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Primo Levi and Giorgio Bassani represent two of the most prominent Jewish voices of the Italian modern literary tradition, recognized both nationally and internationally. Their literary portrayals of Jewish life and of the tragic experience of the Shoah have undoubtedly marked a new era in the representation of Jewish Italians. Little critical attention, however, has been paid to other Jewish Italian writers from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This essay aims to provide a first mapping of nineteenth-century Jewish Italian writers, while arguing the importance of studying Italy's Shoah narratives within the context of not only Fascism, but also of nineteenth-century Jewish history and the literature produced during the complex process of Jewish integration in post-unification Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin is a research library and an archive dedicated to the history and culture of German-speaking Jews founded in 1955 by German-Jewish scholars and intellectuals. With its extensive library, archive and art collections, it is one of the most significant places for all manners of primary source material and research literature on Jewish life in Central Europe in the centuries before the Shoah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In my contribution, I provide an enumeration of nodal points for the theme of 'Jewish literature' from Bohemia and Moravia, and in rough, basic contours sketch out a developmental line of this literature and place it within a Central European (German language) cultural-historical framework. In my chapter (the propositions of which are mostly familiar to experts in the field) I attempt to provide a kind of literary-historical outline for further, what we might call 'point contributions' of this monograph, focusing on individual authors, works, and themes. The fact that I shall mention predominantly works written in German will also perhaps expand the viewpoint on this theme from the perspective of Czech studies, and prospectively provide material for comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores assumptions underwriting literary categorization, focusing on Jewish American literary history in particular (mostly), and considers the scalar logic that allows us to link the singular text, with all of its luminous possibility, with the particular world of a given literary category. The essay's first section critiques major claims about Jewish American literary history made over the last 20 years by observing the persistently underexamined use of a metaphorical and metaphysical concept of identity, and then lays out problems with scaling up between select texts and the larger category of a given field of literature. Problems of scale in Jewish American literary history are highlighted by comparison with recent critiques of African American literary history. Scale itself harbors problems of commensurability insofar as scaling between a single object and a set to which the object belongs requires acts of comparison which leap over differences of kind, a problem explored in the essay's second section through analogies with problems of commensurability in the discipline of physics. The third section locates those problems of commensurability in Nicole Krauss's novel Forest Dark (2017) and reads that novel's direct confrontation with literary history as exemplifying how literary scholars can foreground multiplicity and possibility, precisely through the foregrounding of their own situated practice as interested agents. Rather than reproduce that figment by projecting a historically continuous and recognizable Jewishness across two centuries of literature, Jewish American literary studies should ally and coordinate itself with the field-questioning work occurring among Black and Latinx studies scholars who substantiate the salience of their field's identity-based study, even as they depart from its historical formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a list of recently published books on various topics related to Jewish studies, including subjects such as queer Judaism, Holocaust experiences, Jewish theology, and more.

The article explores the ways in which German-Jewish émigré readers in Mandate Palestine/Israel referred to the idea of world literature, and to Goethe as its most prominent proponent, in order to advocate for the continuous significance of 'German' literature in spite of the break with tradition that the genocide of European Jewry caused. World literature emerges as a Kassiber, a coded message, enabling German-Jewish readers to hold on to familiar literary texts (and the particular memories tied to them) by adapting them to new ideological contexts as well as to new linguistic and cultural settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This talk was given at Tel Aviv University and published in Hebrew in the collection Essays to the End of the Millennium (Masot ʿ ad tom ha ʾ elef), edited by Ziva Shamir and Aviva Doron (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1999), which was entirely devoted to the novel Journey to the End of the Millennium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the works of the author Elliott Horowitz based on Judaism comprising Jewish history. The topic addressed include details on an incident which happened in the past with the author and his friends Mark Cohen and Theodore Rabb at the meeting of the Association of Jewish Studies which leads to an introduction of Elliott's presence in author's life.

Dr Przemysław Dec (1969-2018) was a lecturer at the Department of History of Judaism and Jewish Literature in the Institute of Jewish Studies of the Jagiellonian University for more than a decade. He was a passionate Qumran scholar and charismatic teacher. He died prematurely in September 2018. The Jagiellonian University has lost an exceptionally talented Hebrew philologist and lecturer on ancient Judaism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact of the Stalinist persecutions of Jews as ‘rootless cosmopolitans’ on the Jewish involvement with leftist ideas. In inter-war Germany and Austria, Jewish intellectuals played a disproportionate role in promoting both cosmopolitanist and leftist ideals. While belonging mostly to the bourgeois spectrum, many harboured close sympathies with the young Soviet Union, whose imperative of Communist internationalism seemed to chime closely with their own cosmopolitanist sentiments. This dream was shattered in the Stalinist purges of the 1930s and 1950s in particular, when Jews were persecuted as ‘rootless cosmopolitans’. The author studies the novels by three German-speaking Jewish writers, Alice Rühle-Gerstel’s The Break, Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon and Manès Sperber’s Like a Tear in the Ocean, which were written in close proximity to the Stalinist crimes. She argues that these novels offer a unique insight into the seemingly impossible schism that leftist Jews faced in confronting the Stalinist crimes. In doing so, these novels enable us to trace the Jewish leftist predicament that both sustained the socialist–Communist project and ultimately called for its critical interrogation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Building on K. G. Kuhn's TWNT entry on the names "Israel" and "Jew" in post-Hebrew Bible Jewish literature, many scholars have claimed that the two ethnonyms can be classified as insider and outsider designations respectively. This essay nuances that categorization. While Kuhn and subsequent scholars have rightly noted the uneven distribution of the names, the exceptions to an insider/outsider model are too numerous to maintain it without modification. Both "Israel" and "Jew" were insider names whose usage in Jewish literature was influenced by the speech situation of the author as well as by consciousness of the biblical narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regarding Herz Frankís work in the aspect of Jewish text, it may be divided into two stages: 1) 1960 - 80s -the Soviet period documentary films in which Jewish text is represented episodically, fragmentedly and is more actualized in a hidden, indirect form; 2) late 1980s - early 21st century - the period when Jewish text functions as a dominant of his creative work. The subject matter of the films produced in the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century may be reduced to three major topics: Jewish history, religion and faith, art and artist. In his documentary ëThe Street of Jewsí the director marks a different vision of tragic ghetto experience in Jewish history. Usually ghetto is associated with death, suffering, pain, while Frank in his documentary reveals another side of ghetto - its everyday life. The documentary is a narration of life through death. In the documentary ëMan of the Wailing Wallí the director has synthesized in the image of Kotel the sacred and the profane, eternal and transient, true faith and touristís curiosity. Among recent films by Frank are 'Eternal Rehearsalí (2008) about the theatre 'Bridge' ('Gesher') that was founded in 1991 in Israel by the director from Moscow, Yevgeny Ariet. This is a narrative about an artist ñ demiurge because in Frankís world to be an artist means to be a mediator between God and humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the two oldest books of testaments of Prague Jews which were composed in the Prague during the years 1681-1756 and 1740-1773 and today are located in Prague City Archives. The books do not only include just last wills but also probate and property inventories, quittances and donations. This article is made up of several parts -- testaments in Jewish tradition, Jewish testamentary practice in the Czech lands based on narrative sources and the analysis of the books of testaments themselves. The main aim of the paper is to introduce Jewish last wills from various points of view including; origin, circumstances and causes of creation, typology of inscriptions, contents, language, devotional devises etc. Two appendixes (indexes of records of both books of testaments and transcription of the testament of Joseph Veitl Fanta) are attached at the end of the contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study shows how the image has evolved to represent the Jewish in Spanish literature from the earliest pieces of literature up to the nineteenth-century works. It warns the passage of the ugly and bad to the tragic fate that accompanies the Jew. This descriptive study is fundamentally based on the structural design of the characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bibliography is presented on the subject of Jewish history and literature which includes the books "Christian-Jewish Relations, 1000-1300: Jews in the Service of Medical Christendom" by Anna Sapir Abulafia, "In Her Hands: The Education of Jewish Girls in Tsarist Russia" by Eliyana R. Adler, and "The German Stranger: Leo Strauss and National Socialism" by William H. F. Altman.

Not merely forbidden, magic was often constructed as a taboo in Jewish culture; its practice was restricted to particular persons while forbidden to general use. At once inviolable, sacred, and unlawful, magic is the object of what Freud called 'holy dread.' That magic was taboo, however, does not mean that its adepts were viewed as evil or in rebellion against the authority of Jewish tradition. Magical adepts could be cultural heroes, and magical prowess so attractive and impressive that its attribution to rabbinic saints was a sine qua non of hagiographical traditions. Given this fraught status, the printing of Jewish magical materials could hardly have been anything but a complicated affair. This article explores some of the taboo-anxieties on display over the course of the history of the printed magical book in the Jewish world, exposing its tensions, ironies, and the interests of the various parties involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a preliminary presentation of the unpublished comedy It Misturo (telle Tie Meltmmcie (The Mystery of the Three Oranges), by the Italian Jewish author David Levi (1816-1898). This play was one of Levi's last works and is of great importance due to its subject matter. It deals with fundamental themes in Levi's Weltnnschitwnß, such as Judaism, modernity, and Saint-Simouism, and reveals his ideas during the last phase of his life. In this essay, I describe its content, delineate its position within the author's literary corpus, and offer a lirst assessment of its relevance for the study of modern Judaism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the "Books within Books -- New discoveries in Old Bookbindings" conference that was organized by the European Association for Jewish Studies and was held in Oxford, England from July 18-20, 2011. Topics discussed at the conference included documents detailing the economic activities of Jewish people from the 1400s to the 1600s, the fragments of ancient Hebrew manuscripts found in Switzerland, and the deathbed requests made by Jewish people in the 15th century.

The article reports on Hungarian universities that offer Jewish Studies programmes after 65 years of Holocaust and 20 years after the fall of communism in Hungary. Budapest Rabbinical Seminary was re-established after the Holocaust and became the centre of Jewish studies after the end of Communism. It states that Eötvö s Loránd University (ELTE) introduced the Judaic Studies major in Assyriology. Jewish Studies courses are also offered at Central European University (CEU).

The article focuses on three reviewers of the "Jewish Quarterly Review (JQR)" as well as the academic style of the journal. It explores the writings of the three reviewers namely Solomon Zeitlin who published an essay entitled "Jewish Learning in America," Isaiah Sonne, who reviewed the history of "Spanish Jewry," and Ellis Rivkin who wrote reviews of Cecil Roth. It adds that JQR academic style focuses on Jewish history particularly in ethnic and religious subjects such as Judaic culture.

The article addresses a batch of ancient Jewish texts most often grouped under the heading Rewritten Bible or Rewritten Scripture. It attempts to put together the main threads of the debate regarding the use of the term Rewritten Bible. It provides an assessment of the current status quaestionis and suggests possible ways forward for some of the issues surrounding the use of these terms.

The article analyzes the title Rabbi found on inscriptions dating from the third- to seventh-century in Palestine. It explores the meaning and relationship of the title to the parallel term that appears in rabbinic literature. It shows various proofs indicated that the title Rabbi on inscriptions and rabbinic literature are both identical.

Jewish books, to learn from and to pray from, were in demand long before the invention of printing, and the only way of fulfilling that demand was to produce them by hand. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, we know of named Jewish women who were involved in the manual production of Hebrew books, both as producers and as consumers. Most of our information on this topic is derived from scribal colophons—short texts appended to the end of a manuscript by the copyist. These could include the name of the scribe, the date of the book's completion, the place where it was copied, and similar pieces of information. Sometimes manuscript colophons also identify the person who commissioned the copying of a book or for whom it was copied. In this essay, we discuss Jewish female copyists who are known from their colophons, as well as women who are mentioned in colophons as commissioners or recipients of manuscript books. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes that a language divide and two systems of communication have brought to a serious gap between the western Jewish Diaspora and the eastern one. Thus the western Greek-speaking Jews lost touch with the Halakhah and the Rabbis, a condition that had far-reaching consequences on Jewish history thereafter. The Rabbis paid a high price for keeping their Halakhah in oral form, losing in consequence half of their constituency. An oral law did not develop in the western diaspora, whereas the existing eastern one was not translated into Greek. Hence it is not surprising that western Jews contributed nothing to the development of the oral law in the east. The Jewish communities that were isolated from the Rabbinic network served as a receptive basis for the development of an alternative Christian network by Paul and the apostles, which enabled it to spread throughout the Mediterranean basin. The Jews that remained ‘biblical’ surfaced in Europe in the Middle Ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at Jewish literature and historical sources to examine why the Israeli public and lawmakers have developed apathetic attitude toward trafficking. The fact that the trafficked women were not Jewish or Israeli is one possible explanation for the lack of government action. The findings of research on the effects of trafficking are presented. It discusses the topic of modern day trafficking of women through the perspectives of human rights approaches derived from Jewish texts.

Provides information on Gesharim/Mosty kul 'tury and Dom evreiskoi knigi, publishers of Russian Judaica, in Moscow, Russia. Characteristics of the proprietors of the publishing houses; Similarities in the books produced by the publishers; Objective of the "Evreiskii knigonosha" journal published by Gesharim/Mosty kul 'tury.

Drawing upon recent work on the political framework of the Pauline epistles, the goal of this article is to shed light upon the problem of historical reconstruction of the context of Ephesians. In response to some commentators who have contended that the author of Ephesians failed to show interest in contemporary Jews, it is argued that Eph. 2.11–22 is best understood as reflecting significant engagement with the life and fate of the Jewish people. Both the conceptions of society and the presentation of the identity of the ekklesia are examined in light of the situation of the Jews in the empire under Domitian. It is argued that the use of ambiguous categories to refer to the relations between the ekklesia and Israel reflect concrete experiences in the ekklesia of shifting identity, in part dependent on the changing circumstances of the Jews. The existence of these social dynamics is confirmed by examining the points of contact between Ephesians and imperial ideology as revealed especially in the interplay of religious, civic, and domestic themes in the epistle. Comparison of Ephesians to Josephus's Against Apion proves to be especially useful in bringing this interplay into full relief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the development of Jewish publications from the former Soviet Republics, which were acquired by the YIVO library during the last decade. A brief history of Slavic Judaica holdings at the YIVO library is provided, followed by an overview of new publishers and vendors of Slavic Judaica in the CIS countries, especially Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, and in the Baltic States. In addition, an extensive, selected bibliography on the following topics is appended: (1) Reference books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, bibliographies, sources on East European Jewry (2) History of East European Jewry, anti-Semitism, biography (3) Holocaust literature, World War II (4) East European Jewish culture (Yiddish literature in the original and translation, folklore, art, education, theater, fiction, poetry, Jewish wit and humor) and (5) Conferences, congresses, symposiums on East European Jewry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses Jewish book publishing in most of the Soviet Union's successor states after 1990. All publications on Jewish history, culture, traditions, and religion (Judaism) are included under this rubric. In addition to scholarly and educational publications, fiction translated from Yiddish and Hebrew, and “Russian-Jewish literature” are also included. The author provides statistics and discusses basic themes, linguistic issues, and problems encountered in the post-Soviet states. The article lists different publishers and organizations involved in Jewish book publishing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the German-Jewish writer Berthold Auerbach's book "Spinoza," which attempts to liberate Jewish history from the theological paradigm through the dissolution of an anti-Jewish literary topos inherited from Christian legend. Subjects addressed include analysis of the dynamic of secularization within Jewish history and illustration of the dilemma of a secular Jewish literature in German in the 1930s.

The article focuses on the publication of articles related to the theme of a wandering Jew in a Hebrew newspaper called "Hamagid" in the 19th century. Topics addressed include the meaning of the term wandering Jew, the motives behind the publication of articles on wandering Jews in "Hamagid," and details on the use of prophetic language in the writings of David Gordon, the editor of "Hamagid" to Jewish youth.

Examines the literature on the Jewish immigrant experience. Bernard Sherman's 1969 monograph "The Invention of the Jew"; Progress of the 20th-century Jewish-American literature stressed in Allen Guttmann's 1971 book "The Jewish Writer in America"; Popular success of Irving Howe's 1976 work "World of Our Fathers"; First serious challenge posed by book "The Jewish Women in America" to the conventional histories of the Jewish immigrant experience; Increasing interest in women immigrant authors.

The article examines the influence of the book "Lettres Persanes," by Charles Louis Montesquieu on Jewish literature during the 18th century. Montesquieu's book influenced "The Letters of Meshullam the Eshtemoi," which appeared in the first Herbrew periodical called "Ha-Mè assef" that was said to be written by Isaac Abraham Euchel, one of the editors of "Ha-Mèassef," and the biographer of Moses Mendelsshon. The literary works exhibited satirical observations on the outdated customs and traditions of the Jews commenting on a Jewish costume called Masikilim and manifesting admiration for the knowledge of the Jews and their opposition to the impure tongue of the Yiddish.

The article focuses on the bibliography of American Jewish textbooks from 1766-1919. Topics include the main topics of the English textbooks were theology, Bible, ethics, and Jewish lore, Jewish history and current Jewish life were virtually ignored, and in the area of subjects covered in the nineteenth century, the mechanical reading of Hebrew is in the curriculum of Jewish education.