Monthly Archives: March 2022

Graduate Summer School “Crisis, Change and Creativity in Jewish Experience” Hebrew University of Jerusalem July 31-August 4 2022

The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School for the Advanced Study in the Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Antwerp announce a summer program for graduate students in Jewish studies. Possibility to obtain fellowships.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: APRIL 15, 2022

Job: Tenured Senior Academic Staff in the field of Jewish Studies, with a clear historical perspective and using history methods

Department: Department of History
Regime Full-time

Let’s shape the future – University of Antwerp

The University of Antwerp is a dynamic, forward-thinking university. We offer an innovative academic education to more than 20 000 students, conduct pioneering scientific research and play an important service-providing role in society. We are one of the largest, most international and most innovative employers in the region. With more than 6000 employees from 100 different countries, we are helping to build tomorrow’s world every day. Through top scientific research, we push back boundaries and set a course for the future – a future that you can  participate in shaping.

The Department of History in the Faculty of Arts has the following full-time vacancy: tenured senior academic staff in the field of Jewish Studies, with a clear historical perspective and using history methods.

CFP: Newberry Library Symposium (May, 2024)

Call for Papers: Newberry Library Symposium on Animality in pre-modern Jewish art and culture.

Graduate students and early career scholars are invited to send in paper abstracts for a two-day symposium on animality in pre-modern, and particularly medieval, Jewish art and culture. The symposium, which will take place at the Newberry Library in Chicago on May 14-15, 2024 (just after the ICMS at Kalamazoo), will address a plethora of topics, including cosmic ecologies and their continuities across the animal-human-divine-demonic spectrum, collisions — visual and textual — between humanities and animalities; bestialization as a heuristic; animalization of Jews in Jewish and Christian discourses; zoocephaly in material and literary sources; monstrosities and hybridities as sites of wonder and liminality. We have already assembled a cohort of established scholars in the fields of Art History and Judaic Studies to speak at the symposium, and our hope is to include some new voices as well.


Please submit a C.V. and 250 word abstract by August 15th to the organizers:
Elina Gertsman exg152@case.edu
Julie Harris marfiles@comcast.net
David Shyovitz davidshy@northwestern.edu

CFP: Special Issue Arts “Medieval Finger Rings from Christian, Jewish and Islamic Contexts”

Finger rings are one of the most important types of jewelry, and they have been present in various cultures since the Stone Age. In the Middle Ages, they were made from simple materials such as wood or bone, but also from glass, ivory, or metal. In the case of metal rings, the spectrum ranges from iron or bronze and brass to silver and gold. As often beautiful and precious pieces of jewelry, rings mostly served the self-presentation of the wearer. In addition, however, they could have certain functions: Signet rings functioned to authenticate documents, rings with special symbolism distinguished holders of office or dignity, while other rings played an important role in special ceremonies, such as marriage. Since antiquity, rings have been given and worn as a sign of love and loyalty, and since the late Middle Ages, they have also been used as memorial and mourning rings in memory of the deceased. Amulet rings, meanwhile, were intended to protect or heal the wearer through special inscriptions or materials used. This Special Issue focuses on the wide range of different medieval ring types with different symbolism, function, and religious backgrounds.

Online Talk “Jewish Legal Documents Between Antiquity and the Abbasids: From Regional to Religious Scribal Traditions” by Eve Krakowski

The earliest medieval Jewish legal documents at historians’ disposal survive in the Cairo Geniza – a small group of marriage contracts, private agreements, and property transfers from tenth-century Egypt, Syria, and Ifrīqiya. These documents reflect a remarkably coherent and well-developed writing culture that Jewish scribes employed throughout the Abbasid and post-Abbasid Middle East. Where had this scribal tradition come from, and how had Jews across such a wide stretch of territory come to adopt it? This talk will use the early Geniza legal documents as evidence for the evolution of Jewish documentary practices over the course of the first millennium.

Monday, March 28, 2022, 2-4 pm (EST)

eScriptorium Tutorials & Digital Jour Fixe

For its members and students, the European Association of Jewish Studies offers a webinar on how to use eScriptorium specifically for Hebrew script on Tuesday, 5 May 2022, 3 pm – 7 pm CET.

Furthermore, there are two Digital Jour Fixe events:

1) Thomas Kollatz (Akademie der Wissenschaften, Mainz), “(Very) short introduction into Digital Editing with Text Encoding Initiative.” 25 March 2022, 10-11h30 CET

2) Oleksii Chebotarov, “Jews on the Move: Digital Mapping Approaches to the History of Jewish Migration.” 27 May 2022, 10-11h30 CET