Eleventh EAJS Summer Colloquium

Books within Books: New Discoveries in Old Book Bindings

18–20 July 2011, Wolfson College, Oxford

Convener: A. Lehnardt

The 2011 Summer Colloquium of the EAJS was held at Wolfson College, Oxford from July 18th – 20th 2011. This year’s colloquium was an occasion – after the colloquium in Mainz in 2007 – to bring together researchers dealing with Hebrew manuscripts fragments and Hebrew documents found in old book bindings all over Europe. These new materials encourage new studies of palaeographical and codicological material, philological studies of rare or autographic texts, lexicography, as well as comparative studies and historical analyses based on rare documents.

The keynote lectures took place on the first evening. In his introductory address, “Ginze Europe – The state of Research and new Developments,” Prof. Dr Andreas Lehnardt (Mainz) recalled the beginning of the European Genizah Project as a network of European researchers and presented a short survey of his recent research in Germany concerning fragments through the Genizat Germania Project, as well as several new discoveries including a marriage contract from Italy from the end of the 16th century and of great importance for historical research. This was followed by a paper titled “Carta pecudina literis hebraicis scripta. The Awareness of the Binding Hebrew Fragments in History: An Overview and a Plaidoyer,” presented by Dr Saverio Campanini (Paris), wherein he traced the concept of dealing with Hebrew Fragments in Europe, mainly in Germany. In addition to reviewing his introduction to Andreas Lehnardt’s volume Genizat Germania (2010), he pointed out that while a history of research on fragments indeed exists, this research was conducted mainly by amateurs rather than scholars using self-reflective methods.

The first full day of the conference started with a paper on “Ginze Yerushalayim – Hebrew Binding fragments in the Jewish National Library Jerusalem,” by Dr Abraham David (Jerusalem). He presented a remarkable overview of the collection of fragments held at the JNUL, especially from Yemenite Bindings, underlining the importance of these discoveries, which include letters of Isaac Luria (16th century). Most of these fragments were not known even to researchers who worked for years on the complete manuscripts in this institution. In his paper “The first Autograph of the Tosaphists from the European Genizah,” Prof. Dr Simha Emanuel (Jerusalem) argued for the importance of research on medieval autographic texts. He presented a fragment from Austria of a text written by R. David, brother of Judah ben Qalonymos of Speyer (Tossafist), from the end of the 13th century – surely a highlight among the recent discoveries in Austria. Dr Pinhas Roth (Jerusalem) presented “Fragments of Medieval Halakhic Works in Girona,” emphasizing features of the discoveries related to the Halakhic discussions on Excommunication which took place in Provence, with a special interests on scholars from Digne and Manosque (11th-14th centuries). Then, in a paper titled “Reconstruction of a Sefer Haftarot from the Rhine Valley,” Dr Judith Kogel (Paris) proposed a codicological analysis based on medieval Ashkenazic codices and fragments (kept in Parma and Strasbourg) in order to determine when the Sefer Haftarot appeared as separate works or as a part of a codex which includes Pentateuch, Megillah, and Haftarot. In his paper “Rare fragments from Yemen” Dr Michael Krupp (Jerusalem) presented a wide panel of fragments coming from Yemenite Book Bindings in his private collection; a number of Sephardic and Italian fragments had been discovered in his collection and were discussed at the Colloquium for the first time.

In her presentation “A list of books discovered in Munich specimens,” Dr Elodie Attia (Mainz) focused on new materials from Munich, especially a list of books from southern France. She reconstructed its origin (Provence – Comtat Venaissin) and its date (probably 14th century) according to other documents from southern France that came from the same book binding. In a paper titled “The newly found Hebrew fragments in the Russian State Library,” Dr Alina Lisitsina (Moscow) presented news about discoveries in Moscow, and presented the identification of various fragments from the Russian National Library, among them a hitherto unknown leaf of Midrash Tanhuma (Buber). The work in progress is of great importance to the European Genizah. In his paper “Diagnostics and chemical analysis as interpretative skills for manuscripts,” Luca Baraldi (Modena) argued for the use of chemical techniques and scientific analyses in order to improve the interpretation of manuscripts. In a paper titled “Hebrew Fragments in a Regional Perspective: Reconstructing the Book Culture of Jews in Medieval Moravia,” Dr Tamas Visi (Olomouc) reconstructed the cultural particularism of the Jews of Moravia, showing preservation of more traditional texts than in other places in Central Europe. In her paper “Economic Hebrew Fragments of Arxiu Històric de Girona,” Dr Esperança Valls (Gerona) underlined the importance of several unedited documents from Girona, especially those provided by pinqassim. These new documents offer insights into local economic aspects and legal proceedings of the Bet-Din in the Catalan 14th century; they are also of great importance for historical researches. Finally, Prof. Dr Marta Keil (St. Pölten) invited us, in a paper titled “Fragments as Objects: Medieval Austrian Fragments in the Jewish Museum Vienna,” to consider the material aspects and contexts of the fragments, presenting them as “objects” through a virtual visit to the Jewish Museum of Vienna.

On the second day of the colloquium, Prof. Mauro Perani (Ravenna) started by discussing “Documents on Jewish Economic Activity in the 14th-16th centuries from the Italian Genizah,” presenting cultural and historical materials that included documentary sources (such as registers, account books and contracts) concerning Italian Jews from the 13th to 16th centuries. In his paper “Specimens of Jewish Deathbed Bequests (15th C. Spain),” Dr Javier Castaño (Madrid) presented researches in Navarra (Northern Spain), and underlined the diversity of the documentary sources he found (13th to late 15th century) as well as the notarial Jewish culture that can be analysed from Wills. In her pioneering paper “Hebrew Manuscript Fragments in Switzerland,” Justine Isserles (Geneva) proposed a preliminary overview of new medieval fragments kept in Switzerland (Bibles with Targum, Mahzorim, Haggadot, Piyyutim). Dr Saskia Dönitz (Berlin) discussed in her “‘With two letters two worlds were created’ – A fragment on the Hebrew letters from Genizat Germania” the possibility of the reconstruction of an unknown commentary of Menahem ben Shlomo, kept among the long known fragments of the Staatsbibliothek of Berlin, a fragment previously discussed by M. Steinschneider in his catalogue. Finally, Prof. Dr J. Olszowy- Schlanger (Paris), in a paper titled “Fragments of Jewish-Christian relations: the Alpha Beta de Ben Sira of Durham,” traced how a fragment produced by a Christian Hebraist of the 13th century can shed new light on Jewish and Hebrew knowledge in mediaeval England, according to the analysis of the superscriptio’s ductus.

A final plenary discussion considered further developments, including the opening of the BwB Database (http://www.hebrewmanuscript.com). The research group, composed of doctoral and post-doctoral students as well as advanced researchers, is currently focussing, on the one hand, on Book History and Culture, and on the other, on documentary historical sources providing fresh evidence of Medieval Jewish Communities all over Europe. These two aspects are both of great importance. In addition, these discoveries raise many questions about the transmission of texts and documents more generally. Hebrew codicology, palaeographical analyses and material features are, consequently, of greater importance. If the text is transmitted by a vehicle (incunabula, printed book, etc.), this should also be taken into account. In future research, more attention should be paid to the history of research itself, as well as to the non-Jewish languages that refer to local dialects (Catalan, Provençal, Franco-German, Central European area). They all demonstrate the usefulness of Hebrew fragments found in Europe for shedding new light on Jewish Culture as well as on local Jewish reality in the Christian realm.

The 2009 Summer Colloquium of the EAJS was held at Wolfson College, Oxford from 6 to 9 July 2009. This year’s colloquium was an occasion to bring together historians and philologists who work on medieval manuscripts in Hebrew script, from both the Christian and Islamic worlds. Our starting point was the recognition that scholars who work with medieval manuscripts from the points of view of paleography, codicology, language and content make a vital contribution to the discipline of history; similarly, historians’ work in analyzing events and their complex temporalities is indispensible to the study of textual production and the survival of textual evidence. Yet philologists and historians seldom have opportunities to discuss their shared concerns and the methodological problems related to them. The program included three keynote lectures, sixteen shorter presentations, and plenary and small-group discussions. A particular highlight was an on-site working group in the Bodleian Library, in which participants presented original manuscript materials on which they have conducted research.

The keynote lectures took place over the course of three evenings. Malachi Beit-Arié (Hebrew University) argued that the initiative for writing, consuming, and storing Hebrew manuscripts came from individuals, not institutions. The majority of manuscripts were user-produced, and this affected transmission, multiplying opportunities for errors and emendations. The implications of this are far-reaching for textual editing, calling into question the very basis of Lachmannian textual criticism. In discussion, some raised the objection that prestigious texts such as Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed that were canonized at an early stage of their history show a narrow range of variant readings; research into the vertical relationship among manuscripts cannot be dismissed as useless a priori.

The second keynote was delivered by Haggai Ben-Shammai (Hebrew University), who discussed the marginalia of literary manuscripts as a historical source. Inscriptions and dedications reveal a great deal not only about manuscripts’ history, but also about the contexts in which they were produced and consumed. Many books were in fact stored in institutions such as synagogue libraries, as inscriptions on biblical manuscripts such as the Aleppo Codex attest.

The third keynote was delivered by Joseph Shatzmiller (Duke University), who discussed the various genres of medieval manuscripts that are useful for writing history, including chronicles, rabbinic letters, and responsa. The latter in particular occupy a place in writing the history of Jews in the Latin west comparable to the Geniza documents for Jews under Islamic rule. Since responsa were sent to Jewish courts rather than individuals, they too offer insight into the social and institutional structures of Jewish textual consumption.

The first day of the conference was devoted to “Manuscript Production, Transmission and Circulation,” and included seven presentations. In a paper called “The Passion for Books and Its Social Significance as Illustrated in Geniza Correspondence,” Miriam Frenkel (Ben-Zvi Institute and Hebrew University) discussed the social contexts in which books were commissioned, bought, sold, traded, and pawned. Lucia Raspe (Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität), in a paper called “The Legacy of Medieval Ashkenaz in Italian Manuscripts,” argued for the dependence of manuscript traditions on the mobility and continuity of the groups doing the transmitting, focusing in particular on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century minhag books.In “What Hebrew Bibles Tell about Themselves: the Case of MSS Héb. 15 and 21 from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France” Javier del Barco del Barco (CSIC) traced the paths that various books and their authors and owners took, as well as evidence of patronage and commissioning, by examining the colophons of various bible manuscripts. Ofer Elior (Ben Gurion University), in a paper called “Manuscripts’ Role in Studying the Later History of a Medieval Book: The Case of Ruah Hen,” presented an example of a manuscript tradition with a very wide chronological range and numerous variants; one criterion for ordering them, he suggested, would be to look for recensions or variants that attest to particular geographic or social environments. Finally, in a paper called “A Jewish Targum in a Christian World: Targum Samuel in Sepharad,” Johanna Tanja (Protestant Theological University, the Netherlands) presented the textual and codicological differences between Christian European and Islamic Levantine manuscripts of the Aramaic translation of the books of Samuel.

The panel “Jewish Books in a Christian World” opened with a paper by Ursula Ragacs (Universität Wien), “From Manuscript to Film: Hyam Maccoby and The Disputation,” in which she presented modern scholarship on Nahmanides’ account of the disputation of Barcelona of 1263 and her research on the transmission of the text. Piet van Boxel (University of Oxford), in “The Unicorn of Ferrara: Symbol of Power and Peace,” discussed the iconography of the unicorn from late antiquity to the Italian Renaissance, its christological significance, and its appearance among the extraordinarily rich miniatures in the Ferrarese Hebrew Bible Bodl. Can Or. 62. The illuminator of this Bible was Christian; his Jewish patron accepted the inclusion of a unicorn among the illustrations, perhaps reading it as a mere decorative motif.

A panel on the “Transmission of Non-Literary Texts” included two papers on Jewish amulets. The first, “The Secret Life of Spells: From Late Antique Palestine to Modern Kurdistan” by Gideon Bohak (Tel Aviv University), traced the development of an erotic spell over the course of fourteen centuries—a remarkable example of the continuity of a non-canonical text produced and transmitted entirely by individuals free from institutional intervention or support. Emma Abate (Università di Roma La Sapienza), in her paper “Studies on Hebrew Amulets from the Alliance Israelite Universelle’s Geniza Collection,” presented a range of texts from this Geniza collection and also discussed when kabbalistic terminology began to influence the tradition of Jewish amulets.

A panel on “The Social Contexts of Textual Production and Consumption” opened with a paper by Israel Sandman (University College London), “The Quality of Italian Transmission of Sephardic Learning: Associations of Copyists?” Sandman noted the extraordinarily high level of textual fidelity and understanding in some Italian copies of Sephardi manuscripts from the 13^th-16^th centuries. He asked whether there may have been scribal associations, formal or informal, made up either of scribes in close association or masters and disciples. Elodie Attia (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris), in a paper called “How Were Hebrew Texts Read by Jews during the Renaissance? Some Observations about Hebrew Manuscripts of the 16th Century,” discussed twenty-three manuscript copied by Raphaël Salomon ha-Kohen da Prato, paying particular attention to their annotations in terms of their form, mise-en-page, and mise-en-texte.

A panel on “Transmission of Scientific and Technical Knowledge” included a presentation by Sacha Stern (University College London) tracing Jewish calendars in medieval manuscripts that do not otherwise focus on the calendar. Stern interpreted these difficult texts as evidence of relatively independent calendars that veered from the official rabbinic calendar; they represented either errors or non-normative halakhic assumptions that copyists made either consciously or unconsciously, and they may have led to practical divergences in the Jewish calendar as late as the fifteenth century. Ilana Wartenberg (University College London), in a paper called “The Medieval Hebrew Mathematical Bookshelf,” focused on the work of Yishaq ben Shelomo ibn al-Ahdab, a Jewish mathematician of fourteenth-century Syracuse, originally from Castile. The final panel, on “The Interaction of Textual and Lived Traditions,” began with Ronny Vollandt (Cambridge University) and a paper entitled “What Happens to a Jewish Text When Leaving the Community Boundaries?” Vollandt discussed the remarkably long shelf-life and wide geographic range of Seadya Gaon’s Judaeo-Arabic translation of the Bible, which migrated into Qaraite, Coptic, and Syrian Orthodox biblical traditions, and even into the Paris Polyglot. Mark Cohen (Princeton University) closed the panels with a paper called “Commercial Law in Maimonides’ Code of Jewish Law: The View from the Cairo Geniza,” in which he argued that Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, ostensibly a summary of Jewish law rather than an innovative work, in fact diverges considerably from previous precedents. In passages on commercial law, those divergences can be explained as perfectly logical in the context of the commercial practices evidenced in the documents of the Cairo Geniza.

The colloquium closed with a final plenary discussion in which the participants debated whether the traditional Lachmannian method of genealogical reconstruction should be maintained as a working hypothesis in the study of Hebrew-script manuscripts. Should philologists study texts or manuscripts—that is, reconstruct texts that are “more true than what is attested” (Gianfranco Contini) or focus on the phenomenology of the text, explaining each divergence as the product of particular historical context? The central problem is how to define the object of philological study: the first approach is author-oriented, while the second is scribe-oriented. Each assumes modern definitions of “text,” “author,” “copy,” and “copyist” that one cannot presume hold valid for the practices of the Jewish Middle Ages. We closed the conference with the decision to continue the discussion in other forums, both in person and on-line, and we immediately established a new listserv devoted to discussing medieval Jewish manuscripts (http://groups.google.com/group/mss-and-history-in-the-jewish-middle-ages).

Colloquium of the EAJS

‘Hebrew Linguistic Thought and its transmission in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times’

7-9 July 2008, Oxford, Wolfson College

Convenor: Judith Olszowy-Schlanger

The 2008 Summer Colloquium of the EAJS was held at Wolfson College, Oxford, from 7 to 9 July 2008, with the generous support from the Rothschild Foundation Europe. The theme of this year’s colloquium was the recent developments in the study of the history of Hebrew linguistic ideas prior to the modern Hebrew ‘renaissance’, with the emphasis on the transmission of linguistic ideas through time and space among different Jewish communities, but also between Jews and their Arab and Christian neighbours. Hebrew grammar and lexicography were studied as a meeting point between different cultures and religious currents. A particular place was given to the question of the production of ‘linguistic tools’ (that is books conceived to facilitate language learning) and on pedagogical methods used in teaching, both private and institutionalized, throughout the centuries.

History of Hebrew grammatical tradition has held an important place in Jewish Studies from its 19^th century inception, but it is in the last two or three decades that we have witnessed a remarkable resurgence of scholarly interest in the field. The history of medieval Hebrew linguistics received a fresh impetus following the renewal of interest in original manuscripts, and notably from important discoveries made in the Firkovitch and Cairo Genizah collections. Christian Hebraism for its part is often studied with regards to its role in the shaping of European modern. However, despite these recent developments, scholars work in isolation, there are no international venues devoted specifically to the history of Hebrew linguistics in its various aspects and periods. As well, the discipline still lacks basic research tools, such as an exhaustive bibliography of the field, or a complete inventory of linguistic manuscripts and early printed books. This year’s colloquium offered the scholars working on the history of Hebrew grammar and linguistics in different periods and cultural contexts an opportunity to echange ideas and elaborate common methodological approches to the analysis of the sources.

The conference started with a key-note speech by Geoffrey Khan, University of Cambridge, who gave an overview of the ‘Karaite medieval tradition of Hebrew grammar’ with a focus on the discovery of previously unknown texts in the collections of Oriental manuscripts, namely in Firkovitch collections in St. Petersburg and in various collections emanating from the Cairo Genizah. Karaite grammar was also the subject of the paper ‘A Karaite paedagogical grammar of biblical Hebrew’ of Nadia Vidro, University of Cambridge, who focused on the ‘alamat (symbols) system of verb description and its role in the teaching of grammar. Maria Angeles Gallego, CSIC, Madrid, dealth with some aspects of the Karaite approach to the origins and nature of language, in her paper ‘Linguistic conventions in the thought of Abû al-Faraj Hârûn ibn al-Faraj’. The so-called classical Spanish school of Hebrew grammar also benefitted in recent years from a number of new discoveries. Mauro Perani, University of Bologne, presented the ‘Fagments of linguistic works in the so-called ‘Italian Genizah’, and notably some manuscripts fragments of previously unknown Hebrew translations of the Arabic works of Jonah ibn Janah. Jose Matinez Delgado, University of Granada, analysed ‘Morphology versus meaning: biblical mixed roots and the Andalusian Hebrew lexicographical theories’, in the light of newly discovered manuscripts. The work on manuscripts inspired Judith Kogel, IRHT, Paris, to review the Hebrew grammatical terminology, and to use it to reconstruct the history of the grammatical thought. She presented her project in her paper: ‘Towards a “mapping” of the Hebrew grammatical terminology of the Middle Ages: a history of transmission’. Since the Middle Ages, Hebrew grammar was not an exclusive domain of Jewish scholars. Early on, Christian scholars in Western Europe realised the importance of the knowledge of the Hebrew language for their quest of the original text of the Bible. Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, EPHE, IRHT,Paris, presented a newly discovered ‘Christian grammar of Hebrew in a thirteenth-century manuscript’. In a similar vein, Marco Bertagna, Ca’ Foscari, Venice/EPHE, Paris, studied fifteeth-century Christian annotations on a manuscript of the dictionary by Salomon ibn Parhon, in his paper ‘The Latin and Hebrew notes to the Mahberet he-‘Arukh in the MS Or. 221 of the Biblioteca Marciana (Venice)’. From the sixteenth century onwards, the engagement of Christian scholars in the study of Hebrew grammar is essential. Sophie Mesguisch-Kessler, University Paris III, gave a key-note speech on the major issues of the Christian hebraism of the Renaissance. Saverio Campanini, University of Bologne/Freie Universität, Berlin, analysed the importance of the Hebrew studies for ‘The quest for the holiest alphabet in the Renaissance’. The interaction between Christian and Hebrew linguistic ideas were discussed in the paper of Silvia di Donato, Ca’ Foscari, Venice, entitled ‘Philosophical elements in Miqneh Avram of Abraham de Balmes’ and of Jesus de Prado Plumed, University Complutense, Madrid/EPHE, Paris: ‘Quorum primus est demodo legendi & pronunciandi: teaching Hebrew phonetics in Early Modern Spain’. Irene Zwiep, University of Amsterdam, introduced us into a hitherto unknown fascinating world of Hebrew learning among Yiddish speaking Jews in the Netherlands, in her paper ‘Mafteah leshon ha-qodesh: a Hebrew grammar in Yiddish and Jewish-Christian hebraism in eighteenth-century Europe’. The last session included three papers dealing with a practical application of linguistic ideas in the field of exegesis, translation and word creation. Karolien Vermeulen, University of Antwerp, spoke about the use of exegetical figures in rabbinic literature, in her paper ‘When the Goyim’s game grow into grammar: on the transmission of ‘paronomasia”. Ronny Vollandt, University of Cambridge, shared with us some of his recent discoveries concerning the translation of the Pentateuch into Arabic, in ‘Some observations on early Judaeo-Arabic translation fragments of the Pentateuch from the Genizah: Rabbanite versus Karaite tradition’. Ilana Wartenberg, Paideia, Stockholm, spoke about the transmission of Arabic scientfic literature into Hebrew and the need to coin new terminology, in ‘The naissance of the medieval Hebrew mathematical language’.

The main aim of the colloquium: the fruitful discussion between scholars dealing with history of Hebrew linguistic ideas in different periods was clearly achieved. All the participants agreed that the coherence of the approaches and the importance of the research questions dealt with during the colloquium deserve a wider circulation. Publication of the proceedings of the colloquium has been scheduled for 2009.

The Cultures of Maimonideanism: New Approaches to the History of Jewish Thought

8th EAJS Summer Colloquium, Wolfson College, Oxford, July 16th to 19th, 2007

The 2007 EAJS Summer Colloquium convened at Oxford, Wolfson College, from July 16 to 19. It was organized by Gad Freudenthal (CNRS, Paris) and James Robinson (University of Chicago), and was attended by twenty-two scholars from Europe, Israel and the United States. We were also fortunate to have one local participant, the poet Philip Kuhn, who read from his kaddish poems on Maimonides – the man and his image.

The colloquium opened with brief remarks by Gad Freudenthal, who emphasized the therapeutic qualities of the Master Guide. Frank Griffel (Yale University) followed with a look at Maimonidean rationalism and ideas of enlightenment in the context of the Islamic-Arabic world, with special reference to al-Ghazali. All other lectures focused on reception and adaptation in later centuries. The presentations are given here in the order of the Colloquium:

Haim Kreisel (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), “Maimonideanism in Medieval Provence: Levi ben Avraham’s Approach to the Torah”; Judah Galinsky (Bar-Ilan University), “Rabbi Moshe of Coucy – Maimonidean or Anti-Maimonidean? Remarks on Sefer Misvot Gadol and the Reception of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah in Northern France”; Jonathan Dauber (Yeshiva University), “Early Kabbalah as a Culture of Maimonideanism”; Tamás Visi (Kabinet Judaistiky, Palacky University, Olomouc), “Maimonideanism in the Early Ibn Ezra Supercommentaries”; Maud N. Kozodoy (The Jewish Theological Seminary), “No Perpetual Enemies: Maimonideanism at the Beginning of the Fifteenth Century”; Abraham Melamed (The University of Haifa), “Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles: From Elite to Popular Culture”; Yaacob Dweck (Princeton University), “Maimonideanism in Leon Modena”; Mor Altshuler (Carmey Yosef), “R. Joseph Karo — a Sixteenth-Century Maimonidean”; Uri Melammed (The Hebrew University, The Hebrew Language Academy), “Maimonideanism in Yemen”; Abraham Socher (Oberlin College), “The Spectre of Maimonidean Radicalism in the German Haskalah”; Andrea Schatz (Princeton University), “The ‘Guide’ with the ‘Strong Hand’: The Early Maskilim and Maimonides, the Talmudist”; George Kohler (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), “The Rediscovery of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed by German Scholars in the 19th Century”; Menachem Kellner (The University of Haifa), “Which Maimonides? Varieties of Maimonides Readings in the ‘Lithuanian Yeshiva Movement’”; Dov Schwartz (Bar-Ilan University), “Maimonides in the Religious Zionist Tradition”; Michah Gottlieb (New York University), “Varieties of Anti-Maimonideanism”; Hanoch Ben-Pazi (Bar-Ilan University), “Eros Within the Limits of Mere Reason. Or: On the Maimonidean Limits of Modern Jewish Philosophy”; Benjamin Wurgaft (University of California, Berkeley), “The Uses of Maimonides in Modern Jewish Thought: from Solomon Maimon to Strauss and Levinas.”

In addition to the formal papers – each given an hour so that ideas could be developed in full – responses were given and discussions led by Görge Hasselhoff (Ruhr University, Bochum) and Roberto Gatti (University of Genoa). James Robinson offered concluding remarks which were followed by a round-table discussion. All agreed that the Colloquium was a great success and that a shift in scholarship is long overdue – from Maimonides himself to the many ideas, movements, traditions and mentalities that he inspired.

The Colloquium proceedings have been published in Supplements to The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy Volume 9, 2009 (online: http://www.jewish-studies.info/files/maimonidesbrill.pdf)

James Robinson, University of Chicago

Gad Freudenthal, CNRS, Paris

The Teaching of Hebrew in European Universities

7th EAJS Summer Colloquium, Yarnton Manor, 18th to 20th July 2005

The 2005 Summer Colloquium, held at Yarnton Manor near Oxford, from 18 to 20 July, with generous assistance from the British Academy, was devoted to the question of the teaching of Hebrew in European universities. While a number of papers addressed aspects of the Hebrew language and its teaching, participants also discussed the present state of Hebrew in European universities. It very soon emerged that this is a timely, indeed urgent, subject for discussion. Speaker after a speaker painted a bleak picture of rapid and dramatic decline in the range and depth of Hebrew study available to students in different European countries (the sole exception being France). While not all European countries were represented at the Colloquium, there was no reason to suppose that the picture would be significantly different in the others.

Summaries of the various papers are given below, but the urgent concerns voiced at the colloquium demand to be given prominence at the outset of this report. The steep decline in Hebrew teaching was attributed not to a lack of interest but to reforms of university education, mainly stemming from the Bologna Accord, and to a funding crisis. Given the central place of Hebrew within Jewish Studies, the following manifesto was agreed by those present:

“We consider the teaching of Hebrew to be necessary for many central aspects of Jewish Studies, and therefore we call on the membership of the European Association of Jewish Studies to do all they can to ensure that in each country in Europe there is at least one centre where Hebrew is taught in depth.”

I shall come back to this manifesto at the end of my report. I have placed the text at the beginning to ensure maximum publicity and in the hope of stimulating an active debate and indeed some action.

The colloquium coincided with the publication by Peeters (Leuven) of the volume Jewish Studies and the European Academic World, edited by Albert van der Heide and Irene Zwiep, and containing the plenary lectures read at the VIIth Congress of EAJS in Amsterdam, July 2002. Albert van der Heide presented copies of the book to the three contributors present (Angel Sáenz-Badillos, Mauro Perani and Nicholas de Lange); the lectures contain a good deal of information about Hebrew teaching that is relevant to the discussions of the colloquium.

Turning now to the papers read at the colloquium, Mauro Perani (University of Bologna at Ravenna) began the proceedings with an illustrated lecture on “The Italian Geniza”, the name given to the extraordinarily rich discoveries of Hebrew manuscript materials reused in book bindings, mainly of notarial registers and cartularies of the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Over 8000 fragments had been discovered so far.

Mauro Perani also delivered a paper on “The teaching of Hebrew language in Italy: Bible versus Judaism”. After the Council of Trent the study of the Hebrew Bible was opposed by the Catholic Church, and Hebrew largely disappeared from the universities and from Italian culture for some four centuries. Such Hebrew study as existed in the universities during this period was limited to biblical exegesis, and was cut off from Jewish studies. In the 19th century, following the First Vatican Council, the faculties of theology within public universities were abolished and theological study was henceforth confined to religious seminaries. As for Jewish scholars, they were expelled from the educational system under the 1938 Fascist racial laws, and so the remaining link between Hebrew and Jewish studies was severed. From the 1960s and the Second Vatican Council, however, the climate changed again, and there was a dramatic upsurge of interest in Judaism, leading to a strong revival of interest in Hebrew finding exaggerated expression in what the speaker called the ebraico-latria of some ‘interlinear’ Italian translations of the Old Testament, embodying such calqued phrases as ‘sacerdotare’ or ‘nell’osso di questo giorno’ (‘in the bone of this day’ rendering be-etzem ha-yom ha-zeh).

After a period of renewal and expansion, Hebrew study is threatened again by the recent reform of the university system. Hebrew is only present in the undergraduate programme in the course ‘L-Or/08’, which contains Hebrew language and literature and every form of Jewish culture from the beginning to the present day. This course is taught in thirteen universities; however in only two of these (Turin and Venice) does the presence of a team of teachers allow students to follow an articulated curriculum including Rabbinic Hebrew. Seven universities teach Modern Hebrew with the help of native speakers. The new credit system marks a serious impoverishment: whereas previously pupils studied Hebrew for three hours a week over a whole year, a credit now represents 6 hours of study, so that a pupil with five credits in Hebrew will only have had 30 hours of teaching. Professor Perani mentioned plans for a new Masters qualification on the conservation and evaluation of the Jewish cultural heritage, to be taught in Italian and English at the Ravenna branch of the University of Bologna.

W.J. van Bekkum (Groningen), in his presentation entitled “The drama of Hebrew Studies in modern European society: the case of the Netherlands”, discussed the dangers facing Jewish studies in the Netherlands and in Europe generally. The speaker singled out problems over funding, and the difficulty of finding an adequate definition of Jewish studies within the local academic context. On the credit side, a growing interest within Dutch society in Islamic and Arabic issues could potentially provide an opportunity to expand the teaching of Judaism.

In the first of the two keynote lectures Ora Schwarzwald (Bar Ilan) spoke of “The linguistic unity of Hebrew: Colloquial trends and academic needs”. She began by sketching briefly the different periods of Hebrew, and considering the place of earlier phases of the language, particularly Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew, in Modern Hebrew, as well as the input of foreign languages such as Arabic and English. After discussing in detail some linguistic features of Modern Hebrew, Professor Schwarzwald commented on the prevalence of so-called ‘thin’ or impoverished language (lashon razah) in Israel today, which she explained with reference to a number of factors: a feeling of power after the 1967 war; American influence; television; secularization; and changing educational programmes and methods. She went on to discuss two approaches to language teaching, the ‘textual’ and the ‘communicative-pragmatic’ methods. The prevalence of the latter contributes to the impoverishment of the language and to a poor knowledge of the classical Hebrew sources. Hebrew has also lost its previous dominance in Jewish studies: a comparison of periodical articles listed in 1970 and in 2000 shows that whereas in 1970 42% of articles were in Hebrew and 33% were in English, in 2000 the respective figures were 24% and 48%. Professor Schwarzwald concluded her presentation with some instructive and entertaining examples of contemporary spoken and written Hebrew.

Yishai Neuman (INALCO, Paris), in his paper “A lexically creative approach to the teaching of Modern Hebrew as a foreign language”, explained a method of teaching Hebrew grammar that he has been developing. Hebrew’s morpho-syntax and morpho-semantics are much more transparent in Modern Hebrew than they were in pre-modern Hebrew. Modern Hebrew, because of its greater morphological regularity, should be used to facilitate the acquisition of lexicon, in preference to Biblical Hebrew, which is still the starting-point for many students because of the orientation of many of the teachers.

A discussion on European issues in the university teaching of Hebrew was dominated by the bleak picture painted by Mauro Perani, confirmed for Spain by Angel Sáenz-Badillos (Complutensian University, Cambridge, Mass.). Semitic philology, he explained, which had previously brought Hebrew and Arabic together under the same roof, had now been divided up, and the valuable link with Arabic had been lost. Meanwhile Modern Hebrew was being weakened since, for budgetary reasons, lecturers were no longer brought from Israel. A link with comparative religion has not solved any internal problems, and numbers are threatened by a shortage of employment opportunities for graduates. The greatest concentration is in Madrid, with five full and five associate professors. Granada has four associate professors. Most of the four Semitics professors in Barcelona are working on other Semitic languages, not directly on Hebrew, and in Salamanca both professors who teach Hebrew are historians. The state-funded research institute CSIC does not provide teaching, but conducts high-level research, including biblical Greek and Judaeo-Spanish. The Bologna Accord imposes a move of Hebrew away from a Jewish Studies major towards Asian languages, where it will probably attract fewer students and will be cut off from the Jewish cultural context.

The Dutch situation was reconsidered, and some positive points were tentatively put forward. The watering down of subjects could potentially be an opportunity to introduce more students to some elements of Hebrew and Jewish studies. Even if there is a lowering of standards at BA level under the Bologna system, the MA is more specialised (although it is hard to introduce a language at this stage)

Nicholas de Lange (Cambridge) sketched the position in the United Kingdom. While a number of universities have introduced courses or even centres of Jewish studies, most of these do not offer Hebrew language. This is clearly deeply unsatisfactory. In London, SOAS offers only Modern Hebrew, taught by a lector; University College, the only British university to have a department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, teaches Biblical, Rabbinic and Modern Hebrew. Outside London, only Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester offer the full range of periods of Hebrew. All British universities that teach Hebrew rely on very limited state funding or private benefactions, and the outlook does not look very bright.

Sonia Barzilay (Paris 8, Centre National de l’Hébreu) gave a much more rosy account of the situation in France, the one European country where there is still a large and thriving Jewish community. Jewish children study Hebrew either in private Jewish schools or (in the case of state school pupils) at Talmud Tora. Hebrew is available as one among a choice of foreign languages in schools, and is examined in the baccalauréat, and indeed in the competitive examinations for teachers, the CAPES and agrégation. Several universities and theological colleges (whose degrees are recognised as the equivalent of a university degree) teach courses in Hebrew, and in addition a Modern Hebrew is offered in a number of others. There is a significant student demand for Modern Hebrew.

It was agreed that the brief sentence on European universities in the article on Hebrew language in the recent Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies edited by Martin Goodman did not do justice to the subject, and several participants felt that there should be a “European Handbook” in which the specifically European dimensions of Hebrew and Jewish studies could be presented.

In a session devoted to Modern Hebrew literature Albert van der Heide (Amsterdam) spoke on “Agnon in class. Revisions and the development of modern literary Hebrew”. Taking examples from Agnon’s own revisions of his work in successive editions, he showed how the changes could be used to teach about the nuances of the language. Glenda Abramson (Oxford), in “Language and intimation in Mul Haya‘arot by A. B. Yehoshua”, demonstrated some ways in which close study of the vocabulary of a literary text (in this case particularly words indicating fire, flame, burning, etc.) could be used to enhance the teaching of the language. She also gave other examples of works in which the authors’ linguistic games and devices have proved helpful in the selection of literary texts for study, particularly for beginner students, without sacrificing the texts’ aesthetic principles.

In the second Keynote Lecture, Angel Sáenz-Badillos spoke on “The teaching of Hebrew language in Europe and America: a comparative approach”. Professor Sáenz-Badillos described courses and resources at sixteen American universities known for their Hebrew or Jewish studies teaching. Almost none had a department of Hebrew: Hebrew was mainly taught in the context of Near Eastern Language and Civilization or Near Eastern Studies. With just a few exceptions, Hebrew was not taught as a Semitic language, or from a linguistic or philological viewpoint, but as a tool for the understanding of texts. It was generally accepted that texts could be adequately studied in translation, with study of the original reserved for specialists. There was a clear focus either on Biblical or on Modern Hebrew; Rabbinic and Medieval Hebrew were only rarely available. In the case of a field like medieval Hebrew poetry the emphasis was exclusively on literary, historical or cultural aspects; there was almost no research on critical editions or linguistic studies. The students were mainly Jewish, or in the case of some Biblical Hebrew programmes, members of Christian churches. Several associations existed to aid the university teaching of Hebrew. Summing up the differences between Europe and the United States with regard to Hebrew teaching, Professor Sáenz-Badillos spoke first of the different historical background, sociological situation and academic traditions. The student body was different too (and in particular with the exception of France there was not the same preponderance of Jewish students in Europe). There was a greater linguistic interest (in philological study of Hebrew as a Semitic language, or in the history of the Hebrew language and of the philological study of Hebrew), and a more conservative approach to the study of methodology. In recent times Europeans had discovered the contribution of the Jews to the culture of the European countries and saw it as part of their own culture. There was a much greater interest in the medieval period than in America. Jewish studies had grown in Europe recently, but not to the same degree as in the USA; Israeli Hebrew was being taught increasingly in European universities. It remained to be seen what the effect of European convergence would be.

Sonia Barzilay treated participants to a demonstration of two CD ROMs for the teaching of Biblical and Modern Hebrew with which she had been involved in preparing (the former in conjunction with Mireille Hadas-Lebel). Both are available in Hebrew and English. [See www.yodea.com]

Finally, Rachel S. Harris (Oxford/SUNY Albany) spoke on “Cultural negotiations with the audience: the case of Haim Gouri’s Hanishkahim”. She spoke of the different versions in which the poems had been published and of different possible ideological interpretations; and presented her own English translation with comments.

The colloquium concluded with a summing-up of the discussions, and an attempt to draw some lessons for the future. This final session again noted the urgency of addressing the negative current trends, as described above. It was judged important for the membership of EAJS to engage actively in this debate, and to do their best to ensure the survival of Hebrew study at a serious level in each country, as mentioned in the manifesto cited at the beginning.

Nicholas de Lange

Convenor