Premodern Jewish Books, their Makers and Readers in an Era of Media Change, 2024
A set of two contrasting case studies which illustrate the consequences of an incomplete acceptan... more A set of two contrasting case studies which illustrate the consequences of an incomplete acceptance of the new reading practices among Jewish readers – practices for which the printed book was the optimal medium. As a result, the relationship between the printed and manuscript media in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Jewish culture was multidirectional. In Jewish culture, the production of manuscripts complemented the print medium and compensated for the disadvantages of the new technologyfor a small community of readers.
Della Roca de Candal - Grafton - Sachet, eds.: Printing and Misprinting: A Companion to Mistakes and In-House Corrections in Renaissance Europe (1450-1650), Oxford: OUP, pp. 259-275, 2023
The Well of Confusion: On the Titles of the Maharal´s Books, 2023
R. Judah Leva ben Betzalel (the Maharal, c. 1525-1609), authored more than ten works, publishing ... more R. Judah Leva ben Betzalel (the Maharal, c. 1525-1609), authored more than ten works, publishing most of them during his lifetime. Although the Maharal's works were, since the mid-20th century, the subject of academic research, the title of the Maharal's work הגולה באר ספר (Prague 1598) is still erroneously read as Beʾer ha-golah and understood as The Well of Exile. This article places the existing debate about this title into the context of the Maharal's other books, resumes arguments formulated in existing scholarship and suggests yet another solution to the problem based on a detailed analysis of the Maharal's own introduction, and on the typography of the editio princeps. We propose reading the title as Beʾer ha-goleh; while its meaning is probably intentionally ambivalent, this points both to the idea of a 'well, which is being uncovered' and hints at its author's deep feeling on the condition of Exile.
"David Gans´s Magen David: Text and Context", Aleph 22.1-2, pp. 235-276 , 2022
A new edition of the Magen David based on the Bodleian Library unicum, accompanied by an introduc... more A new edition of the Magen David based on the Bodleian Library unicum, accompanied by an introductory paper.
Joachim Bahlcke - Jiří Just - Martin Rothkegel (eds.): Konfessionelle Geschichtsschreibung im Umfeld der Böhmischen Brüder (1500–1800), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz., 2022
Published in 1592 – or in the year 5352 of the Hebrew Calendar (Anno Mundi) – the Hebrew world ch... more Published in 1592 – or in the year 5352 of the Hebrew Calendar (Anno Mundi) – the Hebrew world chronicle written by David Gans (1541–1613) under the title Tzemach David (“Offspring of David”) is the only attempt to create a comprehensive account of history in the Early Modern period in the realm of East-Central European Judaism. Its author, David Gans, was born in Lippstadt in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia, and settled in Prague in 1564. He received a comprehensive rabbinic education and, in addition, continued on to engage in mathematical, astronomical and geographical studies. Tzemach David is divided into two parts. The first is devoted to Jewish history, including Biblical history; the second part is dedicated to Gentile, or non-Jewish, history. The sources for the first part include the Bible, traditional rabbinic literature and Jewish chronicles from the medieval and Early Modern periods. In the second part, Gans utilised a large number of German-language non-Jewish resources, including primarily historiographical works by Protestant authors. This was considered quite unique for the field of contemporary Ashkenazi Judaism, where any pursuit of non-Jewish texts was seriously frowned upon. Equally extraordinary within the Jewish context of the time was the openness with which Gans assimilated information about the history of the Christian religion in his work. Gans structured his annal-based representation clearly by using graphic means and invested considerable care in chronological questions. To create a periodization outline, he utilised a structure based on six millennia, following a salvation history pattern from the Talmudic tradition. Contemporary Christian authors, including Philipp Melanchthon and his students, in particular, had also taken up this tradition under the title “traditio domus Eliae”. In the second part of the chronicle, Gans synchronised dates from non-Jewish history with those from the Biblical and rabbinic traditions. To this end, besides structuring his account according to the six millennia, he drew upon yet another periodization of world history also commonly used by Christian historians, by means of the sequence of the four kingdoms of Daniel (Daniel 7: 2–7). In the second part of the chronicle, the one devoted to Gentile history, Gans employed not only the Anno Mundi calculus of the Jewish calendar, but additionally indicated the years according to the Christian Era. Gans’ intention was to make a fundamental knowledge of non-Jewish history accessible to Jewish readers who lived as a minority community in a predominantly Christian environment. At the same time, both of the periodization patterns that Gans applied refer to the expectation of a forthcoming Messianic salvation.
"Printing of Learned Literature in Hebrew, 1510-1630: Toward a New Understanding of Early Modern Jewish Practices of Reading", in: Elizabeth Dillenburg - Howard Louthan - Drew B. Thomas (eds.), Print Culture at the Crossroads: The Book and Central Europe, Leiden - Boston: Brill, pp. 387-410 , 2021
Francesca Bregoli - David B. Ruderman (eds.), Connecting Histories: Jews and Their Others in Early Modern Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 49-66, 2019
This case study is based mainly on the rich paratexts of the early printed editions of R. Mordeca... more This case study is based mainly on the rich paratexts of the early printed editions of R. Mordecai Jaffe (c. 1535-1612). It analyzes the attitudes of a first-rank East-Central European rabbinic scholar to authorship and production of printed books.
Moses ben Aaron Morawczyk was a Jewish educator, active in the first half of the seventeenth cent... more Moses ben Aaron Morawczyk was a Jewish educator, active in the first half of the seventeenth century. This study collects the available information about his life, from the Moravian town of Bzenec (Bisenz) to Lublin. His short treatise Ketzad seder mishnah (Lublin 1634/1635) represents the unique educational treatise in Hebrew from the period. Morawczyk cited Judah Leva ben Bezalel, ‘the Maharal’, and Salomon Ephraim Luntschitz, and was influenced by their own criticism of Jewish education. The analysis of the text enables to identify the parts which Morawczyk borrowed from other works. Morawczyk systematically described the problems of Jewish education and formulated a proposal for an educational reform. Two little booklets about the special fasts and liturgy for the leap years, edited by Morawczyk, document the actual hatching out of a religious confraternity, and implementation of a religious practice in a specific time and locale.
Pavel Sladek, "Admiration and Fear: New perspectives on the Personality of the Maharal", Judaica ... more Pavel Sladek, "Admiration and Fear: New perspectives on the Personality of the Maharal", Judaica Bohemiae 52 (2017), no. 2, pp. 5- 31. Rabbi Judah Leva ben Betzalel – the Maharal (ca. 1525–1609) is regarded as one of the key figures of the sixteenth-century rabbinic culture. Yet, given the fragmentary nature of the existing sources, his biography and intellectual profile manifest several unfortunate lacunae. Based on unknown or neglected manuscript and printed sources, this study formulates tentative hypotheses about some of the gaps in our understanding of the Maharal’s attitudes and the reception of his person by his contemporaries. It shows that the Maharal felt very close to his brother Hayyim and suggests that he spent his formative years in the Lublin yeshivah of rabbi Shalom Shakhnah. The renown and respect that the Maharal enjoyed from contemporary scholars does not seem to be the result of the reception of his voluminous writings but rather of his radical views of rabbinic authority and the ruthlessness with which he was ready to carry his ideas through.Aban that the Maharal intended to impose on the rabbinic ordination of candidates of Moravian origin indicates that his move to Prague was perhaps involuntary and explains the reluctance of the lay leaders to elect him as a communal rabbi. Other sources discussed for the first time with regard to the Maharal document that he was both respected and feared even outside the region, for example in Italy. The Hebrew originals of the most important unpublished sources discussed in this study are appended.
The paper is part of the Themenband on Johann Jacob Schudt, edited by Christoph Cluse and Rebekka... more The paper is part of the Themenband on Johann Jacob Schudt, edited by Christoph Cluse and Rebekka Voß (Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 40/2015). It deals with a Czech manuscript on Jewish mores, authored by Karel Jugl, a Catholic priest in 1740s. Besides analyzing the manuscript, it attempts at describing the inner dynamics of the so-called Early Modern polemical ethnographies of Jews and the mechanisms responsible for their popularity.
Hebrew Printing in Bohemia and Moravia (ed. Olga Sixtova), 2012
The study analyzes the early Hebrew print as a technology and a cultural phenomenon, the impact o... more The study analyzes the early Hebrew print as a technology and a cultural phenomenon, the impact of printed book on Jewish literacy, education, tranformations of reading public. Emphasis is put on the paratexts - title pages, colophones etc, revealing exciting details about the production and transfer of texts in 15th-16th Centuries.
CERMAN Ivo, KRUEGER Rita, REYNOLDS Susan. The Enlightenment in Bohemia: Religion, Morality, and Multiculturalism. 1. vyd. Oxford: Oxford University Press – The Voltaire Foundation, 2011, ISBN 978-0-7294-1014-4, s. 233–251., 2011
Ezekiel Landau (1713-1793) was a Prague rabbi of Eastern-European origin. His responsa and occasi... more Ezekiel Landau (1713-1793) was a Prague rabbi of Eastern-European origin. His responsa and occasional remarks in his other works convey an interesting and symptomatic case of a discrepancy between the ideals of a religious leader and the everyday reality of his community. The article argues that Landau was not a stern defender of "traditionalism", as he is often depicted anachronically by those who want to make Landau a forerunner of Modern (Ultra-)Orthodoxy but rather a reasonable conservative open to necessary compromises.
The paper analyzes the fundamental problems that authors, editors and publishers face when transl... more The paper analyzes the fundamental problems that authors, editors and publishers face when transliterating or trabscribing a Hebrew text. We suggest several norms of transliteration and transciption for different purposes and different types of texts (philological, homiletic, academic, and popularizing). The norms are aimed primarily for a Czech user.
Hradilová, Marta - Jelínková, Andrea - Veselá, Lenka (eds.), Paralelní existence: Rukopisy a tisky v českých zemích raného novověku, Praha: Academia, 105-136.., 2020
Několik poznámek o tom, že není jedno, kdo Wagnera hraje a a jak posluchači vnímají mimohudební o... more Několik poznámek o tom, že není jedno, kdo Wagnera hraje a a jak posluchači vnímají mimohudební obsahy jeho děl.
Premodern Jewish Books, their Makers and Readers in an Era of Media Change, 2024
A set of two contrasting case studies which illustrate the consequences of an incomplete acceptan... more A set of two contrasting case studies which illustrate the consequences of an incomplete acceptance of the new reading practices among Jewish readers – practices for which the printed book was the optimal medium. As a result, the relationship between the printed and manuscript media in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Jewish culture was multidirectional. In Jewish culture, the production of manuscripts complemented the print medium and compensated for the disadvantages of the new technologyfor a small community of readers.
Della Roca de Candal - Grafton - Sachet, eds.: Printing and Misprinting: A Companion to Mistakes and In-House Corrections in Renaissance Europe (1450-1650), Oxford: OUP, pp. 259-275, 2023
The Well of Confusion: On the Titles of the Maharal´s Books, 2023
R. Judah Leva ben Betzalel (the Maharal, c. 1525-1609), authored more than ten works, publishing ... more R. Judah Leva ben Betzalel (the Maharal, c. 1525-1609), authored more than ten works, publishing most of them during his lifetime. Although the Maharal's works were, since the mid-20th century, the subject of academic research, the title of the Maharal's work הגולה באר ספר (Prague 1598) is still erroneously read as Beʾer ha-golah and understood as The Well of Exile. This article places the existing debate about this title into the context of the Maharal's other books, resumes arguments formulated in existing scholarship and suggests yet another solution to the problem based on a detailed analysis of the Maharal's own introduction, and on the typography of the editio princeps. We propose reading the title as Beʾer ha-goleh; while its meaning is probably intentionally ambivalent, this points both to the idea of a 'well, which is being uncovered' and hints at its author's deep feeling on the condition of Exile.
"David Gans´s Magen David: Text and Context", Aleph 22.1-2, pp. 235-276 , 2022
A new edition of the Magen David based on the Bodleian Library unicum, accompanied by an introduc... more A new edition of the Magen David based on the Bodleian Library unicum, accompanied by an introductory paper.
Joachim Bahlcke - Jiří Just - Martin Rothkegel (eds.): Konfessionelle Geschichtsschreibung im Umfeld der Böhmischen Brüder (1500–1800), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz., 2022
Published in 1592 – or in the year 5352 of the Hebrew Calendar (Anno Mundi) – the Hebrew world ch... more Published in 1592 – or in the year 5352 of the Hebrew Calendar (Anno Mundi) – the Hebrew world chronicle written by David Gans (1541–1613) under the title Tzemach David (“Offspring of David”) is the only attempt to create a comprehensive account of history in the Early Modern period in the realm of East-Central European Judaism. Its author, David Gans, was born in Lippstadt in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia, and settled in Prague in 1564. He received a comprehensive rabbinic education and, in addition, continued on to engage in mathematical, astronomical and geographical studies. Tzemach David is divided into two parts. The first is devoted to Jewish history, including Biblical history; the second part is dedicated to Gentile, or non-Jewish, history. The sources for the first part include the Bible, traditional rabbinic literature and Jewish chronicles from the medieval and Early Modern periods. In the second part, Gans utilised a large number of German-language non-Jewish resources, including primarily historiographical works by Protestant authors. This was considered quite unique for the field of contemporary Ashkenazi Judaism, where any pursuit of non-Jewish texts was seriously frowned upon. Equally extraordinary within the Jewish context of the time was the openness with which Gans assimilated information about the history of the Christian religion in his work. Gans structured his annal-based representation clearly by using graphic means and invested considerable care in chronological questions. To create a periodization outline, he utilised a structure based on six millennia, following a salvation history pattern from the Talmudic tradition. Contemporary Christian authors, including Philipp Melanchthon and his students, in particular, had also taken up this tradition under the title “traditio domus Eliae”. In the second part of the chronicle, Gans synchronised dates from non-Jewish history with those from the Biblical and rabbinic traditions. To this end, besides structuring his account according to the six millennia, he drew upon yet another periodization of world history also commonly used by Christian historians, by means of the sequence of the four kingdoms of Daniel (Daniel 7: 2–7). In the second part of the chronicle, the one devoted to Gentile history, Gans employed not only the Anno Mundi calculus of the Jewish calendar, but additionally indicated the years according to the Christian Era. Gans’ intention was to make a fundamental knowledge of non-Jewish history accessible to Jewish readers who lived as a minority community in a predominantly Christian environment. At the same time, both of the periodization patterns that Gans applied refer to the expectation of a forthcoming Messianic salvation.
"Printing of Learned Literature in Hebrew, 1510-1630: Toward a New Understanding of Early Modern Jewish Practices of Reading", in: Elizabeth Dillenburg - Howard Louthan - Drew B. Thomas (eds.), Print Culture at the Crossroads: The Book and Central Europe, Leiden - Boston: Brill, pp. 387-410 , 2021
Francesca Bregoli - David B. Ruderman (eds.), Connecting Histories: Jews and Their Others in Early Modern Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 49-66, 2019
This case study is based mainly on the rich paratexts of the early printed editions of R. Mordeca... more This case study is based mainly on the rich paratexts of the early printed editions of R. Mordecai Jaffe (c. 1535-1612). It analyzes the attitudes of a first-rank East-Central European rabbinic scholar to authorship and production of printed books.
Moses ben Aaron Morawczyk was a Jewish educator, active in the first half of the seventeenth cent... more Moses ben Aaron Morawczyk was a Jewish educator, active in the first half of the seventeenth century. This study collects the available information about his life, from the Moravian town of Bzenec (Bisenz) to Lublin. His short treatise Ketzad seder mishnah (Lublin 1634/1635) represents the unique educational treatise in Hebrew from the period. Morawczyk cited Judah Leva ben Bezalel, ‘the Maharal’, and Salomon Ephraim Luntschitz, and was influenced by their own criticism of Jewish education. The analysis of the text enables to identify the parts which Morawczyk borrowed from other works. Morawczyk systematically described the problems of Jewish education and formulated a proposal for an educational reform. Two little booklets about the special fasts and liturgy for the leap years, edited by Morawczyk, document the actual hatching out of a religious confraternity, and implementation of a religious practice in a specific time and locale.
Pavel Sladek, "Admiration and Fear: New perspectives on the Personality of the Maharal", Judaica ... more Pavel Sladek, "Admiration and Fear: New perspectives on the Personality of the Maharal", Judaica Bohemiae 52 (2017), no. 2, pp. 5- 31. Rabbi Judah Leva ben Betzalel – the Maharal (ca. 1525–1609) is regarded as one of the key figures of the sixteenth-century rabbinic culture. Yet, given the fragmentary nature of the existing sources, his biography and intellectual profile manifest several unfortunate lacunae. Based on unknown or neglected manuscript and printed sources, this study formulates tentative hypotheses about some of the gaps in our understanding of the Maharal’s attitudes and the reception of his person by his contemporaries. It shows that the Maharal felt very close to his brother Hayyim and suggests that he spent his formative years in the Lublin yeshivah of rabbi Shalom Shakhnah. The renown and respect that the Maharal enjoyed from contemporary scholars does not seem to be the result of the reception of his voluminous writings but rather of his radical views of rabbinic authority and the ruthlessness with which he was ready to carry his ideas through.Aban that the Maharal intended to impose on the rabbinic ordination of candidates of Moravian origin indicates that his move to Prague was perhaps involuntary and explains the reluctance of the lay leaders to elect him as a communal rabbi. Other sources discussed for the first time with regard to the Maharal document that he was both respected and feared even outside the region, for example in Italy. The Hebrew originals of the most important unpublished sources discussed in this study are appended.
The paper is part of the Themenband on Johann Jacob Schudt, edited by Christoph Cluse and Rebekka... more The paper is part of the Themenband on Johann Jacob Schudt, edited by Christoph Cluse and Rebekka Voß (Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 40/2015). It deals with a Czech manuscript on Jewish mores, authored by Karel Jugl, a Catholic priest in 1740s. Besides analyzing the manuscript, it attempts at describing the inner dynamics of the so-called Early Modern polemical ethnographies of Jews and the mechanisms responsible for their popularity.
Hebrew Printing in Bohemia and Moravia (ed. Olga Sixtova), 2012
The study analyzes the early Hebrew print as a technology and a cultural phenomenon, the impact o... more The study analyzes the early Hebrew print as a technology and a cultural phenomenon, the impact of printed book on Jewish literacy, education, tranformations of reading public. Emphasis is put on the paratexts - title pages, colophones etc, revealing exciting details about the production and transfer of texts in 15th-16th Centuries.
CERMAN Ivo, KRUEGER Rita, REYNOLDS Susan. The Enlightenment in Bohemia: Religion, Morality, and Multiculturalism. 1. vyd. Oxford: Oxford University Press – The Voltaire Foundation, 2011, ISBN 978-0-7294-1014-4, s. 233–251., 2011
Ezekiel Landau (1713-1793) was a Prague rabbi of Eastern-European origin. His responsa and occasi... more Ezekiel Landau (1713-1793) was a Prague rabbi of Eastern-European origin. His responsa and occasional remarks in his other works convey an interesting and symptomatic case of a discrepancy between the ideals of a religious leader and the everyday reality of his community. The article argues that Landau was not a stern defender of "traditionalism", as he is often depicted anachronically by those who want to make Landau a forerunner of Modern (Ultra-)Orthodoxy but rather a reasonable conservative open to necessary compromises.
The paper analyzes the fundamental problems that authors, editors and publishers face when transl... more The paper analyzes the fundamental problems that authors, editors and publishers face when transliterating or trabscribing a Hebrew text. We suggest several norms of transliteration and transciption for different purposes and different types of texts (philological, homiletic, academic, and popularizing). The norms are aimed primarily for a Czech user.
Hradilová, Marta - Jelínková, Andrea - Veselá, Lenka (eds.), Paralelní existence: Rukopisy a tisky v českých zemích raného novověku, Praha: Academia, 105-136.., 2020
Několik poznámek o tom, že není jedno, kdo Wagnera hraje a a jak posluchači vnímají mimohudební o... more Několik poznámek o tom, že není jedno, kdo Wagnera hraje a a jak posluchači vnímají mimohudební obsahy jeho děl.
This book seeks to provide the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary guide into the complex r... more This book seeks to provide the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary guide into the complex relationship between textual production in print, technical and human faults and more or less successful attempts at emendation in the print shop. The 24 carefully selected contributors present new evidence on what we can learn from misprints in relation to publishers' practices, printing and pre-publication procedures, and editorial strategies between 1450 and 1650. They focus on texts, images and the layout of incunabula, sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century books issued throughout Europe, stretching from the output of humanist printers to wide-ranging vernacular publications.
Pinkasim a správa židovských obcí v českých zemích raného novověku: Struktura a funkce, 2023
Contains introductory studies in Czech and the edition of pinkesei kehillah from six different ru... more Contains introductory studies in Czech and the edition of pinkesei kehillah from six different rural Jewish communities in the Bohemian Lands. The edition of the Hebrew/Yiddish/German takkanot is complemented with Czech translations.
Sixtová, Olga - Sládek, Pavel, A Reader of Early Modern Ashkenazic Palaeography, Prague., 2020
The e-publication, which originated in the frame of the Seminar of Hebrew palaeography of Early M... more The e-publication, which originated in the frame of the Seminar of Hebrew palaeography of Early Modern Ashkenaz between 2014 and 2019, traces the development of Ashkenazic Hebrew script between the 14th and the 19th centuries. Through its 59 samples those interested in Hebrew manuscripts can become acquainted with various types of Hebrew handwriting. The reading of the reproduced manuscript samples is made easier by the means of transcriptions, explanatory notes and commentaries (on the features of a particular script and its peculiarities, on the content and the context of the samples). The edited texts are provided with Czech translations. Individual samples were selected not only in view of their representative palaeographic nature, but also with respect to their content. We chose texts that reflect everyday reality such as occasional notes, scribes’ colophons, egodocuments (private letters, memorial texts such as family scrolls etc.) or documents of the internal government of Jewish communities. This provides the reader not only with a tool enabling him to read Hebrew manuscripts, but also with a collection of sources that offer an immediate glimpse into the life of (especially) Czech Jews in the premodern era.
The e-pub contains high-resolution pictures (Part 1) and Hebrew transcription and Czech translations (Part 2). The publication has an English table of contents and Introduction.
Excerpts of "Aby vyprávěli svým dětem," Pavel Sládek's Czech translation of my book "To Tell Thei... more Excerpts of "Aby vyprávěli svým dětem," Pavel Sládek's Czech translation of my book "To Tell Their Children: Jewish Communal Memory in Early Modern Prague," published in the Czech Republic's leading national daily.
Americké historičce Rachel L. Greenblattové se podařilo na základě mnohaletého studia vytvořit pozoruhodný „portrét“ každodenního života židovské společnosti v Praze v průběhu 16. a 17. století. Tématem jejího zkoumání jsou způsoby, jimiž se obyvatelé židovské čtvrti snažili uchovat vzpomínky, paměť společnosti pro další generace v kronikách, náhrobních nápisech nebo textech vzpomínkových liturgií. Její kniha není jen důkladně zpracovaným výsledkem skvělé badatelské práce, nese v sobě navíc silné kouzlo poezie původních hebrejských a jidiš pramenů. Výsledkem je tak působivá „báseň“, přivádějící do naší současnosti několik generací lidí, které nejen svými životy, ale také vzpomínkami na ně vytvářely jedinečný genius loci židovské Prahy.
A Czech translation of:
Rachel L. Greenblatt, "To Tell Their Children": Jewish Communal Memory in... more A Czech translation of: Rachel L. Greenblatt, "To Tell Their Children": Jewish Communal Memory in Early Modern Prague. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014. (Published by Academia Praha, 2016, transl. Pavel Sládek)
Community and Exclusion. Collective Violence in the Multiethnic (East) Central European Societies... more Community and Exclusion. Collective Violence in the Multiethnic (East) Central European Societies before and after the Holocaust (1848-1948)
Physical violence has become a key topic of the historiography of the multiethnic societies in (East) Central Europe in the transition from the imperial to the nation-state order since at least the past two decades. Scholars have pointed out that violence is an inherent part of the conflict in interethnic and interreligious relationships, although violence was not always first marked by ethnic conflicts, but rather social ones, as the example of the food riots in Cisleithania during World War I has shown. To understand the historic region of (East) Central Europe and its cultural, social, and economic plurality it is therefore necessary to apply various concepts of violence, developed partially for Western and Eastern European societies. Researchers on anti-Jewish violence in l9th and early 20th century Germany have suggested the concept of “exclusionary violence” to analyze anti-Jewish riots, which differed from the pogroms in Russia in the absence of the intention to kill the victims. According to Werner Bergmann, Christhard Hoffmann, and Helmut Walser Smith, all forms of “exclusionary violence” share a common notion of the minority group(s) as a collective threat, the asymmetry of power between the rioters and the victims, the rioters’ low level of organization, and the relative absence of state power in times of crisis. In this definition, the pogroms are a specific, but not the only, form of exclusionary ethnic violence that enables one to identify the often fluid boundaries between ethnic riots and pogroms in (East) Central Europe.
Despite these achievements of the historiography on collective violence in modern (East) Central Europe, it seems that different research milieus still remain separate from one another. For this reason, the annual conference of the Centre for Jewish studies in Prague in cooperation with the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences aims to bring together scholars working on collective violence in (East) Central Europe, including anti-Jewish violence, and violence against Roma and other minorities. What do the various forms of exclusionary violence in (East) Central Europe in the period between empire and nation-states, and in the aftermath of the Holocaust when the nation states were reconstructed, have in common? Which discourses, patterns, and rituals did they follow? How did exclusionary violence transform these communities, and how was this violence narrated and remembered afterwards? When looking at various forms of collective violence it becomes clear that non-genocidal violence – in contrast to the Holocaust – did not mean the end of culturally mixed neighborhoods, but played a major role in the (re)construction of communities, and fundamentally transformed the multiethnic societies from a long-term perspective.
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education. The analysis of the text enables to identify the parts which Morawczyk borrowed from other works. Morawczyk systematically described the problems of Jewish education and formulated a proposal for an educational reform. Two little booklets about the special fasts and liturgy for the leap years, edited by Morawczyk, document the actual hatching out of a religious confraternity, and implementation of a religious practice in a specific time and locale.
31.
Rabbi Judah Leva ben Betzalel – the Maharal (ca. 1525–1609) is regarded as one of the key figures of the sixteenth-century rabbinic culture. Yet, given the fragmentary nature of the existing sources, his biography and intellectual profile manifest several unfortunate lacunae. Based on unknown or neglected manuscript and printed sources, this study formulates tentative hypotheses about some of the gaps in our understanding of the Maharal’s attitudes and the reception of his person by his contemporaries. It shows that the Maharal felt very close to his brother Hayyim and suggests that he spent his formative years in the
Lublin yeshivah of rabbi Shalom Shakhnah. The renown and respect that the Maharal enjoyed from contemporary scholars does not seem to be the result of the reception of his voluminous writings but rather of his radical views of rabbinic authority and the ruthlessness with which he was ready to carry his ideas through.Aban that the Maharal intended to impose on the rabbinic ordination of candidates of Moravian origin indicates that his move to Prague was perhaps involuntary and explains the reluctance of the lay leaders to elect him as a communal rabbi. Other sources discussed for the first time with regard to the Maharal document that he was both respected and feared even outside the region, for example in Italy. The Hebrew originals of the most important unpublished sources discussed in this study are appended.
education. The analysis of the text enables to identify the parts which Morawczyk borrowed from other works. Morawczyk systematically described the problems of Jewish education and formulated a proposal for an educational reform. Two little booklets about the special fasts and liturgy for the leap years, edited by Morawczyk, document the actual hatching out of a religious confraternity, and implementation of a religious practice in a specific time and locale.
31.
Rabbi Judah Leva ben Betzalel – the Maharal (ca. 1525–1609) is regarded as one of the key figures of the sixteenth-century rabbinic culture. Yet, given the fragmentary nature of the existing sources, his biography and intellectual profile manifest several unfortunate lacunae. Based on unknown or neglected manuscript and printed sources, this study formulates tentative hypotheses about some of the gaps in our understanding of the Maharal’s attitudes and the reception of his person by his contemporaries. It shows that the Maharal felt very close to his brother Hayyim and suggests that he spent his formative years in the
Lublin yeshivah of rabbi Shalom Shakhnah. The renown and respect that the Maharal enjoyed from contemporary scholars does not seem to be the result of the reception of his voluminous writings but rather of his radical views of rabbinic authority and the ruthlessness with which he was ready to carry his ideas through.Aban that the Maharal intended to impose on the rabbinic ordination of candidates of Moravian origin indicates that his move to Prague was perhaps involuntary and explains the reluctance of the lay leaders to elect him as a communal rabbi. Other sources discussed for the first time with regard to the Maharal document that he was both respected and feared even outside the region, for example in Italy. The Hebrew originals of the most important unpublished sources discussed in this study are appended.
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https://e-shop.ff.cuni.cz/ffuk/eoc/product/522464 (Part 1)
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Americké historičce Rachel L. Greenblattové se podařilo na základě mnohaletého studia vytvořit pozoruhodný „portrét“ každodenního života židovské společnosti v Praze v průběhu 16. a 17. století. Tématem jejího zkoumání jsou způsoby, jimiž se obyvatelé židovské čtvrti snažili uchovat vzpomínky, paměť společnosti pro další generace v kronikách, náhrobních nápisech nebo textech vzpomínkových liturgií. Její kniha není jen důkladně zpracovaným výsledkem skvělé badatelské práce, nese v sobě navíc silné kouzlo poezie původních hebrejských a jidiš pramenů. Výsledkem je tak působivá „báseň“, přivádějící do naší současnosti několik generací lidí, které nejen svými životy, ale také vzpomínkami na ně vytvářely jedinečný genius loci židovské Prahy.
Rachel L. Greenblatt, "To Tell Their Children": Jewish Communal Memory in Early Modern Prague. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014.
(Published by Academia Praha, 2016, transl. Pavel Sládek)
Physical violence has become a key topic of the historiography of the multiethnic societies in (East) Central Europe in the transition from the imperial to the nation-state order since at least the past two decades. Scholars have pointed out that violence is an inherent part of the conflict in interethnic and interreligious relationships, although violence was not always first marked by ethnic conflicts, but rather social ones, as the example of the food riots in Cisleithania during World War I has shown. To understand the historic region of (East) Central Europe and its cultural, social, and economic plurality it is therefore necessary to apply various concepts of violence, developed partially for Western and Eastern European societies. Researchers on anti-Jewish violence in l9th and early 20th century Germany have suggested the concept of “exclusionary violence” to analyze anti-Jewish riots, which differed from the pogroms in Russia in the absence of the intention to kill the victims. According to Werner Bergmann, Christhard Hoffmann, and Helmut Walser Smith, all forms of “exclusionary violence” share a common notion of the minority group(s) as a collective threat, the asymmetry of power between the rioters and the victims, the rioters’ low level of organization, and the relative absence of state power in times of crisis. In this definition, the pogroms are a specific, but not the only, form of exclusionary ethnic violence that enables one to identify the often fluid boundaries between ethnic riots and pogroms in (East) Central Europe.
Despite these achievements of the historiography on collective violence in modern (East) Central Europe, it seems that different research milieus still remain separate from one another. For this reason, the annual conference of the Centre for Jewish studies in Prague in cooperation with the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences aims to bring together scholars working on collective violence in (East) Central Europe, including anti-Jewish violence, and violence against Roma and other minorities. What do the various forms of exclusionary violence in (East) Central Europe in the period between empire and nation-states, and in the aftermath of the Holocaust when the nation states were reconstructed, have in common? Which discourses, patterns, and rituals did they follow? How did exclusionary violence transform these communities, and how was this violence narrated and remembered afterwards?
When looking at various forms of collective violence it becomes clear that non-genocidal violence – in contrast to the Holocaust – did not mean the end of culturally mixed neighborhoods, but played a major role in the (re)construction of communities, and fundamentally transformed the multiethnic societies from a long-term perspective.