Arts and Humanities Commons^™

'My Happiness Overturned': Mourning, Memory And A Woman's Writing, Rachel Greenblatt

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In the late seventeenth century, Beila Perlhefter mourned her seven children in the introduction she wrote to a Yiddish ethical work written (at her urging, she tells her readers) by her husband, Ber. While the autobiographical information provided in the introduction is sparse indeed, it shares certain generic characteristics with other self-writing by early modern Jews from Prague, including Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller's "Megillat eivah." At the same time, each voice is a different voice, all the more so the rare instance of a woman's voice, and this short piece defies easy categorization.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Sefer …

Personal Life In The Context Of Personal Death, Avri Bar-Levav

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In his ethical will, R. Naphtali Ha-Kohen Katz (1650? - 1719), a central rabbinic figure in his time, gives specific instructions for death rituals that he wants, and also addresses his family in warm words, while mentioning meaningful events of his past. The presentation will analyze this personal voice of the beginning of the 18th century.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• The Ethical Will of R. Naphtali Ha-Kohen Katz

Introduction To Megillat Sefer By Rabbi Jacob Emden, Jacob J. Schecter

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Among Jacob Emden’s many works is Megillat Sefer, one of the most unusual, open, revealing, and unself-conscious egodocuments in Jewish and even general history. Written between 1752 and 1766, this work existed only in manuscript form for one hundred and thirty years, first in Emden’s hand and then in the hand of someone who copied the original. Emden’s handwritten version is no longer extant and only the copy exists. The work was first published in Warsaw, 1896 by David Kahane. In 1979 it was printed again in Jerusalem by Abraham Bick-Shauli who claimed that he was correcting mistakes in the …

Generational Conflict In Converso Families, 1492-1550, Sara Nalle

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The egodocuments presented to the seminar are Inquisitorial confessions of second-generation "nuevos convertidos" who in one way or another were caught between their parents' desire to maintain contact with Judaism and their own alleged desire to assimilate as Spanish Catholics.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Trial of Francisco Martínez, apothocary, resident of Deza (1533)
• Trial of Gaspar de San Clemente (1541)

Autobiographical Accounts For A Non-Jewish Friend: Joseph Attias' Letters To L.A. Muratori, Francesca Bregoli

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The Livornese Jewish scholar Joseph Attias (1672-1739) is known for his contributions to eighteenth-century Tuscan culture as a book collector and mediator. Attias sent two autobiographical letters to a beloved correspondent, renowned Modenese historian Ludovico Antonio Muratori, in 1724 and 1733. This presentation will analyze the documents as self-conscious life narratives and examples of early Enlightenment self-fashioning that shed light on the strategies employed by a Jewish member of the Republic of Letters to present his formative years, his training, and his achievements to one of the most esteemed representatives of eighteenth-century Italian culture.

This presentation is for the following …

The Travel Diaries Of Hayim Joseph David Azulai, Yaacob Dweck

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation examines the travel diaries of Hayim Joseph David Azualai, an emissary of the Jews of the Palestine in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. In particular it addresses the question of the place of reading and books in his diaries and compare Azulai's experience of books and reading to two of his contemporaries Hayim Isaac Karigal and Israel Landau.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Hayim Joseph David Azulai's Ma'agal Tov (The Good Journey, 1770s)

Descend To The Abyss: Jacob Frank's Going To Poland, Pawel Maciejko

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation examines several autobiographical fragments of the most important Frankist document, The Words of the Lord. It focuses on the motif of recurrent divine calls to 'go to Poland' and, ultimately, the justification of Frank's conversion to Christianity.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• The Collection of the Words of the Lord spoken in Bruenn

Mining An Unusual Ego Text (Or Two), Gershon D. Hundert

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The texts presented here are excerpted from a 329-page-manuscript Divrei Binah in cursive Hebrew entitled Divre binah. The book was completed in 1800 but never published. It is devoted mostly to the Sabbatian and Frankist phenomena; the genre to which the text belongs is open to discussion. Its author is Dov Ber Brezer or Birkenthal of Bolechów (1723-1805) in western Galicia.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Divrei Bina (Understanding Words) by Dov Ber Brezer (Birkenthal) of Bolechów

Revealing, Concealing: Ways Of Recounting The Self In Early Modern Times, Natalie Zemon Davis

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Keynote address by Natalie Zemon Davis, University of Toronto, “Revealing, Concealing: Ways of Recounting the Self in Early Modern Times” is preceded by opening remarks by Robert Abzug and Miriam Bodian)

Emw 2011: Egodocuments: Revelation Of The Self In The Early Modern Period, Emw 2011

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The Early Modern Workshop in 2011, “Egodocuments: Revelation of the Self in the Early Modern Period,” seeks to examine how individuals in the early modern period wrote and thought about themselves. The workshop participants explore texts ranging from the obvious autobiographical texts to less obvious, such as ethical wills, Inquisition-prompted accounts of self, family diaries of births and deaths, travelogues, and others. Questions raised deal with issues of self-representation, reading, relationship with the divine, gender differences in self-representation, and motivations to write autobiographical accounts.

Merchants And Rabbis - The Family Of Josko Of Lviv, Jerzy Mazur

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Josko of Lviv was one of the most important Jewish entrepreneurs in the late medieval Poland, specifically in the eastern provinces of Polish Kingdom, namely the voievodships of Russia and Lublin. Jossko engaged in the number of profitable commercial activities, but achieved real prominence as the leaseholder of royal customs in such important urban centers as Lviv, Lublin, Chelm and Belz. His successful service to Kazimierz Jagiellon, John Olbracht and Alexander Jagiellon became the point of contention during the session of Polish Diet in Lublin in 1505. In this year Polish parliament demanded that Josko would be removed from his …

A Spiritual Community In The Social World: Lurianic Notions Of Identity And Inter-Subjectivity Within The Community, Assaf Tamari

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The importance of Lurianic Kabbalah to the context of early modern Jewish religiosity has been recognized almost unanimously. However, only in recent years scholars acknowledge its highly embodied nature, the specific historical community which lies at the heart of its religious interest, i.e. the Lurianic fellowship. The present presentation will discuss some of the radical notions of identity within the community developed in the writings of Lurianic Kabbalah. Based on its highly complex anthropological theory, and especially its theories of soul transmigration and soul interrelations, Lurianic Kabbalah sees individual action and identity as highly dependent upon the spiritual “soul community” …

Conjugal Disputes At The Jewish Court Of 18th Century Altona, Noa Shashar

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Disputes between married couples in 18th century were sometimes brought before the Jewish court ( the Beit-Din). Analysis of protocols of session which dealt with such disputes reveals facts about tensions caused by contemporary family structure and marriage customs as well as about the means which the court applied to enforce policy. The texts presented here are excerpts from one of the protocol books of the Jewish court of Altona. Altona, at the time subject to the Danish King, shared institutions with the neighboring Jewish communities in Hamburg and Wandsbeck, a union which produced several kinds of documents covering a …

Layered Networks: Functioning Across Communities, Shuki Ecker

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

A considerable part of Rabbi Abraham Joseph Canette s book includes autobiographical material. It sheds light on the life of an orphaned son who became a travelling rabbi. He describes the circumstances of his life in Safed, Jerusalem, Aleppo, Candia, Venice, Livorno, Algiers and Constantinople, and praises his benefactors and patrons in each. While much of his writing is stylized praise for these individuals, he also portrays his own personal life in great detail. His life story and the networks it reveals offer a view of individuals in communities and between communities. I intend to focus on several overlapping networks …

Communication And Community : Multiplex Networks In The 18th Century Sephardi Diaspora, Evelyne Oliel Grausz

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In many aspects, the Sephardi diaspora functioned as a combination of overlapping circulations and networks, its many levels of communication and interaction involving family ties, economic partnerships, and official intercommunal links. Whereas the question of intercommunal networks has recently attracted some topical studies, little attention has been paid to the articulation between these various levels of circulation and interaction. I propose to explore this idea of a multiplex diaspora through a selection of documents emanating from the Amsterdam and London Sephardic community, essentially letters, addressed to Bordeaux, Safed, Surinam and Ferrara : these documents describe several paradigmatic situations of interaction …

The Early Modern Jewish Parliament: The Council Of Four Lands In Poland, Adam Teller

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation will examine the structure, functions, and internal tensions of the Council of Four Lands, based on a set of regulations drawn up in Polish by the Council at the request of the Treasury Commissioner, Dzialynski, in 1739. It will also attempt to examine the Council in its Polish and European contexts.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Regulations of the Jewish Council in Jaroslaw

The Price Of Power: Financing A Jewish Community, Cornelia Aust

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The communal pinkas (logbook) of the Jewish community in Frankfurt on the Oder from the second half of the eighteenth century provides a glimpse into the ways of the communal leaders – usually the wealthiest merchants of the community – to raise the increasing taxes and dues demanded by the Prussian state. It, thus, allows us to examine, first, the interrelation between economic position and social power within the Jewish community and what this power meant taking into account the limited degree of communal autonomy of Prussian Jews. Secondly, it helps us to explore the trans-regional networks Jewish merchants used …

Rabbinic Authority And Community In 18th Century Germany: Moses Brandeis Levi And The Jewish Community Of Mainz, Stefan Litt

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Moses Brandeis Levi (d. 1767) was one of the important rabbis of the early modern community in Mainz. Besides his local duties, he was also in charge for the rural communities in the territory of the archbishopric of Mainz. A number of sources indicate that his relations both to the local community and to the Gentile authorities were all but easy. In my presentation, I will introduce an unknown source from the records of the Jewish community in Mainz (Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, D/Ma7/5, pp. 100-102). This Yiddish text is about a sharp dispute …

The Struggle To Transcend Differences And Conflicts Among Early American Jewry, Eli Faber

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Exploration of two contrary tendencies among colonial American Jews to achieve consensus within their religious fellowship. In one case, they relied upon European precedent by attempting to recreate the kehilla in America, while in the other they rejected European precedents that forbade commonality among Ashkenazim and Sepharadim. The outcome was a new kind of community: the voluntary one.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Minute Book of the Congregation Shearith Israel in New York (1730-1760)

Regulating Communal Space: Mikvaot In Seventeenth-Century Altona, Debra Kaplan

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Over the course of a few years in the latter half of the seventeenth century, the community of Altona made several changes in the administration of local ritual baths. A series of entries in the communal pinkas, or logbook, elucidates how the community raised funds from mikvaot, how lay and rabbinic leaders worked together, and how communal leaders regulated ritual space both in homes and in communal space.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Pinkas/Communal Logbook of Altona (CAHJP AHW 14 [50])
• Pinkas/Communal Logbook of Altona (CAHJP AHW 14 [90])
• Pinkas/Communal Logbook of Altona (CAHJP AHW 14 [91])

Minhag And Migration: A Yiddish Custom Book From Venice, 1553, Lucia Raspe

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation focuses on a Yiddish book of customs written in Venice in the mid-sixteenth century, which describes synagogue and home observances over the course of the Jewish year. Comparing MS Oxford Can. Or. 12 to the fifteenth-century Hebrew custumal it is based on (MS Frankfurt hebr. oct. 227), the presentation will discuss the efforts of Ashkenazic émigrés to northern Italy trying to preserve their identity in the face of a Jewish world suddenly become complex.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Book of Customs (MS Frankfurt hebr. oct. 227)
• Book of Customs (MS Oxford Can. Or. 12)

Communities Developing In Association With Place: Testament Of Ginebra Blanis, 1574, Stefanie Siegmund

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Recent attention to Jewish demography and to the spatial characteristics of Jewish residential patterns has demonstrated that in more than one region, Early Modern Jews were associated with each other more loosely, and less locally, than has previously been imagined. The "communities" to which Jews may have felt they belonged are difficult to know as they are likely to have varied with economic or social status, gender, age, and ethnic origin. The testament translated below is that of a merchant woman in the first years of the existence of the Florentine ghetto (founded 1571). The study of early modern bequests …

Jewish Community And Identity In The Early Modern Period, Emw 2010

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The 7th Early Modern Workshop took place from August 15-17, 2010 at Wesleyan University. The topic was “Jewish Community and Identity in the Early Modern Period.”

The traditional approach to “Jewish community” has been focused on the formal communal structures of Jewish self-government. This approach often traced the presence of “autonomous” Jewish self-government in the diaspora from antiquity till the modern times, when, it was stressed, these “autonomous” structures were shattered by the interference of modern states in Jewish communal affairs.

Scholars discussed takkanot (decisions and regulations by Jewish community leaders), privileges granted to Jews, correspondence between Jews across different …

Broadsheet Of Koheles Shlomo: Beney Israel Rahmanim Vegomley Hasadim (1738), Shalhevet Dotan-Ofir

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This is a translation of a 1738 Broadsheet of Koheles Shlomo "Beney Israel rahmanim vegomley hasadim"

The Hebrew Library Of A Renaissance Humanist: The Bibliography To Andreas Masius' Edition Of The Book Of Joshua (Antwerp: Christopher Plantin 1574), Theodor Dunkelgrün

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Andreas Masius' 1574 polyglot edition of the book of Joshua with copious annotations and commentaries is a monument of Renaissance biblical scholarship. In an appendix - the text presented here - Masius recorded the Hebrew and Aramaic books he consulted in preparing his edition. In spite of the brevity of its descriptions, this bibliography has much to tell us about Christian readership of the Hebrew book in the 16th century. It reveals the depth, breadth, and sophistication of Masius' grasp of Jewish literature. It is a snapshot of his own library, but at the same time also a panorama of …

Sefer Or Le-Et Erev: A History Of A Misunderstanding, Pawel Maciejko

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation explores the boundaries of the concept of the ‘Jewish book’ on the basis of Yiddish and Hebrew texts distributed by Protestant missionaries among the Jews in 18th-century East Central Europe. Such texts were not always recognised as Christian by their Jewish readers. The case in point is the brochure Or le-Et Erev circulated by the Halle Pietists. The Yiddish text does not give the name of the author or the place of publication; it does not refer explicitly to Jesus’s identity with the Jewish Messiah until the final pages; and it bases much of its argument on Jewish …

Early Modern Yiddish Readers: Immoderately Addicted To Rhyme?, Ruth Von Bernuth

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Roughly one third of Old Yiddish literature is based on traceable European literary sources, mainly German. Given how close Old Yiddish is to Early New High German, some of these Old Yiddish texts with European sources feel like mere transcriptions, others more like legitimate translations and yet others more like free adaptations. From the Yiddish reader's perspective, the texts become accessible through transcription into Hebrew characters and more accessible the more that the translator engages the text as representative Jewish reader. A large proportion of these Yiddish books with German sources are prose novels–a genre newly popular with German readers …

From Apologetics To Polemics: Isaac Orobio De Castro’S Defences Of Judaism And Their Use In The French Enlightenment, Adam Sutcliffe

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation explores the use by non-Jews in eighteenth-century France of controversialist works written primarily for manuscript circulation within the seventeenth-century Sephardic communities of the Netherlands. In response to sustained theological doubts regarding Judaism posed by Sephardim deeply conditioned by having lived as outward Catholics in the Iberian peninsula, several community leaders in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, such as the doctor and controversialist Isaac Orobio de Castro (c.1617-1687), authored trenchant attacks on Christian doctrine, in particular emphasizing the enduring validity of Jewish law and the superiority of Jewish biblical exegesis. French translations of some of these texts - which circulated in Paris …

The Power Of Texts In The Conversion Of An Old Christian Hebraist, Miriam Bodian

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Lope de Vera y Alarcón was an Old Christian Hebraist at the University of Salamanca in the late 1630s. In his professional training, he had access to texts that few people in Spain were permitted to see. His subversive reading of Erasmus and the Hebrew diary of David Reuveni, among other works, were not the only factors in his becoming a "judaizer," but by his own account they were of great importance. The texts I will present are excerpts from his Inquisition trial (1639-1644).

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Inquisition file of Lope de Vera y Alarcón (1639-1644)

Jews Under Surveillance: Censorship And Reading In Early Modern Italy, Federica Francesconi

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This talk explores how Counter-Reformation’s dynamics affected the readings of Italian Jews, after the political changes of the 1550s and the promulgation of the Index by Clement VIII in 1596 (with the ban of the Talmud). Dealing with censorship, expurgation and banning of books, in fact, Italian Jews found themselves caught up between the intricate and often conflicting positions between the Congregation of the Index and the Office of the Inquisition. Based on the analysis of both Inquisitorial sources (proceedings, guidelines and censors’ reports) and biographical accounts, I will explore how rabbis and converts, who worked as appointed censors for …