Author Archive

Topics may cover any time period from antiquity to the contemporary, and any place or cultural context relevant for Jewish Studies. The ‘image’ may be interpreted broadly to include the non-visual (e.g. literary representations and conceptual images) as well as the visual. The expectation is that papers will explore different aspects of the acceptance and the rejection of images in Jewish thought and practice from the Bible to the modern world. Topics may include the secular as well as the religious sphere.

Proposals for papers (and panels) in the following areas are especially welcome:

• Biblical traditions and their interpretation
• Notions of ‘the image of God’
• Jewish art and Jewish symbols
• Idolatry and iconoclasm
• The prohibition and acceptance of images in Holocaust representation
• Representing Jewishness in film and television
• Jewish/non-Jewish relations and the second commandment

Single paper proposals should be no longer than 250 words and panel proposals need not exceed one page. Please email proposals to Dr Sarah Pearce (sjp2@soton.ac.uk) with ‘BAJS 2010’ in the subject line.

The deadline for paper abstracts and proposed panels is 31 May 2010. Registration details will be circulated soon.

The conference will be held at the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations. The Parkes Institute is a unique centre for the study of Jewish/non-Jewish relations across the ages. The Institute, through its research, publications, teaching and outreach work, is based on the library and life work of the Christian scholar and activist, the Reverend Dr James Parkes (1896-1981). The library now consists of over 20,000 printed items – books, pamphlets and journals – and is supplemented by one of the largest collections of Jewish archives in Europe, consisting of many hundreds of individual and institutional records, totalling millions of individual items. (http://www.soton.ac.uk/parkes/)

Membership of BAJS is open to anyone interested in an academic approach to Jewish studies. Members of BAJS work in a wide range of academic disciplines including history, religious studies, theology, literature, linguistics and sociology. For membership enquiries, please contact Dr Lars Fischer, CJCR, Wesley House, Jesus Lane, Cambridge CB5 8BJ. Email: lf309@cam.ac.uk.
Annual subscription rates: Ordinary Members: £15.00; Associates: £10.00; Students: £5.00.

Applications are invited for a workshop for PhD students in European Jewish History and Culture organised by the Centre for German-Jewish Studies (CGJS) at the University of Sussex (www.sussex.ac.uk/cgjs/) that will take place from July 13-16, 2010 in Brighton, UK. The purpose of the workshop that began last year and is planned also for the following years, is to create an interdisciplinary network of younger scholars engaged in any area of European Jewish history, thought, and culture from the early modern to modern periods. This year’s focus will be on modern and contemporary Jewish history. Participants will be given the opportunity to present and discuss their projects in an informal and welcoming atmosphere with leading scholars in the field.

Participating faculty in 2010 will be Prof. Dr. Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Institute for the History of German Jewry, Hamburg), Prof. Dr. Christhard Hoffmann (University of Bergen) and Prof. Dr. Christian Wiese (University of Sussex).

This year we particularly invite applications of students working on projects outside the area of German-Jewish history. A separate call for papers inviting applications for projects devoted to German Jewry will be published for a workshop organised by the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft des Leo Baeck Instituts. Both workshops will take place at the same time at the University of Sussex, thus enabling a dialogue between students in German Jewish and European Jewish history =
and culture.

Travel expenses, accommodation and meals for the Max and Hilde Kochmann Summer School will be paid for by the CGJS. Students from Central and Eastern Europe are especially encouraged to apply; individual candidates from Israel and the United States will also be considered, but may be asked to contribute towards their flight costs.

Candidates should send (by email) a 3-5-page proposal outlining their PhD project, a c.v. and one letter of recommendation (by the supervisor or any other relevant scholar with expertise on their topic) by 31 March 2010 to:

Prof. Dr. Christian Wiese
Centre for German-Jewish Studies
University of Sussex
Falmer, BN1 9QN
United Kingdom
Tel: 0044/1273/877344
Email: c.wiese@sussex.ac.uk

Successful candidates will be notified by 15 April 2010.

Greek Culture and the Rabbis

Friday March 19th 2010

Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies,
Yarnton Manor, Yarnton, Oxford

10 a.m.        Michael Law (University of Oxford, UK):
“Midrash, Targum, Translation: Does the Greek Version of Kings Reflect Rabbinic Methods of Interpretation?”

10:45 a.m.    Philip Alexander (University of Manchester, UK):
“Greek Culture and the Rabbis: The Case of the Beit Midrash”

11:30 a.m.    Coffee

12 noon    Reinhart Ceulemans (Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium):
“Christian access to the Three: some observations on the consultation of Jewish informants”

12:45 p.m.    Lorenzo Cuppi (University of Durham, UK):
“The Treatment of Personal Names in the Book of Proverbs from the Septuagint to the Masoretic Text”

1:30 p.m.     Lunch

2:30 p.m.     Julia Krivoruchko (University of Cambridge, UK):
“The Glosses from the Three in the manuscript Evr. IIA 1980”

3:15 p.m.     Shifra  Sznol (Bar Ilan University, Israel):
“Two Columns for one Bible (Constantinople 1547): Judaeo-Greek and Ladino”

For further information and registration, please contact: Martine Smith-Huvers registrar@ochjs.ac.uk, Tel: 01865 842195(registration is ￡5 for students, ￡10 for non-student: the cost is to cover the vegetarian lunch).

There will be another day conference for the project, entitled ‘Aquila and the Rabbis’, on Monday June 21st.

International Conference
Organized by
Laurent Joly (CRHQ-Caen)
Virginie Sansico (Université de Caen)
Nikolaus Wachsmann (Birkbeck University of London)

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 15 April 2010

Memorial of Caen
22-23 October 2010

“In criminal proceedings against Jews, the fact of their Jewishness is decisive, not their personal responsibility.”
Otto Georg Thierack, German Reich Minister of Justice, 1942

The different stages in the destruction of the European Jews from legal persecution to systematic extermination have been explored in great detail by historians, both in regard to the development of Nazi decision making and in terms of the policies implemented in individual states. Recent research has amply underscored the fundamental role of the law as the basis for the various anti-Jewish policies, starting in 1933; several studies have been dedicated to anti-Jewish legislationand its application by civil and administrative courts. By contrast, the more complex but no less crucial role of criminal law (along with police and judicial repression associated with it) in the chain of anti-Jewish persecution has been rather more neglected by scholars. But the application by “ordinary” state institutions of what could be termed “antisemitic criminal law” constituted an important field of action for Nazi Germany and its allies. Our conference focuses on the role of European states’ criminal justice systems in the implementation of anti-Jewish policies between 1933 and 1945, seeking to provide the first survey of international scholarship. Panels will pay particular attention to the comparative dimension, in order to shed light on both local specificities and broader policies adopted across Nazi-dominated Europe.

The conference will be organized around three large themes:

1) Antisemitic legislation and the criminalization of Jews
Topics may include:

• The introduction of antisemitic criminal law across Nazi-dominated Europe, including its periodization, timing and function
• The perversion of existing criminal law to step up the pressure against Jews
• The relationship between German legislation and laws introduced elsewhere in Europe.

2) Mechanisms and actors in the process of repression
Topics may include:

• The various actors involved, including the police, judges, welfare officials and municipal employees
• The workings and the specificities of the repressive processes against Jews, from arrest to sentencing and detention
• Jewish defendants and their changing legal status in the courts.

3) The criminalization of Jews and the Holocaust
Topics may include:

• The relationship between the legal criminalization of Jews and antisemitic policy in general
• The use of criminal statistics and trials in antisemitic propaganda
• The interaction between antisemitic criminal law, judicial repression and the destruction of European Jewry.

Proposals including a 500-word abstract, a short CV and a list of significant publications should be sent to justiceandjews@gmail.com no later than 15 April 2010. They will be examined by a scientific committee 15 May 2010.

Benn Williams
University of Illinois, Chicago

An International Colloquium with Jack Jacobs, Thomas Wheatland, and Eva-Maria Ziege

Jack Jacobs, Thomas Wheatland, and Eva-Maria Ziege will speak in detail not only about their findings but also about the process of their research and their motivation in approaching the Frankfurt School and its attempts to grapple with antisemitism. Christine Achinger (University of Warwick), Marcel Stoetzler (Visiting Fellow, CJCR), and Lars Fischer (Academic Director, CJCR) will offer short responses to these talks, followed by open debate.

The programme also includes a book launch at Heffers bookstore (19 Trinity Street, Cambridge CB2 1TB) at 6.30pm on 24 June. Michael Mack (Durham) will present his new book on Spinoza and the Specters of Modernity. The Hidden Enlightenment of Diversity from Spinoza to Freud (Continuum, forthcoming).

Further information and the registration form will become available on the CJCR website soon (http://www.woolfinstitute.cam.ac.uk/cjcr/index.php). The deadline for registration is 2 April 2010.

A small number of bursaries will be available for graduate students (see registration form for details).

If you have specific queries please contact Lars Fischer at lf309@cam.ac.uk.

The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies invites applications to participate in residential workshops at Yarnton Manor, from January to June 2010. Successful applicants will be working with eminent scholars in the same field.

PROJECT 1:
GREEK SCRIPTURE AND THE RABBIS

Project Leader: Dr Alison Salvesen

Up to the present, views of Scripture in Judaism from antiquity to the rise of Islam have been shaped by the fact that rabbinic literature is written in Hebrew and Aramaic, even though many Jews in the eastern Mediterranean and their religious leaders knew only Greek. Even the recent Cambridge History of Judaism (2006) failed to include a chapter on the role of Greek language and literature. The purpose of the project will be an investigation of Jewish Greek versions of the Bible among Jewish communities of the first to sixth centuries CE, both from rabbinic sources and from internal indicators in what remains of the translations themselves.

Seminars in Hilary Term 2010

PROJECT 2:
THE READING OF HEBREW AND JEWISH
TEXTS IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD

Project Leaders: Dr Joanna Weinberg, Dr Piet van Boxel

The purpose of the research project will be to examine how the study of Hebrew and Jewish texts in the early modern period affected relations between Christian and Jewish scholars. The research will focus on the phenomenon of Hebraism: the scientific study of Hebrew and Aramaic and methods of exegesis and legal discourse, as well as on central figures in Jewish tradition – Maimonides and Abravanel – whose works were read and admired by diverse and learned Christian scholars. In addition, attention will be given to other literary remains such as dedicatory poems, Hebrew letters of diplomats and belles lettres. Underlying the specific topics of research will be the larger question: to what extent did the study of a shared tradition affect a change in attitudes of Christians towards Jews and Judaism, and of Jews towards Christians and Christianity?

Seminars in Hilary Term 2010

For further information on these projects and details of how to apply, please see the website:
http://www.ochjs.ac.uk/

Professor Felicity Rash
Dr Geraldine Horan
Dr Stefan Baumgarten, London
Dr Daniel Wildmann

The Historical Discourse Working Group and the Leo Baeck Institute London with the support of the Centre for Anglo-German Cultural Relations would like to announce their first international conference to be held at
Queen Mary, University of London on 10-11 November 2010.

PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF DATE FOR THIS CONFERENCE

The conference organisers, Professor Felicity Rash, Dr Geraldine Horan, Dr Daniel Wildmann and Dr Stefan Baumgarten, invite proposals in the form of abstracts of about 150-200 words on relevant topics in the analysis of pre-1945 nationalist, anti-Semitic or colonialist discourse. We welcome contributions which discuss issues of methodology or which adopt interdisciplinary approaches, and we hope to foster debate on points of contact between linguistics and the historical analysis of political and ideological discourses. We would be particularly interested in contributions on nationalist figures who are less well-represented in discourse research. It is hoped that academic colleagues at all levels of their careers, including postgraduate students, will offer to present papers or lead workshops.

The conference will be one of the events organised as part of the major research project, The Discourse of German Nationalism and Anti-Semitism 1871-1924, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and led by Prof. Felicity Rash and Dr Geraldine Horan.

Key note speakers will include Ruth Wodak and Andreas Musolff. It is intended that the conference proceedings will be published. Please send expression of interest and abstracts to Dr Stefan Baumgarten by 15 April 2010; email: s.baumgarten@qmul.ac.uk.

————————————————————————
Stefan Baumgarten
327 Mile End Road, Arts Building
E1 4NS London, UK
+44(0)20 7882 5284
+44 (0)20 8980 5400
s.baumgarten@qmul.ac.uk
Homepage http://www.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/research/nationalismproject

Applications are encouraged for a summer 2010 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) summer institute for 25 college and university faculty, “Representations of the ‘Other’: Jews in Medieval Christendom.” The institute, directed by Professor Irven M. Resnick, will meet at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (England) from 6 July-11 August, 2010. A stipend of $3800 is provided to all participants. For complete details and application information, please see www.utc.edu/neh or contact Irven-Resnick@utc.edu.

The Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations at the University of Southampton is organizing a research project which will explore the responses of the anti-Hitler Allies to the Jewish plight during the Second World War. An international two-day symposium to be held at the University of Southampton on 21 and 22 March 2010 and focusing on the various governments-in-exile established in Britain during the war will form an integral part of this project. This symposium aims to bring together scholars engaged in academic research on the bystanders to the Holocaust through a specific and so far neglected area of Holocaust research. The project – based on a comparative analysis of individual cases – intends to explore whether a theory of common taxonomy can be applied across the exiled Governments’ treatment of Jewish issues. Were there any common features of the responses of the governments-in-exile to the Jewish plight? Did the governments cooperate? Are there any similarities in the theoretical analysis of their conduct?

While the subject of the bystanders to the Holocaust has constituted an important part of Holocaust research in the last decades, historians have focused mainly on the two major Western Allied powers, the United States and United Kingdom. There has not been any comprehensive investigation of how the other members of the anti-Hitler alliance helped to shape attitudes and responses to the Nazi persecution and extermination of the European Jewry. The governments of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France (Free France), Greece, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Yugoslavia will form be the main focus of the conference.

The official national representatives in exile were theoretically in a position to impact on the attitudes of their populations at home towards the Jews. As it seems, their main responses to the Holocaust was fostering the exchange of information among the populations in the occupied countries, the exiles, and the major Allied governments. Project and symposium will examine the policies of the governments-in-exile, the actions they actually took (including attempts, if there were any, to impact on initiatives by the Western Allies for the rescue of Jews), and the factors that shaped their policies and actions. The latter includes the role played by the main national underground organizations that informed the governments-in-exile about the sentiments among the populations at home towards the persecuted Jews. Across Nazi occupied Europe the harsh German occupation regime triggered a resurgence in nationalism but this tended to exclude groups which were seen as foreign, and this often meant the Jews as well. Hence the governments-in-exile were caught in a network of complex influences, and this dynamic needs to be investigated.

The Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations at the University of Southampton welcomes contributions from senior scholars as well as researchers at the beginning of their academic careers. We intend to publish the conference proceedings in order to stimulate further discussion of the issues raised at the symposium. Holocaust Studies, published by Vallentine Mitchell, has already expressed an interest subsequent to the standard review process. It is expected that symposium and subsequent publication of the proceedings will lead to the establishment of an international network of scholars working on related areas of research that will facilitate further projects in the field. For more information, contact the project coordinator, Jan Láníček, e-mail: J.Lanicek@soton.ac.uk.

Conference Website
Conference Programme