ERSPECTIVES AJSPThe Newsletter of the Association for Jewish Studies

In This Issue:

EMPIRE IN JEWISH STUDIES ...... 7 ALSO... Exhibition Reviews: “Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg to Schottenstein” Bruce Nielsen...... 22 “Jewish Women and Their Salons: The Power of Conversation” Judith Rosenbaum...... 26 Imagining Jewish Modernities: Reflections on a Graduate Student Conference in Jewish Studies Rachel Shulman and Jennifer Young ...... 28 FALL 2005 ABLE F ONTENTS AJS Perspectives: The Newsletter T O C of the Association for Jewish Studies From the Editor...... 3 President Judith R. Baskin From the President ...... 4 University of Oregon Editor From the Executive Director ...... 5 Riv-Ellen Prell University of Minnesota Empire and Jewish Studies Editorial Board Introduction Ra’anan Boustan Riv-Ellen Prell ...... 7 University of Minnesota Imperialisms in Jewish History, From Pre- to Postmodern Marc Brettler Ra’anan Boustan ...... 8 Brandeis University Jews, Indians, and the Identity of Christian Europe Jonathan Decter Jonathan Boyarin ...... 12 Brandeis University Steven Fine Modern Jewries and the Imperial Imagination University of Cincinnati Sarah Stein ...... 14 Sara Horowitz Empire and the Jews York University Ivan Kalmar and Derek Penslar ...... 18 Oren Kosansky Lewis and Clark College Exhibition Reviews: Heidi Lerner “Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg to Schottenstein” Stanford University Bruce Nielsen ...... 22 Frances Malino “Jewish Women and Their Salons: The Power of Conversation” Wellesley College Judith Rosenbaum ...... 26 Deborah Dash Moore Vassar College Imagining Jewish Modernities: Reflections on a Jane Rothstein Graduate Student Conference in Jewish Studies New York University Rachel Shulman and Jennifer Young ...... 28 Jeffrey Shandler Rutgers University We Remember Our Colleagues Steven Zipperstein Murray Friedman 1926–2004 AJS Vice President for Publications Michael Alexander...... 30 Stanford University Leon Jick 1924–2005 Managing Editor Arnold J. Band ...... 31 Karin Kugel Executive Director Elka Klein 1965–2005 Rona Sheramy Steven Fine and Gail Labovitz ...... 32 Graphic Designer Gila Ramras-Rauch 1933–2005 Matt Biscotti Mark Dwortzan ...... 33 Wild 1 Graphics, Inc. Nahum M. Sarna 1923–2005 Please direct correspondence to: Marc Zvi Brettler ...... 34 Association for Jewish Studies Center for Jewish History Calendar of Conferences in Jewish Studies...... 38 15 West 16th Street New York, NY 10011 Calls for Papers ...... 39 Voice: (917) 606-8249 Awards ...... 40 Fax: (917) 606-8222 E-Mail: [email protected] Announcements...... 40 Web Site: www.brandeis.edu/ajs AJS Perspectives is published AJS Perspectives encourages submissions of articles, announcements, and brief letters to the bi-annually by the Association editor related to the interests of our members. Materials submitted will be published at the for Jewish Studies. discretion of the editors. AJS Perspectives reserves the right to reject articles, announcements, letters, advertisements, and other items not consonant with the goals and © Copyright 2005 Association for Jewish Studies purposes of the organization. Copy may be condensed or rejected because of length or style. ISSN 1529-6423 AJS Perspectives disclaims responsibility for statements made by contributors or advertisers. suggested a particularly ambitious graduate student conference held at theme for the fall issue: empire and the University of Illinois, FROM Jewish studies, a focus that encourages “Imagining Jewish Modernities.” us to reflect on the ways in which Jennifer Young and Rachel Shulman THE recent scholarship has contributed to report on the issues that our young and been challenged by our field. The colleagues in Jewish studies are EDITOR outstanding scholars who have addressing, and some of the ways contributed articles to this section that they negotiate their graduate Dear Colleagues, have examined how Jewish history training in multiple fields. might or might not be understood erspectives goes to press just differently when the concept of We are saddened and honored to as the United States faces up empire is made more complex and include the obituaries of many fine Pto the disaster that has ubiquitous. Ra’anan Boustan, Sarah scholars who died in the past year— occurred in the Gulf states, Stein, Jonathan Boyarin, and Ivan Professors Murray Friedman, Leon particularly Louisiana, in the wake of Kalmar and Derek Penslar each Jick, Elka Klein, Gila Ramras-Rauch, Hurricane Katrina. I have no doubt considers not only a historical era, but and Nahum Sarna. Their colleagues, that the members of AJS would like also how theorizing empire reshapes and in some cases friends of long to help our colleagues who have our understanding of Jewish political standing, have written about their been affected in whatever way we and cultural experience. I want to great accomplishments and can. As our colleagues, both faculty express my appreciation to Ra’anan contributions to Jewish studies and graduate students, assess their Boustan for his intellectual leadership scholarship and teaching. needs, we hope that in the coming and remarkable energy in creating this weeks and months we will be able to section. I want to express my sincere respond as a community of scholars appreciation to all of the authors and as an organization. You will find We invited two colleagues—Judith who write for AJS Perspectives. More information on page 33 about AJS Rosenbaum and Bruce Nielson—to often than not they are asked to waiving registration fees for our review recent exhibitions in New rewrite and even rethink what they annual conference for those York: “Jewish Women and their send. Those in the empire section members who, in the wake of the Salons: The Power of received comments from both myself hurricane, require financial Conversation,” and “Printing the and Ra’anan Boustan. I am always assistance. AJS has also provided Talmud: From Bomberg to impressed by our colleagues’ information on its Web site Schottensein.” Although many of us willingness to rework their essays. regarding temporary teaching may not have had the opportunity Thanks as always to the hard work of positions for displaced faculty, to see the exhibitions, we wanted to our managing editor, Karin Kugel volunteer and charitable draw attention to them because of for bringing AJS Perspectives to its opportunities, and other resources the outstanding scholarship that final form. Thanks also to Judith relevant to those both affected by created not only the exhibitions, Baskin for her timely and helpful and concerned about the Katrina but also the catalogues that editorial advice. I look forward to disaster. This is our first and very accompanied them. We hope that your comments and thoughts for small response to the crisis at hand. these reviews will provide a sense of future issues. You may reach me at the ideas and issues that shaped [email protected]. The AJS Perspectives editorial board both the exhibitions and the books. initiates many of the topics that we Riv-Ellen Prell address in our publication. At our We are pleased to once again University of Minnesota December meeting several members include an article about an exciting

The Association for Jewish Studies wishes to thank the Center for Jewish History and its constituent organizations–the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, the Yeshiva University Museum, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research–for providing the AJS with office space at the Center for Jewish History.

3 membership renewal notices. Each membership is critical to AJS’s ability year we find that some of our to continue to support the FROM members do not continue their professional lives of those at earlier affiliations with AJS. Although we stages in their careers. We cannot THE generally surpass the number of those maintain our small professional staff lost with an annual influx of new and its activities, and we certainly PRESIDENT members, it is a source of cannot expand our range of projects, disappointment to AJS officers and without the financial pledge of Dear Colleagues, professional staff that not all allegiance expressed in yearly individuals maintain their relationship membership renewal by each AJS JS has lost two of its founders with us on a regular basis. Some member. in recent months: Leon Jick, membership lapses are due simply to Awho was the first president of benign neglect; a member may have A new initiative launched in recent our organization from 1969 to 1971, the best of intentions to send in that years, the establishment of and Nahum Sarna, who served as renewal form sitting on her or his Institutional Memberships, has been president from 1984 to 1985. desk, but never quite gets around to a great success in garnering increased Obituaries of these devoted colleagues it. Other lapsed members have publicity and exposure, as well as appear on pages 31 and 34 indicated that they join only in those other benefits, for institutional respectively. We will be honoring their years when they are planning to members and in providing much accomplishments, contributions, and present at the annual meeting. In needed financial support for AJS. A memories in a special session scheduled response, I would like to reiterate list of current institutional members for Sunday afternoon, December 18, that continued commitment to AJS is appears on page 43. Institutions with at 4:00 p.m. at our annual conference meaningful and important. Jewish studies programs or in Washington, D.C. Membership affords more than departments may become attendance at the annual meeting. institutional members at two During the past spring, Arnold J. Members receive two excellent financial levels, depending on the Band, former AJS president and first publications, the AJS Review and nature of their undergraduate and editor of the AJS Newsletter, wrote a AJS Perspectives, which keep them graduate offerings. Please contact brief history of the Association for informed about new scholarship, our executive director, Rona the new edition of the Encyclopedia innovations in pedagogy and Sheramy, if your institution is not yet Judaica. Professor Band’s efforts technology, access to archives and affiliated with this program. were the first attempt in our Internet resources, as well as notices organization’s thirty-six years of of relevant conferences, exhibitions, And finally on behalf of AJS, I would existence to pull together data about and performances. Members also like to acknowledge with gratitude our history; the task was not an easy have access to the largest the generosity of George one. Within the confines of one international listing of professional Blumenthal, whose contribution of thousand words, Professor Band has positions in the field. three LCD projectors and a subsidy gathered essential facts about the for related costs will enhance our founding, organization, and growth Moreover, affiliation with AJS audio-visual capacities at our of AJS and offered some analysis of transcends the needs of the individual. upcoming meeting in Washington, their significance. He has also By rejoining our organization each D.C., and will provide significant recorded the names of our past year, members are expressing their financial savings in years to come. presidents, executive directors, and involvement in and dedication to the Mr. Blumenthal’s contribution was publications editors. This brief survey, academic enterprise of Jewish studies made on behalf of the Center for however, is only a beginning. As both in North America and abroad. Online Judaic Studies. Band writes in his obituary of Leon Members are also supporting the Jick on page 31, a history of AJS training and launching of new I look forward to greeting you in would be an important and desirable generations of graduate students, the Washington this December and I am contribution to American Jewish scholars of the future, and our delighted to confirm that our 2006 cultural history. This seems likely to continued visibility as a learned conference will take place in San be an attractive prospect for a society that interacts with other such Diego, California. dissertation or monograph, and I organizations across the scholarly hope an enterprising scholar will spectrum. While senior scholars may Judith R. Baskin accept the challenge as we move no longer depend as heavily on the University of Oregon towards our fortieth anniversary. services and networking opportunities In August our office sends out that AJS provides, their continued

4 coordinator does not believe a overlap among divisions, and proposal fits well under a given subject area distribution. One of the FROM rubric, she/he may ask that another most significant constraints is that coordinator evaluate it. The abstract no more than fourteen concurrent THE is the only grounds upon which a sessions (in rare cases, fifteen) may coordinator can assess a prospective be held in a given time slot. This EXECUTIVE paper or session, so it is extremely limit is in part imposed by the important that the abstract conference hotels, which offer AJS a IRECTOR represents as lucid and thoughtful finite number of rooms. It is also a D an articulation of the intended topic policy developed in response to Dear Colleagues, as possible. While evaluation criteria members’ concern that session vary somewhat based upon the audiences not be spread too thinly. uring the past summer, the proposed format (panel, roundtable, conference program etc.), coordinators in general look One of the greatest challenges the Dcommittee, made up of for originality of research, a well- program committee faces is how to scholars across the field of Jewish defined topic that can be presented place as many high quality studies; Sara Horowitz, vice- within the given time frame, and individual proposals as possible in president for program; and AJS staff evidence of a clear argument. It is the final program. Each year, there devoted significant efforts to vital that each participant in a are “orphan” proposals that the arranging the schedule for our proposed session submit an abstract program committee must annual meeting. Each year, we in a timely way, otherwise the entire reluctantly decline, simply because receive inquiries regarding the panel may be jeopardized. there is no appropriate panel or proposal evaluation process. In session in which they can be placed. response to these questions, I Among accepted individual The Call for Papers explains that would like to to explain the route a proposals—those proposals not preference for acceptance is given to paper or session proposal follows submitted as part of pre-organized pre-organized sessions, because from submission through placement sessions—coordinators are asked to these sessions tend to have a greater in the conference program. As the suggest groupings of three to four coherence and underlying logic number of submissions continues to papers around a given theme. If than panels made up of individual grow, we do not have sufficient accepted by the program proposals. This policy is consistant time or space at the conference to committee, these groupings will with those of other scholarly place every worthy proposal. At constitute panels in the conference organizations. At the same time, the present, we are unable to accept program. Division coordinators are program committee recognizes that approximately 20 percent of the also asked to list all the sessions in graduate students and scholars new proposals submitted to us. This is their divisions in order of priority, to the field or conference may not why it is important for prospective to provide brief explanations for have the networks in place to easily presenters to understand the various papers or sessions they recommend organize panels. In addition, factors that affect acceptance and rejecting, and to highlight any scholars whose research charts placement, and how to prepare the sessions which should be given unexplored territory may not easily strongest possible proposal. special priority. This evaluation find appropriate colleagues with process allows the program whom to form panels. To assist In the first phase in the review committee to understand the members in forming panels, AJS has process, one of the twenty recommendation and also provide created a “Request for Papers designated division coordinators feedback to applicants. Board” on our Web site, where evaluates each proposal. The scholars can post a call for papers purpose of this phase is for Division coordinators’ on a given topic. This year, in fact, specialists in the field to assess the recommendations play a central role several successful sessions were proposal and offer their in determining which papers will organized through this virtual recommendations for acceptance or appear in the conference program, bulletin board. Scholars have also rejection to the program but it is ultimately the program turned to the listserv, H-Judaic, to committee. Depending upon the committee, led by Sara Horowitz, post calls. These venues are not field, the number of submissions to that makes the final decisions. In only useful ways of soliciting a division can range from a dozen addition to the recommendations of proposals for a session, but also of to more than eighty. Division the division heads, the program sharing one’s work with other coordinators have access to all committee takes into account such scholars. subject-area proposals, so that if a factors as time and space limitations,

5 After the program committee has With a finite number of spaces and decisions, the vice-president for reviewed the division coordinators’ days, as well as A/V considerations, program works closely with the AJS recommendations, it drafts a this can be a great challenge, but office to review and refine the preliminary conference schedule to every effort is made to ensure that schedule, ensuring that the program ensure that the maximum number panels on a particular subject area is as fluid and exciting as possible. of proposals have been placed and are spread out across the to avoid scheduling sessions of the conference. Once letters have been Rona Sheramy same subject area in one time-slot. sent to applicants announcing the Association for Jewish Studies

37th Annual December 18-20, 2005 Washington Hilton and Towers Conference of the Washington, DC Association for Jewish Studies ADVERTISERS EXHIBITORS American Academy for Jewish Research Association Book Exhibit Bar-Ilan University Press Brill Academic Publishers Baylor University Press Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Holocaust Memorial Museum The Center for Cultural Judaism The Center for Cultural Judaism The Center for Jewish History The Center for Jewish History CET Academic Programs-Jewish Studies in Prague Continuum International Publishing Group Continuum International Publishing Group The Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center Dan Wyman Books Goldstein-Goren International Center for Jewish Thought at The Feminist Press at CUNY Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Index to Jewish Periodicals Harvard University Press Indiana University Press Hendrickson Publishers Jerusalem Books Indiana University Press Jewish Lights Publishing Institute for Jewish Studies/Emory University The Jewish Publication Society Jerusalem Books, Ltd. Jewish Theological Seminary Press The Jewish Publication Society The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization Jewish Theological Seminary Press Merkos Publications Knopf Publishing Group, Random House, Inc. Mohr Siebeck The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization National Yiddish Book Center Mohr Siebeck New York University Press National Foundation for Jewish Culture Random House, Inc. National Yiddish Book Center Rowman & Littlefield New York University Press Rutgers University Press Purdue University Press Schoen Books Rowman & Littlefield The Scholar's Choice Rutgers University Press The Shalem Center/Shalem Press Sage Publications Stanford University Press The Shalem Center/Shalem Press Syracuse University Press Society of Biblical Literature University of California Press Stanford University Press University of Pennsylvania Press Syracuse University Press University of Texas Press University of California Press University Press of America University of Pennsylvania Press University Press of New England University of Pennsylvania Press Journals Division Wayne State University Press University of Texas Press Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company University of Washington Press Yale University Press University Press of New England YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Vallentine Mitchell Publishers Yale University Press For book exhibit hours and information on Yale University Program in Judaic Studies exhibiting/advertising at the AJS Conference, Wayne State University Press go to: www.brandeis.edu/ajs.

6 EMPIRE AND JEWISH STUDIES Riv-Ellen Prell

he Perspectives editorial board Jewish involvement in capitalist and variation as a central component of invited five scholars to colonialist projects may well inhibit empires helped to explain Tcomment upon what we research into topics that can easily developments in Jewish cultures? consider to be an important feed anti-Semitic fantasies of Jews’ development in Jewish studies: global reach. For others still, Jews For all of the scholars who have writing Jewish history through the simply disappear into a generalized contributed to this issue of lens of empire, a transnational form European identity, failing to note Perspectives, empire is a “project” of political and economic power both chronological and cultural made by its subjects within specific involving relationships that are as parallels between Jews and, for cultural domains. That such projects much about culture as they are example, Indians, as objects of have, to a greater or lesser degree, imperial domination. depended upon the participation about structure. In particular, the and even complicity of those study of this form of power Agency is another key issue subjects is not to deny that power underlines the importance of explored by these contributors as asymmetries are real. It is, however, analyzing and problematizing the they engage with postcolonial to suggest that power is not a relationship between the dominant theories. They note the extent to matter of politics alone. Symbols, and the dominated. The lachrymose which empires dominate their language, and clothing, among fantasy of Jewish history— subjects neither by brute power other examples, function within a victimization—is addressed anew in alone, nor by cultural indifference. discursive realm that simultaneously a literature that interrogates the The project of empire is mutually reflects and contests domination. illusion of an absolute binary constitutive; cultural boundaries are Taken as a whole, these essays make between power and powerlessness. not what they appear to be. Our clear that Jewish studies scholars Indeed, how Jews have exercised colleagues emphasize the porous draw increasingly on contemporary power within the context of empire nature of the relationships between theories not only to illuminate our is of central concern. Our the Christian imperial powers and subject, but to rethink this contributors follow a historiographic the Jews, either within its scholarship in light of it. path from Late Antiquity to the geographic center or at a distance present. The questions that they from it. Mimicry and contestation pursue are, however, broadly relevant both emerge within regimes of AJS 37th Annual and even provocative for the social empire, thereby raising the vexing sciences, literature, and cultural problem of where to draw lines Conference studies as well. between “them” and “us.” December 18-20, 2005 Several of the essays address the Several of these essays engage the Washington Hilton and Towers presence—or absence—of Jews problem of how to understand Jews Washington, DC within the discussion of empire. The as actors within empires. If empire problem is not geographic alone. was the “dynamic engine” of Late Deadline for meal reservations, pre- Much work in Jewish studies is Antiquity, then how have Jews as conference reduced registration fee, largely indifferent to economic and Jews participated in the various and hotel reservations: political analysis, preferring instead periods of empire? How is the November 15, 2005. to emphasize religious and cultural Jewish presence in the modern developments. At the same time, nation-state, including Israel, See page 37 for further details. anxieties about calling attention to understood best? How has local

7 image of the ancient Jew material circumstances of empire that as a passive subject of conditioned these more glacial IMPERIALISMS IN empire, but also suggests cultural developments. Indeed, this that the boundaries and interpretative framework stresses that EWISH ISTORY modalities of Jewish the creation of a late antique J H , culture and piety were common culture was uniquely themselves constantly predicated on the Romans’ ability to FROM PRE- TO subject to rearticulation. manage, in concrete ways, the centrifugal forces of regional, social, OSTMODERN This essay explores how linguistic, and religious diversity. Ra’ananP Boustan various new approaches Roman discourse of “universal” to “empire” as an empire was always tempered by the he dynamics of imperial analytical category have reinvigorated very real constraints imposed by domination that, to a large the study of ancient Jewish society geography, topography, climate, Textent, drove the development and culture—and how they might material resources, and, perhaps of Jewish society and culture continue to do so. Both for above all, the need for complicity on throughout Antiquity and Late pragmatic reasons and out of the part of subject populations—or at Antiquity (circa ninth century BCE to personal predilection, I will focus my least their representatives (Peregrine eighth century CE) have been an comments on research into Jewish Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The object of Jewish historical and culture and society under Roman- Corrupting Sea: A Study of theological speculation at least since Byzantine rule from the first to Mediterranean History [2000]; Peter the author of the book of Daniel seventh century CE, a field that has Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late structured the unruly political history recently seen much productive Antiquity: Towards a Christian of ancient Israel into an Empire [1992]). orderly, divinely- …JEWISH SOCIETY EMERGES AS A HETEROGENEOUS ordained, and The dialectic teleological sequence of SOCIAL SYSTEM MADE UP OF QUITE A DIVERSE SET OF between an empires (Dan emergent cultural 2:31–45). Of course, ACTORS EACH PURSUING THEIR GOALS WITHIN THE hegemony and Daniel’s four-empire persistent local scheme required ALWAYS SHIFTING PARAMETERS OF IMPERIAL POWER. variation that is constant readjustment already in implicit in this Antiquity, as Jews came under the engagement with the theme of historiographic framework has proven successive sway of Roman, Christian- empire. immensely productive for Jewish historians, who themselves have Roman, Sassanian, and Islamic Current study of Late Antiquity and become increasingly interested in the hegemony. Still, most modern its diverse religious movements, ways that Jews participated fully in historians would assent to the book’s including early Judaism, owes much their world while still marking their basic insight that the ebb and flow of to scholars such as Peter Brown, difference (Peter Schäfer, imperial politics constitute a perennial whose work emphasizes the deep “Introduction” to The Talmud force in Jewish history. cultural continuities that persisted in Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Yet, in marked contrast to Daniel as the face of the massive political Culture [1998]). Thus, in reaction to well as much traditional Jewish changes that transformed the classical the perennial temptation to present historiography, recent histories of world (The World of Late Antiquity, the Jews as passive, though Jews and Judaism in the ancient AD 150–750 [1971]). The periodically defiant, victims of foreign world are as apt to emphasize the historiographic framework that these domination, this new historiography dynamic and generative dimensions scholars have helped create over the has painted a more nuanced and of imperial conditions as their past forty years self-consciously variegated portrait of Jewish society repressive or destructive effects. In privileges the longue durée of social, in which Jewish dependency and these accounts, Jewish society cultural, and religious history over Jewish autonomy coexist in tension. emerges as a heterogeneous social the political, military, and economic In these accounts, the Jew of Late system made up of quite a diverse set crises that drive traditional narratives Antiquity was simultaneously a of actors each pursuing their goals of the “decline and fall” of the colonized subject and an active agent within the always shifting parameters Roman Empire. But this expansive deliberately maneuvering within an of imperial power. This portrait not view of Roman society should not be always fluid system of imperial only complicates the conventional thought simply to gloss over the control (David Biale, Power and 8 Powerlessness in Jewish History [1986], The thorough-going anti-essentialism Judaeo-Christianity [2004]; Dying for 10–33). Jewish society did not that informs this historiographic God: Martyrdom and the Making of constitute a homogeneous social trend has perhaps had its most Christianity and Judaism [1999]). entity informed by a single collective profound impact on the recent and Instead, his analysis is now grounded identity. Even the rabbinic movement quite radical reassessments of the in the more ironic discursive mode of itself was a complex system with formative histories of Judaism and post-colonial theory. Here, internal fractures and strains Christianity in Late Antiquity (e.g., imperialism, while entailing very real (Catherine Hezser, The Social Adam H. Becker and Annette Y. relations of power, does not produce Structure of the Rabbinic Movement Reed, eds., The Ways That Never pure oppositional cultures, one the in Roman Palestine [1997]). Some Parted: Jews and Christians in Late authoritative discourse of the Jews took an oppositional stance Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages colonizer and one the merely reactive toward Rome; others, like the [2003]; Charlotte Fonrobert, “The discourse of the colonized. Instead, Patriarch and his circle, could—and Didascalia Apostolorum: A Mishnah the colonial encounter generates a did—participate in elite Roman for the Disciples of Jesus,” JECS 9 common, if highly asymmetrical and society, though only briefly parlaying [2001], 483–509). In particular, always contested, cultural terrain their social and economic capital into Daniel Boyarin has traced in within which both colonizer and officially sanctioned leadership of the numerous studies the mutually colonized are constrained to speak Jewish community (Martin Jacobs, constituting histories of Judaism and and act (Homi Bhabha, The Location Die Institution des Jüdischen of Culture [1994]). Thus, for Patriarchen [1995]). example, Boyarin argues that the rabbis of Late Antiquity, In this portrait of a diverse in dynamic and strategic Jewish society riven by interaction with their internal competition, Christian counterparts, imperialism is no longer fashioned their own merely the background to or exclusionary practices (e.g., context of Jewish history, but anti-Christian polemic or its engine. The paradoxical regimes of gender dynamics of empire both differentiation) that were— challenged existing Jewish and continue to be— ways of life and constituted instrumental in the the very grounds of production and maintenance possibility for the emergence of rabbinic Judaism as a of novel social and ideological social and ideational system. formations. For example, in Seth Schwartz’s analysis both The centrality of Jews and the Judean temple-state of Judaism to the creation of a the Persian period and the Composite capital from the synagogue at Capernaum (lower Galilee), distinctive Roman-Christian synagogue-based 3rd to 5th century CE(?). The upper of the (normally) three tiers of acanthus discourse of empire has also leaves has been replaced by symbols of the Jerusalem Temple communities of Byzantine (menorah, shofar, and incense shovel). Photo credit: Andrea Berlin. emerged as a theme in recent Palestine represent research on early Christianity. unforeseen and radically contingent Christianity, showing how Most notably, Andrew Jacobs has accommodations to very particular inextricably implicated the argued that, beginning in the fourth imperial policies (Imperialism and development of (rabbinic) Judaism is century, Christian travel to Palestine Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE in the history of Western and and the literature that grew up [2001]). Thus, Judaism is not an Christian hegemony in all its various around Christian pilgrimage practices essentially stable religio-cultural phases—from the Christianization of played an integral role in the system that is variously “shaped” by the Roman Empire to modern reconfiguration of the Holy Land as a its historical circumstances; rather, the nationalism. privileged site for the production of very nature of Jewishness—the type emergent forms of Christian imperial of entity that it is—is constantly In his most recent work Boyarin has identity and power (Remains of the being renegotiated within the social quite deliberately revised his approach Jews: The Holy Land and Christian and cultural logic of empire (Shaye J. to Jewish culture, which had largely Empire in Late Antiquity [2004]). D. Cohen, The Beginnings of been predicated on an essential Jacobs’ study naturally posits the Jewishness [1999]). Jewish alterity vis-à-vis Western existence of Jewish cultural products culture (Borderlines: The Partition of that simultaneously mimicked and

9 contested this hegemonic imperial Law,” in Rabbinic Law in its Roman historical formation of premodern discourse, although the task of and Near Eastern Context, ed. C. Christian discourses of empire not tracing these voices lies outside the Hezser [2003], 227–76). only illuminates, but also adumbrates scope of his particular project. In this the specific dynamics of modern regard, Jacobs’ work recalls David In closing, I would like briefly to European imperialisms and their Biale’s notion of “counter-history,” propose two ways that the irrevocable global effects. Scholars which describes the ways that certain burgeoning interest in the role of both within Jewish studies and Jewish texts simultaneously drew empire in ancient Jewish history may beyond its borders will benefit from from and inverted the dominant contribute to the wider field of ongoing consideration of the historical paradigm articulated by Jewish studies—and beyond. First, I complex and often paradoxical ways Christian writers and theologians believe that the sociocultural that Jewish history and the history of (“Counter-History and Jewish processes obtained in the multi- Western empires have been and Polemics against Christianity: The ethnic, multireligious, and remain inextricably intertwined. Sefer Toldot Yeshu and the Sefer multilingual empires of antiquity can Zerubavel,” JSS n.s. 6 [1999], provide a salutary corrective to the I would like to thank Riv-Ellen Prell, 130–45). This polemical strategy regnant approaches to Jewish identity Jonathan Boyarin, Sarah Stein, and resists the dominant narrative of and culture that take as their Leah Boustan for their singularly Christian Empire by appropriating paradigm the modern nation-states of useful comments on this essay. elements of this discourse in order to Western Europe and their overseas fashion a resistant Jewish identity. colonies. In fact, the premodern Ra‘anan S. Boustan is Assistant cases, with their vast, contiguous Professor of Early Judaism It should be noted, however, that territorial and heterogeneous subject in the Department of Classical and much of this scholarship has focused populations, bear provocative Near Eastern Studies on the Roman West, ultimately similarities to the Russian, Ottoman, at the University of Minnesota. embedding the Christian–Jewish and Hapsburg empires as well as to encounter at the heart of Jewish contemporary, though still nascent, history. While considerably less is postnationalist political arrangements known about the administrative and (see Sarah Stein’s contribution in this legal history of the Sassanian Empire, issue). When brought together with Adam Becker has recently cautioned these examples, the Jewish experience against imposing Western imperial in Antiquity may developments upon it (“Beyond the turn out to be Spatial and Temporal Limes: more the rule than PROGRAM IN JUDAIC STUDIES Questioning the ‘Parting of the the exception. BROWN UNIVERSITY Ways’ outside the Roman Empire,” in Ways That Never Parted, 373–92). Second and Dorot Assistant Professor in Judaic Studies

In his view, the Sassanian case, in perhaps more The Program in Judaic Studies at Brown University is conducting which both Jews and Christians importantly, I a junior-level search for the position of Dorot Assistant Professor occupied “minority” positions, was would suggest that in Judaic Studies. This position will be a regular, tenure-track radically different from the Roman- the history of the appointment beginning July 1, 2006, for a three-year renewable term. We are interested in candidates who make use of social Christian West. Indeed, he suggests Jews in the Greco- scientific methodologies to study contemporary Jewish societies. that the differences between Roman world Candidates with an interest in Israel, the Sephardic Diaspora, or Jewish–Christian relations in the two offers more than European (especially Eastern European) Jews are particularly empires can be seen in the enduring just provocative encouraged to apply. Ph.D. must be completed. We expect that regional differences in the eastern and parallels, the candidate will demonstrate excellence in scholarship in the social scientific study of contemporary Jewish societies and the western portions of the successor comparative ability to offer a wide range of undergraduate courses in this area. Islamic empire. Yaakov Elman’s material, and Candidates should send a CV, a statement of research and ambitious project of situating late alternative models teaching interests, and one short writing sample that is illustrative antique “Babylonian” Jewry within to students of of your research (e.g. an article offprint or a sample chapter of a its Sassanian context has already Jewish culture. As manuscript or book) to Professor Lynn Davidman, Chair of Search Committee, Program in Judaic Studies, Brown University, begun to provide important Jonathan Boyarin Box 1826, Providence, RI 02912. Candidates should request three comparative material for assessing the reminds us in his referees to send confidential letters of reference directly to the variable impact of different imperial contribution, the Chair of the search committee. Review of application materials regimes on Jewish culture and society particular role that will begin on December 1, 2005. Brown University is an EEO/AA employer. Women and minority candidates are (see now his “Marriage and Marital Jews and Judaism encourage to apply. Property in Rabbinic and Sassanian played in the 10 THE ISRAELIS: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land NEW IN PAPERBACK by Donna Rosenthal

“The Israelis is a fascinating, intimate, and vivid portrait of the incredible heterogeneity of Israeli society. It was required reading in my Israeli Society course, and all my students — Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists — ranging from those who knew nothing of Israel to those who have been there numerous times — stated they learned much and loved reading it.” —Chaim I. Waxman, professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies, Rutgers University “Thoroughly absorbing and also deeply instructive, even for readers who may be familiar with the country. It provides a vivid mosaic of anecdotal portraits that span all the variegated sectors of Israel’s population and all the problems with which contemporary Israelis struggle.” —Robert Alter, professor of Hebrew and comparative literature “A colorful and compelling portrait of young Israelis nobody knows. From an Ethiopian with dreadlocks and a kippa to a Muslim rapper to the Christian women who edit an Arabic-language Cosmo. Anyone who wants to go far beyond the headlines will be wiser for having read this insightful book.” — David Biale, professor of Jewish history at the UC Davis “Intimate and vibrant. The only book I have ever seen that reveals the full human spectrum of Israel today.” — Daniel Matt, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition and the Essential Kaballah “A panorama of Israeli diversity — Ashkenazim and Sephardim, orthodox and secular, Russians and Ethiopians, Arabs and Christians…Thanks, Ms. Rosenthal!” —LA Times “She methodically lims the various ethnic and religious subcultures, Jewish and non- Jewish, that constitute the vibrant and fragile mosaic of Israeli society.” — Washington Post “Rosenthal allows the people themselves —whether Jewish or Arab, men or women, religious or secular—to speak...she captures an entire country, one full of fl ux and drama, in as vivid and nuanced a way as possible…Prodigious reporting.” — Publishers Weekly “Unlike the myriad of other books on this tiny nation, The Israelis illuminates the daily lives and backgrounds of Israelis unknown to many in the world… Exhaustive research and reporting. Can be appreciated by Israelis and non-Israelis.” — Haaretz Pape rb ack ISBN 0-7432-7035-5 | H ardcover ISBN 0-684-86972-1

Free Press | A division of Simon & Schuster www.theisraelis.net 11 Christendom, and the two events. “In this present year onto whom the 1492, after Your Highnesses have JEWS, INDIANS, phantom substance of brought to an end the war against that which is to be the Moors... [and] after having excluded from driven all the Jews out of your realms AND THE IDENTITY Christendom is and dominions, Your Highnesses in consequently this same month of January OF CHRISTIAN projected; commanded me to set out with a sufficient armada to the said UROPE 2 “Indians”: Here countries of India,” he writes at the JonathanE Boyarin meaning native head of the journal of the first peoples of the New voyage... ince graduate school, when I was World, not those of the inspired especially by the linked subcontinent, the very possibility of Unfortunately Todorov never returns Sdiscussions of anti-Semitism and confusion highlighting again the to this coincidence in his book on The European colonialism in Horkheimer aspect of European projection of Conquest of America: The Question of and Adorno’s Dialectic of identity onto a collective Other; the Other (1984), which is largely Enlightenment (trans., John Cumming concerned with an explanation of [1972]), I have been convinced that 3 “Identity”: A theme closely related Cortés’s victory through reference to Jewish difference was critical to the to that of the self, and a discourse (as the semiological superiority of the formation of what came to be called Charles Taylor argued in Sources of Europeans, whose “literacy” is “Christian Europe” and, a fortiori, to the Self [1989]) whose history is contrasted with the Mexicans’ the very possibility of an encounter closely tied to that of Christianity supposedly omen-haunted, cyclical between that Christian Europe and its and the so-called West; and understanding of time. From this colonial “Others.” For almost as long, I account, all we have is a poignant hint have found interdisciplinary scholarship 4 “Christian Europe”: That at something more to be studied and on postcolonial experience and culture commonplace of schoolbook thought—but even the possibility of indispensable to my thinking and historiography which, upon close that further exploration is discouraged research on Jewishness in Modernity examination, turns out to be neither by the reinforced trope of the Jews as and beyond. I had decided to study so natural nor so self-assured as it an “old,” expelled Other, the Indians as initially appears. encountered as pure novelty, without Jews in and through the discipline of precedent in imagination. anthropology, yet found to my At the inception of the project, more frustration that those scholars in than fifteen years ago, two then- I was convinced that this could not be anthropology and other regions of impending events loomed large. One the end of the story—a conviction interdisciplinary cultural studies whose was the cinquecentennial of inseparable from my belief that the work inspired me seemed to find both Columbus’s first voyage. The second “dominant” group identity itself—what Jews as an object of study, and the was a major new effort to unite Europe I am calling here Christian Europe— study of Jews, to be of little interest to commercially, culturally, and politically. must be understood as a project worked the emerging discourse of intercultural Both of those events inspired rich out, always tenuously and (for all its postcoloniality. scholarship and polemical journalism on boastful rhetoric) with more or less questions of tolerance and boundaries anxiety, largely in the encounters with My current project, whose provisional in Europe’s past. Trying to think these various sets of collective Others: not title is The Unconverted Self: Jews, matters from a critical Jewish only Jews and Indians, and not only Indians and the Identity of Christian perspective, I sensed that it would be these along with (famously) Muslims, Europe, aims to historicize and both possible and worthwhile to but many “other Others” as well. articulate my conviction (to which I examine how structures of Jew Focusing on the Spanish and their claim no copyright) about the relevance exclusion in late medieval Europe were encounter with New World Indians, of Jewishness and postcoloniality to related to the encounter between however, gave me a good reason to each other. It will be a short book on a Spanish colonists and native Indians in explore the wonderful writing already very large topic. The subtitle contains the New World, especially in the being done, by historians (such as four big nouns: century or so immediately following Anthony Pagden, Inga Clendinnen and Columbus’s voyage. No less insightful a Sabine MacCormack), literary scholars 1 “Jews”: A term or figure that, in writer than Tzvetan Todorov had (such as Rolena Adorno), and this book, refers to a group whose hinted at such a connection: anthropologists (such as Michael continued existence disturbs the ideal Taussig), on the dynamics of the of a unified and universal Columbus himself constantly links colonial encounter in Latin America. 12 More particularly, it gave me the somehow distinct, was contained within (2004) examines how a late medieval chance to juxtapose Jews as an Other the given history of Europe, and thus archbishop of Toledo reconciled his “inside” Europe to an Other analytically irrelevant to the dynamics of desire for Christian unity with a encountered as a result of a European the colonial encounter. Even more rationale for the continued presence voyage outward, while at the same time egregious, to my mind, were those of Jews and Muslims. anchoring the juxtaposition more works that traced the origins of • Barbara Fuchs’s Mimesis and particularly in the encounter of Spanish Western colonizing restlessness to the Empire (2001) examines the play of Catholic rulers, bureaucrats and clerics Biblical account of Exodus and its projections among Muslim, Indian, with different kinds of threatening and supposedly concomitant heritage of and Spanish identities in the sixteenth sometimes fascinating outsiders. religious and ethnic intolerance. century. • Osvaldo Pardo’s The Origins of Yet when I began, the pertinence of the Such, roughly, was the state of Mexican Catholicism (2004) juxtaposition of Jews and Indians as foils discourse when this project began. poignantly describes the dilemmas of for Christian European identity was Now, returning to the manuscript after a handful of priests anxiously trying to anything but obvious to many scholars. years of enforced delays, I find myself in convey the “good word” to The conceptual gap between questions a fortunate position. To my relief, no thousands of natives, yet it avoids the of Jewishness and questions of one has quite written the book that I triumphalism of older missionary colonialism became starkly clear to me in hope finally to complete soon. At the histories. a conversation, during the summer of same time, I have access to a rich new • Walden Browne’s Sahagún and the 1988, with Edward Said. The winter lode of scholarship, as researchers Transition to Modernity (2000) argues before he had delivered a keynote articulate new questions about persuasively that a missionary hailed as address to the American contingencies of identity and difference a proto-anthropologist actually Anthropological Association on in the medieval and early modern attempted (and necessarily failed) to “Anthropology and Its Interlocutors” periods, within and across boundaries create a medieval summa of Nahua (later published in Critical Inquiry, religious, ethnic, and geographical. This culture. Winter 1989). There, with his wonted scholarship is located both within and • Kathleen Biddick’s The Typological eloquence, he articulated the stark power without the scope of Jewish cultural Imaginary (2003) examines graphic differential between anthropologists and studies—though that boundary, too, evidence of the project of spatial and those whom they most commonly should be questioned as the temporal abjection of Jews, and studied. Over coffee at the Hanover Inn interconnection of so many collective provocatively ties historians’ efforts at in New England, I explained to him that identities becomes increasingly clear. periodization to the entire heritage of I had chosen to study east European Christian supersessionism. Jews in large part precisely because I did A few bullet points must suffice here to not want to be one of those “colonial” illustrate the implicit convergence of This kind of work, among other anthropologists. “Well, that’s different,” Jewish, Christian European, and colonial benefits, helps illuminate how it is he said with a shrug that I took as both historiographies, yet the list is anything possible to focus closely on Jewish absolution and dismissal. It seemed that but exhaustive. experience without remaining bound to I had failed to convince him that my • Miri Rubin’s Gentile Tales (1999) a conception of a neatly delimited and case was a distinction that made a analyzes medieval stories about host separate Jewish history. More broadly, it difference—perhaps because he saw the desecration by Jews “told by shows with crystal clarity that human Jews of eastern Europe as being neither Christians, to Christians, to make collectives are not given, but made, and of the west European metropole, nor of Christians act and redefine that which once made still have to be always the colonized periphery. made them Christian” as proof, not remade. It shows as well that politics is of distance, but indeed “of the as much a matter of gesture, accent, My frustration and fascination increased intimacy which prevailed between the and foodways as it is of mountain throughout that summer, as I two groups” (5). ranges and weapons. From this participated in Said’s seminar on • David Nirenberg, in “Mass continuing, implicitly collaborative colonialism and literature. My Conversion and Genealogical effort, specialists in Jewish studies still impression was that for many scholars Mentalities: Jews and Christians in have much to learn; to that effort, as by (such as those who had edited the rich Fifteenth-Century Spain,” Past and now it should go without saying, we collection of essays published in the Present 174 (Feb. 2002), examines still have much to contribute. early 1980s under the title Europe and the early modern Iberian obsession Its Others), “Europe” was somehow with genealogy as a product of shared Jonathan Boyarin is the Robert M. taken as a given entity, one moreover “Christian” and “Jewish” anxiety Beren Distinguished Professor of which had first encountered its about the boundaries between these Modern Jewish Studies at the geographically external Others after two collectives. University of Kansas. 1492. Implicitly, Jewish history, even if • Lucy Pick’s Conflict and Coexistence 13 dynamics, considering Jewry [2000]); and Lois Dubin’s The what scholars of modern Port Jews of Habsburg Trieste (2000); MODERN JEWRIES Jewish culture have and have unflinchingly demonstrated that might offer the student policies in imperial borderlands AND THE of empire, and rippled through imperial societies to contemplating how the be felt—often most acutely—by field of modern Jewish Jews. IMPERIAL studies has thus far and can in the future benefit Scholars of the Russian, Ottoman, MAGINATION from wrangling with and Hapsburg Empires, for their SarahI Stein scholarship on empire part, have increasingly appreciated and imperialism. the centrality of multi-ethnicity, or scholars of modern multilingualism, and European history, one of the Scholarship on modern Jewry is to multisectarianism to the history and Fmost influential historiographic some extent saturated with attention experience of empire. Thus scholars trends of the last decades is to take to empire. If one accepts that the of Jewish studies may also benefit seriously the effect of the imperial Russian, Ottoman, and Hapsburg from a growing number of works project on the metropoles of Europe. Empires were imperial polities outside their own field that pay heed Recent work in this vein, including comparable to (if in certain critical to imperial diversity—and Jews, in the influential volume particular—as central to Tensions of Empire, these empires’ histories: edited by Frederick including (among many Cooper and Ann Stoler others) Geoffrey Hosking’s (1997) and scholarship Russia: People and Empire by members of the (1997); Hasan Kayali’s Subaltern School, Arabs and Young Turks including Dipesh (1997); and István Deák’s Chakrabarty’s Beyond Nationalism (1990). Provincializing Europe (2000), has encouraged And yet the assumption that us to appreciate how the Russian, Ottoman, or gendered and class Hapsburg Empires were identities on the imperial polities on a par with continent were shaped other modern, European, in symbiosis with overseas empires is a relatively policies and colonial new one: the thought that realities overseas; to their borderlands might be recognize empires in understood as colonies yet Jabotinsky, Vladimir, and Samuel Perlman. Atlas. London; Hevrat "ha-Sefer," 1925, p. 3. classic nation-states controversial. When it comes (notably Germany); and to collapse respects distinct from) the early to scholarship on the Russian, modern Dutch Empire, the modern Ottoman, and Hapsburg cases, there the conceptual distinction between British and French Empires, or, as is a profound disconnect between the Europe’s largely contiguous empires some have it, contemporary America, existence of empire and the practice of and overseas empires, inviting then one could point to a rich body imperialism. Certainly the connections comparisons between the modern of scholarship engaged with Jews’ and overlap between these phenomena Russian, Habsburg, and Ottoman place in imperial societies. Indeed, have not been explored by scholars of Empires and those of Britain and one could even credit scholars of modern Jewry, rendering yet France (among others). modern Jewries with a degree of tangential the theoretical and historical theoretical prescience. Histories of insights offered by recent scholarship In certain respects, scholars of Russian, Ottoman, and Hapsburg on empire. modern Jewries have been pioneers Jewries from Salo Baron’s The in these theoretical developments; in Russian Jew Under Tsars and Soviets If regnant definitions of imperialism other regards, we have remained (1964) to Benjamin Nathan’s Beyond have excluded the three empires in inured to them, resisting, even, the the Pale (2002); Aron Rodrigue’s which vast numbers of Jews lived in centrality of Jews to the story of French Jews, Turkish Jews (1995); the modern period, it is also true empire. This essay queries the (and, with Esther Benbassa, Sephardi that scholarship on Western tension between these two opposing 14 European colonialism is uncannily the reigning predilections of our rather than as bourgeois consumers, devoid of Jewish actors, while field: scholars of modern Jewry or Londoners, or intellectuals, and so histories of the Jews of modern retain an abiding interest in on) have not been said to have Britain and France—including Todd intellectual culture, communal experienced the rather more cultural Endelman’s The Jews of Britain histories, and utopian politics (from and material “tensions of empire” (2002) and Pierre Birnbaum’s The Freudianism to religious Orthodoxy) (to borrow from Cooper and Stoler) Jews of the Republic (1996), at the expense of, say, economic, that so influenced the choices, otherwise magisterial surveys of comparative, or material history. But desires, and habits of other modern modern British and French Jewries— the elision of empire and imperialism Europeans. evade mention of imperialism as a focus of scholarship may also be altogether. Jewish subjects of colonial the result of at least three intellectual Third and finally, the specter of influence are, on the other hand, allergies. imperial economics is a factor in the abundant. Scholarship on North lacuna of literature on Jews and African, Ottoman, and Levantine First, considerations of Jews’ modern imperialism. There is, of Jewry has amply documented the historical relationship to colonialism course, a well-developed literature on effect both of state power and Jewish and empire have been dominated by Sephardi involvement in the philanthropic institutions (sometimes the question of whether and/or to expansion of capitalist markets labeled “intra-Jewish colonialism”) what extent Jewish settlement of overseas, especially for the early on what has problematically been Palestine and Zionism more modern period; this body of called “subaltern” Jews. (I have generally were (or remain) colonial scholarship includes Jonathan Israel’s surveyed this literature in a enterprises, work most recently ambitious studies European Jewry in contribution to The Oxford summarized by Ivan Kalmar and the Age of Mercantilism (1985) and Handbook of Jewish Diasporas within a Studies, edited by Diaspora (2002); Martin Goodman WRITING JEWS INTO THE HISTORY OF IMPERIAL Jonathan Schorsch’s [2002]). We know Jews and Blacks in the less about the limits RELATIONS THUS DOES MORE THAN NUANCE OUR Early Modern World of such influence, or UNDERSTANDING OF EWS PLACE IN INDIVIDUAL (2004); and Francesca of the economic, J ’ Trivellato’s doctoral cultural, and political COLONIAL CONTEXTS: IT INVITES REFLECTION ABOUT dissertation, “Trading sway that Jews in the Diasporas and colonies exerted on THE SHAPING OF ETHNIC, RACIAL, AND SOCIOPOLITICAL Trading Networks in Europeans in general the Early Modern or European Jews in IDENTITIES IN THE MODERN WORLD. Period: a Sephardic particular. Partnership of Derek Penslar in the introduction to Livorno in the Mediterranean, In sum, one could place the their Orientalism and the Jews Europe, and Portuguese India” historiography on Jews and empire (2005). While this scholarship, (2004). At the same time, we know in two crude categories: there is, on including that by Gershon Shafir and precious little about modern Jews’ the one hand, a rich body of Zackary Lockman, is fascinating, place in economic networks rooted scholarship (penned by scholars thus far it remains sui generis. What in the colonial world. Our disinterest within and outside of the field of is more, because it has been received in this topic is not justified by Jewish studies) on Jews’ place in polemically, this work may function historical realities. Both Sephardi and empires that is generally not to foreclose conversation about Ashkenazi Jews were, after all, considered imperial. On the other whether Jews were implicated in or profoundly implicated in colonial hand, there is a well developed body complicit with other colonial economics in the modern period: of scholarship on the received projects. through the trade of precious stones imperial regimes of Europe (again, and metals, women, opium, and written by scholars within and Second, scholars of Jewish studies liquor; through their involvement in outside the field of Jewish studies) continue to adhere to what David the fashion and textile industries; and that disassociates European Jews (or Biale has called the notion of Jewish through brokerage and financing. uncolonized Jews) from the practice powerlessness. This tendency has and experience of empire. prohibited the development of Perhaps scholars have avoided such scholarship on Jews’ place in the topics for fear of perpetuating anti- What is at stake in these elisions? To matrix of imperial politics. It may Semitic stereotypes: perhaps the a great extent they are the result of also explain why Jews (as Jews per se, challenge of imagining Jews as

15 perpetrators rather than victims of and Berlin, 1933–1942,” published Antoinette Burton puts it, After the racist economics overwhelms. in Rudy Koshar’s Histories of Leisure Imperial Turn (2003). And yet for Indeed, the risks are not [2002]), whether Jews’ patterns of scholars of Jewish culture, the theme insignificant. One thinks of Yuri consumption or self-imagining were of empire is resonant not so much Slezkine’s recent attempts, in The imprinted by the imperial project in because it has been en vogue, but Jewish Century (2004), to identify the same way as were the patterns of because it raises questions that are at Jews as engines of the twentieth other men and women in once broad and material, and, in century’s successes and excesses: an nineteenth- and twentieth-century some cases, quite sensitive. These approach whose professed radicalism Europe. And, finally, we might queries, and the answers further merges seamlessly with the reflect on whether the answers to research provides, have the potential reactionary. And yet, if the need for these questions might push us to to spawn a new modern Jewish sensitivity is acute, so is the need for redraw the boundaries of modern history. daring. Just as our understanding of Jewish communities, or to rethink modern Jewish culture has been our sense of Jews’ place within the The author wishes to thank Riv Ellen expanded by recent explorations of nations and empires of Europe. Prell, Ra’anan Boustan, Aron Jews’ involvement in race science Rodrigue, and Rebecca Stein for (including John Efron’s Defenders of Scholars outside of Jewish studies their comments on an earlier version the Race [1994] and Medicine and have reason to be as invested in these of this essay. the German Jews [2001], Mitchell topics as do those of us working Hart’s Social Science and the Politics within the field. Work on Jews’ place Sarah Abrevaya Stein is Associate of Modern Jewish Identity [2000], in the imperial web will join other Professor in the Department of History and Sander Gilman’s The Jew’s Body recent scholarship in colonial and and the Henry M. Jackson School of [1991] and Freud, Race, and Gender postcolonial studies, including International Studies at the [1993]), long an unthinkable topic, Catherine Hall’s Civilizing Subjects University of Washington. we may benefit from a better (2002), in disaggregating the understanding of Jews’ involvement categories of “European,” “white,” in the symbiotic development of and “colonizer.” Writing Jews into imperialism and global capitalism. the history of imperial relations thus does more than nuance our What is required is not simply understanding of greater attention to Jews’ role in Jews’ place in high politics or large-scale capitalist individual colonial enterprises (though this, too, is contexts: it invites COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY welcome). We also have much to reflection about the learn by situating local Jewish shaping of ethnic, Chair in Israel and communities, lines of intellectual or racial, and Jewish Studies religious inquiry, and quotidian sociopolitical practices within those global identities in the networks in which other Europeans modern world. Columbia University is seeking a distinguished scholar were immersed. For example, we to fill a new chair in Israeli Studies, ultimately to be might consider, as has Rebecca It must be noted in called the Yosef Yerushalmi Chair in Israel and Jewish Kobrin in a recent dissertation closing that there Studies. The position is open to scholars in all fields of entitled “Conflicting Diasporas are signs that the humanities and social sciences who work on Israeli Shifting Centers: The Transnational scholarly interest in society, culture, and politics. Particular attention will Bialystok Jewish Emigre Community empire and be paid to excellent scholars working in one of the in the United States, Argentina, imperialism may social sciences. Australia, and Palestine 1878–1949” already be waning, (2004), the roles émigré Jews played replaced (and in Please send a letter of application, along with a in colonial contexts or the ways their some sense curriculum vitae and the names of three references to new homes reverberated (culturally, outmoded) by a Professor Michael Stanislawski, Chair, Israel economically, emotionally) in their growing interest in Studies Search Committee, 601 Fayerweather Hall, respective “homelands.” We might globality, on the Columbia University, 1180 Amsterdam Avenue, query, as has Leora Auslander in a one hand, and New York, NY 10027, by December 1, 2005. slightly different context (in her regionalism, on the Columbia University is an equal opportunity/affirmative article “‘Jewish Taste’? Jews, and the other. Perhaps we action employer. Minorities and women are encouraged to apply. Aesthetics of Everyday Life in Paris already stand, as

16 Jewish Studies Quarterly Edited by Leora Batnitzky (Princeton) and Peter Schäfer (Berlin/Princeton) Advisory board: Steven Aschheim (Jerusalem), Elisheva Carlebach (New York), Michael Fishbane (Chicago), Christine Hayes (New Haven), Jeffrey Shandler (New Brunswick), Israel Yuval (Jerusalem) Managing editor: Alyssa Quint (Princeton)

The Profile of the Jewish Studies Quarterly

Founded in 1993. The Jewish Studies Quarterly publishes studies on all aspects of Jewish history and culture. By focusing on the whole spectrum of Jewish life and thought, JSQ aims to contribute to a better understanding of Judaism. The articles cover both specialised studies and more general or interdisciplinary ones. The journal is published quarterly.

Including electronic access – for further details please contact the publisher.

Survey of contents of the latest issue: Prices / subscription ISSN 0944-5706. Volume 12 (2005) No. 3 Price per volume (4 issues with a total Tziona Grossmark: Laws Regarding Idolatry in Jewelry as a Mirror Image of Jewish- of about 380 pages) Gentile Relations in the Land of Israel during Mishnaic and Talmudic Times Institutions: € 134.00* Jonathan Wyn Schofer: Theology and Cosmology in Rabbinic Ethics: The Pedagogical Significance of Rainmaking Narratives Individuals: € 59.00*

Adena Tanenbaum: Of Poetry and Printed Books: Cultural Contacts and Contrasts Postage per volume Between the Jews of Yemen and the Land of Israel in Zechariah Aldahiri’s Sefer € 7.70** Hamusar * recommended retail prices Heidi G. Lerner and Elhanan Adler: The Role of Multilingual Computing in Jewish ** subject to change Studies according to German Mail

– Please send me a sample copy of the JSQ free of charge.

Name: Mohr Siebeck P. O. Box 2040 Address: D-72010 Tübingen Fax +49 / 7071 / 51104 e-mail: [email protected]

Mohr Siebeck, P.O. Box 2040, D-72010 Tübingen Fax +49/7071/51104 www.mohr.de

Up-to-date information via e-mail – to register now, go to www.mohr.de/form/eKurier_e.htm

17 Jews in these various stages of imperial system were exporters of Western empire? manufactured goods, importers of EMPIRE raw materials, owners of plantations In the ”Christianizing” stage, led by and mines overseas, and, finally, the AND THE Spain and Portugal, Jews were financiers who provided the funds expelled from Iberia yet established and the traders who mediated themselves so well in the Low between producers and consumers. JEWS Countries, the economic engine of Except for the financiers, Jews did Ivan Kalmar and Derek Penslar the Spanish crown, that some were not figure prominently among these “ mpire” is a prevalent concept able to play an important role in the lynchpins of imperialism. Jewish across the social sciences and colonial development of the West manufacturers were marginal in the Ehumanities today, but Indies, first under Spanish, and then imperial centers, England and scholars in Jewish studies have been Dutch control. Thus Jews were France. On the raw materials side, slow, even reluctant, to engage it. present at the creation of the global the owners of plantations were Empire refers to a constellation of capitalist system that Immanuel rarely Jewish. Mine owners, too, supranational political and economic Wallerstein famously presented as were seldom Jewish, except in the power, a form of power so closely the dawn of modern sensibility. In South African gold and diamond associated with anti-Semitic fantasy the “civilizing mission” stage begun industry. Although Jews were that scholars in Jewish studies are in the seventeenth century, as the closely associated with the trade in hesitant to probe what reality might focus of Western power shifted certain colonial products, there is lie behind the myth. slowly from the south to the north little sign of Jewish participation in of Europe, Jews continued to play a the colonial economy beyond their Representations of Jews are part of visible role in the form of the “Port usual involvement in the distributive larger discursive formations that Jew,” the internationally-linked, sector within the Western world. function within global political and multilingual merchant, often of economic contexts, but those Sephardic origin. Territorial control, as a defining contexts have barely been explored feature of imperialism, necessitated by scholars in Jewish studies: an The story of Jews and early modern not only capital and capitalists but important example that we have empire has been chronicled by a also the systematic assertion of dealt with elsewhere is orientalism. number of historians, but they have political and military power. The Indeed in Jewish studies today focused on economic activity and imperial service, both civil and economics is all but ignored, and have not worked through its military, provided employment for politics is ensconced within the political implications for either the the sons of the privileged at the rubrics of communal or national Jews’ communities or the empires in helm and for the superfluous activism and the Israeli polity. which they dwelled. We need to “masses” at the bottom. Few Jews International Jewish economic and think more deeply about how Jews’ were found in either group. political activity, the confluence economic, social, cultural, and Throughout most of the Western between them, and the nexus of political capital were inextricably world Jewish participation in the that activity with empire’s global bound and mutually reinforcing. armed forces and the civil service reach are essential subjects for Less explored, and more was limited due to a combination of future study. controversial, is the relationship discrimination from without and the between Jews and the last phase of Jews’ own career preferences. There In the brief space allotted to us the civilizing mission, the era of were exceptions. Benjamin Disraeli, here, we will leave aside premodern high imperialism (c. 1880–1945). Britain’s most imperialist prime empires of Western Antiquity and Modern anti-Semitism rose in the minister, reckoned his Jewish the Islamic world. Our focus is the Western world at the same time as origins as an “Arabian” trait linking West and three phases of empire the scramble for overseas this exotic colonizer to the within it, following Walter possessions that extended the Great colonized Orient. Jewish officers Mignolo’s concept of three Powers’ control or influence to and soldiers were found in the successive missions directed from reach some four-fifths of the globe’s French and Italian colonial forces. the West: the medieval and early population. So was imperialism in In the colonies themselves, modern Christian mission, the some ways linked with Jews and the administrations often privileged modern civilizing mission, and the growing agitation against them? local Jews and other “middleman” postmodern mission of global, minorities over the rest of the material development. What, The elements of the bourgeoisie population. But none of this historically, has been the role of who most benefited from this translated into large-scale

18 involvement by home-country are hardly any exclusively or Jews in the imperial effort. predominantly Jewish networks, and the involvement of Jews were, as a group, objectively prominent Jews, even in so irrelevant to imperialism. Yet it visible a form as the capitalist was during the height of oligarchs in postcommunist imperialism that they began to be Russia, is at the personal, not more than ever reviled for their the group level. The global alleged control over the economy economic order shows no sign and the politics of every Western of being singularly influenced state. Anti-Semites identified the by Jews in anything like the Jews as a major noxious force just manner in which, say, the when their sociopolitical Hungarian economy was before importance was objectively in World War II. decline. The problem was the very “civilizing mission” that A better founded argument Mignolo located as the principal could be made for recognizing discourse of north European a strong Jewish and Israeli role imperialism. Civilization was, in the current global order. fatefully for Jews, understood as Only an extremely partial the achievement not only of the observer could deny the Christian faith but also of the prominence of Israeli interests, European “races.” It was not as defended by important generally believed that the Jewish American-Jewish organizations, “race” was one of them. The Disraeli offers Victoria the “oriental” crown of India in the calculations of American relative absence of Jews in the to replace the English one. governments, especially in their imperial enterprise made it easier Drawing by John Tenniel, in the London Punch (1876). decisions on the Middle East. to argue for excluding them, along resemblances to the settlement The alliance is, however, not with the “natives” of the colonies, colonialisms practiced by Europeans essential to empire as a new form of from the benefits of the “Western” in the New World or the Boers in global sovereignty, but expresses the guarantees of liberty and equality, South Africa. That said, Zionism’s individual efforts of the United and indeed of residence in the West. many idiosyncratic qualities stymie States and Israel to further their its facile classification as a form of specific political positions within A more direct association may be settlement colonialism. Moreover, that new empire. As stated at the established between fin-de-siècle Zionism shared important aspects outset, the concept of empire empire and the Zionist movement. with the worldwide decolonization represents a confluence of political Seeking the protection of the Great movement, and was so regarded by and economic power, and the U.S.- Powers, early Zionist leaders of many African, Asian, and African- Israeli alliance is overwhelmingly necessity became embroiled in American leaders in the early stages political. For this most imperialist intrigue, and the Zionist of Israel’s independence. contemporary of topics, as for those movement became from both the rooted in the distant past, scholars Western and the Arab point of view A final round of questions concerns in Jewish studies must confront the an instrument of European the role of Jews in the latest stage of realities of Jewish power, learn to imperialism. Zionism was steeped in empire, with “development” (and distinguish between its various colonialist mentalities regarding the now “democracy” and the “war on forms, and appreciate Jews’ historic cultural superiority of the European terror”) having replaced reliance upon transnational forces, over the Arab, and the Zionist ideal “civilization” as its mission. Because which, whether material or cultural, of “making the desert bloom” of their often exaggerated role in have often originated within the paralleled French claims that Algeria the history of international trade paradigm of empire. had been desertified under Muslim and finance, Jews have been accused rule but would become a verdant by enemies and praised by friends as Ivan Kalmar is Professor in the paradise as part of la France an easy fit with transnational Department of Anthropology at the integrale. Zionist aims had little in capitalism, most recently and with University of Toronto. common with the practices of considerable chutzpah by Yuri colonialist ventures that exploited Slezkine, the witty author of The Derek Penslar is Samuel J. Zacks native labor and resources, but the Jewish Century (2004). But in Professor of Jewish History at the growth of the Yishuv did bear today’s business and finance there University of Toronto. 19 Compelling

POVERTY AND CHARITY IN THE VOICE OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY THE POOR IN THE OF MEDIEVAL EGYPT MIDDLE AGES Mark R. Cohen An Anthology of Documents from the Cairo Geniza This book is the first comprehensive book Mark R. Cohen to study poverty in a premodern Jewish community—from the viewpoint of both A companion to Cohen’s other the poor and those who provided for volume, Poverty and Charity in the them. On the basis of the papers of the Jewish Community of Medieval Cairo Geniza, the book provides abun- Egypt, the book presents more than dant testimony about how one large and ninety letters, alms lists, donor lists, important medieval Jewish community and other related documents from dealt with the constant presence of the Geniza, a hidden chamber for poverty within its midst. It provides a discarded papers, situated inside a clear window into the daily lives of the wall in a Cairo synagogue. Cohen poor and also illuminates private charity, has translated these documents, a subject that has long been elusive to the providing the historical context medieval historian. for each. The book is complemented by the author’s collection of “This book will become a much-used resource for students primary sources in translation, The Voice of the Poor in the and scholars alike.”—Ivan Marcus, Yale University Middle Ages: An Anthology of Documents from the Cairo Paper $24.95 ISBN 0-691-09271-0 Geniza. Cloth $55.00 0-691-09262-1 Due November Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World Cloth $39.50 0-691-09272-9 Due October

Winner of the 2005 Meritorious Publication Award, University New in paperback of Cape Town THE MONOTHEISTS New in paperback Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition THE CURSE OF HAM Volume I: The Peoples of God Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Volume II: The Words and Will of God David M. Goldenberg F. E. Peters

“Goldenberg has produced what may well become the defini- “In this sprawling, majestic, and elegant narrative, [Peters] tive study of race and slavery in the Old Testament texts…. offers the best study we presently have of the ways, words, In a work particularly valuable for its comprehensiveness and and wisdom of these religions [with] straightforward prose philology, Goldenberg’s research is monumental; the writing is and evenhanded examination.” clear as a bell; the arguments are not only cogent, but honest.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) —Molly Myerowitz Levine, Bryn Mawr Classical Review Winner of the 2003 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Religion, Association of American Publishers Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World Paper $24.95 0-691-12370-5 Due September Volume 1: The Peoples of God Paper $16.95 0-691-12372-1 Due September

Volume 2: The Words and Will of God Paper $19.95 0-691-12373-X Due September

Celebrating 100 Years of Excellence 800-777-4726 PRINCETON Read excerpts online 100 University Press www.pup.princeton.edu 20

Yale University Program in Judaic Studies Jacob & Hilda Blaustein Postdoctoral Fellow 2006-2008

The Program in Judaic Studies at Yale University is offering a two-year Jacob & Hilda Blaustein postdoctoral fellowship that will begin on July 1, 2006. Candidates for the fellowship must have a Ph.D. in hand by July 1, 2006 and must have received the degree no earlier than 2003. The Program seeks specialists in either medieval Jewish history/Judaism or early modern Jewish history/Judaism who will work closely with appropriate members of Yale’s faculty.

The Judaic Studies Blaustein Fellow will be expected to be in residence, to conduct research in Yale’s library and archival collections, to participate actively in the intellectual life of the university, and to teach three semester courses over two years. The annual stipend will be $40,000 plus health benefits. Candidates should send a cover letter, CV, project proposal, three letters of recommendation, and a list of proposed courses to:

Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in Judaic Studies P. O. Box 208287 New Haven, CT 06520-8287 TEL: 203 432-0843 Fax: 203 432-4889 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.yale.edu/judaicstudies

The deadline for submission of material is Monday, Feb 16, 2006

Yale University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer

21 and materials on occasion changed EXHIBITION REVIEW: hands and were moved great distances. By a second guiding principle, the organizers of the “PRINTING THE TALMUD: exhibition included exemplars of more than twenty “firsts”: e.g., the FROM BOMBERG first complete printed Babylonian Talmud, the first printed Palestinian TO CHOTTENSTEIN Talmud, a tractate from among those Bruce NielsenS ” first dated, the only tractate printed in Sabbioneta, the first tractate he recent exhibition mounted texts, such as a copy of the 1553 printed in Africa, the first tractate by the Yeshiva University edict that actually prohibited and printed in America, the first German TMuseum, New York, “Printing attempted to destroy the very activity and French translations, and so on. the Talmud: From Bomberg to explored and exalted by this Yet, by following a third guiding Schottenstein,” was a masterpiece exhibition, a copy of Johann principle, the organizers did not not soon to be challenged for its Reuchlin’s contemporary witness to shrink from treating serious comprehensive presentation of so the rapidity with which notice of difficulties encountered by printers of many elements illuminating the Bomberg’s Italian successes spread the Talmud. While the Church’s production and dissemination of the throughout Europe, and stand-alone censorship and destruction was primary, the disputes between Talmud text during the last rival Jewish printers the five hundred years. Let me brothers Romm and Samuel be clear from the outset that Abba and Pinhas Shapira, or while I made some modest between Solomon Proops and late contributions to the and efforts led by Judah catalogue and the exhibition Aryeh Lieb, also bore on the labels, I did not participate questions of how, where, and in the conceptualization of with what success the the exhibition. I am offering Talmud was printed. here the reflections of an “interested” friend and The overwhelming centrality observer. of the printed Talmud in this exhibition, both in terms of The exhibition organizers the number of items and assembled a once-in-a- Bomberg Talmud, six-volume set, Venice, 16th century. Courtesy of the Yeshiva University Museum. physical space devoted to it, lifetime collection of commentaries and reference works, was spectacularly framed by earlier exemplars from all the historical eras many of which were included in later and later developments in the of printing of the Talmud, including editions of the Talmud. publication of the Talmud. From the fragments of the earliest printed earlier period the organizers were tractates deriving from the Iberian It is possible to uncover at least three able to display for the first time Peninsula; the truly magnificent six- guiding principles exercised by the outside of Israel the oldest extant volume set of the Talmud printed by organizers of the exhibition. First, by Talmudic text, preserved on an Daniel Bomberg in Venice between viewing more than three dozen exquisite eleven-by-fourteen-foot 1519 and 1543, which has survived Talmud editions in the original and mosaic floor from the sixth-century as a set since the sixteenth century; ten editions in translation, printed on synagogue in Beth Shean valley in early representative texts of the four continents, one may trace how Rehov, Israel. Correspondingly, with Talmud in translation (the 1705 printing the Talmud moved from the an eye toward the future, the printed Latin edition printed by Georg Iberian Peninsula, around the Talmud was juxtaposed with a Edzard in Hamburg, or Lazarus Mediterranean basin, to Italy, and to dizzying display of computer Goldschmidt’s complete German the centers of Jewish life throughout applications. edition); and the crowning Europe, and finally to America, as achievement of Schottenstein’s well as, by necessity, to China. It was Finally, this exhibition forced viewers seventy-three-volume edition. The not just that the idea of printing to consider what difference the museum surrounded these editions spread, but even the typographical media makes in how the Talmud with a wide range of complementary equipment, types, ornamentation, was, and is, studied: a floor is not 22 portable and to consult the Talmud, a student needed to walk perhaps a great distance; a manuscript was easy

to transport but was subject to scribal error and change and   S depended on other codices to provide commentaries and reference tools; or with the standardization of  
 a page of Talmud in the sixteenth century and the gradual addition of more commentaries, indices, and reference tools suddenly students

 need not have several volumes open in front of them. The exhibition helps us to think about how each of P these steps transformed the means 




   and practice of Talmud study; and 
S
 
 


 yet, at the same time, underscores 
 


   the fact that the study of the text  

 


   
  perseveres through them all. 

 
  

 







 A comprehensive catalogue, Printing 
 QO
#
$ 



 the Talmud: From Bomberg to        Schottenstein (Yeshiva University Museum, 2005) edited by Sharon P   Liberman-Mintz and Gabriel M. 



 % 

  Goldstein, is especially valuable due to the wealth of essays which 

 

 Q describe the cultural contexts in O& 
' 

$
(   which to consider the printed )  

 
&
*  Talmud, its study, and its centrality + to Jewish life. Among the essays are three which elucidate the formative



  period of the Talmud, setting the
 #   #

 stage for the printing era. Four essays treat the study of the Talmud in the $ 

 
 





 

 medieval period and decisions , 


 


 



   
 concerning which commentaries and 

,  


  
   
 
 reference tools would be included on  

 
 
 


 
 
 a page or at the back of a volume. 


,

 


S
  Three essays focus specifically on the history of the printing of the Talmud

 
  
 To order, call 800-446-93 during the sixteenth through the or visit rutgerspress.rutgers.e nineteenth centuries. An additional five essays focus on Talmud study since the nineteenth century, including the Talmud in translation, To advertise in AJS Perspectives, and the emergence of the computer please contact the AJS office as a valuable tool holding the potential of unlimited contributions by e-mail at [email protected] for the future. or by telephone at (917) 606-8249. Bruce Nielsen is Assistant Dean at Visit our website at www.brandeis.edu/ajs The Graduate School of The Jewish Theological Seminary. for prices and specifications.

23 Position in Modern Hebrew Language, Literature and Israeli Cultural Studies

The Department of Asian & African Languages & Literature at Duke University invites applications for an open rank position in Modern Hebrew Language, Literature and Israeli Cultural Studies to begin fall 2006. Native or near-native fluency in Hebrew is required. The desired specialization is in Modern Hebrew literature and Israeli cultural studies with emphases on identity, postcolonialism, film, gender, or theories of globalization. The successful candidate will be expected to teach courses in her/his area of expertise and Intermediate and Advanced Hebrew. The candidate will have a secondary appointment in Jewish Studies. The Ph.D. degree is required. Applications should include a curriculum vitae and the names, addresses and telephone/fax numbers of at least three scholars who can provide academic references. Application received by November 15, 2005, will be given full consideration. Duke is an Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action employer. Please send application to: Chair, Modern Hebrew Language, Literature and Israeli Cultural Studies Search Committee, AALL, 2101 Campus Dr., Box 90414, Duke University, Durham NC 27708-0414

THE UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, DEPARTMENT OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES invites applications for a Lecturer in Classical Judaism supported by the Perlow Fund. This position is outside the tenure stream and would begin with the Fall Term 2006, pending budgetary approval. The initial appointment will be made for a term of three years, and will be renewable. We are searching for someone whose range of interests will enable them to explore the development of Jewish life and thought from the Maccabeean era through the Ninth Century C.E. The incumbent will be called on to teach six courses over a two-semester period commencing September 1, 2006. Applicants should submit a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, the names of three scholarly references, and copies of syllabi for courses that the applicant is prepared to teach in the 2006-07 academic year. These materials should be sent to Alexander Orbach, Jewish Studies Program, 2604 Cathedral of Learning, University of Pittsburgh, Pgh, PA 15260. Review of applications will begin November 15, 2005. The University of Pittsburgh is an AAEOE.

24 The Department of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill seeks candidates for a chaired professorship in the politics of Israel and the THE SWARTHMORE COLLEGE Middle East. The candidate will have broad interests in DEPARTMENT OF RELIGION comparative politics and/or international relations. The invites applicants for a one year leave successful applicant will be expected to have a working replacement position at the assistant relationship with the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies professor level in the area of Judaism. Field of and the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle specialization open. Ph.D. and proven East and Muslim Civilizations. Applications from teaching excellence strongly preferred. Send women and minorities are particularly welcome. Applicants should send a letter of interest and a letter of application, three recommendations curriculum vitae to the Middle East Search Committee, and current CV to Professor Nathaniel Department of Political Science, Hamilton Hall, Deutsch, Search Committee, Department of CB#3265, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill NC Religion, Swarthmore College, 500 College 27599-3265. The University of North Carolina at Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081 by November 1, Chapel Hill is an affirmative action / equal opportunity 2005. We will conduct preliminary interviews employer and educator. Review of applications will at the AAR meeting in Philadelphia, November begin November 15 and will continue until the position 19-22. Swarthmore College is an Equal is filled. Departmental contact person is Shannon Opportunity Employer; women and minorities Eubanks and the department web address is are encouraged to apply. http://www.unc.edu/depts/polisci.

THE HADASSAH-BRANDEIS INSTITUTE AT BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY Scholar-in-Residence Program Now Accepting Applications for 2006/2007 Academic Year

The HBI Scholar-in-Residence Program provides scholars, artists, writers and communal professionals the opportunity to be in residence at Brandeis University while working on signifi cant projects in the fi eld of Jewish women’s and gender studies. Scholars-in-Residence receive a monthly stipend and offi ce space at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center. Residencies range from 3 months to a full academic year. Applicants living outside the U.S. and those whose work has an international dimension are especially encouraged to apply.

To Apply: Send a letter of introduction, project proposal, curriculum vitae and three professional references to:

The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Deadline: Mailstop 079 February 1, 2006 Brandeis University Inquiries: [email protected] Waltham, MA 02454-9110 Info: www.brandeis.edu/hbi

25 demise in Los for themselves. For example, in her EXHIBITION REVIEW: Angeles in the early Berlin salon, Rahel Levin 1950s, argues Varnhagen found an outlet for her for a broader, powerful intellect and an “JEWISH WOMEN more inclusive opportunity to reinvent herself as consideration something beyond a mere “Jewess.” AND THEIR SALONS: of Jewish Genevieve Straus, whose bohemian women’s salon attracted a diversity of artists salons that and cultural types, developed a close THE POWER OF extends relationship with Marcel Proust, beyond the giving him the notebooks in which CONVERSATION” usual focus on he drafted À la recherche du temps Judith Rosenbaum the early years perdu and serving as the model for of the the character of Madame de “ n my divan Austria comes nineteenth century. Within this Guermantes. After the framing of alive,” declared Berta expanded context, the exhibition and Alfred Dreyfus had been revealed at OZuckerkandl, one of twelve its rich companion catalogue explore her summer home, her salon became Jewish salonières featured in a recent how Jewish women, whose the Dreyfusard headquarters—a role exhibition at the Jewish Museum, experience negotiating boundaries as that lost her many salon habitués but New York, “Jewish Women and both women and Jews, honed the cemented her place in political Their Salons: The Power of social mediation skills necessary to history. Conversation.” Zuckerkandl’s assertion raises While emphasizing the the question at the heart of salonières’ roles as this exhibition: what was the powerbrokers and significant role of Jewish women and cultural handmaidens, the their salons in the process of exhibition makes clear that social, cultural, and political they were not only muses, change from the end of the facilitating the careers and eighteenth to the middle of accomplishments of others the twentieth century? (men), but contributors in their own right, crafting On view at the Jewish their own personas and Museum from March 4 to pursuing their own careers July 10, 2005, and at the as writers, critics, and McMullen Museum of Art at musicians. In fact, the salons Boston College in themselves could also serve partnership with the New as muses, inspiring the Center for the Arts from creativity of the women who August 22 to December 4, presided over them. Florine 2005, this exhibition Stettheimer, one of only two illustrates and enhances the Florine Stettheimer, Soirée, 1917-19. Yale Collection of American Literature, stateside salonières featured Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. important contributions of in the exhibiton, made the women’s history and gender studies preside over a successful salon. As a salon she led with her two sisters the to the field of Jewish studies. result, they became influential subject of her art. In one of the Curators Emily D. Bilski and Emily salonières in disproportionate strongest essays in the catalogue, Braun draw on a variety of historical numbers. First serving as wealthy Lucia Re argues for reading sources—from letters and diaries to ambassadors for assimilation and Gertrude Stein’s experimental painting and literature—to analyze later as critics and shapers of avant- modernist prose as a written how social exchange within the garde culture, these women used the expression of the circling salon private arena of the salon shaped egalitarian sociability of the salon— conversations at 27 Rue de Fleurus. culture and politics. made possible by its location within domestic space—to blur boundaries One of the strengths of the The scope of the exhibition, which of class, gender, ethnicity, and exhibition (and even more so, of the traces Jewish salonières from their sexuality and to pursue a greater catalogue) is its presentation of the emergence in 1780s Berlin to their degree of education and influence common threads connecting this 26 diverse compilation of salons whose enhancement to the exhibit, of another time. Because the power central concerns ranged from music presenting additional, compelling of the salon lay in the experience of to painting, from politics to images and further consideration of the moment, the salon was always literature. The salons were not issues raised but not addressed in perceived as passing and on the uniform in their political sufficient detail in the exhibition decline. Today’s culture of persuasions—of the two Italian itself. The conversion to Christianity anonymous, virtual communication salons featured, Anna Kuliscioff’s of three featured salonières only reinforces the tendency to wax agitated for Socialism while (Henrietta Herz, Rahel Levin nostalgic for the era of salons and the Margherita Sarfatti’s promoted Varnhagen, and Fanny Mendelssohn lively, face-to-face encounters they fascism and her lover, Mussolini—or Hensel—who was baptized as a cultivated. That this exhibition in their types of conversation, which child) is noted but not analyzed in effectively evokes the appeal and might take the form of formal the exhibition; the catalogue pays power of salon culture and Jewish “polite” conversation, literary deeper attention to this topic. The salonières without succumbing to witticisms, or a multilingual fusion. catalogue essays also explore in more this nostalgic inclination is to be The curators succeed in capturing detail the role of gender within the applauded. the variety and idiosyncrasy of the salons, and, in Leon Botstein and salons and persuading the viewer that Lucia Re’s excellent essays in Judith Rosenbaum, Ph.D., there is value in considering them particular, the relationship between is Director of Education together. The exhibition is more femininity, Jewishness, and other at the Jewish Women’s Archive. successful, however, in revealing the marginalized identities. continuity in aspects of the salonieres’ gender identity than in The exhibition ends fittingly with the their Jewish identities. little-known actress and screenwriter AJS 37th Annual Salka Viertel, whose salon offered a The greatest challenge in creating an cultural home for German refugees Conference exhibition on salon culture and the in Santa Monica, California. As the power of conversation is its film in this section of the exhibition December 18-20, 2005 ephemeral nature, the lack of illustrates poignantly, the themes of conversational record. In an attempt exclusion and acceptance that See page 37 for further details. to compensate for this absence, the animated the exhibition features a wide range of first Jewish artifacts and media—guestbooks, salons carried YAD HANADIV FELLOWSHIPS artwork, manuscripts, music, through to this IN JEWISH STUDIES FOR 2006-2007 furniture, and film—meant to evoke last one, though the atmosphere of each salon, and the salon itself Yad Hanadiv and the Beracha Foundation have portraits of salon habitués to people shifted from a established a Visiting Fellowship Program in Jewish it. Unfortunately, the portraits are gateway into Studies. Fellowships will be granted each year to hung too high to represent German culture scholars of Jewish Studies who hold non-tenured effectively the presence of these salon to a nostalgic university positions (or who will receive tenure after members in the room. The detailed representative of September 2006). Fellows will spend the academic audio guide of narrated excerpts it for the refugee year in Israel pursuing their own research while also working with a senior scholar in their field. The from letters and diaries is a welcome community in fellowship for 2006-2007 will be in the sum of addition and a creative attempt to America. $20,000., with an additional $2000. for spouse, plus imply conversation, but it cannot $2000 per child. Fellows are required to confirm that provide a real sense of dialogue and The essays in the upon completion of the fellowship they will resume exchange—the heart of the salon catalogue teaching Jewish studies at a university abroad. experience. Finally, a warmer emphasize that exhibition design—one that suggests nostalgia was a The deadline for receipt of applications the domestic spaces of the salon, central feature of is 31st December 2005. would have strengthened the impact salon culture Application forms and additional information may be of the exhibition and reinforced the from the obtained by writing to: significance of interior space to salon beginning, as the Yad Hanadiv/Beracha Foundation Fellowships culture. salonières 16 Ibn Gvirol St., Jerusalem 92430 ISRAEL imagined and Or e-mail: [email protected] The exhibition catalogue offers a longed for the or: [email protected] wonderful visual and intellectual ideal sociability 27 was addressed in varying ways in our panels, which focused on, among IMAGINING other topics: strategies of Jewish nationalism in fin-de-siècle Russia EWISH ODERNITIES and Poland: the literary creation of J M : self and society in Yiddish and Russian Jewish literature; strategies REFLECTIONS ON A of engagement with empire in nineteenth-century England; and GRADUATE STUDENT tropes of Jewish identity from postwar Germany to American pop culture. Since our conference theme CONFERENCE was directly related to the idea of Modernity, it was unsurprising that IN JEWISH STUDIES our participants came primarily from Rachel Shulman and Jennifer Young disciplines such as history or literature, where Modernity is hat is the difference similar interests in problematizing theorized. What did surprise us was between Jewish studies and Jewish history and culture, and that the distance they traveled to attend. Wstudying Jews? This was in order to engage in critical Our presenters came from one of the key questions that led us discussions on issues unique to our universities in Mainz, Southampton, to initiate the first graduate field, we must create our own Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Los colloquium in Jewish studies at the cohort. Thus, at least for one day, we Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, University of Illinois at Urbana were able to bring together a diverse Boston, Chicago, and Bloomington. Champaign, held on April 10, 2005. group of young scholars from across As this event’s organizers, one from North America, and to begin to During the conference we discussed Jewish studies and the other from create networks that we anticipate a situation common among many of postcolonial history, we became will expand as we progress in our us working on Jewish topics within interested in further exploring professional lives. such disciplines: the expectation that different ways to approach similar to succeed with a Jewish dissertation theoretical and historical material. The colloquium theme we chose as a topic one must display fluency both Our aim for the colloquium was to pathway into this larger discussion in historical or literary theories and bring together students from a was “Imagining Jewish canons, as well as command a variety of disciplines and scholarly Modernities,” which to us thorough knowledge of Jewish backgrounds in order to create a represented a method of questioning languages, religion, and history. dialogue that would cross the ways in which Jews in varying Students who pursue Jewish topics disciplinary boundaries and scholarly locations and contexts imagined outside of Jewish disciplines are contexts. We were convinced that themselves to be part of a larger taught to understand and appreciate many graduate students, like us, are European civilization. Many of us the particular and unique elements of interested in understanding their work with different definitions of Jewish historical narratives, cultural work at the nexus between Modernity, both European and and literary traditions, and specifically Jewish studies questions Jewish, and we therefore concluded languages. At the same time they are and concerns, and the problems that it would be useful to discuss expected to frame their work unique to different modes of history, together how these contrasting contextually and comparatively, literary theory, and modern national modernities conflicted. We also making it relevant on the broadest and linguistic studies. We wished to discussed whether strategies for possible level. This is a challenge that draw our colleagues into a wider Jewish engagement in various may not be unique to Jewish studies, discussion of the various modes of European artistic movements, but it certainly merits discussion and studying Jews in the modern era, political programs, or cultural analysis by those undertaking these and on the differing theoretical and endeavors were related to each other. kinds of complicated and nuanced methodological approaches in projects. contemporary scholarship. In our call for papers we asked, “In what ways have Jews used European We were fortunate to have Professor We also realized that many students, ideas as a way to articulate Naomi Seidman of the Graduate like us, work within departments distinctively Jewish practices of Theological Union in Berkeley as where few other students share Modernity?” This thematic question our keynote speaker. She gave a

28 moving lecture on the practice of order to place them into a coherently beginning or middle stages of Jewish translation entitled, “Every Jewish framework. dissertation-writing to benefit from Free Man Has Two Homelands: A the perspectives and advice of their Parable on Yiddish and Translation.” Fresh from the success of this event, peers, and to receive feedback from Dr. Seidman told a fascinating we have embarked on our next professors outside of their own anecdote about an experience her project, which will be organized disciplines or universities. With the father had in “creatively strong foundation mistranslating” his own THE EXPECTATION THAT TO SUCCEED WITH A EWISH of our colloquium, words from Yiddish to ... J we hope to French, and used this DISSERTATION TOPIC ONE MUST DISPLAY FLUENCY BOTH continue our story to outline her commitment both theory of translation as IN HISTORICAL OR LITERARY THEORIES AND CANONS, to providing a a strategy of cultural collegial space in integrity and survival. AS WELL AS COMMAND A THOROUGH KNOWLEDGE OF which emerging She concluded that scholars can present sometimes JEWISH LANGUAGES, RELIGION, AND HISTORY. their work and in mistranslation serves as which lively debates an act of cultural fidelity, a way of around a more intimate workshop on the nature of Jewish studies maintaining identity across shifting environment. This time, we will scholarship can occur. borders. Her talk was a perfect focus less on specific themes and conclusion to our conference questions in order to give even more Rachel Shulman is a Ph.D. student in because it personalized our previous opportunity to students to present history at the University of Illinois, discussions on the kinds of strategies their own works-in-progress. We Urbana-Champaign. taken by European Jews, fluent in want to devote significant time for many different cultural and linguistic discussion and study of each other’s Jennifer Young is a Ph.D. student in idioms, who strove to decipher their work, since we believe that it is anthropology at the University of own ideologies and experiences in especially crucial for those in the Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Visit www.jtsa.edu/shop a user-friendly site

JTS Press Secure ordering of all JTS Press titles! •Scholarly classics •New titles in the in English and Hebrew Jewish Education Series

> JTS Library •Titles available through •See our newest publications The Schocken Institute in our display ad in the materials AJS conference program > Scholarly classics in JTS Press English 3080 Broadway, New York, NY 10027 and Hebrew T: (212) 678-8031 • F: (212) 749-9085 [email protected]

29 WE REMEMBER OUR COLLEAGUES where he worked for fair-housing Jewish Theological Seminary and MURRAY legislation. He also began to dedicate Baylor University, entitled “Uneasy himself to scholarship and developed Allies? Evangelical-Jewish Relations RIEDMAN an analysis of racial disorders in Today.” F Philadelphia, Case Study of a Riot, 1926–2004 which was the first major study of Friedman had a long and Michael Alexander the civil disorders of the 1960s. His distinguished academic publishing findings were utilized by federal and career. He was the author of many state agencies. books, including The Neoconservative Revolution (2005); Philadelphia Friedman considered his best work Jewish Life, 1940–2000 (2003); What for AJC to be a survey he Went Wrong: The Creation and commissioned in the early 1960s on Collapse of the Black-Jewish Alliance anti-Semitic hiring practices of (1995); When Philadelphia Was the businesses in Philadelphia. He Capital of Jewish America (1993); invited corporate directors to discuss The Utopian Dilemma: American the discouraging results of the survey Judaism and Public Policy (1985); in a program he called “Executive and Jewish Life in Philadelphia, Suite.” The program gained national 1830–1940 (1983). He also edited attention and helped open doors to many volumes, including corporate America for Jews. A later Commentary in American Life urray Friedman was born survey he coordinated in 1988 (2005); New Perspectives on School in the Williamsburg section determined that discrimination Integration (1979); and with Mof Brooklyn, New York. against Jews in the corporate world Meltzer and Miller, Overcoming He joined the Marines in 1944, had essentially disappeared but that Middle Class Rage (1971). serving as a mortar man. After the similar abuses against women and war he returned to civilian life to blacks continued. In 1986, President In later years Friedman surprised study history, earning a bachelor’s Reagan appointed Friedman to be many of his colleagues by joining the degree from Brooklyn College in Vice Chairman of the U.S. neoconservative movement and by 1948, a master’s degree from New Commission on Civil Rights, a post arguing for increased church-state York University in 1949, and a he held for three years. cooperation as well as increased doctorate from Georgetown dialogue between Jews and University in 1958. While in his post for AJC, Friedman Evangelical Christians. His views also taught American Jewish history were published in such forums as Dr. Friedman’s first job was as at La Salle, St. Joseph’s, and Temple Commentary, New Republic, director of the B’nai B’rith Anti- universities. In 1990, Dr. Friedman Forward, Wall Street Journal, Defamation League office for and Dr. Morris Vogel founded the Washington Times, and the Virginia and North Carolina, which Myer and Rosaline Feinstein Center Philadelphia Inquirer. He was proud he assumed just before the U.S. for American Jewish History, which of his political convictions and his Supreme Court handed down its Friedman directed. Conceived as a public work, but never intended, as Brown v. Board of Education partnership between Temple he liked to say, to “put my finger in decision. He spent most of his time University and the AJC, the anybody’s eye.” After Friedman’s at the ADL battling segregation. Feinstein Center was created to funeral, Philadelphia Mayor John promote the study of the American Street said: “He was just a huge He became the regional director of Jewish experience. Under Friedman’s public figure—a sage—a man of the American Jewish Committee’s direction, the Feinstein Center great wisdom. Murray was always Mid-Atlantic States in Philadelphia in sponsored many academic able to bring people together.” 1959, where he served for forty- fellowships, talks, publications, and three years. In 1961 he served on a conferences that received Michael Alexander is the Murray committee that wrote Philadelphia’s international recognition. At the Friedman Professor of American first school-desegregation program. time of his death, Friedman was Jewish History and the Director of the Later he became secretary to the coordinating an upcoming Feinstein Center for American Jewish Pennsylvania Equal Rights Council, conference, co-sponsored with the History at Temple University. 30 WE REMEMBER OUR COLLEAGUES history and his place in it. When, for This sense of responsibility was LEON JICK instance, colleagues recollected during inculcated in Leon’s adolescence in St. that initial colloquium that we were Louis. In his brief autobiography he 1924–2005 meeting 150 years after the beginnings wrote: Arnold J. Band of Die Wissenschaft des Judentums, after In October 1942, I turned 18 and the pioneering efforts of Zunz and the following month, a black- Geiger, Leon protested that we were in bordered edition of the Jewish 1960s America, not Germany. In fact, Frontier arrived which spelled out only in retrospect can we realize the the full scope of the Holocaust. That profundity of Leon’s insight that AJS month, I enlisted in the Army Air was in many senses a child of 1960s Force. . . . America: rebellious, optimistic, democratic, and rambunctious. I first met Leon in 1954 when he came to Boston to serve as Assistant Rabbi in Leon Jick was a man of many parts. Temple Israel, and I was a graduate The author of the seminal The student at Harvard. In one of our first Americanization of the Synagogue, conversations I discovered that he, like 1820–1870 (1976), he participated fully me, had been a member of Habonim. in public life as a pulpit rabbi. He had When I asked him how one drifts from he first annual AJS conference experience in the kibbutz movement at Habonim, from the secular labor never really took place. For the Gesher Haziv, the Civil Rights movement, to Hebrew Union College, Trecord: Leon Jick organized movement (including a jail sentence a rabbinical seminary, he offered an and chaired an advisory committee in together with Martin Luther King), the explanation that overwhelmed me for December 1968 and subsequently struggle for Soviet Jewry, and academic its candor and insight: assembled a group of forty-seven administration at Brandeis University as When I grew up in the 1940’s, I scholars for a Colloquium on the both departmental chair and dean. realized I wanted to serve the Jewish Teaching of Judaica in American Leon, more than most, had a keen people in some sort of leadership Universities at Brandeis University on sense of where we were or should be in position. I looked about me and September 7–10, 1969. During the the flow of historical events. noticed that the two leading figures, colloquium the participants established Stephen S. Wise and Abba Hillel the Association for Jewish Studies and He knew that AJS was necessary to Silver, were Reform Rabbis. So I elected Leon Jick as its first president. serve different needs than those that went to HUC. It’s that simple. Retroactively we called that had given rise to the American colloquium the First Conference of Academy for Jewish Research in the Several years ago, after the death of the Association for Jewish Studies. 1920s. At the Tenth Annual Marvin Fox, it became evident that When I would often accuse him of Conference recorded in the AJS much of the history of the Association this momentous falsification of history, Newsletter, number 24, Leon had never been recorded. At that time Leon would argue that history is what recollected: Leon initiated a videotaping project of we write about human events. It became clear to a few of us then the first few presidents, but little came “Besides,” he countered with a that if Judaica was to become a of this endeavor. However, as we draw sparkle, “it was my dime.” recognized discipline, if the field was near the fortieth anniversary of the to develop . . . there was need for an Association—only four years from It was, indeed, his dime, or rather the address to which any interested party now—it would be a proper memorial Lown Institute’s dime, that he wisely might turn. Who could undertake to Leon to undertake a serious project utilized to initiate the meeting of the the necessary tasks other than the for the recording and writing of the advisory committee that met in community of Jewish scholars? The history of the Association, clearly one of December 1968. It was Leon’s need was clear to some. But how to the most salutary achievements of initiative and I am not sure when or if fill this need, how to bring scholars American Jewry in the past half century. AJS would have come to life without together and create the necessary him. This initiative, like many others in instrument? This was not clear at all. Arnold J. Band is Professor Emeritus of his productive, varied career, was not Whose responsibility was it? Who Hebrew and Comparative Literature at merely an administrative exercise, but could claim the right? The UCLA. was informed by a firm grasp of Jewish appropriate instrument did not exist. 31 WE REMEMBER OUR COLLEAGUES and Christian society in medieval Judaic studies, and was an active ELKA KLEIN Barcelona. Among her important claims, participant in its discussions. Her she argued that the organization of the contributions of translated medieval texts 1965–2005 Jewish community in Barcelona at this and her own writings on Iberian Jewry Steven Fine and Gail Labovitz time closely paralleled the to ORB and other online forums contemporaneous organization of the continue to enrich syllabi across the Christian community. Klein’s research disciplines. thus represents a significant challenge to Klein was a regular and enthusiastic older models of the history of Iberian contributor to scholarly panels at the Jewry that argued for the annual Association for Jewish Studies “ghettoization” of the community. Her conference; at the 2003 AJS she book, Community and King: Jews and organized a very well attended Christian Society in Medieval Barcelona, interdisciplinary roundtable discussion, was awarded a publication grant by the “Integrating the Sephardi/Mizrahi Koret Foundation and will be published Experience.” She was also an active r. Elka Klein, a promising scholar posthumously by the University of member of the Women’s Caucus. of medieval Jewish history, died Michigan Press. In addition, she edited of ovarian cancer on March 28, Hebrew Deeds of the Catalan Jews Klein was also known during her short D career for her intense dedication to 2005. Klein was born in Chicago and (1117–1316) (2004), a collection of raised in Berkeley, California, and eighteen shetarot that she discovered in teaching and to her students. At a Toronto, Canada; the family also spent a the archives of Barcelona. These memorial service held at the University year living in the Congo while her father, documents had been previously of Cincinnati in May 2005, Professor Gila Safran Naveh recalled “how only noted scholar on African slavery Martin inaccessible to most scholars of two weeks before she passed away, when Klein, researched and taught. Klein Barcelonan history; their publication I came to see her and share some Jewish received a B.A., summa cum laude, from further demonstrates the unique humor from my humor course, I found Yale University in history in 1988, after qualifications and varied skills—in her hospital bed covered with student which she studied at the Pardes Institute languages and in areas of historical papers, books she was reviewing, course for Jewish Studies in Jerusalem in knowledge—that Klein brought to her field. In January, 2005, Klein made the lists she was scrutinizing for approval, 1988–89. She earned her doctorate syllabi she was modifying.” On May 5, under the direction of Thomas Bisson at supreme effort of traveling to Barcelona for the public celebration of this volume, 2005, she was presented posthumously Harvard University in 1996. From 1998 delivering what turned out to be her with the Edith C. Alexander Award for to 2001, she held the position of final public lecture on that occasion. Distinguished Teaching by the postdoctoral Dorot Fellow in the University of Cincinnati; the award was Klein published three articles during her Skirball Department of Hebrew and accepted by her parents, Professors brief career: “Protecting the Widow and Judaic Studies at New York University. Suzanne and Martin Klein. She then joined the Department of the Orphan: A Case Study from 13th Klein is also survived by her husband, Judaic Studies at the University of Century Barcelona” (Mosaic 14 [1993] 65–81); “Splitting Heirs: Patterns of Yossi Francus, two children, Dina and Cincinnati in 2001, and continued to Inheritance Among Barcelona’s Jews” Shaul Francus, and brother, Moses teach there almost until the day of her (Jewish History 16:1 [2002] 49–71); Klein. She will be sorely missed by untimely death. and “The Widow’s Portion: Law, students and colleagues around the Klein was a social historian, focusing on Custom and Marital Property among world. May the memory of Elka Klein the history of the Jews in medieval Medieval Catalan Jews” (Viator 31 be a blessing to all. Spain. Her dissertation and subsequent [2000] 147–63). She also authored the scholarly work began with a year of article, “Barcelona,” in Medieval Jewish Steven Fine is the Jewish Foundation intense archival research in Barcelona. Civilization: An Encyclopedia (2003); Professor of Judaic Studies She drew upon her knowledge of and served as section editor for at the University of Cincinnati. rabbinic literature and Spanish archival “Medieval Jews and Judaism” for The materials to shed new light upon Jewish- On-line Reference Book for Medieval Gail Labovitz is Christian relations in medieval Iberia, Studies (ORB; www.fordham.edu/ Assistant Professor of Rabbinics stressing the influence of royal power on halsall/sbook.html). Moreover, she at the University of Judaism. Jewish social history and demonstrating wrote several book reviews for H-Judaic, the striking interpenetration of Jewish the Internet forum group for scholars in 32 WE REMEMBER OUR COLLEAGUES and was named the Lewis H. and College, City University of New GILA Selma Weinstein Professor of York, and her doctorate from Bar- Jewish Literature, she exuded a Ilan University in Israel. AMRAS powerful presence in the During her career, she taught at R - classroom. Placing her subject Bar-Ilan University, the University matter in the context of the of Texas, Ohio State University, RAUCH broader field of literary theory and Brandeis University, and Indiana expression, she enabled countless University. In Indiana, she married 1933–2005 students to decipher and analyze the late Dr. Leo Rauch, a Mark Dwortzan complex texts. philosophy scholar specializing in the work of Georg Hegel. Internationally renowned for her scholarship in Hebrew, Israeli, and Dr. Ramras-Rauch will be deeply Holocaust literature, Dr. Ramras- missed by the many people whose Rauch was a leading authority on lives she touched. May her memory the works of Aharon Appelfeld and be a blessing. the author of six books of literary analysis—many that explored new Mark Dwortzan is a Boston-based literary terrain. Her books Aharon writer and editor who serves as Appelfeld: The Holocaust and senior editor of Hebrew College Beyond (1994)—the first book in Today in the College's Marketing English on Appelfeld’s work—and and Communications Department. L.A. Arieli: Life and Works (1991), Department director Evelyn o catchphrase can in Hebrew, helped bring Herwitz and former public relations adequately sum up the prominence to her subjects. The manager Elizabeth Lawler Nextraordinary depth and Arab in Israeli Literature (1989) contributed to this article. breadth of the life of Dr. Gila was among the earliest Israeli Ramras-Rauch. She was a gifted books to focus on the depiction of teacher who inspired her students the Arab as the Other. to the full range of their potential; a brilliant literary scholar and Born in Tel Aviv in 1933, Dr. author; a loving wife and mother; Ramras-Rauch served in the Israeli and a generous friend and army, completed her early respected colleague. education at a teacher’s college, and taught Hebrew and cultivated At Hebrew College, where Dr. olim in Toronto and Detroit as a Ramras-Rauch taught Hebrew, shlicha for the Israeli government. biblical, Jewish, and modern Israeli She subsequently received her literature for twenty-three years, master’s degree from Hunter

HURRICANE KATRINA The AJS expresses its heartfelt sympathies to our members and their families who were affected by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Those members who, in the wake of the hurricane, require financial assistance to attend this year's conference should please contact the AJS office at 917.606.8249 or [email protected].

33 WE REMEMBER OUR COLLEAGUES received his Ph.D. in biblical studies manner in which late biblical texts NAHUM and Semitic languages from Dropsie are rabbinic-like in how they College, Philadelphia, where Cyrus interpret earlier biblical texts; this ARNA H. Gordon was his primary teacher. method was further developed by M. S his students, especially Michael Sarna taught at Gratz College in Fishbane. Sarna, with his deep 1923–2005 Philadelphia from 1951 to 1957 Marc Zvi Brettler understanding of rabbinic texts, also when he was appointed librarian of wrote on medieval Jewish biblical the Jewish Theological Seminary interpretation and its value for and member of its faculty. In 1965 modern biblical scholars, and he he joined the Near Eastern and offered special insight into the Judaic Studies Department at process of canonization, discussed Brandeis University, where he in several difficult and enigmatic taught for two decades and served rabbinic texts. as department chair. After retiring from Brandeis in 1985, he held a Sarna was involved in many of the number of visiting professorships, most prestigious biblical projects in and was Gimelstob Eminent Scholar the second half of the twentieth and Professor of Judaica at Florida century. He served as a translator Atlantic University until shortly for Kethuvim in the new Jewish before his death. Publication Society translation of ahum M. Sarna, a founding the Bible and the general editor of member of AJS, and its Sarna’s range was extraordinary. As its Bible Commentary Project, and, Npresident from 1984 to a student of Cyrus Gordon, he was after retiring from Brandeis 1985, died on June 23. Sarna was acquainted with the major Semitic University, as an academic born in London in 1923 to an languages of the ancient world; as a consultant for JPS. He was a active Jewish and Zionist home—his student of Isidore Epstein and departmental editor of the late father was a well-known Jewish Arthur Marmorstein, he had Encyclopaedia Judaica for Bible, and bookdealer in London. Sarna was mastered rabbinic and classical also contributed major articles to especially interested in the sciences medieval Jewish texts; and as a the Encyclopaedia Britannnica, the and engineering, but felt that the product of the British university Encyclopaedia Hebraica, the atmosphere in these professions was system, he had a strong classical Encyclopaedia Biblica Hebraica, the too anti-Semitic in England. He training and was attuned to the Encyclopaedia of Religion, and the therefore studied Jewish studies, literary merit of texts. He also Oxford Companion to the Bible. He receiving his training in rabbinics at became interested in the Dead Sea wrote more than 100 scholarly Jews College, London, and his B.A. Scrolls, and trained leading scholars articles, some of which were and M.A. from the University in how rabbinic material might collected in Studies in Biblical elucidate them. He was extremely College London (1946–49). One Interpretation. close to the Israeli Bible requirement for admission to the establishment, and was deeply University was Latin, which Sarna One of the major thrusts of his influenced by Kaufmann’s work has been to make the Bible taught himself; he later memorized magisterial History of Israelite and biblical scholarship available to Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. Sarna Religion. But he was more the broad Jewish community. This had hoped to continue studying interested in interpreting texts and may be seen in: Understanding rabbinics with Arthur Marmorstein, less interested in history of religion Genesis (1966); Exploring Exodus but when Marmorstein died, Sarna than Kaufmann. In his work, Sarna (1986); Commentary on Genesis went to study in Israel. He stayed rarely cited the documentary (1989); Commentary on Exodus there for two years, unable to find a hypothesis, and often highlighted (1991); and Songs of the Heart: An suitable program due to the the moral values of the biblical text Introduction to the Book of Psalms displacement of the Hebrew and the meaning of the final form (1993). In his final years, he had University after the War of of the text. His training allowed been working on another volume Independence. He then settled in him to develop the idea of inner- interpreting selected psalms, a the United States in 1951, and biblical interpretation, namely the monograph on the jubilee year, and 34 a book on the post-exilic period. about giving other people credit; considered this hevruta type when pressed, he said that he meant experience to be the intellectual Sarna’s sixty-year career spans the to illustrate the rabbinic dictum, highlight of his scholarly career. growth of Jewish biblical studies at based on a verse in Esther: “anyone secular universities in America, and who cites a tradition in the name of Sarna raised several generations of he played a major role in this its originator brings redemption to students in all fields of Jewish studies development. When he began the world.” who will continue his legacy. This teaching, it was difficult for Jewish legacy is not expressed through a biblical scholars to find employment Sarna loved interacting with “Sarna school of biblical in this area (Isaac Rabinowitz at students, scholars, and members of interpretation,” for Sarna allowed, Cornell was a rare exception); by the community; he was also an even encouraged, his students to the time he had retired from active teacher of adults. He disagree with his views, as long as Brandeis, American Jewish Bible especially enjoyed intermingling they paid close attention to texts, and scholarship was well established, with the wide-ranging and did not become what he called with many institutions seeking distinguished faculty of JTS when “psychoceramics”—crack-pots. (Sarna young scholars trained in both he taught there; in his latter years, a was an avid punster.) His legacy is critical and Jewish-classical methods picture of the late Saul Lieberman expressed through a deep and of biblical explication. Sarna played hung in his study. Beginning in the abiding sense of the Bible’s beauty a major role in this transformation. mid-1970s, Sarna became especially and value, which he conveyed to us, close to the late Marvin Fox, and we try to pass on to others. May Sarna was a masterful teacher, professor of Jewish thought at his memory be a blessing. engaging, witty, demanding, and Brandeis—they shared a common meticulously prepared for every class. sense of humor, a belief in Marc Zvi Brettler is the Dora At least once a week in class, he standards, and an interest in Jewish Golding Professor of Biblical Studies would read from one of his index studies from its earliest through its and Chair of the Department of cards: “On such and such a date, most recent manifestations. After his Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at when I taught this passage, Mr. or main collaborators in the JPS Brandeis University. Ms. So and So (a former student) Kethuvim volume, Moshe suggested that this verse or word Greenberg and Jonas Greenfield, should be interpreted in the moved to Jerusalem, Sarna would following way.” Sarna never followed spend an extended period every year fashions or fads, but was punctilious there working with them; he

We Remember Our Colleagues

We request members of AJS, as well as directors and chairs of Jewish studies departments, centers, and programs to inform the AJS office about the deaths of their colleagues. We ask that you also help us to identify an appropriate colleague who will write an obituary about the deceased to be published in AJS Perspectives. AJS Perspectives is published in the fall and spring, therefore obituaries need to be submitted by February 1 and August 1. We seek to honor the memories of people who have been teachers, scholars, librarians, and archivists in the field of Jewish studies.

Please send this information to [email protected].

35 To order any Purdue University Press title call 1-800-247-6553, visit us online at: www.thepress.purdue.edu or email us at: [email protected].

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Bitter Prerequisites: A Faculty for Mel Gibson’s Passion: The Film, Jewish Studies Survival from Nazi Terror Controversy, and Its Implications Edited by Zev Garber and Daniel Morris Compiled & edited by the late Edited by Zev Garber ISSN: 0882-8539 Volume 24(05-06) William L. Kleine-Ahlbrandt ISBN:1-55753-405-5 $14.95 Paper $55.00/vol. – Individuals (US) ISBN 1-55753-214-1 $31.95 Cloth Available in Oct. 2005 168pp 6×9 2001 496pp 6×9 $75.00/vol. – Individuals (outside US) There is no question that Gibson’s Passion is Shofar is a quarterly scholarly publication ed- A dozen Purdue University Jewish faculty the most controversial Jesus—if not, reli- ited and produced by the Purdue Jewish members who were forced to flee their homes gious—movie ever made. Mel Gibson’s Pas- Studies Program and published by the Purdue during the Holocaust, tell their stories in a sion: The Film, the Controversy, and Its University Press. It is the official journal of series of interviews conducted by Kleine- Implications exposes the flaws of Gibson’s cin- the Midwest and Western Jewish Studies Ahlbrandt, a history professor and author at ematic Christ and lays out assertively and Associations. The mission of the journal is to Purdue. The interviewees discuss the prob- persuasively the rationale for Jews and Chris- present interesting lems of growing up tians to grasp and new scholarly Jewish, especially comprehend the pas- work to a general after the enactment sion and execution university public, of anti-Jewish legis- of the Christian sav- to review a wide lation; the impor- ior known scriptur- range of new tance of religion, ally as the “King of books in the field, God, and traditions the Jews.” and to emphasize in their lives; and pedagogical aspects adjusting to life in of Jewish Studies the U.S., where at the college and finding a job was university level. just one of many obstacles.

36 December 18-20, 2005 37th Annual Washington Hilton and Towers Conference of the Washington, DC Association for Jewish Studies Program online at www.brandeis.edu/ajs Join the AJS for more than 140 sessions devoted to the latest research in all fields of Jewish studies. Special conference events include: • Plenary lecture by Ambassador Dennis Ross, author of The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace. This program has been organized in cooperation with the Jewish Book Council. Sunday, December 18 at 8:00 p.m. •Book Exhibit featuring leading publishers of Judaica and related scholarship

•Film screening of THE LIGHT AHEAD (Fishke the Lame), dir. Edgar G. Ulmer, 1939, on Sunday, December 18 at 9:30 p.m. •Special reduced prices for the AJS Annual Gala Banquet, Sunday, December 18, 2005 at 6:45 p.m. ($25 for regular and associate members and their guests; $15 for student members)* Deadlines: November 15, 2005 is the deadline for: •reserving kosher meals, including the Annual Gala Banquet, at www.brandeis.edu/ajs •registering for conference at the reduced rate ($90/regular/associate member; $50/student member; $125/non-member) after November 15, conference registration will take place at the Hilton at the regular rate, ($115/regular/associate member; $65/student member; $150 non-member) •reserving a hotel room at the Washington Hilton (1-800-HILTONS) at the reduced rate ($109/regular; $99/student) after November 15, reduced rate room reservations will be based on availability For further information about sessions, meals, hotel reservations, visiting Washington, DC, and special conference events, please refer to the AJS website at www.brandeis.edu/ajs or contact the AJS office at [email protected] or 917.606.8249)

Please join us Sunday, December 18 Gala Banquet for the... Gala Banquet at the 37th Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies 6:15 – 6:45 p.m. light reception • 6:45 – 8:00 p.m. banquet • 8:00 – 9:30 p.m. plenary lecture The AJS is pleased to announce special reduced price tickets to its Annual Gala Banquet. Through November 15, tickets are $25 for regular and associate members and their guests and $15 for student members. These prices represent a significant discount from the original banquet fee of $57. Space is limited, so reserve your ticket right away at www.brandeis.edu/ajs (select link, “Purchase Meals for the Conference”).* AJS GALA BANQUET SPONSORS The AJS wishes to thank the following Mid-Atlantic Jewish Studies Programs, Departments, and Institutions for sponsoring the Gala Banquet: Jewish Studies Program, American University The Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies and the Department of Jewish Studies, Rutgers, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The State University of New Jersey Institute for Israel & Jewish Studies, Columbia University Judaic Studies Department, SUNY Binghamton Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion Jewish Studies Program, Temple University Program for Jewish Civilization, Georgetown University Center for Jewish Studies, University at Albany, A Friend of the AJS State University of New York The Graduate School of the Jewish Theological Seminary Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies, Judaic Studies Program, George Washington University University of Maryland Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, Jewish Studies Program, University of Pennsylvania New York University Jewish Studies Program, University of Pittsburgh Judaic Studies Program, Princeton University Jewish Studies Program, University of Virginia The Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Jewish Studies Program, Vassar College Jewish Studies Program,The Johns Hopkins University YIVO Institute of Jewish Research Reconstructionist Rabbinical College

*Those who purchased banquet tickets for $57.00 will receive a refund for the difference between the full price and the new, reduced price. 37 Second International Multidisciplinary Conference: Beyond Camps and Forced conferences Labour - 60 Years On Imperial War Museum in Jewish Studies London, United Kingdom 2005/6 January 11-13, 2006 For more information, please Institutions are encouraged to send Jewish Masculinities contact Dr. Johannes-Dieter short notifications of conferences, in Germany Conference Steinert at [email protected]. calls for papers, exhibitions, awards, University of California, San Diego and announcements to San Diego, California [email protected]. December 11-13, 2005 February 2006 For further information, please imagiNATION: The Cultural contact Erin Svalstad at Praxis of Zionism [email protected] November 2005 Arizona State University or +1-858-534-4551 (ph), Jewish LA—Then and Now: Tempe, Arizona +1-858-534-7283 (fax). A National Conference February 5-7 2006 Los Angeles, California For more information, please Association for Jewish Studies November 12-14, 2005 contact Professor Shai Ginsburg at 37th Annual Conference www.lajh.org [email protected]. Washington Hilton and Towers Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Washington, D.C. Jewish Studies, in collaboration with Australian Association for Jewish December 18-20, 2005 the Autry National Center and the Studies 18th Annual Conference: www.brandeis.edu/ajs Skirball Cultural Center, with the Women in Judaism Please visit Web site for details and support of the Jewish Community University of Melbourne registration. Deadline for pre-conference Foundation of Los Angeles, the Melbourne, Australia registration rates and meal reservations: Maurice Amado Foundation, the February 12-13, 2006 November 15. The deadline for hotel UC Humanities Research Institute, For more information, please reservations (1-800-HILTONS) at Blazer Communications, the contact Dr. Dvir Abramovich at reduced conference rate: November 15. Southern California Jewish [email protected], or Professor Historical Society, and the USC- Ziva Shavitsky at [email protected]. Huntington Institute for the Study of California and the West. Pre- January 2006 The State of Israel: Reflections registration is required. To RSVP or Bridging the World of Islam and on Its Theological-Political for more information please contact Judaism: An International Predicament the UCLA Center for Jewish Conference UCLA Studies at [email protected] or Bar-Ilan University Los Angeles, California +1-310-825-5387. Tel-Aviv, Israel February 12–13, 2006 January 3-4, 2006 www.cjs.ucla.edu Co-sponsored by the Department of The Natalie Limonick Symposium December 2005 Middle Eastern History at Bar-Ilan on Jewish Civilization, in University and the Jewish Studies The International Center for collaboration with Tel Aviv Program at San Francisco State Russian and East European University. Pre-registration is University. For further information, Jewish Studies Third Annual required. To RSVP or for more please contact Professor Yaacov Lev Conference: Russian-Jewish information please contact the at [email protected] or +972-3- Culture UCLA Center for Jewish Studies at 6519166; Professor Michael Laskier Moscow, Russia [email protected] at [email protected] or December 4-6, 2005 or +1-310-825-5387. +972-3-7316339; or Professor Fred For further information, please Astren at [email protected] contact Ekaterina Zabolotskaya at or +1-415-338-3152. [email protected] or +7-095-2542556.

38 Reclaiming the Other Half of the Spring 2006 Issue of Jewish Jewish People: The New Educational Leadership: “Kids On Scholarship on Trial” Women and Judaism calls Deadline: November 30, 2005 Florida Atlantic University Manuscripts should be submitted Boca Raton, Florida For using the Jewish Educational February 19-20, 2006 Leadership guidelines for writers, www.fau.edu/divdept/schmidt/judaic/ 2005/6Papers available on-line at For further information, please www.lookstein.org/oj_submit.htm. contact Frederick E. Greenspahn at Philosemitism Please indicate that your paper is for [email protected]. Short Abstract Deadline: October the upcoming issue on assessment. 30, 2005 Review of manuscripts will begin Completed Essay Submission immediately. March 2006 Deadline: June 15, 2006 International Workshop: “Exile Conversion and Reversion to The editors seek proposals for and Displacement in the Modern Judaism, from the Crusades to contributions from scholars working Middle East” the Enlightenment on any aspect of the history of Deadline: December 1, 2005 Touro College attitudes towards Jews that might Proposals should be addressed by e- New York, New York broadly be considered mail to: [email protected] or by mail March 5, 2006 “philosemitic.” The editors would to: Yair Huri and Haggai Ram, For further information, please welcome contributions from Department of Middle East Studies, contact Miriam Bodian at historians and from literary scholars, Ben Gurion University, [email protected]. as well as from other relevant disciplines such as theology or Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel. Western Jewish Studies philosophy. Proposal should be sent Radical History Review Association 12th Annual to both editors: Adam Sutcliffe Fall 2007, Volume 99 Conference ([email protected]) and Jonathan Deadline: March 15, 2006 California State University Karp ([email protected]). For Radical History Review invites Long Beach, California further information please contact, submissions of abstracts for a March 19-20, 2006 Adam Sutcliffe at [email protected] forthcoming thematic issue For further information, please or +1-217-244-2594. exploring the subject of religion and contact Dr. Arlene Lazarowitz at its historical relations to politics, [email protected]. Yiddish/Jewish Cultures: Literature, History, Thought in culture and society. We especially Eastern European Diasporas encourage proposals for articles with April 2006 New York University, interdisciplinary and transnational New York City perspectives. Radical History Review British Association for American February 26-27, 2006 solicits article proposals from Studies Annual Conference Deadline: November 15, 2006 scholars across the disciplines, in University of Kent Graduate student conference on the fields including history, Kent, United Kingdom varieties of Yiddish cultural, historical, anthropology, religious studies, April 20-23, 2006 and linguistic expression either located sociology, philosophy, political www.baas.ac.uk within Eastern Europe, or emanating science, gender, and cultural studies. For further information, please to diasporas such as the Americas, For further information, and to contact Dr. George Conyne at Israel, and other parts of the world. submit a 1-2 page abstract [email protected]. The keynote speaker will be Barbara summarizing your article please Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. Please send a contact Radical History Review at 300-400 word abstract, along with [email protected]. June 2006 your contact information, by Biennial Scholars’ Conference on November 15th to: American Jewish History [email protected]. Please send Charleston, South Carolina any inquiries to the same email address, June 5-7, 2006 or call: +1-212-998-8980. For further information please contact, Dale Rosengarten at [email protected]. 39 American Antiquarian Society National Women's Studies Awards 2006-2007 Research Fellowship Association Jewish Women's 2005/6 Program Caucus www.americanantiquarian.org Deadline: March 1, 2006 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Deadline: January 15, 2006 www.nwsa.org/JWCform.html Council for Library and The American Antiquarian Society Annual scholarship open to a Information Resources (AAS), in order to encourage graduate student who is enrolled Dissertation Fellowships imaginative and productive research full-time in an accredited academic Deadline: November 15, 2005 in its unparalleled library collections institution and who has a special www.clir.org of American history and culture interest in the lives, work and For further information, please through 1876, will award to culture of Jewish women as contact: Cynthia Burns, CLIR, qualified scholars a number of demonstrated by research, thesis, or 1755 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, short-and long-term visiting dissertation topic. This $1,000 Suite 500, Washington, DC, research fellowships during the year scholarship is supported by the 20036-2124, [email protected]. June 1, 2006-May 31, 2007. For Steven H. and Alida Brill Scheuer further information, please contact Foundation. YIVO Institute for Jewish [email protected] or Research/Max Weinreich Center +1-212-755-5221. American Jewish Historical for Advanced Jewish Studies Society Fellowships 2006-2007 National Foundation for Jewish www.ajhs.org/academic/Awards.cfm Deadline: December 31, 2005 Culture Maurice and Marilyn Administrative Committee Prize www.yivo.org/max_weinreich/ Cohen Fund for Doctoral Ruth B. Fein Prize index.php Dissertation Fellowships in The Sid and Ruth Lapidus For further information, please Jewish Studies Fellowship contact: Dr. Paul Glasser, Chair, Deadline: January 19, 2006 Saul Viener Book Prize Fellowship Committee, YIVO www.jewishculture.org/grants/ Leo Wasserman Article and Student Institute for Jewish Research, 15 For further information, please Essay Prizes West 16th Street, New York, NY contact [email protected] or For further information, please 10011, Tel.: +1.212.246.6080, +1-212-629-0500, ext. 215. contact: AJHS, 15 West 16th Fax: +1.212.292.1892, Street, New York, [email protected]. Center for Jewish History NY, 10011, +1-212-294-6160. Fellowship Deadline: February 1, 2006 www.cjh.org/academic/Fellowship /summary.html See Web site for fellowship guidelines and application and ad on page 42 for further information. Announcements2005/6 Dr. Raymond P. Scheindlin, Professor of Medieval Hebrew Literature and Director of the Shalom Spiegel Institute of Medieval Hebrew Poetry at the Jewish Theological Seminary, has been named a Fellow at the New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cillman Center for Scholars and Writers. Dr. Scheindlin is one of only fifteen people selected from an international pool of candidates to be chosen for the elite Fellowship.

The Jewish Studies Program at the University of Washington has been the recipient of three major gifts since January, 2005: $750,000 to endow the Lucia S. and Herbert L. Pruzan Professorship in Jewish Studies to support the Chair of the Program and help meet the Program’s ongoing operating needs; a $1 million commitment by Jay and Marsha Glazer to endow a Chair in Jewish Studies to honor Althea Stroum and her long- time devotion to the Jewish Studies Program; and a commitment of $10 million by Althea Stroum to support the Stroum Lecture series, establish Chairs in Jewish Studies, provide scholarships and fellowships to Jewish Studies students, and help the Program achieve its strategic objectives. The Program is to be renamed the Samuel and Althea Stroum Jewish Studies Program at the University of Washington. The first Pruzan Professor is Paul Burstein, Chair of the Jewish Studies Program and Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington. 40 Request for Grant Proposals for Courses in the Study of Secular Judaism $50,000 awards annually for up to three years

The Center for Cultural Judaism invites grant applications for the Posen Project for the Study of Secular Judaism. These grants are intended to encourage the interdisciplinary study of secular Judaism within well-established university programs and departments of Jewish Studies, History, Philosophy, Sociology or other related disciplines.

Grants will be awarded to support curricular development and teaching of two to four courses per year, including an interdisciplinary core course in the history, texts, philosophy and literature of Secular Judaism.

Grants of up to $50,000 each per year will be awarded for the 2006-2007 academic year. Upon review, these grants are renewable for up to two years.

Background

According to the American Jewish Identity Survey (AJIS 2001), conducted under the auspices of The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, nearly one-half of America's adult Jews identify themselves as secular or somewhat secular. Vast numbers of Americans identify with Judaism as a culture and heritage. The Posen Foundation and the Center for Cultural Judaism support the study of this phenomenon. The full AJIS report is available at www.culturaljudaism.org/ccj/news/4.

Deadline: November 28, 2005

Background, Guidelines, Application, and Sample Syllabi are available at www.culturaljudaism.org or by contacting Myrna Baron Executive Director The Center for Cultural Judaism 212-564-6711, ext. 301 [email protected]

41 TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29 FEBRUARY 10, 2006 5:00 pm 10:00 am Yochanan Alemanno and Jewish Finding the Rhythm: Scholarship at the Medici Court Dance and Music in Jewish Studies WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30 5:00 pm MARCH 17, 2006 Shabbatai Donnolo between 10:00 am Mysticism and Science Assimilating (Post-Modern) Jewish Music: Ambivalence in Seminars at the Center THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1 Contemporary Composition 4:00 pm for Jewish History Women and Books MARCH 31, 2006 15 West 16th Street, in Renaissance Italy 10:00 am New York, New York. Energizing Jewish Musical For further information, 6:00 pm Memory: Encounters with Sound please visit www.cjh.org. Azariah De' Rossi’s Humanism and Text in Archives and Libraries

NOVEMBER 18, 2005 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2 APRIL 28, 2006 10:00 am 10:00 am 10:00 am The Sephardic Voice in Ottoman From Rossi to Rossini: Shifting ‘I am a Jew from Eternal Song: The Life and Art of Tanburi Paradigms in Italian Jewish Nowhere’: Yiddish Song in the Isak Fresco (1745-1814) Musical Culture Aftermath of the Holocaust

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 28 JANUARY 20, 2006 MAY 12, 2006 4:00 pm 10:00 am 10:00 am Kabbalah in the Age of Reason: The Tradition Continues on the The Migration of Memory: Elijah Benamozegh Lower East Side: New Contexts for Mizrahi and Experimental Music and the Bukharian Musical Poetic 6:00 pm American Jewish Imaginary Traditions in Israel and the US The Sephardic Jewish Theological in 1990s New York City Seminary of Sabato Morais

Center for Jewish History Fellowship Program For 2005

Application Deadline for 2006 CJH Fellowship is February 1, 2006 he Center for Jewish History (CJH) fellowships, that represent each of the five constituents (American Jewish Historical Society; American Sephardi Federation; Leo Baeck Institute; Yeshiva University Museum; YIVO TInstitute for Jewish Research), are intended for academic candidates as well as museum, curatorial, and library science candidates. The awards support original research in the field of Jewish Studies, as it pertains to one or more of the constituent organizations' missions, in which preference may be given to those candidates who will draw on the resources of more than one collection. Each fellowship carries a stipend of a minimum of $10,000 for a period of one academic year. It is expected that applicants will have completed all requirements for the doctoral degree save the dissertation (a.b.d.). It is required that each fellow chosen for the award: • Conduct research or cultivate curatorial skills using the Center archival and library resources for the duration of the stipend; • Participate in a Center for Jewish History Seminar and deliver a minimum of one lecture (during or beyond the grant period) based on research at the Center and the collections used; or participate in exhibition planning (for curatorial fellows only). Eligibility: Open to qualified doctoral candidates in accredited institutions For Application requirements see: http://www.cjh.org/academic/Fellowship/summary.html

42 AJS Institutional Members The Association for Jewish Studies is pleased to announce the following Institutional Members for the 2005-06 membership year: Brown University, Program in Judaic Studies UCLA Center for Jewish Studies Cornell University, Jewish Studies Program University of Connecticut Center for Judaic Studies Duke University, Department of Jewish Studies and Contemporary Life Hebrew College University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion Program in Jewish Culture and Society Indiana University, Robert A. University of Michigan, The Frankel Center for Judaic Studies and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program University of North Carolina Asheville, Center for Jewish Theological Seminary of America Jewish Studies New York University, Skirball Department of Hebrew University of Oregon, The Harold Schnitzer Family Program and Judaic Studies in Judaic Studies Penn State University, Jewish Studies Program University of Pittsburgh, Jewish Studies Program Reconstructionist Rabbinical College Vanderbilt University, Program in Jewish Studies Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies Yeshiva University Stanford University, Taube Center for Jewish Studies YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Syracuse University, Judaic Studies Program York University, Centre for Jewish Studies

Weblinks to institutional members’ homepages can be found on the AJS website at www.brandeis.edu/ajs. If your program, department, or institution is interested in becoming an AJS institutional member, please contact Rona Sheramy, AJS Executive Director, at [email protected] or 917.606.8249.

Millions of archival documents... half a million books... tens of thousands of photographs, artifacts, paintings, and works of art.

15 West 16 Street, New York, NY •Study these extraordinary collections (between 5th and 6th Ave.) •View the many exhibitions For more information visit www.cjh.org •Attend lectures, concerts, or call 212-294-8301 films, and literary evenings Public Tours Tuesday and Thursday, 2 p.m. •Visit our café and bookstore

43 This relief from the Arch of Titus, which commemorates the Roman conquest of Judea that ended the Jewish Wars (66-70 CE), has long served as the iconic image for the Jewish experience of empire. But does it tell the whole story?

Reprinted from Leon Yarden, The Spoils of Jerusalem on the Arch of Titus: A Re-investigation (Stockholm: Paul Astroms, 1991), 142-43; part of a series published by the Swedish Institute in Rome (Acta Instituti Romani Regni Sueciae, series 8, vol. 16). Courtesy of the Swedish Institute in Rome.

(Cover Photo) Disraeli offers Victoria the “oriental” crown of India to replace the English one. Drawing by John Tenniel, in the London Punch (1876).

Association for Jewish Studies Center for Jewish History 15 West 16th Street New York, NY 10011