- Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Philosophy, Post-DocCharles University, Prague, Prague Centre for Jewish Studies, Department MemberQueen Mary, University of London, History, Alumnusadd
- Jewish History, Medieval Theology, Jewish Mysticism, Thomas Aquinas, Religious Conversion, Jewish Philosophy, and 34 moreKabbalah, History of Religion (Medieval Studies), Rabbinics, Medieval Jewish History, Scholastic Philosophy, Late Medieval Religion, Monasticism and Devotion, Maimonides, Medieval Christianity, Jewish-Christian Polemics, Late Medieval Bohemia and Central Europe, Manuscript Studies, History, Jewish - Christian Relations, Medieval Jewish Philosophy, Ashkenazic Judaism, Prague, Medieval Prague, Religious Disputations, Pablo Christiani, Nicholas Donin, Art History, Cultural History, Medieval History, Social History, European History, Intellectual History, Medieval Crown of Aragon, Profiat Duran, Nahmanides, "Conversos" in Medieval Iberia and Early Modern Spain, Medieval Preaching, Slow Science, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Second Temple Judaismedit
- >>> For PDFs of my publications, see: https://bit.ly/milan-zonca-publications <<< I am a lecturer in Hebrew and Jewi... more>>> For PDFs of my publications, see: https://bit.ly/milan-zonca-publications <<<
I am a lecturer in Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Department for Middle Eastern Studies at Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. I am also the head of the academic board of the Prague Centre for Jewish Studies.
I am interested in various aspects of Jewish and Christian religious cultures in the pre-modern era, the intersecting or clashing ones in particular. I have worked on Jewish-Christian polemics, conversion, the study of non-halakhic disciplines in late medieval Ashkenaz.edit
ISBN 978-80-7007-6804
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Research Interests: Jewish - Christian Relations, Intellectual and cultural history, Jewish Philosophy, Hebrew Manuscripts, Medieval Jewish History, and 7 moreKabbalah, Imagined Community, Late Medieval Bohemia and Central Europe, Medieval Women and Gender, Medieval Prague, Inter-Religious Polemics, and Intellectual Diversity
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https://brill.com/view/journals/zuto/aop/article-10.1163-18750214-bja10023/article-10.1163-18750214-bja10023.xml This article presents an edition of a hitherto unidentified set of commented Hebrew excerpts from Thomas Aquinas’s... more
https://brill.com/view/journals/zuto/aop/article-10.1163-18750214-bja10023/article-10.1163-18750214-bja10023.xml
This article presents an edition of a hitherto unidentified set of commented Hebrew excerpts from Thomas Aquinas’s Sentencia libri De anima. Preserved in the manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Mich. Add. 25, and attributed to an otherwise unknown Jewish scholar named Israel ben Abraham, the excerpts reproduce the Latin text in different degrees of faithfulness to the original. They do not follow the structure of Aquinas’s commentary and seem to have been summarized and rearranged by the translator to reflect his own interests rooted in the study of Jewish philosophical texts, especially the works of Maimonides and Moses Narboni. In the introduction to the edition, I discuss the context of the excerpts as well as the identity of the translator, including the possibility that he was a Christian convert to Judaism.
This article presents an edition of a hitherto unidentified set of commented Hebrew excerpts from Thomas Aquinas’s Sentencia libri De anima. Preserved in the manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Mich. Add. 25, and attributed to an otherwise unknown Jewish scholar named Israel ben Abraham, the excerpts reproduce the Latin text in different degrees of faithfulness to the original. They do not follow the structure of Aquinas’s commentary and seem to have been summarized and rearranged by the translator to reflect his own interests rooted in the study of Jewish philosophical texts, especially the works of Maimonides and Moses Narboni. In the introduction to the edition, I discuss the context of the excerpts as well as the identity of the translator, including the possibility that he was a Christian convert to Judaism.
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This paper presents a commented edition and English translation of a unique document preserved in the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, MS héb. 242 – a letter written by Prague scholar Avigdor Kara (d. 1432). The brief letter... more
This paper presents a commented edition and English translation of a unique document preserved in the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, MS héb. 242 – a letter written by Prague scholar Avigdor Kara (d. 1432). The brief letter (one manuscript folio) represents a poetic request for financial assistance ad- dressed to members of an unspecified community and describes Kara’s living conditions as a teacher of schoolchildren in the wake of an attack on the Jewish community in his place of residence. The article analyses Kara’s literary de- scription of his occupation in the context of his intellectual interests, as attested in other texts. Furthermore, it suggests that the letter was written in the aftermath of the 1389 Easter attack against the Jews in Prague. The presented edition of this document aims to correct the shortcomings of previous published versions and it supplements them by providing an English translation of the letter.
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Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen, a Jewish scholar active in Prague at the turn of the fifteenth century, is best known as a religious polemicist thanks to his widely disseminated Sefer Niẓẓaḥon (The Book of Polemic). In this article, I argue... more
Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen, a Jewish scholar active in Prague at the turn of the fifteenth century, is best known as a religious polemicist thanks to his widely disseminated Sefer Niẓẓaḥon (The Book of Polemic). In this article, I argue that despite the important place assigned to arguments against Christianity in Sefer Niẓẓaḥon, inter-religious polemic constitutes only one facet of a much broader project embodied by the book’s structure and content, a project that fits very well with Lipman’s interest in the integration of philosophical and Kabbalistic knowledge expressed in his other works. Lipman’s primary aim in Sefer Niẓẓaḥon was to popularise among wider strata of Ashkenazic society a rationalistic interpretation of Jewish religion based on the writings of Maimonides. He chose to respond to what he perceived as the short-comings of late-medieval Ashkenazic religiosity, especially its use of anthropomorphic expressions in prayer and literal interpretation of Talmudic haggadah, by fashioning Jewish identity as constructed primarily around belief based on carefully delineated theological principles. To underline such vision of the Jewish community, Lipman in his book invoked different classes of dissenters as rhetorical interlocutors. Through the medium of literary polemic, Lipman attempted to address the cultural challenges of his time by imagining communities of ‘others’ and re-imagining his own community. However, this project was not isolated from its non-Jewish intellectual surroundings. Lipman’s repeated criticism of sceptics (meharherim) reflects his awareness of the dangerous potential of unbridled philosophical speculation that may have resonated with the concerns of his Christian contemporaries expressed in the debates on academic heterodoxy, heresy, and their impact on religious community. Furthermore, Lipman’s attitudes to authorship and literary practice parallel approaches employed by some late-medieval Christian theologians, thus suggesting that he should be seen as a participant in a broader literary culture.
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The article discusses recent historiographical approaches to the question of Jewish conversion to Christianity in Europe in the Middle Ages. It outlines the grand narratives that have dominated the study of Jewish conversion in the 20th... more
The article discusses recent historiographical approaches to the question of Jewish conversion to Christianity in Europe in the Middle Ages. It outlines the grand narratives that have dominated the study of Jewish conversion in the 20th century: the dominance of martyrdom and forced conversions in Ashkenaz, contrasted with the role of rationalism and acculturation at the root of the inclination of Sephardic Jews towards conversion. It presents recent scholarly contributions towards the deconstruction of these narratives and discusses new directions of research into Jewish conversion, interpreting it as a metaphor for various theological concerns in Christian narratives, especially those found in anti-Jewish polemical literature. Finally, using the recent biography of Profayt Duran as a case in point, the article argues for the significance of studying religious conversion/apostasy beyond the confines of social dynamics or interreligious polemics between Jews and Christians. According to this view, the phenomenon of conversion and its representations in literature may also serve as a locus where cultural creativity, religious accommodation, identity formation and the marking of boundaries can all be studied fruitfully in the medieval context.
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The article explores Christian anti-Jewish polemic and violence in fourteenth-century Prague and particularly the events of 1389 through the few surviving sources that carry the memories of what happened in the two communities: a Latin... more
The article explores Christian anti-Jewish polemic and violence in fourteenth-century Prague and particularly the events of 1389 through the few surviving sources that carry the memories of what happened in the two communities: a Latin parodic account, Passio Judaeorum Pragensium, on the one hand, and the Hebrew elegy of the local Jewish scholar Avigdor Kara, All the Afflictions, on the other. By placing the attack in the context of Easter celebrations, Milan Žonca shows how liturgies produced a particular imagination of the Other. He examines how this imagination resonated with contemporary religious debates, especially those surrounding the Eucharist and frequent communion, and shaped Christian memories of the attack and its interpretations.
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In this paper, I examine the changing role of apostates in medieval Jewish-Christian polemic. Using three case studies, I suggest that Jewish converts to Christianity were not merely instruments in the hands of Christian theologians.... more
In this paper, I examine the changing role of apostates in medieval Jewish-Christian polemic. Using three case studies, I suggest that Jewish converts to Christianity were not merely instruments in the hands of Christian theologians. Rather, they were self-conscious participants in the debate with their own aims and purposes. Far from disowning their Jewish past, they used it in order to mould the debate and influence Christian perceptions of post-biblical Judaism. Analysing their argumentation, it is thus possible to identify traces of conflict and dissonance within Jewish communities.
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The aim of the workshop is to examine the attempts of Jewish scholars to delineate the role of philosophical inquiry in medieval Jewish religious practice, and the ways in which philosophical motifs and vocabulary were appropriated and... more
The aim of the workshop is to examine the attempts of Jewish scholars to delineate the role of philosophical inquiry in medieval Jewish religious practice, and the ways in which philosophical motifs and vocabulary were appropriated and employed by Jews to construct and represent both Jewish and non-Jewish religious identity. The inquiry will focus on the Jewish reception of ancient, Islamic and scholastic epistemological and psychological theories, and on their significance for the description and interpretation of the specific internal and psychological dynamics of the religious life, and on the relationship between rational knowledge and other modes of cognition. Among the areas and questions explored will be: What was the role in medieval Judaism of the definition of internal, spiritual life as a philosophically informed aspiration? To what extent did philosophical theories offer medieval Jews tools for a better understanding of traditional religious concept and practices, especially those associated with the qualities and structure of human soul and with the human capacity to enter in contact with God (e.g. through dream, prophecy, prayer)? When describing the dynamics of spiritual life, how did philosophical terminology intersect with the language of Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah? How could philosophy and philosophical concepts be used in explaining or justifying religious conversion? How did the reception of philosophical theories inform the relationship of medieval Judaism to different religious traditions? How did the interplay between philosophical ideas and ethical and psychological religious discourses contribute to the popularisation of philosophical theories and texts among broader strata of Jewish society? We welcome contributions covering and comparing different geographical areas inhabited by the Jews (Ashkenaz, Sefarad, the Land of Israel, etc.) throughout the High and Late Middle Ages, including work in progress and PhD projects. The participants will include: Ofer Elior (Jerusalem), Michael Engel (Hamburg), Yehuda Halper (Bar Ilan), Yossef Schwartz (Tel Aviv), Shalom Sadik (Beer Sheva), Tamás Visi (Olomouc) Please send your paper proposals by 3 March 2017 to Milan Žonca, mzonca@flu.cas.cz.
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The late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries were a tumultuous time for the Jewish community of Prague. Throughout this period, the Jews retained a marginal, yet highly visible presence in the urban landscape of the imperial capital,... more
The late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries were a tumultuous time for the Jewish community of Prague. Throughout this period, the Jews retained a marginal, yet highly visible presence in the urban landscape of the imperial capital, and one loaded with meaning. While set apart by virtue of being servants of the royal chamber, the Jews interacted with the inhabitants of the town in various ways: socially, economically, as well as intellectually. In this paper, I explore how Jewish and Christian inhabitants perceived and conceptualized Jewish presence in the city of Prague. Examining the sources connected with the infamous 1389 attack on the Jewish community and a later polemical work Sefer nizahon by Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen, who was active in Prague, I explore the ways in which for Christians the Jews disturbed their conceptualizations of urban space and community, as well as Jewish reactions to this trend. I suggest that the Jews were aware of contemporary Christian religious discourse and used this knowledge in polemical encounters to fashion themselves as full-fledged members of the urban community and to claim a place in its urban landscape.
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Rabbi Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen (fl. around 1400) was one of the most versatile Jewish scholars in late-medieval Ashkenaz. In his works, he demonstrated interest in natural science, philosophy, and Kabbalah, combining these metahalakhic... more
Rabbi Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen (fl. around 1400) was one of the most versatile Jewish scholars in late-medieval Ashkenaz. In his works, he demonstrated interest in natural science, philosophy, and Kabbalah, combining these metahalakhic pursuits in a remarkable synthesis. However, his most influential text was the compendium of apologetic Sefer niẓaḥon, which enjoyed wide popularity and is preserved in numerous manuscripts.
In the preface, Lipman claimed that the purpose of his book was to defend Jewish faith against the attacks of its enemies. In my paper, I analyse rhetorical strategies used by Lipman to categorise and describe these enemies. The constructed nature of these categories suggest, I believe, that Lipman’s Sefer niẓaḥon participated in a wider project of re-imagining of the Jewish community and I examine how this project is embedded in the literary structure of the book. I argue that through the rhetoric of difference employed in Sefer niẓaḥon, Lipman attempted to re-negotiate communal boundaries at the time of significant crisis and disruption. I also analyse the extent to which contemporary Christian preoccupations with heresy and Christian identity could have stimulated Lipman’s vision of an ideal Jewish community.
Furthermore, I attempt to place Lipman’s Sefer niẓaḥon in the context of contemporary book culture, with its transformations of notions of the role of the intellectual in the public sphere. I suggest that Lipman’s attitudes towards literary authorship, as well as his preoccupation with the reception of his texts and their use, show remarkable affinities with the concerns of his Christian colleagues.
In the preface, Lipman claimed that the purpose of his book was to defend Jewish faith against the attacks of its enemies. In my paper, I analyse rhetorical strategies used by Lipman to categorise and describe these enemies. The constructed nature of these categories suggest, I believe, that Lipman’s Sefer niẓaḥon participated in a wider project of re-imagining of the Jewish community and I examine how this project is embedded in the literary structure of the book. I argue that through the rhetoric of difference employed in Sefer niẓaḥon, Lipman attempted to re-negotiate communal boundaries at the time of significant crisis and disruption. I also analyse the extent to which contemporary Christian preoccupations with heresy and Christian identity could have stimulated Lipman’s vision of an ideal Jewish community.
Furthermore, I attempt to place Lipman’s Sefer niẓaḥon in the context of contemporary book culture, with its transformations of notions of the role of the intellectual in the public sphere. I suggest that Lipman’s attitudes towards literary authorship, as well as his preoccupation with the reception of his texts and their use, show remarkable affinities with the concerns of his Christian colleagues.
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Joint lecture at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague.
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"From earliest times, mysticism was an important element of Jewish spiritual landscape in Eastern Europe. However, from the fourteenth century onwards, philosophy also slowly gained ground in Ashkenaz. In my paper I examine Jewish... more
"From earliest times, mysticism was an important element of Jewish spiritual landscape in Eastern Europe. However, from the fourteenth century onwards, philosophy also slowly gained ground in Ashkenaz. In my paper I examine Jewish perceptions of dissonance between philosophical and Kabbalistic ideas. I focus on testimonies of three Ashkenazic rabbinic authorities who were active at the beginning of the fifteenth century in Prague and who are known to have studied and propagated philosophy: Avigdor Kara, Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen and Menahem Shalem.
I discuss in detail a hitherto unpublished letter concerning the Maimonidean explanation of sacrifices addressed by Menahem Shalem to one of his colleagues or students. The letter vividly documents the confusion caused by contradictions between philosophical ideas and kabbalistic doctrines among Ashkenazic students interested in esoteric lore. It also illustrates how Shalem conceptualised superiority of philosophical knowledge over Kabbalistic tradition. In his critique of certain Kabbalistic ideas, Shalem goes as far as to draw an analogy between contemporary Kabbalists and ancient Sabians, the paradigmatic idol worshippers. In contrast to Shalem’s partisan position, Avigdor Kara and Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen presented a more sympathetic view to Kabbalah and attempted to harmonise philosophical and mystical ideas.
I argue that the strategies employed by these scholars to confront dissonance and contradiction within the Jewish tradition offer valuable insights into late medieval models and practices of advanced Jewish education, theories of hierarchy of knowledge, and perceptions of Jewish intellectual diversity. As such, they shed more light on theoretical structures undergirding the spiritual life of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe."
I discuss in detail a hitherto unpublished letter concerning the Maimonidean explanation of sacrifices addressed by Menahem Shalem to one of his colleagues or students. The letter vividly documents the confusion caused by contradictions between philosophical ideas and kabbalistic doctrines among Ashkenazic students interested in esoteric lore. It also illustrates how Shalem conceptualised superiority of philosophical knowledge over Kabbalistic tradition. In his critique of certain Kabbalistic ideas, Shalem goes as far as to draw an analogy between contemporary Kabbalists and ancient Sabians, the paradigmatic idol worshippers. In contrast to Shalem’s partisan position, Avigdor Kara and Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen presented a more sympathetic view to Kabbalah and attempted to harmonise philosophical and mystical ideas.
I argue that the strategies employed by these scholars to confront dissonance and contradiction within the Jewish tradition offer valuable insights into late medieval models and practices of advanced Jewish education, theories of hierarchy of knowledge, and perceptions of Jewish intellectual diversity. As such, they shed more light on theoretical structures undergirding the spiritual life of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe."