Humanities and Social Science Post-Docs at Pitt

The University of Pittsburgh Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences is offering approximately five postdoctoral fellowships in the humanities and social sciences for the academic year 2013-2014. These are not intended for Pitt graduate students and graduates. Fellows will teach one course each semester, complete scholarly work, and participate in the academic and intellectual communities of the departments with which they are affiliated and across the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. To foster interaction within the group of fellows and with ongoing concerns of the Humanities Center, the World History Center, and other programs on campus, we seek applicants with projects that engage the concept or practice of comparison—across time, space, language, genre, discipline or other category. How do we, at this moment, compare? Why do we compare? What can be compared? What do we gain by comparing? What do we lose? We welcome any proposal relating to these issues. We invite applications from qualified candidates in the humanities and social sciences who have received, or will receive, the PhD between September 1, 2011 and April 1, 2013. As part of the application, applicants who have not already received the PhD must submit a letter from their dissertation chair with the scheduled defense date. The annual stipend will be $45,000. Fellows may apply for an additional year renewal. For more information or to apply, visit http://www.as.pitt.edu/postdoctoral-fellowship-program. Applications must be received by 5 p.m. EST on March 1, 2013. We expect to announce the awards by April 15, 2013. The University of Pittsburgh is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and educator. Women, minorities, and international candidates are especially encouraged to apply.

New book by Ittai Tamari

Studien zur Jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur in Bayern, Bd. 8 Ittai J. Tamari Das Volk der Bücher Eine Bücherreise durch sechs Jahrhunderte jüdischen Lebens ISBN 978-3-486-70410-5 http://www.oldenbourg-verlag.de/wissenschaftsverlag/volk-buecher/9783486704105 .

Tomorrow at Yivo: David Wachtel on the Rothschild Talmud

TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2012 | 7:00PM From the YIVO Archives: The Rothschild Talmud David Wachtel LECTURE Admission: $10 general | $5 YIVO Members, seniors, students Box Office: www.smarttix.com | 212.868.4444 In libraries and museums around the world the Rothschild family name is associated with literary works of great beauty and historical importance, including some of the most magnificent medieval and Renaissance manuscripts ever created. The Rothschild love affair with books is well known and well documented. What is less well known is that despite the association of the Rothschild name with great wealth, the Rothschild dynasty has its origins in the 18th century ghetto of Frankfurt am Main and even in those humble beginnings, the Rothschilds were enamored with the Hebrew book. In this talk about the manuscripts of the Rothschild family, our point of departure will be a precious manuscript in the YIVO Collection, a volume of the talmudic tractate Baba Kama written in 1722 by Anshel Moses Rothschild, the father of the founder of the great Jewish banking dynasty. David Wachtel is currently Senior Consultant for Special Collections at the Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary where he was formerly Research Librarian for Special Collections.

Event at Library of Congress

Nov 19: David Sclar on Moses Hayim Luzzatto at Center for Jewish History

Monday November 19th, 4 PM Kovno Room A Seat in the Esnoga: Moses Hayim Luzzatto in Amsterdam Presentation by David Sclar Moses Hayyim Luzzatto (1707-1746; Padua, Amsterdam, Acre) produced celebrated literary works of mysticism, ethics, Talmud, rhetoric, grammar, poetry, and drama. His writings were printed more often and disseminated more widely than almost any other Jewish thinker in the last two centuries. Historians have variously described him as having influenced the Haskalah, Hasidism, and the Musar movement. Yet, during his life, Luzzatto was the center of a scandal that condemned him as a heretical and deviant threat. A ban was promulgated against him, and his mystical writings were confiscated and destroyed. This paper will present original research on Luzzatto’s eight years in Amsterdam (1735-1743) and show it to be a period crucial in Luzzatto’s transformation from a heretical to celebrated figure. While in Amsterdam, Luzzatto published the ethical treatise Mesilat yesharim (1740) and the drama La-yesharim tehilah (1743), each of which was praised by a major movement in the 19th century and reprinted dozens of times. Using unpublished archival documents, this paper will demonstrate Luzzatto’s acceptance by the Portuguese Jewish community, and discuss the printing of his books in the context of Amsterdam Jewry’s print and study culture. David Sclar, a doctoral candidate in the department of history at the CUNY Graduate Center and a 2011-2012 Lillian Goldman Graduate Fellow, will deliver the seminar. A formal response to David’s seminar will be offered by Professor Francesca Bregoli of Queens College, CUNY. Intended for an academic audience; space is limited. RSVP to ezadoff@cjh.org or 212-294-8303

Nov 16-17: Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age

5th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age November 16-17, 2012 Taxonomies of Knowledge In partnership with the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries are pleased to announce the 5th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age. This year's symposium considers the role of the manuscript in organizing and classifying knowledge. Like today's electronic databases, the medieval manuscript helped readers access, process, and analyze the information contained within the covers of a book. The papers presented at this symposium will examine this aspect of the manuscript book through a variety of topics, including the place of the medieval library in manuscript culture, the rise and fall of the 12th-century commentary tradition, diagrams, devotional practice, poetics, and the organization and use of encyclopedias and lexicons. Participants include: • Katharine Breen, Northwestern University • Mary Franklin-Brown, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities • Vincent Gillespie, University of Oxford • Alfred Hiatt, Queen Mary, University of London • William Noel, University of Pennsylvania • Sara S. Poor, Princeton University • Eric Ramirez-Weaver, University of Virginia • Yossef Schwartz, Tel Aviv University & The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies • Peter Stallybrass, University of Pennsylvania • Emily Steiner, University of Pennsylvania • Sergei Tourkin, McGill University *Please note: due to some cancellations, the program has been revised. For more information and registration, go to: http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/lectures/ljs_symposium5.html.

Methodological Workshops on the Pinkas in Jerusalem

The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem (PBC) A STUDY OF PINKASSIM RESEARCH WORKSHOPS AT THE CENTRAL ARCHIVES FOR THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People is honored to invite you to the second year of a series of international research workshops on methodological aspects of the study of Pinkassim (Jewish minute books). The meetings are discussing various types of Pinkassim – communal, communal-societies, Rabbinical court, synagogue, Memorbuch, super-communal organizations – as historical sources, and in relation to their geographic range. Other workshops are dedicated to various thematic aspects, such as gender, law and Halakha, linguistics and paleography. The series also deals with the linkage between Pinkassim and corresponding genres: The place of the communal Takanot in Halakhic and Musar writings; their relationships with the local law; the shift from Pinkassim-based archives to modern archive; and scientific publication of Pinkassim. Among the lecturers: Dr. Dalit Assouline (Haifa), Hadassah Assouline (Jerusalem), Dr. Avriel Bar-Levav (Ra'anana), Prof. Israel Bartal (Jerusalem), Prof. Yaron Ben- Naeh (Jerusalem), Prof. Jay R. Berkovitz (Amherst, MS), Prof. Ted Fram (Be'er Sheva), Dr. Dov Cohen (Jerusalem), Dr. Yehudit Henshke (Haifa), Prof. Gershon David Hundert (Montreal), Prof. Nahem Ilan (Jerusalem), Dr. Maoz Kahana (Jerusalem), Dr. Yaakov Lattes (Ramat-Gan), Dr. Stefan Litt (Jerusalem), Prof. Michael L. Miller (Budapest), Prof. Alan Mintz (New-York), Aubrey Pomerance (Berlin), Prof. Elchanan Reiner (Tel-Aviv), Dr. Noa Shashar (Jerusalem). WINTER SESSIONS Opening Meeting: An Overview Sunday, November 11th, 2012, 15:30-17:00 Prof. Israel Bartal, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem: The Pinkas in its Context: History, Society, and Culture (in Hebrew) 2 Dr. Stefan Litt, The National Library of Israel: Ashkenazi Community Records from the 16th - 18th Century: Their Geographic Range, Form, and Contents (in Hebrew) Second Meeting: Burial Society Pinkassim Tuesday, December 4th, 2012, 15:30-17:00 Prof. Yaron Ben-Naeh, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Presents and Coffee, Taxes and Salaries: The Pinkas of the Holy Society of Gravediggers in Izmir (in Hebrew) Dr. Avriel Bar-Levav, The Open University: The Burial Society between Books and Pinkassim (in Hebrew) Third Meeting: Between Genres Monday, December 24th, 2012, 15:30-17:30 Prof. Gershon David Hundert, McGill University: Record-Keeping in 18th-Century-Galicia - Some Problems of Genre Prof. Alan Mintz, Jewish Theological Seminary The Pinkas as a Literary Model in Agnon’s Ir Umeloah (in Hebrew) Dr. Maoz Kahana, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem: The Emergence of the Jewish Coffeehouse in Eighteenth-Century Prague: Halachic Literature and Rabbinic Court Pinkassim (in Hebrew) The spring program will be announced later this year. For details, contact: Tel. ++972-26586249 E-mail: archives@vms.huji.ac.il Website: http://cahjp.huji.ac.il

Humanities and Social Science Post-Docs at Pitt

I wont post all post-docs and fellowships that could possibly apply but are not directly relevant to the history of Jewish books, but I make an exception here since I happen to know about this program and know that it's a good one. The University of Pittsburgh Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences is offering approximately five postdoctoral fellowships in the humanities and social sciences for the academic year 2013-2014. Fellows will teach one course each semester, complete scholarly work, and participate in the academic and intellectual communities of the departments with which they are affiliated and across the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. To foster interaction within the group of fellows and with ongoing concerns of the Humanities Center, the World History Center, and other programs on campus, we seek applicants with projects that engage the concept or practice of comparisonacross time, space, language, genre, discipline or other category. How do we, at this moment, compare? Why do we compare? What can be compared? What do we gain by comparing? What do we lose? We welcome any proposal relating to these issues. We invite applications from qualified candidates in the humanities and social sciences who have received, or will receive, the PhD between September 1, 2011 and April 1, 2013. As part of the application, applicants who have not already received the PhD must submit a letter from their dissertation chair with the scheduled defense date. The annual stipend will be $45,000. Fellows may apply for an additional year renewal. For more information or to apply, visit http://www.as.pitt.edu/postdoctoral-fellowship-program. Applications must be received by 5 p.m. EST on March 1, 2013. We expect to announce the awards by April 15, 2013. The University of Pittsburgh is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and educator. Women, minorities, and international candidates are especially encouraged to apply. Contact: www.as.pitt.edu/postdoctoral-fellowship-program postdoc@as.pitt.edu Website: http://www.as.pitt.edu/postdoctoral-fellowship-program