNRS-Paris)
Giordano Bruno, lecteur des Dialoghi d’amore de Leone Ebreo
James W. Nelson Novoa (Villanova University)
Leone Ebreo’s Diologhi d’amore as a Pivotal Document of Judeo-Christian Relations in Renaissance Rome

18:15-17:00
Ending Note
David Baum (West Texas State A&M University)
Anti-Semitism, Race and the Renaissance in Fascist Italy

The conference Bund and Borders: German Jewish thinking between Faith and Power will be held from May 17th until May 19th 2009 in the Jewish Museum, Berlin.

Timetable

May 17

18.00 Welcome

18.15 Introduction: Mirjam Wenzel (Jewish Museum Berlin)

18:30–20:30 Evening Session: A German-Jewish Critique?
With: Steven Aschheim (Hebrew Univ.), Amir Eshel (Stanford Univ.), Adi Gordon (Univ. of Wisconsin), Thomas Meyer (Simon Dubnow Institute Leipzig)

20.30–22.00 Reception

May 18

10.00–12.00 Morning Session: German-Jewish Intellectual Positions from Mystical Traditions to Radical Politics
With: Martin Kavka (Florida State Univ.), Eugene Sheppard (Brandeis Univ.), Christian Wiese (Sussex Univ.), Udi Greenberg (Hebrew Univ.), Cilly Kugelmann (Jewish Museum Berlin)

12.00–13.30 Lunch

14.00–16.00 Afternoon Session I: A Jewish Political Theology?
With: Vivian Liska (Univ. of Antwerp), Menachem Lorberbaum (Tel Aviv Univ.), Nitzan Lebovic (Tel Aviv Univ.), Martin Treml (Centre for Literary and Cultural Research, Berlin)

15.00–16.30 Refreshments

16.30–18.30 Afternoon Session II: The Impact of German Jews on Political Culture and Constitutional Issues in Israel
With: Mordechai Kremnitzer (Institute for Democracy Jerusalem), Itzhak Englard (Hebrew Univ. em.), Shai Lavi (Tel Aviv Univ.), Dieter Grimm (Humboldt Univ. em./Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin)

May 19

10.00–12.00: Workshops with Students I
Politics meets Halakhic and Chassidic traditions (with Menachem Loberbaum)
Carl Schmitt and Jacob Taubes (with Martin Treml)

12.30–13.30: Lunch

14.00–16.00: Workshops with Students II
Ethical considerations and aesthetic forms (with Vivian Liska)
An Israeli Constitution? (with Mordechai Kremnitzer)

17.00–18.30: Round Table Discussion: The End of German-Jewish History?
With: Steven Aschheim (Hebrew Univ), Raphael Gross (LBI London, Jewish Museum/Fritz Bauer Institute, Frankfurt a.M.), Martin Kavka (Florida State Univ.), Nitzan Lebovic (Tel Aviv Univ.),Vivian Liska (Univ. of Antwerp), Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Hamburg Univ.), Mirjam Wenzel (Jewish Museum Berlin)

19.00–19.15: Concluding Remarks

(H-Soz-u-Kult: http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/termine/id=11323)

From April 30th until May 3rd 2009 the Limmud.de festival will take place for the second time in Germany. "The Festival is to take place in Werbellinsee, north of Berlin, in a large hostel-type facility in a picturesque landscape. The location offers lodging for several hundred participants and many seminar rooms, making it an ideal location for a comprehensive program. The site was founded as a getaway for Young Pioneers (in communist East Germany) and since 1989 has gradually been modified into a vacation and conference centre."

As it is said on Limmud.de webpage:

"Limmud.de is a place...

Everybody who is interested in participating check out the Limmud.de website.

"The Jewish Art Salon (New York) is an open and unique inter-disciplinary group of artists. We meet informally once every four weeks to discuss our work, life, the Jewish themes inherent in our work and the multiplicity of impetus and inspiration for our work. We engage in interactive dialogues that address important and provocative issues facing our society.
We are dedicated to the preservation of an open forum where all opinions and viewpoints are listened to and respected. Together, we are working to create a Jewish art community where work and issues are discussed and information and resources are shared.
Seeing a need for such a forum, Yona Verwer, visual artist, and Holly Wolf, writer, convened the group along with co-founders Laura Kruger, curator of the HUC-JIR Museum, Richard McBee, visual artist and art critic, and David Wander, visual artist."

From 5th until 12th May 2009 the conference European Jewry: A New Jewish Centre in the Making? will be held in the Mendelssohn-Remise (Berlin). The conference is organized by the Moses Mendelssohn Centre (Potsdam) in cooperation with Klal Israel Project (Tel Aviv University).

Timetable:

19:30 Roundtable Discussion: The Future of European Jewry

(via H-Soz-u-Kult: http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/termine/id=11320)

International Blue Shield mission: 27 APRIL TO 1 MAY
Wednesday, 15 April 2009 09:09
http://www.ancbs.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=98:international-blue-shield-mission-27-april-to-1-may-&catid=14:past-news&Itemid=29

EVERY ARCHIVIST, RESTORER OR HERITAGE PROFESSIONAL WHO IS WILLING TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS MISSION IS KINDLY BUT URGENTLY REQUESTED TO RESPOND AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE BY SENDING A REPLY EMAIL TO CONTACT@ANCBS.ORGThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it WITH THE CONTACT DETAILS REQUESTED BELOW.

International Blue Shield mission: 27 APRIL TO 1 MAY

Dear Colleagues,

The new Blue Shield international coordination center in The Hague received a request for support from Cologne, which we distributed among our relations and Dutch Archive institutes and professionals. We have received many responses from those who want to help.

Together with the National Archive and the Dutch Branch organization of Archive institutes (BRAIN) we made an inventory of people and institutes willing to help. Their offers keep coming in. We have received many responses from The Netherlands, but also from Belgium, France, the United States and the Czech Republic. In the first week of April a delegation went to Cologne to see how best to coordinate offers of assistance. The staff in Cologne gave us a warm welcome and we obtained detailed information and a thorough impression of the work that is in progress.

The delegation was very much impressed by the work that has been done so far. The process of searching and finding the material is taking place under extremely dangerous and difficult circumstances. It is therefore a tremendous achievement to have made such progress. It has not only surprised us it has also surprised the staff and volunteers of the Archive. The planning has been revised several times and has greatly progressed. The prognoses are that the first phase of the recovery process (separating material, storage, registration, first aid to the objects like cleaning and drying or preparing for further treatment) needs one more month, so this will end even before the summer holidays.

The delegation was also very impressed by the determination and the motivation of everyone at work. After a month of stress and extremely long working hours spirits seem unbroken, though the fatigue is showing. Firemen are still the only ones working on the slope, because of the dangerous conditions. They have a whole team working day in day out and they will stay until the slope is gone.

A coordinated mission is needed as soon as possible. It will be most helpful in this first phase of the recovery process if several teams work at the same time and on the same location. In accordance with the staff in Cologne we therefore decided to reschule schedule our mission for 27 APRIL TO 1 MAY. A coordinated mission will save time and energy for the Archive staff,who must make the necessary arrangements for each individual volunteer, including booking the accommodation, introduction, transport, etc.)

To prepare the mission we needed some time. We are fully aware that all professionals who indicated their willingness to help will need some time too and may have difficulty matching a busy agenda with this unforeseen early departure. Because of this we hereby call on every professional, whether they have already indicated their interest to join us or are deciding to do so, to support our hardworking colleagues of Cologne and make this first international Blue Shield mission a success.

International Blue Shield mission: 27 APRIL TO 1 MAYApplication:

send a completed (see below) reply email to the Blue Shield coordination Center in The Hague: contact@ancbs.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Date: Monday, 27 April to 1 May (Note: 1 May is a holiday).

Tasks: Sorting material (rubble/collection), select dry and wet materials, clean, register, dry partly wet material and prepare other material for freeze-drying at other locations.

Transport to Cologne: A touring car will depart from The Hague on Monday morning, the 27th of April and will return on the 1st of May. All participants are welcome to join us, since there will be no charge for this. This service will not be beneficial to all participants (f.e. from other countries), whom we regret must arrange and pay for their own transport.

Transport within Cologne: Transport by shuttle bus from accomodation to the work locations will be arranged free of charge by the city of Cologne.

Accommodation: The city of Cologne offers all volunteers free accomodation, food, and beverages. May 1st is a holiday for the Archive. The touring car will return to The Hague in the afternoon to enable participants to visit Cologne.

Insurance: The city of Cologne has provided the Archive with insurance for all volunteers.More information: Please visit our website http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.ancbs.org or attend our presentations (see below), in which we will provide you with more info about the actual situation in Cologne, the working conditions, tasks and facilities for the volunteers.

Monday April 20: The Hague, Nationaal Archief, Auditorium, 16.00 - 17.30 hrs.

Tuesday April 21: Nijmegen, Regionaal Archief Nijmegen,16.00 -17.30 hrs.

Saturday April 25 :s Hertogenbosch, Restauratiebeurs, 12.00 -13.00 hrs. the big theater----------------------------------------------------------------
Please fill in and send by return email to contact@ancbs.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
YES / NO / NOT SURE Participate in the Blue Shield mission of Monday 27 April to Friday 1 May.
YES / NO Participate in the Blue Shield meeting at the Nationaal Archief
YES / NO Participate in the Blue Shield meeting at the Regionaal Archief Nijmegen
YES / NO Participate in the Blue Shield meeting at the Restauration fair in 's HertogenboschInstitution
Institution (Please send only one application form with all the names, if several members of your institute will join the mission):

.....................................................................
(Name(s): 1. .............................
2.................................
Etc. ...........................
Contact details: .........................................................................................................

Phonenumber (06 / direct).........................................
EACH PERSON OR INSTITUTE WHICH HAS ALREADY INDICATED THEIR WILLINGNESS TO HELP BUT IS UNABLE TO JOIN OUR MISSION DURING THIS PARTICULAR PERIOD IS ALSO KINDLY REQUESTED TO FILL IN THE NEW INFORMATION AND RETURN THIS EMAIL.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


On behalf of BRAIN, Nationaal Archief en Blue Shield,
Marjan Otter
Secretary ANCBS
00 31 (0)20 4632342

Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield (ANCBS)
Postal address:
ANCBS Office,
Laan van Meerdervoort 70
2517 AN The Hague,
The Netherlands
E mail address: contact@ancbs.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Web address: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.ancbs.org
Telephone: 00 31 (0)70-3466161
Fax: 00 31 (0)70-3467232

"This April 24-26, 2009, students from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College, and the Illinois Institute of Technology will present “Chai-Art”, a collection of works exploring Jewish Identity. “Chai” (pronounced “high”) is the Hebrew word for life, and echoes the mission of Hillels Around Chicago: to foster vibrant Jewish life in a welcoming and pluralistic atmosphere.
The title also plays off the term 'High Art', often used to distinguish traditional art disciplines from craft and the decorative arts.
Student artists were asked to approach their work from a Jewish perspective. 'What does it mean to be a Jewish artist? What does it mean to be a Jew?' Explained Erin Jones, Program Director of Hillel Arts in the Loop, 'Art can be an invaluable way of processing these questions of identity and purpose.” Hillel Arts in the Loop challenges students to express their histories, ethnicities, and identities through fine arts, performance, writing, and new media.' (via JUF News)

The Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin presents between April 5th and June 29th 2009 the first retrospective of the photographer Liselotte Grschebina (1908-1994) in the framework of the Berliner Festspiele. The exhibition shows 100 photographs taken between 1929 and the 1940s in Germany and Palestine:
"Liselotte Grschebina, née Billigheimer, was born the daughter of a Karlsruhe merchant on 2 May 1908. When she was six years old, her father was killed while serving at the front in the First World War. From 1925 to 1928 she studied at the Baden Art School in Karlsruhe (now a state academy). Upon graduating in 1929 she herself taught photography there until 1931. A year later she opened her own studio under the name of “Bilfoto”, specializing in advertising photography and children’s portraits. Her independence did not last long, as the Nazi seizure of power forced her to close her studio. In March 1934 she and her husband left for Palestine, where they settled in Tel Aviv.
The present retrospective reveals the art of a young woman who in the period of the Weimar Republic was inspired by the New Sobriety (Neue Sachlichkeit). The Neue Sachlichkeit was distinguished by clarity of form and structure and the beauty of simple things. At the same time it had a documentary character, which concentrated on the essence of an object. Grschebina developed this style further in her new home in Palestine and integrated her work with that of the influential group of German photographers, who came with the fifth wave of immigration (Hebrew: aliyah) and settled mainly in Tel Aviv." (Gropius-Bau website)

"The sixth Early Modern Workshop will focus on the topic of “Reading across Cultures: The Jewish Book and Its Readers in the Early Modern Period.” The workshop will be held at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University from Sunday, August 23, 2009 and to Tuesday, August 25, 2009. The keynote speaker will be Professor Ann Blair (Harvard University).
The proposed workshop aims to understand more deeply the developments in reading within Jewish society, as well as the impact the Jewish book may have had on culture in early modern Europe among both Jews and Christians. Recent studies, mostly on France, England, and Italy, have focused on the people behind “the book” – not only the author, but also those involved in book production and distribution, as well as the readers. As Guiglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier have argued, the text is fixed, whereas reading is ephemeral and creative. This workshop will seek to open a discussion of the culture of reading in Jewish society, as well as of the reading of Jewish books in Christian society, during a period of rapid cultural transformation. It will bring existing scholarship on the history of reading in Christian Europe to bear on the subject of Jewish reading. For example, scholars in this realm have highlighted the importance of medieval monastic culture for the development of silent reading, which in the early modern period became normalized within a broader reading community. What were the different or parallel developments within Jewish society, with its very different institutions and conventions of learning? How did print and access to books affect readers? Did it facilitate new reading communities? Did it modify existing reading traditions? And did it affect the ways of reading? How did authorities seek to control or prevent access to new texts, and how did these measures affect readers?" (Early Modern Bulletin)

Addition Information via H-Judaic Digest: "Up to 5 graduate students will attend and receive a fellowship covering travel, accommodation, and
(kosher) meals. Candidates should send their C.V. and a short abstract (not longer than 2 pages) of the dissertation project to Magda Teter at mteter@wesleyan.edu by May 15, 2009. The decision will be made by May 31."

Over Thirty-five Passover Haggadot will be displayed , between March 21-April 15, 2009 at Kresge Art Museum. The exhibition The Story of Exodus: The Passover Haggadah shows artifacts from the Michigan State University (MSU) libaries special collections, which contain "450,000 printed works, numerous manuscript and archival collections, and an extensive collection of ephemera." (MSU Lib.) [...] "At the MSU Main Library’s Special Collections, historically important 20th century examples will be on view, ranging from consumer-product and feminist Haggadot to those from Israeli kibbutzim.
Related events are a discussion of Geraldine Brooks’ “The People of the Book” at 5:30 p.m. April 1, led by Marc Bernstein, Jewish Studies and College of Arts and Letters, and a gallery talk on collecting Jewish heritage and illustrated Haggadot at noon April 13, led by Constance Harris, author, collector and donor of Haggadot." (MSU News)

Conference proceeding of "Geschichte und Kultur der Juden in Schwaben" [History and Culture of the Jews in Schwaben], organized by Heimatpflege des Bezirks Schwaben (November 14-15, 2008, Irsee, Germany) available on H-Soz-u-Kult.

Timetable:

Tagungsbericht Geschichte und Kultur der Juden in Schwaben. 20. Tagung der Heimatpflege des Bezirks Schwaben. 14.11.2008-15.11.2008, Irsee. In: H-Soz-u-Kult, 21.03.2009, .