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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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HEBR7731/HEBRG106 Culture of Sephardic Jewry

Course code: HEBR7731 BA and Junior Year Abroad (JYA)
HEBRG106 MA
Tutor: Dr. H Pomeroy
Mode of assessment:  BA and JYA students: 2 essays (2,500-3,000 words each)
MA: 1 essay (5-6,000 words)
Taught:  In term 2 only
Classes:  Tuesdays, 1100-1300 in Cruciform B.02

Description

An analysis of the cultural history of the Jews of al-Andalus (present-day Spain and Portugal), the Ottoman Empire and Morocco, encompassing various aspects of Sephardi culture (languages, oral and written literature, visual arts, life cycle traditions, material culture, music, food and identity, superstitions, etc). 

The course will examine the historical, economic and social factors that shaped Sephardi culture. 

Means of Assessment 

Undergraduate and Second term JYA: 2 essays (2,500-3,000 words each)

Graduate: 1 essay (5-6,000 words) (100%)

Undergraduate and Second Term JYA:

1. The Jews of al-Andalus: To what extent did Sephardi culture reflect both assimilation of Islamic culture and renewal of Jewish culture?

Deadline: End of Reading Week.

2. Either of the following topics:

a) Write a cultural and historical profile of a community in the Sephardi Jewish Diaspora.  How has the host community influenced Jewish culture?

b) Discuss the impact on Sephardi culture of Westernization and modernization during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

Deadline: Last day of Easter Vacation

Graduate:

Deadline: Last day of Easter vacation. Topic to be discussed with Dr. Pomeroy

Bibliography

Essential Background Reading:
  • Díaz-Mas, Paloma, 1992. Sephardim: The Jews from Spain, transl. George Zucker (Chicago). 
  • Gerber, Jane S., 1992. The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience (New York: The Free Press), pp. 27-57, 59-89, 145-75, 253-83.
  • Raphael, Chaim, 1985. The Road from Babylon (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson), pp. 127-58, 159-71.
  • Stillman, Norman, 1979. The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (Philadelphia: JPSA), pp. 53-63, 76-87, 87-94, 210-16.
  • Stillman, Norman, ed., 2010. The Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, 5 vols (Brill). Selected entries.

Al-Andalus:

  • Bango, Isidro G., 2003. Remembering Sepharad: Jewish Culture in Medieval Spain (State Corporation for Spanish Cultural Action Abroad).
  • Cole, Peter, ed., 2007. The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain 950-1492 (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
  • Convivencia, 1992. Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain, ed.  Vivien B. Mann, Thomas F. Glick, Jerrilyn D, Dodds (NY: George Braziller).
  • Dodds, Jerrilyn, 1992. Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain (New York: Metropolitan Museum). 
  • Gampel, Benjamin R., 1992. ‘Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval Iberia: Convivencia through the Eyes of Sephardic Jews’, in Convivencia, pp. 11-37.
  • Jayussi, Salma Khadra, ed. The Legacy of Muslim Spain.
  • Mann, Vivien B., 2000-2001. Morocco: Jews and Art in a Muslim Land (New York).
  • ―, Thomas F. Glick, & Jerrilyn D. Dodds, ed. 1992. ‘Convivencia’: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain (New York: George Braziller). 
  • Menocal, María Rosa, Raymond P. Scheindlin & Michael Sells, ed., 2000. The Literature of Al-Andalus (Cambridge: CUP), pp. 1-24, 33-59, 60-82, 165-89, 235-54.
  • ―, 2002. The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (New York: Back Bay).
  • Scheindlin, Raymond P, 1986. Wine, Women and Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life (Oxford: OUP).
  •  ―, 2008. The Song of the Distant Dove: Judah Halevi’s Pilgrimage (Oxford: OUP).
  • Stillman, Norman, 1979. ‘Aspects of Jewish Life’, in Aspects of Jewish Culture in the Middles Ages, ed., Paul E. Szarmach (Albany: SUNY), pp. 51-84.

Sephardi Diaspora

  • Bénichou Gottreich, Emily, & Daniel J. Schroeter, ed., 2011.
  • Jewish Culture and Society in North Africa (Bloomington: IUP).
  • Benjamin, Chaya, 2000. ‘Silver Ritual Objects of the Jewish Communities of the Ottoman Empire’, in A Crown for a King: Studies in Jewish Art, History and Archaeology’, ed. Shalom Sabar, Steven Fine & William M. Kramer (Berkeley: Judah L. Magnes Museum, pp. 31-44.
  • Bilu, Yoram, 2011. ‘Dreamers in Paradise: The Rise and Fall of a New Holy Site in Beit She’an, Israel’, in Jewish Studies at the Crossroads of Anthropology and History: Authority, Diaspora, Tradition, ed. Ra’anan S. Boustan, Oren Kosansky & Marina Rustow (Philadelphia: UPP), pp. 80-101.
  • Bunis, David, ed., 1999. Voices from Jewish Salonika (Jerusalem: Misgav Yerushalayim).
  • Cohen, Judith, 2011. ‘Judeo-Spanish Songs Meet the Twenty-First Century’, European Judaism, 151-64.
  • Elazar, Daniel J., 1989. The Other Jews: The Sephardim Today (New York).
  • Deshen, Shlomo, & Walter P. Zenner, ed., 1996. Jews among Muslims: Communities in the Pre-Colonial Middles East (Basingstoke: Macmillan).
  • ―, & Linda Kay Davidson, 1999. A Drizzle of Honey: The Lives and Recipes of Spain’s Secret Jews (NY: St. Martin’s Press). 
  • Gottreich, Emily, 2007. The Mellah of Marrakesh: Jewish and Muslim Space in Morocco’s Red City (Bloomington: IUP).
  •  Harris, Tracy, 1994. Death of a Language: The History of Judeo-Spanish (Newark: University of Delaware Press).
  • ―, 1996. ‘The Current Status of Judeo-Spanish in the United States and Israel’, in Donaire, 6’, 43-48.
  • ―, 2011. ‘The State of Ladino Today’, European Judaism, 11/1, 51-61.
  • Juhasz, Esther, ed., 1990. Sephardi Jews in The Ottoman Empire: Aspects of Medieval Culture (Jerusalem: The Israel Museum).
  • Kennedy, Hugh, 2007. The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World we Live in (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson), pp. 200-24, 308-23.
  • Klein, Michele, 2000. A Time to Be Born: Customs and Folklore of Jewish Birth (Philadelphia: JPS).
  • Pomeroy, Hilary, 2002. ‘From the Cradle to the Grave’: Life-cycle Customs and Songs of the Sephardim, in Judeo Espaniol: A Jewish Language in Search of its People, ed. Raphael Gatenio (Thessaloniki: Ets Ahaim Foundation), pp. 63-74. 
  • ―, 2011. ‘Sephardi Ballads’, European Judaism, 11.1, 107-120.
  • —, —. ‘The Sephardi Romancero: Its First Century’, Hispania Judaica, 8. 
  • Roden, Claudia, 1997. The Book of Jewish Food (London: Viking).
  • Rodrigue, Aron, 2002. ‘The Ottoman Diaspora: The Rise and Fall of Ladino Literary Culture’, in Cultures of the Jews: A New History, ed. David Biale (New York: Random House), pp. 863-885.
  • Rubens, Alfred, 1967. A History of Jewish Costume (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson).
  • Sabar, Shalom, 1990. Ketubbah (Philadelphia: JPS).
  • ―, 2000. Ketubbah: The Art of the Jewish Marriage Contract (New York@ Rizzoli).
  • ―, 2002. ‘Childbirth and Magic: Jewish Folklore and Material Culture’, in Cultures of the Jews: A New History, ed. David Biale (New York: Random House), pp. 671-722.
  • —, 2011. ‘Words, Images and Magic: The Protection of the Bride and Bridegroom in Jewish Marriage Contracts’, in Jewish Studies at the Crossroads of Anthropology and History: Authority, Diaspora, Tradition, ed. Boustan, Kosansky & Roustan, ed., (Philadelphia: UPP), pp. 102-32.
  • Seroussi, Edwin. Selected articles on Sephardic music.
  • Simon, Reeva Spector, Michael Menachem Laskier, & Sara Reguer, ed., 2003. The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in Modern Times (New York: Columbia University Press). Spector Simon, Reeva, Michael Menachem Laskier, & Sara Reguer, ed., 2003. The Jews of the Middle East and North Africa (New York: Columbia University Press).
  • Stein, Sarah Abrevaya, 2004. Making Jews Modern: The Yiddish and Ladino Press in the Russian and Ottoman Empires (Indiana University Press).
  • Stillman, Yedida K, 1995. ‘Costume as Cultural Statement: The Esthetics, Economics, and Politics of Islamic Dress’, in The Jews of Medieval Islam: Community, Society, and Identity, ed. Daniel Frank (Leiden: Brill), pp. 127-144.
  • Weich-Shahak, Susana. Selected articles on Sephardic music.
  • Weingrod, Alex, 1990. The Saint of Beersheba (Albany, NY).
  • Zohar, Zion, 2005. Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry: From the Golden Age to Modern Times (New York: NUP). 
  • Zucker, George K., ed., 2005. Sephardic Identity: Essays on a Vanishing Jewish Culture (Jefferson, NC: McFarland).