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Full-Text Articles in History
'My Happiness Overturned': Mourning, Memory And A Woman's Writing, Rachel Greenblatt
'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
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
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
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
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
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):
Descend To The Abyss: Jacob Frank's Going To Poland, Pawel Maciejko
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
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
Emw 2011: Egodocuments: Revelation Of The Self In The Early Modern Period, Emw 2011
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.