The EAJS runs a semi-annual Small Research Grant Programme to help fully paid-up Full Members of the EAJS as well as EAJS Student Members enrolled on a PhD research degree at a European institution of higher learning to pursue archival and library studies related to their area of research. Scholarly excellence as well as the potential to develop research cooperation in the disciplines constituting Jewish Studies across Europe will be key criteria.
The next Call for Applications for this Programme is expected to be announced on the EAJS website and in the monthly members’ newsflash in June 2025.
Small Research Grant Programme Reports
Dr David Torollo
My research interests include, but are not limited to, transference of knowledge in medieval Iberia and the medieval Mediterranean; processes of cultural translation between Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, and Judeo-Arabic; the development of wisdom literature in diverse literary traditions; and the use and misuse of the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Thanks to a fellowship from the EAJS, I have worked in the Weston Library, Bodleian Library, in Oxford. … … After this necessary library work and once the critical editions and translations are finished, I find my project to be in an excellent position to accomplish the second step: the tracking of the history of creation, transmission, circulation, and reception of these texts and their placing within a specific intellectual context, the Jewish multilingual genre of musar.
Image: Kitāb maḥāsin al-ʼādāb [The Book of Excellent Conduct], 1467. Bodleian Library MS. Huntington 488, 84r
Jan Kutilek
The research enabled me to enhance and broaden my dissertation’s aim, which is to analyse the nature of anti-Jewish violence in Galicia and compare it to violence in Czechoslovakia between 1918 and 1920. It involved analysing primary sources from the British delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, focusing on documents related to Jews, political developments, and socio-economic conditions in Poland and Czechoslovakia. … … The research trip fulfilled its aim by providing detailed information about the challenges and opportunities faced by Jewish communities during this pivotal era. It contributed significantly to the dissertation by shedding light on the specific circumstances and experiences of Jewish communities in Galicia and the Czech lands.
Image: Paris “Peace Conference” Files, 1919, National Archives, Kew, London
Julie Dawson
In 2009 a set of diaries were discovered in an abandoned synagogue in Transylvania. Containing over 800 entries, the diaries stretch from 1948-1961 and record the postwar life of grief and limited triumph of Blanka Lebzelter, a young Jewish woman originally from Bukovina, who survived the Transnistrian Holocaust. … The consultation of this expanse of repositories is one of the defining features of my work and likewise embodies its unique contribution to the scholarly world. … The EAJS travel grant provided me with the opportunity to carry out the final research trip required for my work. … … The EAJS travel grant has enabled me to incorporate into my project the final strands necessary to produce a unique and valuable work of research, which contributes to scholarship in a number of underserved areas: postwar survivor experience, in particular for women; Jewish life and antisemitism in postwar Romania; the Transnistrian Holocaust; survivor emotional reaction to spaces of trauma.
Image: World War II-era list of Jewish inhabitants of the town of Waschkoutz / Vașcăuți in Bukovina (Chernivtsi State Archives)
Rachel Pafe
Over the course of the month I found a wealth of material that exceeded my expectations. On the one hand, it was helpful to trace Rose’s developments both in thought and spirituality throughout the many diaries she kept from the beginning of her research career until her early death. … the material in the archive helped me imagine a fuller picture of Rose, namely one in which the role of Judaism and modern Jewish thought was essential. … … In conclusion, I would like to thank EAJS for providing me with the funding to realize such an exciting opportunity for research and discovery.
Image: University of Warwick Library, housing the Modern Records Centre. Photo used with permission from Modern Records Centre.
Nomi Drachinsky
The work in the Royal Spanish Academy archive in Madrid is one of the main milestones of the research. Although a large part of Academy archival material has already been digitalised, the quality of the digitalised items is rather poor, and can only give a general idea of the content. To gain a deeper understanding of a document, it is necessary to work with the original found in the archive, mainly with the guidance and help of its director, Covadonga de Quintana, or the archive workers. … During the stay, I discovered materials regarding the new entries incorporated into the corpus, shedding light on definitions and proposed amendment from the mid-19th century.
Image: Nomi Drachinsky
Alexandra Bandl
After exploring the rich holdings of YIVO at the Center for Jewish History in New York City, I had the unique opportunity to stay at Stanford to complete my collection of sources with the generous support of an EAJS grant. The Hoover Institution, renowned for its role in preserving the history of Eastern Europe and communism, proved invaluable for my project. … … the trip to the archives was a great success, enriching my understanding of this crucial period in all its complexity. I am very grateful for the opportunity to conduct this archival research, which would not have been possible without the support of the EAJS. The sources gathered are a significant addition to the perspectives on the events I am studying.
Image: “Matzo Letter,” Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York [AJC, RG 347.7.1, Box 45, Folder 52]
Mrs Laura Graziani-Sechieri
During my research trip in Rome I’ve had the chance to consult the papers stored in the Archive of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith – (Archivio del Dicastero per la Dottrina della Fede, new definition of the Holy Office) and in the State Archive of Rome. … Consulting the unpublished documents in the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith was very important because it allowed me to analyse the correspondence between the Papal Legate in Ferrara and the Holy Office in Rome. … The maps of the Gregorian cadastre of State Archive of Rome and the related registers allowed me to reconstruct the real estate situation of the new ghetto. This will allow me an interesting comparison with the analysis I have already carried out through the Ferrara sources.
Image: Library overview, State Archive in Rome
Ms Tamara Gleason Friedberg
In New York City I was able to consult the Tamiment Library, the New York Public Library, and YIVO. In Mexico City, I consulted the archives in the Documentation Center of the Jewish Community in Mexico (CDIJUM). The information I was able to consult in these archives was fundamental for the completion of my four chapters. … My research analyses how news about the Holocaust impacted the Jewish Ashkenazi community in Mexico during and immediately after the Holocaust.
Image: Placard from April 1944 in memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Centro de Documentacion e Investigación Judío de México