IN THIS ISSUE: 7

0 • CONFERENCE NEWS 0 pages 1-2 2 • FACULTY NEWS R pages 3 E T • LECTURES N

I page 4

W • STUDENT PROFILES pages 7-9

• VISITOR NEWS VOL XVIII, NUMBER 1 page 10

VE RI TAS CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES HARVARD UNIVERSITY

...featuring the CONFERENCE ON RELIGION EDUCATION & October 17-18, 2006 CONFERENCE ON RELIGION EDUCATION & OCTOBER 17 & 18 2006

ROSOVSKY HALL HARVARD HILLEL BUILDING 52 MT. AUBURN STREET CAMBRIDGE, MA

Co-Sponsors: CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES , HARVARD UNIVERSITY MANDEL CENTER FOR STUDIES IN JEWISH EDUCATION , BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY SCHOLION –INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH CENTER IN JEWISH STUDIES , THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM, THE MANDEL INSTITUTE OF JEWISH STUDIES

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 9:30 - 10:30 Professor Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Brandeis University: “Approaches to the Study of Education”

10:45 - 12:30 Professor Michael Heyd, Hebrew University, “‘A young man according to his way’ or - ‘train up the child in the way he should go’?: Proverbs 22:6 in Translations, Commentaries and Sermons of the Early Modern Period”

Mr. Asaph Ben-Tov, Hebrew University, “The Authority of Pedagogues and the Authority of the Ancients: Pagan Texts in Reformation Germany”

1:45 - 3:45 Professor Ephraim Kanarfogel, Yeshiva University, “’For the Student Can Outsmart His Teacher’: The Right of Disagreement in Tosafist Thought”

Professor Bernard Septimus, Harvard University, “Rabbinic Discipleship and Aristotelian Friendship in Maimonides”

4:00 - 5:30 Ms. Michal Kravel-Tovi, Hebrew University, “Teaching and Educating - Aspects of Orthodox Conversion in Israel” PHOTOS BY MARCUS HALEVI

1 CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES WINTER 2007 PICTURED OPPOSITE PAGE: AT TOP (L-R): Tamar El-Or, Allan Nadler, Immanuel Etkes CENTER: Gregory Freeze BOTTOM: Baruch Schwartz I V E L A H S U C R A M Y B S O T O

PICTURED THIS PAGE: H P CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP RIGHT: Michael Heyd, Shlomo Tikochinski, Shani Mr. Shlomo Tikochinski, Hebrew University, Bechhofer, Jay Harris, and Asaph Ben-Tov “Involvement or Isolation: The Beginnings of the ‘Mussar’ Yeshivos in Erez Israel”

Respondent: Prof. Gregory Freeze, Brandeis University

1:15 - 2:30 Dr. Susan Tanchel, Brandeis University and Professor Tamar El-Or, Hebrew University, Gann Academy, “Teaching Biblical Criticism in “’Once you start’: the linear destiny of religious- a Jewish Community High School” feminist education”

5:30 - 6:30 Respondent: Dr. Shani Bechhofer, Yeshiva Dr. Susan M. Kardos, “Jewish Education and University Community” Respondent: Jay M. Harris, Harvard 2:45 - 4:00 University Professor Baruch Schwarz, Hebrew University, “‘Hevruta’ in Lithuanian-Israeli WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18 Yeshivas: An Empirical Approach” 9:30 – 12:00 Prof. Immanuel Etkes, Hebrew University, “The Respondent: Jay M. Harris, Harvard Hasidic Leader as an Educator: The Case of University Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi” 4:15 – 5:15 Prof. Allan Nadler, Drew University, “The Dr. Jon A. Levisohn, Brandeis University, Influence of Lithuanian Talmudism on 20th “Conference Conclusion: On Some False Century Hasidic Yeshivot” Dichotomies in Religious Education”

WINTER 2007 CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES 2 FACULTY

CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES News EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE WELCOMES TWO NEW MEMBERS: VISITING PROFESSORS RACHEL GREENBLATT , hanks to the visiting Assistant Professor of Near Eastern professorships at the Center for Languages and Civilizations, TJewish Studies, we are able to Department of Near Eastern Languages host prominent scholars to teach classes and Civilizations (Faculty of Arts and in important areas of Jewish studies not Sciences) covered by our full-time faculty. The Center hosted two visiting professors JONATHAN SCHOFER , during the 2006 fall semester. Assistant Professor of Comparative Ethics (Harvard Divinity School) DEREK PENSLAR , Samuel J. Zacks Chair in European Jewish History and Director of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Toronto, was our fourth Nachshon Visiting Professor of Modern Israel Studies. Professor Penslar taught two classes, “Zionism and the State of Israel” and “Power and Identity in Modern Jewish History.”

LEE LEVINE , Professor in the Department of Jewish History and Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was our Gerard Weinstock Visting Professor of Jewish Studies. He offered two classes, “Jewish Identities in Antiquity: PICTURED TOP OF PAGE: Permutations and Transformations” and Professor Derek Penslar “Visual Judaism: History, Art and ABOVE: Identity in Late Antiquity.” Professor Lee Levine

3 CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES WINTER 2007 CJS

OCTOBER 12, 2006 “The Eve of Spain: Mythmaking and the Conversion of History” Lectures PATRICIA GRIEVE 2006 Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Professor of the Humanities, Columbia University The Friends of the Center for Jewish Studies Fund ______NOVEMBER 8, 2006 A reading by ORLY CASTEL BLOOM Eminient Israeli Writer I

Martin D. and Helen B. Schwartz Lecture Fund V E L Co-sponsored by CMES and NELC Modern A H

Hebrew Program S U

______C R A

NOVEMBER 8, 2006 M Y “Jewish Identities in Antiquity: Transformations B O and Permutations” T O H LEE LEVINE P The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Weinstock Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies, Harvard University (Fall 2006) CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES Estelle and Howard Rubin Fund ______DIRECTOR: Shaye J.D. Cohen NOVEMBER 16, 2006 ADMINISTRATOR: Rachel Rockenmacher “Baghdad Yesterday: The Making of an Arab Jew” STAFF ASSISTANT: Brenna Wells SASSON SOMEKH CHAIR, FRIENDS OF THE CENTER FOR Sasson Somekh is Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University where he held the Halmos Chair in JEWISH STUDIES: Peter J. Solomon Arabic Literature. He is the former director of the EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: Rachel Israel Academic Center in Cairo. He is the author of several books in English, Arabic and Hebrew, Greenblatt, Jay M. Harris, Miri about modern Arabic literature, including a 1973 Kubovy, Jon Levenson, Peter Machinist, monograph on the novels of the Egyptian Nobel Avi Matalon, Jonathan Schofer, Laureate, Naguib Mahfouz. His memoir of his childhood, Baghdad Yesterday, was published in Bernard Septimus and Ruth Wisse 2004. Co-sponsored by CMES and Yanoff-Taylor Lecture and Publication Fund CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES ______Harvard University DECEMBER 14, 2006 6 Divinity Avenue “Envisaging Jewish Assimilation or the Meaning Cambridge, MA 02138 of Moses Mendelssohn’s Beard” MICHAEL SILBER PHONE: 617-495-4326 Senior Lecturer in History of the Jewish People, FAX: 617-496-8904 The Hebrew University of Jerusalem http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~cjs The Leon I. Mirell Lecture Fund DESIGN: Erin P. Dowling

WINTER 2007 CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES 4 FRIENDS VERI CoEfNtThEe R FOR TAS JEWISH STUDIES

Peter J. Solomon, Chairman Friends of the Center for Jewish Studies

n December 1984, Peter Solomon YOU ARE INVITED... (AB ‘60, MBA ‘63), then a member ...to show your interest in Jewish Iof the Harvard Board of Overseers, Studies at Harvard by joining the announced the establishment of the Friends of the Center for Jewish Studies Friends of the Center for Jewish Studies. in one of the following categories: This organization seeks to provide an ongoing base of support for the Center Associate: $50 Patron: $100 and to enable it to expand its present Pillar: $500 Benefactor: $1,000 areas of activity. Annual support from the Friends helps shape the future of Jewish Studies and sustain the Center ASSOCIATES of the Center receive the as an influential, multifaceted newsletter and invitations to lectures, enterprise at Harvard. symposia and colloquia. PATRONS of the Center additionally Some of the specific projects the Friends receive priority invitations to selected of the Center for Jewish Studies include: • student research projects (both events and selected publications. undergraduate and graduate, school- PILLARS of the Center additionally year and summer); receive copies of all Center • graduate student fellowships; publications. • research-related expenses for visiting scholars; BENEFACTORS of the Center receive all • public lectures and class presentations of the preceding, including invitations by distinguished scholars; to additional events. • doctoral dissertation advising by specialized scholars from outside This year we hope to substantially Harvard; increase the number of Friends of the • group discussions of research in Center, thereby creating a broader progress for Harvard faculty and students in Jewish studies base of support for the Center’s projects and activities.

If you know anyone who might be interested in joining the Friends, would you please notify the Center 617.495.4326 so that we may acquaint him or her with the Center’s work.

5 CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES WINTER 2007 2006-07 COURSE OFFERINGS L = NEW COURSE

FACULTY OF ARTS AND • History of the Study of the Hebrew Bible: • From Jewish Literature to Israeli SCIENCES From the Renaissance to the Present: Literature: Seminar CORE CURRICULUM Seminar • Problems in the Literature, History, and • Jewish Life in Eastern Europe • Biblical Theology: Seminar Religion of Israel: Seminar • Tel Aviv: Urban Culture in Another Zion • Literature of Israel: Seminar • Jews in Modern Times: From the French POSTBIBLICAL JEWISH STUDIES • The Medieval Torah Commentary: A Revolution to the Emergence of Israel • Introduction to Yiddish Culture Practical Introduction: Seminar • Modern Jewish Literature • Modern Jewish Religious Movements • Joseph and Esther: Seminar • “Athens and Jerusalem”: Self and Other • Modern Jewish Thought • The Binding of Isaac (Aqedah): Seminar in Classical Greek and Hebrew Literature • History versus Literature in Modern • Song at the Sea: Seminar • The Book of Job and the Joban Tradition Jewish Texts • Rabbinic Stories and Rabbinic Thought: • From the Hebrew Bible to Judaism, From • Jewish Identities in Antiquity: Seminar L the Old Testament to Christianity Permutations and Transformations L • The Poetry of Judah Halevi L • “If There is No God, All is Permitted”: • Jewish Literature in the Islamic World, • Classical Hebrew Language and Theism and Moral Reasoning 650-1300 L Literature • Deconstruction and Questions of Jewish • Postbiblical Hebrew Language and FRESHMAN SEMINARS Identity: Seminar Literature • Who Is a Jew? Jewish Identity and • Jewish Society and Culture in Early Identifiability in the Modern World. Modern Europe L YIDDISH • Cemetery as History: Jewish Burial • Gender Roles and the Role of Gender: • Elementary Yiddish Places and Their Christian Context in Jewish Society in Medieval and Early • Intermediate Yiddish Modern Europe L Europe and North America L • Advanced Yiddish • Zionism and the State of Israel L • Modern Yiddish Literature I: The Yiddish COMPARATIVE LITERATURE • Power and Identity in Modern Jewish Short Story History L • Comparative Themes in the Literatures of • The Yiddish Novel Under Tsars and Medieval Spain: Seminar • Guided Readings in Jewish History Stripes • Mysticism and Literature: Seminar • The Origins of Rabbinic Law L • Studies in Yiddish Drama • Literature and Politics: The New York • Visual Judaism: History, Art, and Identity • Modern Yiddish Literature: Yiddish and Intellectuals in Late Antiquity L Yiddishism, 1864-2000: Seminar • Does Glikl Stand Alone? Jewish • Yiddish Language and Literature HISTORY Autobiographical Writing, 14th –19th Centuries • The Jews in Muslim and Christian Spain STUDY OF RELIGION • Reading and Research in Postbiblical • Vichy France: Conference Course Jewish Studies • Judaism: The Liturgical Year • The Holocaust: History and Memory L • Time and Space in Rabbinic Judaism L • Central and Eastern European History: HEBREW LANGUAGE COURSES • Midrash: Jewish Biblical Interpretation in Seminar L the Rabbinic Period • Elementary Classical Hebrew • Ethnic Identities in Classical Antiquity: • Intermediate Classical Hebrew Seminar HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL • Rapid Reading Classical Hebrew COURSES • Elementary Modern Hebrew LITERATURE • Introduction to the Hebrew • Intermediate Modern Hebrew • Saul Bellow’s Planet Scriptures/Old Testament • Advanced Modern Hebrew • The Holocaust and Problems of • Reading Midrash Representation • Contemporary Israeli Culture • From Type to Self in the Middle • The Layers of Hebrew in Texts about HARVARD LAW SCHOOL Jerusalem • The Comic Tradition in Jewish Culture COURSES • How to Say “I Love You” in Hebrew • Jewish Law: The Legal Thought of NEAR EASTERN LANGUAGES • Hebrew for Academic Reading Maimonides AND CIVILIZATIONS • Talmudic Law for Beginners • Biblical Archaeology HEBREW LITERATURE AND • Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures HISTORY COURSES EXTENSION SCHOOL • Biblical Interpretation: Seminar • Introduction to Rabbinic Literature COURSES • Myth and Myth-Making in the Biblical • The Origins and Development of the • Modernity and Tradition in Jewish and Ancient Near Eastern World Classical Jewish Liturgy Literature • Jewish Apocalypticism • Maimonides’ Book of Knowledge and its • Jewish Life in Eastern Europe Medieval Critics • Israelite Wisdom Literature L • A Thematic Introduction to the Hebrew • The Problem of Language in Medieval • Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible: Bible (Old Testament) Jewish Thought Seminar • The Bible and Politics

WINTER 2007 CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES 6 JESSICA STUDENT BLOOM

the revelation of stories indicating that Stalin was murdering Jewish writers. One of the central figures in Jessica’s research was prominent in the leftist, labor, Zionist movement and a leader in Yiddish scholarship. The other JESSICA BLOOM grew up in was a well-known Communist leader Wellesley, MA and was drawn to who refused to believe the stories about Harvard’s Yiddish program. Throughout Stalin. Looking at the writings of these her college experience she knew that two influential figures at this critical time she wanted to combine her interests in for the Jewish community of Buenos Yiddish Studies and Latin American Aires, Jessica examines some central Studies, as well as Spanish and Yiddish questions that arose among Argentinian languages. Now a senior, she is Jews at that time about the role of concentrating in Near Eastern Yiddish and the future of their Jewish Languages and Civilizations and community. Should they write and speak obtaining a certificate in Latin American in Yiddish, Spanish or Hebrew? What is Studies. Yiddishkeit and can you transmit values Jessica has appreciated the without the language? opportunity both to study Yiddish at Last semester, Jessica studied in Chile Harvard and to work one-on-one with and was one of ten students selected professors such as Ruth Wisse to create from North American college Hillel an individualized academic plan groups to attend a conference in May combining her diverse interests. She first for Latin American Jewish community and decided to focus on Argentina, the Latin institutional leaders. There she felt she American country with the largest learned a great deal about Latin Yiddish-speaking population, and then American Jewish communities, Buenos Aires, the city in Argentina with experiences of Jews in Latin American the most Yiddish speakers. Her interest in culture, and differences between North learning about the importance of Yiddish and South American perceptions of what language to Argentina’s Jewish defines Jewish communities and ties to community led Jessica to focus her senior Israel. thesis on two prominent Yiddish-speaking In addition to her studies, Jessica figures on opposite sides of a political plays saxophone in a klezmer band she divide in Argentina’s Jewish community. helped to found during her freshman The Buenos Aires Jewish community year that performs at Hillel and at divided in 1952, Jessica explains, over parties and festivals around campus. I

7 CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES WINTER 2007 PROFILES

JENNIFER HEILBRONNER is a second-year doctoral candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. It was a course she took as a Religious Studies major at Yale, recalled Jennifer, that “got me JENNIFER hooked” on Jewish studies, particularly Jewish history. Her interests within the HE ILBRONNER field of Jewish studies are diverse, but Jennifer has taken advantage of Jennifer is most interested in modern opportunities off-campus, as well. With Jewish history and issues of gender and an Anna Marnoy Feldberg Fellowship identity, particularly religious identity, from Center for Jewish Studies, she spent over the past three centuries. last summer in Jerusalem studying Of her experience at Harvard, Hebrew at an ulpan at the Hebrew Jennifer says she “loves the professors,” University of Jerusalem and working on a the classes and the academic paper in the Jerusalem library of Hebrew atmosphere. She has appreciated the Union College on the early Reform opportunities available at Harvard to movement in Israel. expand her background in Jewish studies. Her undergraduate courses dealt mainly with ancient Judaism, and now WITH AN ANNA MARNOY she is expanding her expertise to include FELDBERG FELLOWSHIP FROM modern topics and “a background in the theory and vocabulary of modern Jewish CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES, studies.” When Gerhon Hundert, last [JENNIFER] SPENT LAST SUMMER year’s Gerard Weinstock Visiting IN JERUSALEM STUDYING Professor of Jewish Studies, discussed the HEBREW... negative impact of events in Galicia in 1648 for the Jews in his seminar, Jen Jennifer is able to share the joys and says, “I was overwhelmed at first with trials of student life with family members how much more I needed to learn about nearby. She and her sister, a senior at Jewish history. The experience of Harvard, get together every week. And gaining that background has been a in New York, she can visit her brother challenge which is now very and her parents, both of whom are rewarding.” Now she is working on pursuing graduate programs, as well. I narrowing in on a topic for her doctoral dissertation.

WINTER 2007 CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES 8 doctorate in Yiddish studies at Harvard with Professor Ruth Wisse. Johnson has been grateful for Prof. Wisse’s encouragement to take classes on traditional Jewish KELLY sources, such as Genesis or Midrashic and Rabbinic JOHNSON Hebrew, which have deepened his understanding of Yiddish literature. His dissertation is on the literary KELLY JOHNSON became interested in Jewish studies as an repercussions of the assassination of a undergraduate at Pacific Lutheran Ukranian soldier in Paris in the 1920s by University, where he worked with a Jew, Sholem Shvartsbard. The soldier Christopher Browning, a scholar of the had been involved in the pogroms in the Holocaust. While in Germany on a Ukraine that had killed much of Fulbright Fellowship, he joined an old Schvartsbard’s family. The French court friend who was exploring his Jewish found the killing justified and acquitted heritage, attending synagogues and Schvartzbard. Johnson is exploring “the visiting Jewish sites. tension between the ideals of pacifism “I kept Jewish studies in the back of and self-defense in Yiddish literature my mind” for a few years, Kelly says, and surrounding this event,” before the toured Europe with a grunge band from foundation of Israel and before the Seattle. He spent his free time during Holocaust, from the Revolution of 1905 tours in libraries, where he “discovered” through 1939. and fell in love with Yiddish literature. Johnson’s “incredibly enriching” “People frequently ask me how I became experiences as a Teaching Fellow at interested in Yiddish,” says Johnson. He Harvard have solidified his career goal to explains his interest in the “unique one day teach and conduct research at a perspective” of Yiddish literature, university. Kelly and his wife welcomed language and culture as an “underdog” their son, Rumi Jaspar Johnson, in or an 'outside' perspective, and is December. I compelled by the “three thousand years of BARRY SHRAGE TRAVEL a continuous culture.” AND RESEARCH FUND FOR He left his music career to attend a post- JEWISH STUDIES graduate program in Jewish studies at The Center for Jewish Studies is pleased to Oxford, then earned his M.A. at McGill announce the establishment of a new University in Yiddish literature. There he endowment fund. The gift of an anonymous met his wife, Yasmine, who is from India, donor, the Barry Shrage Travel and Research and became interested in Indian literature Fund will primarily support student travel and and culture. He spent a year studying research expenses, particularly research and sitar with the world’s premier sitar player, study opportunities that allow undergraduates then returned to academia to pursue a to gain an international experience.

9 CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES WINTER 2007 VISITOR News YAAKOV ELMAN PROFESSOR OF JUDAIC STUDIES, YESHIVA UNIVERSITY AND ASSOCIATE IN THE CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES, HARVARD UNIVERSITY Professor Elman's research at Harvard has been supported by the Friends of the Center for Jewish Studies Fund.

n my fifth year at the CJS my this passage then requires the efforts and exploration of the interaction of knowledge of a legal historian and IMiddle Persian culture and that of the student of comparative law, especially the Babylonian rabbis of late antiquity legal systems of Late Antiquity. And thus continues to bear new and unexpected the third member of our informal network fruit. My co-explorer, Prof. Oktor Skjærvø comes into the picture, Prof. Charles of the Department of Near Eastern Donohue of Harvard Law School. The Languages and Civilizations (NELC), and development of a theory of negligence in I, have embarked on an ambitious Roman law and other legal systems of undertaking, a modern, critical edition of antiquity, the Middle Ages and even one of the most difficult Middle Persian _ _ texts in the corpus, the Herbedest an, a RESEARCH ON THE TIES BETWEEN text dealing with priestly training and THE CULTURES AND LEGAL related matters, but together with a full commentary. SYSTEMS OF MIDDLE For example, two chapters deal with PERSIA AND THAT OF THE the question of the legal consequences of BABYLONIAN RABBIS OF injury to a child taken for training arises. LATE ANTIQUITY From here the text, in a multi-generational dispute, segues into questions of legal modern times is indispensable for an procedure: what constitutes proof of understanding of these allusive, elusive, negligence? perplexing but potentially hugely Because of the diachronic structure of informative texts which shed light on this passage, the fact that Abarg, a _ _ processes that can be seen at work in all disciple of S oˇsans, adds another factor to legal systems. _ _ the discussion, the requirement that However, the Herbedest an provides evidence of “unlawful leading” is required not only with legal puzzles and insights, to convict the guardian, indicates that a but also with more general religious and development in legal concept is taking cultural ones. It discusses the question of place before our eyes, as it were. Teasing the importance of study as contrasted with out the exact meaning and significance of continued on back cover

WINTER 2007 CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES 10 YAAKOV ELMAN, continued from previous page

other religious obligations; it makes clear the obligation of study of Zoroastrian women, the responsibilities of Zoroastrians toward non- Zoroastrians, and much much more. It also encapsulates within itself the history of Iranian civilization over a millennium and a half, from a nomadic society to a world-spanning empire, from an itinerant teacher-priest to a priest operating within a more structured and hierarchical environment. Whether the concerted efforts of our informal group will unravel all the knots in this difficult text is unlikely, but we have already made progress and will hopefully continue to do so. Thus, the resources that CJS provides, the Harvard faculty, its magnificent libraries, in this case Widener, Langdell and Andover, combine to make Cambridge one of the few places in the world where such a complex task may be undertaken. I

VE RI NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION TAS CENTER FOR 7 U.S. POSTAGE 0 JEWISH STUDIES PAID 0 HARVARD UNIVERSITY BOSTON, MA

2 PERMIT NO. 1636

R 6 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138

E www.fas.harvard.edu/~cjs T N I W