EAJS Congresses

Jewish and Non-Jewish Cultures in Contact: New Research Perspectives. Tenth EAJS Congress, Paris, 20th-24th July 2014

8 May 2015 by EAJS Administrator

X Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies
Paris, France July 20-24, 2014
“Jewish and Non-Jewish Cultures in Contact: New Research Perspectives”

The Tenth Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies took place in the quartier latin in Paris, from 20th to 24th July 2014. The conference was held in two major French institutions: the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Sorbonne. Just over 700 papers in all fields of Jewish studies were presented in parallel sessions (sixteen at a time). The congress theme was Jewish and Non-Jewish Cultures in Contact: New Research Perspectives.

The Congress attracted an unprecedented number of participants. More than 950 scholars and students from Europe and beyond attended the Congress, more than 700 presented a paper. This massive interest reflects the importance of Jewish Studies in Europe, and underscores the important role the EAJS plays in contributing to scholarly cohesion and networking.

The thematic organization of the sessions and panels was the result of careful planning by the members of the scientific committee. Two hundred and twelve thematic sessions of three or four papers each were held in 16 lecture rooms. Although it was not always possible to create perfectly coherent sessions, and especially to avoid overlap between lectures in the same field, most participants were able to attend a maximum of lectures of interest to them. All fields of Jewish studies were represented, with a particular focus on history and heritage studies, as the following table illustrates.

Anthropology and sociology of Judaism: 7 participants
Archaeology of Judaism: 11
Bible in its Near Eastern Context: 17
Gender studies: 8
History:

Late Antiquity: 16
Middle Ages: 91
Modernity: 38
Contemporary (Eastern Europe): 37
Contemporary (Western Europe): 34
Israel: 19

History of Jewish Law and Law applied to the Jews: 16
History of sciences: 10
Literature:

Exegesis: 3
Talmud and Rabbinics: 57
Second Temple and Late Antiquity: 9
Medieval Hebrew literature and poetry: 29
Liturgy: 3
Qumran: 6
Modern Hebrew Literature: 21

Hebrew language and linguistics: 16
Jewish languages and linguistics: 56
Jewish minorities: 9
Musicology: 7
New technologies applied to Jewish studies: 6
Heritage:

Jewish archives: 12
Jewish art: 32
History of Hebrew book: 31

Jewish Thought:

Hassidism: 1
mysticisme and Kabbala: 38
theological thought: 18
philosophy: 21

Shoah and antisemitism: 22

TOTAL : 702

The evenings and Wednesday afternoon were dedicated to keynote lectures, round tables and special events.

On July 20, 2014 the Congress was opened with an Opening Ceremony that included speeches by Professor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, President of the EAJS 2010-2014 and organiser of the Tenth Congress, Professor Marie-Christine Lemardeley (Maire Adjointe de Paris), Professor and Chef Rabbi René-Samuel Sirat, Professor Hubert Bost (Président de l’EPHE), Professor Jean-Marie Le Gall (Directeur de l’UFR Histoire de Paris 1), Professor Martin Goodman (University of Oxford) and Professor Mireille Hadas-Lebel (Université Paris 4).

A concert of medieval Jewish music of Northern France by the ensemble Alla Francesca, introduced by a lecture of Professor Colette Sirat: “Jews and trouvères in the 13th century,” concluded the ceremony.

The following keynote lectures were delivered during the Congress:

Geoffrey Khan and Ben Outhwaite, “The Reception of Biblical Hebrew in the Middle Ages”
Anthony T. Grafton and Joanna Weinberg, “Compilation and Observation in Johann Buxtorf’s Synagogue of the Jews”
Fishman: “Our Inheritance, our Yerusha: Securing the Jewish Documentary Legacy in Europe” (Launching ‘Yerusha’ Programme of the Rothschild Foundation Europe)
Francesca Trivellato, “Jewish Christian Credit Relations and the Economic History of Modern Europe”
Yaakov Shavit, “The Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible: Worlds Apart?”

In a special lecture at the Closing Ceremony, AB Yehoshua addressed the topic, “From Mythology to History: Journey to the End of the Millennium.”

Two Round Tables allowed for an in-depth disciplinary reflection:

“Hebrew manuscripts and collections as a meeting point between the cultures” (organised by Colette Sirat)
“Teaching Jewish Studies: Issues, Challenges and Solutions” (organised by A. Houtman)

Receptions:

Opening Ceremony, Réfectoire des Cordeliers, 20 July 2014
Cocktail, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme, 23 July 2014
Closing Ceremony, Mairie du Ve arrondissement de Paris, 24 July 2014

An important feature of the Congress was the place reserved for doctoral students and young researchers. Their papers were systematically integrated into sessions alongside papers by established scholars in the various fields; a special round table on the subject of funding in Jewish Studies was organized by the EAJS (under the responsibility of Prof. Philip Alexander) for their benefit, and their participation in the Congress was facilitated by reduced Congress fees, travel grants and the possibility to book cheap students’ accommodation on the site of the Congress, at the Ecole Normale Supérieure.

The EAJS Congress was locally managed by a consortium of French academic institutions, with the financial and logistic support of several state, academic and private bodies and foundations. The main organizing institutions were the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the History Department of the University Paris 1-Sorbonne. In addition, the EAJS Congress received support of the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO-CERMOM), University Paris 8, Ecole des Hautes Etudes des Sciences Sociales, Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes (IRHT-CNRS), project RELMIN of the University of Nantes, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Alliance Israélite Universelle and Bibliothèque Mazarine. The Congress was funded in part by the Rothschild Foundation Europe, the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, Fondation du Judaïsme Français, Ville de Paris, Région Ile de France, Société des études juives, the French Friends of the Hebrew University Association and the Mayor of the Vth district of Paris. Colleagues of many Parisian and French universities and research institutes contributed to the scientific organization of the project through the participation of their staff in the scientific committee of the Congress. Indeed, the scientific organization of the Congress was entrusted to a scientific committee of 30 scholars belonging to main French universities and research institutions who were further assisted by other European specialists in the relevant fields. Administratively, the Congress was managed by a team of three coordinators (Yonith Benhamou, David Lemler and Judith Schlanger). For the duration of the Congress (20-24 July), a team of 20 volunteers (doctoral students and young researchers in Hebrew and Jewish studies) coordinated by Sarah Fargeon took care of the smooth running of the Congress.

Judith Olszowy-Schlanger
President of the EAJS 2010-2014

Judaism in the Mediterranean Context. Ninth EAJS Congress, Ravenna, 25th-29th July 2010

12 October 2010 by EAJS Administrator

IX Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies

Ravenna, Italy July 25-29, 2010

“Judaism in the Mediterranean Context”

The ninth Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies was held in Ravenna, Italy, from 25^th to 29^th July, 2010.

Organized by Professor Mauro Perani, President of the European Association for Jewish Studies and, at the same time, of the Italian Association for Jewish Studies (Associazione Italiana per lo Studio del Giudaismo, AISG), the congress convened on the premises of the Ravenna branch of the University of Bologna, and welcomed more than 400 scholars and students from all over Europe, Israel and the USA. The general title of the congress, “Judaism in the Mediterranean Context,” was chosen so as to allow the utmost freedom as far as the presentations, the panels and the single papers are concerned, but also to show how the roots of Jewish experience are deeply connected with the Mediterranean space or, conversely, how the political, geographical and cultural framework called the Mediterranean provided the main context for the expansion and development of Jewish history over the centuries. A historical basis was unmistakably at the centre of the concept of the ninth congress, perhaps due to the historical background of Jewish studies in Italy, where history forms the core of classical curricula and the goal of many case studies and specialized disciplines dealing with the Jews and Judaism. Therefore, the Congress received its shape from the three keynote lectures which structured the plenary session on the three days (July 27th, 28th and 29th) in which the congress fully developed.

The first plenary lecture, concerning antiquity, was presented by Professor Martin Goodman (Oxford) on the morning of 27th July. Under the title “Titus, Berenice and Agrippa: the Last Days of the Temple in Jerusalem,” Professor Goodman offered a novel perspective on these events by posing the question of the attitude of Berenice and Agrippa to the Temple at the moment of its destruction. The demise of the Temple shaped the subsequent history of Judaism and of the West in a profound way, but at the time of Agrippa and Berenice, other possibilities were still open. Historical knowledge can only progress by asking whether the fatal rupture between Roman Empire and Jewish insurgents was really inevitable. Thus, right at the beginning of the congress the capacity of historical questioning for opening a fruitful debate was masterfully exhibited.

The second plenary lecture, in the morning session of Tuesday 28^th July, concerned the Middle Ages and, similarly, it questioned a key concept, in this case the existence of a “Jewish Middle Ages”. Historian Kenneth Stow of the University of Haifa presented, in his lecture “Was there a Jewish Middle Ages?”, the evidence and the problematic aspects of the very notion of a “Jewish” Medieval experience. Not only the periodization, the well known problems of setting the boundaries of a historical period conceptualized for the general, that is Christian, society came to the fore but especially the question of the institutional framework within which the Jewish communities and individuals could exist and, even more, the self-perception of the Jews within a Medieval society. A lively debate followed the presentation, a further proof that the presentation by Professor Stow stimulated further discussion and contributed to problematie historical wisdom by showing its ideological ingredients.

The third plenary lecture, presented on Wednesday 29^th July by the doyen of Jewish History Professor Shlomo Simonsohn of Tel Aviv, concentrated on the host country of the congress, that is Italy, in his brilliant and rich overview: “Jewish Italy: the melting pot of Mediterranean Jews.” Simonsohn’s perspective, focused as it was on a single country, provided a notable picture, from antiquity to modern times, concerning the peculiar structure of Italian Jewry: not only is the historian confronted with an enduring pattern of plurality among the Jews in Italy, where Old-Italian, Sephardic, Ashkenazi and Levantine groups lived side by side for centuries, but also the relationship with the Pagan and Christian environment was, most of the time, one of integration and of mutual interchange. Italy functioned for centuries as an advanced workshop were multiple identities were confronted and moulded, where the boundaries between competing communities were constantly reshaped. Simonsohn’s presentation offered a further chance to reflect on the “Italian case” in its specific traits, suggesting a framework in which the discussions of the last day of the congress could be placed.

The congress programme contained sixteen thematic sections reflecting the variety and richness of the approaches to Jewish studies in present academic life. The sections too followed an historic scheme, ranging from biblical times to contemporary Jewish experience, and included specific sections on the Jewish book (from manuscripts to printed books), Jewish languages, Art, philosophy and the ever blossoming field of Jewish mysticism, encompassing Kabbala and Jewish magic.

The complete congress programme and an exhaustive collection of the abstracts may be found in the volume Judaism in the Mediterranean Context, Program and Abstracts of the IX Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies, Ravenna 25^th – 29^th July, 2010, edited by Mauro Perani, Marta Porcedda and Enrica Sagradini, Ravenna 2010 (available upon request at mauro.perani@unibo.it). Rather than report in a detailed way on every single contribution to the congress, we will list the section titles and their relative figures:

Biblical History and Archaeology: 6 papers;
Biblical Literature and Language: 8 papers;
Second Temple Judaism: 22 papers;
Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity: 14 papers;
Rabbinic Literature: 21 papers;
Medieval Jewish History: 16 papers;
Medieval Jewish Literature: 27 papers;
Manuscripts, Codices and Books: 21 papers;
Early Modern History (1492-1600): 18 papers;
Modern Jewish History (1600-1933): 58 papers;
Modern Jewish Literature: 31 papers;
Jewish Languages: 15 papers;
Jewish Arts: 29 papers;
Contemporary Jewish History (after 1933): 22 papers;
Jewish Philosophy: 16 papers;
Jewish Mysticism, Kabbala, Magic: 17 papers.

Leading scholars and PhD students, established researchers and beginners shared a forum for discussion, exchange of information, networking and fostering new plans for research across the borders of national academic institutions, languages and disciplines.

The general assembly of the association took place on 27^th July and acclaimed the new President of the Association, Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, who will prepare the next quadriennial congress to be held in Paris in 2014. Some members of the previous Executive Committee stepped down after a period of service: Sacha Stern, secretary of the association (whose role has been undertaken by Daniel Langton, previously secretary of the British Association for Jewish Studies); Stefan Schreiner, Lola Cano Ferre, and the treasurer Saverio Campanini (whose function is now performed by Gad Freudenthal). The assembly also elected the future president, Edward Dabrowa, who will have the responsibility of organising the quadriennial Congress of the Association in Krakow in 2018. The new Executive Committee has been elected in the same evening and comprises the following members: Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (President); Gad Freudenthal (Treasurer); Daniel Langton (Secretary); Martin Goodman; Andreas Lehnardt; Mauro Perani (Past President); Javier Castaño; Alberdina Houtman; Edward Dabrowa (President-elect).

The Congress was accompanied by musical and cultural events including, to name only the highlights: a concert by a local group, the Siman Tov Ensemble, performing klezmer music; Sephardic songs performed by EAJS member Judith R. Cohen; and a performance of moving songs by celebrated Italian performer Miriam Meghnagi. Moreover, an exhibition of Hebrew manuscripts was organized by the Biblioteca Classense in Ravenna and excursions to Jewish Venice (on 25^th July) and to Bertinoro and Ancona (on 30^th July) were organized and many Congress participants took advantage of this unique occasion for visiting some of the most interesting sites of Jewish history in the North-Eastern part of the Peninsula.

Saverio Campanini (former Treasurer).

Past and present perspectives in Jewish Studies. Eighth EAJS Congress, Moscow, 23rd-27th July 2006

12 October 2010 by EAJS Administrator

Eighth EAJS Congress, Moscow, 23rd-27th July 2006

Past and present perspectives in Jewish Studies.

This congress was the first international event of that size in Jewish Studies to take place in Moscow. Never before had an East European country enjoyed the signal honor of hosting a Jewish Studies Congress. Hosting the Congress in Moscow was part of an effort of the Association to promote Jewish Studies in Eastern Europe. The International Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies was the local organizer of the Congress, as well as the Moscow Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization, SEFER. Partners and the donors of the Congress included the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Associations, the Russian Friends of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Center for Oriental Literature of Russian State Library, and the Gishrey Tarbut Association (our partner in the book exhibition).

The Congress attracted 480 delegates, of whom 280 presented papers on Jewish history and culture ranging from Biblical to modern times and from linguistics to sociology to Israeli studies.

The theme of the Congress was “Past and present perspectives in Jewish Studies”, and sought to draw attention to both the philosophy and the prospects of Jewish Studies. There has been no lack of ideas and research in recent decades, but the feeling is that there is now room for change and renewal. A central aim of the Congress was to answer the questions:

* Are we moving into the age of Postmodernism?

* Are we returning to old patterns?

* Do we need meta-history once again?

The schedule of the Congress included 26 sessions in both traditional and new fields of Jewish Studies. There were also two plenary sessions. The first, Hegelianism, Orientalism, and the prospects of Jewish Studies, was devoted to philosophical and methodological matters, and included papers by Ivan Davidson Kalmar (University of Toronto, Canada) and Arkady Kovelman (Lomonsov Moscow State University, Russia). The second plenary session, Jews and Others in Russia, dealt with the socio-historical questions of Russian-Jewish History, and included papers by Oleg Budniskii (Academic Director of the International Center for Russian and East European Jewish Studies, Moscow, Russia) and John Klier (University College, London, UK).

In the first plenary session, Professor Kalmar concentrated on the joint depiction of Judaism and Islam, and their peoples, in Hegel, and on the influence of Hegel’s thought on modern European conscience. While Hegel does not value Judaism very highly, he at least thinks it a spiritual post on the way towards Christ. Islam, on the other hand, rates very low for the German philosopher as a nightmarish non-Christian detour from Judaism’s true path leading to Christ. But, lest we grow confident that such attitudes enshrine what we now call the Judeo-Christian tradition as ours and Islam as the outsider beyond it, it is worth remembering that such an attitude would have caused Hegel great surprise. To him, Islam was not a separate religion from Judaism. It was Judaism gone mad.

Professor Kovelman devoted his paper to Hegelianism and Multiculturalism in Classical Jewish Studies. In his opinion, Jewish Studies started two centuries ago as a search for progress and the universal dimension of Jewish culture. Two centuries later Jewish Studies arrived at the rejection of the notion of cultural progress and the proclamation of the uniqueness of Jewish culture in a multicultural world. To a certain extent Jewish Studies shared the fate of other areas of the Humanities in the age of Post-Modernism. Old Hegelian, Positivist and Romantic meta-histories were rejected. Counter-histories, colonised, feminine, and marginal cultures were exonerated. The parting and interaction of different cultures were taken as the major incentives for cultural changes. The price of the rejection of meta-histories would be the fragmentation of history, including the fragmentation of the history of Jewish culture.

In the second plenary session, Oleg Budniskii deliberated on the causes of the Jewish pogroms in the Civil War period (1918-1920). He argued that one should remember the deeply rooted Orthodox image of the Jews as a treacherous tribe that betrayed Christ, and that given the chance would be prepared to betray Russia and collude with the heathen and alien. This image of traitors was colored with additional hues during World War I. Throughout the war years, the army was subjected to the most intense anti-Semitic propaganda, and for the first time attained a de facto license for violence specifically against the Jews. It is not surprising that the seed fell on fertile soil. Professor Klier explored the phenomena that established the Jews as an “ethnic other” in the towns and villages of the Empire’s western borderlands in pre-revolutionary Russia. He contrasted the social, economic, cultural and religious life of the Jews and their Orthodox, Catholic and Uniate neighbours.

The number and variety of papers presented at the Congress renders it impractical to describe or even list them all, so only a selection follows.

The paper of Israel Knohl (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) “Cain: Son of God or Son of Satan?” combined inner biblical interpretations and early post-biblical interpretations with regard to one motif: the birth of Cain. According to Knohl, the portrait of Cain as forefather of the evildoers, and the sharp polarity between the sons of Cain and the sons of Seth, was rooted in the final edition of the Pentateuch that was edited by the priestly circle of the “Holiness School”. This polarity is close to the conception of another the priestly circle, the Qumran sect that focused on the polarity between the “Sons of Light” and “Sons of Darkness”. The author of Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer also sought to portray Cain as the son of Satan and the forefather of the “Sons of Darkness”. Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer is thus the culmination of a hermeneutical process that turned Cain from its original status in the J story, as Son of God and forefather of all humanity, to his final status as son of Satan and the forefather of the “Sons of Darkness”.

Professor Daniel Boyarin (University of California at Berkeley, USA) spoke on the topic of Hellenism in Jewish Babylonia. It is commonly held among scholars that while the Palestinian Rabbis were in dialogue (and dispute) with Christians and other Hellenists, the Rabbis of Babylonia only contended with such secondarily through the medium of their interaction with Palestinian Rabbis and their literature and traditions. In his paper, Professor Boyarin proposed that we need to revise significantly our understanding of the role of both Christianity and Hellenism more generally in the formation of the Babylonian rabbinism of the Sasanian realm, especially with respect to matters not known from Palestinian rabbinic traditions and which, at least arguably, only enter the rabbinic textual world at a period and in a stratum of the Babylonian Talmud in which impact from Palestine is considerably less likely than interaction with the local milieu of trans-Euphratian Christian Hellenism.

Pieter W. van der Horst (University of Utrecht, Netherlands) in his paper “Moses’ Father Speaks Out” traced the post-biblical traditions about Moses‘ father, Amram, from documents of the 2nd century BCE (Jubilees, Dead Sea Scrolls) through Pseudo-Philo and Josephus to the later rabbinic midrashim and haggadic traditions in the Bavli. The title refers to the fact that, whereas in the biblical story Amram never opens his mouth, in the post-biblical tradition he begins to speak out at length, both in prayer and in addresses to his fellow Jews.

Two papers were devoted to the categories of time and space in Jewish culture. Ohr Margalit (Ben Gurion University, Israel) delivered a paper “The Land of Israel as Sacred Space: In Search of a Meaningful Perspective in Halakhic Thought.” Margalit suggested that in order to properly understand the rabbinic conception of the Land, one must take into account the vast difference between holiness in biblical thought and holiness in rabbinic thought. According to the rabbis, holiness is not necessarily dangerous, separate or ‘completely other’; it can be an integral part of daily life. The tannaitic conception of the Land of Israel is neither that of a ‘locative’ nor ‘utopian’ sacred space, it is ‘territorial-halakhic’. Alexander Samely (University of Manchester, UK) in his paper “Time in rabbinic texts: a new type of diachronic difference” suggested the idea that the “layering” messages in rabbinic texts, insofar as it can be discerned by the modern interpreter, constituted specific hermeneutic, quasi-conversational, and conceptual moves of discourse, as much as it testifies to historical processes. These discourse operations seem to call for a different kind of “diachronic” analysis than traditional text criticism.

Aharon Shemesh (Bar Ilan University, Israel) in his paper “The Penal Code from Qumran and the beginning of Legal Midrash” deliberated on the question of whether, and to what degree, the sectarian literature from Qumran contains Halakhic Midrash. He argued that the sectarian Penal Code was based on two specific biblical passages which dictated both the content of the list and the order of the sins included in it.

In his paper “Rabbinic Texts: Construction or Deconstruction” Avraham Walfish (Bar Ilan University, Israel) attempted to demonstrate that the “deconstructive” techniques of the Mishnah aim at a “classical” method of resolving textual and spiritual aporias. He further examined how Talmudic texts analyzed and reread the tannaitic sources.

In her paper “Seekers of the Shekhina: A description of an Unknown Era in the History of Jewish Mysticism” Ronit Meroz (Tel Aviv University, Israel) concentrated on the question of the beginnings of Kabbalah. In her view, two different branches of esoteric teaching were developing fro the 9th century to the end of the 12th. Their main focus of interest was in the myriad of angels surrounding God.

Martin Goodman (University of Oxford, UK) delivered a paper “Names of the Jewish Nation in Late Antiquity: ‘Jew,’ ‘Israel’ and ‘Hebrew’ in the First Two Centuries CE.” Professor Goodman tackled the issue of whether the difference between the names selected by Jews to represent the Jewish state during the revolts and the names used to refer to the region is significant in establishing who and what the leaders of the rebel states believed that they represented; how the names chosen by the rebels may relate to the new name, ‘Palaestina’, chosen for the region by the Romans after 135 CE; and how both these choices are reflected in the parting of the ways between Jews and Christians in the first two centuries.

Aharon Oppenheimer (Tel Aviv University, Israel) deliberated on the subject of Purity of Lineage in Talmudic Babylonia. Babylonian Jews saw themselves not only as responsible for the imparting of the Oral Torah as materialized in the Babylonian Talmud, but also as the guardians of pure Jewish lineage. This guardianship entailed extreme care in the ordering of marriages, including rejection of people defined as genealogically disqualified. Delineating the purity of lineage originated in the need of Diaspora Jews to beware of mixed marriages in particular, and marriages where there was the slightest suspicion of disqualification in general. However, it was also intended to demonstrate that Judaism at its best, even better than in Palestine, was to be found in the Babylonian Diaspora. This haughtiness of Babylonia towards Palestine led to tension between the two largest Jewish centers of their time.

In her paper “Boundaries and orthodoxy in Hellenistic Judaism” Tessa Rajak (University of Reading, UK) treated both the internal character of Jewish communities in the Greek cities and the relationship between Jews and others. She defined Diaspora Judaism in terms of text-centredness, i.e. self-definition in terms of scripture. This allowed considerable flexibility and variety, but at the same time, in a situation where there was as yet no prevailing orthodoxy, it provided a core set of reference points.

Michael L. Satlow (Brown University, USA) delivered a paper “Charity and Piety among Jews in Late Antiquity” in which he sought to reconstruct the rabbinic understanding of charity and its relationship to piety.

Alexei Sivertsev (DePaul University, USA) deliberated on the notion of a Byzantine Judaism, seeking to establish this notion as a new category. That category would include the rise of new ideals of religious piety (such as priestly piety, martyrdom, mysticism, and apocalyptic messianism) and the development of new pietistic and “sacramental” trends in the interpretation of halakhic regulations. Even literary genres were changing with religious poetry (piyut), accounts of mystical experiences, and narrative literature becoming increasingly more important. Byzantine Judaism developed in the context of mature Byzantine Christianity (during the period between the Council of Chalcedon of 451 and the end of Iconoclastic debates in 843) and reflected the same blend of interests in individual mystical piety, apocalyptic expectations, and sacramental ecclesiology as Byzantine Christianity of the time.

In his paper “Calendars in Antiquity, or: Jewish Studies versus Ancient History” Sacha Stern (University College, London, UK) considered the legitimacy of the two approaches, ‘Jewish’ and ‘ancient historical’ to the subject of Jewish calendars in Late Antiquity (the 364-day calendar of Qumran, and the rabbinic lunar calendar).

Jeremy Cohen (Tel-Aviv University, Israel) contemplated on Jewish reactions to the crucifixion, from the Gospels to Gibson. As he reviewed Jewish responses to the crucifixion story from ancient to medieval to modern times, he noted a striking degree of continuity. Even as Jews struggled to refute the Christ-killer myth, they found themselves attracted by the crucifixion, which somehow they tried to appropriate for themselves.

Steven Bowman (University of Cincinnati, USA) delivered a paper “Mechanism and Mediaeval polemic in Sefer Yosippon.” In his view, the tenth-century Italian Sefer Yosippon was a reverse polemic of the anti Jewish theological tract written by a convert to Christianity known as Pseudo-Hegesippus. The author and his copyists added numerous references to the messiah tradition which are interspersed among Sefer Yosippon’s reworking of Pseudo-Hegesippus into a nationalist history of the Second Temple Jewish experience and their unyielding battle against the Romans.

Glenda Abramson (University of Oxford, UK) delivered a paper “Disrobing the body and soul: U. Z. Greenberg’s Idea of ‘Nakedness’.” She suggested that the trope of “nakedness” or “revealing” reappears in many ways throughout the poetry of Greenberg: as a revelation of the unclothed human body, as spiritual failure, as the nature of the self, as an abstraction and as an aesthetic device.

In his paper “Jewish Traditions of Translation – from The Golden Age to the Age of Haskalah: A Comparative Description” Aminadav Dykman (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel) sought to offer a comprehensive descriptive model for the specific Jewish tradition of prose and poetry translations, as it emerged during the Golden Age in Spain, and was later elaborated. His claim was that from the very beginning of the surge of translations in the Golden Age, a sharp distinction was made between translations of poetry and prose, and also between different translations of prose works, depending on the degree of their “sacredness”. In this view, a comparison between the texts of the Hebrew translators of the Golden Age and European poetics of translation in the 17th and 18th centuries demonstrates that there actually existed a distinctive “Jewish way of translating” (mainly poetry), which is indeed inherently different from other known western modes and practices of translation.

The paper of Tsila Ratner (University College, London, UK) posed questions about the complex relations between the military and identity constitution in Israeli women’s writing. The perspective she chooses for discussion is not the exclusion of women from military narratives and their derivates, but rather its absence, or at least avoidance, in the fiction written by women in Israel. This phenomenon is quite surprising considering the rising profile of women’s writing in Israel since the 1980s, which has been anything but compliant and docile.

Albert I. Baumgarten (Bar Ilan University, Israel) is working on an intellectual biography of Elias Bickerman (1897-1981), focusing on him as a historian of the Jews. In his lecture he concentrated on Bickerman’s presentation of himself, and his repeated insistence that he was a classicist and not interested in Jewish History. Several explanations for Bickerman’s avowal that he was a classicist can be offered. As a cosmopolitan, it was difficult for Bickerman to admit the extent of his curiosity about the Jewish past. Next, Bickerman was acutely aware of the gaps in his learning when it came to the history of the Jews. Furthermore, as counterpoint to seeing him as a cosmopolitan embarrassed by his work on the Jews, Bickerman may have asserted that he was a classicist as a reaction to commonly held prejudices of the time, according to which cosmopolitan and rootless Jews should not study or teach the great works of the classics, on which the national civilizations of western culture were based. Finally, Bickerman explicitly argued that as a classicist he had the proper broad ranging perspective in which to place ancient Jewish experience more meaningfully.

In his lecture “Between Sensual and Heavenly Love. Franz Rosenzweig’s Reading of the Song of Songs” Paul Mendes-Flohr (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel) explored why it was precisely the ‘sensuality’ of this song of love that renders it in Rosenzweig’s view the most eloquent statement in the Hebrew Bible on the meaning of revelation.

Giuseppe Veltri (University of Halle, Germany) deliberated on Jewish “rituals” as a concept of Jewish political thought in the Renaissance and early modern period. Starting with the scholastic definition of “praecepta caeremonialia”, he analyzed some Christian and Jewish treatises of the 16th and 17th centuries involved in the discussion of defining Judaism as a religion.

In conclusion, the Congress demonstrated that new approaches in the research of Jewish civilization have been developed over last decade. Yet more is still to be done if we are to make a qualitative leap to new methods and research techniques as well as to new philosophical generalizations in the field of Jewish Studies.

Mauro Perani (Italy) was elected the next President of the EAJS on July 26, 2006. The ninth Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies will be held in Ravenna, Italy in 2010.

Arkady Kovelman

EAJS Treasurer 2002-6

Jewish Studies and the European Academic World. Seventh EAJS Congress, Amsterdam, 21st-25th July 2002

12 October 2010 by EAJS Administrator

Seventh EAJS Congress, Amsterdam, 21st-25th July 2002

Jewish Studies and the European Academic World.

As most EAJS members will know, or should, the quadrennial EAJS congresses are meant to be the high points in the life of the Association. Of course, whether they really are depends on personal experience, and I fully realize that it is futile to speculate on the impact of the seven EAJS congresses organized so far on the life of the individual members and participants. But as an individual with the singular merit of having attended all the congresses the EAJS ever held (including the four Summer colloquia), I feel I have the right, or perhaps the duty, to summarize the facts of the Congress held in the Netherlands in July last year.

When the General Assembly of EAJS members convened in the late afternoon sun of Toledo on 23 July 2998, it was decided that the next Congress would be held in the Netherlands in 2002. The responsibility of its organization was entrusted to the newly elected President and Treasurer of the EAJS, Professors Albert van der Heide (Leiden University) and Wout van Bekkum (University of Groningen).

During the following year, they made a start with implementation of this decree by forming a local Dutch Congress committee, which was joined by Dr Resianne Smidt van Gelder (University of Amsterdam) as Secretary, Dr Emile Schrijver (Menasseh ben Israel Institute) as Treasurer, Professor Pieter van der Horst (University of Utrecht), and Professor Irene Zwiep (University of Amsterdam) as members.

In consultation with the EAJS Executive Committee, it was decided that the Congress theme would be “Jewish Studies and the European Academic World” and that the Congress would be divided into five sections: Languages and Literature; Ancient Judaism; Medieval and Modern History and Social Sciences; Philosophy and Mysticism; and Art, Libraries Archives. The congress would take place in Amsterdam, its venue the Vrije Universiteit.

In 2001, after a period of the usual preparations, Calls for Papers were issued, upon which some 300 proposals for lectures and presentations were received. With the help of section leaders, the first provisional versions of the Congress program were drawn up early in May and published on the EAJS website. In early July, the definitive Program Book was issued, containing the full academic program and the abstracts of the lectures.

On Sunday 21 July 2002, the Congress opened with a reception and registration of the participants in the Jewish Historical Museum, located in the centre of Amsterdam just opposite the Portuguese Synagogue. In this famous building, which on this occasion was crowded with congress participants and special guests, the ceremonial opening session was held, with welcome speeches, a lecture by Professor Yosef Kaplan (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), and a concert of eighteenth-century liturgical and festive music edited and arranged by the Music Research Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

During the following days, the Congress participants delivered almost three hundred lectures in the various lecture rooms of the Vrije Universiteit’s main building. This university, the smaller and younger sister of the University of Amsterdam, has its buildings at a campus location just outside the city centre and its very well suited for hosting semi-large meetings of the size of the EAJS congresses. Some 350 participants daily attended an average of ten different sections. Each day opened with a Plenary Lecture on the theme of the Congress. The plenary speakers were Angel Sáenz Badillos, Mauro Perani, Michael Brocke, Irene Zwiep, Rashid Kaplanov, Nicholas de Lange and Diana Pinto. During the day, the central hall of the Vrije Universiteit’s main building offered ample opportunity for meeting and conversation and to inspect the books displayed by a number of publishers and book-sellers.

On Monday and Tuesday evening, there was opportunity to join guided city walks through historical and Jewish Amsterdam.

On Tuesday, the General Assembly of EAJS members was held, where among other things a new Executive Committee was chosen, in conjunction with the decision to have the next EAJS Congress in 2006 in Moscow.

On Wednesday afternoon, some hundred participants joined the excursion to the picturesque historical Portuguese Jewish Cemetery at Ouderkerk aan de Amstel and the University Library of Leiden University. In Leiden, the participants visited an exhibition of Hebrew manuscripts, especially prepared for the occasion. At a reception offered by the Leids Universitair Fonds, a concert of Spanish Jewish songs, sponsored by the Spanish Embassy in the Netherlands, was given.

On Friday, the day after the close of the congress, the staff of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana of the Amsterdam University Library offered the participants a post-Congress program of guided visits to the library.

For someone like the present writer so closely involved in the preparation and organization of the whole affair, it is difficult to give an impartial evaluation of its success as a scholarly and social event, but there is no denying that conversations were spirited and the atmosphere relaxed. The program of lectures and presentations was very diverse, which is typical for a congress with a loosely defined theme and ample freedom of application. The congress Committee decided to publish the Plenary Lectures, and some diction leaders have announced their intention to publish a selection of the lectures held in their sections. Organizationally, almost everything went smoothly according to plan and schedules, although now and then we too were reminded of the basic fact that nothing is ever perfect. For me personally, a week which I had expected would be tough and tiring turned out to be an unforgettable experience, with many pleasant meetings and talks with colleagues old and new. Only afterwards did I realize how many attractive lectures I had missed.

Albert van der Heide

President of the EAJS, 1998-2002

Note: The Proceedings of the Seventh EAJS Congress have now been published as: Albert van der Heide and Irene E. Zwiep (Editors) Jewish Studies and the European Academic World. Plenary Lectures read at the VIIth Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) Amsterdam, July 2002. Collection de la Revue des Études juives dirigée par Simon C. Mimouni en Gérard Nahon. Peeters, Paris-Louvain, 2005 ISBN 90-429-1616-8 / 2-87723-871-7

Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Sixth EAJS Congress, Toledo, 19th-23rd July 1998

12 October 2010 by EAJS Administrator

Sixth EAJS Congress, Toledo, 19th-23rd July 1998

Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

The congresses of the EAJS have become one of the Association’s most representative activities. After Oxford (twice), Berlin, Troyes and Copenhagen, the sixth Congress of the Association took place in Toledo, from 19 to 23 July 1998.

Organizers and members of the EAJS have since expressed their satisfaction with this Congress which saw the highest number of participants in the history of our Association. The previous revitalization of the EAJS, the particular significance of Toledo in Jewish history, and the pleasant atmosphere created during these days were responsible of r the generally positive impression – in spite of the terribly hot days we had to suffer. As many of the participants told us, it will not be easy to forget the beautiful opening ceremony in the El Tránsito Synagogue (with Shelomo Morag and David Broza complementing each other), the plenary lectures and musical evenings in the Renaissance court of the Convent of San Pedro Mártir, or the visit to the Jewish quarter of the city, guided by our young students.

With regard to the purely academic aspects of the Congress, the 300 or so lectures in 15 sections effectively gave a picture of the state of Jewish studies at the turn of the 20th century, with particular emphasis on their European characteristics. The number of participants was close to 400, from nearly 30 countries (mostly from Europe, with a substantial participation from Israel and the U.S.A.).

At the end of four years of intense activity on the part of the EAJS Executive Committee, the very long and detailed preparations came to fruition – a result of the efforts of many. The main decisions about the date, place and academic aspects of the event were taken jointly by the Executive Committee. The EAJS Secretariat in Oxford and the Newsletter contributed substantially to the circulation of the calls for papers and to the general information of all European scholars.

In Spain, the Organizing Committee, with representatives from the main Spanish institutions containing Jewish Studies programmes, took care of the practical questions and the development of the programme. A very particular mention should be made of the huge work that EAJS and Congress Treasurer, Luis Girón Blanc, took upon himself. His dedication and efficiency were, without doubt, one of the reasons for the success of the Congress. Another member of the Organizing Committee, Miguel Pérez (University of Granada), made a particular and useful contribution by preparing the internet page containing the programme of the Congress.

Under the Presidency of her Majesty the Queen of Spain many notables of Spanish cultural, administrative and political life accepted the invitation to join the Honorary Congress Committee. Thanks to them it was possible to receive substantial help from several sponsors. First among them was the Fundación Diágolos hich contributed decisively to making the Toledo Congress possible. The Universidad Complutense, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture, and BCH also helped in different ways and degrees in the realization of the Congress. D. Laureano Salzedo and his team of CSP Congresos dealt with the practical aspects of the event efficiently and competently.

The quality and disposition of the sessions was the result of the excellent work of the fifteen section leaders who dedicated their valuable time to assuring the participation of notable scholars in every area of Jewish studies and to preparing every detail so the sessions. The pre-Congress publication of Abstracts, thanks to the work of Judit Taragona, made it easy for all participants to choose among the many possibilities offered by the – sadly unavoidable – parallel sessions.

The Proceedings of the Congress have now been published in two large volumes as Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Proceedings of the 6th EAJS Congress Toledo, July 1998. edited by Judit Targarona Borrás and Angel Sáenz-Badillos, Leiden, Brill, 1999. Some 160 papers with a total of more than 1200 pages offer a global picture of the state of Jewish studies in our time.

Let us remind ourselves of the words of one of the former presidents of the EAJS, Professor Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, in the closing session of the Toledo Conference:

“When closing this 6th Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies, in the name of all the participants I wish to express deepest thanks to the organizers, Professors Angel Sáenz-Badillos, Luis Girón Blanc and Judit Targarona, for having brought the Congress here, to Toledo. By doing so, they gave to this Congress a historical dimension. Indeed, Toledo was one of the most flourishing centres of Jewish culture from the twelfth century until the end of the fifteenth century. This rich cultural life was reduced to silence for five centuries by the tragic event of the Expulsion. Today, thanks to this Congress, Jewish culture was again present here. This fact gives particular meaning to our scholarly gathering which, I felt, had to be emphasized at this final session.”

The organizers would like to thank all those persons who, in many different ways, made possible the realization of the 6th Congress of the EAJS in Toledo.

Angel Sáenz-Badillos