Reading across Cultures: The Jewish Book and Its Readers in the Early Modern Period

Broadsheet of Koheles Shlomo: Beney Israel rahmanim vegomley hasadim (1738)

Shalhevet Dotan-Ofir — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:00:00 PDT

This is a translation of a 1738 Broadsheet of Koheles Shlomo "Beney Israel rahmanim vegomley hasadim"

The Hebrew library of a Renaissance humanist: The bibliography to Andreas Masius' edition of the book of Joshua (Antwerp: Christopher Plantin 1574)

Theodor Dunkelgrün — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:00:00 PDT

Andreas Masius' 1574 polyglot edition of the book of Joshua with copious annotations and commentaries is a monument of Renaissance biblical scholarship. In an appendix - the text presented here - Masius recorded the Hebrew and Aramaic books he consulted in preparing his edition. In spite of the brevity of its descriptions, this bibliography has much to tell us about Christian readership of the Hebrew book in the 16th century. It reveals the depth, breadth, and sophistication of Masius' grasp of Jewish literature. It is a snapshot of his own library, but at the same time also a panorama of the flourishing Hebrew book in the early modern period. It was this flourishing, in Italy above all, that enabled Masius to begin to understand very different worlds of Jewish scholarship, and to put them to scholarly, and strikingly non-polemical, use.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

The bibliography to Andreas Masius’ edition, with commentaries, of the book of Joshua: Iosvae Imperatoris Historia, illustrata atq[ue] Explicata ab Andrea Masio (Antwerp: Christopher Plantin 1574)

Sefer Or le-Et Erev: a history of a misunderstanding

Pawel Maciejko — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:00:00 PDT

This presentation explores the boundaries of the concept of the ‘Jewish book’ on the basis of Yiddish and Hebrew texts distributed by Protestant missionaries among the Jews in 18th-century East Central Europe. Such texts were not always recognised as Christian by their Jewish readers. The case in point is the brochure Or le-Et Erev circulated by the Halle Pietists. The Yiddish text does not give the name of the author or the place of publication; it does not refer explicitly to Jesus’s identity with the Jewish Messiah until the final pages; and it bases much of its argument on Jewish precepts. There are testimonies suggesting that some Jewish readers did not grasp the understated Christian motifs or read the booklet through to the end. There are even testimonies of communal rabbis recommending Or le-Et Erev as a ‘good and pious book’. In a sense, despite the fact that it was composed by a Christian cleric and aimed to expound Christian teachings, the reception of this work turned it into a ‘Jewish book’. This development made a full circle in the 19th century, when Or le-Et Erev was rediscovered by the missionaries of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. Unaware that the brochure was composed by the German Pietists, the London missionaries also assumed it was a work of Jewish rabbis. They marvelled at the text’s pronounced sympathy for Christianity and Christian tenets, translated it into English, and published it as proof of existence of a ‘progressive’, pro-Christian tendency within Judaism.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

Or le-et erev (Light for the Evening, 1728)

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Early Modern Yiddish Readers: Immoderately Addicted to Rhyme?

Ruth von Bernuth — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:00:00 PDT

Roughly one third of Old Yiddish literature is based on traceable European literary sources, mainly German. Given how close Old Yiddish is to Early New High German, some of these Old Yiddish texts with European sources feel like mere transcriptions, others more like legitimate translations and yet others more like free adaptations. From the Yiddish reader's perspective, the texts become accessible through transcription into Hebrew characters and more accessible the more that the translator engages the text as representative Jewish reader. A large proportion of these Yiddish books with German sources are prose novels–a genre newly popular with German readers of the time. A good example is the Schildbürgerbuch, the classic account of goings-on in a fictitious city of fools, first published as the Lalebuch in Strasbourg in 1597, and, with minor revisions, as the Schildbürgerbuch in Frankfurt in 1598. The language and mood of the Schildbürgerbuch were brought up to date in a rewritten edition, attributed to one "Pomponius Filtzhut," which made its appearance around 1698. This Filtzhut version inspired a literal rendering into Yiddish, which appeared in Amsterdam circa 1700. A second Yiddish translation, more spirited and more influential, was published in 1727, again in Amsterdam. These 18th-century Yiddish versions of the Schildbürgerbuch constitute the earliest Jewish literary antecedents for the wise men of Chelm, an invented tradition dating from the end of the 19th century. At around the same time (1890), this second Yiddish edition of the Schildbürgerbuch was incurring the disapproval of the scholar of German literature, Ernst Jeep, who dismisses the fondness for rhyme exhibited throughout the translation as nothing short of a rhyming mania ("Reimwut"). Against the background of the German editions of 1598 and ca.1698 and the first Yiddish edition of ca. 1700, the presentation will look at the rhyming material that is new to this alleged worst case of an apparent proclivity of late early modern Yiddish literary taste. The talk will ask whether this versification deserves a diagnosis quite as pathological-sounding as “Reimwut” and whether it is indeed the great flaw of the Yiddish version or one of its merits. In addition, we will take this as a point of departure from which at least to pose the bigger question of just how pervasive and significant the rhyming couplet is in Old Yiddish literature, and for how long this remains true. Finally, we will consider how this compares to German literature of the period, wondering how to account for any differences between the two literatures in terms of apparent consumer preference for rhymed or unrhymed prose.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

Wund erseltsame abendtheurliche und recht lächerliche Geschichte und Thaten der Welt bekannten Schild-Bürger in Misnopotamia, hinter Utopia gelegen (Wonderful, adventuresome and highly comical stories and deeds of the world-famous people of Schildburg in Mesopotamia beyond Utopia, 17th century)
Vunder zeltsame kurtsveilige lustige geshikhte un daten der velt bekanten shild burger (Wonderful, strange, entertaining and amusing stories and deeds of the world-famous people of Schildburg, ca. 1700)
Vunder seltsame kurtsveylige unt rekht lekherlikhe geshikhte unt daten der velt bekanten shild burger (Wonderful, strange, entertaining and highly comical stories and deeds of the world-famous people of Schildburg, 1727), "How a man of Schildburg brought his son to school, and what happened there"

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From Apologetics to Polemics: Isaac Orobio de Castro’s Defences of Judaism and their Use in the French Enlightenment

Adam Sutcliffe — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:00:00 PDT

This presentation explores the use by non-Jews in eighteenth-century France of controversialist works written primarily for manuscript circulation within the seventeenth-century Sephardic communities of the Netherlands. In response to sustained theological doubts regarding Judaism posed by Sephardim deeply conditioned by having lived as outward Catholics in the Iberian peninsula, several community leaders in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, such as the doctor and controversialist Isaac Orobio de Castro (c.1617-1687), authored trenchant attacks on Christian doctrine, in particular emphasizing the enduring validity of Jewish law and the superiority of Jewish biblical exegesis. French translations of some of these texts - which circulated in Paris and beyond in the early eighteenth century, and were first published in the 1770s – were read by non-Jewish philosophical radicals as novel and piquant critiques of Christian orthodoxy. However, it is misleadingly simple to regard these texts, as some historians have done, as ‘Jewish sources’ for the Enlightenment. Through a close examination of the inflections of translation, editing and presentation in one key text, I will seek to explore the complex transformations in the reading practices that were invited or made possible in these two very different cultural contexts.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

Prevenciones Divinas contra la Vana Idolotria de las Gentes (Divine Warnings against the Vain Idolatry of the Gentiles, 1669-1675)
Israel Vengé (Israel Avenged, 1770)

The Power of Texts in the Conversion of an Old Christian Hebraist

Miriam Bodian — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:00:00 PDT

Lope de Vera y Alarcón was an Old Christian Hebraist at the University of Salamanca in the late 1630s. In his professional training, he had access to texts that few people in Spain were permitted to see. His subversive reading of Erasmus and the Hebrew diary of David Reuveni, among other works, were not the only factors in his becoming a "judaizer," but by his own account they were of great importance. The texts I will present are excerpts from his Inquisition trial (1639-1644).

This presentation is for the following text(s):

Inquisition file of Lope de Vera y Alarcón (1639-1644)

Jews under Surveillance: Censorship and Reading in Early Modern Italy

Federica Francesconi — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:00:00 PDT

This talk explores how Counter-Reformation’s dynamics affected the readings of Italian Jews, after the political changes of the 1550s and the promulgation of the Index by Clement VIII in 1596 (with the ban of the Talmud). Dealing with censorship, expurgation and banning of books, in fact, Italian Jews found themselves caught up between the intricate and often conflicting positions between the Congregation of the Index and the Office of the Inquisition. Based on the analysis of both Inquisitorial sources (proceedings, guidelines and censors’ reports) and biographical accounts, I will explore how rabbis and converts, who worked as appointed censors for the Holy Office of Modena, negotiated different means of reading and interpretation of religious texts. Another issue that I will explore regards the composition of the Modenese Jewish libraries and the means by which books circulated. The ultimate goal is to contribute to our understanding of how Italian Jews were able to keep their own autonomous culture, facing Catholic Church’s policy of both segregation of Jews and general control over the entire society.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

Rules for the expurgation of the Hebrew Books: A Report by Camillo Yaghel da Correggio (1614)
Report regarding Hebrew Books sent by the Reverend Father Inquisitor Ciro Yaghel during a trial against Leone Poggetti, a rabbi, and Aron de Sacerdoti (1624)
Commentary by R. Salomon [Rashi] on the laws (Excerpt from the report by Ciro da Correggio, November 5, 1626)
4. Testimony by Aaron Berechia da Modena (December 3 and 10, 1636)

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Putting Hebrew Books in Order: The First Printed Hebrew Bibliography

Avri Bar-Levav — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:00:00 PDT

Siftey yeshenim (The lips of those who are asleep, Amsterdam 1680) is the first printed Hebrew bibliography. In his introduction,the author, Shabtai Meshorer Bas of Prague (1641-1718), explains why such a novel book is needed, and what are its usages for Heberw readers and writers with various interests.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

Siftey yeshenim (The lips of those who are asleep, Amsterdam 1680)

The Paratexts of Jacob Marcaria: Addressing the (Imagined) Reader in Mid-Sixteenth-Century Italy

Adam Shear — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:00:00 PDT

For a few years in the middle of the sixteenth century (1557-1564), a Hebrew press was active in Riva del Garda (Riva di Trento) under the management of Jacob Marcaria, a physician. The business arrangements of the press seem complicated and difficult to reconstruct (having only the evidence of the printed editions): Marcaria was printer for most of the books and may be considered the publisher of some; for others, he was in partnership with Rabbi Joseph Ottolenghi of nearby Cremona. The activities of Marcaria and Ottolenghi were undertaken with the permission of the Prince-Bishop of Trent, Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo and some of the editions apparently enjoyed his patronage. Madruzzo, host of the renewed Council of Trent in the early 1560s, also patronized Marcaria by hiring him to do contract printing for the Council. Although Marcaria was only the printer for some of the works, he was the guiding force behind the press and apparently served as editor for almost all of the books, designing and drafting the title pages and writing prefaces for many of the works. The output of the press was eclectic--ranging from major halakhic texts to controversial philosophical works, and also including popular ethical works, and liturgical and other ritual works. Marcaria’s paratexts--mainly title pages and prefaces--offer us an opportunity to study the ways in which Hebrew books were marketed in the middle of the sixteenth century. Other than a work on the calendar (which may have been authored by Marcaria) and a commentary on the Passover Haggadah by Isaac Abarbanel, the press seems to have specialized in producing first or second editions of older works, written before the era of print. Much attention in the history of the early modern book has focused on the impact of print on the transmission and dissemination of new works/new texts. Here I will focus on Marcaria’s [attempted] mediation of the encounter between old texts and new readers by looking at his very personal addresses aimed at an imagined reader (literally addressed, in most cases, with the title “to the reader”). The prefaces are not long--usually about a paragraph. Here, I present three representative ones--from a halakhic text, a book of "customs," and a philosophical treatise--along with their title pages. I analyze Marcaria’s strategies and place Marcaria’s paratexts in the context of previous work done on the role of paratexts in the history of reading, particularly in early modern Europe.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

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Leon Modena's Ari Nohem Between Print and Manuscript

Yaacob Dweck — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:00:00 PDT

This presentation examines Leon Modena's critique of Kabbalah, a Hebrew treatise composed in Venice in 1639 entitled Ari Nohem (The Roaring Lion). One of the primary causes of Modena's critique was the printing of kabbalistic books such as the Zohar, Ma'arekhet ha-Elohut, and Sefer Yetzirah. In Modena's argument, the printing of kabbalistic books in the sixteenth century had disrupted prior patterns of the transmission of kabbalistic knowledge. In particular, Modena argues that kabbalistic books had begun to be read in new ways by new audiences. Using Modena's analysis as a point of departure this presentation will focus on two questions: First, how did Leon Modena himself read kabbalistic texts? Second, did a new group of readers of kabbalistic texts indeed appear in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

This presentation is for the following text(s):

Ari Nohem (The Roaring Lion) by Leon Modena (1639)

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