Report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies 2019–2020
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report of the oxford centre for hebrew and jewish studies 2019–2020 Report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Report of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies 2019–2020 oxford centre for hebrew and jewish studies Contents oxford centre for hebrew and jewish studies The Clarendon Institute Walton Street President’s Message 8 Oxford Highlights of the 2019–2020 Academic Year 10 ox1 2hg Tel: 01865 610422 People Email: [email protected] Academic Staff 19 Website: www.ochjs.ac.uk Board of Governors 22 The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies is a company, limited by Academic Activities of the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies guarantee, incorporated in England, Registered No. 1109384 (Registered Charity No. 309720). The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies is a tax-deductible Oxford Seminar in Advanced Jewish Studies organization within the United States under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Between Sacred and Profane – Jewish Musical Cultures in Code (Employer Identification number 13–2943469). Early Modern Europe Dr Diana Matut 25 Early Modern Ashkenazi Cantors: Identity and Transformation Matthew Austerklein 26 A Blind Organist and Yohanan Alemanno ‘About to Faint’: Changes in the Jewish Conceptualization of Music at the Turn of the Sixteenth Century Dr Alexandre Cerveux 29 Kol Mekadesh Shevi’i: Resounding Synagogue and Home in Early Modern Ashkenaz Dr Naomi Cohn Zentner 30 Two Tribes: Jewish and Roma Popular Musicians in Eighteenth- century Hungary Dr David Conway 32 Ottoman Musical Sources as Antecedents for the Ottoman Stock within the Klezmer Musical Fusion Professor Walter Zev Feldman 33 Copyright © Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, 2020 Traces of Kabbalah in the Musical Traditions of Italian Jews All rights reserved Dr Enrico Fink 35 issn 1368 9096 The Development and Disappearance of the Old Practice of East- 36 Front cover illustration: Clarendon Institute Ashkenazi Prayer Chant Professor Judit Frigyesi Niran Edited by Dr Jeremy Schonfield The Older Layer in the Yiddish Folk Balladic Repertoire Designed by Tony Kitzinger Dr Michael Lukin 37 The Music Traditions of the Jews in Early Modern Venice Printed and bound at the Dorset Press, Dorchester Dr Piergabriele Mancuso 39 5 6 Contents Contents 7 The Yiddish Art of Lamentation – Kine and Kloglid The African Hebrew Israelites and the Building of Peace with Dr Diana Matut 42 Israel Dr Michael Miller 68 The Hebrew Oratorio: Esther According to Lidarti Negative Spaces in the Triangle of Gender, Religion and New Dr Deborah Rooke 44 Media: A Case Study of the Ultra-Orthodox Community in Ethnochoreology in Early Modern Ashkenaz. An Approach Israel Dr Rivka Neriah Ben-Shahar 69 through Iconography, Ethnography, Music and Jewish Fear: The Prominent Emotional Feature of Prohibitions in Thought Andreas Schmitges 46 Kabbalah Dr Leore Sachs-Shmueli 71 Music, Exile and the Idea of Redemption in Early Modern Jewish On the Role of Age in Jungjüdisch Zionist Thought and Culture Dr Yael Sela 47 Visual Culture: Lesser Ury and Martin Buber in Dialogue Rabbi Israel Najara in Europe Professor Edwin Seroussi 48 Rose Stair 72 Musical Iconography in Early Jewish Books: Exposition, Develop- Three Pioneers: The First Three Orthodox Women Rabbis ment and Recapitulation Professor Suzanne Wijsman 51 Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz 73 Virtual Oxford Summer Institute on Modern Nostalgia, Canonization and the Messianic Renewal: The Case and Contemporary Judaism of the Habad Hasidic Movement Dr Wojciech Tworek 75 Virtual Oxford Summer Institute on Modern and Contemporary Reports by Visiting Fellows and Scholars 76 Judaism Dr Miri Freud-Kandel 54 Public Activities Jewish Religious Practice Among Jews in Hiding or Passing as Non- Lectures and Classes for the Public 93 Jews during the Holocaust Professor Natalia Aleksiun 55 Journal of Jewish Studies 95 Changes in Jerusalem’s Jewish Sacred Space: The Sanctification The Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies 96 of Kivrei Tsadikim in Three of the City’s Cemeteries The Leopold Muller Memorial Library 99 Professor Doron Bar 57 The Academic Year Big-Tent Bioethics: Turning to the Rabbinic Tradition for a Better Courses, Lectures, Conferences, Publications and Other Activities Pluralism Keenan Davis 58 by Fellows of the Centre 111 Faith in Lockdown: Building Blocks to a Contemporary Jewish Seminars, Conferences and Special Lectures Involving Theology Dr Miri Freud-Kandel 60 Centre Fellows 126 The Löwith-Blumenberg Secularization Debate, and the Jewish Listings 61 Reception of Martin Heidegger Dr Daniel M. Herskowitz Academic Advisory Council 137 1967 The Impact of the (Six-Day) War on Diaspora Jewish Life Administrative Staff 137 Dr Sara Hirschhorn 63 Visiting Fellows and Scholars 138 Rabbinic Response to Covid–19: The Case of Triage Journal of Jewish Studies 139 Professor Alan Jotkowitz 64 The Leopold Muller Memorial Library Committee 140 Using Technology to Address Diverse Audiences: The Jewish Donors of Books to the Leopold Muller Memorial Library 141 Museum of Lecce During the Covid–19 Pandemic as a Case Study Dr Fabrizio Lelli 65 Books Acquired for the Library through Special Funds and Endowments 141 Charismatic Hasidim – Both Male and Female – in Contemporary 2019 2020 144 Habad Dr Naftali Loewenthal 66 Sources of Funding, – President’s Message 9 of private correspondence preserved in the Cairo Geniza. In February 2020 the Centre held a three-day film event, led by Professor Adriana X. Jacobs in the President’s Message framework of the Brichto Israel Studies Fund. Three films from the celebrated documentary project The Hebrews, directed and produced by Yair Qedar, and concerning key figures in the Hebrew and Jewish literary canon were screened. The academic year 2019–2020 will undoubtedly be remembered as the most Yair Qedar himself introduced films on the Yemenite Jewish poet Shalom challenging one in decades. The pandemic has impacted on all our lives, and that Shabazi (1619-c.1720), the Levantine writer Jacqueline Kahanoff (1917–1979), of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies is no exception. However, and the Yiddish poet Avraham Sutzkever (1913–2010). thanks to the dedication and resourcefulness of our Governors, Fellows and From October 2019 to March 2020 the Centre was delighted to host the ninth Staff the Centre navigated these daunting times with overall success. Despite Oxford Seminar in Advanced Jewish Studies, organized with the generous the closure of our buildings and the Leopold Muller Memorial Library during support of the Polonsky Foundation. Dr Diana Matut and Dr Deborah the lockdown, as well as the postponement of many of our conferences and Rooke gathered leading specialists in the field of Jewish music from Australia, workshops, we were able to relocate and to make available a substantial part of France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, the UK and the USA for an extended our teaching and research activities online. The threats posed by the pandemic residential Seminar entitled Between Sacred and Profane – Jewish Musical remain very real, but the Centre is now well prepared to pursue its teaching and Cultures in Early Modern Europe, reports of which appear in this volume. research activities in conditions that are as secure and welcoming as possible. Participants examined Ashkenazi, Italian-Jewish and Western Sephardi The challenges of Covid–19 aside, this year was particularly rich in exciting musical expressions in Europe during the early modern period, with a special events. There was much satisfaction when publications by two Fellows of emphasis on interconnections between the liturgical and secular spheres, as the Centre received important book awards: Adriana X. Jacobs’s Strange well as on the processes of negotiation between Jewish religious expressions Cocktail. Translation and the Making of Modern Hebrew Poetry, and the and popular cultures. They illustrated their cumulative research with a musical Italian translation of Martin Goodman’s A History of Judaism. Two other new concert. publications were warmly welcomed: Yaacov Yadgar’s Israel’s Jewish Identity The Centre’s involvement in a range of exciting academic projects and Crisis: State and Politics in the Middle East, and Martin Goodman’s Josephus’s cultural events was made possible by the generosity of several foundations ‘The Jewish War’. We were also delighted to learn that Dr Jeremy Schonfield and private donors. We are immensely grateful for their unfailing support for was appointed Professor of Liturgy at Leo Baeck College. academic Hebrew and Jewish Studies in the heart of Oxford. This year has also marked the beginning of our new partnership with the Last but not least, I would like on behalf of the whole Centre to express our Taube Foundation, and we are pleased to report that the first holder of the special gratitude to our Registrar, Martine Smith-Huvers, who left us this Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies / Taube Foundation Doctoral autumn after twenty-eight years. We will all miss her kindness, helpfulness and Scholarship joined us at the start of the new year. The Centre’s research efficiency, and we wish her happiness for many years to come. seminars, the Seminar on Jewish History in Graeco-Roman Period and the The Centre has now begun a new academic year that will bring new chal- Seminar in Contemporary Jewish History, attracted fascinating speakers and lenges, but also exciting new research projects and high-level academic events learned audiences, while our regular Hebrew and