Report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies 2015–2016
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Report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies 2015–2016 Report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies 2015–2016 OXFORD CENTRE FOR HEBREW AND JEWISH STUDIES A Recognised Independent Centre of the University of Oxford Contents President’s Preface 7 OXFORD CENTRE FOR HEBREW AND JEWISH STUDIES Highlights of the 2015–2016 Academic Year 10 Clarendon Institute Oxford Seminar in Advanced Jewish Studies Walton Street Oxford Israel in Egypt / Egypt in Israel: The Land of Egypt as OX1 2HG Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period Tel: 01865 610422 Email: [email protected] The Work of the Seminar Professor Alison Salvesen 21 Website: www.ochjs.ac.uk Bringing Scribal Culture to Life: The Physicality of Reading and Writing in Early Hellenistic Judea and Ptolemaic Egypt The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies is a company, limited by guarantee, Dr Lindsey Askin 23 incorporated in England, Registered No. 1109384 (Registered Charity No. 309720). The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies is a tax-deductible organization within Dating and Locating the Septuagint of Proverbs in its Jewish- the United States under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (Employer Hellenistic Cultural Context Dr Lorenzo Cuppi 24 Identification number 13–2943469). From Egypt to Palestine and Back: Links and Channels in Medieval Judaism Professor Miriam Frenkel 25 A Corpus of Jewish Papyri from Egypt Professor Tal Ilan 26 The Jewish Tax and the Diaspora Revolt: Evidence From Papyri Dr Deborah Jacobs 28 Along the Banks of the Nile: The River of Egypt in Early Jewish Literature Dr Nathalie LaCoste 29 An Invisible Community? Jews in Papyri of the Late Antique and Early Islamic Period Dr Marie Legendre 30 Philo of Alexandria and the Memory of Ptolemaic Rule Copyright © Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, 2016 Professor Sarah Pearce 31 All rights reserved Mastery, Honour and Desire: Jewish Slave-Owning in Twelfth- ISSN 1368 9096 and Thirteenth-century Egypt Dr Craig Perry 33 Front and back cover illustrations: Clarendon Institute In and (Get) Out of Egypt: Conceptions of Israel and Egypt in the Edited by Dr Jeremy Schonfield Dead Sea Scrolls Dr Dorothy M. Peters 34 Designed by Tony Kitzinger Remembering Alexandria in the Galilee: Local Adaptation of Printed and bound at the Dorset Press, Dorchester Regional Folklore Professor Galit Hasan-Rokem 35 5 6 Contents Egypt, Jews and the Septuagint Professor Alison Salvesen 37 Beyond Translation: The Letter of Aristeas Reexamined Myles Schoonover 39 President’s Message The Academic Year Courses, Lectures, Conferences, Publications and Other The original draft of this report on 2015–2016 began with a celebration of the Activities by Fellows of the Centre 41 final touches to the Centre’s new home in the Clarendon Institute, celebrating the sparkling new façade of the building, which was cleaned by University Seminars, Conferences and Special Lectures Involving Estates in the summer of 2015, along with the repair of some of the fine Centre Fellows 58 stonework and the refurbishment of the Common Room kitchen with the Reports by Visiting Fellows and Scholars 72 help of a grant from a generous supporter. A fire in August 2016, which caused Journal of Jewish Studies 87 considerable damage to some offices on the first floor and to the roof, has put us back under wraps, but I am relieved to be able to write this (in late September) The Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies 89 in the knowledge that we shall be able to use much of the building by the The Leopold Muller Memorial Library 92 beginning of term, and that University Estates has made available excellent Listings temporary accommodation in the nearby Gibson Building for those staff, including Visiting Fellows, whose offices will not be accessible until repairs The Academic Council 103 are complete in spring 2017. It has been salutary to realise over the past couple Other Academic Officers 104 of months how much we have come to rely on the facilities of the Clarendon Members of the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Unit 105 Institute and how much it has come to feel like home. The year preceding the fire was full of academic initiatives. Most notable, The Leopold Muller Memorial Library Committee 106 as in previous years, has been the Oxford Seminar in Advanced Jewish Visiting Fellows and Scholars 106 Studies on ‘Israel in Egypt’, which met from January to June 2016, generating Centre Staff 108 considerable interest across the University as well as wider afield. The Centre has also benefited greatly from the enthusiastic participation of an unusually Honorary and Emeritus Fellows and Senior Associates 109 large cohort of Visiting Scholars from around the world. Both they and the Board of Governors 110 Centre’s emeritus colleagues – especially those who have continued to work Donors of Books to the Leopold Muller Memorial Library 112 in the Clarendon Institute – have contributed enormously to the vitality of the Centre’s intellectual life over the year. It was a pleasure to celebrate in May Books Acquired for the Library through Special Funds the publication of a substantial volume of studies, representing just some of and Endowments 113 the major contribution to scholarship produced by Fergus Millar during his Sources of Funding, 2015–2016 115 time at the Centre since his retirement as Camden Professor. Among the achievements of our current Fellows, it is appropriate to note in particular the honour accorded to Jan Joosten by his election as an Honorary Member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. It has been a pleasure to see the continuing stream of publications resulting from the Centre’s activities. Two volumes arising from the Centre’s major Seminars have been published in the course of the year, and the Centre’s own Journal of Jewish Studies continues to appear, under the editorship of Sacha 7 8 President’s Message President’s Message 9 Stern and Sarah Pearce, with the promptness and efficiency and high standards grateful to all our supporters for enabling us to achieve what we do, and it seems which have been its hallmark since it was brought to the Centre under the appropriate, following the generous and untiring efforts of colleagues around editorship of Geza Vermes some 44 years ago. the University to ensure that the Centre has been able to continue with its work The full record of the busy academic year can be found inside this Annual over the summer despite the temporary disaster of the fire, to express here our Report, but it is appropriate to note in particular the continuing impact of gratitude to the University of Oxford. the Summer Institute on Modern and Contemporary Judaism, and of the Martin Goodman Biblical Hebrew Summer School, which have both become annual events, September 2016 and the Centre’s outreach to the wider public through JW3 in London and the Department of Continuing Education in Oxford, as well as the courses and lectures arranged each term for a public audience in the Clarendon Institute. The Centre has benefited enormously during the year from the generosity of donors, including a major donation from Mrs Dina Ullendorff in memory of her husband Professor Edward Ullendorff, who was an Honorary Fellow of the Centre, and a generous bequest from the estate of Adele Bergreen, widow of Morris Bergreen, who was for many years a stalwart supporter of the Centre. The gift of a remarkable painting from 1955 by Hyman Bloom (1913–2009), presented to the Centre by Stella Bloom, the artist’s widow, is to be celebrated with a special colloquium at the Centre in October 2016, and the gift of the Weisz Western Sephardi Collection is to be marked by a special lecture in November. We mourn the loss of Lord Weidenfeld, a distinguished Emeritus Governor of the Centre, and a good friend to Oxford. We said farewell over the course of the year, with gratitude for all they have done for us, to Zehavit Stern, the Centre’s Idel and Isaac Haase Fellow in Eastern European Jewish Civilization, and to Derek Penslar, who has moved to a post in Harvard. The Leopold Muller Memorial Library has lost two highly valued colleagues to other challenges: Zsófia Buda has taken up a new post in the British Library and Jane Barlow has moved to Ethiopia with her husband. The departure of Sheila Phillips after eighteen years at the Centre, including three years as Bursar during a period of exceptional change over which she presided with astonishing calm (at least on the surface), took place at the start of October 2016 and therefore belongs properly to next year’s Annual Report, but it is appropriate to note now huge debt of gratitude that the Centre owes, not least in her recruitment of a new team, Kerry Maciak as Bursar and Jun Tong as Accounts Assistant, to take the Centre forward. In sum, the Centre looks forward to 2016–2017 in good heart, with the Visiting Fellows of a brand-new Oxford Seminar in Advanced Jewish Studies due to arrive in early October and a busy year ahead. We are immensely Highlights of the 2015–16 Roman imperial mosaic showing the Flooding of the Nile. Academic Israel in Egypt The Oxford Seminar in Advanced Jewish Studies for 2015–16 was entitled Year ‘Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period’. It was convened by Professor Alison Salvesen and Professor Sarah Pearce (Southampton), together with Professor Miriam Frenkel (Hebrew University).