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HU Credits:
2
Degree/Cycle:
1st degree (Bachelor)
Responsible Department:
History of Jewish People & Contemporary Jewry
Semester:
1st Semester
Teaching Languages:
English
Campus:
Mt. Scopus
Course/Module Coordinator:
Martina Mampieri
Coordinator Office Hours:
Teaching Staff:
Dr. Martina Mampieri
Course/Module description:
The course will introduce students to the history of the Jewish book from its manuscript form to the printing press with a particular focus on early modern Europe. Classes will cover topics such as orality, writing, literacy, material and linguistic aspects, the book trade as well as the people (scribes, printers, editors, censors, booksellers, authors, readers, antiquarians, collectors, etc.) who played a role in the circulation of books and ideas from the premodern time to the modern era. The course will include a tour with hands-on session at the National Library of Israel.
Course/Module aims:
Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
On successful completion of this module, students should be able to discuss the evolution of Jewish books from their manuscript form to their printing in early modern Europe. Additionally, they should be familiar with a number of other aspects concerning materiality, ownership, authorship, readership, language, gender, circulation of objects and ideas.
Attendance requirements(%):
Teaching arrangement and method of instruction:
Course/Module Content:
Class schedule:
1. 26 October
Introduction: What is a Jewish book? What is the history of the book?
• Yaacob Dweck, “What is a Jewish Book?,” AJS Review 34/2 (2010): 367-375.
2. 2 November
The Cairo Genizah
• Marina Rustow, “The Genizah and Jewish Communal History,” in From a Sacred Source. Genizah Studies in Honour of Professor Stefan C. Reif, Cambridge Genizah Studies Series, vol. 1, eds. Ben Outhwaite and Siam Bhayro (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 289-317.
3. 9 November
Medieval Jewish Culture and Manuscripts
• Malachi Beit-Arié, “The Hebrew Medieval Book as a Cross-Cultural Agent between East and West,” Materia Giudaica 14, 1-2 (2009): 533-539.
• Judith R Baskin, “‘May the Writer be Strong’: Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts copied by and for Women,” Nashim 16 (2008):9-28.
4. 16 November
The Advent of Printing: Incunabula
• Alexander Gordin, “Hebrew Incunabula in the National Library of Israel as a Source for Early Modern Book History in Europe and Beyond,” in The Printing R-Evolution and Society, 1450-1500. Fifty Years that Changed Europe &eq; Studi di Storia 13, ed. Cristina Dondi (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2020), 321-338.
5. 23 November
Jewish Printers in Italy
• Introduction to Joseph R. Hacker and Adam Shear (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).
6. 30 November
Venice: Printing the Bible and the Talmud
• Bruce Nielsen, “Daniel von Bombergen, A Bookman of Two Worlds,” in The Hebrew Book in Early Modern Italy, eds. Joseph R. Hacker and Adam Shear (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 56-75.
7. 7 December
Amsterdam Printed Books
• Martina Mampieri, “From Menasseh ben Israel to Solomon Proops Amsterdam Jewish Druckwesen in the Library of Isaiah Sonne in The Jewish Bookshop of the World: Aspects of Print and Manuscript Culture in Early Modern Amsterdam, ed. Theodor Dunkelgrün, monographic issue of Studia Rosenthaliana 46/1 (2020): 97-116.
8. 14 December
Tour and hands-on session at the National Library of Israel (day to be confirmed)
9. 21 December (no class, Hanukkah vacation)
10. 28 December
Printing Books in Yiddish and Ladino
• Shlomo Berger, “Books for the Masses: The Amsterdam Yiddish Book Industry, 1650-1800,” European Judaism: A Journal for the New Europe 42/2 (2009): 24-33.
• Aviva Ben-Ur, “Ladino in Print: Toward a Comprehensive Bibliography,” Jewish History 16 (2002): 309-326.
11. 4 January
Christian Hebraism and Kabbalah
• Theodor Dunkelgrün, “The Hebrew Library of a Renaissance Humanist. Andreas Masius and the Bibliography to his Iosuae Imperatoris Historia (1574) with a Latin Edition and an Annotated English Translation”, Studia Rosenthaliana 42-43 (2010-11), 197-252.
12. 11 January
Destruction, Censorship, and Confiscation of Jewish Books
• Piet van Boxel, “Hebrew Books and Censorship in Sixteenth-Century Italy,” in Jewish Books and their Readers, eds. Scott Mandelbrote and Joanna Weinberg (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 75-99.
13. 18 January
Illustrating and Decorating Jewish Books
• Evelyn M. Cohen, “The Decoration of Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts,” in A Sign and a Witness: 2,000 Years of Hebrew Books and Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. Leonard Singer Gold (New York: New York Public Library and Oxford University Press, 1988), 47–60.
14. 25 January
Collecting Jewish Books: Formation of Libraries, Collectors, Bibliographers
• David Sclar, “A Communal Tree of Life: Western Sephardic Jewry and the Library of the Ets Haim Yesiba in Early Modern Amsterdam,” Book History 22 (2019): 43–65.
• Menahem Schmelzer, “Building a Great Judaica Library—at What Price?” in Tradition Renewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, ed. Jack Wertheimer, vol. 1 (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1997), 679-715.
Required Reading:
Additional and/or alternative readings will be provided throughout the course.
Primary sources and bibliography will be available through Moodle.
Additional Reading Material:
Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 25 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 50 %
Assignments 10 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 15 %
Active participation in class
Additional information:
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