You are currently browsing bajsbulletin’s articles.
Final call for papers
This is the final call for papers for the annual conference of the British Association of Jewish Studies, which will take place at UCL, London, from 27-29 June 2012. An earlier call for papers was issued in October. The deadline for submission of proposals is 3 January 2012.
The conference theme will be ‘The Jews and the Sciences’. The term ‘science’ is open to interpretation because of the wide range of meanings it has been given in different cultures and in different periods of history. Even today, ‘science’ (or its counterpart in other languages) means different things in Britain and in other parts of Europe. For the purposes of this conference, ‘science’ will be taken in its widest sense. In ancient and medieval contexts, for example, it may include the disciplines of magic, astrology, and alchemy. For all periods of history, it may include philosophy, linguistics, literary theory, sociology, psychology, and all other human sciences.
In short, ‘science’ will be taken to mean any form of knowledge or study that is not culture-specific to Jews or to Judaism. It will be viewed at once as an intellectual activity (the science itself, involving study, research, discovery, dissemination), a cultural phenomenon (related to other aspects of culture such as language, religion, etc.), and an aspect of social history. Science is a context in which Jews have shared a common culture with their wider society.
The theme of ‘The Jews and the Sciences’ can be approached, therefore, in several ways. Participants may present papers, for example, on the contribution of Jews and Judaism to the sciences, or conversely, on the contribution of science to Jewish culture, literature, and Judaism. They may consider Jewish attitudes to science, the historical involvement of Jews in scientific inquiry, the production of scientific literature for Jewish audiences and in Jewish languages, or the historical and contemporary impact of sciences on Jewish culture and Jewish society.
The BAJS 2012 conference will take place consecutively after another conference at UCL on the more narrow theme of ‘Time, astronomy, and calendars in Jewish tradition’, from Monday 25th — Wednesday 27th June 2012. This conference will be hosted by the UCL AHRC-funded research project ‘Medieval Monographs on the Jewish Calendar’ and by the Institute of Jewish Studies. It will be open to the public, and we would like to encourage BAJS Conference participants to attend this conference too. The keynote lecture, delivered by Charles Burnett (Warburg Institute, London) will be shared by both conferences on Wednesday evening, 27th June. Scholars who have so far agreed to participate at the AHRC-IJS conference include Jonathan Ben-Dov (Haifa), Elisheva Carlebach (Columbia), Tzvi Langermann (Bar- Ilan), Reimund Leicht (Hebrew University), Raymond Mercier Cambridge), Marina Rustow (Johns Hopkins), and Shlomo Sela (Bar-Ilan), as well as research staff of the Jewish calendar projects at UCL.
The deadline for submission of proposals is 3 January 2012. This call for papers for the BAJS Conference 2012 is being issued at an earlier date than usual, because the forthcoming Olympic Games in London (July 2012) make it necessary for our conference to be planned well in advance.
Register for the Conference and pay your conference fees via PayPal:
As usual, papers and panels on aspects of Jewish Studies that are not related to the conference theme will also be welcome.
Please send proposals for individual papers (including title and a short, max. 300-word abstract) and panels to the President, Sacha Stern (sacha.stern@ucl.ac.uk). We look forward to your submissions.
Although the conference is open to all who are interested in an academic approach to Jewish Studies, anyone wishing to present a paper who is not a member of BAJS will ordinarily be expected to join by the time of the conference. Membership is open to anyone with a serious academic interest to Jewish studies. For membership enquiries and applications, please write to the BAJS Secretary, Lars Fischer lf309@cam.ac.uk, and see BAJS Websit : http://britishjewishstudies.org/about/join-bajs/
The representation of Jewish Languages on screen is not only a way to pay a tribute to pre-war Yiddish movie pictures. It also strives to understand the impact of the partial echoing of languages connected with a vanished past in modern and sometimes very recent films (as in the opening episode of A Serious Man by Ethan and Joel Coen, 2009). Sometimes, the episodes where a Jewish language is heard are extremely short; at other times, the presence of the Jewish languages is reduced to the epiphenomenal embedding of words within the frame of the hegemonic language (Yiddish in English; Judeo-Arabic in French or in Hebrew).
The conference will also deal with the aesthetic effect that derives from extracts of Jewish songs (in Yiddish or Judeo-Spanish) that are occasionally part of the sound track of movies dealing with Jewish issues, especially as far as the representation of the Shoah is concerned. Whatever the presence of Jewish languages in classic, modern or post-modern cinema might be, it is interesting to ask what this mediation of cinema means for the preservation of the endangered Jewish languages and conversely, how the nostalgic resonance of lost voices is affecting a post-modern representation of Jewish ethnicity on the screen.
This interdisciplinary conference is open to a wide range of specializations:
linguistics of the Jewish languages;
- cinema studies;
- musicology;
- cultural studies;
- Jewish history;
- Shoah studies;
- ethnology.
The working language will not be necessarily English although this option is obviously recommended.
An abstract for a suggested lecture/presentation should be sent to msjewciv@mscc.huji.ac.il by May 24, 2012.
GRADE 8, £36,862 – £44,016 per annum
The University proposes to appoint a University Research Lecturer in Israel Studies from 1 September 2012 or as soon as possible thereafter for five years. The successful candidate will also be appointed to a Fellowship in Israel Studies in the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, a Recognised Independent Centre of the University. The University Research Lecturer will be required to carry out research in the field of Israel Studies; to promote and disseminate research; to teach; and to fulfil general duties for the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.
The successful applicant will have the potential to be a recognised authority in his or her field; by the time of appointment hold a doctorate (or equivalent) in some aspect of the study of Israel Studies; have a record of scholarly publications; a commitment to teaching; the potential to provide academic leadership; and be able to demonstrate a dedication to disseminating knowledge about Israel to a wider public. Applicants without all of the required skills and experience may be considered for appointment at Grade 7 (£29,099 – £35,788 per annum).
Interviews for shortlisted candidates will be held in Oxford on Monday 12 March 2012.
Applications for this vacancy are to be made online not later than noon on Thursday 23 February 2012. Two references should reach the Faculty by the same date. To apply for this role and for further details, including the job description and full selection criteria, please click on the link below:
https://www.recruit.ox.ac.uk/pls/hrisliverecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=101972
Contributors:
Professor Dan Michman (Yad Vashem, Hebrew University)
The Wannsee Conference: the view from Berlin
Professor Christoph Dieckman (University of Keele)
Mass murder in Lithuania and the transition to ‘the Final Solution’
Dr Alexander Korb (University of Leicester)
The Balkans as a site of mass murder and implementation of the ‘Final Solution’
The workshop is open to undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and others. The idea of the ‘workshop’ format is to explore debates arising from specific issues in Holocaust Studies in an informal atmosphere. In addition to the three presentations there will be plenty of time for conversation and a final ‘open’ panel.
Pre-booking is essential.
Time: 10.00 to 16.00
Location: The Wiener Library, 29 Russell Square, London, WC1B 5DP
Cost: £10/ £5 concessions. Payment on the day.
For further information and pre-booking: Please email Rachel.century.2009@live.rhul.ac.uk
This conference will be the first full academic conference organised by the European Association of Israel Studies.
It will build on our successful launch conference in September 2011 at SOAS, University of London, which was attended by representatives of many European countries, from Siberia to Iberia .
The aim of the conference is to bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines who are engaged in research in any aspect of Israel studies.
It will continue to build on areas previously investigated in the academic literature and also open up new fields of intellectual enquiry.
The organisers welcome all proposals including suggestions for panels which are pertinent to Israel Studies.
The EAIS will offer a limited number of travel and accommodation stipends for the Munich conference for graduate students and junior faculty.
Please send an abstract of 200-250 words together with biographical background of about 50-100 words by Monday 2 April 2012 to: Daniel Lowe, dl25@soas.ac.uk
All proposals are subject to a review process. The conference will be held in English.
The conference fee will be 20 euros. The student rate will be 15 euros.
All presenters will be members of the EAIS. For membership details, click here.
For details of the EAIS Charter, click here.
Further information and registration details will be made available on our website.
European Association of Israel Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies,
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
+44 (0) 20 7898 4358 | infoeais@soas.ac.uk | www.soas.ac.uk/eais
MONDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2012, 5pm
Lecture: After Babel: A Jewish theology of interfaith
TUESDAY 14 FEBRUARY 2012, 5pm
Lecture: Truth and translatability
WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2012, 5pm
Lecture: The face of the Other: the curious nature of biblical narrative
THURSDAY 16 FEBRUARY, 4.30pm
(with drinks reception from 4pm)
Symposium: Making Space (does the Judaic model make sense in Christianity and Islam?)
with Professor Janet Soskice (Cambridge), Professor Abdou Filali-Ansari (Aga Khan University) and Professor Guy Stroumsa (Oxford).
The lectures and symposium are free and open to all however booking is required. For more information and free registration for all events, please visit:
www.humanities.ox.ac.uk/events/humanitas
Admittance will be by ticket only.
All events will take place at Talbot Hall, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
The international MA in Jewish Studies at Tel Aviv University (in English) invites applicants for two merit based scholarships of US $5,000 each to qualified international students for the 2012-2013 academic year.
This new one year MA offers a series of intimate encounters with the classical texts of Jewish culture, from biblical to modern times. Its intellectual home is in the department of Hebrew Culture Studies at Tel Aviv University, the single largest integrated Jewish Studies department in the world.
Courses are taught by a team of dedicated lecturers, with world-class expertise in their respective fields and committed to teaching excellence. Courses are text-centered, with primary texts in Hebrew (with translations), and secondary reading and teaching in English, and students acquire the skills and tools that constitute the foundation of Jewish text study Areas covered include Bible, Hebrew language, rabbinic exegesis and Midrash, Talmudic and Christian texts compared, Jewish mysticism, medieval philosophy and kabbalah, ancient Jewish magic, and modern Jewish thought.
Tel Aviv’s location provides excellent opportunities for on-site study. Students can, e.g., enhance their understanding of 1st CE texts through a series of guided excursions to archeological digs and other key locations in the Galilee, the Judean Desert and Jerusalem.
Candidates must complete the program application, by March 15th 2011.
Scholarships will be awarded by an academic committee.
To find out more about the program, and to apply for scholarships, please visit our website:
http://humanities.tau.ac.il/jewish_studies/ or contact Emilie Levy: majes@post.tau.ac.il
The University of Manchester is offering a range of awards to which candidates working on topics in Jewish Studies are eligible to apply. The main award, which comprises a fee-bursary and a maintenance grant, is the University-funded President’s Doctoral Scholar Awards.
These awards are open to all new PhD students (home, EU or overseas) and all disciplines. The Centre for Jewish Studies is encouraging applications to the Department of Middle Eastern Studies in the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures (LLC) or to the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures (AHC), in regard to this funding scheme from candidates working on Jewish Studies topics, including post-biblical and classical rabbinic literature, medieval Jewish-Muslim Relations, modern Jewish-Christian Relations, modern Jewish philosophy, Holocaust Studies, Israel Studies and the history and culture of modern Middle Eastern Jewry. The award covers tuition fees (home/EU or international, as appropriate) and the equivalent of the research council stipend (£13,590 in 2011-12). The following application deadlines should be observed in relation to this award:
An application for a place on a doctoral programme should be submitted to the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures or to the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures by Wednesday 15 February 2012 at the latest; a completed funding application form should be submitted by Friday 1 March 2012 at the latest.
For guidelines about how to apply to the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, please visit http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/funding/
For the departments or subject areas included in this school, please see
http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/
For guidelines about how to apply to the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, please visit
http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduatestudy/funding/fundingfordoctoralstudents/
For the departments or subject areas included in this school, please see
http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/postgraduatestudy/researchbysubject/
For informal inquiries about the academic side of the application process, please contact Professor Alex Samely (LLC) at Alex.Samely@manchester.ac.uk or Professor Daniel Langton (AHC) at Daniel.Langton@manchester.ac.uk
For questions about the administrative side of the application process, please contact Ms Rachel Corbishley (LLC) at Rachel.Corbishley@manchester.ac.uk or Mrs Joanne Marsh (AHC) at Joanne.Marsh@manchester.ac.uk
AS/20 December 2011
In 2012 the Society will offer a limited number of travel grants to students of archaeology who wish to excavate in Israel. The closing date for applications is Wednesday 29th February 2012.
Please write to the Executive Secretary at:
Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society
2nd Floor, Supreme House, 300 Regents Park Road, London N3 2JX for an application form or e-mail your request to: sheilarford1@sky.com
Forms may also be downloaded from the AIAS website: www.aias.org.uk
Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, 2nd floor, Supreme House, 300 Regents Park Road, London N3 2JX Tel: 020 8349 5754 www.aias.org.uk, Hon. President: Rt. Hon. The Viscount Allenby of Megiddo Chairman: Prof. Martin D. Goodman MA, D.Litt., FBA, Affiliated to the British Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Registered Charity No. 220367
David Jacobs and Patrick Hanks
The “Family Names in the UK” Research Project (FaNUK) at the University of the West of England, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, is investigating the origins, history, migration patterns, and geographical distribution of all family names with more than 100 bearers in Britain (plus a number of rare but “interesting” names), regardless of where they come from or how long they have been here. One particularly important thread is the history of Jews in Britain. It is generally accepted that Jews have made a disproportionately large and valuable contribution to the cultural, intellectual, and economic life of Britain, often in the face of prejudice and ignorance. Modern British Jewry provides a model of balance between social integration and preservation of religious and cultural heritage. Any investigation of modern family names must do justice to Jewish family names and their history in Britain.
There are a few well-known milestones:
- Jewish settlement in England from northern France under William I in 1070
- The blood libel and ritual murder charges and persecution beginning in 1144 prior to the expulsion of the Jews in 1290.
- The petition of Rabbi ben Israel of Amsterdam to Oliver Cromwell in 1655
- Resettlement of Jews in England starting in 1656
- Sephardic immigration from the 17th century onwards
- The establishment of an Ashkenazic community in London in 1690
- The Jewish Naturalization Bill of 1753
- The admission of Jews to Parliament and to the Bar in the 19th century
- Mass immigration from Eastern and Central Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries.
It would be good to put some flesh on these bare bones in the context of researching family names, addressing questions such as the following:
- Who are the earliest known bearers of each Jewish family name in Britain?
- Can such a UK Jewish family name be traced back to an original immigrant?
- If the original immigrant is known, when did the family first arrive in Britain and where did they come from? Where in Britain did they establish themselves? What was their prior history?
- In what language and under what national administration was the name of each Jewish family now found in the UK coined, adopted, or imposed?
- To what extent have names of Yiddish and other European origin been anglicized?
- What are the processes of anglicization. In the anglicization of Yiddish and other European surnames, which names were calqued (e.g. Zuckermann > Sugarman), shortened (e.g. Sugar), or otherwise changed?
- How can we identify apparently English names that are also Jewish (e.g. Morton)?
- In the case of polygenetic names like Morton and Goldsmith, what are the relative proportions of Jewish and gentile bearers?
- What does each name mean, and what, if any, are the religious, cultural, or other implications of the name?
- Some families can trace their genealogy to a single ‘key ancestor’—someone who had many marrying male children who themselves had male marrying children. How many Jewish key ancestors can be identified, and what can be said about them?
- Some families (e.g., among the gentiles, Cecil, Cavendish, Campbell) have made a particular contribution over several generations to the political or cultural life of Britain. What should be said about similar Jewish families, for example Montefiore, Rothschild, Mocatta, Goldsmid, and Sassoon?
- Was the pattern of Jewish migration into Scotland and Ireland different from that into England and Wales?
- What are the main centres of Jewish settlement today, and were they always there?
- What are the comparative frequencies of Jewish surnames in the UK? (FaNUK already has some data on this)
The coordinator for Jewish family names in the project is David Jacobs, Chairman of the Jewish Historical Society:
email david.jacobs40@ntlworld.com
Linguistic and etymological information for the project will be based on the contribution of David Gold to the Dictionary of Surnames (ed. Hanks and Hodges, Oxford University Press, 1988) and of Alexander Beider to the Dictionary of American Family Names (ed. Hanks, Oxford University Press, 2003). In addition, we shall be very glad to receive information about family history and early bearers of particular names that will help us to provide answers to at least some of the above questions. Please send such information to david.jacobs40@ntlworld.com.
Jewish-non-Jewish relations: Between exclusion and embrace – An online teaching resource: www.jnjr.div.ed.ac.uk
The complex relationship between Jews and non-Jews lies at the heart of teaching Jewish Studies at university level. A new online teaching resource provides access to a broad range of primary sources and high-quality commentaries by experts in the field, addressing the perceived lack of an easily accessible body of sources, which specifically deal with relations between Jews and non-Jews from a historical and contemporary perspective.
The website offers a range of commented primary sources from all periods of history, offering original and stimulating discussions of a broad range of topics and issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. Accessibility is a major concern of the project: as an online-based project, it can be freely accessed by anybody with an internet connection. All entries were written in jargon-free language.
The main target group for the website are students and academics in higher education. Each peer-reviewed entry provides the historical and social context and background of a chosen primary source, includes the source in its original language and, where necessary, a translation into English, followed by a discussion of the source and a number of relevant questions that can be used as a starting point for discussion in the classroom.
In the now completed pilot stage of the project, we have mainly secured contributions from colleagues at other British universities. We are now commissioning additional contributions from all periods of history and geographical areas and invite scholars working on Jewish-Christian or Jewish-Muslim relations to suggest further contributions from their specific field of expertise.
Please contact us at jnjr@ed.ac.uk for suggestions and comments and for authors’ guidelines if you wish to contribute to the site.
Project coordinators:
Dr Maria Diemling (Canterbury Christ Church University)
Dr Hannah Holtschneider (University of Edinburgh)
Contact:
jnjr@ed.ac.uk
Keynote speakers:
Rev Dr Naim Ateek
Rabbi Professor Dan Cohn-Sherbook
Professor Nur Masahla
Professor Ilan Pappé
And panel discussions with:
Professor Philip Davies
Professor Mary Grey
And others…
We are welcoming contributions from all perspectives under four main headings:
- Antisemitism, Philosemitism and the Bible
- the Bible and the Existence of Israel
- Judaism, Christianity and Zionism
- and the Bible and the Palestinians.
Topics may include (but are by no means limited to):
- biblical archaeology and historiography
- Palestinian liberation theology
- violence and peace in the Bible
- Christian Zionism
- postcolonial biblical criticism
- modern Judaism and its relationship to Zionism.
Please send a title and a 300 word abstract to bzpconference@sheffield.ac.uk, for a 20 minute paper.
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
The Holocaust Educational Foundation, USA, and the Holocaust Research Centre at Royal Holloway, University of London are pleased to invite applications for Fellowships to participate in the first European Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization from 18-30 June 2012 at the Royal Holloway campus, Egham, Surrey in England.
This programme is an intensive two-week residential course designed to broaden and deepen the background of postgraduates in Holocaust studies, early career academics, and educators in relevant fields. It is open to students enrolled full- or part-time in postgraduate programmes, full- or part-time academic staff, and educators at recognized institutions such as museums and archives.
Approximately 20 Fellows will be selected, each of whom will receive free room, board, and tuition during the programme. (Fellowships do not however, cover travel expenses to and from Royal Holloway or the cost of field trips during the course.) We seek fellows from a wide variety of disciplines and all intellectual fields related to Holocaust Studies.
The Institute curriculum consists of courses, lectures, and seminars taught by leading scholars on the following themes: the history of Jews and Judaism in Europe; Holocaust history and historiography; the Holocaust in literature and film; the Holocaust and modern thought. In addition, the Institute offers a rich program of guest lectures on special themes and of cultural and recreational trips to sites in London.
Applications should include a statement explaining the prospective Fellow’s interest and experience in Holocaust studies, and intentions for teaching the Holocaust, a curriculum vitae, plus, a letter of recommendation from a line manager; in the case of graduate students, a letter of recommendation from the doctoral supervisor. Applications should be submitted online by February 29 to Rachel Century, Summer Institute Administrator rachel.century.2009@live.rhul.ac.uk.
Fellowships will be awarded and all applicants notified by March 30, 2012.
In this season we examine ‘forbidden relationships’ across the Middle East divide, especially between Jews and Arabs. Spanning the period from the 1940s to the present day, the films explore the changing representations of Arab masculinities and Jewish women, including where these representations stand in present day Britain. In these films love, desire and politics blur the borderline between personal loyalty and the perceived demands of patriotism and national identity. FilmTalk stresses film as much as talk. The lectures are 20-25 minutes long and are followed or intercut with excerpts from the films under review.
For more information, please see here: FilmTalk 2011
Wednesday, 25 January 2012, 14.15
James Carleton Paget (Peterhouse)
Recent trends in New Testament scholarship and their impact on the study of Jewish-Christian relations
Venue: Faculty of Divinity, Room 2
Monday, 30 January 2012, 16.00
Susanne Kord (UCL)
Humanities Research: How to question and complicate everything
Venue: Faculty of Divinity, Room 2
Wednesday, 1 February 2012, 14.15
Kati Ihnat (Queen Mary, University of London)
Mary and the Jews: Myth and meaning in the medieval Jewish-Christian encounter
Venue: Faculty of Divinity, Room 2
Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 14.15
Frank Dabba Smith (UCL)
Ernst Leitz of Wetzlar: Helping the persecuted during the Nazi years.
Venue: Faculty of Divinity, Room 2
Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 14.15
Tom Lawson (Winchester)
Rethinking the Church of England’s response to the Holocaust
Venue: Faculty of Divinity, Room 2
Wednesday, 22 February 2012, 14.15
Daniel Langton (Manchester)
The (mis)use of history in Holocaust theology
Venue: Faculty of Divinity, Room 2
Wednesday, 29 February 2012, 14.15
Helen Bartos (UCL)
West Germany’s relations with Israel: bridge-building, morals and church input
Venue: Faculty of Divinity, Room 2
Monday, 5 March 2012, 16.00
Jay Geller (Vanderbilt)
How (not) to read Kafka from a Jewish cultural studies perspective
Venue: Faculty of Divinity, Room 2
Wednesday, 7 March 2012, 14.15
Amy-Jill Levine (Vanderbilt and CJCR)
The Passion narrative and the Jews: History, hermeneutics and homiletics
Venue: Faculty of Divinity, Room 2
Monday, 28 May 2012, 16.00
Aaron Rosen (Visiting Fellow, CJCR)
The hospitality of images
Venue: Faculty of Divinity, Room 2
Monday, 4 June 2012
Study day with Steve Mason (Aberdeen)
11.00: ‘The failure of Cestius Gallus’? Historical method and the study of Roman Judaea
14.15: Judaism, Christianity, and the problem of categories
Venue: Faculty of Divinity, Lightfoot Room
Sunday, 24 June–Tuesday, 26 June 2012
Tradition and Transition in Jewish, Christian and Muslim Cultures
Joint conference with the Open University of Israel
Venue: Lucy Cavendish College (registration required)
Sacha Stern (UCL, Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies) has been awarded a grant from the Leverhulme Trust for a research project entitled ‘Medieval Christian and Jewish calendar texts from England and Franco-Germany’. He will be joined by two postdoctoral research associates, Justine Isserles (Geneva/Paris) and Philipp Nothaft (Munich), for a two-year project starting from 1 October 2011. The project will investigate, through the study of largely neglected medieval manuscripts from England and Franco-Germany on the subjects of calendars, astronomy, and computus, the interest that Christian and Jewish medieval scholars developed in each other’s calendars, how information about their calendars was exchanged between them, and what motivated this unique manifestation of scholarly Christian-Jewish relations.
This project adds itself to Sacha Stern’s other research projects on medieval calendars, ‘Medieval monographs on the Jewish calendar’ (funded by the AHRC, with Ilana Wartenberg and Israel Sandman as postdoctoral research associates), and ‘The Jewish calendar in early Islamic sources’ (funded by the Leverhulme Trust, with François de Blois as research assistant). See further http://www.ucl.ac.uk/hebrew-jewish/research/projs.php
The foremost task of the British Association for Jewish Studies is the promotion and defence of the scholarly study of Jewish culture in all its aspects within higher education. The massive cuts in, and radical restructuring of, higher education and research funding are a matter of grave concern. Our colleagues work in and across a broad range of disciplines, mostly in the arts and humanities, and are therefore particularly prone to be affected by the cuts and the institutional concentration processes likely to follow.
The BAJS Committee will oppose these developments and support colleagues affected by them as best it can. We intend to make the case for Jewish Studies and its impact in an effective and forceful manner and provide colleagues in individual institutions with arguments and statistics that will help them fight their corner.
To do so, the Committee is dependent on one resource above all: information. It is imperative that our colleagues keep us informed of relevant developments. We need to know about looming cuts or closures, the pending loss of Jewish Studies positions through retirement, success rates in securing research council grants, the number of students taking Jewish Studies courses etc. The Committee appeals to all colleagues involved in Jewish Studies to provide us with relevant information as and when it becomes available.
If you have relevant information, please contact the BAJS Secretary, Lars Fischer (lf309@cam.ac.uk), or another member of the committee (http://britishjewishstudies.org/about/committee/). If requested, information will be treated confidentially.
The British Association for Jewish Studies (BAJS), representing scholars of many backgrounds and a variety of perspectives on the State of Israel, deplores any attempt to weaken educational links with Israeli institutions or individuals by the University and College Union (UCU). We believe that such actions contradict the aims of scholarship and the mission of an academic body, and do not ultimately contribute to the resolution of the conflict. BAJS will continue to promote and strengthen educational links with Israeli institutions and individuals.
The papers presented at the 2003 conference in Durham have been published as Studies in Jewish Prayer (ed. Robert Hayward and Brad Embry; Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 17; Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005), vi + 233. £40. ISBN: 0-19-929641-3.
The papers presented at the 2002 conference in Southampton have been published as a special edition of Jewish Culture and History, vol.6 no.2 (ed. Nadia Valman; London: Vallentine Mitchell, Winter 2003), 95pp. ISSN 1462-169X.
The papers presented at the 2000 conference in Leeds have been published as Exegesis and Grammar in Medieval Karaite Texts (ed. Geoffrey Kahn; Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 13; Oxford: Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of Manchester, 2001), vi + 239 pp. £40. ISBN 0-19-851065-9.
The papers presented at the 1999 conference in Manchester have been published as Jewish Ways of Reading the Bible (ed. George Brooke; Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 11; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), vi + 326 pp.; 2 plates. £40. ISBN 0-19-850918-9.
The presidential address at the 1998 conference in Cambridge was published as Raphael Lowe, ‘Credat Judaeus Apellain’ in Journal of Jewish Studies 50 (1999), pp. 74-86.
The papers presented at the 1996 conference in Cambridge have been published as W. Horbury, ed., Hebrew Study from Ezra to Ben-Yehuda (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 337 pp. ISBN 056708602X.
The Papers presented at the 1995 conference in Oxford have been published as Martin Goodman, ed., Jews in a Graeco-Roman World (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1998), 304 pp. ISBN 0-19-815078-4.
The presidential address at the 1988 conference in Oxford was published as Geza Vermes, ‘Biblical Proof-Texts in Qumran Literature’, Journal of Semitic Studies 34 (1989), pp. 493-508.
The presidential address at the 1975 conference in Oxford was published as Geza Vermes, ‘The Impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls on Jewish Studies during the last Twenty-Five Years’, Journal of Jewish Studies 26 (1975), pp. 1-14.
