Preface to the Holiday of Rosh Hashana. Rothschild Mahzor (Italian, 1490). Ink, watercolor, powdered gold and silver leaf on parchment. Courtesy of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary, New York.
The theme of the International Congress 2027 will take place at the University of Leeds 5-8 July 2027. Its special theme is ‘Communities’, see the general CfP here:
IMC 2027 Call for Papers – ‘Communities’ | International Medieval Congress
I am looking for papers that engage with some of the methodological challenges raised by the frameworks of Visual Culture and Material Culture. Papers about medieval Jewish visualities and materialities may wish to consider concepts such as (but not limited to):
Contributors are invited to consider some of the challenges of theoretical work in visual culture and material culture studies, including on the properties of matter, scopic regimes and sensory regimes.
Expressions of interest, ideally with a working title and a couple of lines of abstract, by Monday 28 September 2026 please to Eva Frojmovic at the University of Leeds, clsef@leeds.ac.uk.
According to their call, “[m]edieval history has been traditionally dominated by a monarchical and State-centric perspective. Yet the decentralized nature of medieval power demands a broader analytical framework that goes beyond the dichotomy between monarchy and nobility. This conference invites scholars to examine the intermediate tiers of authority −the complex and often negotiated relationships between lords and their vassals of different religions− in the late medieval western Mediterranean.”
Read now Pratima Gopalakrishnan’s post about “A Deccan Merchant Association in a Geniza Letter” via the blog of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit.
According to their call, “Boston College and its Center for Christian-Jewish Learning invite applications for a one year visiting appointment (renewable for a second year) as the Corcoran Visiting Chair in Christian-Jewish Relations, specializing in an aspect of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. Candidates must hold a Ph.D. or its earned equivalent, have a demonstrated record of publication in the field, and hold (or have retired from) a tenured position (or its equivalent) in a university or seminary. Applications from all relevant disciplines are welcome.”
Deadline: 1 November 2026.
Municipal Museum Trier, Simeonstraße 60 (adjacent to the Porta Nigra), 11 October, 2026 to 4 April, 2027, Tue-Sun 10am-5pm
The exhibition “Jewish Life in the Middle Ages” at the Municipal Museum Trier and under academic direction of Viola Skiba (Museum), Andreas Lehnertz, and Christoph Cluse (University of Trier), recounts the history of the Jewish community in Trier and its still visible traces in the city such as the historic Jewish quarter with its “Judenpforte” (Jewish Gate). Trier’s Jewish community flourished from at least the 11th century onwards under the protection of the Archbishop and served as a nexus between the Rhine region (including the ShUM cities of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz) and the regions of present-day France.
You can now read Daniel J. Lasker’s edition of Sefer Eshkol Ha-Kofer (“The Book of the Cluster of Henna Blossoms”), written by the Karaite Sage Judah ben Elia Hadassi the Mourner in Constantinople in the mid-twelfth century, is unique in the annals of Hebrew literature, in terms of both content and style. The book is a monumental composition which includes more than 350,000 words, consisting of approximately 400 rhymed acrostics.
This international conference will explore architecture and space as sources of historical knowledge. We will examine layers of meaning in architecture through new digital methods (Day 1) and new analytical prisms (Day 2). By integrating 2D and 3D visualizations, virtual reality, and sound-based reconstructions of historic sites with academic analysis, we will reconstruct lost experiences, communities, and ritual practices through multidisciplinary approaches to architecture and space.
Many papers are relevant to medieval Jewish Studies.
Department of the Arts and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 14 December 2026.
Deadline: Submission deadline: 11 October 2026
The Department of the Arts and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) invite proposals for an international workshop examining anti-Judaism and antisemitism, their representations and transformations, and the diverse strategies developed to challenge, reappropriate, and resist them from antiquity to the present. We therefore welcome contributions that examine not only the differences between anti-Judaism and antisemitism but also their continuities, ruptures, transformations, and conceptual boundaries. How do medieval religious stereotypes and myths relate to modern antisemitic imagery? When does tracing continuity illuminate the history of anti-Jewish hostility, and when does it obscure historically specific phenomena? How have older motifs been reformulated in response to changing media, audiences, ideologies, and political circumstances?
According to their call, “[t]he Volkswagen Momentum Fellowship Programme “From Pre-Modern to Modern Perspectives in Judaic Studies” invites applications from scholars whose research focuses on Judaism and Jewish communities across the Middle East, the wider Middle East and North Africa from the early modern period into the modern era.”
Munich Research Centre for Jewish-Arabic Cultures, LMU Munich.
Deadline: 2 November 2026
