Book Launch: Shaping the Jewish Enlightenment

Solomon Dubno, best known as contributor to Moses Mendelssohn’s German translation of and commentary on the Hebrew Pentateuch, represents the Jewish Enlightenment in an east European key: Born in today’s Belarus, Dubno excelled as a grammarian and author and advocated Hebrew literacy and a rejuvenation of Hebrew belleslettres for the educated Jewish reading public. In contrast to Mendelssohn, the rapprochement between Jews and non-Jews was of less relevance.

The speakers of this event, scholars of Eastern European Jewish culture and of the Jewish Enlightenment, will pay tribute to the scholarly achievement of Zuzanna Krzemień, author of this study and cataloguer at the British Library, who passed away in 2021.

Edited by Noëmie Duhaut and Wojciech Tworek in collaboration with Monika Biesaga

Panelists

Lora Afric (The British Library), Remembering Zuzanna

Prof. François Guesnet (UCL), Interferences: Solomon Dubno and the Rethinking of Jewish Civilization around 1800

Dr Andrea Schatz (King's College London), The Diaspora Networks of the Early Jewish Enlightenment: For Zuzanna Krzemien

Prof. Antony Polonsky (Brandeis University), A New View on the Jewish Enlightenment

Moderators

• Dr Monika Biesaga (Independent researcher)
• Dr Noëmie Duhaut (University of Southampton)
• Dr Wojciech Tworek (University of Wroctaw)

Presented with the support of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in London & the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies