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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.
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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:
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Willem Smelik

Dr Willem F. Smelik - Senior Lecturer in Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic

Dr Smelik did his MA and PhD (1991, 1995, both with highest honours) at the Theologische Universiteit Kampen, the Netherlands, where he studied under Johannes de Moor. He is currently lecturer in Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic at the department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London.

He has held fellowships from the Theologische Universiteit Kampen (Netherlands), the Lady Davis foundation (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and the Yad Hanadiv/Beracha Foundation (2003/2004). In 2005/2006 he chaired the panel for Other European Languages and the Middle East for the Quality Assessment Netherlands Universities (QANU) under the authority of the Nederlands-Vlaamse Accreditatie Organisatie (NVAO). Since July 2007 he is the President of the International Organisation for Targum Studies (IOTS), for which he was Vice-President since 2001. From January to June 2010 he participated in the residential seminar "The Greek Bible and the Rabbis" at Oxford University.

His first monograph focused on the Targum of Judges. He was the chief editor of the Bilingual Concordance to the Targum of the Prophets (Leiden: Brill) between 1995 and 1999; co-director of the AHRC funded project entitled "Late Aramaic: The Literary and Linguistic Context of the Zohar" (2004-2009). His other research focuses are Rabbis, Language and Translation in Late Antiquity and a study of the reception of Moses' death and burial in classical rabbinic literature: Moses, Dead or Alive. Further research interests include Talmud, stemmatology, Aramaic dialectology, language selection and code-switching, and textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible.

He is editor of the journal Aramaic Studies, published twice a year (from 2007 onwards by Brill). Further functions include memberships of the editorial board for the series Studies in the Aramaic Interpretation of Scripture (Leiden: Brill) and the Advisory Board of the series "Textos y Estudios Cardenal Cisneros" (TECC), published by the Consejo superior de investigaciones científicas (CSIC) on behalf of the Departamento de Filología Bíblica y de Oriente Antiguo (Madrid).


Books

  • Rabbis, Language and Translation in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
  • Judges (A Bilingual Concordance to the Targum of the Prophets, 2; Leiden: Brill , 1996).
  • The Targum of Judges (OTS. 36; Leiden: Brill , 1995).


Edited Volumes

  • Paratext and Megatext as Channels of Jewish and Christian Traditions (JCP; Leiden: Brill , 2003), edited together with A. den Hollander and U. Schmid. ISSN 1388-2074, ISBN 90 04 12882 4.
  • Aramaic Studies 1.1-2 (2003), 2.1-2 (2004), 3.1-2 (2005), 4.1-2 (2006), 5.1-2 (2007), 6.1-2 (2008), 7.1-2 (2009) (Leiden: Brill )
  • Journal for the Aramaic Bible 2.1-2 (2000), 3.1-2 (2001)
  • Chief editor of Ezekiel (ed. T. Finley; 3 vols.; BCTP, 15-17; Leiden: Brill, 1999); Jeremiah (ed. F. Sepmeijer; 3 vols.; BCTP, 12-14; Leiden: Brill, 1998); Kings (ed. B. Grossfeld; 3 vols.; BCTP, 6-8; Leiden: Brill, 1997); Samuel (ed. E. van Staalduine-Sulman; 3 vols.; BCTP, 3-5; Leiden: Brill, 1996).


Chapters in Books

  • "Justinian's Novella 146 and Contemporary Judaism", in T.M. Law and A.G. Salvesen (eds.), The Greek Bible and the Rabbis: Studies from the European Association of Jewish Studies Seminar, 2010 (Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology; Leuven: Peeters Press, forthcoming).
  • "Targum & Masora: Does Targum Jonathan Follow the ‘Madinhae’ Readings of Ketiv-Qere?", in E. Martin Contreras (ed.), Fixing, Transmitting and Preserving (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).
  • "Myth and Truth: Babylon and the Babylonian Talmud", in E. Cançik–Kirschbaum (ed.), Babylon—Wissenskultur in Orient und Okzident / Science Culture Between Orient and Occident (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2011), pp. 269-81.
  • "Targums", in R. Bagnall a.o., Encyclopedia of Ancient History (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).
  • "The Languages of Roman Palestine", in Catherine Hezser (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Roman Palestine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 122-41.
  • "Language Selection and the Holy Tongue in Early Rabbinic Literature", in L. Teugels and R. Ulmer (eds.), Interpretation, Religion and Culture in Midrash and Beyond: Proceedings of the 2006 and 2007 SBL Midrash Sessions (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2008), pp. 91-151.
  • "Code-switching: The Public Reading of the Bible in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek", in L. Morenz and S. Schorch (eds.), Was ist ein Text? Alttestamentliche, ägyptologische und altorientalistische Perspektiven (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), pp. 123-51.
  • "Translation as Innovation in b. Meg. 3a", in L. Teugels and R. Ulmer (eds.), New Developments in Midrash Research (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2004), pp. 25-49.
  • "Targum Jonathan to the Prophets", in J. Neusner and A.J. Avery-Peck (eds.), Dictionary of Religious Writings in Antiquity, 300 B.C.E. TO 600 C.E. (Leiden: Brill, 2005).
  • "Tosefta-Targum to the Prophets", in J. Neusner and A.J. Avery-Peck (eds.), Dictionary of Religious Writings in Antiquity, 300 B.C.E. TO 600 C.E. (Leiden: Brill, 2005).
  • גולה, ים, כף, מרקחה, פך, in B. Becking and J.C. de Moor (eds), כלי : Utensils in the Hebrew Bible (OTS 50; Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).
  • "Orality, the Targums, and Manuscript Reproduction", in A. den Hollander, U. Schmidt and W.F. Smelik (eds.), Paratext and Megatext in Jewish and Christian Traditions (JCP; Leiden: Brill , 2003), pp. 49-81.
  • "How To Grow a Tree: Variant Selection and Computerised Stemmatology in Targum Studies", in J. Cook (ed.), Bible And Computer --- The Stellenbosch AIBI-6 Conference. Proceedings of the Association Internationale Bible et Informatique "From Alpha to Byte" University of Stellenbosch 17-21 July 2000 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 495-518.
  • "Twin Targums: Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22", in A. Rapaport-Albert and G. Greenberg (eds.), Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Texts: Essays in Memory of Michael P. Weitzman (JSOT.S, 333; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), pp. 244-81; written together with Marian Smelik.


Articles

  • "Why Adam Was Single: The Construction of Clusters in Rabbinic Literature (m. San. 4.5; b. San. 38b)", in preparation.
  • "A Biblical Aramaic Pastiche from the Cairo Genizah", Aramaic Studies 9 (2011), pp. 325-339.
  • "The Aramaic Dialect(s) of the Cairo Geniza Toldot Yeshu Fragments", Aramaic Studies 7.1 (2009), pp. 39-73.
  • "Trouble in the Trees: Variant Selection and Tree Construction Illustrated by the Texts of Targum Judges", Aramaic Studies 1.2 (2003), pp. 247-85 (reprinted in P. van Reenen, A. den Hollander and M. van Mulken (eds), Studies in Stemmatology 2 [Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2004], pp. 167-206).
  • "Language, Locus and Translation between the Talmudim", Journal for the Aramaic Bible 3 (2001), pp. 199-224.
  • "The Rabbinic Reception of Early Bible Translations as Holy Writings and Oral Torah", Journal for the Aramaic Bible 1 (1999), pp. 249-72.
  • "The Use of הזכיר בשם in Classical Hebrew: Josh 23:7, Isa 48:1, Amos 6:10, Ps. 20:8, 4Q504 iii 4, 1QS 6.27", Journal of Biblical Literature 118 (1999), pp. 321-332.
  • "Concordance and Consistency: Translation Studies and Targum Jonathan", Journal of Jewish Studies 49 (1998), pp. 286-305.
  • "Translation and Commentary in One: The Interplay of Pluses and Substitutions in the Targum of the Prophets", Journal for the Study of Judaism 29 (1998), pp. 245-260.
  • "On Mystical Transformation of the Righteous into Light in Judaism",Journal for the Study of Judaism 26 (1995), pp. 122-44.
  • "Parafraserende Expansie in de Targum op Richteren 4 en 5", in I.E. Zwiep and A. Kuyt (eds), Dutch Studies in the Targum: Papers Read at a Workshop Held at the Juda Palache Institute (University of Amsterdam (18 March 1991) (Amsterdam: Juda Palache Institute, 1993), pp. 39-77.

Electronic Works