EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2018/19
REPORT
“Kabbalah and Knowledge Transfer in the Early Modern World” (Berlin, 9-10 July 2019)
Authors: Agata Paluch and Patrick B. Koch
Rationale of the event
Kabbalistic traditions in the early modern period have been mostly examined by previous generations of scholars along the historical lines of investigation defined by Gershom Scholem and his students. Only in the last generation, following Moshe Idel, have scholars become interested in new methodological approaches to study early modern kabbalah as a set of religious and cultural practices as opposed to focusing solely on its theoretical or theological framework. Yosef Avivi, through his meticulous bibliographical survey, has paved the way to the study of the great abundance of sources available for investigation of the kabbalah of Isaac Luria, the most influential kabbalistic tradition of the early modern world. In the last few years the study of kabbalah in the early modern period, including the complex histories of Lurianic tradition and its dispersion beyond its birthplace in Palestinian Safed, have become a rapidly growing field.
This conference’s objective was to recognise and evaluate the part that kabbalistic literatures, in a variety of their written formats, played in the transfer of knowledge in the early modern world, a subject that has only recently began to attract scholarly attention. The practical and scientific dimension of early modern kabbalistic literature exerted a significant influence on both Jewish and non-Jewish intellectual culture and was widely disseminated in early modern Europe. As it seems, in the seventeenth century and up to the eighteenth century, this feature of kabbalistic literature gripped numerous reading audiences, who aimed to gain and systematise knowledge of the metaphysical world, and to harness its power to effect changes in the physical world. The conference also aimed at engaging in the discussion on the role of magical rituals related to early scientific and artisanal practices which played a significant role in introducing the speculative doctrines of kabbalah into both European and non-European Jewish culture. Similarly, ethical conduct literature, in a variety of its genres and material formats, proves to be a rich source for the study of knowledge transfer strategies. The conference gathered participants to contribute a series of case studies that will help critically reassess the role and consequences of printed texts in the spread of esoteric ideas and practices, and re-evaluate the character and significance of thriving manuscript culture, in its variegated material forms, for the early modern transmission of knowledge.
The aim of our conference was to showcase the recent surge in scholarly interest in early modern kabbalah by bringing together the most prominent scholars in the field side-by side with post-doctoral and doctoral researchers who will contribute to developing the field in the future. We also sought to overcome the fragmentation of research on kabbalistic traditions between Europe, Israel, and the United States. As the field is still relatively in the making, most of the papers in the sessions were devoted to the presentation and analysis of primary sources, many of which have not yet been published. The conference thus focused on contextualised readings of primary texts presented by each of the participants with the aim to highlight variant patterns of the diffusion of kabbalistic traditions, especially those formulated in Safed, in new cultural and historical circumstances, and their role in the formation and transformation of contemporary knowledge systems. Finally, by concentrating on the broadly defined kabbalistic lore, often included in the magical and moralistic literary genres, the conference provided a forum for the comprehensive assessment of the circulation of esoteric knowledge and praxis in the early modern period.
Lectures
FU Berlin, Institut für Judaistik
Tuesday, 9 July, 14:30–16:30:
Panel I: Forms of Kabbalistic Knowledge Transfer in Early Modernity
1. H. (Yossi) Chajes (Haifa University): “Ratzo ve-shov: Reflections on the Circulation of Visual Kabbalah in the Early Modern Period”
J.H. Chajes introduced the genre of visual Kabbalah – ilanot (hebr. Trees), the diagrammatic parchment rotuli which he described as “the maps of God”, from their earliest appearances in medieval Hebrew manuscripts to their later appropriation by Christian cabalists in the early modern period. Chajes highlighted the significance of knowledge transfer between Jews and Christians as well as Jews in various diasporas to the emergence and efflorescence of the ilanot. The main examples shown were the Great Ilan by Meir Poppers, based on Jacob Zemah’s design that followed a conservative visual language of concentric circles in schemata, lacking seals or diagrams that had featured earlier in Christian versions of ilanot, suggesting perhaps an active resistance to the influence of visual Kabbalah proposed by e.g. Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim in his De occulta philosophia. In the second part of his presentation, Chajes focused on the 18th-century Kabbalist from the region of Kurdistan, who creatively reformatted the visual form of ilanot, producing both large-size rotula and small codices, aimed perhaps at different audiences. Interestingly, the Kurdish Ilan, although preserving elements known from Ashkenazi printed sources, such as diagrams from Moshe Graaf’s Vayakhel Mosheh, contained also typically local elements. The diagram, itself designated as tofes in quite a rare manner, was according to Chajes prepared for performative rather than pedagogical purposes.
2. Gerold Necker (Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg): “The matrix of understanding: Moshe Zacuto’s Em la-Binah”
The broad genre of instructional literature for esoteric thought included reference books, glossaries, dictionaries, manuals and guides to kabbalistic concepts, either arranged according to topics (like the sequence of the sefirot) or in alphabetical order. It emerged already at the formative stage of kabbalistic literature in medieval times. Once the (re-)formulations of Isaac Luria’s (1534-1572) kabbalah were put into circulation, Moses Zacuto (ca. 1610-1697) shaped the development in this field to no small degree. In his paper, Gerold Necker presented the ordering principles of Zacuto’s contribution to Lurianic works of reference, which he exemplified by a case study of Zacuto’s Em la-Binah, printed first in Isaac ben Judah Zaba’s collection Sha’arei Binah (Saloniki 1813). On the one hand, Necker traced the origin of Zacuto’s composition Em la-Binah back to the very beginning in one of Zacuto’s manuscript notebooks (BL Add 26927), and, on the other hand, discussed the question of its part in the process of the distribution of Lurianic kabbalah. In doing so, Necker attempted to understand Zacuto’s practical approach to the kabbalistic material he used to order it, and methods that led to the creation of Em la-Binah. These methods were according to Necker used to build a comprehensive text-book of kabbalah wherein knowledge is organised by concepts and subject matter and significantly, not in alphabetical order – the latter would rather be a feature of the genre of reference-books.
3. Andrea Gondos (Tel Aviv University): “Modes of Kabbalistic Knowledge Transmission in Early Modernity: Reductive versus Expansive Approaches”
Andrea Gondos analysed the literary strategies deployed in the management of kabbalistic knowledge in Jewish mystical anthologies with a focus on works published in the early modern period. In particular, she discussed two major anthological approaches – the expansive and the reductive models – that kabbalists used to re-present older textual material and ideas. Expansive model targeted an elite readership, who were already proficient in kabbalistic texts, language, and symbolism while the reductive approach served to render kabbalistic idea and works more accessible and facilitate their comprehension by readers who had little or no knowledge of this lore. Gondos used Moses Cordovero’s Pardes Rimonim to illustrate the expansive strategy, and Yissakhar Baer’s Meqor Hokhmah served to expose the modes of the reductive model.
Kabbalistic anthologies begin to appear already in the Middle Ages and assemble earlier authoritative teachings. Two basic approaches can be distinguished with regard to an author’s anthological objective: the expansive-syncretistic and the reductionist-simplifying. Moses Cordovero pursued the first strategy and devised systematic methods for coping with the multiplicity of sources. In his defining work, the Pardes Rimonim (1592), he created order by devoting an entire chapter to the encyclopaedic treatment of kabblistic terms and symbols arranged in alphabetical order to promote easy consultation (Gate 23). The second strategy, reductive in focus, was frequently adopted by secondary elites, who saw the Zohar as an already difficult and complex text not only from the linguistic but also from the theosophical perspective, and therefore sought strategies to simplify, digest, and reorganise its content – these strategies involved also material elements such as simple fonts and layout in print. Yissakhar Baer’s Meqor Hokhmah (1609) fits into this model. According to Gondos, his aim was to zoom in and extract a zoharic unit that offers a concise, uncomplicated, often pedagogically and ethically motivated reading of Scripture.
17:00-18:00
Keynote lecture: Giulio Busi (Freie Universität Berlin) “How the Art of Printing transformed Kabbalah: From Italian Courts to Polish Shtetlach”
In the keynote lecture on the first evening of the conference, Giulio Busi offered a survey on the relationship of Italy and Poland in the 16th century, and the question if how print changed Kabbalah. Busi argued that the perennial crisis of Jews living in Italy in the middle of the sixteenth century can be regarded as a stimulus for creativity. Thus, negative events such as the confiscation of the Talmud and the establishment of the Venetian ghetto may have caused the printing of Kabbalistic literature. Contrary to the accepted scholarly opinion, Busi highlighted that the editorial projects in Cremona, Ferrara, and Mantua were interrelated. Along these lines, he suggested to understand the printing of the Cremona and Mantua Zohar not as a competition but a coordinated project. Accordingly, he claimed that the Mantua print constitutes a continuation of the Cremona project, as the latter was blocked due the inquisition under Spanish rule.
Based on a preliminary inventory of Kabbalistic books printed during the second half of the sixteenth century, Busi showed how the period between 1556 and 1567 marks the core period of Kabbalah books in Italy. After that time-span, book printing decreases in Italy, but at the same time, increases in Eastern Europe, particularly Cracow. The diffusion of books printed in Italy thus also had a lasting impact on the rest of the European market, leading individuals to move to Italy to learn the art of book printing and to establish new printing presses in their hometowns.
In the second part of his lecture, Busi focused on the choices of texts printed and their literary character. With reference to Moshe Idel, he showed how the ‘renaissance’ of Kabbalah unfolded around Zoharic materials. The project of printing the Zohar can therefore justly be seen as the attempt of creating a corpus with narrative as a literary focus, as a reaction to the anthological projects of the Christian world. Referring to Elisabeth L. Eisenstein, the mechanisms were different—typography vs. manuscript—but the mission remained the same. Thus, the medieval Zohar project, that is the compilation of a corpus of Midrashic materials in manuscript, was perpetuated in the 16th century in printing. According to Busi, it is this very recurrence that allows us to speak of two ‘Kabbalistic renaissances’, the first taking place in thirteenth-century Castile, and the second one in sixteenth-century Italy.
Selma Stern Zentrum für Jüdische Studien
Wednesday, 10 July, 9:30–11:00:
Panel II: Manuscript Matrix and Kabbalistic Knowledge Transfer
1. Magdaléna Jánošíková (Queen Mary, University of London) “Imprisoned Agencies: Knowledge Transfer between Travelling and Sitting Down”
In the spirit of associating ‘renaissance’ with cultural flourishing, historians recount the history of the late-Renaissance Jewry of east-central Europe as a heyday of cultural exchange with Italy. The mystical miscellany (NY, Jewish Theological Seminary, Ms 2324), written in 1550s, represents an early material evidence of the textual exchange between these two regions divided by the Alps. Its scribe Eliezer Eilburg, an Ashkenazi Jew born in Braunschweig, claimed to have gather the texts for his ‘Notebook of the Collector’ in Italy and then edited them in east-central Europe: he found some of his texts ‘in the hands of the Greek Jews,’ admired others in a monastery where they arrived via ‘the Spanish Jewish emigrants.’ His writing conveys excitement about new knowledge that originated in Jewish intellectual circles unknown to him prior to his visit of Italy.
Janosikova approached Eilburg’s miscellany as a case study of cultural agency, which enabled intellectual bourgeoning of the late sixteenth-century Jewish culture north of the Alps. Yet such approach, she noted, does not take into consideration high toll Eilburg paid. Eilburg’s new knowledge neither bought him a permanent residence in any major Polish community where he was returning, nor secured a stable income. Janosikova analysed the circumstances, which informed Eilburg’s writing, especially his prolonged imprisonment. She focused on Eilburg’s use of Abraham Abulafia’s Imre Shefer, which he incorporated into his first-person narrative. The use and appropriation of Kabbalistic meditative techniques of Abulafia may have provided Eilburg with a sense of agency and helped him to achieve the ideal of the balance of emotions. In this sense, as noted by Talya Fishman in Q&A, Abulafia’s writings provided Eilburg a channel to act in accordance with the contemporary medical guidelines – Kabbalah thus did not necessarily denote an esoteric type of knowledge but constituted the science and thus praxis of the day.
2. Hanna Gentili (The Warburg Institute): “Kabbalah and/or Philosophy: Sources and Methodology in the Work of Yohanan Alemanno”
Yohanan Alemanno (c. 1435-c. 1504) worked as a private teacher for the most illustrious Jewish and Christian circles and was particularly active in Florence, where he worked for the Da Pisa family and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Alemanno’s interests included philosophy, pedagogy, medicine, Kabbalah and biblical exegesis. His works, which are preserved almost entirely in manuscript form, are invaluable sources to trace the textual transmission of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century philosophical and Kabbalistic sources in fifteenth-century Italy. Hanna Gentili’s paper concerned Alemanno’s autograph notebook, Bodleian Library Ms Reggio 23, a commonplace book where he copied a wide variety of existing Hebrew sources, ranging from logic and philosophy of language to ethics and psychology. Ms Reggio 23 fully embodies the variety of Alemanno’s interests as it displays his knowledge of the Graeco-Arabic-Hebrew philosophical tradition as well as sources such as Sefer Yetsirah, Abraham Abulafia and the Zohar. Gentili showed how philosophical and Kabbalistic sources were often presented side by side in the manuscript page and merged in Alemanno’s later works. She analysed the disposition of the material in the manuscript, often precisely identified by the scribe himself, in order to discuss the textual practices adopted by Alemanno in the study, interpretation and teaching of both philosophical and Kabbalistic sources. Throughout the paper, the content of Ms Reggio 23 was contextualised in the wider framework of Alemanno’s work to show that it developed over a long period of time, including explicit cross-referencing. Gentili showcased Alemanno’s manuscript as a study programme of kabbalah, designed by the compiler for his own needs and purposes, and underpinned at large by Aristotelian sources.
11:30-13:00:
Panel III: Kabbalistic Knowledge between Jewish & Christian contexts
1. Flavia Buzzetta (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique – Laboratoire d’études sur les monothéismes), “Transmission and Transformation of Kabbalistic Knowledge in Italy at the End of the Fifteenth Century”
This presentation examined the transmission, adaptation, and transformation of Jewish thought in relation to Christian Kabbalistic works through a detailed study of the Kabbalistic library of Pierleone da Spoleto (1455-1492). Pierleone Leoni was a physician and a philosopher who participated in the rediscovery of the prisca theologia (a providential manifestation of a universal divine message and expression of a single truth) which embraces ancient, Mosaic, and Christian mysteries. Pierleone’s library, renowned among his contemporaries and remembered in the chronicles of his time, attests to the multiplicity of his interests. He devoted a section of his collection to Kabbalah, which in his opinion was able to cast light on the most secret aspects of the divine. Buzzetta focused on Sicilian translations of Kabbalistic texts that are located in Parisian libraries, and especially on the Ms. Arsenal 8526 that belonged to the library of the order of the Minime. This manuscript contains a vernacular Kabbalistic summa mainly composed of two treatises: the Tratati Belli (ff. 1r-138r), a translation of Abulafia’s Imre Shefer, and the Glosa de Schepher Yecira (ff. 140v-293r), a translation of Yoseph ben Shalom Ashkenazi’s Commentary on the Sefer Yetsirah. Written at the end of the fifteenth century in a Kabbalistic scriptorium, this code represents one of the first historical encounters between Jewish translators and Christian humanists, which involved both transformative communication and creative reception. Pierleoni, according to Buzzetta, had clearly prophetical interests and was also a reader of Ramon Lull’s ars combinatoria, since he read his Jewish Kabbalistic sources through the Lullian categories. As such, his translation of Kabbalistic texts can in fact be seen as adaptations and transformations of Kabbalistic knowledge, a type of “intellectual hybrids.”
2. Saverio Campanini (Università di Bologna): “Transmission and Reception of Isaac Ibn Sahula’s Kabbalistic Commentary on two Psalms”
Isaac Ibn Sahula is especially well-known as the author of the poem Meshal ha-Qadmoni. It is also known that Ibn Sahula was among the early Kabbalists and the first quotation of the Midrash ha-Ne’elam, from the earliest layer of Zoharic literature is found in his highly learned poem. Moreover, he was among the friends of Moshe de Leon and has occupied a relevant place in the 20th-century philological reconstruction of the development of Kabbalah in Castile. By the account of Saverio Campanini, it is all the more surprising that Sahula’s Kabbalistic Commentary on two Psalms has been neglected so far, especially since it was anthologised and some fragments have been translated into Latin in the glosses of the polyglot Psalter published by the bishop Agostino Giustiniani in 1516.
The original text and its reception in Latin formed the object of Campanini’s paper in which he showed not only that Ibn Sahula’s Kabbalistic commentary is preserved in a manuscript at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York (JTS 1609), but also that precisely that manuscript is the one which used to belong to Agostino Giustiniani’s library. The main features of Ibn Sahula’s commentary were presented together with their reception within the ideological framework of a Christian Kabbalist in the early Renaissance. Campanini presented a long history of (mis-)reading and (mis-)recognising of the attribution of the Kabbalistic commentary that continues in contemporary scholarship. By diligent reading of the manuscript sources, and especially highlighting the application of the tools of palaeography, Campanini emphasised the use of Hebrew manuscripts alongside Christian (printed) sources in reconstructing the history of textual transmission as well as Kabbalistic historiography.
14:00-16:00
Panel III: Transformations of Kabbalah in East-Central Europe
1. Maoz Kahana (Tel Aviv University): “Mortal Temples: Early Modern Usages of a Kabbalistic Image in the Nomian Sphere”
Maoz Kahana took the motif of the temple as the departing point for his discussion. He began with presenting Joseph Karo’s programme of the universal unification of Jewish law, setting it against the background of similar contemporary programmes, such as that of John Dee’s project of the universal language of nature. Kahana thereafter presented Sabbatai Tsevi’s ideas of bodily practices which conceptualised Tsevi’s body as the actual divine Temple on earth. This idea was placed by Kahana in the context of the early modern utopian or even revolutionary projects of earthly temples, such as the architectural design of El Escorial or the ideal model of the universe by Isaac Newton. In his talk, Kahana discussed the halakhic impact of the organisation of Jewish knowledge, comparing the ideal of the “temple of law” of Joseph Karo with the temple of performative body of the messiah as presented in some texts about Sabbatai Tsevi by his major supporter, Nathan of Gaza. Interestingly, the projects of both Karo and Tsevi, one legal and the other cosmological, were underpinned to a great degree by the Kabbalistic language and rhetoric, inasmuch as the language of kabbalah enabled their “rationalisation”, legitimation, universalisation, and thus popularisation. Kahana highlighted the move inwards in the texts of Nathan of Gaza, that is, a concerted effort to emphasise the performative self of the kabbalaist alongside the performative body of the messiah, which might constitute a major change in the Kabbalistic language of the early modernity in comparison to the earlier period.
2. Avinoam Stillman (Beer Sheva): “Paratexts and the Printing of Kabbalah in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth”
Over the course of the 18th century, numerous and varied kabbalistic texts were printed in the Hebrew presses of Eastern European towns like Zolkiew and Korets. This wave of kabbalistic printing – which peaked in the last quarter of the century – was the largest since the 16th century printings of kabbalah in Italy and Poland. The paratexts of many of these books – title-pages, approbations, introductions, editorial apologies, and colophons – reveal their embeddedness in both local and global contexts. Stillman highlighted for instance a tendency to authenticate and legitimise the texts in their approbations by asserting their link to the authority of Isaac Luria, even if that linkage was only “fabricated.” On the one hand, these sources shed light on the local conditions under which kabbalistic manuscripts were obtained and edited for print. The first printings of the Lurianic kabbalistic writings of Hayyim Vital particularly demonstrate the important role of rabbinic elites, with their social authority, their educational institutions, and their libraries, in the production of kabbalistic books.
According to Stillman, the paratexts also point to continuities between the intellectual elites and the networks of individuals associated historiographically with the emergent movements of Hasidism and the Haskalah. On the other hand, reprints of kabbalistic books testify to the circulation of kabbalistic knowledge between Eastern Europe and centres of Hebrew printing such as Amsterdam and Constantinople. Frequently printed works like Share Orah of Joseph Gikatilla reflect the emergence of kabbalistic book-markets; these were linked to the spread of certain kabbalistic rituals, such as recitation of the Zohar or the kabbalat shabbat liturgy, across the early modern Jewish world. According to Stillman, the paratexts of kabbalistic prints paint a dynamic picture of the socio-cultural position of kabbalah between in 18th century Eastern Europe and make it possible to reassess the Kabbalistic curriculum of the time.
3. Elke Morlok (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt): “The Magic Triangle: Printing Lurianic Kabbalah in Koretz with Satanow, Krüger and Czartoryski”
This lecture discussed the first printing of Lurianic material in Koretz in 1782. The unique cooperation between the maskil Isaac Satanow (1732-1804), the salesman Anton Krüger (c. 1705-1779) and the magnate of Koretz and Pantler of Lithuania Joseph Klemenz Czartoryski (1740-1810) led to the first publication of Lurianic books, whose circumstances and contexts will be examined. Morlok presented the specific motivations and interests of the three partners, the contexts in which these writings were put to print and their producers’ expectations.
Special attention was given to the fascinating figure of Satanow, who originated from Podolia, but migrated to Berlin, where he became one of the most influential personalities of Haskala literature and its printing. He was the director of the Oriental Printing Press and author of numerous books on grammar, ethics, Hebrew language, education, science, theology and philosophy. Morlok focused on his parameters for the Jewish society at the threshold of modernity and the extent to which kabbalistic material played a role in that process, with an eye to Satanow’s engagement with the questions of the modern world in his various writings on tradition, theology and science. Morlok highlighted the philological expertise of Satanow and his potential connections with Sawants’ scribes, the copyists of Lurianic manuscripts, as well as a pedagogical agenda that underpinned Satanow’s printing enterprise. For Satanow, Lurianic Kabbalah might have been a medium to bridge the gap between the East and the West, or the “oriental” (esoteric) and “western” knowledge. The questions raised by Morlok regarding Joseph Czartoryski, the magnate of Korzec, such as his personal connections to esotericists’ circles and his interest in freemasonry that may have motivated his endorsement of the print of Lurianic Kabbalah, still await in-depth archival study but suggest an interesting avenue for further research.
16:00
IV: Concluding remarks
The papers engendered an engaging debate both during the panels and the concluding discussion. The conference covered a long period between late 15th and late 18th century. The participants reflected on the question of careful periodisation with regard to Jewish early modernity and a need to emphasise cultural and social changes particular to the 16th, 17th, and 18th century respectively. Andrea Gondos highlighted not only the problems of periodisation but also those stemming from geographical complication, suggesting careful comparative study on Kabbalistic knowledge in various geo-cultural zones. Indeed, the conference papers covered the transfer of knowledge that took place in the main centres of the early modern “Western world”: Italy, Central and Eastern Europe, Iberian Peninsula, the Middle East, as well as North Africa.
Talya Fishman noted that the conference shifted the hitherto dominant scholarly notion of early modern Kabbalah as a counter-narrative to Haskalah—the latter customarily considered as the main Jewish cultural and intellectual factor of the period. Instead, the conference papers successfully proved that Kabbalah played an essential role in transmitting, authenticating, and legitimising knowledge in early modernity, both among Jewish and non-Jewish society. Among various Jewish audiences, as stated by Maoz Kahana, Kabbalah became one of the dominant languages through which individuals and groups could express and authorise their views and beliefs on subjects from law to natural knowledge. This authoritative language was often shared with members of non-Jewish circles interested in various forms of prisca theologia in 15th-16th century, or esotericism in the 17th and 18th century. The conference participants discussed the use of the Kabbalistic language in expressing the dynamics of emotions as well as concepts of self, reflecting on a general predilection of the epoch to accounting for one’s individual, inner experiences in writing found also in Kabbalistic texts.
Magdalena Janosikova raised the vital question of the forms and methods of the transmission of Kabbalistic knowledge and the need for comparative studies in the area of material genres employed to this end by Jews in the early modern period. The majority of conference papers focused on the role of print vs. manuscripts in the popularisation of Kabbalah in early modernity, while several papers strongly highlighted a crucial role of manuscripts in conveying and transmitting knowledge well until the end of the 18th century. A careful reconsideration of the production of manuscripts, those for individual or private use and those produced in scriptoria, may help answering vital questions of exclusivity of Kabbalistic knowledge on the one hand and its popularisation on the other. As demonstrated by papers of Elke Morlok and Avinoam Stillman, a focused research on political, social and cultural underpinnings of printing kabbalah may bring more answers on the rationale of circulation of Kabbalistic knowledge both in manuscript and printed form.
Outcomes and outputs
- The conference helped establish a network of both junior and senior scholars (in equal numbers) who work on the topics related to kabbalah and knowledge in the early modern period.
- The event promoted the cluster of Jewish studies in the Berlin-Hamburg area. Moreover, it featured a good number of scholars from various centres of Jewish studies in Europe and facilitated their discussions with academics based in Israel.
- The organisers have planned the publication of conference proceedings as a special issue of the journal Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts. The publisher has been approached and initial arrangements were made to issue the volume at the beginning of 2021. To date, the majority of conference speakers (ten of eleven) have committed to submitting their revised papers for publication. The volume will be preceded by a comprehensive introduction authored by the conference conveners.
Publicity
- EAJS website
- GAJS
- Soz-Kult website
- FU Institut für Judaistik website
- University of Hamburg website
- Facebook page of Judaistik at FU Berlin and Selma Stern Zentrum für Jüdische Studien
- Newsletter of Selma Stern Zentrum für Jüdische Studien
- academia.edu
- “Knowledge in Circulation” blog: https://esknowcirc.hypotheses.org/179
- Posters and flyers around FU Berlin, University of Hamburg, send also to all major Jewish Studies departments in Germany
Link to the programme: https://www.academia.edu/39235862/EAJS_Conference_Kabbalah_and_Knowledge_Transfer_in_the_Early_Modern_World_Program
*
Signed by:
Agata Paluch
Patrick B. Koch