HJS News
UCL Festival of the Arts May 7-17
Start:
May 7, 2013 1:00:00 PM
End:
May 17, 2013 7:30:00 PM
Location:
various venues, UCL Bloomsbury Campus More...
Europe and the Holocaust - Shifts in Public Debates in Poland, Germany and the UK
The panel investigates shifts in the role of the Holocaust in European
public debates in the recent past. Contrasting developments in Poland,
Germany, and Great Britain, we will identify common threads as well as
differences in perceiving, presenting, memorizing the mass murder of
European Jewries.
More...
Graduate Student Conference: Jewish Spirituality in Eastern Europe
The Yiddish Forverts has recently published a report from the Graduate Student Conference on ‘Jewish Spirituality in Eastern Europe – a Textual Perspective,’ held at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, UCL on 6-7 June, 2012. The article, authored by conference participant Adi Mahalel (Columbia University), is available online on the website of the Forverts: http://yiddish.forward.com/node/4589 More...
New publication: The Russian-Jewish Diaspora and European Culture, 1917-1937
Over a period of three years, the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Department at
UCL has been cooperating in a research project devoted to 'Cultural Continuitiy
in the Diaspora: Paris and Berlin in 1917-1937', based at the Department of
European Studies and Modern Languages, University of Bath, and in cooperation
with the Centre for European and International Studies at the University of
Portsmouth. The project had been funded by the Leverhulme Trust Academic
Collaboration-International Network scheme. Among the initiators of the project
had been the late John D. Klier. More...
International Graduate Student Conference 2012
The Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at UCL is pleased to announce plans for an International Graduate Student Conference, devoted to explorations of multiple aspects of Jewish spirituality in Eastern Europe, to be held on 5th and 6th of June 2012 in London. The conference organizers invite graduate students and recent PhD holders to submit their proposals. We welcome presentations addressing any aspect of the religious history and religious culture of Eastern European Jewry, with an emphasis on their textual products. We are particularly interested in proposals which open up new perspectives and pose new questions regarding conceptual frameworks and traditional definitions used to describe Eastern Europe in the field of Jewish Studies. Topics may include:
More...
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The Montefiore Testimonials Digitization Project
Digitizing, transcribing, translating the Montefiore Testimonials
One of the most spectacular collections of documents pertaining to Jewish
cultural and political history in the 19th century is being preserved at
UCL. This collection consists of hundreds of testimonials sent by Jewish
communities, associations, and individuals to Sir Moses Montefiore
(1784-1885), probably the most prominent Jew of this century, and most
recently the protagonist of the remarkable book by Abigail Green (Moses
Montefiore. Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero, Harvard University Press
2010).
In close cooperation between the Montefiore Endowment (the actual owner of the collection), the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Department at UCL, the Special Collections of UCL, and the UCL Learning and Media Services, a project to digitize, transliterate, and, if necessary, translate into English the complete set of the Montefiore Testimonials has been initiated. The project is directed by Dr François Guesnet, Sidney and Elizabeth Corob Lecturer in Modern Jewish History at the HJS Department, and will enhance the accessability of this well-known and unique set of documents.
The Montefiore Testimonials consist of a collection of several hundred documents addressed to Sir Moses Montefiore (1784-1885) between the late 1830s and 1884. The testimonials represent a unique source to 19th century Jewish cultural history. Many celebrate the achievements of Sir Moses as a spokesman of Jewish communities under duress, and often feature highly sophisticated wording, calligraphy, ornaments, and iconographic material. A great number of impressive testimonials arrived in Ramsgate on the occasion of Montefiore's one hundredth birthday, in 1884. The project will continue the next two years, and conclude with an academic conference on Sir Moses Montefiore and this extraordinary collection of documents.
Since late 2009, a group of student volunteers of the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Departement is closely involved in transcribing the original documents, thus contributing to one of the central data bases of the project. The documents are written in a great number of languages: Hebrew, English, Italian, German are the most frequent, but there are a number of documents in other languages as well. These documents represent a journey around the Jewish world of the 19th century, as they were sent from around the whole world, including the Americas, Africa, Australia, and Asia, and obviously from the various parts of the European continent. They offer insights into religious trends and movements, of which a significant part considered Moses Montefiore their symbolical (or real) spokesperson). Culturally, they offer a fascinating display of iconographic traditions and innovations. In the vast majority, they have been produced with the utmost care, and in many cases offer impressive calligraphy and decoration.
The project welcomes students who would be willing to join the effort as volunteers. It offers a rare opportunity to learn how to work with archival material. Beyond the transcription of documents, some initiatives will take place for the volunteers. If you want to get involved, please send an e-mail to the HJS Department at UCL, or phone 0207 679 7171.
