Category Archives: Publications

New book — From Prophet to Miracle-Working Saint: Dynamic Approaches to Elijah in Ancient and Medieval Cultures

Edited by Vlad Bedros, Barbara Crostini, Andrei Dumitrescu, and Chana Shacham-Rosby

Brill, 2026

From the publisher: The versatile figure of Elijah as Jewish prophet, Christian saint and Muslim “green man” plays at once a controversial and a unifying role across cultures. This collection of essays delves into the rich Elijah traditions that connect late-antique Mesopotamia to modern Europe. It emphasizes how Elijah’s many-sided character cannot be explained by his sparse mentions in the Bible. His enormous popularity rather depends on a network of artistic and performative interpretations that developed in different traditions and were divulged through cultic practices and feasts in which Elijah was the protagonist.

CfP for a Special Issue in the journal ‘Religions’ on “Polemics and Conversion: Setting and Crossing Boundaries in Medieval Jewish-Christian Relations”

PD Dr Eveline Brugger (Institute for Jewish History in Austria) will edit a special issue entitled “Polemics and Conversion: Setting and Crossing Boundaries in Medieval Jewish–Christian Relations” for the journal Religion. The issue invites contributions examining the significance of polemics, conversion, or their interplay in shaping medieval Jewish–Christian relations from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.”

Deadline for Abstract Submission: 28.02.2026

Deadline for Manuscript Submissions: 15 November 2026

Continue reading CfP for a Special Issue in the journal ‘Religions’ on “Polemics and Conversion: Setting and Crossing Boundaries in Medieval Jewish-Christian Relations”

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.”