Monthly Archives: September 2021

Online Conference: Migration Processes and Mobility of European Jews at the Transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era (in Czech/German) 14-15 Oct 2021

Put on by the Historical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, the theme of the conference is the migration of the Jewish population in Central Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. During this period, an interplay of various factors caused individuals and entire communities in numerous countries to be forced to leave their homes and seek a new place to live. The political and social causes and consequences of this forced migration of Jews in the individual countries are discussed, as well as the changes of location that were associated with the expulsion of Jews from entire areas.

Continue reading Online Conference: Migration Processes and Mobility of European Jews at the Transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era (in Czech/German) 14-15 Oct 2021

Job: Museum Director/ Leitung Jüdisches Museum Augsburg Schwaben, Beginn: 1 Apr 2022

Ihre Qualifikationen:
• Abgeschlossene Hochschulausbildung in Studienrichtungen, die den Anforderungen an
die Leitung eines Jüdischen Museums gerecht werden, beispielsweise Geschichte, Judaistik/Jüdische Studien, Kulturwissenschaften
• Nachgewiesene Kenntnisse der jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur in Deutschland, insbesondere in Süddeutschland
• Mehrjährige Erfahrung in Teilbereichen des musealen Aufgabenspektrums

Deadline: 2 November 2021

Job: Assistant Professor in Jewish Studies, University of Texas at Austin

The Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies invites applications for the position of Assistant Professor of Instruction in Jewish Studies to begin in fall semester 2022. They invite candidates from all disciplines with one of the following preferred, but not exclusive, areas of specialization: The Jews of the Medieval/Early Modern World; North American Jewish Literature; Jews of the Mediterranean and/or Middle East.

Deadline: 1 November 2021

New Publication: Chapters on ‘Mother and Motherhood’ and ‘the Interplay of Jewish and Christian Identities’

A new edited collection, exploring ‘Lives, Identities and Histories in the Central Middle Ages’ (ed. Julie Barrau and David Bates), will be published in October 2021 by Cambridge University Press. This includes chapters on Jewish topics by Miri Rubin (Mother and Motherhood in the Vita et passio Willelmi Norwicensis) and Anna Sapir Abulafia (Jacob and Esau and the Interplay of Jewish and Christian Identities in the Middle Ages).

Online lecture by Astrid Peterle, Jewish Museum Vienna: Our Medieval City! The First Jewish Community in Vienna. A new permanent exhibition for the Museum Judenplatz in Vienna (in German), October 5, 7:30 p.m.

On October 5, Astrid Peterle, Jewish Museum Vienna, will give an insight into the creation and conception of the new permanent exhibition for the Museum Judenplatz in Vienna: Our Medieval City! The First Jewish Community in Vienna. The Jewish Museum Vienna is presenting a redesign of the permanent exhibition at Museum Judenplatz since the beginning of March 2021. The Viennese Jewish community settled around 1200 and was considered one of the most important in Europe. Its abrupt end came on the orders of Duke Albrecht V, who had the Viennese Jews robbed, expelled and murdered in 1420/21.

Continue reading Online lecture by Astrid Peterle, Jewish Museum Vienna: Our Medieval City! The First Jewish Community in Vienna. A new permanent exhibition for the Museum Judenplatz in Vienna (in German), October 5, 7:30 p.m.

Researcher of the Week

Chana Shacham-Rosby, PhD

Teaching Associate (Fall 2021-22),
Department of Jewish History, Ben Gurion University
Starr Fellow (Spring 2022),

Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University

“My research interests include charting communication channels through which religious and theological knowledge was shared between strata of medieval Jewish society, as well as between Jews and Christians, in central Europe. My PhD dissertation, completed in 2019, focused on attitudes towards the figure of Elijah the Prophet in a wide range of primary sources. I found that between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries a significant process took place among Ashkenazi Jews regarding Elijah, and its results influenced the perception of this character in modern Jewish culture. Some of these conclusions were published in “Elijah the Prophet: The Guard Dog of Israel” (Jewish History 30:3) and “Exchanges of Religious Knowledge and Practice in the Medieval Ashkenaz” (Chidushim 23).

Continue reading Researcher of the Week

Podcast: Jews of Medieval England

For the Five Minute Medievalist podcast, Dr Adrienne Williams Boyarin talks on the topic of ‘Christians and Jews in 13th-century England’. Her book, ‘The Christian Jew and the Unmarked Jewess: The Polemics of Sameness in Medieval English Anti-Judaism’ has recently been published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.