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No.20 & 21, Spring/Fall 2010 NEWSLETTER of the CENTER for JEWISH STUDIES at the UNIVERSITY of FLORIDA No.20 & 21, Spring/Fall 2010 What’s new at the Center? A lot, actually. Like most aca- Dan Miron and in March a similar event took place on translat- demic units throughout the US we are struggling to make do with ing the Hebrew Bible, this one with Robert Alter. Both work- diminishing resources. I could go on at length bemoaning the shops attracted scholars from universities around the country. difficulty of managing a program in higher education in the cur- The Center also organized three symposia including a panel on rent economic climate and especially the difficulty of acquiring Ophuls’ The Sorrow and the Pity, a seminar on Walter Benjamin replacement lines for retiring faculty at a time when departments with Samuel Weber and in the spring a one-day session on The everywhere are shrinking. But the truth is, even without one or Merchant of Venice. two crucial positions and a few more I would Among the many public programs last year love to have, the Center continues to thrive was a three-person series on Israel as a multi- and its activities over the past two years have cultural society, a fall concert with Frank Lon- increased at an almost dizzying pace. don on Jewish holiday music and a spring con- So what’s new? To begin with, since the last cert with Yair Dalal. issue of HaTanin, the Center moved upstairs to Finally, let me congratulate Patricia Woods the second floor of Walker Hall. We are now and Robert Kawashima who were promoted located in a beautiful suite of offices with our to associate professor, and to various faculty own seminar and conference rooms along with members on the completion or publication of a high-quality AV system for screening films — their most recent books: Avraham Balaban Ten an increasingly important part of the curricu- Mothers: Representations of Motherhood in Modern lum. And we can now house faculty which con- Hebrew Literature (HaKibbutz HaMeuchad); tributes a great deal to the intellectual synergy Mitch Hart, ed. Jewish Blood: Metaphor and Real- within the Center. We also succeeded in hiring ity in Religion, History and Culture (Routledge); two new faculty members — the historian Nor- Todd Hasak Lowy received a contract from the man Goda who comes to us from Ohio Univer- Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Litera- sity and now holds the Norman and Irma Bra- ture for Asaf Schurr’s novel Motti; Dragan Ku- man Chair in Holocaust Studies, and Rebecca jundzic, ed. Who or What — Jacques Derrida (Dis- Jefferson who was formerly part of the Genizah Research Unit course); Judith Page (with Elise L. Smith) Women, Literature, and at Cambridge University Library and is now Head of the Price the Domesticated Landscape: England’s Disciples of Flora, 1780-1870 Judaica Library. The impact of both is becoming increasingly ap- (Cambridge); Tamir Sorek for the paper edition of Arab Soccer in parent and I wish them long and successful careers here at UF. a Jewish State (Cambridge) and for winning the Provost’s Excel- Perhaps, there is no better way to gauge the growth of the lence Award for Assistant Professors, University of Florida 2010; Center than through its curriculum. Last year alone some six new Kenneth Wald for a new (6th edition) of Religion and Politics in the courses were generated by Center faculty, some thanks in part to United States (Rowman & Littlefield); Patricia Woods for organiz- a Posen grant. These include new courses on Jewish film, on nar- ing the mini-symposium published in Political Research Quarterly rative, in Israel studies and in Hebrew Bible. I have increasingly 62:4 (December 2009). I should also add a congratulation to An- come to believe that growth in our program depends on establish- drew Gordon who retired as Emeritus Professor of English in July ing a series of introductory funnel courses. This year for the first 2010 after 35 years of teaching at the University of Florida. His time we now have such courses as Introduction to Jewish Studies performance in the role of Shylock as part of the excerpts that and Introduction to Holocaust Studies. accompanied The Merchant of Venice symposium was one of the The Center continues to organize a good number of faculty highlights of our public events this past year. seminars, workshops and symposia. In November we had our second advanced workshop on reading Jewish literature with Jack Kugelmass, Director Melton Legislative Professor 1 new faculty Rebecca Jefferson of 1914, the Kroonland passenger ship left Antwerp and head- my first year of college, I attended an un- ed across the Atlantic towards New York carrying 997 passen- dergraduate class on medieval Jewish his- gers. On board was 20 year-old Israel Kleiman whose family tory which included a discussion about had sent him from his home in Russia in the hope of ensuring his future safety and well the Cairo Genizah. The story of its dis- being. With less than $50 to his name, Israel finally reached Ellis Island on July 1st only covery in a synagogue attic immediately to be turned away because of a skin rash. Thankfully he was helped by a friend to reach appealed to my romantic sensibilities and England where he stayed and earned his living as a tailor; Israel later begat four children, I determined myself to combine a love of seven grandchildren, and eleven great-grandchildren, including me. poetry with this set of more than 200,000 Nearly a century later, I have traveled with my family across the same ocean Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts. In my to take up the position of Head of the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica at the Uni- final year, I went to the British Library to versity of Florida. As if history were repeating itself, Israel’s great-great granddaughter look at its Genizah manuscript collection. Lily broke out in a rash on arrival but, luckily for us, her chicken pox appeared after There I discovered a Hebrew poetry manu- entry had already been granted! script that had been incorrectly identified Before I headed west, however, I spent nearly five years of my life traveling east. An in the handlist and I set about uncover- interest in the history of another member of my family, this time an uncle, led me to ing its true identity and provenance. The volunteer on kibbutz Hanita in the Western Galilee one summer after I finished school resulting dissertation won a prize, and I in 1989. While most of my maternal family had left Russia for England and America, applied and was accepted at the Univer- my great, great uncle, Kopel Korin, had headed to Palestine where he became one of sity of Cambridge to study medieval po- the founding members of the labor movement known as the Histadrut. Having fallen in etry manuscripts in the Taylor-Schechter love with the mountain top kibbutz overlooking the sea, I returned several times to Is- Genizah Collection. My Masters degree rael, completing three ulpanim and a one year course in graphic design. In my spare time, was based on a small corpus of Genizah I discovered Hebrew poetry and this new interest, combined with other factors, led me poetry manuscripts that had been vocal- to embark on a degree in Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London. In ized with Tiberian vowel signs, but in a 2 way that provided clues about the medieval scribes’ pronuncia- tion patterns. After its completion, and having initially failed to get funding for my doctoral studies, I was given the fantastic op- portunity of working in the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit by its director, Professor Stefan Reif. I was hired to work on the second volume of the Bibliography Project which involved re- searching and collating every published reference to the Genizah manuscript Collection (by 2010, the entire project had amassed over 90,000 references). This data provides an important tool for Genizah scholars endeavoring to navigate their way through vast numbers of uncatalogued fragments. Library I met one College, Cambridge to pursue my Ph.D. studies. With the guid- Robert Jefferson, ance of my supervisor, Professor Geoffrey Khan, I expanded the then a conservator number of vocalized poetry manuscripts in my study and was of manuscripts, and pursued him with a phoney story about need- able to make some interesting conclusions about the use of Tibe- ing a book repaired. The line was pitched, the book got stitched, rian vowel signs at a time in the Middle Ages when the Hebrew and some months later we were hitched. Concurrently, another vocalization systems were still in flux, as well as draw some fresh form of dogged perseverance had paid off and I had managed to conclusions about the popular use of Hebrew hymns. move to the top of the reserve list for a scholarship from Trinity With the completion of the Ph.D., I was promoted to full- time Research Associate at the Genizah Unit and placed in charge of the Bibliography Project. That same year, my daughter Lily was born and the second volume of the Bibliography which I co-authored was published. In addition to the work on the Bib- liography, I became more involved in the Unit’s fundraising and outreach activities. To this end, I arranged exhibitions and gave presentations to visitors to the Library and the Genizah collec- tions, including four ambassadors, notable individuals like Clau- dia Roden, Mimi Gardner Gates and Irwin M. Jacobs, academ- ics, students and interested members of the public.
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