EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2018/19

REPORT

Remembering across the Iron Curtain: The Emergence of Holocaust Memory in the Cold War Era

Event rationale

Cold War thinking has survived its end. The Western understanding of the West as the democratic “Free World” and the East as totalitarian and repressive has continued to impact how scholars have evaluated efforts to commemorate the Holocaust in East and West after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc.

In recent years historians have begun to reconsider how people in East and West remembered the Holocaust, though these attempts rarely transcend national borders and hardly ever the former bloc division. The conference “Suppressed Historiography, Erased Memory? The Perception of the Shoah in East Central Europe during Socialist Rule” organized by Stephan Stach at the Aleksander Brückner Center tried to overcome the national perspective at least for the Soviet Bloc. However, the workshop’s final discussion clarified that Holocaust Memory needs to be examined from a transnational perspective across the Iron Curtain.

Rarely can we see discussions of Holocaust memory that look at both East and West. By bringing together scholars whose research focuses on different parts of the world, from the Soviet Union to the US, from Hungary to France, we will provide opportunities to re-evaluate the commonalities, differences and entanglements between Eastern and Western memory of the Holocaust. Exchange between participants from a variety of backgrounds and with distinct disciplinary expertise will also allow for debates of different methodological approaches.

Foregrounding the essential role of the Cold War, this workshop examines in what ways the confrontation between the two blocks affected research, legal proceedings and collective and individual memories. The first panel asks how political ideologies shaped narratives and understandings of the Holocaust in East and West providing examples of Jewish communities in the USA, the Soviet Union and France.

Recently, scholars have challenged the assumption that research on the Holocaust begun only in 1961, either counting the Eichmann trial or the publication of Raul Hilberg’s book The destruction of European Jewry as the initial event. Newer studies have highlighted the role mostly Jewish scholars and lay people played in documenting and researching the murder of European Jews beginning immediately after the liberation or even before. This new perspective has led historians to reconsider also Eastern European Holocaust Memory, showing how people acting outside the state’s framework succeeded in making room for at least limited discussions of the Holocaust.

Collaboration across national borders and across the Iron Curtain existed at times, and Jewish and non-Jewish actors from different countries cooperated in order to promote research and memory of the genocide against Europe’s Jewish population.

From the 1950s onwards, and especially in the years during and following the Eichmann trial, Holocaust memory frequently became an object or terrain of political fights within the bipolar confrontation. This workshop will take a close look at how Holocaust memory was manipulated and used as a tool in the confrontation between the two blocks.

This conference aimed to provide a platform for academic research that has been done in Holocaust Memory in recent years as well as offer opportunities to exchange ideas and push research further.

Both evening events, the performance “Art is my Weapon. The Radical Musical Life of Lin Jaldati” and the round table discussion “How did Cold War Shape our Understanding of the Holocaust?” were accessible also for non-specialists and attracted a wider audience.

The conference papers spoke directly to the questions raised in our event rationale and stood in close dialogue with one another. Each panel ended with fruitful discussions about the relationship between papers and the relationship of Holocaust Memory to the Cold War. A number of participants begun their talks stating that previous papers had caused them to re-think and develop some of their own premises.

The sections and papers

The conference begun with a well-attended opening event; a performance by David Shneer (University of Colorado Boulder) titled ‘Art is My Weapon: The Radical Musical Life of Lin Jaldati.’ In this inspiring approach to his scholarship Shneer makes the life of Lin Jaldati a Holocaust survivor who became a prominent singer of Yiddish songs in the German Democratic Republic palpable to a wider audience. Part lecture, part video and photographs, part songs this performance piece made for a wonderful beginning of the conference.

DAY 1

Introduction

In their introduction Anna Koch and Stephan Stach underlined that today as in the past the Holocaust is frequently used in order to promote a particular political agenda. During the Cold War Holocaust research as well as public memory became battlefields of the Bloc confrontation. They underscored that most research provides merely a national analysis of Cold War’s impact on the emergence of Holocaust memory while a broader, transnational approach is lacking. Moreover, there is a tendency to recognize political manipulations when examining Eastern memory culture, while turning a blind eye to similar processes in the West. While exploitation in the East is often overestimated the opposite seems to be the case in the West. The conference, as both organizers explained aimed to reassess this question but also wanted to stimulate a more general debate on commonalities and differences of Holocaust Memory on both sides of the Iron Curtain as well as on transnational cooperation in the polarized Cold War era.

Jewish efforts to remember the Shoah in East and West

Arkadi Zeltser (Director of the Moshe Mirilashvili Center for Research on the Holocaust in the Soviet Union of The International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem) spoke about the extensive spontaneous grass roots Jewish memorializing of victims of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. Moving West Eli Lederhendler (Vice-Dean for Research in the Faculty of Humanities, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Stephen S. Wise Professor of American Jewish History) spoke about Holocaust Memory among American Jews and showed how also here the Cold War shaped Memory Politics. Like the following paper Lederhendler discussed the frictions and conflict in the Jewish community when it came to Holocaust Memory. Simon Perego (University Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne) spoke about how the gatherings organized by Jewish-Communist, Bundist and Zionist associations in Paris served as a transnational ideological battlefield, notwithstanding the willingness of certain actors (such as the Memorial of the Unknown Jewish Martyr) to organize united Holocaust commemorations.

Remembering Perpetrators and Rescuers across the Iron Curtain

Kai Struve (Institute of History of Martin Luther University) analyzed the campaign against Theodor Oberländer and “Nachtigall” as a history of East-West entanglements in the Cold War era that was closely related to increasing public attention to the mass murder of Jews during World War II. Siobhan Hyland (University of Northampton) discussed Searchlight, an anti-fascist group who use investigative methods and infiltration tactics to combat the extreme and far-right in Britain. One of their campaigns, supported by documentation from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles, was to investigate whether Nazi war criminals were living in the U.K and had been since World War Two. Part of the support in enabling Searchlight to produce in depth investigative articles, was by material given to them by the Department of Justice, in the Soviet Union. Manja Herrmann (Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies & Technical University of Berlin) presented on early initiative of the West Berlin federal state government that was honoring and supporting activists who helped and rescued Jews during the Holocaust, Unbesungene Helden (Unsung Heroes) Her presentation traced the development of the program and critically examine its transnational and cold war contexts.

Memory staged in the Courtroom

Mathew Turner’s (Deakin University, Australia and postdoctoral fellow at the Zentrum für Holocaust­Studien in Munich) paper investigates how the Cold War acted to shape the historical picture of the Holocaust that was conveyed in the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial. Turner showed that representatives from the German Democratic Republic used the trial as stage to “unmask” capitalism as the driving force behind Nazism and the Holocaust, while the defense lawyers bluntly questioned all testimonies of East European witnesses, insinuating a communist plot against their defendants. Vanessa Voisin (CERCEC, Paris) focused on a 40-min documentary produced in 1963-1964 by Rostov-on-the-Don studio, in Soviet Russia. In the Name of the Living, directed by Leon Mazrukho, is based on a scenario written by the Moscow writer Lev Ginzburg. It covers a war crimes trial held in Krasnodar in October 1963. Analyzing the film in comparison with press reports on the event and Ginzburg’s book “The Abyss”, which also covered the trial, Voisin presented a large discrepancy on how the Holocaust could be addressed in different media.

The first day ended with an engaging roundtable discussion among Jeffrey Herf (Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland, College Park), Nadège Ragaru (Sciences Po Paris), David Shneer (Louis P. Singer Chair of Jewish History, the head of the Department of Religious Studies, and professor of history, Religious studies, and Jewish Studies) Isabel Wollaston (Senior Lecturer in Jewish and Holocaust Studies, University of Birmingham). Herf vigorously argued that Holocaust memory in the West was fundamentally different from that in the East, as the Politburo in Moscow controlled boundaries of public discourse. In his view, the profound de-Nazification in West Germany, prevented a return of Antisemitism and enabled a confrontation with the Holocaust, while the anti-Israeli politics of the Eastern Bloc spurred Antisemitism and blocked Holocaust memory. The other panelists disagreed with Herf in a quite lively debate. Nadège Ragaru responded to Herf with a call for a more complex and nuanced approach to both Cold War and Holocaust memory, which leaves room for ambiguities. David Shneer underlined the need to study other agents of memory beyond the “state” or “party” and to get rid of the Cold War paradigm when it comes to Holocaust memory under communism. Isabel Wollaston in turn used the Polish case to emphasize the enormous change of Holocaust memory over the 40 years of communist rule.

DAY 2

 Scholarship and Holocaust Memory

The second day of the conference started with Olof Bortz’s (Stockholm University) presentation Raul Hilberg, the Cold War and the history of the Holocaust. As Bortz pointed out the Cold War politics which aimed at an integration of West Germany into the Western Alliance, were an obstacle to Hilberg’s work. Among other things, a relevant parts of his source material remained under lock in allied archives. While Hilberg himself interpreted it as a part of the world’s ignorance to the Jewish fate, Bortz reads it as a sign that in the 1950’s the understanding of the Holocaust as an unprecedented event in history had not yet gained enough hold in non-Jewish environments. Daniela R. P. Weiner’s (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) presentation Educational Entanglements: East and West German History Textbooks’ Narratives about the Holocaust and the Second World War reassessed the view that the fate of Jews during Nazi rule and World War II had been upstaged to emphasize antifascist resistance fighters instead. Using text analysis software she could show that both, quality and quantity of the parts dedicated to the Holocaust changed through the time. Unfortunately the third paper of this section on Bulgarian Holocaust Memory had to be cancelled as the speaker, Stefan Troebst (University of Leipzig), could not attend the conference.

Artists and intellectuals’ efforts to shape Memory

The next panel started with Jenny Watson’s (University of Sheffield) presentation ‘No gas chambers. No crematoria. Romanian-German authors of the 1970s-80s and the insufficiency of international memory discourse. Watson showed how young Romanian-German writers distanced themselves from the often Nazi-apologetic generation of their parents. This behavior was, as she underscored, partly induced by their reception of West German literature and literary debates. Irina Tcherneva (CERCEC, Paris) analyzed social and political usages of the painting The Last Way by Yosef Kuzkovski. It shows Jewish civilians on the way to the mass execution in Baby Jar and had originally been painted in 1944-1948. In the 1960 it was exposed in various places in Soviet Latvia in the context of trials against local Nazi collaborators. For Holocaust survivors and Jews living in these areas these exhibitions became important events to commemorate the destruction of local communities during German occupation. Anna Pollmann (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) presented how German-Jewish philosopher and activist Günther Anders assessed the Holocaust originally together with the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as two examples for industrial killings in his critique of technology. Later, however, he reformulated his approach in confrontation with Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem.

Memory and Morality

On the last panel Jonathan Kaplan’s (Freie Universität Berlin) presentation Ambassadors of Memory: The Struggle of guilt and Responsibility in the GDR introduced a fresh perspective on exploitation of Holocaust Memory. On the example of GDR’s Foreign Office he showed, how East German diplomats disclosed material on the Nazi past of West German officials to Western Jewish activists hoping to raise the prestige of East German antifascism. However, as Kaplan argued relying on the case of the Chicago Rabbi S. Burr Yampol, these Jewish activists in turn used their position to intervene in East Germany to lobby for Israel or compensations for Holocaust survivors. Máté Zombory (Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences) discussed how Zoltán Fábri’s film Late Season (1966) addressed moral questions like the responsibility of Hungarian perpetrators and bystanders in an artistically and discursively provoking way. The film, which was screened on international festivals on the one hand demonstrates that the Holocaust was present also in the Eastern Bloc. On the other hand, the scandal which emerged around the film, because its main actor own role under the Hungarian fascist regime, shed light on yet another aspect of the interrelation of Holocaust Memory and Cold War. Finally Marta Zawodna-Stephan (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań) touched on the handling of human remains of camp inmates in her presentation Let the dead serve the living. Dead body politics in the former Nazi camps on both sides of the Iron Curtain. As she points out, the social and political status of the group the victims belonged to had an impact on how their remains were treated after the war.

In their concluding remarks Anna Koch and Stephan Stac picked up on some of the themes and topics that ran through the conference as well as commented on omissions. Koch talked about the absence of gender from most talks and the conference discussion. She also highlighted the diversity of voices, and the myriad understandings of the Holocaust in the aftermath of the war. Numerous papers had shown how personal, or group memories went against or at least conflicted larger narratives. Papers discussed personal memory and mourning that entered public discourses, in forms of literary works, film, art, trials, education and scholarship. Papers made it clear how while east and west constantly accused one another of forgetting the past and stood in obvious conflict about commemoration, dialogue happened as well. Individuals on different sides collaborated in particular when it came to combat Nazism. People, ideas, art all passed the Iron Curtain at different times. The concluding discussion also picked up on the question of terminology and the problematics and suitability of the term “Memory” itself.

Summary and tasks ahead.

Conflict but also conversation and even collaboration across the Iron Boarder became visible in a number of papers. The need to go beyond the Cold War paradigm and re-evaluate how people commemorated the Holocaust on both sides, and in particular re-think how we have understood commemorative efforts in the East likewise played a crucial role in the discussions. Further research that looks at these comparative and transnational aspects would be desirable.

Planned outcomes and outputs

The conference enabled an international scholarly debate on a crucial yet so far neglected question which not only increased our understanding of Holocaust memory but also contributed to our knowledge of the ways in which societies across the globe situated themselves within the Cold War divide. Scholars with a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, from different countries and at different stages of their career allowed for exciting exchanges. We are currently discussing the publication of an edited volume as well as the possibility of a follow-up workshop which would get deeper into some of the issues raised during the conference.

The final programme:

Remembering Across the Iron Curtain

The Emergence of Holocaust Memory in the Cold War Era

A Joint Conference of the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past, University of York and the Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences, September 2-4, 2018.

 Sunday, 2 September

19:00 Opening Event

David Shneer

Art is My Weapon: The Radical Musical Life of Lin Jaldati

Venue: Black Box Theatre, York University. Public event

Monday, 3 September

Venue: Berrick Saul Building, York University.

9:00 Registration

9:15-9:45 Welcome

Geoff Cubitt (IPUP, University of York)

Stephan Stach (ÚSD, CAS Prague)

Paulina Gulińska-Jurgiel (Aleksander Brückner Center Halle)

9:45 – 10:15 Introduction

Anna Koch (FMS, University of York)/ Stephan Stach (ÚSD, CAS Prague)

10:15 – 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45-12:15 Jewish efforts to remember the Shoah in East and West

Arkadi Zeltser (The International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem): The Cold War and Memorialization of the Holocaust in the USSR

Eli Lederhendler (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) The Politics of Memory and the Shadow of the Holocaust in America in the Cold War Era

Simon Perego (University Paris-Sorbonne) “The Communist Schism in Jewish Life.” Transnational Politics and Holocaust Commemorations among Parisian Jews during the Cold War, until the end of the 1960s

Chair: Nadège Ragaru (CERI, Sciences Po, Paris)

12:15 – 13:15 Lunch

13:15-14:45 Remembering Perpetrators and Rescuers across the Iron Curtain

Kai Struve (Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg): The Case of Theodor Oberländer in 1959/60 – an Entangled History of Propaganda, Politics, and Holocaust Memory in East and West

Siobhan Hyland (University of Northampton): Searchlight – Campaigning against Nazi Perpetrators in Britain

Manja Herrmann (Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg): Transnational Holocaust Memory and the Case of Rescue: Kurt R. Grossmann and the Early Berlin Initiative Unsung Heroes (1958–1966)

Chair: Jeffrey Herf (University of Maryland, College Park)

14:45-15:15 Coffee break

15:15-16:30 Memory staged in the Courtroom

Matthew Turner (Deakin University, Australia / IfZ München): Cold War Courtroom: Politicising the Holocaust in the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, 1963­1965

Vanessa Voisin (CERCEC, Paris): From the courthouse to the screen: Holocaust history made memory in Cold War USSR

Chair: Paulina Gulińska-Jurgiel (Aleksander Brückner Center Halle)

17:00 Roundtable Discussion:

Venue: Berrick Saul Building, York University.

How did Cold War Shape our Understanding of the Holocaust?

Discussants:

Jeffrey Herf (University of Maryland, College Park)

Nadège Ragaru (CERI, Sciences Po, Paris)

David Shneer (University of Colorado, Boulder)

Isabel Wollaston (University of Birmingham)

Moderation: Anna Koch (University of York), Stephan Stach (CAS, Prague)

Tuesday, 4 September 2018

Venue: Berrick Saul Building, York University.

9:00-10:30 Scholarship and Holocaust Memory

Olof Bortz (Stockholm University): Raul Hilberg, the Cold War and the history of the Holocaust

Stefan Troebst (Leipzig University, Germany): Skopje vs. Sofia: Contrasting Memories on Bulgaria and the Holocaust

Daniela R. P. Weiner (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Educational Entanglements: East and West German History Textbooks’ Narratives about the Holocaust and the Second World War

Chair: Geoff Cubitt (IPUP, University of York)

10.30-11:00 Coffee break

11:00 – 12:30 Artists and intellectuals’ efforts to shape Memory

Jenny Watson (University of Sheffield) ‘No gas chambers. No crematoria. Romanian-German authors of the 1970s-80s and the insufficiency of international memory discourse

Irina Tcherneva (CERCEC, Paris) The arts judge crimes against humanity. Social and political usages of the painting The Last Way by Yosef Kuzkovski in Soviet Latvia (1944-1970)

Anna Pollmann (Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Atrocities without their own reality. Günther Anders and Holocaust reception in the West German Left

Chair: Hugo Service (University of York)

12:30 -13:30 Lunch break

13:30 – 15:00 Memory and Morality

Jonathan Kaplan (Freie Universität Berlin): Ambassadors of Memory: The Struggle of guilt and Responsibility in the GDR

Máté Zombory (Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences) Moral Universalism in the East: Holocaust and memory in Zoltán Fábri’s film Late Season (1966)

Marta Zawodna-Stephan (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań) Let the dead serve the living. Dead body politics in the former Nazi camps on both sides of the Iron Curtain

Chair: Shaul Mitelpunkt (University of York)

15:15 – 16:15 Closing Remarks

Anna Koch (FMS, University of York), Stephan Stach (ÚSD, CAS Prague)

16:15 Reception

The conference was made possible thanks to generous funding from the European Association for Jewish Studies, the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, the Strategy AV21programme of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Czech Science Foundation and the University of York.

 

EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2017/18

REPORT

Targum Studies in London, IOTS 2018

The International Meeting of the IOTS at University College London, July 9-12, 2018, featured 25 papers and 4 keynote speakers. It was organised by the IOTS and the Institute of Jewish Studies (IJS) at UCL, with generous funding from several anonymous donors and the European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS). Many of the attendees considered the meeting one of the best they had attended in years. The following report states the original abstract and event rationale for the IJS summer conference, a summary of the sessions, an outline of key themes and issues emerging from it, and a description of plans for the associated output.

Event abstract

The 9th meeting of the International Organization of Targumic Studies will focus on two closely related aspects of Targumic Literature which have become increasingly topical:

1. the Aramaic dialects of the Targums within their Late Antique environment and
2. the development of targumic literature within its wider interpretative milieu.

These aspects will be addressed in two topics each:

• Local influences on the dialect of Onqelos/Jonathan;
• The provenance and integrity of the dialect of the Late Targums;
• The relation between targumic and classical rabbinic exegesis;
• The signs of non-rabbinic, late rabbinic or local environments in the Targums.

Event rationale

The Aramaic language of the Targums continues to be discussed in the context of language change and language contact. The meeting will consider the following key questions:

• Local influences on the literary dialect of Onqelos and Jonathan: long considered to represent a direct development of Middle Aramaic, and sometimes held to reflect little to no signs of any specific provenance (Western, Eastern, Central Aramaic), in recent years detailed studies identified ambiguous indications of the dialect in which these Targums are written, more specifically specimens of local linguistic influence, which warrant the re-opening of the question about these Targums’ dialect and provenance.
• The literary dialects of Targums to the Writings are nowadays grouped together as Late Jewish Literary Aramaic (LJLA). While this dialect is considered to be a learned, written dialect divested from a vernacular basis, its provenance is as yet unclear. In recent years a considerable Syriac influence has been argued, as has a late, possibly European provenance for some of the Targums to the Writings. The study of syntax and exegesis may shed further light on the provenance and integrity of LJLA.

The second focal point concerns the correlation between the Targums as specimens of interpretation and the wider interpretative Jewish milieu. The Targums have usually been considered as part of the Jewish rabbinic textual and exegetical culture, despite serious questions about the exact position of the Targums within their Jewish context:

• How does targumic exegesis relate to its rabbinic parallels? To what extent is targumic exegesis paralleled in midrashic literature, and what are the differences in terms of context, presentation, and narrative arc? The mere observation of parallels does not analyse the relationship at a level that is profound enough to be meaningful.
• Does targumic exegesis reflect signs of a non-rabbinic, late rabbinic or specific local environment? In spite of the close connection between targumic and rabbinic exegesis, and the origin of the Targums in the rabbinic milieu has been called into doubt without settling the issue. Questions have always lingered about the precise relationship between the Targums and the rabbinic milieu, whether in Roman Palestine, Babylonia or local Jewish communities elsewhere.

Visit to the British Library

Monday afternoon the lecturers attended a ‘show-and-tell’ by Dr Ilana Tahan, who showcased some of the most important Hebrew and particularly Aramaic manuscripts in the collection of the British Library. Highlights included the only extant manuscript of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (which featured heavily during the conference), a Yemenite manuscript of the Targum to the Prophets, one of the famous Peshitta manuscripts, and much more. There was a lively discussion of these manuscripts.

Summary of the papers

The Keynote papers elaborated on four highly different and yet related fields of Targum Studies: the way Targum relates to Jewish scriptural interpretation, the typology of Jewish Aramaic dialects, the study of the Targumim in the early modern period, and the archaeoacoustics of the early synagogues. These were interspersed by many lectures, which will be more briefly touched upon below.

Prof. Robert Hayward delivered the first keynote: ‘Reconsidering Targum Jonathan Malachi 1:11’. In an intricate, contextual analysis of this Targum, he demonstrated in detail not only how this verse posed serious difficulties for ancient Jewish exegetes, as it appears to contradict the commandment that sacrifice be offered in one place only, but also how it solved this conundrum. At the same time, the way this verse and its motifs are treated in early rabbinic literature shows some subtle differences in exegetical choices, most notably the aspect of prayer, which appears not to have been introduced before the Tanhuma other than in the Targum—the passage in the Babylonian Talmud that discusses this verse, in b. Men. 110a, sidesteps the issue of prayer by a reference to Torah study. Yet the church father Justin suggests that Mal. 1:11 was associated with prayer by the mid-second century CE already.

This lecture was followed by three sessions. The first session focused on the typological, linguistic and literary connections between Targum and other, contemporary literatures: Bärry Hartog (University of Groningen) on ‘Pesher and Targum: Revisiting an Old Issue’, who argued that the similarities and dissimilarities from an exegetical perspective should not obscure the fact that both are the scholarly products of an intellectual elite, and both more mainstream than sectarian. In the Q & A session there was a lively debate on the use of scribal techniques, although the authors of both corpora did not identify themselves as scribes. Srecko Koralija (University of Cambridge) spoke about ‘Targum and Peshitta: The Lexeme špr’, arguing that there is a real desideratum for a corpus-based lexicon which does not make too close connections between the targumic and syriac employments. In the Q & A Koralija questioned the interdependence between Targum and Peshitta, as it does not do justice to the different interpretative techniques and lexical meanings of lexemes shared by the two dialects of these texts. In the next lecture, David Shepherd returned to the Dead Sea Scrolls, asking the question ‘What’s ‘Targumic’ about the Genesis Apocryphon? Reflections on 1Q20 as an Aramaic version’. The Genesis Apocryphon has literary features which have long been compared to those of targumic literature, sometimes in part. Yet the features of GenAp that have been used as arguments for a comparison to the Targums do not follow the targumic practice, in keeping with the other Aramaic fragments from Qumran.

The second session dwelt on the late Aramaic translations. The first two lectures, by Leeor Gottlieb, ‘Is Pseudo-Jonathan a European Targum?’ and Gavin McDowell, ‘The Date and Provenance of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: The Evidence of Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer’ startingly converged on very similar, well sustained, and highly innovative arguments. Both argued for a provenance in South Italy, and both related the Targum to the 12th century author of Sekhel Tov, written in 1139 CE by R. Menachem ben Solomon. Gottlieb also related the Targum to his work Even Bochan, which displays remarkably close parallels with TgPsJ. He further pointed out that there is clear knowledge of the Islamic empire, but at the same time no familiarity with the geography of Israel. McDowell pointed out that PRE does not display any knowledge of TgPsJ, while the latter uses sources that use PRE. TgPsJ also used the longer recension of the Chronicle of Moses. Altogether, the evidence points to a medieval redactor with an antiquarian mentality far beyond the end of the first millennium, and more precisely with an Italian provenance. The Q&A to both lectures were extremely lively, with a general acceptance of the main hypotheses posited by both speakers, but also questions about the nature of the dialect (LJLA) when it is pushed so close to the composition of the Zohar. The final paper in this session was delivered by Abraham J. Berkovitz, ‘The Late Antique Contexts of Targum Psalms’. In this lecture, the Targum of Psalms was set against the backdrop of late ancient rabbinic literature, selecting and developing late antique sources, joined with traditions from rabbinic literature. The Targum may be the product of the end of a long late antique process of rabbinization.

The third session was opened by Nahum Ben-Yehuda with ‘Textile and Garment Terminology in the Targumim’. In a presentation that was as detailed as it was instructive and clear, the audience was treated to the practice and terminology of weaving with warp and loom, with a profound discussion of the various technical terms used and the practice to which they refer. Matthew Morgenstern presented a survey of ‘Newly Discovered Lexemes in Mandaic’, which included a presentation of the available sources and their vicissitudes, with dates ranging from the 4th century CE (the earliest incantation bowls) to manuscripts of the premodern period. While his research will lead to a vastly improved and far more critical lexicon of Mandaic, we were treated to a selection of new Mandaic lexemes. Margaretha Folmer explored ‘The Translation of Biblical Hebrew אל in Targum Onqelos: the Complementation of Verbs of Motion and Verbs of Saying’. Among the meanings of the BH preposition, the meaning ‘to’ (direction) is the most frequent. In Onqelos, the compound preposition לות is used with verbs of motion when the motion is directed towards a person, while ל is used wherever the motion is directed towards a location (with some noted exceptions). The same distinction exists in Old Aramaic and in Official Aramaic.

The second keynote was delivered by Steven Fassberg on the topic of ‘Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: Typology, Geography, and Chronology’. His presentation carefully delineated the various strata of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, including Samaritan Aramaic and Christian Palestinian Aramaic for comparative purposes. From the dialects of the Palestinian Targums (for which an exact date is impossible to give), yo that of the Talmud Yerushalmi and the Midrashim, up to and including Late Jewish Literary Aramaic. It was noted that CPA and SamA also could be shown to belong to different periods, of which the later phases were 10-13th and 10-11th c. respectively. In fact, late Samaritan Hebrew is of a hybrid nature (from the 13th c. onwards). The development of the dialects did not stop when Aramaic was no longer a spoken language, and LJLA features within the later period of Palestinian Aramaic dialects. Lots of specific dialect features were brought into the limelight. In the Q&A the influence of copyists was noted, leading to sporadic fluctuations, as was the possibility of conscious scribal choices for the borrowing of elements belonging to a distinct dialect, for example Babylonian Aramaic.

The fourth session was opened by Shai Heijmans with an insightful paper on the western pronunciation of the Targum, ‘The segol in Targum Jonathan according to MS Reuchlin’. Although there is indeed ample reason to distrust (some of) the Western vocalisation in the manuscript tradition, but there is an argument to be made that the pronunciation reflected in other Western manuscripts does in fact represent a tradition that is genuinely Western. Portions of the text were recited in the synagogue during the medieval period, while the manuscripts were provided with cantillation signs, also suggesting their continued use in liturgical reading. The lecture focused on the occurrence of the segol in Codex Reuchlinianus 3, a vowel which has no base in the Babylonian tradition and is accordingly unique to the Western pronunciation. The Q&A to the paper dwelled on many aspects of this study, including the date for this pronunciation tradition. The next paper was delivered by Dmytro Tsolin, ‘Compound Verbal Forms in Aramaic Dialects of the Targums: Discourse Aspects’. These compound verbal forms are widely used in Jewish Aramaic dialects and occur both in translations and non-translational parts of the corpus. The question is, whether there are any tense-aspect-modal differences between these compound verbal forms and non-compound verbs. This paper analysed the compound forms in terms of discourse (narrative, prophecy, speech) and in connection with their positions in comment / narrative, recorded / anticipatory, foreground / background-clauses. The third paper was delivered by Alinda Damsma on ‘The Aramaic of the Zohar: The status quaestionis’. She gave a commanding overview of scholarship on Zoharic Aramaic which could not have been more timely in the wake of the renewed discussion on LJLA during this very conference. She proposed that the language of the Zohar can be considered a type of Late Jewish Literary Aramaic, as it bears striking similarities to the language of the Tosefta-Targums written in that dialect. She is currently conducting a research project on the language of the Zohar which will culminate in the publication of a much-needed reference grammar of this important form of Aramaic.

The fifth session opened with a paper by Michael Langlois about ‘New Aramaic Divination Texts in Light of the Targums’. Among all these important ostraca, recently discovered at Maresha and to be published by Ester Eshel and Michael Langlois, some 137 can be classified as divination texts. However, many of them are notoriously hard to decipher, as demonstrated. The paper went into some detail about the decipherment but also the parallels with targumic literature. The next paper by Miriam Kahana addressed an often overlooked topic, namely ‘Targum Jonathan to the Prophets and the Masoretic Cantillations’. She contrasted Targum with masoretic cantillations, each of which present a different way of dividing the verse, something which frequently gives a different meaning. She demonstrated the Targum’s preference for a subordinate structure, even when translating paratactic clauses. In addition, she showed a lack of correlation between cantillations and Targum in ambiguous verses. Despite the general correlation between the Targum and the cantillation signs, there are notable distinctions between the two. The last paper was delivered by Willem Smelik, ‘Targum Toledot Yeshu’, a study of a new Aramaic fragment of the Toledot Yeshu. This fragment preserves the start of the narrative, but it is presented as a Targum Yerushalmi to Isa. 66.17. Both the narrative and the dialect show up many peculiarities. Despite some notable linguistic errors, the dialect also displays signs of a genuine albeit late dialect. The narrative preserves the birth narrative and other motifs, and most importantly, it fully overlaps with the Harkavy fragment published in 1875.

In the sixth session, Dineke Houtman, ‘What’s in a Name: The Translation of Toponyms in Targum Isaiah’, pays close attention to the rendering of geographical and ethnical names. Generally, these remain unaltered, but not always, and these exceptions merit further analysis. The Targum identifies unknown ancient tribes and place names with contemporary ones, for one, which has the effect of making the Bible more accessible. Sometimes the translator obviously did not know exactly which place or people was meant and chose a quite general translation. And finally, some toponyms received a symbolic interpretation. Gary Rendsburg followed this up with a study of ‘Targumic Parallels to Variant Readings of the Book of Samuel amongst the Cairo Genizah Manuscripts’. As a pilot project, he read each and everyone of the more than 650 manuscript fragments of the book of Samuel found in the Cairo Genizah. He presented a sampling of the variant readings he recorded, in comparison with the evidence from Qumran, the Septuagint, Targum, Peshitta and Vulgate. The third lecture was delivered by Johanna Tanja, ‘Tosefta Targums in Targum Samuel’. The Tosefta Targums are not found in the extant Babylonian textual witnesses of the Targum and more of these Tosefta Targums seem to have been preserved in the European manuscripts and editions and several were attested in specific geographic areas only. The fact that these additions are attested in specific geocultural zones raises questions on the specific milieu of transmission. The Tosefta Targums are not attested in the same way, as they can be attached to different verses in the Targum text. Moreover, not all known Tosefta Targums are attested in all manuscripts.

The seventh session was devoted to Aramaic poetry, opened by Moshe Bernstein, ‘An Aramaic Poem for Purim, but It’s Not About Purim!’ This paper addressed the first poem for Purim in the collection that Yahalom and Sokoloff published, although, unlike the other poems in this section, it does not dwell in particular on the Scroll of Esther or on Purim. Instead, it presents a survey of historical attacks on the Jews, culminating in the salvation of the Jews on Purim. In the second contribution to this session, Laura Lieber addressed the soundscapes of Late Antiquity in ‘Refrains and Acclamations: The Congregational Dynamic within JPA Poetry’. This study of participation in ritual assumed that the Jews in this period would have been familiar with the widespread practice of acclamation, possessing a performative literacy. The variety of refrain structures in this literature is a good place to begin the study the intersection of acclamation structures and JPA poetry. Michael Rand spoke about ‘The Use of Aramaic in Classical (Byzantine-era) Palestinian Piyyut, and Beyond’, pointing out that Aramaic does sometimes appear in classical piyyut, but there is no transparent pattern to predict when it does or does not appear. However, piyyut is a form of versified prayer, and since the language of prayer is predominantly Hebrew the absence of Aramaic can be explained more generally. The JPA poetry is not piyyut. Finally, Eliav Grossman explored one of the possible contexts for the JPA poetry in his paper ‘Observations on the Relationship between JPA Poetry and Targumic Expansions’. He pointed out that several themes and images which seem to be specific to JPA poetry in fact also appear in Targumic expansions, sometimes in almost identical formulations.

Philip Alexander delivered the third keynote lecture, ‘The Study of the Targumim in the Early Modern Period, with particular reference to Codex Neofiti and Pseudo-Jonathan to the Torah’. There is still no history of the textual transmission of many targumic texts, especially between Late Antiquity and the invention of the printing press. There are some references to targumic manuscripts, not all of them currently known (Azariah de Rossi saw two copies of TgPsJ, only one of which is known today, assuming it is identical with the one housed in the British Library). The Targum was a book that could be creatively transmitted, whereas we only have snapshots of its transmission. We do know that copies of Onqelos and Jonathan were brought back to Israel in the Geonic period, and that Onqelos was dominant, representing the Bible of the (Jewish) Aramaic world. Hence quotations of the Torah in Aramaic that are embedded within Targum Writings often use Targum Onqelos. There is, therefore, a need for regional studies of the manuscripts (Yemenite, Egyptian, Western, etc) and the function of the Targums, which would have differed by the area. Further details followed about established representatives of these areas. It was pointed out that the ancient form of the text cannot be disentangled from its subsequent reception, with the opening of Targum Neofiti being a case in point (a Qabbalistic Targum of Genesis 1?). The lecture was followed by a lively Q&A session about various aspects of textual transmission and the later reception of the Targums.

The eight session was opened by Craig Morrison, ‘Abraham and the Fires of Gehenna in the Palestinian Targums and the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16,19-31)’. This paper focused on the way early Christian and Jewish interpreters ascribed sometimes lengthy speeches to Abraham as an eschatological figure, by which means they express the theological interests of their particular communities. Abraham is a tortured soul, wondering whether he’ll make the grade for beatific afterlife. Both traditions illuminate each other and extend the traditions of Abraham, and the targumic Abraham shares some characteristics with the Lukan one. Chris Brady analysed the translation of Lam. 1.15 in ‘“The Lord Has Trodden as in a Wine Press,” A Note Regarding TgLam 1:15 and Isa. 63:3’. He made clear how several verses are brought into dialogue in this analysis, including Ezek. 36, and how the interpretation focuses on Edom, the colour and the wine-press. Finally, Eveline van Staalduine-Sulman spoke about ‘The Reception of the Tenth Commandment’. The interpretation of the tenth commandment, which teaches not to be covetous, varies over the course of the centuries. Targum Neofiti and Pseudo-Jonathan add at least two points to the whole discussion, namely one concerning individual and joint responsibility to fulfil this commandment and one concerning the punishment or consequence in cases this commandment is violated. In the Q&A session, attention was drawn to the maginalia in Codex Neofiti, some of which features halakhic annotations, while others are similar in style to TgPsJ.

The fourth keynote lecture, and the final paper of the conference, was delivered by Paul V.M. Flesher: ‘Where did the Scripture Reader and the Scripture Translator Stand in Ancient Galilean Synagogues?’ In this archaeoacoustic study of the Galilean synagogues, the potential use of an object and the possible positioning of the reciter and the interpreter were discussed on the basis of the floor-plan of these synagogues. The difference between a raised bimah and an apse for the way a voice carries was discussed in detail. It emerged that the projection of a voice, and the ability for two people standing on a raised platform, differs between an open-plan synagogue with a carpeted dirt floor and a basilica-type synagogue with mosaics on the floor. The Q&A session of this final lecture was lively and appreciative.

A statement about planned outcomes and outputs

We seek to publish selected lectures as Targum Studies in London, IOTS 2018 (Supplements to Aramaic Studies; Leiden: Brill). All contributions will be double-blind peer reviewed and vetted. The deadline for contributions is January 31, 2019.

EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2017/18

REPORT

Greek expanded, Greek transformed: The Vocabulary of the Septuagint and the Cultural World of the Translators

Conference held on 18 to 20 June 2018

Rationale of the event

The Septuagint became widely influential beyond the Jewish world only in Late Antiquity, but it was produced much earlier, during the Hellenistic period.  In their struggle to render the archaic Hebrew of the source text into intelligible Hellenistic Greek, the translators coined some new words (using the existing morphological resources of the language) and extended the meanings of others.  Words that had been rare became frequent, and some common Greek words are conspicuous by their absence.  The Hebrew Bible was Hellenized, and the Greek language was “Hebraized”.  The dialectic between biblical and Hellenistic connotations lends Septuagint words a semantic complexity that is both hard and rewarding to analyse.

The conference brought together an international team of scholars from different disciplines to work over two days on the religious and political vocabulary of the Septuagint and to analyse this semantic complexity.

Most of the speakers in the conference had participated in a residential research workshop held at the Centre between January and June 2018.  The conference provided an opportunity to draw their work together, as well as to expose it to dialogue with some additional international experts.  This embedding in the research workshop gave the conference a depth and a unity of purpose that is not always easy to achieve in events bringing together scholars from different disciplines and different cultural backgrounds, and the resulting discussions were exceptionally rich and productive.

Papers

Monday 18 June

2-2.35pm : Jean Maurais (McGill University)

‘The Beloved One Grew Fat: Style, Context, and the Vocabulary of Deuteronomy 32:15’

Instead of focusing on a specific word or word-group, Maurais studied a short passage in Deuteronomy and attempted to demonstrate the coherence of the vocabulary used there, in semantic and stylistic perspective. The most interesting insight was that the perfect participle êgapêménos ‘beloved one’ used for Yeshurun/Israel in Deut 32:15 plays a role in royal titulature in Ptolemaic papyri.

2.35-3.10pm: Mikhail Seleznev (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow)

‘On the Usage of στερέωμα in the LXX, with an Appendix on the Non-Usage of στερέωμα in Περὶ ὕψους’

The word στερέωμα ‘firmament’ is used in Gen 1 to refer to the vault of heaven, raqia‘ in Hebrew.  In a fascinating paper, Seleznev showed how this striking equivalence reflects the struggle of the translator to mediate between biblical and Hellenistic cosmology.  He went on to propose a brilliant new reconstruction of the history of Ps-Longinus’ approximate quotation from Genesis (Περὶ ὕψους 9. 10): γενέσθω φῶς, καὶ ἐγένετο. γενέσθω γῆ, καὶ ἐγένετο.  In this proposal the quotation was adapted from the earlier Περὶ ὕψους by Caecilius of Calliacte, who the Suda says was Jewish by faith, and γῆ ‘earth’ is Ps-Longinus’ attempt to understand the word στερέωμα when faced with a quotation such as Γενηθήτω φῶς, καὶ ἐγένετο…Γενηθήτω στερέωμα…καὶ ἐγένετο…., in the absence of further context.

3.40-4.15pm: Arjen Bakker (University of Oxford)

‘Knowledge and Light: Lexical Observations on the Old Greek of Isaiah’

In Isa 53:11, the Septuagint and several Qumran witnesses have a noun meaning ‘light’ in excess of the Masoretic text: ‘From the travail of his soul he shall see (light).’  Bakker argued, following Seeligman, that this is an exegetical addition.  He then went on to show that the book of Daniel already knows the verse with the added word.  This suggests that the knowledge-as-light idea, absent in earlier biblical tradition, spread among several Jewish groups in the Hellenistic period.

4.15-4.50pm: Dominika Kurek-Chomycz (Liverpool Hope University)

‘Disability and the Septuagint’

This was probably the very first exploration of the motif of disability in the Septuagint corpus.  Kurek-Chomycz showed that the different perspectives distinguished in contemporary studies on disability—medical, social, cultural—were already implicit in certain lexical choices in the Septuagint.

Plenary lecture, 6-7pm: Trevor Evans (Macquarie University)

‘Verbs of Sexual Intercourse, the Greek Translation of the Pentateuch, and Lexicographic Analysis’

Several euphemistic expressions—to know, to lie with, to be with, to come into—are used for sexual intercourse in the Hebrew Bible. Evans showed how each of these translates a Hebrew verb with a similar non-sexual sense, and for all but one the sexual as well as the non-sexual sense is already attested in Greek before the Septuagint. The translators’ choices here show their high level of competence in both languages.

Tuesday

9.15-9.50am: Jelle Verburg (University of Oxford)

‘Murderous Intention in the Septuagint, Philo, and the Mishnah’

Jelle Verburg discussed the terminology used in Greek to express the notion of intentional manslaughter, absent from the Hebrew where this idea is rather suggested by reference to external circumstances such as ‘lying in wait.’  He showed that while later Rabbinic interpretations of the biblical laws on murder also underscore the criterion of intention, the specific use of this criterion diverges in the Septuagint and the Rabbis diverges markedly.

9.50-10.25am: Jan Joosten (University of Oxford)

‘Divine Compassion in the Septuagint’

The notion of divine compassion is present in the Hebrew Bible, but it is underscored much more often in the Septuagint translation.  The reason for this transformation cannot be found in Greek culture or religion, where divine compassion is not a frequent theme.  Rather, it seems the translators embraced this notion because it contributes to mark out their Jewish identity in the Hellenistic society they inhabited.

10.25-11am: Hindy Najman (University of Oxford)

‘Formation of the Subject as Imitatio Dei’

Najman made a plea to approach the question of the ‘self’ in terms the Bible itself recognizes: the self as a human being standing in relation to God (symbolized by human blood), and the self as an individual who is also a member of a collective.

11.30-12.05pm: James Aitken (University of Cambridge)

‘Ambiguous Ethical Terms in the Septuagint’

Hebrew ‘arum tends to be translated by πανοῦργος when it has negative connotations, and by φρόνιμος when it has positive connotations.  In Proverbs, however, even the positive uses are rendered by πανοῦργος.  With a careful survey of the evidence for the pre-existing connotations of πανοῦργος, Aitken argued that the translator of Proverbs expanded the semantic range of this Greek adjective under the influence of the partial synonym ‘arum.

12.05-12.40pm: Hallel Baitner (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

‘Sprinkling for Purification in the Septuagint and in Philo’s writings’

From Rabbinic sources we know that sprinkling with blood or sprinkling with water mixed with the ashes of a red heifer were considered to be entirely different procedures, although the Hebrew text uses the same verb, hizzah, to express them.  Baitner observed that the Septuagint uses several equivalents for the Hebrew verb in question, notably ῥαίνω and περιρραίνω, and that the distribution of these two agrees with the distinction drawn in Rabbinic literature.

2.15-2.50pm: Anthony Ellis (Universität Bern)

‘The Devil in the Detail: (ὁ) διάβολος, σαταν, ὁ ἀντικείμενος and Diabolical φθόνος’

While some gnostics in the second century AD found the God of the Bible to be envious because he did not want the human being to eat of the tree of knowledge, later tradition unanimously attributed envy to the serpent.  This contributed to the identification of the serpent as the devil, because in Hellenistic views demons could be envious while God (gods) was always good.

2.50-3.25pm: Anna Angelini (University of Lausanne)

‘The Vocabulary of Images in the LXX between Materiality and Immateriality’

Angelini presented a very nuanced analysis of the terms used in the Septuagint for divine images, notably εἰκών, εἴδωλον and ὁμοίωμα.  She indicated that the semantic differences between these terms is not obvious and that in the Septuagint as in non-biblical Greek their meanings often overlap.

3.25-4pm: Maria Sokolskaya (Universität Bern)

‘The Concept of Paideia in Philo’s Biblical Exegesis’

Setting out from her idea of paideia as a bonum tantum, Sokolskaya showed how Philo at once borrowed the notion of philosophy as the only true paideia and nuanced it by arguing that the other academic disciplines belong to paideia if they are capped by philosophy.  Philo’s interpretation of the relation between Sarah and Hagar draws on a well-known motif in Greek philosophy in which Penelope is opposed to Ulysses’ handmaidens.

4.30-5.05pm: Patrick Pouchelle (Centre Sèvres, Paris)

‘Did a Jewish Paideia exist during the Hellenistic and Roman period?’

Pouchelle was unable to come because of acute back pain.  His paper was read by Jean Maurais.  Pouchelle argued for a view of Jewish paideia that incorporates both elements taken from the Greek idea and elements with a biblical background, such as the notion of divine education by the means of historical catastrophes.

5.05-5.40pm: Tessa Rajak (University of Reading)

‘The Language of Instruction in the Fourth Book of Maccabees’

In a third paper on paideia Rajak argued at length that the author of 4 Maccabees pleads throughout his book for a combination of Greek philosophy with biblical values such as the avoidance of certain foods.

9.15-9.50am: Maria Yurovitskaya (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow)

‘Magic and Ritual: some Reflections of Greek Religious Practices in the LXX’

The mysterious biblical ritual of ‘making one’s children pass through fire’ seems to have been interpreted as a magical act by the translator of Ezekiel, who uses the Greek verb ἀποτροπιάζομαι ‘to turn away evil’ instead of ‘to pass through’ in Ezek 16:21.  Yurivitskaya showed, on the basis of a large number of non-biblical Greek texts, that this was a reasonable interpretation in the Hellenistic milieu.

9.50-10.25am: David A Lambert (University of North Carolina)

‘Problems in the History of the Self and Bible Translation: The Case of the Septuagint’

Lambert showed with many examples how language expressly showing awareness of the ‘self’ may be introduced in the biblical context although it is absent from the Hebrew source text.

10.25-11am: Romina Vergari (University of Florence)

‘The Life-cycle of the “Shadow” Metaphors in the Hebrew Bible in the Light of their Semitic and Greek Backgrounds’

In Hebrew, the word shadow mostly has positive metaphorical interpretations: protection, shelter.  The metaphor of shadow as transience is less well developed, and characteristic of later texts. In Greek, shadow is mostly a negative metaphor—the shadow of death.  Many Septuagint translators translate Hebrew tsel ‘shadow’ literally with σκιά when it is used in a negative way, but use σκέπη ‘protection’ when the metaphor is positive.

11.30-12.30pm: CONCLUDING REMARKS

Teresa Morgan (University of Oxford) and Philomen Probert (University of Oxford)

Philomen Probert summarized the conference and drew out recurring themes on vocabulary and translation. The challenges faced by the translators included unfamiliar or obscure Hebrew words; Hebrew words with multiple senses; familiar Hebrew words in unfamiliar meanings; unfamiliar metaphors; and Hebrew words for unfamiliar concepts. The consequences of translation were sometimes very slight, both for the content of the text and for the Greek language itself: verbs of sexual intercourse were a case in point where the translators identified remarkably close Greek equivalents for semantically complex Hebrew words. On other occasions the semantic range of a Greek word was expanded in translation, to match the range of meanings of a Hebrew word that was already a partial synonym; πανοῦργος in Proverbs was a case in point. But the conference had highlighted especially richly how pragmatic enrichment in translation (when translators make explicit a distinction or a detail that they take to be implicit in the original) can provide a window onto the cultural world of the translators. The readiness with which the translators alluded to divine compassion was one example among many that the conference had brought into focus.

Teresa Morgan opened up the discussion by asking the question of the origins of the Septuagint: is this really a liturgical text, or not rather a cultural statement made, at least partly, in view of the debate between Jews and non-Jews in Hellenistic Egypt. A lively discussion ensued.

Papers were 25 minutes with 10 minutes left for discussion. The Q&A periods were lively but there were few clashes. After Aitken’s paper, Joosten stated: “The principal task of the [Septuagint] translators was to translate” to which Aitken replied: “That is what you think”—suggesting, in context, that their primary goal was rather to create a readable Greek text. Some participants saw here the outline of a great rift. But of course, both views are correct: the translators wanted to translate the Hebrew and create a good Greek text. Otherwise the regnant mood was one of enthusiasm. The conference capped a four-month long seminar in which the interest of the Septuagint as an object of research, and the particular fruitfulness of the focus on vocabulary was driven home to many participants again and again.

Summary

Some papers (Evans, Aitken, Vergari, and the three papers on paideia) focused more on the translation of single words while others (Seleznev, Joosten, Angelini, Yurovitskaya) were more concerned with biblical themes and the way they were expressed in Greek.  Several papers proceeded in the opposite direction, exploring how and to what extent certain notions that became important in Greek and, later, modern thought can be found in the bible (Kurek, Bakker, Verburg, Najman, Lambert).  But these are differences of nuance, not substance.

The main insight to take home from the conference is that translation equivalences are tied up with important differences in culture and world view.  An eye opener in this regard was Selezenev’s paper in which he showed how a single word in the Greek text of Genesis may have sounded very different to biblically literate Jews and to Greeks without knowledge of biblical traditions.

At the same time, it is clear that what could be done during the seminar and the conference was only a spoonful out of an ocean and that many more discoveries of the same type remain to be made.  If words like στερέωμα ‘firmament’ or συγγίνομαι ‘to be with’ can be made to tell such a fascinating story, there is really no end to it.

Outcomes and outputs

It is planned to follow up on this year’s seminar with an ongoing “Septuagint Forum” that will meet twice a term in the framework of the seminar on Judaism in the Graeco-Roman period directed by Martin Goodman.  Another type of follow-up will be workshop, to be run by Anna Angelini and Jan Joosten, at the European Association for Biblical Studies’ yearly conference.  Finally, there are plans also to have a meeting in Oxford, perhaps just after the end of Hilary Term 2019 (11-12 March perhaps) with some of the people who have been active in this year’s project.  Scott Scullion (Worcester) has declared an interest in organizing this event.

The major output is planned to be a book to be published with Mohr Siebeck, collecting the most topical papers of the seminar with most papers of the conference. The editors will be Trevor Evans, Teresa Morgan and Jan Joosten.

The Programme

See flyer (link).

Departments circulated with details about the Conference

Theology and Religions Faculty at Oxford University

University College London, Dept of Hebrew and Jewish Studies

Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge

Leo Baeck College

Parkes Institute, Southampton

Dept of Hebrew Studies, SOAS

British Association of Jewish Studies

European Association of Jewish Studies

EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2017/18

REPORT

Targum Studies in London, IOTS 2018

The International Meeting of the IOTS at University College London, July 9-12, 2018, featured 25 papers and 4 keynote speakers. It was organised by the IOTS and the Institute of Jewish Studies (IJS) at UCL, with generous funding from sev-eral anonymous donors and the EAJS. Many of the attendees considered the meeting one of the best they had attended in years. The following report states the original abstract and event rationale for the IJS summer conference, a summary of the sessions, an outline of key themes and issues emerging from it, and a description of plans for the associated output.

Event abstract

The 9th meeting of the International Organization of Tar-gumic Studies will focus on two closely related aspects of Targumic Literature which have become increasingly topi-cal:

1. the Aramaic dialects of the Targums within their Late Antique environment and

2. the development of targumic literature within its wider interpretative milieu.

These aspects will be addressed in two topics each:

*Local influences on the dialect of Onqelos/Jonathan;

*The provenance and integrity of the dialect of the Late Targums;

*The relation between targumic and classical rabbinic ex-egesis;

*The signs of non-rabbinic, late rabbinic or local environ-ments in the Targums.

Event rationale

The Aramaic language of the Targums continues to be dis-cussed in the context of language change and language con-tact. The meeting will consider the following key questions:

*Local influences on the literary dialect of Onqelos and Jonathan: long considered to represent a direct develop-ment of Middle Aramaic, and sometimes held to reflect little to no signs of any specific provenance (Western, Eastern, Central Aramaic), in recent years detailed stud-ies identified ambiguous indications of the dialect in which these Targums are written, more specifically spec-imens of local linguistic influence, which warrant the re-opening of the question about these Targums’ dialect and provenance.

*The literary dialects of Targums to the Writings are now-adays grouped together as Late Jewish Literary Aramaic (LJLA). While this dialect is considered to be a learned, written dialect divested from a vernacular basis, its prov-enance is as yet unclear. In recent years a considerable Syriac influence has been argued, as has a late, possibly European provenance for some of the Targums to the Writings. The study of syntax and exegesis may shed fur-ther light on the provenance and integrity of LJLA.

The second focal point concerns the correlation between the Targums as specimens of interpretation and the wider inter-pretative Jewish milieu. The Targums have usually been con-sidered as part of the Jewish rabbinic textual and exegetical culture, despite serious questions about the exact position of the Targums within their Jewish context:

*How does targumic exegesis relate to its rabbinic paral-lels? To what extent is targumic exegesis paralleled in midrashic literature, and what are the differences in terms of context, presentation, and narrative arc? The mere observation of parallels does not analyse the rela-tionship at a level that is profound enough to be meaning-ful.

*Does targumic exegesis reflect signs of a non-rabbinic, late rabbinic or specific local environment? In spite of the

close connection between targumic and rabbinic exege-sis, and the origin of the Targums in the rabbinic milieu has been called into doubt without settling the issue. Questions have always lingered about the precise rela-tionship between the Targums and the rabbinic milieu, whether in Roman Palestine, Babylonia or local Jewish communities elsewhere.

Visit to the British Library

Monday afternoon the lecturers attended a ‘show-and-tell’ by Dr Ilana Tahan, who showcased some of the most im-portant Hebrew and particularly Aramaic manuscripts in the collection of the British Library. Highlights included the only extant manuscript of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (which fea-tured heavily during the conference), a Yemenite manu-script of the Targum to the Prophets, one of the famous Pe-shitta manuscripts, and much more. There was a lively dis-cussion of these manuscripts.

Summary of the papers

The Keynote papers elaborated on four highly different and yet related fields of Targum Studies: the way Targum relates to Jewish scriptural interpretation, the typology of Jewish Aramaic dialects, the study of the Targumim in the early modern period, and the archaeoacoustics of the early syna-gogues. These were interspersed by many lectures, which will be more briefly touched upon below.

Prof. Robert Hayward delivered the first keynote: ‘Recon-sidering Targum Jonathan Malachi 1:11’. In an intricate, con-textual analysis of this Targum, he demonstrated in detail not only how this verse posed serious difficulties for ancient Jewish exegetes, as it appears to contradict the command-ment that sacrifice be offered in one place only, but also how it solved this conundrum. At the same time, the way this verse and its motifs are treated in early rabbinic literature shows some subtle differences in exegetical choices, most notably the aspect of prayer, which appears not to have been introduced before the Tanhuma other than in the Targum—the passage in the Babylonian Talmud that discusses this

verse, in b. Men. 110a, sidesteps the issue of prayer by a ref-erence to Torah study. Yet the church father Justin suggests that Mal. 1:11 was associated with prayer by the mid-second century CE already.

This lecture was followed by three sessions. The first ses-sion focused on the typological, linguistic and literary con-nections between Targum and other, contemporary litera-tures: Bärry Hartog (University of Groningen) on ‘Pesher and Targum: Revisiting an Old Issue’, who argued that the similarities and dissimilarities from an exegetical perspec-tive should not obscure the fact that both are the scholarly products of an intellectual elite, and both more mainstream than sectarian. In the Q & A session there was a lively debate on the use of scribal techniques, although the authors of both corpora did not identify themselves as scribes. Srecko Koralija (University of Cambridge) spoke about ‘Targum and Peshitta: The Lexeme špr’, arguing that there is a real desid-eratum for a corpus-based lexicon which does not make too close connections between the targumic and syriac employ-ments. In the Q & A Koralija questioned the interdependence between Targum and Peshitta, as it does not do justice to the different interpretative techniques and lexical meanings of lexemes shared by the two dialects of these texts. In the next lecture, David Shepherd returned to the Dead Sea Scrolls, asking the question ‘What’s ‘Targumic’ about the Genesis Apocryphon? Reflections on 1Q20 as an Aramaic version’. The Genesis Apocryphon has literary features which have long been compared to those of targumic literature, some-times in part. Yet the features of GenAp that have been used as arguments for a comparison to the Targums do not follow the targumic practice, in keeping with the other Aramaic fragments from Qumran.

The second session dwelt on the late Aramaic transla-tions. The first two lectures, by Leeor Gottlieb, ‘Is Pseudo-Jonathan a European Targum?’ and Gavin McDowell, ‘The Date and Provenance of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: The Evi-dence of Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer’ startingly converged on very similar, well sustained, and highly innovative argu-ments. Both argued for a provenance in South Italy, and both related the Targum to the 12th century author of Sekhel Tov, written in 1139 CE by R. Menachem ben Solomon. Gottlieb also related the Targum to his work Even Bochan, which dis-plays remarkably close parallels with TgPsJ. He further

pointed out that there is clear knowledge of the Islamic em-pire, but at the same time no familiarity with the geography of Israel. McDowell pointed out that PRE does not display any knowledge of TgPsJ, while the latter uses sources that use PRE. TgPsJ also used the longer recension of the Chroni-cle of Moses. Altogether, the evidence points to a medieval redactor with an antiquarian mentality far beyond the end of the first millennium, and more precisely with an Italian provenance. The Q&A to both lectures were extremely lively, with a general acceptance of the main hypotheses posited by both speakers, but also questions about the nature of the di-alect (LJLA) when it is pushed so close to the composition of the Zohar. The final paper in this session was delivered by Abraham J. Berkovitz, ‘The Late Antique Contexts of Targum Psalms’. In this lecture, the Targum of Psalms was set against the backdrop of late ancient rabbinic literature, selecting and developing late antique sources, joined with traditions from rabbinic literature. The Targum may be the product of the end of a long late antique process of rabbinization.

The third session was opened by Nahum Ben-Yehuda with ‘Textile and Garment Terminology in the Targumim’. In a presentation that was as detailed as it was instructive and clear, the audience was treated to the practice and terminol-ogy of weaving with warp and loom, with a profound discus-sion of the various technical terms used and the practice to which they refer. Matthew Morgenstern presented a survey of ‘Newly Discovered Lexemes in Mandaic’, which included a presentation of the available sources and their vicissitudes, with dates ranging from the 4th century CE (the earliest in-cantation bowls) to manuscripts of the premodern period. While his research will lead to a vastly improved and far more critical lexicon of Mandaic, we were treated to a selec-tion of new Mandaic lexemes. Margaretha Folmer explored ‘The Translation of Biblical Hebrew אל in Targum Onqelos: the Complementation of Verbs of Motion and Verbs of Say-ing’. Among the meanings of the BH preposition, the mean-ing ‘to’ (direction) is the most frequent. In Onqelos, the com-pound preposition לות is used with verbs of motion when the motion is directed towards a person, while ל is used wherever the motion is directed towards a location (with some noted exceptions). The same distinction exists in Old Aramaic and in Official Aramaic.

The second keynote was delivered by Steven Fassberg on the topic of ‘Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: Typology, Geogra-phy, and Chronology’. His presentation carefully delineated the various strata of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, including Samaritan Aramaic and Christian Palestinian Aramaic for comparative purposes. From the dialects of the Palestinian Targums (for which an exact date is impossible to give), yo that of the Talmud Yerushalmi and the Midrashim, up to and including Late Jewish Literary Aramaic. It was noted that CPA and SamA also could be shown to belong to different pe-riods, of which the later phases were 10-13th and 10-11th c. respectively. In fact, late Samaritan Hebrew is of a hybrid na-ture (from the 13th c. onwards). The development of the di-alects did not stop when Aramaic was no longer a spoken language, and LJLA features within the later period of Pales-tinian Aramaic dialects. Lots of specific dialect features were brought into the limelight. In the Q&A the influence of copy-ists was noted, leading to sporadic fluctuations, as was the possibility of conscious scribal choices for the borrowing of elements belonging to a distinct dialect, for example Babylo-nian Aramaic.

The fourth session was opened by Shai Heijmans with an insightful paper on the western pronunciation of the Tar-gum, ‘The segol in Targum Jonathan according to MS Reuch-lin’. Although there is indeed ample reason to distrust (some of) the Western vocalisation in the manuscript tradition, but there is an argument to be made that the pronunciation re-flected in other Western manuscripts does in fact represent a tradition that is genuinely Western. Portions of the text were recited in the synagogue during the medieval period, while the manuscripts were provided with cantillation signs, also suggesting their continued use in liturgical reading. The lecture focused on the occurrence of the segol in Codex Reuchlinianus 3, a vowel which has no base in the Babylo-nian tradition and is accordingly unique to the Western pro-nunciation. The Q&A to the paper dwelled on many aspects of this study, including the date for this pronunciation tradi-tion. The next paper was delivered by Dmytro Tsolin, ‘Com-pound Verbal Forms in Aramaic Dialects of the Targums: Discourse Aspects’. These compound verbal forms are widely used in Jewish Aramaic dialects and occur both in translations and non-translational parts of the corpus. The

question is, whether there are any tense-aspect-modal dif-ferences between these compound verbal forms and non-compound verbs. This paper analysed the compound forms in terms of discourse (narrative, prophecy, speech) and in connection with their positions in comment / narrative, rec-orded / anticipatory, foreground / background-clauses. The third paper was delivered by Alinda Damsma on ‘The Ara-maic of the Zohar: The status quaestionis’. She gave a com-manding overview of scholarship on Zoharic Aramaic which could not have been more timely in the wake of the renewed discussion on LJLA during this very conference. She pro-posed that the language of the Zohar can be considered a type of Late Jewish Literary Aramaic, as it bears striking sim-ilarities to the language of the Tosefta-Targums written in that dialect. She is currently conducting a research project on the language of the Zohar which will culminate in the pub-lication of a much-needed reference grammar of this im-portant form of Aramaic.

The fifth session opened with a paper by Michael Langlois about ‘New Aramaic Divination Texts in Light of the Tar-gums’. Among all these important ostraca, recently discov-ered at Maresha and to be published by Ester Eshel and Mi-chael Langlois, some 137 can be classified as divination texts. However, many of them are notoriously hard to decipher, as demonstrated. The paper went into some detail about the decipherment but also the parallels with targumic literature. The next paper by Miriam Kahana addressed an often over-looked topic, namely ‘Targum Jonathan to the Prophets and the Masoretic Cantillations’. She contrasted Targum with masoretic cantillations, each of which present a different way of dividing the verse, something which frequently gives a different meaning. She demonstrated the Targum’s prefer-ence for a subordinate structure, even when translating par-atactic clauses. In addition, she showed a lack of correlation between cantillations and Targum in ambiguous verses. De-spite the general correlation between the Targum and the cantillation signs, there are notable distinctions between the two. The last paper was delivered by Willem Smelik, ‘Tar-gum Toledot Yeshu’, a study of a new Aramaic fragment of the Toledot Yeshu. This fragment preserves the start of the narrative, but it is presented as a Targum Yerushalmi to Isa. 66.17. Both the narrative and the dialect show up many pe-culiarities. Despite some notable linguistic errors, the dialect

also displays signs of a genuine albeit late dialect. The narra-tive preserves the birth narrative and other motifs, and most importantly, it fully overlaps with the Harkavy fragment published in 1875.

In the sixth session, Dineke Houtman, ‘What’s in a Name: The Translation of Toponyms in Targum Isaiah’, pays close attention to the rendering of geographical and ethnical names. Generally, these remain unaltered, but not always, and these exceptions merit further analysis. The Targum identifies unknown ancient tribes and place names with con-temporary ones, for one, which has the effect of making the Bible more accessible. Sometimes the translator obviously did not know exactly which place or people was meant and chose a quite general translation. And finally, some topo-nyms received a symbolic interpretation. Gary Rendsburg followed this up with a study of ‘Targumic Parallels to Vari-ant Readings of the Book of Samuel amongst the Cairo Geni-zah Manuscripts’. As a pilot project, he read each and every-one of the more than 650 manuscript fragments of the book of Samuel found in the Cairo Genizah. He presented a sam-pling of the variant readings he recorded, in comparison with the evidence from Qumran, the Septuagint, Targum, Pe-shitta and Vulgate. The third lecture was delivered by Jo-hanna Tanja, ‘Tosefta Targums in Targum Samuel’. The Tosefta Targums are not found in the extant Babylonian tex-tual witnesses of the Targum and more of these Tosefta Tar-gums seem to have been preserved in the European manu-scripts and editions and several were attested in specific ge-ographic areas only. The fact that these additions are at-tested in specific geocultural zones raises questions on the specific milieu of transmission. The Tosefta Targums are not attested in the same way, as they can be attached to different verses in the Targum text. Moreover, not all known Tosefta Targums are attested in all manuscripts.

The seventh session was devoted to Aramaic poetry, opened by Moshe Bernstein, ‘An Aramaic Poem for Purim, but It’s Not About Purim!’ This paper addressed the first poem for Purim in the collection that Yahalom and Sokoloff published, although, unlike the other poems in this section, it does not dwell in particular on the Scroll of Esther or on Purim. Instead, it presents a survey of historical attacks on the Jews, culminating in the salvation of the Jews on Purim.

In the second contribution to this session, Laura Lieber ad-dressed the soundscapes of Late Antiquity in ‘Refrains and Acclamations: The Congregational Dynamic within JPA Po-etry’. This study of participation in ritual assumed that the Jews in this period would have been familiar with the wide-spread practice of acclamation, possessing a performative literacy. The variety of refrain structures in this literature is a good place to begin the study the intersection of acclama-tion structures and JPA poetry. Michael Rand spoke about ‘The Use of Aramaic in Classical (Byzantine-era) Palestinian Piyyut, and Beyond’, pointing out that Aramaic does some-times appear in classical piyyut, but there is no transparent pattern to predict when it does or does not appear. However, piyyut is a form of versified prayer, and since the language of prayer is predominantly Hebrew the absence of Aramaic can be explained more generally. The JPA poetry is not piy-yut. Finally, Eliav Grossman explored one of the possible contexts for the JPA poetry in his paper ‘Observations on the Relationship between JPA Poetry and Targumic Expansions’. He pointed out that several themes and images which seem to be specific to JPA poetry in fact also appear in Targumic expansions, sometimes in almost identical formulations.

Philip Alexander delivered the third keynote lecture, ‘The Study of the Targumim in the Early Modern Period, with par-ticular reference to Codex Neofiti and Pseudo-Jonathan to the Torah’. There is still no history of the textual transmis-sion of many targumic texts, especially between Late Antiq-uity and the invention of the printing press. There are some references to targumic manuscripts, not all of them cur-rently known (Azariah de Rossi saw two copies of TgPsJ, only one of which is known today, assuming it is identical with the one housed in the British Library). The Targum was a book that could be creatively transmitted, whereas we only have snapshots of its transmission. We do know that copies of Onqelos and Jonathan were brought back to Israel in the Geonic period, and that Onqelos was dominant, representing the Bible of the (Jewish) Aramaic world. Hence quotations of the Torah in Aramaic that are embedded within Targum Writings often use Targum Onqelos. There is, therefore, a need for regional studies of the manuscripts (Yemenite, Egyptian, Western, etc) and the function of the Targums, which would have differed by the area. Further details fol-lowed about established representatives of these areas. It

was pointed out that the ancient form of the text cannot be disentangled from its subsequent reception, with the open-ing of Targum Neofiti being a case in point (a Qabbalistic Tar-gum of Genesis 1?). The lecture was followed by a lively Q&A session about various aspects of textual transmission and the later reception of the Targums.

The eight session was opened by Craig Morrison, ‘Abra-ham and the Fires of Gehenna in the Palestinian Targums and the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16,19-31)’. This paper focused on the way early Christian and Jew-ish interpreters ascribed sometimes lengthy speeches to Abraham as an eschatological figure, by which means they express the theological interests of their particular commu-nities. Abraham is a tortured soul, wondering whether he’ll make the grade for beatific afterlife. Both traditions illumi-nate each other and extend the traditions of Abraham, and the targumic Abraham shares some characteristics with the Lukan one. Chris Brady analysed the translation of Lam. 1.15 in ‘“The Lord Has Trodden as in a Wine Press,” A Note Re-garding TgLam 1:15 and Isa. 63:3’. He made clear how sev-eral verses are brought into dialogue in this analysis, includ-ing Ezek. 36, and how the interpretation focuses on Edom, the colour and the wine-press. Finally, Eveline van Staaldu-ine-Sulman spoke about ‘The Reception of the Tenth Com-mandment’. The interpretation of the tenth commandment, which teaches not to be covetous, varies over the course of the centuries. Targum Neofiti and Pseudo-Jonathan add at least two points to the whole discussion, namely one con-cerning individual and joint responsibility to fulfil this com-mandment and one concerning the punishment or conse-quence in cases this commandment is violated. In the Q&A session, attention was drawn to the maginalia in Codex Neofiti, some of which features halakhic annotations, while others are similar in style to TgPsJ.

The fourth keynote lecture, and the final paper of the con-ference, was delivered by Paul V.M. Flesher: ‘Where did the Scripture Reader and the Scripture Translator Stand in An-cient Galilean Synagogues?’ In this archaeoacoustic study of the Galilean synagogues, the potential use of an object and the possible positioning of the reciter and the interpreter were discussed on the basis of the floor-plan of these syna-gogues. The difference between a raised bimah and an apse for the way a voice carries was discussed in detail. It

EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2017/18

REPORT

11th Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies

“Searching for the Roots of Jewish Traditions”

Kraków, Poland

15 July – 19 July 2018

The 11th Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies took place in Krakow. The main venue for the sessions was the Auditorium Maximum of the Jagiellonian University, and sessions were also conducted in lecture halls of the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Jagiellonian University, the Pedagogical University of Krakow, and the National Museum in Krakow. The proceedings were held in parallel in 22 rooms. The event was organised by the Institute for Jewish Studies of the Jagiellonian University and the Alef Foundation for Promotion of Jewish Studies. The theme of the Congress was “Searching for the Roots of Jewish Traditions”, which reminds us of the roles of Krakow, Lviv, and Galicia in the shaping of culture, traditions, and customs of Jewish peoples spanning the 18th and 20th centuries.

From the start, an immense number of scholars showed interest in the call for papers for the Congress, and at the close of the call 1,040 applications had been received. Of those, 735 papers were delivered during the Congress, and that number includes only those who were officially registered as individual or panel participants; the number does not include the dozens of papers presented (within the program) as part of the roundtables and workshops accompanying certain sections. One important innovation which made the program more appealing was an initiative of the Secretary of the EAJS, Dr. François Guesnet, supported by the Executive Committee; the announcement of a competition to distinguish the organisers of panels proposing innovative topics. There were two categories to the competition, one for professional researchers and the other for post-graduate students. The award was a special distinction in the Congress program for the selected panels – the EAJS Distinguished Panels and the EAJS Distinguished Graduate Student Panels – as well as the selected panel participants’ congress fees being covered by the EAJS. As a result of the selection committee’s deliberation, the following six panels received special distinction: “The Imprint of Exile: Three Historical Perspectives”; “From Cairo to Amsterdam: Hebrew Scrolls from the 10th to 18th Centuries”; “Rabbinate and Halakha in Italy between Innovation and Conservation (18th and 19th Centuries)”; and “The Trajectories and Transformations of Kabbalah in Early Modern Period II”; and as graduate student panels, “Jews in the European Labour Movement: Between Internationalism and the Nation-State in East and Central Europe during the 1920s”; and “Actors of Jewish Migrations from East Central Europe, 1870s-1930s”.

On the day of the close of the Congress, 779 people were registered on the list of participants (several of whom registered during the course of the Congress). In total, taking into account the large number of guests invited to take part in events both directly and indirectly related to the Congress, more than 800 people participated. At least 38 countries from all over the world were represented at the Congress by the participants. The largest representations were as follows: Israel (194 participants), Germany (113), Poland (111), the United States (67), the United Kingdom (45), France (28), Spain (19), the Netherlands (19) and Italy (19). There were also significant representations from Ukraine (18), Russia (10), and the Balkan countries (15).

The list of sessions and panel topics was arranged to include not only a broad cross-section of Jewish Studies, but to also take into account to a large extent issues covered under the motto of the Congress. As a result, the program consisted of 25 major thematic sessions and dozens of panels, roundtables and workshops:

1. Ancient Jewish History and Archaeology – 40 participants
2. Biblical Literature – 17
3. Talmud, Midrash and Rabbinics – 29
4. Medieval Jewish Thought – 23
5. Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History – 39
6. Medieval and Early Modern Jewish Literature – 47
7. Hebrew Manuscripts – 53
8. Modern Jewish History – 24
9. Contemporary Jewish History – 16
10. Jewish Mysticism – 30
11. Hasidism – 8
12. Modern Jewish Thought and Philosophy; Modern Judaism – 66
13. Modern Hebrew Literature – 16
14. Yiddish Literature – 17
15. Linguistics and Jewish Languages – 18
16. Jewish Culture and Arts – 52
17. Jewish History in Central-Eastern Europe – 48
18. South-eastern European Jewish History and Culture – 28
19. Polish-Jewish Heritage – 21
20. Holocaust Studies – 32
21. Libraries, Archives and New Technologies; History of the Book – 24
22. Jewish Museology – 31
23. Karaite Studies – 6
24. History and Culture of the State of Israel – 21
25. Jewish/non-Jewish Relations; anti-Semitism – 30

Some events accompanying the Congress took place before its official opening. The first of these, the roundtable “Teaching Jewish History and Culture at Universities: Exchange of Experiences and New Visions,” took place in the early afternoon of 15 July (the second part was on 19 July). Its organiser was Jurgita Verbickiene (Vilnius University, Lithaunia); this event was made possible thanks to the support of the German Stiftung ‘Verantwortung, Erinnerung, Zukunft’ (EVZ), Berlin. The aim of this roundtable of invited representatives from various European academic centres conducting Jewish studies was to discuss new programs and teaching methods, as part of ways of  guaranteeing and maintaining a high level and range of educational opportunities that will provide their graduates with various career options in the future. In addition to the invited guests, the meeting also drew a large group of Congress participants interested in its subject matter. The  subject of this roundtable was again addressed, although in a slightly different format, on 19 July, during another Congress event, namely the EAJS Forum: “Challenges and Perspectives for Teaching in Academic Jewish Studies”. This was chaired by Prof. Martin Goodman and Dr. François Guesnet.

The second event preceding the opening ceremony of the Congress was the opening of the exhibition, “The History of the Jews of Krakow: Sources from the collection of the National Archives in Krakow”. This exhibition, prepared by the National Archives in Krakow, together with its extensive catalogue, was aimed at acquainting the participants of the Congress with the history of the presence of Jews in Krakow through the prism of documents kept in the archives. The exhibition was opened by the director of the National Archives in Krakow, Prof. Wojciech Krawczuk.

The opening ceremony of the Congress began at 4:15 PM on 15 July in the Large Hall of the Auditorium Maximum. It commenced with a welcome from Prof. Edward Dąbrowa (President of the EAJS, 2014-2018, and Chair of the Organizing Committee). The next speaker was Dr. François Guesnet (Secretary of the EAJS, 2014-20180, on behalf of the Rector of the Jagiellonian University, Dean of the Faculty of History at the Jagiellonian University, Prof. Jan Święch. The second part of the ceremony was the Keynote Lecture, delivered by Prof. Antony Polonsky (Brandeis University / Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews): “Polish Statehood and the Jews: Reflections on the Centenary of Polish Independence”. After the lecture, participants and invited guests enjoyed a party sponsored by The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. The evening was devoted to a gala dinner at Krakow City Hall, attended by the Mayor of the City of Krakow, Jacek Majchrowski.

The scientific program of the Congress within individual thematic sections was implemented in accordance with the announced program from 16 to 19 July. In addition, a series of events took place during those days, addressed either to all participants or to selected groups. On 17 and 18 July, the EAJS Emerge forum took place. This was a forum for, and organised by, Student Members of the EAJS: Katha Grosse-Sommer (College for Jewish Studies, Heidelberg), Nethanel Treves (University of Bologna), and Rebekah Vince (University of Warwick). The EAJS Emerge forum consisted of brief presentations of the topics of doctoral dissertations prepared by young researchers from different countries, and discussions concerned with the academic careers of young researchers after obtaining a doctorate.

In addition to issues related to Jewish Studies programmes, their future, the topics of current doctoral dissertations, and academic careers of Jewish graduates, there was also a discussion related to the use of electronic tools in Jewish studies, and their usefulness as well as their limitations. This discussion took place during two meetings of the EAJS Digital Forum, on 16 July. The theme of the first meeting was “New Philologies: Hebrew Manuscript and Print Cultures in a Digital Key”, and the topic of the second meeting was “Humanities in the Mirror: Writing Jewish History in a Digital Key”. Both meetings aroused a great deal of interest, as evidenced by the presence of significant numbers of participants in each of them. This forum was prepared by Andrea Schatz (King’s College, London), and the detailed issues of Digital Humanities methods were expounded by a group of several researchers.

The “Jewish Studies in Krakow” session was addressed to all participants of the Congress (16 and 17 July). It consisted of one part devoted to academic studies carried out in the academic institutions of Krakow, and another concerning Jewish life and the place of Jewish culture in contemporary Krakow.

On 17 July, the EAJS General Meeting took place, which elected the new EAJS honorary officers for 2018-2022. The election of the honorary officers was preceded by the Keynote Lecture by Prof. Irene Zwiep (University of Amsterdam): “And Now for ‘Something’ Completely Different: Leopold Zunz and the Cultural Turn in Jewish Scholarship”.

The closing ceremonies of the Congress took place on the afternoon of 19 July. During the ceremony, Edward Dąbrowa, François Guesnet, Sarah Pearce (Secretary of EAJS 2018-2022), and Elisabeth Hollender (President of EAJS 2018-2022) took the floor. At the end of her speech, the new president of the EAJS extended an invitation to the 12th EAJS Congress, which will be in Frankfurt am Main.

In addition to these events, the 11th EAJS Congress was accompanied by a number of cultural events exclusively prepared for participants. One was the above-mentioned exhibition devoted to archives concerning the history of Jews in Krakow. Another event was “A Night in Kazimierz”, which took place during the evening of 16 July, in Kazimierz, a district of Krakow inextricably linked to the presence of Jewish people, in which the rich Jewish cultural heritage has survived to this day. Those participating in this event had the opportunity to become intimately acquainted with Kazimierz, visiting all of the seven preserved synagogues of the district, as well as institutions conducting social activities for the local Jewish community, and educational activities related to the propagation and research of Jewish history and cultural heritage (the Institute of Jewish Studies of the Jagiellonian University, the Galicia Jewish Museum, and the Jewish Community Centre). On the last day of the Congress (19 July), after the closing ceremony, all participants were invited to the National Museum in Krakow for the opening ceremony of the new permanent Jewish Art Gallery and the presentation of the catalogue of Judaica found in the collection of this museum. This collection is among the largest stored in Polish museums, and had not previously been made available to the public for many years; the 11th EAJS Congress provided the opportunity for the collection to once again see the light of day. The Gallery was created with the cooperation of the National Museum in Krakow, the Institute of Jewish Studies of the Jagiellonian University, and the Organizing Committee of the 11th EAJS Congress.

During the Congress, all participants bearing congress ID had the opportunity to visit all branches of the National Museum in Krakow and most of the branches of the Historical Museum of the City of Krakow, free of charge, as well as having free admission to the Polin Museum in Warsaw.

In the case of such a major scholarly event as the 11th EAJS Congress, it is difficult to give a detailed assessment of all the speeches presented during the event. There is no doubt, however, that during its course considerable amounts of new information and data was brought to the attention of a wide circle of researchers, which not only provided knowledge of new facts and events, but also opened new vistas of research. The popularity of some issues which arose in a number of the presentations indicates both an interest in new problems within the areas that have been studied for a long time, as well as a return to certain topics after a period of dormancy. However, this reflection should not be treated as a general remark referring to the broader context of Jewish studies, but rather as a characteristic feature of the Congress. The group of presentations worth mentioning includes a number of those from scholars from Eastern Europe and the Balkans, who based them on new, previously unavailable source materials, or presented events and forms not often present in the literature on the subject. It also behooves us to note the great contribution of young researchers to the Congress program. At the 10th EAJS Congress in Paris in 2014 their presence and activities were certainly noticed, and in the present edition even more so, thanks to the events in the Congress program which they organised, as well as their significant number of  speeches in individual thematic sessions and panels. This opinion is also based on the number of participants registered in this category, with 90 researchers under the age of 35, and 130 students. In percentage terms, the groups accounted for 28,25%  of the total number of participants. Such a large representation of young researchers was possible thanks to the financial and material support that the organisers of the Congress, with the help of sponsors, offered to this group of participants. It included a total of 32 people from different countries. This support covered the reimbursement of the fee, and partial or complete coverage of travel and accommodation costs. Regardless of the organisers’ resources, 16 participants of the Congress from Ukraine received financial support from the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter Foundation (Canada).

The 11th EAJS Congress was prepared by the Organizing Committee: Edward Dąbrowa (chairman), Przemysław Dec, Michał Galas, Edyta Gawron, Anna Jakimiszyn-Gadocha, Alicja Maślak-Maciejewska, Krzysztof Niweliński (secretary), Łukasz Sroka, Marek Tuszewicki, and Ewa Węgrzyn. The Honorary Patrons of the Congress were: Marshal of the Małopolska Region Jacek Krupa, Mayor of the City of Krakow Jacek Majchrowski, Rector of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow Prof. Wojciech Nowak, and Rector of the Pedagogical University in Krakow Prof. Kazimierz Karolczak. Organizing and conducting the Congress was possible thanks to the financial and material support of many Polish and foreign institutions: The Małopolska Region, the City of Krakow, the Faculty of History of the Jagiellonian University, the Foundation for Polish Sciences, the Polin Museum of History of Polish Jews, Taube Philanthropies, the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, the Association for the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland, the Global Education Outreach Program, Arizona State University, the EAJS, Pedagogical University of Krakow, National Museum in Krakow, National Archives in Krakow, Historical Museum of Krakow, Association of Cracovians in Israel, Galicia Jewish Museum, Austeria Publishing House, and the Jewish Religious Community in Krakow. The organisers are also indebted to  the help and commitment of many Polish and foreign colleagues who took on the tasks of assessing the submitted proposals and then organising individual sessions, panels, roundtables and workshops. The efforts of the employees of the Department of Communication and Marketing – Conferences of the Jagiellonian University were vital to the smooth running of the Congress. Their professionalism enabled effective and quick solutions to various organisational problems. The group of over a dozen dedicated volunteers was highly appreciated as well, as their presence and assistance during the Congress proved to be invaluable.

Report Author: Edward Dąbrowa (President of the EAJS 2014-2018  /  Chair of the Organising Committee)