Papers and Panels of Interest at AJS

If you are going to the Association for Jewish Studies conference in Chicago that begins this coming Sunday, here are a few papers and sessions relevant to the history of the book. Apologies if I missed anybody or anything that is relevant. Please add them in the comments.

SUNDAY 9:30-11 am
in session 1.3 The Yiddish Book of Customs (Venice 1593) by Shimon ben Yehuda ha-Levi Guenzburg and Its Dissemination in the Ashkenazi Communities Jean Baumgarten (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

1.9 Missouri
PATHWAYS OF KNOWLEDGE: JEWISH INTELLECTUAL NETWORKS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE, 1850-1939
Chair: Simon Rabinovitch (Boston University)
Communicating Modern Jewish Scholarship: The Correspondence Network of David Kaufmann (1852-1899)
Mirjam Thulin (Goethe-Universität / Leibniz Institute for European History)
Samuel Orgelbrand’s Polish Encyclopedia: Jewish Publishers and Nineteenth- Century Networks of Polish Scholarship Karen Auerbach (Monash University)
YIVO’s Aspirantur and the Training of Jewish Scholars in Eastern Europe on the Eve of the Holocaust
Natalia Aleksiun (Touro College)

SUNDAY 4:15-6:15 pm
in session 4.9
Books, Religion, Reconstruction
Miriam Intrator (The Graduate Center, CUNY)

4.13 Colorado MAPPING READERSHIP: NEW DIRECTIONS IN MEDIEVAL JEWISH CULTURE
Chair: Deeana Copeland Klepper (Boston University)
Centers and Peripheries in Medieval Ashkenaz: Rouen and Erfurt
Ephraim Kanarfogel (Yeshiva University)
The Last Sages of Corbeil: Their Work and Audience
Judah D. Galinsky (Bar-Ilan University)
Was Rupert of Deutz a Pashtan? Rupert and the School of Rashi
Isaac B. Gottlieb (Bar-Ilan University)
Food for Thought: A Fourteenth-Century Dietary Regimen in Hebrew and Its Possible Audience Susan L. Einbinder (University of Connecticut)

MONDAY 8:30-10:30 am
5.7 Ontario THE NEW AMERICAN HAGGADAH: PASSOVER IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Chair: Noam F. Pianko (University of Washington)
The Good Book: Storytelling and the New American Haggadah
Ari Y. Kelman (Stanford University School of Education)
Authenticity and Image in the New American Haggadah
Ken Koltun-Fromm (Haverford College)
 Imagining Identity: Cultural Responses to the New American Haggadah
Mara Benjamin (St. Olaf College)
Jewish Philosophy and Thought at Wordpress (Writing about the New American Haggadah)
Zachary J. Braiterman (Syracuse University)

MONDAY 4:30-6:30
9.5 Chicago X WORLDS OF ACCUMULATION: INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO COLLECTION PRACTICES
Chair: Erica Lehrer (Concordia University)
  Preserving the Past and Creating the Future: Collection and Display of Jewish Art in Interwar Poland
Sarah Zarrow (New York University)
Collection Memory: Archival Geographies in Israel and Palestine
Liora Halperin (Princeton University)
“Abstracted Yiddish Kinship”: Collection, Affect, and the Mediation of Generation at the Yiddish Book Center
Joshua Benjamin Friedman (University of Michigan)
Mock Ethnography and the Soviet Jewish Literary Imagination
 Sasha Senderovich (Harvard University)

TUESDAY 8:30-10:30
10.6 Chicago X JEWISH BOOK TRADE AND BOOK CIRCULATION: DEFINING A RESEARCH AGENDA
Moderator: Marjorie Lehman (Jewish Theological Seminary)
Discussants: Francesca Bregoli (Queens College) Stephen G. Burnett (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) Michah S. Gottlieb (New York University) Adam B. Shear (University of Pittsburgh) Magda Teter (Wesleyan University)
NOTE: Coffee and light breakfast will be served at this roundtable, courtesy of the Center for Jewish History in New York, sponsor of the Lillian Goldman Scholar's Working Group on the History of the Jewish Book.

TUESDAY 10:45-12:45
11.2 Sheraton I VOICES OF EARLY MODERN JUDAISM
Chair: Magda Teter (Wesleyan University)
Klausner’s Minhagim Book: Evolving Texts and Evolving Practice in Pre-print Era Ashkenaz Rachel Zohn Mincer (Jewish Theological Seminary)
Moses Hayim Luzzatto's Turbulent Romance with the Rabbinate in the Writing of Mesilat Yesharim David Sclar (The Graduate Center, CUNY)
The Agur: A Halakhic Code for Print
Debra Glasberg (Columbia University)
The Exorcist’s Medical Perspective: Exorcism and Medicine among Ashkenazi Jews in the Early Modern Period
Nimrod Zinger (Washington University in St. Louis)

June 2-3: Lehmann Workshop at Penn

THE MANFRED R. LEHMANN MEMORIAL MASTER WORKSHOP IN THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH BOOK The Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania, in conjunction with the University of Pennsylvania Libraries and the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, are pleased to announce the thirteenth annual Manfred R. Lehmann Memorial Master Workshop to be held on June 2-3 (Sunday-Monday), 2013, at the Katz Center. The topic is Hebrew Codicology in the Digital Age. This year’s workshop will be led by Malachi Beit-Arié, Ludwig Jesselson Professor Emeritus of Codicology and Palaeography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the world's leading authority on Hebrew manuscripts. The first part of the workshop will be devoted to presenting the singularity of medieval Hebrew book production and consumption, and the consequences of its singular features for understanding the transmission of texts written in Hebrew characters as well as its implications for textual criticism and editing. In addition, the workshop will also deal with why and how text-scholars can apply codicological approaches to their textual work, and in particular a comparative codicological approach so as to appreciate the special circumstances of Hebrew manuscript production. The second part of the workshop will introduce the new on-line SfarData, the comprehensive data base for the codicology of dated Hebrew manuscripts (and those with indications of the scribe's names), which is now being converted into a free website. Along with explaining the new version, the workshop will demonstrate the diverse ways that Sfardata can be used for the complex retrieval of clustered data and its use for for historical and prosopographic research. The workshop is open to professors and independent scholars, professional librarians in the field of Jewish and related studies, and graduate students in Jewish Studies. Attendance at previous workshops is not a prerequisite for admission. For faculty and professionals, tuition is $250. In addition to attendance and all materials for the workshop, the tuition includes two or three nights in a hotel (double-occupancy) for the nights of June 1 and 2 (with the option of May 31), and all meals and refreshments (all kosher) during the course of the workshop. Graduate students may apply for a full scholarship to the workshop. To apply for the scholarship, a graduate student should write us giving the details of his or her academic program and a brief statement explaining how the workshop will further his or her academic studies. S/he should also ask a faculty advisor to write us a letter of recommendation on the student's behalf. Attendance is limited. If you are interested in attending the workshop, please notify us immediately. Full payment must be received by March 1, 2013. Make checks payable to Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. A registration form is available at: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jwst/registrationLW2013.pdf Please address all correspondence to: Lehmann Workshop c/o Jewish Studies Program 711 Williams Hall 255 S. 36th Street Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 jsp-info@sas.upenn.edu 215-898-6654 The Manfred R. Lehmann Memorial Master Workshop in the History of the Jewish Book has been made possible by a generous contribution from the Manfred and Anne Lehmann Foundation along with grants from Mr. Albert Friedberg, the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, Andrew H. Cohn, Esq. C'66, and the University of Pennsylvania Research Foundtation.

June 15-19: Workshop on Hebrew Manuscripts

Hebrew Manuscripts Studies: An Introduction Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Orientabteilung, Potsdamer Str. 33, 10785 Berlin 15 July 2013 - 19 July 2013 orientabt@sbb.spk-berlin.de The participants will be introduced to the study of different codicological and paleographical aspects of Hebrew manuscripts, including their periodisation, writing supports, bindings, mise-en-texte, mise-en-page, inks, illuminations, dating systems, scripts, etc. The theoretical part will be supplemented by hands-on sessions, in which the participants will have to opportunity to observe the discussed features themselves in Hebrew manuscripts kept at Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. The worshop will be conducted by: Prof. Dr. Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sorbonne, Paris) Prof. Dr. Malachi Beit-Arie (Hebrew University, Jerusalem) Key-lecture: Dr. Ben Outhwaite (Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library) Venue: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Haus 2, Potsdamer Straße 33 The workshop is intended for advanced MA and doctoral students, and other junior researchers in the fields of Judaic Studies, Arabic and Islamic Studies, classic and medieval philology or comparative manuscript studies. Dependent on prior arrangement with the home institution, students of the Freie Universität Berlin, who are currently enrolled in Judaistik, Islamwissenschaft or Arabistik and PhD candidates at the BGSMCS, are entitled to receive credits for their participation. Please refer to your institute for details. The participation fee is 100 Euro. The enrollment in the workshop will only be active after payment. Bank details will be communicated to successful applicants, end of January 2013. The fee cannot be reimbursed in case of cancellation. The workshop will be held in English and is limited to 25 participants! Applications, including a cover letter with a brief description of your motivation, CV, summary of current research project, are to be sent to orientabt@sbb.spk-berlin.de or Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Orientabteilung, Potsdamer Str. 33, 10785 Berlin, until 15 January 2013. http://www.ihiw.de/w/scriptorium/hebrew-manuscripts-studies-an-introduction/ 15 July 2013 - 19 July 2013 Die Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin und die Research Unit „Intellectual History of the Islamicate World“ der Freien Universität Berlin organisieren einen weiteren Workshop in der Reihe Scriptorium: Workshops on the study of Oriental manuscripts Einführung in die hebräische Handschriftenkunde / Hebrew Manuscript Studies: An Introduction Die Teilnehmer werden durch Vorträge und Präsentationen in die verschiedenen kodikologischen und paläographischen Aspekte hebräischer Handschriften eingeführt (u.a. historischer Überblick, Beschreibstoffe, Bindung, Text- und Seitengestaltung, Tinten, Buchschmuck, Datierung, Schriftarten, Textüberlieferung, Provenienz). Die theoretische Einführung wird durch einen praktischen Teil ergänzt, in welchem die Teilnehmer die Möglichkeit zur Einsicht in eine Auswahl von Handschriften aus der Sammlung der Orientabteilung der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin erhalten. Durchgeführt wird der Workshop von Prof. Dr. Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sorbonne, Paris) Prof. Dr. Malachi Beit-Arie (Hebrew University, Jerusalem) Key-lecture Dr. Ben Outhwaite (Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library) Veranstaltungsort: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Haus 2, Potsdamer Straße 33 Der Workshop richtet sich an fortgeschrittene Masterstudenten, Doktoranten und andere Nachwuchswissenschaftler der Fachbereiche Judaistik, Islamwissenschaft, der Alten und Mittelalterlichen Philologie und der Vergleichenden Handschriftenkunde. Für die Teilnahme an dem Workshop können für Studierende an der Freien Universität Berlin in den MA Studiengängen Judaistik oder Arabistik und für Doktoranden an der BGSMCS Leistungspunkte vergeben werden. Die Anzahl der Leistungspunkte ist abhängig davon, ob es sich um eine einfache Teilnahme handelt, oder ob eine besondere Leistung im Rahmen des Workshops erbracht wird. Einzelheiten sind vorab mit den jeweils zuständigen MA-Beauftragten bzw. mit der BGSMCS zu klären. Es ist eine Teilnahmegebühr in Höhe von 100 Euro zu entrichten. Die Anmeldung zum Workshop wird erst nach Überweisung dieser Gebühr wirksam. Die Kontodaten dafür werden Ihnen nach erfolgreicher Bewerbung Ende Januar 2013 bekanntgegeben. Bei Verhinderung kann die einmal entrichtete Gebühr nicht rückerstattet werden. Der Workshop findet in englischer Sprache statt. Die Teilnehmerzahl ist begrenzt auf 25 Personen! Wenn Sie teilnehmen möchten, senden Sie bitte eine Kurzbewerbung mit Angabe Ihres Studien-/Forschungsschwerpunktes, Ihres akademischen Lebenslaufes und einer Kurzmotivation bis 15. 01. 2013 an orientabt@sbb.spk-berlin.de oder auf dem Postweg an die Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Orientabteilung, Potsdamer Str. 33, 10785 Berlin.

December 6: Roundtable on Jews as Culture Brokers in the Book Trade

Thursday December 6, 6:30 pm at the Center for Jewish History Three generations of leading publishers explore Jewish participation in the dramatic changes that transformed the book publishing industry in the post-War era from a sleepy "gentlemen's club" into a dynamic and tumultuous industry. Speakers include: •Jonathan Karp, executive vice president and publisher, Simon & Schuster •Jane Friedman, CEO and co-founder, Open Road Integrated Media; former president and CEO, HarperCollins Publishers; and executive at Random House, Inc.; •Jason Epstein, former director, Random House; co-founder, The New York Review of Books; former editor, Doubleday; former editor for Norman Mailer, Vladimir Nabokov, E. L. Doctorow, Philip Roth and Gore Vidal •Altie Karper, editorial director, Schocken Books/Random House Co-sponsored by The Jewish Book Council. CJH, AJHS > $15 general; $10 CJH, AJHS members, seniors, students Culture Brokers: Publishing/The Book Trade is part of a series exploring the role of Jews as mediators, entrepreneurs and impresarios of the arts. For more information and additional programs on film and popular music, please visit www.cjh.org.

December 11: Conference on history of the YIVO library

The History of the YIVO Library PRESS NEWS: For immediate release Contact: Dr. Lyudmila Sholokhova Head Librarian YIVO Institute for Jewish Research 15 West 16th Street New York, NY 10011 Tel. 212-294-6168 lsholokhova@yivo.cjh.org (New York, NY – November 16, 2012) The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is pleased to announce a conference on the history of the YIVO Library, to be held on Tuesday, December 11, 2012 at 7:00pm. This program will introduce to the public the fascinating history of the treasures of the YIVO Library and the often dramatic stories of their survival. This year marks the 65th anniversary of the return of the YIVO and Strashun collections from Frankfurt am Main to YIVO's New York headquarters in 1947. The Nazis had looted the books in order to present them as part of the planned Nazi Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question. Speakers include outstanding scholars and historians who have done profound research about the library's collections. The evening will include a digital presentation of the YIVO Library materials. TICKETS Admission: $15 general | $10 YIVO Members, seniors, students Box Office: 212.868.4444 | www.smarttix.com PROGRAM Jonathan Brent (YIVO Executive Director): Introductory Remarks Lyudmila Sholokhova (YIVO Head Librarian): YIVO Library’s Treasures: Looking Forward into the Future Cecile Kuznitz (Bard College): Dos zamlen: YIVO's Early Collection/Documentation Efforts David Fishman (Jewish Theological Seminary): The History of the YIVO Library Collections During WWII Zachary M. Baker (Curator of Judaica and Hebraica Collections and Assistant University Librarian for Collection Development, Stanford University Libraries): The Legacy of Mendl Elkin, the New York YIVO's First Librarian Bella Hass Weinberg (St. John’s University): • Organization of the YIVO Library Collections: Physical Arrangement, Classification Systems, and Cataloging Principles • Recollections about Dina Abramowicz ABOUT YIVO: Founded in 1925, the YIVO Institute is headquartered in New York City, and is the world’s premier teaching and research institute devoted to East European Jewish Studies; the Yiddish language, literature, and folklore; and the American Jewish Experience. www.yivo.org

New collection related to Jewish Book Trade at Columbia University Libraries

Collection of letters and ephemera relating to the Judaica book trade, most from 1926-1955. The collection includes correspondence from all over the world, including Vienna, Lisbon, Italy, the United States, and Palestine/Israel. It is notable as a rare glimpse into the world of pre-Holocaust collecting, as well as the early history of Jewish settlement in Palestine. Notable bookdealers and collectors include Biegeleisen (New York), David Frankel (Vienna and New York), Yochanan and Abraham Rubenstein (Haifa), Efraim Keizer (Pressburg) Yehuda Idil Bialistotsky (Slonim), Rubin Mass (Jerusalem), etc. The majority of the collection is in Hebrew, but other languages include English, German, and French. If anyone is interested in viewing the materials, they should please contact Michelle Chesner at mc3395@columbia.edu.

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

News from the Library of Congress

Upcoming Exhibition October 25, 2012 through March 16, 2013 The exhibition will be on view 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday, from Oct. 25, 2012, through March 16, 2013, in the South Gallery of the Thomas Jefferson Building at 10 First Street S.E., Washington, D.C. To help us celebrate the opening we are planning a number of events, starting with a talk by Dr. Emile Schrijver, Curator of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, University of Amsterdam, on Thursday, October 25th, at 12 noon in our Reading Room: The Jewish Book since the Invention of Printing We are also pleased to announce the publication of our latest book: Perspectives on the Hebraic Book The Myron M. Weinstein Memorial Lectures at the Library of Congress The book will be launched with a panel discussion at noon on Monday, October 29, by some of the outstanding scholars who contributed to it. The discussion, which will take place in LJ119 (rather than the usual LJ220, our Reading Room), will be followed by a book sale and signing.

Libraries and Cultural Memory Conference Budapest

New Programs at the Library of Congress

Upcoming Exhibition October 25, 2012 through March 16, 2013 The exhibition will be on view 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday, from Oct. 25, 2012, through March 16, 2013, in the South Gallery of the Thomas Jefferson Building at 10 First Street S.E., Washington, D.C. To help us celebrate the opening we are planning a number of events, starting with a talk by Dr. Emile Schrijver, Curator of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, University of Amsterdam, on Thursday, October 25th, at 12 noon in our Reading Room: The Jewish Book since the Invention of Printing We are also pleased to announce the publication of our latest book: Perspectives on the Hebraic Book The Myron M. Weinstein Memorial Lectures at the Library of Congress The book will be launched with a panel discussion at noon on Monday, October 29, by some of the outstanding scholars who contributed to it. The discussion, which will take place in LJ119 (rather than the usual LJ220, our Reading Room), will be followed by a book sale and signing. For more information on these and many other upcoming events, please click on: http://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/Upcomingevents/UpcomingEvents.html

Kiev Fellowships Announced

from the George Washington University website: "Kiev Judaica Research Fellowship Winners Announced The I. Edward Kiev Judaica Collection of the George Washington University Libraries is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2012-2013 Kiev Judaica Collection Research Fellowships. Awarded every two years, the Fellowships provide stipends of $750 for a GW undergraduate and $2,500 for a graduate, post-graduate, or independent scholar to conduct research using the Kiev Judaica Collection. The Senior Fellowship has been awarded this year to Professor Barry Trachtenberg , director of the Judaic Studies Program at the University of Albany, State University of New York. Prof. Trachtenberg will make use of the bibliographic and other resources of the Kiev Collection in the completion of his book-length study on the Algemeyne Entsiklopedye, the first comprehensive encyclopedia in Yiddish, launched in Berlin in 1932 on the eve of the Nazi period. Prof. Trachtenberg, who received his doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles, has lectured and published widely on the history of Yiddish scholarship. "I'm thrilled to have been awarded the Kiev Fellowship. The staff and diverse Yiddish and Hebrew-language resources of the Kiev Judaica Collection will be of tremendous help with my research project on the Yiddish encyclopedia," said Dr. Trachtenberg. The recipient of this year’s Kiev Junior Fellowship is Ms. Aviv Becher, a Judaic Studies and English major at GW. Her planned Honors thesis in Judaic Studies and English will examine the relevance of modern Hebrew poetry to Jewish religious life in Israel and the Diaspora. In the course of her interdisciplinary research, Ms. Becher will be able to make use of a variety of Hebrew, literary and liturgical materials in the Kiev Collection. Ms. Becher stated: “I am grateful for the opportunity to deepen my studies of Modern Hebrew poetry by tracing historically the theological roots of the discipline in the Kiev Collection. The Collection is such an asset to the university and I feel fortunate to have such free access to its holdings.” These awards mark the second iteration of the Kiev Fellowships. The first Senior Fellow was Dr. Jonathan Skolnik, Assistant Professor of German at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, who worked on German, Hebrew, and Yiddish Writers in 1920s Berlin, focusing in particular on German-Jewish poet Else Lasker-Schüler. The first Junior Fellow was Ms. Robin Janofsky, a GW History major and pre-Law student, who wrote about the American Jewish community’s relationship to Abraham Lincoln; her Honors thesis is now held in the Lincoln Presidential Library. Established by Dr. Ari and Phyllis Kiev in 1996, the Kiev Judaica Collection is based on the private library of Dr. Kiev’s father, Rabbi Dr. I. Edward Kiev (1905-1975), one of the preeminent Judaica librarians of the 20th century. Housed since 1998 in the Kiev Room of the Gelman Library, the collection contains more than 28,000 volumes, along with Jewish graphic art, archives, recorded music, ephemera, artifacts and ritual objects. For more information visit http://library.gwu.edu/collections/kiev"

Updates from the Kiev Collection

FYI - several new web and social media pages devoted to the I. Edward Kiev Judaica Collection at George Washington University, Washington, DC : KIEV JUDAICA COLLECTION WEBSITE: http://library.gwu.edu/collections/kiev FACEBOOK PAGE FOR THE KIEV COLLECTION: http://www.facebook.com/IEdwardKievJudaicaCollection PINTEREST BOARD FOR THE KIEV COLLECTION: http://pinterest.com/gelmanlibrary/i-edward-kiev-judaica-collection/ PINTEREST BOARD FOR BOOKS BY DR. ARI KIEV: http://pinterest.com/gelmanlibrary/books-by-dr-ari-kiev/ with collegial greetings from the cloud. :) -- Brad Sabin Hill Curator The I. Edward Kiev Judaica Collection Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW, suite 709C Washington, DC 20052 USA

September 12 in New York: Lecture and Exhibition Opening at Columbia

From Michelle Chesner:

August 21: Lecture on 16th-century Hebrew Books at the Library of Congress

September 27-28: Conference on Manuscripts in Multiple Languages and Scripts

MANUSCRITOS PLURILINGÜES Y PLURIGRÁFICOS DE ORIENTE Y OCCIDENTE Comité: Giuseppe Mandalà, Alex Metcalfe, Inmaculada Pérez Martín 27-28 Septiembre 2012 Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas C/ Albasanz 26-28, 28037 Madrid The conference deals with the evidence of manuscripts and handwritten documents with multilingual and/or multigraphic structures in Arabic, Hebrew, Latin and/or Greek. The congress aims to connect research frameworks forging new, cross-cultural debates between disciplines, including palaeography, codicology, history, art history, linguistics, and sociology. Particular attention will be given to three regions: 1. Sicily and the Italian mainland 2. The Iberian Peninsula 3. Syria–Palestine The chronological range is broadly medieval, from the sixth to fifteenth centuries. Papers will be based around research aspects of the following two themes: 1. manuscripts: including holy books, scientific and legal texts, literature and theology, glossaries, lexicons, grammars, and other texts for learning a foreign language 2. documents (public, semi-public and private) with particular reference to multilingual chanceries and/or inter-state relationships in the medieval Mediterranean. Línea “Oriente en Occidente. Desafiando fronteras”, CCHS, CSIC Directora: Mercedes García-Arenal Coordinación científica: Giuseppe Mandalà Apoyo técnico: Regina Chatruch del Rio, Amina Naciri Azzouz contacto: giuseppe.mandala@cchs.csic.es tel. +34 916022698 www.cchs.csic.es

Updates to Catalog of Hebrew Manuscripts at NLI

FROM H-JUDAIC: From: Yael Okun [mailto:Yael.Okun@nli.org.il] Sent: Tue 7/31/2012 9:13 AM Subject: Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts Catalogue We are delighted to announce that The National Library of Israel's online catalogue now includes more than 4000 linked records to freely available digitized Hebrew manuscripts online (post-dating the Dead Sea Scrolls) from institutions around the world, including 1000 on the NLI website itself. These represent many more Judaica records than are currently available through either the Digital Scriptorium or the Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts or similar digitized manuscript aggregators. As we continue to add links, we aim to serve as the global access portal for Hebrew digitized manuscripts. Most of the scans are full color; only a minority are in black and white - namely, digitizations of microfilms rather than scans from the original manuscript. Usually, these represent full codices, but sometimes single pages serve as samples of a larger work, or alternatively represent the complete extant fragment. We do not link items accessed for a fee or via subscription (thus, Cairo Genizah items available via the Friedberg Genizah Project or similar projects are not included). Also, as we don't catalog individual Genizah fragments, digitized items available at the Princeton University Genizah Project (The Princeton Geniza Project ) are not included in our database. We are aware of, and are working to include, the digitized microfilms of JTS and HUC mss and the Chaim Reich collection facsimiles, now being uploaded at Hebrew Books.org and its affiliate Hebrew Manuscripts.org . Finally, we realize that many online items are not yet included in our collection of microfilmed manuscripts and thus do not appear in our catalogue. Please be patient as we work to rectify the situation. For items that may be in error, or incomplete, or refer to unstable links, or were completely missed, we encourage you to inform us so we may correct and add to our growing collection. Institutions that upload Judaica manuscripts are urged to let us know so we may add links from/to our catalog records as soon as possible. 1. Search for Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts The National Library of Israel's home page is The National Library of Israel ; from there, click on the Library's "Online Catalogue," and then to "Manuscripts" in the drop down menu of "libraries." (Or go directly to IMHM Online Catalogue ) To locate all records with links to digitized manuscripts online, search in our online catalogue "Basic search [????? ?????]:" under "subject[??????] " field, type "digitized manuscripts[??? ??. ?????] ". To limit the search to a specific subject, search under "Advanced search [????? ?????] " with items "digitized [?????]" and the relevant subject (e.g. ???? for all biblical related mss). To sort the results by location, click on "source/title [???? ]" in the upper section of the screen. Results may appear in either "table" or "brief" formats. 2. Browse Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts To simply browse through all digitized manuscripts on the NLI digital website itself (at this point, about 1000 items, including but not limited to 250 from the Rosenthaliana collection in Amsterdam; 100 from Columbia University in NY; 50 from the Braginsky collection in Zurich; as well as nearly 400 of NLI's own collection), click Digital Collections at The National Library of Israel . 3. Rabbinics Mss Online The old Talmud Mss Online website is in the process of being dismantled. In its place, we are happy to refer readers to the new and more comprehensive Rabbinics Manuscripts Online (still in beta mode but to be updated significantly on a consistent basis). We must clarify a legal point: just because we link to, or feature on our website, fully digitized manuscripts, either owned by The National Library or other institutions, this does not represent permission for use from either The National Library or those other institutions, for any use exceeding the Fair Use provisions defined by law, which include private research. Only explicit permission in writing from the institutional owners of the manuscripts themselves and the copyright holders may grant authorization for additional use. Department of Manuscripts & The Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts The National Library of Israel Jerusalem, Israel

Press Release from Library of Congress--100 Years of the Hebraica Collection at LOC

Library of Congress to Mark Centennial of Hebraic Collection With Publication, Exhibition A century ago, New York philanthropist Jacob H. Schiff purchased an initial collection of nearly 10,000 Hebrew books and pamphlets from bibliophile and book dealer Ephraim Deinard for the Library of Congress. This gift formed the nucleus of what is today one of the world’s greatest collections of Hebraic materials and Judaica, comprising some 200,000 items. The Library is celebrating the centennial of its Hebraic Collection with the publication this month of "Perspectives on the Hebraic Book: The Myron M. Weinstein Memorial Lectures at the Library of Congress" and an exhibition titled "Words Like Sapphires: 100 Years of Hebraica at the Library of Congress, 1912-2012." "Perspectives on the Hebraic Book" comprises the texts of the Myron M. Weinstein Memorial Lectures on the Hebraic Book, which were delivered annually from 2000-2009 at the Library of Congress. The compilation is edited by Peggy K. Pearlstein, head of the Hebraic Section in the Library’s African and Middle Eastern Division. The broad scope of the lectures was designed to reflect the wide-ranging scholarly interests of Myron M. Weinstein (1927-1998), who served his 29-year career at the Library of Congress in the Hebraic Section, which he headed from 1980 until his retirement in 1984. The lecture series and its publication in book form were made possible by Weinstein’s sisters, Muriel Sterne and the late Helen Avati, with additional support from Project Judaica Trust Fund. Each chapter analyzes unique perspectives on the Hebrew manuscript and book. Joseph R. Hacker, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discusses the printing of Hebrew books in the 16th-century Ottoman Empire. Grace Cohen Grossman, Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, examines 18th- and 19th- century Hebrew prayer broadsides. Bernard Dov Cooperman, University of Maryland, offers a view of the impact of printing on Italian Jewish piety. Jonathan D. Sarna, Brandeis University, chronicles the Jewish book in America. Zachary M. Baker, Stanford University, reflects on the Yiddish theater and its legacy. Marsha L. Rozenblitt, University of Maryland, explores 19th-century Viennese Jewry through the Isak Noa Mannheimer prayer book. Gershon Greenberg, American University, investigates the struggles of Hasidic religious thinkers to find a response to the Holocaust. Evelyn M. Cohen, an independent scholar, compares two 15th-century Joel ben Simeon manuscripts. Doris A. Hamburg, National Archives and Records Administration, describes the conservation of the 1478 Joel ben Simeon manuscript known as "The Washington Haggadah," which is housed in the Library of Congress. The rare item was rebound by the Library of Congress before its display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last spring. "Perspectives on the Hebraic Book: The Myron M. Weinstein Memorial Lectures at the Library of Congress," a 240-page softcover book with 30 illustrations, is available for $35 in the Library of Congress Shop, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. 20540-4985. Credit-card orders are taken at (888) 682-3557, or shop on the Internet at www.loc.gov/shop. "Words Like Sapphires: 100 Years of Hebraica at the Library of Congress, 1912-2012," will be on view Oct. 25, 2012, through March 16, 2013, in the South Gallery of the Thomas Jefferson Building at 10 First Street S.E., Washington, D.C. The exhibition, made possible by generous support from the Abby and Emily Rapoport Trust Fund at the Library of Congress, will feature more than 60 items dating from the 7th century through the present. Items from 15 countries in nine languages include Hebrew manuscripts, incunabula (pre-1501 books), torah scrolls, Yiddish sheet music and contemporary limited edition artists’ books. More than half of the items in the exhibition have never been displayed. The Hebraica publication and exhibition are part of the Library’s "Celebration of the Book," which includes an exhibition, June 25 through Sept. 29, on "Books That Shaped America" and a series of programs, symposia and other events that explore the important and varied ways that books influence our lives. The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds more than 151 million items in various languages, disciplines, and formats. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs, publications and exhibitions. Many of the Library’s rich resources can be accessed through its website at www.loc.gov.

Kestenbaum auction this week

Auction Thurs., June 21st 2012 at 3pm Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters, Graphic & Ceremonial Art Featuring: The Cassuto Collection of Judeo-Iberian Books Exhibition: Sun. 17th - Wed. 20th June Catalogue here. For further information please contact Jackie Insel Jackie@Kestenbaum.net Kestenbaum & Company 242 West 30th Street, New York NY 10001 Tel: (212) 366.1197• Fax: (212) 366.1368 www.kestenbaum.net

Conference of Judaica Collection Curators

*Curating and Cultivating Exchange:* *The First International Conference of Judaica Collection Curators* The Conference will begin on Monday, June 4th and will end on Wednesday, June 6th 2012. The conference will be held at the National Library of Israel which is located in the Edmond Safra Campus in Givat Ram, Jerusalem. The full program may be found on our website: http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/collections/jewish-collection

Braginsky Collection Update

For those who missed this on H-Judaic last week. Subject: Braginsky Collection of Hebrew manuscripts and printed books: new German website From: Schrijver, Emile Subject: Braginsky Collection: new German website The fourth exhibition of the private Braginsky Collection of Hebrew manuscripts and printed books, in the Landesmuseum in Zurich, Switzerland, closed on 11 March 2012. The exhibition is now available on the fantastic new German website by Ardon Bar-Hama in which all books, ketubbot and megillot can be seen and in which each showcase and each item is fully clickable. It also contains the splendid Israel Museum film on the making of Hebrew illuminated manuscripts, which should be part of every class on Hebrew book making: www.braginskycollection.ch. The exhibition was a cooperation of the Landesmuseum in Zurich and the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, Special Collections, University of Amsterdam. The new site contains 25 items that cannot be seen on www.braginskycollection.com.

Emile Schrijver at Columbia April 19

Review of Yoel Finkelman, Strictly Kosher Reading

Yoel Finkelman. Strictly Kosher Reading: Popular Literature and the Condition of Contemporary Orthodoxy. Boston Academic Studies Press, 2011.

Reviewed by Moshe Sherman (Touro College) Published on H-Judaic (March, 2012)

see: URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3D34095

New Website Roundup

Jewish Heritage Europe web site: http://www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu

Sephardi Mizrahi Studies: http://sephardimizrahistudies.org/

JDC Archives: http://archives.jdc.org

"Zucker Holy Land Travel Manuscript" at Penn Libraries:
http://sceti.library.upenn.edu/zucker/index.cfm .

March 26: Workshop in NYC: Rare Books and Archival Collections in the Digital Age

from H-Judaic:

From: Jay Rovner

The New York Metropolitan Area Chapter of the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL-NYMA) invites you to attend a regional workshop devoted to the topic of "Rare Books and Archival Collections in the Digital Age: The Impact, the Direction and the Conversation". The workshop will be held on Monday, March 26th, 2012, 1-4:30 pm, at The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Mendelson Convocation Center (1st floor of the Library), 3080 Broadway, New York, NY 10027 (corner of 122nd Street and Broadway).

PROGRAM:

1-1:30 pm Registration/Coffee/Light refreshments

1:30-4 pm

Special Collecting in the University Research Library: The View from Stanford - Zachary M. Baker, Assistant University Librarian for Collection Development-Humanities and Social Sciences; Reinhard Family Curator of Judaica and Hebraica Collections - "What position does special collecting currently occupy in large university research libraries? How does the widespread availability of online resources affect collection development decisions in the special collections arena? What are the limitations of online access to rare books and archival content?

Meditations on Digitization: An Archival Perspective - Shulamith Z. Berger, Curator of Special Collections, Mendel Gottesman Library, Yeshiva University - "This presentation will discuss digitization of archival materials from a philosophical rather than a technical approach. How to set priorities in digitization? How does digitization affect usage of archives and the expectations of the user community? = Will digitization impact collection development as well as the processing and housing of collections?"

Seeing is Believing: Graphics Collections Online - Sharon Liberman Mintz, Curator of Jewish Art, The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary - "An approach to creating access to visual materials."

Wonders of the World: The Taj Mahal and Rare Books - Dr. Peggy K. Pearlstein, Head, Hebraic Section, African and Middle Eastern Division, = Library of Congress - "An overview of acquiring, preserving and making = available rare Hebrew books at the Library of Congress."

Parchment, Paper and Pixels: Collectors' Attitudes to Digitization of Rare Books and Manuscripts - David Wachtel, Senior Consultant for Judaica, Books & Manuscripts Department, Sotheby's, New York; Senior Consultant, Special Collections, The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

4:15-5 pm
Optional tour of the Rare Book Collection of The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

REGISTRATION:
RSVP by March 20th ; Rita Lifton,
rilifton [at] jtsa [edu] (212) 280-6020 or Sara Spiegel, saspiegel [at] jtsa [edu]
(212) 678-8093. Registration fee, $10; payment is at the door. *A valid photo ID is required for entrance.* *The JTS dining hall serves a kosher, dairy lunch from 11 am to 2 pm.


This workshop is co-sponsored by the New York Metropolitan Area Chapter of the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL-NYMA) in partnership with the Long Island Chapter (LIAJL), the New England Chapter (NEAJL) and the Washington, DC Capital Area Chapter (AJL-CAC). The workshop is underwritten by the Association of Jewish Libraries.

Project Muse Expansion

Update from Project Muse:



MUSE Launches New Platform and Adds Book Content

On January 1 MUSE launched its new integrated books and journals platform. The new platform combines nearly 14,000 book titles with content from the 500+ journals in MUSE. The new site offers users the flexibility to search just the book and journal content to which their institution subscribes or to expand their search to all content in MUSE. New hierarchical subject categories can help broaden or narrow a search to the most relevant content.

Try a search with the new post-search filtering. Use the search facets and the Modify Search (Boolean structure) boxes to limit results. All the power of the previous MUSE search function is present in the new search & facets functionality. We welcome your feedback on the new site - look for the orange Feedback button on the top right corner of the pages and let us know your thoughts.

When to Browse; When to Search

The new MUSE interface includes an expanded Browse and an enhanced Search process. There are key differences in the content displayed in each.

Browse
Browse is designed to allow everyone to peruse all book and journal titles and tables of contents in MUSE for content that is of interest. Access to full text, however, is dependent upon whether your institution subscribes to specific book or journal content. Access icons indicate which full text is available to the individual.
Search
A search box on every page initiates a search of whichever content the user wants to search: books only, journals only, or books and journals simultaneously. The search results default to only content to which your institution subscribes. Facets (or limiters) on the results page help to refine results. The Modify Search box on the results page also allows you to refine results by constructing a boolean search.
If a user desires to see all MUSE results relevant to the search, they can select the option to show all content, meaning that search results will include content to which their institution does not have full text access and will be noted as such by an icon.

Welcome!
MUSE extends a hearty welcome to the over 70 institutions, North American and international, that have purchased one or more of the UPCC Book Collections on Project MUSE. Thank you for your support.

________________________________________

New On-line

Cairo Genizah material from the Bodleian:
genizah.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

The Soncino English translation of the Talmud: http://halakhah.com/indexrst.html

Colette Sirat's website:
www.colette-sirat.com

CFP: German-Jewish Reading Practices

FROM H-JUDAIC:

From: Nick Block
Sent: Thu 1/26/2012 8:46 AM
Subject: CFP: Cultural Perspectives on German-Jewish Reading Practices, = GSA, Deadline: Feb. 5
=20
CFP: Cultural Perspectives on German-Jewish Reading Practices=20 36th Annual Conference of the German Studies Association (GSA),=20 Milwaukee, WI; October 4-7, 2012=20

Walter Benjamin unpacks his library. _The Star of Redemption_, with the magen David emblazoned on the cover, sits ostentatiously under Gershom Scholem's arm in the streets of Berlin. A Viennese caf. Reading = practices inform much of culture. In turn, "readings" inform much of scholarship.
Reading can shape imagined communities but can also be symptomatic of disengaging from community. In what ways do German Jews perform reading?
How does the book play into notions of identity? Can the affixing of a Jewish-themed bookplate be seen as an intervention by the reader, a = modern take on the affixing of a mezuzah? This panel at the GSA seeks presentations which engage with reading practices in the German-Jewish sphere from any vantage point. Papers in dialogue with Jewish studies, gender studies, visual culture, and critical theory are especially welcome.
Possible topics include:=20
-subcultures and reading=20
-material culture: the comic book, the bookplate, book collecting=20 -reading aloud and the aural reading experience=20 -sites of reading: the park bench, the Strassenbahn, the desk=20

Please submit abstracts (max. 250 words) to Nick Block =
(nblock [at] umich.edu)
by Sunday, Feb. 5th.=20

Presenters must be or become members of the German Studies Association = by Feb. 15th. Information on membership is available on the GSA website (www.thegsa.org).

------------------------------

April 19, 2012: Emile Schrijver at Columbia

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY BOOK HISTORY COLLOQUIUM: SPRING 2012

All programs are in Room 523, Butler Library, on the Columbia campus. Start time is 6:00 PM.


April 19, 2012

Emile Schrijver (University of Amsterdam)

"Defining a Field: Jewish Books in the Age of Print"

The study of the Jewish book since the invention of printing has developed from a rather traditional, descriptive bibliographical discipline into an independent field of research in which the book is studied as an expression of Jewish culture and as an instrument for the transmission of Jewish and non-Jewish knowledge. The foundations for this new field were laid in medieval book research, in the fields of Hebrew codicology and Jewish art, to be more specific. In particular the leading medievalists Malachi Beit-Arié and Colette Sirat have defined new fundamental research questions, which are closely related to, and often precede modern research into non-Jewish medieval books. Their research is based on the careful study of large corpora of carefully selected primary source material, but is not limited to descriptive work. They have produced a number of monographs in which more fundamental research questions have been dealt with. For the centuries since the invention of printing a comparable development may be observed, but the results are not as definitive yet as those achieved for medieval Hebrew manuscripts. This lecture will address some of the pertinent methodological issues.

Emile G.L. Schrijver is curator of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, the Jewish special collection at the University of Amsterdam. He is also a curator of the private Braginsky Collection of Hebrew Manuscripts and Printed Books in Zurich, Switzerland. He is an expert of post?medieval Hebrew manuscripts and printed books and has published and lectured extensively on both topics. He has written a number of introductions to facsimile editions of Hebrew manuscripts and has published numerous auction and exhibition catalogues, most recently (2009, co?edited with Evelyn M. Cohen and Sharon Liberman Mintz) A Journey through Jewish Worlds. Highlights from the Braginsky Collection of Hebrew Manuscripts and Printed Books. A German version of this catalogue, entitled "Schöne Seiten: Jüdische Schriftkultur aus der Braginsky Collection", accompanies an exhibition in the Landesmuseum in Zurich (25 Nov 2011 ? 11 March 2012). He serves on boards and advisory committees of numerous Jewish cultural organizations in and outside the Netherlands.

New Book on Christian Hebraism

In press:

Stephen G. Burnett, Christian Hebraism in the Reformation Era, 1500-1660: Authors, Books, and the Transmission of Jewish Learning.
Brill 2012.

http://www.brillusa.com/christian-hebraism-reformation-era-1500-1660?page=1&quicktabs_brill_product_tabs=2

From the publisher's description: "Christian Hebraism in early modern Europe has traditionally been interpreted as the pursuit of a few exceptional scholars, but in the sixteenth century it became an intellectual movement involving hundreds of authors and printers and thousands of readers. The Reformation transformed Christian Hebrew scholarship into an academic discipline, supported by both Catholics and Protestants. This book places Christian Hebraism in a larger context by discussing authors and their books as mediators of Jewish learning, printers and booksellers as its transmitters, and the impact of press controls in shaping the public discussion of Hebrew and Jewish texts. Both Jews and Jewish converts played an important role in creating this new and unprecedented form of Jewish learning."