Congratulations to Danny Grabe, who won the Alfred Haverkamp Prize 2026 for his PhD thesis about early medieval Jewish jobs entitled “Ärzte, Glasbläser, Sklavenhändler? Berufe von Juden und ihre Funktionen zwischen Topos und Wirklichkeit in den christlichen Quellen des Frühmittelalters (506–1096)”.
Category Archives: News
Postdoctoral Researcher for DFG Project “Edition and Material Investigation of the ‘Cambridge Codex’ T-S 10 K 22”
The DFG-funded research project “Edition and Material Investigation of the ‘Cambridge Codex’ T-S 10 K 22”, jointly led by Dr. Jan Hon (FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg) and Dr. Uri Zvi Shachar (Tel Aviv University), aims to produce a new critical edition (both print and digital) as well as a philological and material analysis of the oldest manuscript collection of Yiddish texts.
They are looking for a postdoctoral researcher with expertise in Medieval Jewish Studies in the German branch of the project, based in Erlangen, for three years (until 31. 3. 2029).
Application deadline: 20.03.2026
Yale Postdoctoral Fellowship in Ancient Judaism/Jewish History
The Program in Jewish Studies at Yale University is offering a two-year Postdoctoral fellowship that will begin on July 1, 2026. Candidates for the fellowship must have a Ph.D. in hand by July 1, 2026 and must have received the degree no earlier than 2023. You can read more about the postdoc program here, and you can read more about Yale’s Program in Jewish Studies on the new website.
Yale Postdoctoral Fellowship in Jewish Thought/Philosophy
The Program in Jewish Studies at Yale University is offering a two-year Postdoctoral fellowship that will begin on July 1, 2026. Candidates for the fellowship must have a Ph.D. in hand by July 1, 2026 and must have received the degree no earlier than 2023. You can read more about the postdoc program here, and you can read more about Yale’s Program in Jewish Studies on the new website.
Series of Workshops on Sacred Writing Traditions
You can apply for a series of Workshops on Sacred Writing Traditions.
Deadline: 15 January 2026.
CfP for the “Sommerakademie” of the Institute for Jewish History in Austria: “Von Samson, Superwoman und Krusty, dem Clown – Jüdische Bilder-Geschichten seit dem Mittelalter” (in German)
The Institute for Jewish History in Austria, St. Pölten, invites for paper proposals for its “Somerakademie” on the topic “Von Samson, Superwoman und Krusty, dem Clown – Jüdische Bilder-Geschichten seit dem Mittelalter”, which will be held in Vienna from July 8-10, 2026. The conference aims to explore Jewish pictorial histories from medieval book illumination, illuminated Esther scrolls, copperplate engravings, and picture books to the comics, animated films, and graphic novels of the 20th and 21st centuries. Proposals are welcome in German or English.
Submission Deadline for Paper Proposals: December 12, 2025
New book (available for pre-order) — Craig Perry, Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History
Princeton University Press, January 2026.
From the publisher: “In this book, Craig Perry mines a remarkable cache of fragmentary documents preserved in an Egyptian synagogue to write a new history of slavery and the slave trade in the medieval Middle East. These documents—which range from the everyday correspondence of traveling merchants to legal queries sent to Jewish jurists—provide the richest surviving archive for the social history of slavery during the centuries when Cairo was an imperial and commercial capital at the intersection of the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds. Perry draws on this archive, known as the Cairo Geniza, to shed new light on such crucial topics as the slave trade in state diplomacy, the entanglements of gender and household slavery, and the lives of the enslaved.”
New Ph.D. Fellowship in Sephardic Studies at Brandeis University
Brandeis University invites applicants for The Edmond J. Safra Doctoral Fellowships in Sephardic Studies. The fellowships include an annual stipend for five years, health care coverage, and additional funds in the amount of $5,000 per year for summer study (language preparation, travel for research, etc.). Prospective PhD students apply directly through a relevant department (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, History, etc.) and indicate that they wish to be considered for a Fellowship. Brandeis especially encourages applicants wishing to focus on the Jews of medieval Spain, the medieval Middle East, or the Ottoman Empire/Middle East through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
A visitors center is under construction at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Mainz
Read about the visitor’s center created at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Mainz, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage.
New Book: Light is Sown. The Cultivation of Kabbalah in Medieval Castile
by Avishai Bar-Asher and Jeremy Phillip Brown. Oxford University Press 2025
