FRANK ALVAREZ-PEREYRE
Playing hide and seek: Is there a Jewish way?
An anthropological and comparative approach to depicting Jewish thought, with specific
reference to Jewish liturgy and languages.
Jewish liturgy proceeds through a highly sophisticated articulation of texts, music, gestures and ritual
conditions. It shapes Jewish thought and knowledge in its own unique way. When looking through a
combination of history and ethnography, linguistics and ethnomusicology at the practical way these
constituents are presented one realizes that their formal and functional definitions as well as their
processing rules systematically defy any common understanding. Comparing the three monotheistic
cultures on the one hand, and listening to wider expressions of Jewish heritage, helps in approaching
and clarifying the issues at stake.
When they become an object for a thorough linguistic and sociolinguistic examination, the Jewish
languages appear to combine a small set of overt linguistic and sociolinguistic characters and a large
number of covert structural traits. Such an organisation speaks of an implicit orientation, the
anthropological understanding of which requires combining two very different types of investigation:
one of them to do with linguistic typology, the other to do with Jewish thought itself.
Jewish thought as a process is well illustrated in the two domains referred to above. The
practicalities of such a process say a lot about cultural, social, legal and historical intent and
negotiation, as well as about evolution and continuity: within the Jewish world, as well as when
Jewish and non-Jewish societies meet.
Frank Alvarez-Pereyre is a linguist and an anthropologist. The typological exploration of the Jewish languages
and the interdisciplinary investigation of Jewish liturgy constitute his most current research topics, together with
the study of Jewish legal systems and interpretative methodologies. He is the author, co-author or co-editor of
La transmission orale de la Mishnah (1990), Jewish Oral Traditions. An Interdisciplinary Approach (1994),
Linguistique des langues juives et linguistique générale (2003), Le droit interne hébraïque (2004), L’idolâtrie,
ou la question de la part (2011). Also interested in the epistemology of interdisciplinary research, he is the
author of L’exigence interdisciplinaire (2003), and editor of Categories et catégorisation. Une perspective
interdisciplinaire (2008). Frank Alvarez-Pereyre is now an emeritus research fellow at the French National
Center for Scientific Research. He teaches at the Museum national d’histoire naturelle and at the Paris I
Panthéon-Sorbonne University.
GIULIO BUSI
Visual Kabbalah: How to keep the Emanation in sight
Visual metaphors are quite frequent both in the works of Plato and in later Neoplatonic texts.
However, not a single Greek or Latin manuscript preserves visual representations of the world of the
Emanation. By a curious irony of history, it is in aniconic Judaism that divine forces have been
graphically expressed, in a lavishly ornate atlas of the invisible. The lecture sums up more than twenty
years of research in the field of visual kabbalah.
Giulio Busi was born in Bologna (Italy) in 1960. After having taught Hebrew at the Università Ca’ Foscari in
Venice, he is now a Professor at the Freie Universität of Berlin. At the beginning of the 1980s his interests were
mainly medieval studies, particularly Hebrew grammar and booklore. In the following years his work expanded,
focusing especially on Jewish symbols and Kabbalah, of which he analyzed historical development, literary
values and aesthetic implications. He dedicated quite a number of studies to the history of the relationship
between Jewish and Christian culture in Italy during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. He is the general
editor of a series that aims to publish the entire kabbalistic library of the humanist Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola. He is the author of nearly one hundred scholarly publications, which include several books, many
essays, and critical editions of Jewish texts
YOSSI CHAJES
Diagramming Sabbateanism
My lecture will begin with a brief introduction to Ilanot (lit. arboreal diagram) and the “Ilanot
Project”—an ambitious and pioneering attempt to catalogue and describe all extant kabbalistic
cosmological diagrams. I will then take a close look at a singular image in the history of the Lurianic
Kabbalah: a deceptively simple diagram first drawn by R. Hayyim Vital (d.1620). My interrogation of
this diagram and its textual context will explore its relative autonomy; it does not illustrate or clarify a
text, but itself transmits knowledge of a different order. What is Vital trying to express with this
diagram? What is he asking his readers to do with it?
J. H. (Yossi) Chajes (Ph.D., Yale University 1999) is Associate Professor in the Department of Jewish History
at the University of Haifa and the director of its Center for the Study of Jewish Culture. A former recipient of
Fulbright, Rothchild, Wexner, and Hartman Fellowships, he has also been a visiting professor at the Jewish
Theological Seminary in New York, twice a fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the
University of Pennsylvania, and most recently a fellow in the “Visualization of Knowledge” research group at
the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem. His book, Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and
Early Modern Judaism (2003) was listed by the Wall Street Journal in 2013 as among the top five books ever
written on spirit possession.
FLORENTINA GELLER
The Spinning Mary
Florentina Badalanova Geller is Guest Professor at the Excellence Cluster Topoi, Freie Universität Berlin. She
completed her BA and MA in Slavonic Philology at the University of Sofia in 1979. After spending a year at
Warsaw University (1978-1979) she moved to the Moscow State University, where she completed her PhD in
1984 (Philology). She worked as Research Fellow and Senior Fellow in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences,
Institute of Folklore (1985-1994), and was also appointed as Associate Professor of Anthropology at the
University of Sofia (1992-1994). She conducted extensive anthropological, folklore and ethno-linguistic field
research in Europe and Asia. She came to the University of London in 1994 as British Council Lector, teaching
at UCL for 10 years. Since 2004 she has a permanent position at the Royal Anthropological Institute (London),
in charge of the Slavonic database for the Anthropological Index Online. She is Honorary Research Associate
(UCL), and a member of the Advisory Board of the World Oral Literature Project (Cambridge University), as
well as the Editorial Board of Circumscribere: Journal for the History of Science. Her forthcoming publications
include The Folk Bible and Unholy Scriptures.
SANDER L. GILMAN
“Born This Way” Debates about Authenticity and the Jews
The talk will examine the debates about authenticity in Jewish Studies over the past decade and their
unintended consequences. I will focus on scholarly as well as public debates with a focus on why such
debates are both problematic and emblematic of certain questions in the academy today.
Sander L. Gilman is a distinguished professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences as well as Professor of
Psychiatry at Emory University. A cultural and literary historian, he is the author or editor of over eighty books,
including Obesity: The Biography (2010) and The Third Reich Sourcebook (ed. with Anson Rabinbach, 2013).
He has written a basic study of the visual stereotyping of the mentally ill, Seeing the Insane (1982, 1996) as well
as the standard study Jewish Self-Hatred (1986). For 25 years he was a member of the humanities and medical
faculties at Cornell University where he held the Goldwin Smith Professorship of Humane Studies. For six
years he held the Henry R. Luce Distinguished Service Professorship of the Liberal Arts in Human Biology at
the University of Chicago and for four years was a professor of the Liberal Arts and Medicine and creator of the
Humanities Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago. During 1990-1991 he served as the Visiting
Historical Scholar at the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD; 1996-1997 as a fellow of the Center for
Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, CA; 2000-2001 as a Berlin prize fellow at the American
Academy in Berlin; 2004-5 as the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor of European Comparative Literature at Oxford
University; 2007 to 2012 as Professor at the Institute in the Humanities, Birbeck College; 2010 to 2013 as a
Visiting Research Professor at the University of Hong Kong. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws at the
University of Toronto in 1997, elected an honorary professor of the Free University in Berlin (2000), and is an
honorary member of the American Psychoanalytic Association (2007).
DAVID HAMIDOVIC
The donkey and the god Tartaq in the Jerusalem Talmud: an example of
multiple cross-cultural transfer
Greek and Latin authors in Antiquity and the Middle Ages wrote popular satires using the so-called
donkey or head of a donkey in the Temple in order to criticise Judaism. That such a literary topos of antiJudaism was applied to the cult of the first Christians is not surprising, because the boundaries
between Jews and Christians were still blurred during the first centuries CE. However, it is
astonishing to read the re-use of the donkey motif in the Jerusalem Talmud, Avoda Zara 42d (3). This
tractate speaks about idolatry and the passage associates two words without any further explanation:
“Tartaq” and “donkey”. I propose to explain this enigmatic association according to a complex
process of reconfiguration of Jewish thought with references to the Hebrew Bible (2 Kings 17:30-31),
the Assyrian pantheon, Greek mythology, Egyptian-Hellenistic culture, and the political and religious
context of the 5th century CE.
David Hamidovic is Professor of Jewish Apocryphal Literature and History of Judaism in Antiquity at
the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), Faculty of Theology and Sciences of Religions. He has a PhD in the
History of Antiquity (Sorbonne University - Paris IV).
SARA HAN
The Reading People
Depicting Jewish thought in a Christian context will be shown through the subject of “The Reading
People”. This paper focuses on representations based on biblical narratives. It will consider the
question of whether representation of the Jews is already transported and transformed as a motif of
Jewish knowledge and thinking.
Sara Han, born in 1983 in Berlin, completed her studies in Jewish Studies and Catholic Theology at the Free
University of Berlin in the spring of 2012. Since October 2012 she has been working on her dissertation, "Ernst
Ludwig Ehrlich – intertwining of biography and oeuvre" at the Centre of Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg
and the Department of Catholic Theology at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research focusses on European Jewish
history and Jewish-Christian dialogue.
TAL ILAN
‘Birds of a feather ...’ Ornithology, halakhah, humor and gender in a Sugya
from Tractate Hullin of the Babylonian Talmud
Tractate Hullin in the Babylonian Talmud includes within its discussion of permitted and forbidden
birds a long catalogue of bird names, with short observations on them. In this paper I will argue that
this catalogue is not to be read realistically, but rather as a humorous parody, whose original meaning
is now lost. Gender plays an important role in my analysis and the conclusions I offer.
Tal Ilan studied at and graduated from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She is now professor of Jewish
Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. Her publications include A Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity (in
4 volumes) and many studies on Jewish women and gender in antiquity. She is the director of the series A
Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud (of which seven volumes have appeared to date), and the
paper presented here is a result of the research for this project .
HELEN JACOBUS
The zodiac in Jewish contexts from antiquity until today and the question of
its role
The first evidence for the zodiac in a primary source in a Jewish context is in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
This paper examines the stability of this variant zodiac in Jewish material culture. It explores a range
of depictions of the zodiac, including a history of Jewish zodiacal art, reflecting the persistence of
zodiacal cosmology in Jewish thought in ‘pockets’ of time and place. This presentation demonstrates
the belief in the stars, luck, fate and good fortune in popular Judaism and esoteric Judaism in different
forms over two millennia. This belief system was arguably preserved by Jews well after the demise of
polytheism and the establishment of Christianity and the rise of Islam. The depiction of the zodiac in
Jewish manuscripts and artefacts both domestically and in synagogues has historically contradicted
the values of rabbinical Judaism. Hence, its rich history remains comparatively unexamined.
Helen R. Jacobus (Ph.D University of Manchester) is an honorary research associate at UCL. She has recently
published a monograph based on her thesis, Zodiac Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Reception:
Ancient astronomy and Astrology in Early Judaism (2014).
ELAD LAPIDOT
Seeing with Ears. Mashal Depiction in Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah
Shir ha-Shirim, the Song of Songs, is one of the most picturesque texts of the mikra. Its rich imagery
and sensual descriptions have led modern research to associate it with Egyptian love songs and to
puzzle about its inclusion among the sacred writings and its relevance to them.
Jewish rabbinic thinkers in late antiquity, however, considered Shir ha-Shirim as Kodesh haKodashim, the Holy of Holies. The great 7th century collection of rabbinic midrashim on the Song of
Songs, Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah, explains the supreme holiness of this graphic text by saying it was
written by King Solomon as a mashal, a parable to the entire Torah. This explanation itself is
formulated in the midrash in the form of an image, stating that King Solomon “made ears to the
Torah”.
My talk will open with this ‘ear-opener’, asking how it illustrates, or even incorporates, the
rabbinic understanding of figurative speech, of mashal. This understanding will be illustrated in the
way the rabbinic midrash depicts Shir ha-Shirim as depicting the Torah. Drawing among others on
Franz Rosenzweig and Daniel Boyarin, I will reflect on the relation between the rabbinic mashal,
early Christian allegory and modern literary metaphor.
Elad Lapidot is a researcher, translator and lecturer in philosophy and rabbinic literature at the Freie Universität
Berlin, Humboldt Universität in Berlin and Zentrum Jüdische Studien Berlin Brandenburg. Among his
publications are Etre sans mot dire. La logique de Sein und Zeit (2010), Translating Philosophy (2012),
Fragwürdige Sprache. Zur modernen Phänomenologie der Heiligen Zunge (2013) and “Du, der mit Buchstaben
und Beschneidung ein Gesetzesübertreter bist”: Paulus und die Grundlegung des Judentums (2014).
LENNART LEHMHAUS
Knowledge of the body and bodies of knowledge – depicting Jewish medical
thought in Talmudic tradition.
Jews certainly had good knowledge about many of the scientific concepts and their applications in
everyday life they witnessed in their cultural surroundings in Antiquity. This is attested by numerous
passages from Second Temple traditions, Talmudic literature, Targums and Midrashic texts. However,
the representation of such knowledge in Jewish sources differs significantly from `scientific´ texts in
other ancient cultures (Egypt/ Mesopotamia/ Greece/ Rome) since no separate genre of scientific
writing developed as such.
One major area of inquiry has been discussed in some studies (Boyarin/ Eilberg-Schwartz/
Fonrobert etc.) stressing the centrality of knowledge of the body and the corporeal discourse in Jewish
tradition(s). This kind of knowledge is of crucial importance for the medical episteme contained in
Talmudic literature. In striking contrast to other ancient medical traditions (Egyptian/Mesopotamian
/Greco-Roman) one can find neither a comprehensive and consistent account of medical theory nor a
medical `book´ before the Middle Ages (Sefer Assaf). Most of the relevant information is generally
scattered throughout the whole Talmudic corpus and provides medical knowledge en passant in
different contexts. Within such medical clusters or sections we can observe systematic descriptions
and depictions of certain anatomical or physiological features and of therapeutic measures. Any
(re)construction of such a “Talmudic medicine” has to be aware of its complex embeddedness in its
immediate textual or discursive-thematic (Halakha) contexts as well as in its wider socio-cultural
background.
The paper will discuss some types of `medical´ depictions that exemplify rabbinic ways of
acquiring knowledge about the body and strategies to create a Talmudic knowledge of the body.
Attention shall be paid to metaphorical or pictorial language and its culturally specific usage within
the medical discourse. Structural and conceptual similarities and differences between Talmudic and
other medical traditions will be discussed in the light of the transfer of knowledge. Furthermore, I will
address the role of the knowing subjects (Wissensträger) and their embodied knowledge in different
cultural and discursive frameworks. The interplay between medical, halakhic, ethical and ritual
discourses is of crucial importance for a broader understanding of the Talmudic medical body of
knowledge in Late Antiquity. Such texts form part and parcel of a Jewish scientific discourse, both as
a medium and a method of knowledge acquisition. The paper will help to highlight the problems in
the study of “Talmudic medicine” while outlining the unique features that create a Jewish ancient
knowledge of the body with its own epistemology.
Lennart Lehmhaus, PhD, Free University Berlin, is research associate within the Collaborative Research
Center/ Sonderforschungsbereich SFB 980 “Episteme in Motion”. His studies centre on medical discourses in
Talmudic traditions, Jewish epistemologies and their encyclopedic dimensions, in comparison with their earlyByzantine counterparts of medical encyclopaedias in Greek. He completed his studies of Jewish Studies,
German Language and Literature and Political Sciences (University of Duisburg, Heinrich-Heine-University
Düsseldorf, Hebrew University Jerusalem) with his M.A.-Thesis (2006) on the Alphabet of Ben Sira. His
dissertation (MLU Halle-Wittenberg, 2013) on Seder Eliyahu Zutah (SEZ), is in preparation for publication.
His research focusing on rabbinic literature and culture involves approaches from literary theory,
intertextuality and socio-cultural readings of texts. Other areas of interest are the history of Jewish thought and
knowledge, figurations of otherness in Jewish culture and trajectories of traditions into contemporary Jewish and
Israeli literature and culture.
Among his recent publications are the edited volume (with M. Martelli) Collecting Recipes - Byzantine and
Jewish Pharmacology in Dialogue (2016), and several articles.
LUKAS MUEHLETHALER
Depicting Hebrew Science in Print - Joseph Solomon Delmedigo’s Sefer
Elim
Lukas Muehlethaler has an M.A. in Jewish Thought from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Ph.D. in
Arabic and Islamic Studies (Yale University). His research interests include Philosophy, Islamic Theology, the
Bible in Arabic, Self and Identity, Jewish Studies, Avicenna, Early Islamic Mysticism, History of Philosophy,
History of Science, Metaphysics, Continental Philosophy and Intellectual History.
JOANNA WEINBERG
Depicting Jewish History: David Gans' Tsemah David
David Gans’ Hebrew chronicle, the Zemah David (Prague 1592), which was avidly read by both Jews
and Christians in early modern Europe, defies easy categorization. To the unsuspecting reader it
seems to depict Jewish history by physically detaching the Jewish narrative from its gentile
counterpart, or in the author’s words, ‘separating the holy from the profane’. And yet, these two
distinct parts of the book are actually inextricably intertwined. This paper will attempt to demonstrate
how Gans’ depiction of Jewish history leads Jewish readers to view their past and present as
embedded in a wider non-Jewish, namely, Christian universe.
Joanna Weinberg is Professor of Rabbincs and Early Modern Jewish history at the University of Oxford where
she teaches rabbinic literature and medieval and early modern Jewish history and culture. She has translated and
edited the works of the Italian Jewish historiographer Azariah de’ Rossi (2001; 2005). With Anthony Grafton
she published the book “I have always loved the holy tongue”: Isaac Casaubon, the Jews, and a Forgotten
Chapter in Renaissance Learning (2011). Her current work, again in collaboration with Anthony Grafton, is
devoted to the reading practices of great German Hebraist Johann Buxtorf the Elder.