DIRECTOR’S MESSAGEThe beginning of theacademic year 2005-2006 saw a change inthe directorship ofPrinceton’s Program in Judaic Studies. Afternine years of dedicatedand distinguished service, Froma Zeitlinhanded over the reinsof the program. We

celebrated Froma’s many successfulachievements as Program Director with

a party last Mayand honored herscholarly contri-butions in earlyNovember with

a Yom Iyyun, a one-day workshop dedi-cated to her major areas of teachingand research.

Froma has left a distinctive mark on theProgram, shaping it in its infancy duringthe nineteen nineties and paving its way

into the first decade of the new century.As late as Princeton was among its peersin finally establishing a Program inJudaic Studies, thanks to Froma’s visionand relentless energy, as well as to thegenerous support she garnered from theadministration, the Program has becomenot only highly visible on Princeton’scampus, but it has developed into one ofthe most active and successful programsamong Princeton’s distinguished under-graduate institutions. It is an honor tofollow Froma as Program Director anda charge of great responsibility to buildupon the strong foundations so vigorouslydesigned and developed by her.

NEW BUILDING

We are now safely at home in the ScheideCaldwell House, Princeton’s newest, andvery luxurious, addition to the AndlingerCenter for the Humanities. We enjoyour office there on the second floor andthe wonderful seminar room with its

beautiful view of Chancellor Greencourtyard. Located among related fieldsin the Humanities, imbued with vibrantintellectual activities, and at the verycenter of Princeton’s campus, we couldnot think of a better place for securingJewish Studies as an integral elementwithin the curriculum of the universitaslitterarum. For this is our mission, tofurther integrate Jewish Studies into thecanon of the Humanities and to foster aconstant and fruitful dialogue with thebroad spectrum of Humanities’ disci-plines – for the benefit of both JewishStudies and the Humanities. JewishStudies have come a long way, from thefirst visions of the fathers of theWissenschaft des Judentums (Science ofJudaism) of the early nineteenth century,through the horrors of the first half ofthe twentieth century, until JewishStudies finally gained acceptance as anatural and legitimate presence in theEuropean and American university. It isour duty to make sure that the preciousand demanding role of Jewish Studiesamong the Humanities is filled withsubstance and dignity.

WINTER 2005-2006

2 Courses3 Students3 The Class of 2005

3 2005 Alumni

4 Judaic Studies Senior Theses 2005

6 Graduate Fellowships

7 Graduate Students10 Summer Funding

16 Sefer Hasidim

17 Committee17 Support18 Faculty Research & News20 Jewish Studies Quarterly

21 Director’s Message (continued)

22 EventsPeter Schäfer becomesnew director.

NEWSProgram in Judaic Studies

P E R E L M A N I N S T I T U T EP R I N C E T O N U N I V E R S I T Y

(Director’s Message continued on page 21)

Photo: John Jameson,Office of Communications

In th i s I s sue

BREAKING NEWS:

We are thrilled to report that Sidney Lapidus ’59, P84, P88,

P93, has announced a very significant gift that will establish

“The Lapidus Family Fund for American Jewish Studies.”

Mr. Lapidus will also be donating additional works from his

collection on American Jewish history to Firestone Library.

More information will follow.

COURSESFALL SEMESTER2004Survey Courses:Jewish Mysticism: From theBeginnings to KabbalaPeter Schäfer

Modern Jewish History: 1750-PresentOlga Litvak

Topics in Judaic Studies: Prejudice on Trial: Antisemitism, the Courts,and the LawJenna Weissman-Joselit

Antiquity:The Ancient Near East: From City-State to EmpireBeate Pongratz-Leisten

Religion and Literature of the Old Testament: Through theBabylonian ExileMartha Himmelfarb

Studies in Greco-Roman Religions:Genres of Rabbinic LiteraturePeter Schäfer

Jews, Gentiles, and Christians in theAncient WorldJohn Gager

Middle Ages:Jews, Muslims, and Christians in theMiddle AgesMark Cohen

Modern Period:Jewish Thought and Modern SocietyLeora Batnitzky

Topics in Germanic Culture andSociety: “Nation and “Diaspora” in German Jewish LiteratureAndrea Schatz, Society of Fellows

The Jewish Presence in ModernFrench Fiction and FilmDavid Bellos

Texts and Images of the HolocaustFroma Zeitlin

Language Courses:Readings in Judeo-ArabicMark Cohen

Elementary HebrewEsther Robbins

Intermediate HebrewEsther Robbins

Advanced Hebrew: Aspects of Israeli CulturePhillip Hollander

SPRING SEMESTER2005Survey Courses:Introduction to Judaism: Religion, History, EthicsJames Diamond

Jewish Messianism from the Bible to the Modern PeriodPeter Schäfer

The Family in Jewish TraditionRuth Westheimer

Transformations of Jewish Culture in the Early Modern World (16th-18th Century)Andrea Schatz, Society of Fellows

Problems in Near Eastern Jewish HistoryMark Cohen

Antiquity:Religion in Culture – Culture inReligion: A History of Religion in the Ancient Near EastBeate Pongratz-Leisten

Rabbinic Judaism: Literature,History, and BeliefsPeter Schäfer

Studies in Greco-Roman Religions:Introduction to Judaism in theGreco-Roman WorldMartha Himmelfarb

Modern Period:Studies in the Philosophy of Religion:Religious ExistentialismLeora Batnitzsky

Religion and LawLeora Batnitzky

Culture Mavens: American Jews and the ArtsJenna Weissman Joselit

Holocaust Controversies:Historiography and PoliticsAnson Rabinbach and Jan T. Gross

Between Resistance and Collaboration:The Experience of the Second WorldWar in EuropeJan T. Gross

Language Courses:Readings in Judeo-ArabicAbraham L. Udovitch

Elementary HebrewEsther Robbins

Intermediate HebrewEsther Robbins

FALL SEMESTER2005Survey Courses:Topics in Hebrew Literature: Love andDeath in Hebrew Narrative from theBible to Contemporary Israeli FictionJames Diamond

Jewish Mysticism: From the Bible to KabbalaPeter Schäfer

Topics in Judaic Studies: Prejudice on Trial: Antisemitism, the Courts,and the LawJenna Weissman-Joselit

Jewish History Through the Middle AgesOlga Litvak

Antiquity:Ancient Near Eastern History: From City-State to EmpireBeate Pongratz-Leisten

Judaism in the Greco-Roman WorldMartha Himmelfarb

Studies in Greco-Roman Religions:The Origins of Jewish MysticismMartha Himmlefarb and Peter Schäfer

Middle Ages:Jews, Muslims, and Christians in the Middle AgesMark Cohen

Readings in Medieval Hebrew LiteratureAndras P. Hamori

Modern Period:Topics in American Literature:American Jewish WritersDeborah Nord

Texts and Images of the HolocaustFroma Zeitlin

Language Courses:Readings in Judeo-ArabicMark Cohen

Elementary HebrewEsther Robbins

Intermediate HebrewEsther Robbins

Advanced Hebrew: Aspects of Israeli CultureEsther Robbins

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THE CLASS OF 2005

JEWISH STUDIES CERTIFICATE STUDENTS

We are proud to congratulate Netti Minsker Herman, Rena Nechama Lauer, and Joseph Aaron Skloot, the 2005Princeton University graduates who earned the Certificate inJudaic Studies.

THE CAROLYN L. DRUCKER, CLASS OF1980, PRIZE

Through the generosity of the Drucker family, the Programawards an annual prize for the best senior thesis in Judaic

Studies. Before the establishment of the program, the prize was offered under the auspices of the Committee for JewishStudies, the program’s predecessor.

The 2005 Drucker First Prize winner was Rena N. Lauer for “The Second Controversy of Paris: Text, Context, andIntertextuality” in the Department of History. A Second Prize was shared by Netti M. Herman for “Of Wives andOther Demons: A Comparative Analysis of the Tale of theJerusalemite and the Tale of the White Snake,” in theDepartment of Comparative Literature, and Joseph A. Sklootfor “Moses of Hamilton Terrace: The Hertz TorahCommentary in Context and Interpretation” in theDepartment of History.

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2005 ALUMNI

Netti Minsker Herman is currently an analyst in the BusinessIntelligence Group of Goldman Sachs (New York). She beganworking in July 2005 and so far has been enjoying her experiencein the financial industry.

Rena N. Lauer has been awarded a Shatil/New Israel FundSocial Justice Fellowship, which supports her for 10 months asshe does social justice work of her choice in Israel. She will beworking in Jerusalem for a non-profit organization which aidsthe Ethiopian community in Israel through education and mediaempowerment programs. She will also be living in Jerusalem.

Joseph Aaron Skloot is in Israel to begin Hebrew UnionCollege-Jewish Institute of Religion’s Year-in-Israel program.This is the first step on the road to becoming a rabbi. He isliving in Jerusalem until approximately June 2006, studyingat HUC-JIR’s campus in that beautiful city, attempting tomaster Modern Hebrew and immersing himself in Israeliand Jewish culture.

He writes: After a quick post-thesis, post-graduation breatherin New York City with my family, I headed off to Israel tobegin rabbinical school at the Hebrew Union College-JewishInstitute of Religion. HUC-JIR’s rabbinical program lasts fiveyears and begins with a year of intensive Hebrew immersion,text-study and cultural exploration at the college’s campusoverlooking Jerusalem’s Old City. There are 40 rabbinicalstudents here, as well as 10 cantorial and 10 education students.Of course, this is a fascinating time to be in Israel with disen-gagement from Gaza only recently completed and campaignseason just beginning. I can’t imagine being in a more excitingor beautiful place, and I feel lucky to have this year to exploreand grow in such a stimulating environment. What has beenchallenging is making the transition from Princeton, wherescholarship was at the core of my undergraduate experience, toa seminary/professional/graduate program where acquiringraw skills (from classical Hebrew grammar to homiletics) isemphasized, but these difficulties are slight when compared tothe simple joy of being in this country and beginning a lifelongdream. What’s also terrific is that I get to share this experiencewith two other Princetonians: David Segal ’03 and GeoffMitelman ’00!

JUDAIC STUDIESSENIOR THESES , 2005

Netti Minsker Herman,Comparative Literature

Of Wives and Other Demons: AComparative Analysis of The Tale ofthe Jerusalemite and The Tale of theWhite Snake

The folktale enjoys a unique status inworld literature. Like epic and poetry,

it represents a cross between oral andwritten literature, but its style is oftenless lofty and formulaic and closer tonarrative prose. Until recently in literaryhistory, scholars paid little attention tothe folktale, dismissing it as a lower formof literature—the stories of the “simplefolk.” The term “folklore” did not existuntil the mid-nineteenth century; onlyin 1938 did the American Folk-LoreSociety define folklore as a study of notjust history and anthropology, but alsothe literature embraced by the collec-tive people. It is impossible to under-stand a culture without appreciating the“voice” of the people, which directly andauthentically reflects a society’s valuesystem, religious rituals, and daily cus-toms and observances.

My thesis explores the literary similaritiesand differences between a Hebrew folktale,Ma’aseh Yerushalmi (The Tale of theJerusalemite), and a Chinese folktale,Bai She Zhuan (The Tale of the WhiteSnake). Both stories focus on the fatalunion between an ordinary husband anda supernatural, demonic wife. Ma’asehYerushalmi existed around the twelfthand thirteenth centuries, during theMiddle Ages of Jewish history. Bai SheZhuan took on its primary form atroughly the same time during the Songand Ming Dynasties. Since multiple ver-sions of each story exist, I have chosento analyze the primary versions that havebeen recorded and that offer the mostinsights into literary techniques and cul-tural understanding. Some issues are cul-ture-specific, such as The Jerusalemite’snecessity to affirm Judaism when facedby temptation and threats from the“Other,” or The White Snake’s implicit

criticism of the interplay between Taoismand Buddhism. Other topics resonatewith a timeless and universal appeal—relationships between men and women,expressions of sexuality and betrayal, andthe fear of death and the unknown.

Rena N. Lauer, History

The Second Controversy of Paris:Text, Context, and Intertextuality

The disputation narrative of the SecondControversy of Paris is very much aproduct of its genre. The account recordsa forced disputation that occurred in1272 between a mean-spirited apostate-Jew-turned-Dominican friar named Pauland a pious, wise Jew by the name ofRabbi Abraham ben Samuel. The Jewishdisputant used many standard anti-Catholic refutations of Christianity andborrowed the argumentative tone char-acteristic of these works. Biblical andrabbinic passages were used by theauthor to place the event within thesalvational history of the Jewish people.

Yet the conformity to a certain styleshould not prevent one from seeing theunique historical value of the text. Thevery existence of this polemic givesreaders insight into the Jewish world ofthirteenth-century France. It shows thatthe edict issued by King Louis IX in1269 really did begin a series of forceddebates and sermons, and is evidence ofthe fear with which Parisian Jews lived atthis time. Additionally, it offers a viewinto French Jewish life in the periodimmediately before the expulsion of 1306.From a literary perspective, its similaritiesto the Nachmanidean account of theBarcelona disputation shed light on theinfluence which that text had on thepolemical genre.

One reason that I was so eager to workon this manuscript was that I felt that itshould be accessible to an English read-ing audience. Its import may rank withNachmanides’ narrative of the disputationat Barcelona and Rabbi Yehiel of Paris’saccount of the Trial of the Talmud in1240. Yet it has been mostly Frenchspeakers who have had access to it thus

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far. The main body of my thesis, then, is a translation of this manuscript intoEnglish from the original Hebrew. I hopethat in making the work available inEnglish, it will spark more scholarly noticeand debate.

Beyond the translation, the goal of thisthesis is to contextualize the SecondControversy narrative. Where does it fitinto the genre of Jewish polemical works?How does it relate to contemporaryChristian and secular matters? To under-stand this, I explore Jewish life in Parisin the thirteenth century and the historyof the Jewish-Christian polemic leadingup to the time of the Second Controversy.I then investigate the history of thephysical manuscript, as well as the limited,but useful, historiography on the text.This disputation narrative was not writtenin a vacuum, and therefore, I explore therole Nachmanides’ account of his owndisputations with Paul Christian inBarcelona played in the composition ofthe Moscow Manuscript.

Ultimately, I hope that this will not bethe end of scholarship on the SecondControversy of Paris, but the beginning.Understanding its context and influenceswhile delving into the text itself is, Ibelieve, as good a place as any to start.

Joseph Aaron Skloot, History

Moses of Hamilton Terrace: TheHertz Torah Commentary in Contextand Interpretation

Between 1929 and 1937, Rabbi JosephHerman Hertz, the Chief Rabbi of theBritish Empire, published his monumentalEnglish-language commentary on thePentateuch, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs,often referred to today as “Hertz com-mentary” or the “Hertz chumash.” Hertzhimself was the first graduate of theJewish Theological Seminary of Americain New York City, the founder of theSouth African Jewish Board of Deputies,a “Champion of Honor” in the BritishEmpire and a prolific author and speaker.The commentary was, however, hisgreatest achievement, it being the firstEnglish-language Jewish commentary onthe Bible ever published. For over half a

century, it could be found in synagoguesof all Jewish denominations across theglobe. It was, in some places remains, aubiquitous element of American andAnglo-Jewish synagogue life. Indeed,the historian David Ellenson has written,“The Hertz Pentateuch became theJewish lens for viewing the biblicalheritage of the Israel [sic] people in theEnglish-language world. Countlessnumbers of Jews were schooled throughits pages, and the impact of Hertz upon how English-speaking Jews under-stand the Bible has, unquestionably,been immense.”1

Surprisingly, Hertz and his commentaryhave received little attention fromscholars. The scholarship which existstends to pigeonhole both Hertz and hismasterwork with contemporary denomi-national labels; some say he and thebook were “Orthodox” and others sayhe was “Conservative.” However, neitherHertz nor his commentary can be char-acterized by a contemporary label. Infact, Hertz himself was a polyglot; a manwhose ideas and experiences were shapedin both the Old World and the New, andespecially in that peculiar middle groundbetween the two: England. Hertz was aman of contradictions. He urged BritishJews to abide by halachah (traditionalJewish law) but advocated radical alter-ations to yeshivah education; he spokeout on behalf of women’s education butdid nothing to relieve the plight ofagunot; he angrily denounced Liberaland Reform Judaism but cited its Liberalleader Claude Montefiore in the com-

mentary. At the same time, in spite ofthese contradictions, Hertz rarelyexpressed indecision or ambivalence. Hispronouncements were always firm anddeclarative. He relished the authority hisoffice afforded him. Hertz’s authoritative(and sometimes authoritarian) voice hasmade it easy for scholars to pigeonholehim to a single ideology or point of view.2

Thus, in this thesis, I have sought tocontextualize the Hertz commentary byplacing it within the spectrum of Hertz’slife: the contemporaneous ideologicaland philosophical movements anddebates, the struggle for control ofthe Anglo-Jewish community, theEnlightenment in Europe, the EnglishBible Movement, the Wissenschaft desJudentums, Imperialism, anti-Semitismand many others. This great untoldstory, it turns out however, teaches us agreat deal not only about the Jewishpast but also about the Jewish commu-nity in the United States and GreatBritain today.

1 David Ellenson, “A Vindication ofJudaism: The Polemics of the HertzPentateuch: A Review Essay” in ModernJudaism 21 (2001), 67. Italics in this andall subsequent quotes are original.

2 I am indebted to my advisor, ProfessorAnthony Grafton, for suggesting this idea.

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Froma Zeitlin and 2005 Judaic Studies Theses Students.

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GRADUATE FELLOWSHIPS

A new initiative was implemented in 2003-04 for graduateschool applicants who demonstrate a major interest in someaspect of Judaic Studies. In consultation with the relevantdepartment, the Program has now offered top up fellowshipsfor the third year. The understanding is that the students willmaintain research interests in Judaic Studies throughout theirgraduate careers. Additionally, there have been and will beopportunities for draw-down and dissertation assistance lateron in students’ graduate careers.

The following 2003 incoming students were the first tobenefit from the new Judaic Studies graduate fellowships:

Gregg Gardner in the Department of Religion studies ancientJudaism within Greco-Roman and Christian context, specificallyfocusing on the economy of ancient Palestine during the Mishnaicand Talmudic periods; Danielle Shani in the Department ofPolitics concentrates on political theory relating to Israel’sattempt to reach a constitution by consensus; Jamie Shermanin the Department of Anthropology studies ties between genderand power and the prescriptive models embedded within repre-sentations, fictional and ‘real,’ in the contemporary MiddleEast; and Uriel Simonsohn in the Department of Near EasternStudies focuses on social history of non-Muslim communitiesin the Middle Ages, namely Jews and Christians, and hopesto conduct comparative work through the extensive use ofdocuments found in the Cairo Geniza and contemporaryChristian literature.

In 2004 these incoming students were awarded JudaicStudies fellowships:

Yaron Ayalon in the Department of Near Eastern Studies willexplore the history of the lower social strata in Middle Eastern

and Ottoman contexts; Adam Jacksonin the Department of Religion willinvestigate Jewish experiences of andattitudes toward Roman rule and cultureduring the empire and late antiquity;Meir Soloveitchik in the Department

of Religion will study Jewish and Christian theology, particularlythe theology of thinkers who ponder the relationship betweenthese two faiths.; AlanVerskin in the Department of NearEastern Studies will primarily focus on the study of socialand intellectual interactions between Jews and Muslims inthe medieval period; and Moulie Vidas in the Departmentof Religion is interested in interpreting rabbinic literature inthe context of religious theory.

Additionally, Holger Zellentin, a fourth-year student in theDepartment of Religion was awarded a research fellowship for hisdissertation preliminarily titled “Late Antiquity Upside Down:Rabbinic Parodies of Jewish, Christian and Gentile Literature.”

The top up fellowships for 2005 were given to Yiftah Elazar,in the Department of Politics who is currently interested inconservative political thoughts; Ronnie Halevy, in theDepartment of Anthropology, who will be focusing on theintersection of women/gender, multicultural education in theglobalized age, and tribal societies within nation-states, andwhose fieldwork will most probably be amongst the Bedouincommunity in the Negev of southern Israel; Miriam Hess inthe Department of German; and Kristina Szilagvi in theDepartment of Near Eastern Studies, whose dissertation willdeal with the polemical and apologetical literature of the NearEast from the century before the Arab conquests until at leastthe thirteenth century.

Top ups go to four newgraduate students.

Although the Program in Judaic Studies is designed forundergraduates, there are many graduate students at

Princeton who are pursuing topics relevant to Judaic Studieswithin their home departments. At the present time, theseinclude Anthropology, Architecture, Comparative Literature,English, Germanic Languages and Literature, History, Music,Near Eastern Studies, Politics, and Religion.

Yaron Ayalon, Near Eastern Studies, is a second-year studentwhose topic of study is the ways minority communities (i.e.Jews and Christians, though the emphasis is mainly on Jews) inthe Ottoman Empire dealt with calamities and hardships. Thisyear he is taking generals, so is concentrating on courses andreadings. Ayalon was born in Princeton, NJ, when his fatherwas working on his PhD in the same department (NES). Hegrew up both in the US and in Israel, where he did his under-graduate studies at Tel Aviv University, majoring in MiddleEastern history and education. He graduated in 2002 andbegan his MA studies in Middle Eastern history, which werenot completed due to his coming to Princeton in 2004.

Yiftah Elazar, Politics, is a first year student of political theory,currently interested in conservative political thought. Beforecoming to Princeton, Yiftah studied at The Hebrew Universityof Jerusalem, where he earned his MA in Political Science, andhis BA in Philosophy and the Amirim Honors Program forthe Humanities and Social Sciences. In his career as a journalist,Yiftah reported from the Israeli Supreme Court for Galei-Zahal national radio station, and worked as a news editor inIsrael’s most widely distributed daily newspaper, YediothAhronot. He was also a staff writer for The Seventh Eye, theIsraeli bi-monthly journal for criticism of the media issued byThe Israel Democracy Institute.

Gregg Gardner is a third-year doctoral student in Religion,specializing in Jewish history and literature in the Greco-Roman period. He holds a B.A. in Economics from BinghamtonUniversity and an M.A. in History of the Jewish People fromthe Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interestsinclude the relationship between archaeological finds and liter-ary works, and the socio-economic history of Galilee and Judeain late antiquity. Recent projects include studies on the begin-nings of the rabbinic movement at Yavneh, benefaction inHellenistic Judea, the economy of first-century Jerusalem(M.A. thesis), and astrology in the Talmud. Gregg will spend2005-6 taking his general examinations in early Christianity,ancient Judaism, rabbinic literature, and the Greco-Romanworld. In addition, he will help organize a workshop and collo-quium entitled Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and ChristianPasts in the Greco-Roman World, which explores collectivememory and the construction of tradition in the ancient world.The colloquium (January, 2006) will feature papers presentedby Princeton graduate students as well as faculty from Princetonand universities around the world. Gregg will also give a talk atthe Judaic Studies Graduate Student Colloquium entitled

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Reading between the Strata: Literature, Archaeology andMethodological Considerations for the Study of Judaism in Late Antiquity.

Ronnie Halevy, Anthropology, is a first year student, whoearned her BA at the University of Maryland and her MA atBen Gurion University of the Negev, with honors. Her thesistitle was “Walking the Thin Line: the Multiple Struggles ofEducated Bedouin Women in the Negev.” She will be focusingon the intersection of women/gender, multicultural educationin the globalized age, and tribal societies within nation-states.Her fieldwork will most probably be amongst the Bedouincommunity in the Negev of southern Israel.

Adam Jackson, Religion, began his studies at Princeton in2004 in the subfield of Late Antiquity, the Program in theAncient World and the Program in Judaic Studies. His mainfocus of interest is the history of religious and cultural interac-tions in the Roman Empire from the early imperial period tolate Antiquity. Adam spent this summer working on excavatinga Roman fort from the time of Diocletian at Yotvata in southernIsrael. A few of his recent projects: a comparison of rabbinicand Roman accounts of Titus entering the temple; a critique ofRene Girard’s anti-historical view of the New Testament; andan analysis of the social effects of the introduction of the fiscusIudaicus tax after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.Born in London, Adam came to Princeton after a BA inClassics at Merton College, Oxford, and intensive Hebrew andAramaic textual studies at the Conservative Yeshiva (under theauspices of the Jewish Theological Seminary) in Jerusalem.

Philip Lieberman, Near Eastern Studies, currently starting hisfourth year, studies the economic and social life of the Jewishcommunity under Islamic rule. He completed his generalexams in October 2004 in Jewish History, Islamic History andIslamic Commercial Law; his dissertation mines the riches ofthe legal documents of the Cairo Geniza. The topic is “APartnership Culture: Economic Partnerships Seen through theLegal Documents of the Cairo Geniza.” He gave two confer-ence papers this summer on the 11th century Jewish Maghribitraders who plied the Mediterranean: one at the World HistoryAssociation Conference in Ifrane, Morocco; and one at theInternational Medieval Congress in Leeds, UK. Also he is cur-rently involved in the Friedburg Genizah Project as senior proj-ect assistant and a graduate researcher for the Center forOnline Jewish Studies.

Kevin Osterloh, a sixth-year graduate student in Religion,Program in the Ancient World and Judaic Studies, had thehonor of being a Center for Human Values (CHV) GraduateFellow last year, and he would like to thank Prof. Philip Pettitand all of the CHV graduate fellow colleagues for the opportu-nity to become acquainted with them and their research, andto share his work before such a receptive and helpful audience.He spent the summer doing research and writing related to hisdissertation, which deals with the reinvention of Jewish collective

GRADUATE STUDENTS

identity in 2nd century BCE Judaea. He has also been workingtogether with Gregg Gardner on the planning stages for aPrinceton colloquium on historical memory and ancient identi-ty, entitled: “Antiquity in Antiquity,” to be held this comingJanuary. The remainder of the summer months were spentmanaging the Sefer Hasidim project. He is currently holding aPrinceton pre-doctoral research position that is dedicated tothe latter project, which is directed by Prof. Peter Schäfer. Theend goal is to publish a scholarly edition of the best manu-scripts of both manuscript families of Sefer Hasidim (Parmaand Bologna) in a synoptic format. We are very pleased withour progress to date, and with the excellent work of our teamof student transcribers. His role, as Assistant Director, is to actas a coordinating liaison among Prof. Schäfer, Michael Meerson,a post-doctoral fellow in the Religion Department, and the stu-dent transcribers. He arranges the individual assignments andmanages the work-flow. Osterloh states that ‘it is a pleasure andan honor to work with Prof. Schäfer, Michael Meerson, and allof the dedicated student transcribers on this very exciting proj-ect and I look forward to a rewarding and productive year.’

William Plevan, Religion. Bill Plevan is in the third year ofthe Religion department’s program in Religion and Philosophyafter earning his rabbinic ordination from the JewishTheological Seminary. He is interested in modern Jewish phi-losophy, philosophy of religion, ethics and political theory andis currently preparing a dissertation prospectus on the philoso-phy of Martin Buber.

Elliot Ratzman, Religion, is finishing his dissertation, “JewishThought and the Problem of the Twentieth Century: SocialEthics, Moral Agency and Political Messianism.” He is a con-tributing editor for HEEB Magazine and New Voices, andsoon a regular contributor to Tikkun and Zeek. Last year, hetaught religious ethics and philosophy of religion at VassarCollege. This year he is teaching courses on “JewishSecularism” in Temple University’s Jewish Studies Program.He recently gave papers on Left-wing conceptions of JewishChosenness, and ‘Secular’ Saints, as well as a workshop for theNY Jews for Darfur ‘Day of Learning’ on Levinas and Africa.

Danielle Shani, Politics, is a third-year student whose work isin the field of public opinion, voting behavior, political psy-chology, and democratic theory. Currently she is studying howcitizens perceive “objective” national conditions and the politi-cal implications of biases in their perceptions. Prior to comingto Princeton, she completed a B.A. in Political Science andPhilosophy, summa cum laude, and an M.A. in PoliticalScience, summa cum laude, both at Tel-Aviv University.Danielle is also the co-author of Auditing Israeli Democracy2003, the first effort in a series of annual evaluations of thequality and functioning of the Israeli Democracy. Her disserta-tion will explore under what conditions citizens have accurateperceptions of “objective” national and group conditions, andwill examine the implications of the biases in their perceptionsfor the prospects for democratic accountability.

Uriel Simonsohn, Near Eastern Studies. In his third year,Simonsohn earned his undergraduate and graduate degreesfrom Tel Aviv University in Jewish and Islamic history. Hismain interest is social history of non-Muslim communities inthe Middle Ages, namely Jews and Christians, and hopes toconduct comparative work through the extensive use of docu-ments found in the Cairo Geniza and contemporary Christianliterature. His dissertation will focus on the history of Jewishand Christian elites in the early medieval Muslim world. He isparticularly interested in examining whether the presence with-in an Islamic state posed before these elites new challengeswhich required special adaptation. He is giving a talk at thecoming MESA (Middle East Studies Association of NorthAmerica) conference in November and also at the Princeton-Oxford Syriac Studies Conference to be held here in Princetonon January. In both cases he will be discussing the issue ofnon-Muslim appeals to Muslim authorities.

Maya Soifer, History, is a fourth-year student, who was bornin Moscow, Russia and came to the United States in 1990. Shereceived a BA and an MA in history from the University ofColorado, Colorado Springs, won a Mellon Fellowship inHumanistic Studies in 2002, and just published an article inthe September issue of The Journal of Medieval History entitled“You say that the Messiah has come?: The Ceuta Disputation(1179) and its place in the Christian anti-Jewish Polemics ofthe High Middle Ages” Her working dissertation title is “TheJews of the ‘Milky Way’: Jewish-Christian Relations and RoyalPower in Northern Castile (12th-14th centuries).”

Krisztina Szilágyi, Near Eastern Studies, is a first year stu-dent, from Hungary, who received her M.A. from the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem in the Department of ReligiousStudies. She is currently preparing two articles for the secondand third issues of Ginzei Kedem (to be published in 2006 and2007). The provisional titles are: “A Christian Library of Jewsin Medieval Islamic Society: Fragments of Christian ArabicWritings from the Cairo Genizah,” and “Abraham ibn Daud’sPhysics: A Recently Discovered Fragment from the KaufmannCollection.” She is also revising her thesis, Muhammad and theMonk: Metamorphoses of a Legend in the Medieval Middle East,from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for publication intwo articles. Her dissertation will deal with the polemical andapologetical literature of the Near East from the century beforethe Arab conquests until at least the thirteenth century and willeither examine a broader topic of this genre and/or the levelsand methods of disputation. It will take into consideration thepolemical and apologetical literature of all the religions presentin the region in this period and will therefore be concernedwith the Jewish contributions as well.

Adriana X. Tatum, Comparative Literature, is a fifth-yearstudent who works primarily on Twentieth century modernHebrew poetry, particularly the works of Esther Raab, AvotYeshurun, Leah Goldberg and Harold Schimmel. Her disserta-tion explores the ways diasporic languages were made present

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in modern Hebrew writing in the State of Israel. This projectwill articulate a “poetics of multilingualism” through a closelook at the various literary modes and strategies (e.g., transla-tion, personae, the turn to prose) which poets employed as achallenge to the monolingualism of the national canon. Sherecently presented a paper titled “Robert Lowell and HaroldSchimmel: A Jerusalem Encounter” at the National Associationof Professors of Hebrew Conference (Stanford University). Shereceived her BA in Literary and Cultural Studies from theCollege of William and Mary and attended the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem prior to coming to Princeton.

Alan Verskin, Near Eastern Studies, is a second-year doctoralstudent. His primary area of research is the study of social andintellectual interactions between Jews and Muslims in themedieval period. He presently holds a doctoral fellowship fromthe Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council ofCanada (2004-2008). He is giving a paper entitled “TeachingPhilosophy to the Multitude: The Thought of Nissim benMoshe of Marseilles” at the American Academy of Religion2005 Annual Meeting.

Erica Weiss, Anthropology, is a second-year student who didher undergraduate work at Johns Hopkins University whereshe started as a major in International Studies, but changed toAnthropology after taking a course in the department for dis-tribution. Her interest is ethnic relations in Israel, and nextyear she will go to Israel for more than a year of fieldwork.

Jeris Yruma is currently in her fourth year in the Program inHistory of Science. She graduated with honors from MichiganState University in 2002 with a B.S. in physics and a B.A. inhistory. Her dissertation is on the discovery of nuclear fissionand the different narratives of that discovery that were told bythe discoverers themselves as well as by the press between thediscovery in 1938 and the deaths of two of the major discover-ers in 1968. Of note is the story of Lise Meitner, who washeralded as “the Jewish mother of the atomic bomb.” Theworking title is “How Experiments are Remembered: TheDiscovery of Fission, 1938-1968.”

Natasha Zaretsky, Anthropology, is a sixth-year graduate stu-dent who is currently writing her dissertation on the Jewishcommunity in Buenos Aires, Argentina, entitled “Memory,Violence, and the Politics of Belonging: European Jews inBuenos Aires, Argentina.” She has been awarded a fellowshipfrom the Fellowship of Woodrow Wilson Scholars (2004-2006). She received her BA from Dartmouth College inanthropology in 1997, where she also earned a SeniorFellowship (1996-1997) for a project entitled “NegotiatingIdentities, Transcending Boundaries: Soviet Jewish immigrantsin Brooklyn, New York.” Her research interests include memory,social movements, the anthropology of violence, citizenshipand belonging, and performance studies.

Holger Zellentin, Religion, is a fifth-year student in the sub-field of Late Antiquity in the Religion Department. Interestedin all aspects of adaptation and subversion in Late Antiquity,his dissertation is titled “Late Antiquity Upside Down:Rabbinic Parodies of Jewish, Christian and Gentile Literature.”In 2005, he organized a conference on Heresy in LateAntiquity under the auspices of Professor Peter Schäfer and iscurrently editing a conference volume. Other projects include astudy of Artapanus’ re-written Exodus story, an article on theBabylonian Talmud’s appreciation of the Sermon on theMount, notions of play in rabbinic literature, rabbinic adapta-tions of Hellenistic Historiography, and practicing with thePrinceton Cycling Team.

Other graduate students working in areas relevant to JewishStudies are the following: Amit Bein (Near Eastern Studies),Soelve I Curdts (Comparative Literature), Joshua Derman(History), Joshua Dubler (Religion), Jesse Ferris (NearEastern Studies), Miriam Hess (German), Michael KirkwoodHouse (German), Eduard Iricinschi (Religion), Devra Jaffe-Berkowitz (Sociology), Hannah Johnson (English), AriLieberman (Comparative Literature), Ernestina Osorio(Architecture), Leeore Schnairsohn (Comparative Literature),Rafael Segal (School of Architecture), Hanoch Sheinman(Philosophy), Jamie Sherman (Anthropology), Amy Shuster(Politics), Meir Soloveitchik (Religion), Bella Tendler (NearEastern Studies), Natasha Tessone (English), PhilippaTownsend (Religion), Moulie Vidas (Religion), Keri Walsh(English), and Eric Yellin (History).

SUMMER FUNDING

In the summer of 2005, the Programin Judaic Studies assisted eight under-

graduate and twelve graduate studentswith special funding grants for summerprojects. Caroline Block (’06) pursuedsenior thesis research in France on howanti-Semitism effects the internaldynamics of the Jews who live there;Maggie Dillon (’06) had an unpaidinternship at the Jüdisches MuseumWien, where she did research on theHolocaust; Henryk Jaronowski (’06)researched the Jewish community inVienna today; Sarit Kattan (’06) studiedLatin at Columbia University and tookcourses on Talmud, Mishna, and Jewishphilosophy at Drisha Institute for JewishEducation; Elizabeth Landau (’06)traveled to Spain for primary researchfor her senior thesis; Dylan Tatz (’06)traveled to Columbus, Ohio andWashington, D.C. to do research for hissenior thesis on the prioritization ofJewish philanthropies of Zionist/Israelcauses versus North American causessince 1948; Jason Turetsky (’07) took acourse, “Politics and Government inIsrael,” at Penn, which is not available atPrinceton, and which he needs to pursuehis interest in Israeli politics.

The graduate students varied in levelfrom I-IV: Gregg Gardner (REL 2nd

year) took intensive Latin and Greeklanguage courses at CUNY in order tocontinue his research into the literatureand culture of the Jewish people in theGreco-Roman era; Adam Jackson (REL1st year) worked at the Roman fortexcavation site in Yotvata, Israel andcontinued his archival research on theGreco-Roman era in Rome and London;Kevin Osterloh (REL 5th year) diddissertation research and writing on thegeneral analysis of communal identity in2nd century BCE Rome; Rafael Segal(ARC 2nd year) went to Israel for pre-dissertation research relating to the workof Alfred Neumann, who investigatedthe application of scientific studies toarchitectural practices; Jamie Sherman(SOC 2nd year) traveled to Venezuela

for language study and dissertationresearch; Maya Soifer (HIS 3rd year)did archival work on the conversos ofSpain; Adriana Tatum (COM 4th year)studied Yiddish and continued herresearch on the poetics and politics ofmultilingual writing; Bella Tendler(NES 1st year) studied Arabic at theALIF School in Fez, Morocco, in orderto enable her to read the classical textsdealing with Jewish-Muslim cross-fertil-ization, with a strong emphasis onreligious jurisprudence; PhilippaTownsend (REL 4th year) took aHebrew Ulpan course in Israel as welldid research at archaeological sites andmuseums for her dissertation; MoulieVidas (REL 1st year) visited the Instituteof Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts ofthe Jewish National and UniversityLibrary in the Hebrew University ofJerusalem to research rabbinic literatureof late antiquity; Erica Weiss (ANT 1st

year) took a Hebrew Ulpan course inIsrael and researched minority Jewishpopulations; Jeris Yruma (HOS 3rd

Year) studied German and did disserta-tion research in Germany.

These following reports are well worthreading. They give a sense of the varietyof opportunities for research in JudaicStudies and are proof, if proof wereneeded, of the vitality of such studiesat Princeton.

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS:

Caroline Block This summer, with thegenerous support of the Judaic StudiesProgram, I had the opportunity tospend time in Paris researching theformation of Jewish identity against theFrench Republican cultural model. Iwas able to take advantage of thenumerous Jewish cultural institutionsand research facilities unique to Parisduring my stay, and look forward toincorporating the valuable informationI gathered there into my thesis for theDepartment of Anthropology.

Maggie Dillon I would like to thankthe Program in Judaic Studies for itsgenerosity, which allowed me to spend

my summer working as an unpaid internat the Jewish Museum of Vienna.

While at the museum, I worked on twoexhibitions: “Between Tolerance andAryanization: Lorenzo Da Ponte,Mozart and Vienna”, which will open inlate March of 2006, and “A StreetcarNamed Hypocrisy: Erich Zeisl’s Escapeto Hollywood,” which will open at theend of November. As the two exhibi-tions were at different stages of develop-ment, I had the chance to see the way amuseum really works – from construct-ing the overarching concept for the exhi-bition to meeting with architects to sort-ing artifacts in the cellar of the museum.My own work allowed me to becomeintimately acquainted with the lives oftwo extraordinary figures: Da Ponte(1749-1838), who was born Jewish inCeneda, Italy and later ordained a priest– before becoming Mozart’s storiedlibrettist and the father of the study ofItalian language and literature in theUnited States, and Zeisl (1905-1959), acomposer who, with the rise of NationalSocialism, was forced to leave hisbeloved hometown of Vienna in 1938,interrupting his career when he seemedto be on the brink of gaining widerreception and critical acclaim.

But it was how I got to know these fig-ures I found most fascinating – and edi-fying. What I “know” about Da Ponte –and what we considered for the exhibi-tion – is how he told his story in hisown words. I pored over Da Ponte’smemoirs, making an index for the 500-page English and German translationsfrom the Italian. Da Ponte’s memoirsare page-turners: he gambles and galli-vants across Europe; he’s at the center of scandal in the opera house; he crossesthe Atlantic to reunite with his familyand becomes a professor at Columbia

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University. And while there are certain“facts” about Da Ponte’s life that wefind in the text, these facts are couchedin a narrative fueled by Da Ponte’s ownmotivations. As memoirist, he presentsthe reader with his version of his story. A curator works in a similar manner,presenting the museum visitor with hisversion of a story. The memoirist manip-ulates words; the curator manipulatesspace – and both act in a position ofauthority with the assumption of a view-er. In getting to know Zeisl, I felt myselfa voyeur: I touched what he and hisfamily touched – photographs, immigra-tion papers, newspaper clippings, concertprograms, music manuscripts (includingthe Hebrew Requiem and the overtureto an opera version of Joseph Roth’sHiob), letters (which the Nazi Wehrmachthad also inspected and stamped) – but inthe context of putting together his lifestory for public display.

My time at the Jewish Museum ofVienna allowed me to wrestle withquestions of representation and of theconstruction and stakes of national andcultural identity.

What does it mean to curate an exhibi-tion – in a museum that is at onceAustrian, Viennese, and Jewish? Andwhat does it mean to be a viewer of suchan exhibition? How do we documentour experiences? What is it, exactly, thatpeople expect when they visit a Jewishmuseum. What is it that a museum cando? And what is it that a Jewish museumcan do?

I hope to examine these questions andmany others raised by my time at theJewish Museum of Vienna when I am agraduate student. I am grateful to theProgram in Judaic Studies for its supportof a summer that was intellectually stim-ulating and demanding – a truly forma-tive experience.

Henryk Jaronowski The Program inJudaic Studies was kind enough to giveme a summer grant to research theJewish community of Vienna. The maincomponent of my research consisted of

more than eight hours of interviews withten people associated, in some way, withthe Jewish community. My time at theVienna Jewish Museum last summerhelped me know what questions to ask,what issues to raise, and to whom Ishould talk. My interviewees ran thegamut from an ultra-Orthodox furrierto a retired dermatologist who is thefounder of Vienna’s only Reform syna-gogue, from a non-Jew who convertedto Orthodox Judaism to another non-Jew who encountered the communitythrough her interest in education andyouth groups. I am working with Prof.Arnd Wedemeyer of Princeton’s GermanDepartment to write a paper, as part ofmy pursuit of a German Certificate, onthe basis of this research.

My own experience in Vienna, however,is so much more than comes across onaudiotape or in a historical discussion.Taking part in a Sabbath service at atiny, ultra-Orthodox synagogue in themorning and a Talmud study and aneven smaller (though newer) Reformsynagogue in the evening shows thegreat diversity of Jewish life in a citywith as few Jews as Vienna does (lessthan ten thousand). I even had thechance to speak with the former cantorof the synagogue in Baden, which isabout to be reopened. I went to a cul-tural festival at Moerbisch, on theNeusiedlersee by the Hungarian border,and visited the Austrian National JewishMuseum at Eisenstadt, which has thebest-preserved Jewish ghetto neighbor-hood in Austria. In the Jewish cemeteryin Vienna itself, I looked for my grand-mother’s brother, who moved there afterthe war. The New Jewish Cemeteryoccupies a vast plot of land intended forJews and their putative descendantswhom the Shoah would deny this rest-ing place. I couldn’t find his grave, butI did find several tombs bearing myfamily name. I don’t know if their occu-pants are actually related to me, but Ipaused and placed stones on their head-stones, since it is unlikely that there isanyone else to do so.

It’s very meaningful for me to travel tothe Old Country, to catch a whiff of mygrandparents’ Mitteleuropa, at to stand atthe intersection of history, spirituality, andculture. I thank the Program and all thosewho make its work possible for these gen-erous gifts, which have not only shapedthe course of my education at Princeton,but more importantly have contributed tomy development as a person.

Sarit Katan I would like to thank theProgram in Judaic Studies for generouslyallowing me to spend six weeks studyingelementary Latin at Columbia Universityand five weeks studying Talmud at theDrisha Institute for Jewish Education inNYC. As soon as I began my Latincourse, I fell in love with the ancientlanguage; before I even completed thesummer semester, the Latin I hadlearned became very helpful in decipher-ing meaning of words, as well as largerconcepts and themes of the texts, in myTalmud classes. At Drisha, I studiedMasekhet Succot and Moed Katan: theformer was a deeply analytical study ofthe Talmud’s conceptualization of thestructure of a “Succah” and the ideas’biblical and Midrashic origins, the latterwas a broader study of rabbinic mourn-ing rituals and laws, aimed at improvingmy textual comprehension. I am eagerto continue improving my command ofLatin and Talmud and using my under-standing of the languages in my study ofrabbinic literature and history.

This coming year, I plan to write mysenior thesis on an early rabbinicMidrash on Exodus, Mekhilta de RabbiIshmael, in which I hope to explore theideas of rabbinic self-irony and identityin the text. Through my analysis, Iwould like to address the rabbis as agroup of men interacting with eachother, as well as a group interacting withthe political and social context around it,in order further to shed some light onthe Palestinian rabbinic community. Nodoubt, the Talmud and Latin skills thatI was privileged to acquire this pastsummer will tremendously aid myresearch. I am grateful to the Judaic

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Studies Department for their continuoussupport and encouragement.

Elizabeth Landau This summer Itraveled to Spain to explore the legacyof the medieval Jewish community thatflourished there in the Middle Ages. Inthe 14th and 15th centuries there wereseveral pogroms in Jewish communitiesthroughout Spain, resulting in mass con-versions to Catholicism. Converts werecalled “marranos”—meaning “pigs”—or“conversos.” King Ferdinand and QueenIsabella appointed Tomás deTorquemada to investigate and punishanyone, Jews or Muslims, who hadapparently converted but was really prac-ticing Judaism or Islam in secret. ThisInquisition fever culminated in the RoyalCrown’s decision to expel all Jews fromSpain in 1492. But while officially noJews remained in the country. In secret,some Jews continued practicing theirreligion. Though Catholic in public,these “conversos” in private maintaineda Jewish identity through hidden practices.

Today, now that being Jewish in Spain isno longer a crime, some descendants ofconversos are going to synagogue, learn-ing about Judaism, and sometimes even“converting back” to Judaism. Spanishcities are also reclaiming their Jewishheritage. From Toledo to Sevilla toGirona to Palma de Mallorca, local gov-ernments are restoring medieval Jewishneighborhoods and offering historicaltours and information. Jewish culturalsocieties have formed in several citiesthat host conferences and festivals. Mythesis, being written in the Departmentof Anthropology, will explore theprocess of reclaiming Judaism, andaddress some fundamental questions: IsJudaism an ethnicity to be inherited or afaith to be believed, or both? What doesit mean to convert to Judaism, vs.“returning” to Judaism? How do peoplewho have just come to Judaism feelabout Israel? What would more Jewsmean for Spain, a Catholic country?

These questions are complicated and willbecome more complicated in light ofvarious testimonies I collected thissummer. I spoke to about 20 descendantsof conversos, attended several Shabbat

services with them, and exploredmedieval Jewish neighborhoods.Contrary to popular belief, Jewish life inSpain did not die in 1492.

Dylan Tatz During the final two weeksof August, I traveled to Los Angeles andWashington, D.C. to do research for mysenior thesis on recent efforts made byAmerican Jewish philanthropists (EdgarBronfman, Michael Steinhardt, LeslieWexner, and Lester Crown in particular)to bridge the gap between AmericanJewry and Israel. In essence, my thesisseeks to use philanthropy as a lensthrough which to analyze the nature ofZionism in contemporary America, andevaluate the extent to which a connec-tion with Israel should define AmericanJewish identity.

While in Los Angeles and Washington, I met with a range of experts in thefield, from philanthropists to Jewish pro-fessionals to lay leaders to discuss variousaspects of my thesis. Due to the gen-erosity of the program in Judaic Studies,I will also be able to travel to Columbus,Ohio over fall break to conduct furtherresearch on the Wexner Foundation. I am deeply grateful to the program inJudaic Studies for making this first-handresearch possible.

Jason Turetsky I am concentrating inthe Woodrow Wilson School and writingmy fall junior paper and my senior thesison the Middle East Peace Process. I feltthat to be able to do my independentresearch on this topic, I needed a betterunderstanding of the inner politicalworkings of Israeli society. So when Ifound out that Prof. Amal Jamal of TelAviv University was coming to theUniversity of Pennsylvania to teach“Politics and Government in Israel,”there was no question that this was agreat opportunity for me. Generousfunding from the Program in JudaicStudies allowed me to take advantage ofthis chance to study some of the domes-tic policy questions facing Israel today.The class was unlike anything we have atPrinceton. Instead of focusing on theconflict with the Palestinians, this coursewas about understanding the politicalprocesses that shape and are shaped byIsraeli society. We used the splits within

Israel between Jews and Arabs,Ashkinazim and Mizrachim, and thesecular and religious as lenses withwhich to view the institutional forma-tion of the Israeli political system andhow it functions today. This summer atthe University of Pennsylvania providedme with a different perspective of Israelisociety which I am now able to bring tomy independent work.

GRADUATE STUDENTS:

Gregg Gardner My research interest,the history and literature of the Jewishpeople in the Greco-Roman period,require a working knowledge of Latin inorder to read primary sources in theiroriginal language. This past summer Iparticipated in an intensive Latin courseat the City University of New York’sLatin-Greek Institute. During thecourse, I completed a grammar bookand read from the works of Caesar,Cicero and Sallust. Other prose readingsincluded selections from Ennius, Cato,Augustine, Einhard, Petronius andTacitus. I also read a great deal ofVergil’s Aeneid and Cattulus, as well asother works of poetry. In all, thisintensive summer course was roughlyequivalent to four to six semesters ofuniversity-level Latin. While I beganthe summer with no prior experience inreading Latin, I now have an excellentworking knowledge of this importantlanguage, which is indispensable to myresearch. I greatly appreciate the fundingand support provided by the Program inJudaic Studies.

Adam Jackson This summer, thanks tothe generosity of the Judaic Studiesprogram, I was able to pursue myresearch interests in the relations of Jewsin the ancient world with their Christianand gentile neighbors, and to gain adeeper understanding of the interactionsbetween different cultures and ethnicitiesin the Roman Near East.

Under the direction of Professors JodiMagness and Gwyn Davies, experts inRoman archaeology and Roman militaryhistory respectively, I participated inexcavating the Roman fort at Yotvata, inthe Negev desert just north of Eilat inIsrael. The dig taught me the techniques12

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of painstaking archaeological fieldresearch, and I now find myself able tovisualize and understand the densedescriptions of archaeological fieldreports. Yet more importantly for myown work, our findings (coins, potsherds,plaster, bones and glass) illustrated con-cretely the military, economic and socialhistory of the area in my period.

After the excavation, I was privileged tovisit the Nabatean site of Petra for thefirst time, which has inspired me toexamine the Nabatean experience in theRoman Empire as a comparandum tothat of the Jews. In Jerusalem, I contin-ued an ongoing research project on thefiscus Iudaicus in libraries and with aresearch visit to the Tax Museum, whereI was given a personal tour by the cura-tor who provided many helpful researchtips and resources.

Returning to Princeton via Italy allowedme to visit Ostia (Rome’s port in antiq-uity) to examine the town’s synagogue.The opulence and antiquity of the syna-gogue is notable, and it has some sur-prising features: the entrance is placedbehind the ark which contained theTorah scrolls, and the building waslocated on the ancient shoreline (which,due to erosion, has now moved somedistance further out to sea).

I would like to thank the Judaic StudiesProgram for making these stimulatingexperiences, which have provided tremen-dous impetus for my work at Princetonthis coming year, possible.

Kevin Lee Osterloh I spent the summerdoing research and writing related to mydissertation, which deals with the rein-vention of Jewish collective identity in2nd century BCE Judaea. I have alsobeen working together with GreggGardner on the planning stages for aPrinceton colloquium on historicalmemory and ancient identity, entitled:Antiquity in Antiquity, to be held thiscoming January.

Rafael Segal My summer funding aidedmy continuing research on the uniquework of Alfred Neumann in Israelthroughout the 1950’s and 1960’s.Neumann designed (together with his

younger colleagues Zvi Hecker andEldar Sharon) a series of exceptionalbuildings in different parts of the country,which gained international recognition -admired for both their experimentalarchitectural approach and their integra-tion of climatic and environmental factors.My summer travel to Israel includedvisits to his buildings and interviewsconducted with his former students, aspart of the attempt to define the archi-tectural principles and thought guidingthis work.

Jamie Sherman This summer I traveledto Venezuela for language study andexploratory fieldwork. I spent most ofmy time in Caracas, where I stayed witha Venezuelan family, arranged throughthe language school. Caracas is abustling city with, like many other LatinAmerican cities, a sharp division betweenrich and poor, and a preoccupation with“security” and “safety.” I spent a gooddeal of time meeting with people, bothlocal residents and Western scholarswhom I located through networks ofsomeone who knows someone whoknows someone. Venezuelans I met werea warm and friendly people, though mylack of language skills sometimes madeconversation, well, simple. On a scholar-ly level, I was impressed by what strikesme as an emerging discourse onVenezuelan history and contemporaryculture with a surprising number ofgraduate students and post doctoralscholars doing or planning to do researchon topics such as alternative media,popular organizing, and the culture ofplastic surgery and eating disorders.

I was very interested in learning moreabout the Jewish community ofVenezuela and discovered the existenceof a community and recreation center.I went there and discovered a beautiful,campus like setting with a school, sportclub, and swimming pool with its ownbank and restaurants behind (like every-thing else in Caracas) high walls andtight security. Inside, however, peoplewere friendly and open and I, along witha friend, was invited to Shabbat dinnerfor the following Friday evening at thehome of the lower school Englishteacher and her husband, a businessman.

Having dinner with the family, I learneda great deal about Jewish culture inCaracas, where on one hand, the majordivision is between Ashkenazi (European)Jewry who immigrated in the post WorldWar II era, and Sephardi, or MiddleEastern and Mediterranean Jewry, manyof whom had originally immigrated fromMorocco. The division, while real, wassaid to be an amicable one, and thecouple whose hospitality we enjoyedwere themselves a “mixed” marriage,having met at the pool of the recreationcenter which serves both communities.While on one hand assimilation is aconcern in the community, the Jewishpeople I spoke to quite clearly sawthemselves as a distinct minority, andsomewhat detached from Venezuela,seeing themselves as a foreign entitywithin the nation (though I may beoverstating this somewhat). Beforereturning to the U.S., I managed tospend some time traveling outside ofCaracas, to some of the smaller cities tothe northwest of Caracas.

It was, for me, an extremely productivetrip; an opportunity to hone my ideastoward eventual fieldwork and identifyavenues I hope to pursue over the com-ing year. Specifically, I remain fascinated,as I was when I left, by the configura-tions of gender relations and sexuality inthe Venezuelan public, but after spendingtime in the country have come to realizethat I would really like to locate mystudies outside the urban centers, wheresuch images are complicated by physicaland economic distance from the center,and yet connected as never beforethrough television, mass media andinternet connections.

Maya Soifer In July, I spent severalweeks doing archival research in Spain(Madrid and Palencia) for my disserta-tion, which is tentatively entitled “TheJews of the ‘Milky Way’: Jewish-ChristianRelations and Royal Power in NorthernCastile (12th to 14th Centuries).”

At the Archivo Historico Nacional inMadrid, I looked for documents thatcould shed light on Jewish-Christianinteraction in the provinces of Burgos

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and Palencia. The Clero section of theArchive contains documentation fromvarious ecclesiastical institutions in thekingdom of Castile. I was particularlyinterested in testaments and bequests ofindividuals to churches and monasteries,hoping that this material would help meunderstand the extent of Christians’indebtedness to Jews in northernCastile. The results of my investigationsurprised me: even though some credi-tors were Jewish, the majority of testa-tors owed money to other Christians.By now, I have nearly exhausted theAHN’s holdings on Burgos andPalencia, and am ready to expand mysearch west into León and east into laRioja. Geographically, then, my disserta-tion will cover all the Jewish communitiesalong the Camino de Santiago (pilgrim-age route to Santiago de Compostela) –from Logroño (Rioja) to León.

In Palencia, I spent most of the timeworking at the town’s CathedralArchive, studying royal charters andprivileges given by the kings of Castile tothe bishops of Palencia in the twelfth tofourteenth centuries. Most of this mate-rial deals with the disputed jurisdictionover the town’s Jews: the bishop wastheir legal overlord, but the town con-tested his power. This assertion by thetown council of its right to partial juris-diction over the Jewish community wasrather typical for the thirteenth-centuryCastile. Something similar, albeit lessdramatic and on a smaller scale, hap-pened in Burgos as well. I was able tofind and photograph all the relevantthirteenth and early fourteenth-centuryroyal charters given to the bishop andthe cathedral chapter. I also paid a visitto the Archivo Diocesano, located in thebishop’s palace. At the library of thetown’s museum, the very helpful staffshowed me the latest published researchon medieval Palencia and its Jews.

One of my goals for this trip was to visitseveral small towns in rural northernCastile where Jewish communities exist-ed in the Middle Ages. I wanted tounderstand the pattern of Jewish settle-ment, the approximate size of thesecommunities, and the place of juderías

in such semi-urban environment.Especially valuable were the visits totowns left virtually untouched by thepost-Franco urban renewal, wherestreets and buildings still preserved theirmedieval blueprint. One such town wasBelorado, located on the Camino deSantiago east of Burgos in the directionof Logroño (la Rioja). Of the threetowns I visited (the other two beingBriviesca and Oña), Belorado turned outto be the most interesting. Run-downand decrepit, Belorado preserved someof its medieval flavor. I visited the placewhere the medieval juderia is thought tohave been located, with its narrow,crooked streets and houses that seem totry to climb on top of one another. It isnot far from the royal castle and thetower of Homenaje, to the maintenanceof which the Jewish community wasrequired to contribute. I was also able tovisit Paredes de Nava – today a smalltown 20 kilometers north-west fromPalencia, but in the Middle Ages a fairlylarge center of Jewish life. With the helpof a local historian, I found the oldJewish neighborhood near the church ofSanta María. A solid, square building onone of the corners used to be the churchof Corpus Cristi, and before the expul-sion – the barrio’s synagogue. Nothingelse remains in Paredes de Nava of theJewish community that had once thrivedhere – typical for a small town on thenorthern meseta, where Jews were neververy numerous and their cultural rootsnever deep.

Adriana X. Tatum With the support ofthe Program in Judaic Studies, I wasable to undertake an intensive study ofYiddish this past summer. The YIVOInstitute for Jewish Research organizesan annual summer language programwhich attracts students from around theworld. This year, YIVO moved its pro-gram from Columbia University to NewYork University’s Taub Center forHebrew and Judaic Studies, which islocated near the Center for JewishHistory (CJH), which houses the YIVOarchives. The aim of this collaboration isto integrate the study of Yiddish with abroad range of scholarly interests and to

encourage young scholars to applyYiddish to their work. In addition tolanguage instruction, students were ableto take advantage of the proximity of theCJH to take part in a variety of pro-grams and activities related to JewishStudies in general and Yiddish in partic-ular. In my case, this program not onlygave me the language skills I needed toincorporate several key Yiddish texts intomy dissertation project, but alsoacquainted me with the variety of con-temporary Yiddish resources available inthe New York area. YIVO is not onlyconcerned with making the Yiddish pastaccessible to scholars but also in keepingYiddish current, which was fascinating toexperience directly.

One of the poets I work on, AvotYeshurun, challenged the norms of theemerging Modern Hebrew nationalliterary canon in the Yishuv (pre-StateIsrael) precisely in keeping Yiddish alivein his own Hebrew poetry. His use ofmultilingual expressions, puns, andcalques (to name a few of the strategieshe employed) both in Yiddish and otherlanguages, disrupted the illusion of amonolingual Modern Hebrew andshowed how Hebrew remained ostensiblyhaunted by diasporic languages, indeed,the native languages of many of its earlywriters. For Yeshurun, inserting a Yiddishword in a Hebrew poem was one way ofchallenging the silencing of Yiddish.

The YIVO/NYU Summer Program pro-vided a strong foundation for my futureuses (and abuses!) of Yiddish. At thistime, there is considerable discussionconcerning the relation between Hebrewand Yiddish and, in particular, a greatdeal of interest in uncovering the sup-pressed layers of Yiddish in ModernHebrew literary history. Current studieson Hebrew/Yiddish bilingualism inIsraeli literature are extremely relevant tomy dissertation work, so I am verygrateful to have the linguistic tools toengage directly with the materials theseworks discuss. I look forward to contin-uing my study of the Yiddish languagethis year through Yungtruf, a New York-based Yiddish organization that offerslanguage instruction.

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Bella Tendler I attended the ArabicLanguage Institute in Fez, Morocco(ALIF) where I completed their thirdyear program in Modern StandardArabic. The full immersion environmentof ALIF and Moroccan street lifeallowed me to progress more efficientlythat I could have in an American pro-gram as I was forced to rely on myArabic skills to communicate. ALIF alsoprepared me for the full time Arabic language program that I am currentlyattending while in absentia fromPrinceton University.

Philippa Townsend The funding Ireceived from Judaic Studies this sum-mer enabled me to travel to Turkey tovisit archaeological sites in what wasancient Asia Minor. My dissertationdeals in part with the complicated andvarying relationships between Jews andgentiles in the first century and withhow diverse communities of Christiansemerged from their interactions.Although Asia Minor was a key area forthe mission of Paul, the Jewish “apostleto the gentiles,” I have never before hadthe opportunity to visit it. Among thehighlights of my travels from Istanbuldown the Western coast and intoCappadocia, was Ephesus, one of thebest preserved cities of the RomanEmpire and the site of Paul’s famousclash with the followers of Artemis,according to the New Testament bookof Acts. At Sardis I visited the remains ofa late antique synagogue and its remark-ably well-preserved mosaics, along witha row of shops with inscriptions indicat-ing that they belonged to Jewish resi-dents. Perhaps most interesting to mewere the stunning remains of the city ofAphrodisias, where synagogue inscrip-tions have been discovered that refer todonations from so-called “godfearers,”who supported the synagogue withoutactually converting to Judaism. Theinscriptions constitute an important contribution to our evidence for gentileinvolvement in Jewish synagogue wor-ship in Late Antiquity. I am extremelygrateful for the financial assistance ofJudaic Studies for enabling me to makethis valuable trip.

Moulie Vidas I divided my time thissummer between Princeton and Israel.In Princeton I wrote a seminar paper onthe discourse of genealogical purity as aform of thinking on national identity,and revised two other papers. I also pre-pared for the language examinations inFrench and German which I am aboutto take this fall.

In Israel I used the resources of theInstitute of Microfilmed HebrewManuscripts of the Jewish National andUniversity Library at the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem. The Institutehas been called by one scholar in ourfield “the best laboratory for JewishStudies in the world” and is said to holdfilms of about 95 percent of knownHebrew manuscripts. I was first intro-duced to work there by my professors inthe Talmud department at Tel Aviv. In aparticularly satisfying but not untypicalmoment I found in the catalogue a pho-tocopy of a very fragmentary scrap ofTalmud, held in an archive in Bologna,Italy, partially preserving the same sec-tion from tractate Qiddushin which wasthe subject of a paper I was about tosubmit to Professor Schäfer back inPrinceton. I thank the Program in JudaicStudies for its generous support.

Erica Weiss This past summer of 2005was dedicated for the most part tostudying Hebrew. My research area isIsrael and in about one year I will begoing to Israel to conduct my fieldresearch for at least a year. For this rea-son it is essential that I can speakHebrew fluently. I also needed to studyfor the language proficiency exam that isrequired for me to take my generalexams. Before this summer I had hadthree years of university level Hebrewduring my undergraduate experience atJohns Hopkins University.

This summer, because of the moneygiven by the Judaic Studies Program, theGraduate School and PIIRS, I was ableto travel to Israel for three months inorder not only to take classes in Hebrewbut also to have a language emersionexperience, which allowed me to acquireHebrew much more quickly. I took twocourses in Advanced Hebrew over the

summer, one for the month of July andone for the month of August. This expe-rience was very rewarding because I wasable to use the language skills that I waslearning with the people that werearound me.

Also during my trip I was able to meetwith different professors in Israel aboutthe academic environment there and thepossibilities for my fieldwork. I devel-oped a deeper interest in the Ethiopiancommunity in Israel, and I found manyprofessors who are working on the issuesand culture of this community.

I would like to thank the Judaic StudiesProgram at Princeton University for giving me the funds that are enablingme to do my work.

Jeris S. Yruma During the summer of2005 I spent over two months in Berlinstudying German and doing archivalresearch. I made two trips to Berlin, onefrom May 25 to July 2, and one fromSeptember 14 to October 8. During myfirst trip I took a four-week German lan-guage course at the Goethe Institute andbegan archival research for my disserta-tion at the Max Planck Society (MPS)Archives. During the second trip Ifocused exclusively on archival research.

I found the time I spent in Berlin thissummer very profitable. My Germanlanguage skills are much improved,which is quite important for my project.I am studying the discovery of nuclearfission, which took place in Berlin in1938. To very briefly summarize: inDecember of 1938 two chemists, OttoHahn and Fritz Strassmann, realizedthat when they exposed uranium to asource of neutrons some of the atoms ofuranium broke apart into much lighteratoms such as barium. Hahn wrote ofthis finding to his former colleague, thephysicist Lise Meitner, who had workedon these uranium experiments withHahn and Strassmann until she had fledGermany for Sweden earlier in 1938because she was Jewish. Meitner andher nephew Otto Frisch developed aphysical explanation for how uranium

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could break apart and dubbed theprocess nuclear fission.

All of Otto Hahn’s papers, as well assome of Lise Meitner’s and FritzStrassmann’s, are located at the MPSArchives in Berlin. During my timethere this summer I was able to read allof the letters between Otto Hahn andLise Meitner from when she was forcedto flee Germany in 1938 until theirdeaths in 1968. I also read Otto Hahn’sletters with many other scientists withwhom he communicated about the fission discovery, such as Niels Bohr, aswell as Hahn’s communications with thepress regarding the discovery. In addi-tion, I read many of the papers of LiseMeitner and Fritz Strassmann held atthe MPS Archives.

In my dissertation I am specifically inter-ested in the different ways in which thediscovery narrative for fission was toldby different people at different times.That is because multiple people wereinvolved in the discovery and, at differenttimes, each of them could be awardeddifferent amounts of credit for the dis-covery. For example, in American news-papers after the atomic bombing ofHiroshima, Lise Meitner was identifiedas the discoverer of fission. Because shewas Jewish and had fled the Nazis,Meitner thereby offered both an expla-nation for why the Nazis had not devel-oped the atomic bomb (they had perse-cuted the discoverer of fission, the keyto the bomb) and a validation for theAmericans’ development of it (the Nazishad persecuted the Jews). In the docu-ments I read this summer I was able tosee Otto Hahn’s own discovery narrativefor fission, and how this changed overthe thirty years from the discovery to hisdeath, as well as his reactions to the dis-covery narratives told by others.

The documents I found at the MPSArchives this summer will appear inseveral chapters of my dissertation andI presented one draft chapter at theHistory of Science Program Seminarin November.

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SEFER HASIDIM

Peter Schäfer, Program Director of Judaic Studies, is working ona multi-year project to compile and translate Sefer Hasidim, orBook of the Pious. One of the most important sources for thereligion, history, and culture of medieval German Jewry, SeferHasidim is constructed as a guidebook for the practice of Jewishpiety as conceived by twelfth-century hasidim of the Rhinelandarea (haside-Ashkenaz), and consists largely of parables, homi-lies, and exempla that appeal to the everyday experiences of itsauthor(s) and audience. There is currently no edition that inte-grates all the Hebrew manuscripts (of both the Parma andBologna manuscript families) into a single volume, and there isno translation of the entire text in any modern language. Withhelp from graduate and undergraduate students, Schäfer isdirecting a two-pronged effort: first, the compilation of a criticalsynoptic edition of the Hebrew manuscripts; and second, thecreation of a full, annotated English translation. He hopes thatthis single Hebrew volume will serve as a reliable source for fur-ther study of the heretofore-neglected manuscript evidence, andthat the comprehensive English translation will make the textaccessible to a broad range of scholars.

Moreover, while Sefer Hasidim constitutes a major historicalsource for the religious life and Hebrew literary style of Jews inmedieval Germany more generally, it also constitutes one of thefew witnesses to the distinctive worldview, and social and reli-gious practices of those Jews who identified with the circle ofpietists that took shape around Samuel ben Kalonymos, his son,Judah of Regensburg, and Eleazar ben Judah of Worms in thelate twelfth to early thirteenth centuries. The radically newapproach of these pietists to ethical theory and practice, as artic-ulated in Sefer Hasidim, went beyond the laws laid upon therighteous in the Bible and Talmud. Many of their innovative pre-cepts, which stemmed from their renewed interest in ascetic andmystical practices, a system of penitence for sin, and a focus onthe individual’s quest for self-perfection that appears to nullifythe need for messianic redemption, often placed their followersin conflict with the larger community.

Additionally, an important element demonstrated by SeferHasidim is that twelfth-century German Jews and theirChristian neighbors managed to live together in relative harmo-ny. This text preserves a picture of a pivotal stage in the historyof Jewish-Christian relations in Europe, before the progressiveimposition of social and political isolation on the Jewish peoplethroughout the following centuries that ultimately culminated inthe Holocaust. Sefer Hasidim is often organized as a series ofstories that answer such questions as: Are Jews permitted to readChristian books? (If you go on a trip with a donkey, put theJewish books on one side and the Christian books on the other.)Are Jews allowed to teach monks about Judaism if they showcuriosity? (No, the monks might intentionally or unintentionally“borrow” the Jewish prayers and use them to praise the Christian

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JUDAIC STUDIES COMMITTEEAs of July 1, 2005

*Peter Schäfer, Director, Program in Judaic Studies, PerelmanProfessor of Judaic Studies, Professor of Religion

*Leora Batnitzky, Associate Professor of Religion, RichardStockton Preceptor

David Bellos, Professor of French, Comparative Literature

*Mark Cohen, Professor of Near Eastern Studies

Stanley Corngold, Professor of Germanic Languages andLiteratures, Comparative Literature

John Gager, William H. Danforth Professor of Religion

Anthony Grafton, Henry Putnam University Professor ofHistory, Director, Humanities Council

Jan T. Gross, Norman B. Tomlinson ‘16 and ‘48 Professor ofWar and Society, Professor of History

Hendrik A. Hartog, Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor inthe History of American Law and Liberty, Professor of History

Wendy Heller, Associate Professor of Music

Daniel Heller-Roazen, Professor of Comparative Literature

*Martha Himmelfarb, Professor of Religion, Chair

*William Jordan, Dayton-Stockton Professor of History

*Stanley Katz, Lecturer with rank of Professor of Public andInternational Affairs; Faculty Chair, Undergraduate Program;Director, Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies

*Olga Litvak, Assistant Professor of History

Deborah Nord, Professor of English, Women & Gender Studies

Anson Rabinbach, Professor of History; Director, Program inEuropean Cultural Studies (ECS)

Esther Robbins, Lecturer in Hebrew, Near Eastern Studies

Lawrence Rosen, Professor of Anthropology

*Esther Schor, Professor of English

Avrom Udovitch, Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor of JewishCivilization in the Near East, Professor of Near Eastern Studies

Froma Zeitlin, Ewing Professor of Greek Language andLiterature, and Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature

* members of the Executive Committee

COMMITTEE

SUPPORTJUDAIC STUDIES ADVISORYCOUNCIL

The Program in Judaic Studies Advisory Council hadits fourth meeting on April 18, 2005. They met withthe Dean of the Faculty David Dobkin, RichardBennett, the JDS Development Consultant, as well asJudaic Studies faculty, and graduate and undergraduatestudents. They commented on how rich and diversethe program’s offerings and faculty resources are andhow it continues to attract and inspire both graduateand undergraduate students from across the humani-ties. Once again, it’s clear that Judaic Studies atPrinceton can offer itself as a model of interdisciplinarystudy and cooperation, a great boon to all departmentsin the humanities.

We thank the members, listed below, who graciouslyserve and help us in our efforts to improve and grow.

Robert Alter, University of California, Berkeley

Mark Biderman ’67

Melvin Jules Bukiet, Sarah Lawrence College

Joseph Fath, Princeton, NJ

Ruth Fath, Princeton, NJ

Talya Fishman, University of Pennsylvania

Fanya Gottesfeld-Heller, New York, NY

Marcella Kanfer Rolnick ’95

Ivan G. Marcus, Yale University

David N. Myers, University of California Los Angeles

Debra G. Perelman ’96

Ronald O. Perelman, New York, NY

Mark Podwal, New York, NY

Philip Wachs ’78

Ruth Westheimer, New York, NY

Mark Wilf ’84

James Young, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Bruce Zuckerman ’69, University of Southern California

Sidney Lapidus ’59, sits with Council

LEORA BATNITZKY, AssociateProfessor of Religion. Her new book,Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas:Philosophy and the Politics of Revelationwill be published this spring (2006) byCambridge University Press. She willalso be teaching a new freshman seminarin the spring on religion and science.

DAVID BELLOS, Professor of FrenchLanguages and Literatures, taughtFRE/JDS 367 last fall to an enthusiasticand diverse group of students. Thecourse dealt with the presence of Jewsas the authors and subjects of Frenchliterature and film in the second half ofthe twentieth century, with particularattention to Schwarz-Bart, Memmi,Wiesel, Gary, Lanzmann and Perec. Heis currently writing a study of the writer-diplomat Romain Gary and ponderingan essay on Elie Wiesel’s classic accountof deportation to Auschwitz andBuchenwald, La Nuit.

MARK COHEN, Professorof Near Eastern Studies. Hisbook, Under Crescent andCross: The Jews in the MiddleAges (1994), has recently

appeared in a German translation andwill soon appear in French. The pro-ceedings of the 2002 conference“Poverty and Charity: Judaism,Christianity, Islam” appeared at the endof 2004 as a thematic issue of theJournal of Interdisciplinary History. Inthe summer of 2005 he co-directed aworkshop for young European andAmerican scholars in Berlin, sponsoredby a consortium of Institutes forAdvanced Study (including Princeton’s)and supported by the Andrew MellowFoundation and the Alexander vonHumboldt Foundation.

STANLEY CORNGOLD recentlypublished a book on Franz Kafka entitledLambent Traces (Princeton UP, 2004),which treats Kafka as a neo-Gnosticthinker and writer, and has been talked upin the German scholarly press (“verbalprecision, argumentative stamina”).Norton is bringing out his SelectedStories of Franz Kafka, newly translatedwith commentary. His next book project

is Kafka Before the Law, which willtranslate Kafka’s legal writings and com-ment on their involvement in his poeticwork. In spring 2006 he will teach thismaterial at the Columbia University LawSchool as Adjunct Professor of Law.

JOHN GAGER is the DanforthProfessor of Religion. His scholarlyconcerns are the religions of the RomanEmpire, especially early Christianity, andrelations between Jews and Christians inthe early centuries of the common era.He is the author of Moses in Greco-RomanPaganism; Kingdom and Community:The Social World of Early Christianity;The Origins of Anti-Semitism; CurseTablets and Binding Spells from theAncient World; and Reinventing Paul.

ANTHONY GRAFTON, HenryPutnam University Professor of History;Interim Chair, Fund for CanadianStudies; Director, Program in HumanisticStudies; Chair, Council of the Humanities;and Director, Stewart Seminars inReligion, is now putting what he hopeswill be the final touches on a collabora-tive book on the Christian library ofCaesarea Maritima in the third andfourth centuries, written with MeganWilliams (Montana). He and JoannaWeinberg (Oxford/Center for AdvancedJudaic Studies) are currently engagedon a study of the late humanist IsaacCasaubon as a Judaist.

JAN T. GROSS, the Norman B.Tomlinson ‘16 and ‘48 Professor of Warand Society in the Department ofHistory, author of Neighbors: TheDestruction of the Jewish Community inJedwabne, Poland (2001), is finishing abook manuscript entitled “Fear - anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz - anessay in historical interpretation.” It willbe published next year by Random House.

HENDRIK HARTOG, Class of 1921Bicentennial Professor in the History ofAmerican Law and Liberty, is currentlyat work on a book tentatively titled,“Someday All This Will Be Yours: AgingParents, Adult Children, and Inheritancein the Modern Era.” His previous bookwas Man and Wife in America, AHistory (HUP, 2000, 2002). His teach-

ing and research are both in the socialhistory of law, with an emphasis on familyhistory and nineteenth and twentiethcentury America.

WENDY HELLER, Associate Professorof Music, is pleased to announce thather book Emblems of Eloquence: Operaand Women’s Voices in Seventeenth-Century Venice was awarded the BestBook Award from the Society for EarlyModern Women and was named Finalistfor the Otto Kinkeldey Award given bythe American Musicological Society forthe best book of 2003. She has recentlywritten articles on cantorial music forthe Dictionary of Eastern EuropeanJewry. Her essay “The Beloved’s Image:Handel’s Admeto and the Statue ofAlcestis” will be published in theJournal of the American MusicologicalSociety in January 2006.

DANIEL HELLER-ROAZEN,Professor of Comparative Literature. Hisbook, Echolalias: On the Forgetting ofLanguage, with fascinating remarksabout Hebrew and Yiddish, came outfrom Zone Books in May, 2005. He iscurrently preparing the Norton CriticalEdition of The Arabian Nights. And hisnext book, The Inner Touch: Archaeologyof a Sensation, will be published byZone Books.

MARTHA HIMMELFARB, Professorof Religion and Chair of the Departmentof Religion. Her book “A Kingdom ofPriests”: Ancestry and Merit in AncientJudaism will appear in spring, 2006(University of Pennsylvania Press). Shehas begun work on a book about apoca-lypses for Blackwell’s Brief History series.

WILLIAM CHESTER JORDAN isDayton-Stockton Professor of Historyand teaches undergraduate courses on‘English Constitutional History’ and‘Europe in the High Middle Ages.’ Thetopics of his graduate seminars vary, butone is focused on the relations of Jewsand Christians in Europe in the HighMiddle Ages. His books include LouisIX and the Challenge of the Crusade: AStudy in Rulership (1979); From Servitudeto Freedom: Manumission in the Sénonaisin the Thirteenth Century (1986); The

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FACULTY RESEARCH & NEWS2005

French Monarchy and the Jews from PhilipAugustus to the Last Capetians (1989);Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial andDeveloping Societies (1993, Japanesetranslation 2004); The Great Famine:Northern Europe in the Early FourteenthCentury (1996), the winner of theHaskins Medal of the Medieval Academyof America; Europe in the High MiddleAges (2001), a volume in the PenguinHistory of Europe; and most recentlyUnceasing Strife, Unending Fear: Jacquesde Thérines and the Freedom of theChurch in the Age of the Last Capetians(2005). Professor Jordan has also editedseveral encyclopedias for elementaryschool children, high school students, andscholars. His current research involves acomparison of the relations of WestminsterAbbey and the English government inthe thirteenth century with those of theAbbey of Saint-Denis and the Frenchgovernment in the same period.

STANLEY KATZ, Lecturerwith rank of Professor inPublic and InternationalAffairs, Faculty Chair of theWoodrow Wilson School

Undergraduate Program, Director of thePrinceton University Center for Arts andCultural Policy Studies, Acting Directorof Law and Public Affairs, and Past-President of the Center for Jewish Life.His current main project is a bookexplaining the constitutional reasonswhy the United States has found it sodifficult to participate in the internationalhuman rights system.

OLGA LITVAK, AssistantProfessor of History, hasrecently finished her firstbook, Foot Soldiers ofEnlightenment; Military

Conscription and the Search for ModernRussian Jewry, to be published byIndiana University Press in the spring of2006. She is currently at work on hernew project, Jews and the Making of theRussian Imperial Image: from Realism to Modernism.

DEBORAH NORD, Professor ofEnglish. Her book, Gypsies and theBritish Imagination, 1807-1930, will

be published in 2006 by ColumbiaUniversity Press. She is currently workingon two essays: on the history of AmericanDickens criticism and on the Victoriancity. Her course on American Jewishwriters is offered this fall. She presenteda paper, entitled “‘I wander’d til I died’:Matthew Arnold’s Vanishing Gypsies,”at the NAVSA conference at the Universityof Virginia in October, 2005 and another,“The Making of Dickens Criticism,” ata conference honoring Steven Marcusat Columbia University during thesame month.

ANSON RABINBACH,Professor of History andDirector of the Program inEuropean Cultural Studies,specializes in 20th century

European history, with an emphasis onGerman intellectual history. He teachescourses on European culture, intellectuals,fascism, and the history of technology.He is co-editing The Nazi CultureSourcebook (with Sander Gilman).Professor Rabinbach is currently the JPMorgan Prize Fellow at the AmericanAcademy in Berlin.

LAWRENCE ROSEN, W. N. CromwellProfessor of Anthropology, is on leavethis year. He received a CarnegieCorporation Scholars award for Islamicstudies, and is currently a fellow at theWoodrow Wilson International Centerfor Scholars in Washington, DC.

PETER SCHÄFER, Director of theProgram in Judaic Studies, is thePerelman Professor of Judaic Studies andProfessor of Religion. He continues towork on the Sefer Hasidim (Book of thePious) project and published a relatedarticle: “Jews and Christians in the HighMiddle Ages: The Book of the Pious” inThe Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages:Proceedings of the InternationalSymposium held at Speyer, 20-25 October2002, ed. Ch. Cluse (Turnhout: Brepols,2004). From mid December 2004 untilmid January 2005 he was a member ofthe Institute for Advanced Studies at TelAviv University where he gave one publiclecture and two seminars. In January2005 he organized, together with

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Princeton graduate students EduardIricinschi and Holger Zellentin, a con-ference, “Making Selves and MarkingOthers: Heresy and Self-Definition inLate Antiquity.” In addition, he pub-lished two articles on Jewish cosmology:“In Heaven as It Is in Hell: TheCosmology of Seder Rabba di-Bereshit,”in Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realitiesin Late Antique Religions, ed. R. S.Boustan and A.Yoshiko Reed (CambridgeUniversity Press, 2004), and “FromCosmology to Theology: The RabbinicAppropriation of Apocalyptic Cosmology,”in: Creation and Re-Creation in JewishThought: Festschrift in Honor of JosephDan on the Occasion of his SeventiethBirthday, ed. R. Elior and P. Schäfer(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). In thesummer of 2004 he was engaged in apublic debate (in German newspapers)on Jan Assmann’s concept of monothe-ism and anti-Semitism; a full version ofhis view appeared as “Geschichte undGedächtnisgeschichte: Jan Assmans‘Mosaische Unterscheidung,’” in:Memoria – Wege jüdischen Erinnerns:Festschrift für Michael Brocke zum 65.Geburtstag, ed. B.E. Klein and Ch.Müller (Berlin: Metropol, 2005). In anissue of the Hebrew journal Alpayim hepublished “The Root of Antisemitism:An Answer to A.B. Yehoshua” (inHebrew, 2005). In September 2004 hegave two lectures at a private workshopin Regensburg upon the invitation ofCardinal Joseph Ratzinger, soon tobecome Pope Benedict XVI.

ESTHER SCHOR,Professor of English, will beteaching a new course called“Yiddish Voices: Literature,Film and Music” in the

Spring of 2006. She has recently com-pleted a biography of Emma Lazarus for

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the Jewish Encounters series, publishedby Nextbook/Schocken; it will appear inthe fall of 2006.

ABRAHAM L. UDOVITCH,Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor ofJewish Civilization in the Near East,Department of Near Eastern Studies.Co-editor of the journal, Studia Islamicaand a member of the ExecutiveCommittee of the Encyclopaedia ofIslam, he is also on the World ExecutiveCommittee of the International Centerfor Peace in the Middle East. Udovitchis a member of the Board of Overseersof Koc University in Istanbul. His cur-rent research centers on a study of thesocial and economic life of the 11thcentury Mediterranean world based ona collection of about 500 Geniza docu-ments relating to the career of a merchantby the name of Nahray ben Nissim. Alsoworking on a short monograph on ruralsociety in 11th century Egypt as reflect-ed in the Geniza documents, his otherprojects include one on intercommunalrelations in the medieval Near East andanother in the field of Islamic law.

FROMA ZEITLIN, Charles EwingProfessor of Greek Language andLiterature (in the Classics Department)and Professor of Comparative Literature.In addition to her work in Classics, shecontributed an essay, “Teaching thePerpetrators,” to an MLA volume,Teaching the Holocaust (2005). She ispreparing a final version of an essay,“Imaginary Tales in the Land of thePerpetrators,” which treats three recentworks of fiction by authors in the US,Germany, and Britain, respectively, toappear in a special issue of the Journal ofModern Jewish Studies. This essay origi-nated in a 2004 conference in Leiden,the Netherlands, entitled “The GenerationAfter and Literature of the Holocaust.”She is currently teaching her regularcourse, “Texts and Images of theHolocaust,” but in spring 2006, she willoffer a new course, “Children in War:Caught in Europe in the Nazi Web.”From fall 1996-spring 2005, she was thedirector of the Program in Judaic Studies.

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JEWISH STUDIES QUARTERLY

The Jewish Studies Quarterly (JSQ), an academic journal editedby Professors Leora Batnitzky and Peter Schäfer is entering itsthirteenth year of publication and its third year at PrincetonUniversity. The journal publishes studies on all aspects ofJewish history and culture. Originally founded by Schäfer andthe preeminent Israeli scholar Joseph Dan of the HebrewUniversity, its editors have always sought out an internationalarray of authors (though it publishes mostly in English) and,more recently, hope to see more submissions from Princeton’sfaculty of any academic field and discipline.

The past year has seen the journal thrive with the scholarlyefforts of its contributors and a new managing editor, AlyssaQuint. Quint recently received her PhD from HarvardUniversity and specializes in the field of Yiddish literature andEastern European Jewish culture.

This past year’s first issue (Vol. 12 no.1) includes a selection ofpapers by some of the scholars who convened at Princeton forthe conference “Urban Diaspora: The City in Jewish History,”and was edited by Princeton history professor Olga Litvak.Based on her talk, her article is entitled, “The Poet in Hell: H.N. Bialik and the Cultural Genealogy of the Kishinev Pogrom”and redefines our understanding of the most important Jewishpoet of his age as it interrogates the complex relationshipbetween history and literature. The conference, which tookplace in April, 2002 was chaired by Professors Litvak andBarbara Hahn.

Outside a special issue (typically one per year) devoted to thestudy of one topic albeit from a multiplicity of vantage points,the editors try to cover large areas of time and place as well assubject matter. Volume 12 for instance, includes pieces like“Theology and Cosmology in Rabbinic Ethics: The PedagogicalSignificance of Rainmaking Narratives” penned by JonathanSchofer of University of Wisconsin that takes the PalestinianTalmud (said to be redacted around the fifth century) as itsmain focus, to Columbia University professor Samuel Moyn’s“Divine and Human Love: Franz Rosenzweig’s History of theSong of Songs” and, in the volume’s final issue, WilliamsCollege Professor Sarah Hammerschlag’s “Troping the Jew:Jean François Lyotard’s Heidegger and “the jews.” The latterarticles examine the work of prominent twentieth-centuryphilosophers—one Jewish and the other grappling with theintersection of Jews and culture and language.

Upcoming volumes will include special issues devoted to arange of papers on modern Jewish Philosophy, another onYiddish literature and culture and yet another will include anumber of papers from the recent conference organized byProfessors Martha Himmelfarb and Peter Schäfer titled “JewishMagic in Context: Hidden Treasures from the Cairo Geniza,”that took place at Princeton University on Oct. 9, 2005.

years, we would like to give AmericanJewish Studies a permanent home withinour curriculum. As I am writing thisreport, nothing definite can yet be said;nevertheless, I am optimistic that a posi-tive solution will soon be found.

In the spring of 2005, we started a seriesof Friday lunch talks at which a memberof our Judaic Studies faculty undertakes apresentation about his or her currentresearch before a broader public of inter-ested colleagues and students (bothundergraduates and graduates). Thesetalks are meant to engage our communityof faculty and students in a meaningfuldialogue about what matters to us most:our present research – why we find it rel-evant and why we believe it is importantto our students and to the university atlarge. If we cannot pass this test, we arein the wrong place. During the springterm we had presentations by Jan Grosson “The Pogrom in Kielce (July 4,1946),” Paul Mendes-Flohr (as a guest)on “Judaic Studies: Retrospective andProspective Reflections,” and PeterBrown on “‘Treasures in Heaven’:Forms of Religious Giving in the LateAntique World;” the fall 2005 term was opened by Peter Schäfer’s talk on“Jesus in the Talmud,” followed inNovember by Ulrich Knoepflmacher on“The Portable Torah: Some Recollectionsof a Vanished Community in theBolivian Andes,” and in December byMarc Cohen on “Maimonides andCharity: Understanding the MishnehTorah in Light of the Documents of theCairo Geniza.”

For the fourth time in the past six years,the Department of Religion, with gener-ous funding from the Dean of theGraduate School, is organizing a gradu-ate seminar in the fall term, followed byan international conference in January,which aims at fostering collaborativeresearch between faculty and doctoralstudents in the religions of Late Antiquity.Within the context of the study of lateantique religion and culture, Judaismhas, of course, always played a promi-nent role in these seminars/conferences.The seminars as well as the conferencesare organized by two graduate students,

who are also responsible for the publica-tion of the papers in a conference vol-ume. After the first three highly success-ful colloquia: “In Heaven as it is onEarth: Imagined Realms and EarthlyRealities in Late Antique Religions”(published in 2004 as Heavenly Realmsand Earthly Realities in Late AntiqueReligions by Cambridge UniversityPress), “The Ways that Never Parted:Jews and Christians from Late Antiquityto the Early Middle Ages” (published in2003 under the same title by MohrSiebeck, Tübingen), and “Making Selvesand Marking Others: Heresy and Self-Definition in Late Antiquity” (forthcom-ing), this year’s seminar and conferenceis dedicated to the fascinating topic ofcontested memory and tradition, and isentitled “Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewishand Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World”.

Starting from the assumption that teach-ing with no research and research withno teaching becomes sterile and fruitless,it is clear as we move into the 21st cen-tury that at Princeton University theclassic ideal of the university as a placethat successfully combines teaching andresearch has not lost its impetus andattractiveness. We are proud that thejournal Jewish Studies Quarterly and theSefer Hasidim project have finally foundtheir home in the Scheide CaldwellHouse, and we hope that other projectswill soon follow, with the result that ouroffices and seminar room become hometo successively more vibrant scholarlyactivity and lively intellectual exchangebetween faculty and students.

— Peter Schäfer, Program inJudaic Studies Director.

ACADEMICS

Our course offerings during the 2004-05 academic year were as sumptuous as ever (a fulllist is printed in this Newsletter, featuring quitea number of new courses). Beate Pongratz-Leisten added a lecture course on the ancientNear East to our roster of courses, providingthe necessary cultural background for any seriousinstruction in Hebrew Bible. David Bellosintroduced our students to the Jewish presencein modern French fiction and film, and AndreaSchatz continued to cover German-Jewish cul-ture (with a course on “ ‘Nation’ and ‘Diaspora’in German-Jewish Literature”). Pursuing thetopic of anti-Semitism, Jenna Weissman-Joselitinquired into the issue within the legal spherewith her class “Prejudice on Trial: Antisemitism,the Courts, and the Law.”

The more successful the Program in JudaicStudies becomes, the more we feel the need to bridge the yawning gaps that remain in our curriculum. Unfortunately, the lack of anendowed chair fully dedicated to the study ofthe Hebrew Bible, although recognized andlamented for some time, has not been mended.Establishing such a chair at Princeton remainsour top priority since the consistent directedstudy of Hebrew Bible is essential not just toany serious study of Jewish religion and culture(and hence to our Judaic Studies Program); butalso, it is essential to any serious study of whatis invoked as “Western Civilization,” andaccordingly is regarded as belonging innately tothe canon of any serious university. As long asthis situation persists, we are obligated to con-tinue to point out this fundamental gap inPrinceton’s Humanities curriculum.

We are fortunate, however, to have finally succeeded in including Biblical Hebrew in ourHebrew language classes: this coming springEmmanuel Papoutsakis, from the Departmentof Near Eastern Studies, will teach a course inelementary Biblical Hebrew, followed by a sub-sequent course in the fall of 2006 focusing on a variety of texts from the Hebrew Bible. Wehope that this will be the long-awaited jump-startwhich will assure Biblical Hebrew a permanentplace in our Hebrew language teaching.

Another high priority in our ongoing effort toincrease the quantity and depth of our courseofferings has long been American JewishStudies. While we have been able to offer anumber of individual courses over the past

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(Director’s Message continued from page 1)

DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE

LECTURES AND EVENTS, 2004 -2005

The Program in Judaic Studies has become widely known for the variety of events we sponsor or co-sponsor, includinglectures, film series, symposia and panel discussions. 2004-05was an exciting year. It is noteworthy that we began the aca-demic year by addressing the 350th anniversary of AmericanJewish history with an appearance by historian Jonathan D.Sarna, of Brandeis University, whose topic was “The 350-YearHistory of an Old Faith in the New World.”

FILMS: Spanning the entire year was an Israeli film seriescoordinated by Hebrew lecturer Esther Robbins, featuring“Columbia: The Tragic Loss,” “Yom Yom,” “Silence of theSirens,” “Lullaby,” “The Road to Jenin,” “Miss Entebbe,”“Father’s Braid,” and “Desperate Hours.” In several instances,the director of the film or a feature actor was present at thescreening for discussion.

ISRAELI CULTURAL SERIES: An Israeli-Arabcultural series, the Sallam-Shalom! Series, also coordinated byRobbins, was an ongoing project throughout the year. Itproved a great success. The programs included talks by AymanAgbaria, who addressed “An Israeli Arab Poet’s Perspective onIsraeli Culture and Multi-Culturism”; Salim Fattal, an Israeliwriter born in Iraq, who talked about “Jews in Iraq and theInfluence of Iraqi-born Writers on Israeli Literature”; and AnatHalachmi, an Israeli filmmaker, whose “Channels of Rage”film screening and talk tackled the idea of coexistence throughIsraeli and Palestinian rap music.

FALL 2003: A busy roster of lectures in the fall, each co-sponsored with different departments, covered a range of topicsincluding literature, art, architecture, history, and the currentMiddle East. Sidra Dekoven Ezrahi and Linda Zisquit, bothof Hebrew University, presented “Writing Jerusalem.” Twotalks addressed the Holocaust and visual memory: UC Berkeley& Leiden University’s Ernst van Alphen’s topic was “VisualArchives and the Holocaust,” and artists Renata Stih andFrieder Schnock, gave a talk entitled “Public Space andMemory,” which included a visual presentation of theirinstallations “Places of Remembrance: Memorial in Berlin-Schoenberg” & “Bus Stop.” Deborah Lipstadt, of EmoryUniversity, presented “American Jewish Responses toAntisemitism: From Complacency to Hysteria.” Two famousAmerican Jewish writers came to Princeton: Tony Kushner(more below) and Jonathan Safran Foer, author ofEverything is Illuminated, who read from his work.

COLLOQUIUM: In January, “Making Selves andMarking Others: Heresy and Self-Definition in LateAntiquity” was organized by Peter Schäfer, Holger Zellentin,and Eduard Iricinschi, sponsored by the Department of

Religion, the Program in Judaic Studies, the Program in theAncient World, and the Group Study of Late Antiquity atPrinceton University. This colloquium explored the ways inwhich late antique groups and communities defined their ownsocio-political borders and created secure in-group identities bymeans of discourses about “heresy” and “heretics.”

SPRING 2004 LECTURES: Our spring calendar ofevents included many visitors to Princeton. Of special notewere Hellenic Studies Fellow Nicholas de Lange, CambridgeUniversity, U.K., who presented two talks: “Evidence of theJews in the Byzantine Empire: Hebrew Inscriptions from theByzantine Empire” and “Translating Amos Oz”; and HumanitiesCouncil Fellow Paul Mendes-Flohr, University of Chicago,who also presented two talks: “Martin Buber as a HapsburgIntellectual” and “Judaic Studies: Retrospective andProspective Reflections.” February and March welcomedDaniel Lasker, Ben Gurion University, “The Jewish-ChristianDebate in the Early Modern Period: Spinoza, Modena andIsaac of Troki”; Ra’anan (Abusch) Boustan, University ofMinnesota, “Jewish Counter-Geography in a ChristianizingEmpire: Martyrs, Relics and Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity”;Dan Diner, Hebrew University/ Simon-Dubnow Institute,Leipzig/Institute for Advanced Study, “TransitionalizingEuropean History”; Noah Efron, Bar Ilan University, “Physics& Civics: American Jews and Natural Sciences in the FirstDecades of the Twentieth Century”; Martin Goodman,University of Oxford, “Rome and Jerusalem” and “Romans,Jews, and Christians on the Names of the Jews”; AnitaShapira, Tel Aviv University, “People of the Book, People ofthe Land: The Bible and Israeli Identity”; Susan Einbinder,Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion/Cincinnati,“Beginning with Alef: The Expulsion of the Jews from France(1306)”; and Isaiah Gafni, Hebrew University of Jerusalem,“Past and Present in Talmudic Literature: On the Rabbinizaionof Jewish History.” Our additional speakers in April were:Omer Bartov, Brown University, “The Holocaust from Below:Buczacz, East Galicia, 1941-1944”; Christian Wiese,Universität Erfurt, “Challenging Cultural Hegemony: JewishStudies, Liberal Protestantism, and Anti-Semitism inWilhelmine and Weimar Germany”; Andrea Schatz, PrincetonUniversity Society of Fellows, “Beyond the In-Between: TheField of Judaic Studies”; and Daniel Mendelsohn, PrincetonUniversity, “Daniel Mendelsohn reads from his book inprogress: THE LOST: Searching for Six of the Six Million.”Finally, on April 7, there was a special performance byAdrienne Cooper, the Yiddish Chanteuse, whose concert“Lost in the Stars” won rave reviews.

EVENTS

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Nicholas de Lange Daniel Mendelsohn Adrienne Cooper Deborah Lipstadt

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Friday Lunch Works-in-Progress Seminar

In March we started a new monthly series with Jan T. Gross,Department of History, speaking on “The Pogrom in Kielce(July 4, 1946).” In April, Paul Mendes-Flohr addressed the above mentioned “Judaic Studies: Retrospective andProspective Reflections,” and finally in May Peter Brown,Department of History, spoke on “‘Treasures in Heaven’:Forms of Religious Giving in the Late Antique World.” These seminars are held to promote discussion and interactionbetween our students and faculty.

ENDOWED LECTURES:Biderman Lecture (November 4): “An Evening With Tony Kushner”

The evening included a reading by Tony Kushner, author ofthe Pulitzer Prize, Tony, and Emmy-winning work “Angels inAmerica,” followed by a question-and-answer session led byEmily Mann, artistic director of McCarter Theatre.

Mytelka Lecture (March 4): Anita Norich, University ofMichigan, “How Tevye Learned to Fiddle”

Norich is Associate Professor of English and Judaic Studies atthe University of Michigan. The author of The HomelessImagination in the Fiction of Israel Joshua Singer and co-editorof Gender and Text in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Literatures,she teaches, lectures, and publishes on Yiddish language andliterature, Jewish American literature, and Holocaust literature.Sholem Aleichem’s beloved Tevye the Dairyman has beenadapted for stage and screen in various languages and coun-tries. The most famous of these is Fiddler on the Roof, but inaddition to this English film, there are extraordinary adapta-tions in Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian. Using screen clipsfrom each of these four films, Norich explored some of thereasons why this story continues to haunt the modern Jewishimagination and how it has been re-interpreted throughoutthe twentieth century.

27th Carolyn L. Drucker Memorial Lecture (March 30):Walter Laqueur, “Jerusalem 1938 and After”

The distinguished historian, journalist, Sovietologist, andexpert on international relations, Laqueur served in a leadingposition at the Center for Strategic and International Studiesfrom 1968 to 2001 and presently has the title of DistinguishedScholar at that well known think tank. He was director of the Wiener Library and Institute of Contemporary History in London from 1964 to 1994, editor of the Journal ofContemporary History from 1966 to 2004, and founder andeditor of the Washington Quarterly, 1974-94. He is also theauthor of some of the basic texts on terrorism.

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Sidra Ezrahi Linda Zisquit

Photography: Jerusalem doorways.

God.) Are Jews permitted to do business with Christians? (Yes, butnever to cheat them.) Many of the rules in Sefer Hasidim are aboutsetting up boundaries between Jews and their Christian neighbors ineveryday interactions; to a certain extent, the Jews wanted to knowhow far they could go. Acting as assistant directors of the SeferHasidim project are Michael Meerson, a research associate, who hastaken on the role of managing editor, and Kevin Osterloh, a doc-toral candidate, who serves as project coordinator among Schäfer,Meerson, and the undergraduate transcription team located atPrinceton and several other universities in the United States,Canada, Germany, and Israel, chosen for their exceptional Hebrewlanguage skills. The team transcribes handwritten Hebrew script fromthe manuscript into modern Hebrew font in Word documents. Theymust first decipher the scribe’s handwriting, abbreviations, and edito-rial style, before they complete the transcription – often a dauntingtask – but one that they have undertaken with great energy, skill, and attention to detail.

Schäfer and the entire Sefer Hasidim team hope that the projectnot only will establish Princeton’s Program in Judaic Studies, thePerelman Institute, as a leading center for the study of a great civi-lization, but also will help to solidify its place as an integral elementof the academic life at Princeton University.

(Sefer Hasidim continued from page 16)

Tony Kushner

PROGRAMS 2005 -2006HIGHLIGHTS OF THE FALL:September 21: Elie Wiesel, Boston University, Nobel Peace Prizewinner and novelist, Walter E. Edge Lecture “An Evening With ElieWeisel.”

September 27: Yair Lorberbaum, Bar-Ilan University, Faculty ofLaw, “Holiness and Imitatio Dei in Early Rabbinic Literature.”

September 27: Colin Richmond, Keele University, “The Missing Jews of Medieval London.”

October 7: Peter Schäfer, Princeton University, “Jesus in the Talmud.”

October 9: “Jewish Magic in Context: Hidden Treasures fromthe Cairo Geniza,” Colloquium.

October 10: Orly Lubin, Tel Aviv University, Issam Nassar,Bradley University & Institute of Jerusalem Studies, “BetweenGaza and the West Bank.”

October 20: Steven Aschheim, Columbia University, “IconsBeyond the Borders: The German-Jewish Intellectual Legacy at theBeginning of the Twenty-First Century.”

November 6: “Yom Iyyun: In Honor of Froma Zeitlin,”Conference.

November 7: Meir Shalev, Noted Israeli Author, “My RussianGrandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner.”

November 11: Ulrich Knoepflmacher, Princeton University, “ThePortable Torah: Some Recollections of a Vanished JewishCommunity in the Bolivian Andes.”

UPCOMING:December 2: Mark Cohen, Princeton University, “Maimonidesand Charity: Understanding the Mishneh Torah in Light of theDocuments of the Cairo Geniza.”

December 7: Mary Douglas, University College of Londonemeritus, “Numbering the People of Israel: Biblical and SecularAgendas,” The 28th Carolyn L. Drucker Memorial Lecture.

January 22-24: “Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and ChristianPasts in the Greco-Roman World,” Colloquium.http://www.princeton.edu/~religion/antiquity/

Program in Judaic StudiesPrinceton University201 Scheide Caldwell HousePrinceton, NJ 08544

FOR FURTHER INFORMATIONIf you need further information please contact the

Program Manager:Marcie CitronProgram in Judaic Studies

Princeton UniversityScheide Caldwell HousePrinceton, NJ 08544(609) 258-0394e-mail: mcitron@princeton.edu

For the Director:Professor Peter Schäfere-mail: pschafer@princeton.edu

Web Sitewww.princeton.edu/~judaic/

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