
New post in the MAFE series Jewish Life in the Middle Ages: “Jewish Women in Medieval England,” by Adrienne Boyarin

Pennsylvania State University Press, 2025. Available as an e-book.
From the battles over Jerusalem to the emergence of the “Holy Land,” from legally mandated ghettos to the Edict of Expulsion, geography has long been a component of Christian-Jewish relations. Attending to world maps drawn by medieval Christian mapmakers, Cartographies of Exclusion brings us to the literal drawing board of “Christendom” and shows the creation, in real time, of a mythic state intended to dehumanize the non-Christian people it ultimately sought to displace.
Curated by Elisheva Baumgarten, Maya Soifer Irish, Marcia Kupfer, and Asa Mittman, this project aims to create a series of enriching, open-access resources (OARs) on medieval Jewish life for students, instructors, and the general public.
A new video by Diane Wolfthal (Rice University) explores illustrated Yiddish manuscripts from the 15-16th centuries.
Their project looks at the experiences of conversas in Valencia, Girona, and Barcelona during the second half of the fifteenth century. They are planning to hire a post-doctoral fellow to help with the research, as well as fund graduate students as research assistants at the University of Northern British Columbia and the University of Toronto.
Harvard University Press, Sept. 2024
For the first time, this collection makes available a selection of documents on the history of Jews in old Rus’ that provide unique insight into Slavic–Jewish relations, offering both the original texts in Latin, Hebrew, Church Slavonic, and Arabic, and their English translations.
The History Department at the United States Naval Academy invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor specializing in Middle Eastern history. Candidates must have a Ph.D. in history or a closely related field and be U.S. citizens. The position is open to all candidates who have attained a Ph.D. degree in history or a closely related field, and to advanced doctoral students who expect to be granted their Ph.D. no later than June 2025. Specialization within this subfield is open, but the committee welcomes applicants with expertise in premodern or early modern Middle Eastern history, broadly defined.
Review of applications begins on September 30, 2024.
The program seeks applicants with specialization in any of the following fields: 1. The history of Jews in North Africa and/or the Middle East during the early modern or modern periods; 2. Comparative Jewish literary traditions in Yiddish, Hebrew, German, or English; 3. Medieval Kabbalah and/or Hasidic texts. Priority will be given to candidates whose research makes use of theoretical modalities, particularly feminist theory and women’s and non-binary experience.
Deadline: Sep 18, 2024 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time
The prize is awarded annually by the American Academy for Jewish Research.
Honorable Mention was awarded A.J. Berkowitz, A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity, University of Pennsylvania Press.