BAJSBulletin2017 1

Contents

JewishStudiesinScotland

Edinburgh 1Aberdeen 4StAndrews 5Glasgow 6JewishLives/ScottishSpaces 8

BAJS2018ConferenceCallforPapers 9HonouringProf.PhilipAlexander 9PoliticsandJewishStudies

BrexitandJewishStudies 12Hungary,SorosandCEU 13

EmergingscholarsinJewishStudies 15Members’PublicationsandResearch 23BAJS2017ConferenceProgramme 28BAJSCommittee 39DearBAJSmembers,

The annual BAJS Bulletin aims to raise the profile of

JewishStudiesasanacademicdisciplineintheUKand

Ireland and to advertise and celebrate our members’

achievements. This year we have chosen to focus on

three areas: Jewish Studies in Scotland; the impact of

current politics on the field and supporting the next

generationofscholarsinJewishStudies.

The BAJS conference 2017 is being held in Edinburgh

under the leadership of BAJS President Dr Hannah

Holtschneider. This offers a wonderful opportunity to

showcasetheexcellentworkdone in JewishStudiesby

colleaguesatScottishuniversities.

The previous year seemed a particularly volatile year

withpoliticaleventsbothintheUKandabroadcausing

uncertaintyandraisingconcerns.Theresultofthe2016

‘Brexit’referendumislikelytohavealastingimpacton

British universities. Hungary’s attempts to curtail the

activitiesoftheCentralEuropeanUniversity(CEU)raise

concernsaboutantisemitismandBAJShasexpressedits

supportofthebeleaguereduniversity.Botheventsmay

affect Jewish Studies: Sociologist Larry Ray offers a

perspective on Brexit and Jewish Studies in the UK;

Andor Kelenhegyi a doctoral candidate at CEU, has

contributed an appraisal about the current political

situationinBudapest.

TheBulletinwillalsohighlighttheresearchofemerging

scholarsinJewishStudies.BAJSisstronglycommittedto

supportingUGandPGstudentsinJewishStudiesacross

all disciplines. Our annual essay competition attracts

strongapplicationsthatdemonstratealotofpotential.

WeofferbursariestoPGstudentspresentingattheBAJS

conference and, since 2013, include workshops and

networkingopportunitiesaimedatPGstudentsatour

annual conference.WehaveappointedanewPG/ECR

representativeintheBAJScommitteetoensurethatthe

needsofPG studentsandearly researchersareheard.

YouwillfindmoreaboutourinitiativesintheBulletin.

Ihopethatyouwillenjoyreadingthisyear’seditionofthe

BAJSBulletin.Werelyonyourcontributions–pleasegetin

touchifyouhavesuggestionsforwhatyouwouldliketo

read about and let us know about your research and

teaching.

MariaDiemling,Canterbury

SpecialFocus:

JewishStudiesinScotland

JewishStudiesattheUniversityof

Edinburgh1968-2005

PeterHayman,Edinburgh

In 1968 I was appointed to a newly createdlectureship in Hebrew and Jewish Studies,replacingwhathadbeenachairinOldTestamentStudies.PriortothisJewishStudieshadnotbeenrepresented by any staff title in the Faculty ofDivinity(NewCollege).However,itsoonbecameclear that what I was wanted for was to teachHebrew, Aramaic and Syriac and that JewishStudiesmeantnomorethancoveringtheJewishbackgroundto theNewTestament.TheFacultyhadonlyoneundergraduatedegreeatthetime-the B.D. and the bulk of the student body wasorientated towards training for the Christianministry. There was little if any interest inJudaism after 70 A.D. This was not a situationunique to the University of Edinburgh. At thetimeIknewofnopropercourseinJewishStudiesin any Scottish university except a course inJewishPhilosophyattheUniversityofGlasgow.

However,allthiswastochangeinthecourseoftheseventiesastheresultofaninspiredmovebythe then Dean and Principal of New College,ProfessorJohnMcIntyre.Intheautumnof1969ProfessorWilliamMontgomeryWatt,theworld-famousscholarofArabicandIslam,circulatedabriefproposal tosetup in theFacultyofArtsaprogramme in Religious Studies like the onewhichwasprovingsosuccessfulattheUniversityofLancasterunderNinianSmart.JohnMcIntyreimmediately saw the potential danger to theFacultyofDivinityofarivaloperationemergingin the Faculty of Arts andmade the claim thatanythingtodowithreligionshouldcomeunder

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ouraegis.By1971-72thefirstReligiousStudiescourseswereonthebooks,andIhadbeengiventhetaskofpreparingsixlecturesonJudaismasaworldreligioninitsownrightandnotjustasanadjuncttoChristianity.

Soon these six lectures on Judaism grew totwelveandastheRSdegreedevelopedIwasableto develop new courses in Judaism as a worldreligion-JewsandJudaismfromtheMaccabeesto the Mishnah, Jewish Mysticism, JewishPhilosophy,andJewsandJudaismintheModernWorld.However,initsearlystagestheReligiousStudies cohort of students at New College wasvery small mainly because the Faculty hadappointedonlyonededicatedRSlecturerandtherestof thecourseswerecobbled together fromcourses impingingonreligiontaughtelsewhereintheUniversity.Thecurriculumwasalsoratherconstricting in that students could only accessmy honours level courses after having passedtwo years of Hebrew. This was the entryrequirement into honours level courses in thedepartmentinwhichIwaslocated(HebrewandOldTestamentStudies).ButthestudyofHebrewwas in long term decline at Edinburgh aselsewhere.Inthemid-seventiesIhadbetween25and30studentsinmybeginners’Hebrewclass;bythetimeIretiredin2005itwasdowntoonlysixstudents.

This situation did not change until in 1988 theUniversity Grants Committee facilitated thetransfer to Edinburgh of the small two-manDepartmentofReligiousStudiesattheUniversityofGlasgow.Fromthenonthenumberofreligiousstudies students began to take off. But whenthesetwomenarrivedtheyhadbeenlocatedinthe Department of Divinity (one of the sixdepartments in the Faculty of Divinity) and anautonomousReligiousStudiessubjectgroupwasnot established until 1998 when the sixdepartments were amalgamated into a singleDepartmentandtheprevioussmalldepartmentswererearranged intosubjectgroups.Finally,atlastReligiousStudieswasabletobreakfreefromthe hold of Christian theological studies fromwhichithademerged.FromthenontheFacultystarted to appoint specialist lecturers in worldreligions as the number of religious studiesundergraduates began to outnumber itstraditionaltheologicalclientele.

Now curriculum developments meant that anystudentswhohadcompletedtwoyearsofstudyin either Religious Studies or Divinity couldaccessmy specialist honours courses in JewishStudies. Two in particular proved to be ratherpopular - Antisemitism and the Holocaust andZionismand theRiseof the Stateof Israel.Theformerhad28studentsinthelastyearItaughtit

(2002-3), rather more than the six in thebeginners’ Hebrew class. This success had theeffect of proving to the now School of Divinitythat the future of Jewish Studies lay inconcentrating on the modern period andsymbolically cutting the link with the past inlocating my successor in the Religious StudiesSubject Group and not in the Biblical StudiesSubjectGroup(whichiswhereIhadendedup).AtlonglastJudaismcouldbestudiedandtaughtin its own right alongside other religioustraditions and not just as an appendage toChristianity.ThisdevelopmentwascrownedbytheappointmentofDrHannahHoltschneider,aspecialist in modern Jewish history, as mysuccessor.

JewishStudiesatEdinburghsince2005

HannahHoltschneider,Edinburgh

As Peter Hayman has outlined, Jewish Studiescame to the University as part of ReligiousStudies. At my appointment in 2005 as hissuccessor,theSchoolofDivinitydecidedalsotoreallocatemyposition fromtheSubjectAreaofBiblicalStudiestothatofReligiousStudies,andtorefocusthenatureoftheposition,appointingacontemporaryculturalhistorianratherthanabiblical scholar. The largest number ofundergraduate students on my courses inmodern Jewish history, Jewish/Christianrelations and Holocaust representation areenrolled in an honours degree in ReligiousStudies, while these options are neverthelessalso accessible to students across all of thedegreeprogrammesintheSchoolofDivinity.Thestudents'degreeprofileneedstoincludecoursesin at least two different religious traditions,

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augmentedbycompulsorycoursesinthehistoryandmethodsofReligiousStudies.Acrossthepasttwo decades, Religious Studies scholarship andteaching at Edinburgh has contributed to aparadigm shift in the study of religion,deconstructing the World Religions paradigmand emphasising the study of local, contextual,embodied and lived experience of religioustraditions. Driven by now retired colleaguesJames Cox and Jeanne Openshaw, and sincecontinued by Steven Sutcliffe, myself,Afeosemime Adogame (now at Princeton),ArkotongLongkumer, andNaomiAppleton, theReligious Studies Subject Area is focused ontheoryandmethod,areastudies,andtextualandculturalhistoryandanthropologyacrossarangeof traditions on all five continents. My ownteaching on Jewish history fits well into thisinterdisciplinary RS curriculum, broadeningstudents’ views of Jewish culture and self-expression in a variety of settings. In addition,students enrolled on honours degrees intheologyarefrequentlyattractedtothestudyofmodernJewishcultureandhistory,oftenseeingthis as anatural extensionof their engagementwith biblical history and with the history ofChristianity in Europe. Within the School ofDivinity,colleagueswithJewishStudiesinterestsarelocatedinBiblicalStudies:HelenBond,PaulFoster, Anja Klein, Timothy Lim, MatthewNovenson, David Reimer, and PhilippaTownsend. There is a thriving and vibrantcommunity of biblical scholars in New Collegewhich nurtures a large number of researchstudents and provides a space for publicengagement and regular scholarly exchangethrough research seminars and events in theCentre for the Study of Christian Origins. TheCentrehasexcellentconnectionswithcolleaguesin the School of History, Classics andArchaeology,fosteringinter-schoolco-operation.

However,as theonlyappointmentwitha focuson modern Jewish history, my immediatecolleagues are notmy primary interlocutors indeveloping new research questions andinterests. Since arriving in Edinburgh in April2005, I have been on a journey of discoverywithin the University of Edinburgh, meetingcolleagues interested in Jewish Studies andpursuing research in related fields across theHumanities.Thisisarewardingjourneytobeonand I am continually delighted to make newconnections. My greatest affinity lies withcolleaguesinotherSchools,mostnotablyintheSchools of Languages, Literatures andCultures,the Edinburgh College of Art, and History,ClassicsandArchaeology,whoseworkonearlymodern and contemporary history (StephenBowd, Tim Buchen), culture and architecture

(EllaChmielewska), literature (DavideMessina,Peter Davies), the Holocaust (Donald Bloxham,PeterDavies),andthemodernMiddleEast(TonyGorman, Toby Kelly) create a rich network ofconnections and shared interests. Co-operationbetweencolleagues inHistory,GermanStudies,and Religious Studies led to the creation of apostgraduate option course on HolocaustrepresentationopentoallstudentsintheCollegeofArts,HumanitiesandSocialSciences.In2012Ireceived support from the College to found aResearch Network in Jewish Studies, formallyhighlighting the intellectual relationshipsbetween colleagues in various Schools. Sincethen, the Research Network in Jewish Studiesmeets informally at irregular intervals to talkaboutresearch,listentoguestspeakers,andplanfuture events. Out of the network arose theexhibition Edinburgh Jews, hosted first in NewCollege,thenintheMapLibraryoftheNationalLibraryofScotland,andnowonpermanentloantotheEdinburghHebrewCongregation.Anditisthe generosity of the Astaire Fund which hassupportednetworkeventsinthepastyears,andin2016/17sponsoredaseminarseries,drawingattentiontotheJewishStudiessceneinthenorthoftheUKwitheventsinGlasgow,Manchester,StAndrews,Durham,andEdinburgh.

What is the future of Jewish Studies inEdinburgh? We have good inter-School co-operationandthereisappetiteforjointteachingand research supervision, even though theinstitutional structures make formal linksincreasingly challenging due to constraints ofaccounting and workload allocation. Without asignificantcatalystforchangeaformallaunchofdegree programmes at undergraduate orpostgraduate level is unlikely. However,undergraduate students can and do pursue anemphasisonJewishhistoryandcultureaspartoftheir Religious Studies and History degreeprogrammes; taught postgraduate students cantakeadvantageof coursesacross theCollege tobuildadegreewithafocusonJewishthemes,andresearchstudentsare increasinglyawareof theNetwork’s ability to offer a researchenvironment helpful to their professionaldevelopment.Furthermore,recentgrantsuccessforanumberofcolleagues(PeterDavies-AHRC;DonaldBloxham-Leverhulme;StephenBowd-Leverhulme)andmyself (AHRC)bodeswell forcontinuing our Network activities, for findingnew synergies, and for extending ourcollaborationwith other Scottish andNorthernEnglishUniversities.TheAstaireSeminarSeriesinJewishStudieswhichrunacrosstheacademicyear2016/17isastartingpoint,asistheJewishLives, Scottish Spaces research project I sharewith Mia Spiro at the University of Glasgow.

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Togetherwithcolleaguesatotheruniversitiesinregional travelling distance, we are hoping toexpand networking and collaboration so as toenrich our scholarship and teaching, and toattract research students to our universities tocreateavibrantfutureforJewishStudiesintheNorthoftheUnitedKingdom.

JewishStudiesattheUniversityofAberdeen

ZoharHadromi-Allouche,Aberdeen

Foundedin1495,theuniversityofAberdeenisthe fifth oldest university in the English-speakingworldandoneofthefewuniversitiesin the UK to offer four courses in BiblicalHebrew.WithintheDepartmentofDivinityandReligious Studies, students have theopportunitytoreachahighlevelofproficiencyin Biblical Hebrew, including reading actualportions from all parts of the Hebrew Bible.ThesecoursesarecoordinatedbyProfJoachimSchaper,ChairofHebrew&SemiticLanguages,andDrLena-SofiaTiemeyer,readerinHebrewBible. A reading group of modern Hebrewpoetry,relatingtoitsbiblicalandcontemporaryelements, is planned to begin in 2018,coordinatedbyDrZoharHadromi-Allouche.AlsowithinDivinity andReligious Studies, DrTiemeyer coordinates the Introduction toHebrewBible,whichexamines (withanequalweight)JewishandChristianapproachestothebiblical texts. History and Religion of AncientIsraelprovidesanoverviewofthehistoryandreligions of Ancient Israel and Judah, asportrayed in the Hebrew Bible andarchaeological findings, and as understoodwithin their larger Ancient Near Easterncontext.Anotherintroductorycourse,fromtheperspectiveofReligiousStudies,isReligionsofthe World: The Near East, which introducesstudents to the religions of Judaism,ChristianityandIslam.Onethirdofthiscourseisdedicated to central themes in JudaismandJewish history, from the biblical narrative onthecreationofthenation,tothemodernperiod.

TheJudaismsectioninthiscourseisplannedtobecome a full, independent “Introduction toJudaism”courseinthenearfuture.

DrTiemeyeralsooffersanadvanced(levels3–4)courseonJonahinvolvesreadingalargenumberof traditional Jewish texts, among them awiderangeofmidrashimfromdifferenttimeperiods(including Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, GenesisRabba), the Zohar, Mediaeval Jewishcommentators(focusonRashiandIbnEzra),aswell as a small selectionofmaterial frompost-holocaust thinkers (his course is offered everyotheryear).OnaTaughtPostgraduate(level5)level, Prof Schaper teaches Jewish History andCulture, which discusses Key topics in Jewishhistory in the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman,Mediaeval and modern periods. This courseexamines selected aspects of Jewish culturethroughtheages,concentratingonreligionandritual. Jewish Studies is also taught in otherdepartments in Aberdeen. For example, ProfThomasWeberoftheHistoryDepartmentoffersalevel3courseonTheWest,TheJews,andIsrael,1789tothePresent(2017–2018).

In terms of research, too, scholars at theUniversityofAberdeenworkondiverseJewish-relatedtopics,withscholarlyinterestfocusingonvarious aspects of biblical studies on the onehand, and recent and contemporary Jewish-relatedissuesontheother.OntheBiblicalStudiesside, Prof Joachim Schaper has publishednumerousbooksandarticlesonvariousaspectsoftheHebrewBible,suchasPsalmsandExodus.Among his current projects is a book on theHistory of Ancient Israel (under contract withWestminster John Knox Press). Dr Tiemeyer’scurrent research on the reception history ofJonah, to be published by Wiley-Blackwell,includes an in-depth interaction with a widerangeofancientandmodernJewishsources.

FromaReligiousStudiesperspective,ProfRobertSegalhaspublishedonavarietyofJewish-relatedtopics, from and examination of King Saul’stragedytothe“Historical inexplicabilityofanti-Semitism,” and from “Anthropology andSociologyofJudaism”inrelationtoAncientIsrael,to Joseph Campbell and Judaism. Dr Hadromi-Allouche’scurrentresearchoftheBibleusestheQuran and medieval Islamic literature as itsleaving point. Reading the Bible anew throughtheprismofthislater,polemicperspectiveallowsfor the emergence of a new, differentunderstanding of the text; which is helpful inrevealing mythical aspects of the biblicalnarrative.

Another axis of research inAberdeen is that ofstudieson theHolocaust,NazismandDiaspora.

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ProfWeberhaspublishedanumberofrenownedbooksonNazismandtheHolocaust,includingtheLodzGhettoAlbum(2004).Hislatestbook,WieAdolfHitlerzumNaziwurde(Propyläen,2016),willbepublishedin2017byBasicBooksandbyOxfordUniversityPress.ProfAlanMarcusoftheFilmandVisualCulturedepartmentdedicateshiscurrent research project, In Time of Place, torepresentations of the Holocaust and sitesassociatedwithJewishidentityandthediaspora.The project includes four short documentaries,made inDachau,Venice,PragueandBoston, aswellasaseriesofpublications.

JewishStudiesatStAndrews

EmilyFinerandEmilyMichelson,StAndrews

On26ApriltheUniversityofStAndrewsSchoolofHistoryhosted the thirdeventof theAstaireSeminar Series in Jewish Studies, with twospeakers. Dr Adam Shear examined how andwhy Jewish books moved around Europe inuniquewaysintheearlymodernperiod,in‘Jewsand their Books on the Move in Early ModernEurope’. Dr Emily Finer analysed the complexuses of Judaism in two transgressive andinfluential short storiesbyLevLunts in ‘JewishMigration and Metamorphosis in Early SovietFiction’.AdamisAssociateProfessorofReligiousStudiesandHistoryandDirectorofthePrograminJewishStudiesattheUniversityofPittsburgh;EmilyisLecturerinComparativeLiteratureandRussianattheUniversityofStAndrewsandco-founderofthedegreeinComparativeLiterature(seebelowformoreinformation).Theeventwasalso co-sponsoredby theSchoolofHistoryandthe Universal Short-Title Catalogue project[USTC].Theaudiencecomprisedspeakers fromacrossthehumanities,includingrepresentativesof History, Computer Science, ModernLanguages, and the USTC, as well as the StAndrewscommunity.AsaresultofAdam’svisit,the USTC has also now begun an ongoingcollaboration with Adam’s Footprints project,which catalogues early modern Jewish books[https://footprints.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/].

Dr Emily Finer teaches Russian and Polishliterature and culture for the RussianDepartment and the Comparative Literatureprogramme at St Andrews. Her interests inRussian anti-antisemitism from the 1910s and1920s have resulted in a translation of Teffi’s‘TwoNatures’publishedinInventory(2017);aninterview for Radio 4’s “World War 1: TheCultural Front” (23.4.2016); and research forforthcoming essays on Lev Lunts and BrunoJasienski.Emily interviewedRuthEllenGruber,author of Virtually Jewish, at a public eventforming part of the Byre WorldConversationsseriesatStAndrews(2017);sheran a book group - Reading in Place – at theFestivalofJewishCultureinKrakow(2015);andwasacademicadviserandlecturerforTowardsa20thCenturyPolonia,asummerschoolforPolish-AmericanandJewish-Polish-Americanteenagersand students sponsored by the Polish ForeignMinistryandtheTaubeFoundation(2014).

Dr Emily Michelson, senior lecturer in earlymodern history, has won two major awardsrelatingtoherresearchproject“ImaginaryJewsin Early Modern Rome”: Arts and HumanitiesResearch Council Early-Career LeadershipFellowship and a British Academy mid-careerfellowship. This project focuses on forcedconversionary sermons to the Jews of Rome inthe 16th-18th century, but arguesmore broadlythat Catholic reform cannot be understoodwithoutreferencetoJewsandJudaism,andthatJewish studies must be an integral part ofstudyingreligionandreformintheearlymodernperiod. She has recently published a majorarticle:“ConversionaryPreachingandtheJewsofRome,”inPast&Present,aleadinghistoryjournal(May2017).ShewillalsobeeditingavolumeonReligious Minorities in Early Modern Rome.Emily offers lectures frequently to Jewishculturalgroupsandcongregations.

ModulesavailabletoundergraduatestudentsinComparative Literature are relevant to andinformed by the discipline of Jewish Studies.Every year, around fifty second-yearcomparative literature students read PrimoLevi’s The Drowned and the Saved and VasiliiGrossman’s Everything Flows for a module onliterature and ethics. Our popular honoursmoduleonCulturalMemory introduces literaryworksoriginallyinGerman,Polish,RussianandYiddish, including Neighbours by Jan GrossandOurClassbyTadeuszSłobodzianek.StudentsalsoreadLindaGrant’sWhenILivedinModernTimesalongsideTheodorHerzl’sAltneulandinafurthermodule,CrossingtheMediterranean.

In theSchoolsofHistoryandDivinity,modulesinformedbyorcontributingtoJewishStudies(in

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addition to Hebrew Language) include: OldTestament1:TorahandProphets;OldTestament2:Wisdom,Psalms,ApocalypticandApocryphalLiterature; Hebrew Prose and Poetry; CreationandChaosintheOldTestamentandAncientNearEast;AncientJewishLiteraturefrom1EnochtotheMishna;ReadingsinOldTestament;Kingshipand Messianism in the Hebrew Bible/OldTestament and early Judaism (in Divinity);Christians, Jews and Muslims in the EarlyMediaeval West; Early Modern Rome; EarlyModernVenice;Heretics and SocialOutcasts in(medieval) Western Europe; Everyday Life in20th European Dictatorships; Making Italians;MediterraneanColonialism(inHistory).

Students in Comparative Literature,International Relations, and Geography haveaccomplished some outstanding researchprojects. Aleksandra Kubica’s undergraduatedissertation “Acting out or working through?Memoriesof theHolocaust inPolishand Israelinational discourses”, supervised by Dr JeffreyMurer, won the International RelationsUndergraduate Dissertation Prize in 2013. In2017,OlgaGrochowska,a third-yearstudent, isundertakinganinterdisciplinarysummerprojectusing approaches learned in Geography andComparative Literature, funded by thecompetitive Laidlaw Undergraduate InternshipProgramme in Research and Leadership andsupervisedbyDrEmilyFiner.

The loss of Professor Alex Danchev in thesummer of 2016was keenly felt by those at StAndrewsworking in Jewishstudies.Theauthorof the essay collections ‘On Art and War andTerror’, and ‘On Good and Evil and the GreyZone’, Professor Danchev’s inspiringinterdisciplinary work rethought myriaddisciplines:history,biography,literarycriticism,art history, philosophy, international relations,andJewishstudies.Hisunfailingcommitmenttohis own intellectual inquiry, and that ofcolleaguesandstudents,isgreatlymissed.

The photojournalist, scholar and writer, YoavGalai, currently completing his PhD inInternational Relations at the University of StAndrews,willbemovingtotheCentralEuropeanUniversitytotakeupatwoyearfellowshipattheCEUundertheauspicesoftheDepartmentofIRand the 'Humanities initiative.' The project iscalled - 'Practicing the Aesthetic Turn’” Yoavrecently published “Narratives of Redemption:The Meaning of Afforestation in the IsraeliNegev” in the Journal International PoliticalSociologyin2017.

JewishStudiesattheUniversityofGlasgow

MiaSpiro,Glasgow

The reputationof Jewishstudies at theUniversity ofGlasgow hasbeen growingrapidly in thepast few years,spearheaded

by a diverse network of scholars whose workspans ancient and modern Judaism, historicaland contemporary Jewish culture, and Jewishthoughtthroughtheages.BasedinTheologyandReligiousStudies (TRS) in theSchoolofCriticalStudies, our research interests fall broadly intothethemesofReligiousTextsandtheirCultures,clusteredaroundthetopicsofreligion,literatureand the arts, and religious experience andpracticaland lived theology.ResearchatTRS isdistinguished by close collaboration across thedisciplines of religion, art, culture, history, andsocialscience.

TRS at Glasgow has a vibrant research culture,with staff research engagement complementedby thatof the55active researchstudents fromaround the world enrolled on TRS researchdegrees. Degrees offered include MA in Arts,MTh,MResMPhil, PhD.Wealso currentlyhavethe newly created PhD in Creative Practice. Inaddition,awiderangeofconferencesandeventstakesplaceinGlasgow.StaffatTRSatUniversityofGlasgowarealsocloselyinvolvedinthewiderresearch community through editorships, asoffice-holders in learned societies and throughtheorganisationofconferencesandevents.

SomeofthecurrentexcitingprojectsandJewishStudieseventsatGlasgowinclude:

JewishLives,ScottishSpaces:JewishMigrationto

Scotland, 1880-1950. Dr Mia Spiro is Co-InvestigatoronthismajorAHRC-fundedproject(PI Hannah Holtschneider). Along with Dr PhilAlexander, RA, the project has been workingcloselywiththeScottishJewishArchivesCentre,locatedjustoveramilefromcampus.Theprojectteam’shistoricalresearchwillresult inongoingpapers and publications, but importantly theirworkwillalsobemadeavailabletoteachersanddisseminated(viafilm,eventsandonline)inthepublic domain. A number of project-specificworkshops and research projects are currentlyunderwayincollaborationwiththeUniversityof

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Edinburgh: further details can be foundelsewhere in this bulletin and atjewishmigrationtoscotland.is.ed.ac.uk.

A rangeof talks in JewishStudies tookplaceatGlasgowthepastyear.InDecember2016,aspartof the Astaire Seminar Series in Jewish StudiesJews: movement, migration, location, ProfessorAda Rapoport-Albert (UCL) spoke on “FromRussia to Poland: Interwar Habad Hasidism inExile”. This event also formed part of theMysticism in Comparative Perspectiveconference.InApril2017PhilAlexandergaveatalk based on his PhD research, entitled “Mylover, my murderer’s daughter: Berlin and thepoliticsofklezmermusic”,andinMayDrKarenSkinazi (University of Birmingham) discussedcontemporary Jewishwomen’smemoirs in hertalk“LeavingOrthodoxy,FindingGod”.

InApril2017, thecolloquium ‘NarrativeSpacesin Scottish Jewish Culture: A ComparativePerspective’ attracted 25 participants to theUniversity of Glasgow (see elsewhere in thisbulletin for more details). A series of eventsincluding poetry readings, film screenings,historicalpresentationsandlivemusicwilltakeplace in November 2017 to mark the 80thanniversary of the first Glasgow Jewish BookWeek,coincidingwithBookWeekScotland.

Moregenerally,GlasgowisacitywithadynamicJewish community and a vibrant intellectualculture. In addition to monthly lectures andevents, we are also in close contact with localpoetry groups andmusic organisations, aswellas–justashorthopalongtheM8–theEdinburghJewishLiterarySociety.

ResearchopportunitiesforpostgraduatestudyatGlasgow include: archival research on a widespread of topics in Scottish Jewish history;YiddishliteratureandthebookcollectionattheMitchell library; Jewish art; Jewish music;representation of Jews; Jewish thinkers; Jewishmysticism; ancient Jewish cultures; Tanakh(including feminist and queer perspectives);Holocaust Studies; Philo of Alexandria;ApocryphaandPseudepigrapha.ThedepartmentalsocontinuestodevelopinnovativePGresearchwhichlinksJewishstudieswithotherdisciplinesindynamicways.To this end,weare currentlyco-supervising PG students working in ArtHistory, History, Creative Writing, Comics,Modern Languages and Literature, Philosophy,EnglishLiterature,andSocialSciences.

ThenewlyestablishedSilverstoneTrustAwardin Jewish Studies has been set up in order tosupport postgraduate work in Jewish Studies.The award supports either tuition, research or

travel costs and will give PG students anopportunitytogivelecturesandcontributetotheintellectuallifeofGlasgow’sJewishcommunity.

StaffwhoworkinJewishStudiesatTRS:

Dr.MiaSpiro, lecturerinJewishStudies.Areasofspecialisation includemodernJewishartandliterature, Jewish migration, Holocaustrepresentation, Jewishmysticism, dybbuks andgolems,andJewishrepresentationinBritishandAmerican modernism.gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/staff/miaspiro/

Professor George Pattison, 1640 Chair ofDivinity. Among many publications on therelationships between phenomenology,existentialism and religious life ProfessorPattison’s Jewish studies offerings include theworksofmodernJewishthinkerssuchasBuber,Rosenzweig and Shestov.gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/staff/georgepattison/

DrSarahNicholson,lecturerinbiblicalHebrewand biblical interpretation. Sarah’s researchinterests include Torah (especially Genesis),Prophets(especiallyformerprophets),Writings(includingpost-TanakhJewishliteraturesuchasSirach), and feminist and queer approaches toTanakh.gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/staff/sarahnicholson/

DrSeanAdamsJewishstudiesofferingssituateHellenisticJewishliteratureinitswiderliteraryand historical contexts, with specific focus onPhiloofAlexandria.Lecturer inNewTestamentand Ancient Culture.glasgow.academia.edu/SeanAAdams

Dr Saeko Yazaki, lecturer. Saeko’s areas ofspecialisationincludeJudaeo-Islamictraditioninal-AndalusandArabJews,includingtheworksofS. Yahuda in Spain. Current Jewish studiesresearchfocusesonconnectionsbetweenJewishand Muslim spirituality.gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/staff/saekoyazaki/

Dr Phil Alexander. Postdoctoral ResearchAssociate, AHRC Jewish Lives/Scottish Spaces.Areas of specialization include Jewish music,Klezmer,andissuesofidentity,urbanspaceandklezmer music in today’s Berlin, as well asScottish Jewish liturgical music of the earlytwentieth century. Phil is also a workingmusician,mostrecentlywritingandperformingmusic for ‘Among Others: 200 years of JewishlivesinEdinburgh’(ScottishStorytellingCentre).gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/staff/philipalexander

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JewishLives/ScottishSpaces

ImagebyJudahPassow.ItwastakeninGlasgowin2013andshowsguestswaitingforanewly-wedcoupletoemergefromGarnethillSynagogue.Theimageispartoftheexhibitionandbook publication Scots Jews: Identity, Belonging and theFuture(Bloomsbury,2014).Source:http://jewishmigrationtoscotland.is.ed.ac.uk/

HannahHoltschneider-PrincipalInvestigator

MiaSpiro-Co-investigator

PhilAlexander-ResearchAssociate

JewishLives/ScottishSpacesisanAHRC-fundedproject run between the universities ofEdinburgh and Glasgow. It commenced inSeptember 2015 and will continue until early2019.TheprojectwassetupwiththegeneralaimofaddressingarelativelackofScottishfocusinJewish Studies in Scotland, and simultaneouslythe specific intention of shedding greateracademic light on the various archivalrepositoriesofhistoricalScottishJewishlifeandculture that continue to grow here. The mostimportantoftheseistheScottishJewishArchivesCentre,whichwillcelebrateits30thanniversaryin2018.TheSJAC is situatednext toGlasgow’sGarnethill synagogue (the city’s oldest) andboasts an ever-increasing store of objects,photographs, newspapers, documents,recordingsandpublishedhistories.JL/SSworkscloselywithSJAC:theteamuseitsarchivesandexpertiseasabasisforpartsofourresearch,andin turn we are involved in the ongoingdigitisation and dissemination of some of thearchive’sresources.

Asbefitsawide-rangingprojectsuchasthis,thedifferentbackgroundsoftheteammembersarereflectedintheirindividualresearchtopics.Overthe coming year, Hannah will complete amonograph on Salis Daiches, rabbi of theEdinburgh Hebrew Congregation from 1919until hisdeath in1945, and shewill alsobeginworkontheDorrithSimarchivehousedatSJAC.DorrithSim(néeOppenheim)fledtoScotlandin1939onaKindertransportandremainedactivein Holocaust remembrance all her life. Thematerials in her archive – correspondence,papers, stories, objects and more – are thecombined work of her paternal grandparents,

her uncle, and Dorrith herself. Consequently,they offer multiple historical viewpoints andsuggestmyriadstories.ForthepastfewmonthsMia has been looking at the ‘haunting’ of theGlasgow’s1951 JewishArtsFestival,where theJewishInstitutePlayer’sperformanceofAn-sky’sTheDybbukwassharplyframedbytheveryrealspectre of Eastern European Jewish death anddestruction that remained powerfully close inpostwar memory. In the coming year she willbegin work on Glasgow artist and sculptorHannah Frank. Phil, the newestmember of theteam, will be overseeing the continueddigitisationofalargenumberofSJACmaterials,aswell as helping to coordinate a planned filmproject. He also intends to put hisethnomusicology and cultural studiesbackground to use in a study of Scotland’scantorsoftheearly20thcentury–anareasofaruntouched by either musicology or JewishStudies.HisanalysiswillpayparticularattentiontopatternsofmigrationandthechangingimageofimmigrantEasternAshkenaziJewsinScotlandthat these important community figuresrepresent.

In April 2017 we hosted a successful andstimulating two-day colloquium at GlasgowUniversity, Narrative Spaces in Scottish JewishCulture:AComparativePerspective.Seventwo-paper sessions covered an impressive range,usefullyextendingtheoriginal‘Scottish’brieftoother non-English Jewish identities: refugeedomestic service; Irish sectarianism andantisemitism; Kindertransport narratives;painter Joseph Herman; playwright/directorAvromGreenbaum;JewishwritingfromIrelandand Wales; Yorkshire Zionist industrialists;Scottish aliyah; Welsh Jewish film; refugeestories from Garnethill; and the changinglandscape of Welsh synagogues. Alongside itssheer variety, the colloquium also initiated anencouraging amount of interdisciplinaryconnections, and we are now looking atcompiling some of the papers into an editedvolume.

A major plan for this coming year is theproduction of a film, designed primarily foreducational use.Drawing on themes developedoutofourresearch,thefilmwillfocusonissuesofmigrationandrefugeeism–utilisingsomeofthe historical and archival materials we haveuncovered in order to explore and highlightcontemporarylinks.Wewillbeworkingcloselywith locally-based filmmakers and animators,aimingtobecreativeinourtreatmentofmaterialwhilst also ensuring that the end result clearlymeets teachers’ needs. The film will bestructuredsoas tobeeditable intoshorter(c.5

BAJSBulletin2017 9

min) segments for individual classroom – andpossiblybroadcast–use.Theprojectteamwillbein discussion with teachers and educationdepartments throughout the process, andalongside the film itself we will also create aseriesofsupplementarymaterialssuchaslessonplansandsuggestedresearchmaterials.

Jewish Lives/Scottish Spaceswill present someof itsongoing researchat thisBAJS conference,andisalsopresentingapanelsession(‘Mediatingthe Archive’) as part of Performing the JewishArchive’sTheFutureoftheArchiveconferenceinJanuary 2018. In addition to this, each projectmembercontinues togive individualpapers: inNovember 2016 Mia and Hannah travelled toCaliforniaforthebiannualLessonsandLegaciesconference;MiaspokeinGlasgowaspartofthe2016/17AstaireSeminarSeries;andPhilwillbepresenting his new work on Scottish Jewishliturgical music to the British Forum forEthnomusicologyinCambridgelaterintheyear.

Youcankeepup-to-datewithJL/SSactivitiesandplans by subscribing to our blog athttp://jewishmigrationtoscotland.is.ed.ac.uk.

ProfessorPhilipAlexanderis70BAJS warmly congratulates Professor Philip

Alexander on the occasion of his 70th birthday.

PhilipisafoundingmemberofBAJSandservedas

its president in 1987 and 2008. He is one of the

most respected scholars in Jewish Studies in the

country who has contributed enormously to the

developmentofthefield.

We are grateful to George Brooke and Renate

Smithuisforallowingustoreprintanexcerptfrom

theintroductiontotheFestschrifteditedinPhilip’s

honour. The Festschrift will be launched at the

BAJS2017conferenceinEdinburgh.

EXCERPTFROMTHEINTRODUCTIONTOGeorgeJ. Brooke and Renate Smithuis (eds), JewishEducation from Antiquity to the Middle Ages:

StudiesinHonourofPhilipS.Alexander,AJEC100(Leiden:Brill,2017).

ThisvolumeofessayshonoursProfessorPhilipStephenAlexander FBA in the year that he hasturned70.Born inBelfast,Northern Irelandon10March1947toRobertandPriscillaAlexander,Philip was brought up in a Protestantenvironment that nurtured a love of texts andhistory.SuccessatschooltookhimtoPembrokeCollege, Oxford, to read Classics (HonourModerations:GreekandLatinLiterature).Aftertaking“Mods”in1967,hetransferredtoOrientalStudies which he completed in 1969. He thenembarked on his doctoral studies under the

BAJSConference2018DurhamUniversity

FirstCallforPapers

TheoriesandHistories:JewishStudiesin

otherdisciplines

TheannualconferenceoftheBritishAssociationfor Jewish Studies 2018 will seek to put keyJewish Studies questions in dialogue with thebroader intellectual concerns of differentacademic disciplines. How do Jewish identitiesintersectwithnotionsofinclusionandexclusion?InwhatwaysdoesresearchintoJewishdiasporascontribute to debates about transnationalism?How does the diversity of Jewish communities’sociality, religion and culture reflect the socialdiversity of their localities?The conferencewillexplorehowJewishStudiescanbothengagewithexisting intellectual agendas of the humanitiesand social sciences and provide a model forinquirythatgoesbeyonddisciplinaryboundaries.We welcome papers that explore Jewishtraditions in different parts of theworld and indifferenthistoricalperiods.

Forinitialenquires,pleasecontacttheBAJSPresidentElectfor2018,DrYuliaEgorova,DurhamUniversity,atyulia.egorova@durham.ac.uk.

BAJSBulletin201710

supervision of Geza Vermes, who had come toOxfordin1965;GezaVermeswasappreciatedbyhisveryablestudentsforhishands-offapproach,keen perception, and warm friendship. Philip’scollaboration with his supervisor was to besignificantinseveralways,especiallythroughhiscontributionstotheJournalofJewishStudies, tothe revised Schürer, and in bringing tocompletion their joint work on the Rule of theCommunitymanuscriptsfromQumran’sCave4.

BeforePhiliphadcompletedhisdoctoratehewasappointedin1972astheNathanLaskilecturerinPost-BiblicalJewishStudiesintheDepartmentofNear Eastern Studies at the University ofManchester.PhilipcompletedhisOxfordD.Phil.in Oriental Studies in 1974; his thesis wasentitled “The Toponomy of the TargumimwithSpecialReferencetotheTableofNationsandtheBoundariesof theLandof Israel.”Hisemergingacademicreputationwasrecognizedthroughhisappointment as Speaker’s Lecturer at theUniversityofOxford in1985.AtManchesterhewas promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1986, andthen to Professor of Post-Biblical JewishLiterature in 1991 in what by that time hadbecome the Department of Middle EasternStudies. In 1992 he succeeded Dr DavidPatterson, the founderof theOxfordCentre forHebrew and Jewish Studies, as the secondPresident of the Centre at Yarnton with anaccompanyinglecturingpositionintheFacultyofOriental Studies and a fellowship at St CrossCollege. He agreed to an initial term of threeyearsinthepost,onloanfromManchester;itwasManchester’sgoodfortunethatattheendofthetermin1995hedecidedtoreturnnorthandtakeuponceagainhispositionasProfessorofPost-Biblical JewishLiterature,butnow inwhathadbecome the Department of Religions andTheology. Part of the attraction of returning tothe University of Manchester was theopportunitytoestablishwithProfessorBernardJacksonaCentreforJewishStudieswhichundertheirjointguidanceflourished;itcontinuestodoso under its current leadership,whichmust beverygratifyingforitstwoco-founders.DuringhiscareerPhiliphasheldmanyotheradministrativerolesthroughwhichhehasworkedtirelesslyfortheenhancementofhissubjectandalsoforthebenefit ofmany colleagues. In 2005 Philipwaselected to a fellowship of the British Academywhere he has been a fully active participant inguiding the Academy’s contribution to variousresearchagendasintheUnitedKingdom.

FewscholarsofJewishStudieshavebeenableto

1HaroldBloom,“ApocalypseThen,”NewYorkReviewofBooks1984/1/19.

match the breadth and depth of expertise thatPhilip has acquired and which he has soenthusiastically shared in many differentcontextsasteacher,supervisor,examiner,paperpresenter, assessor of grant applications,nationalevaluatorofresearch,andinternationalexpertadvisorinmanyvariedcircumstances.Hisbibliography iswellknowntobeextensiveandrichlyvaried:hiscontributionstothestudyoftheDead Sea Scrolls, the Targumim, Jewish magicand mysticism, Hebrew codicology, theinteractionsof JewsandChristians through theages,andthewidersettingsofJudaismfromlateantiquity to the middle ages have becomelandmarksintheirrespectivesub-disciplines.Heis an analytical reader of texts and a historianwith a highly trustworthy evidence-basedimagination who can also see how to organizematerial into new syntheses. Some of histechnical essays have become compulsoryreadingintheirfields,suchastherigorousstudyof“RetellingtheOldTestament”inItisWritten:Scripture Citing Scripture, the 1988 volume ofessays honouring Barnabas Lindars, SSF. HisworkonparticularancientJewishtexts,suchasthe Qumran Rule of the Community, 3 Enoch,Targum Song of Songs, and TargumLamentations, are widely referred to and arehighly praised pieces of scholarship that willstandthetestoftime.Thus,HaroldBloom,intheNewYorkReviewofBooks,singlesouthisstudyand“minutelycareful”translationof3Enochas“the largest single contribution” to The OldTestament Pseudepigrapha. Vol. 1: Apocalyptic

Literature and Testaments, edited by James H.Charlesworth.1 Philip’s survey articles in manyreference works are of the kind that only themost distinguished scholars in the field canproduce, such is the control that he has of theprimarysourcesandthehistoriesofscholarship— that on “Geography and the Bible (EarlyJewish)” in the Anchor Bible Dictionary is anacknowledged innovative masterpiece and oneof the fewplaceswhereonecanaccess inprintsome of the insights of his D.Phil. thesis. Inaddition, he has been supportive of othersthrough all kinds of comprehensive advice andenthusiastic collaboration, not least as anorganizerofconferencesandexhibitions,andasan editor of books and learned journals,especially the Journal of Semitic Studies. TheUniversityofManchesterhasbenefittedgreatlyfromhiswisdom; inparticular,hehasplayedaleading role in the promotion of the richresourcesoftheJohnRylandsLibrary,especiallyitsGenizahcollection.

BAJSBulletin2017 11

Philip retired in 2011, becoming ProfessorEmeritus.Hisacademicpursuitshavecontinuedunabatedasthebibliographyofhispublicationsshowsveryclearlyandhehasalsobeenabletodevelop his broad interests in early printedbooks and religious history since theReformation, inparticularbysettingupseveralsuccessive exhibitions at Chester CathedralLibrary. In 1973 Philip married Loveday (néeEarl),whomhemetatOxford,andtheyhavetwochildren, Anne, an Arabist specializing inresearch on leadership, collective action andsocialmovementsintheMiddleEast,andTom,akeenamateurmusicianwhoworksattheBritishLibrary,andtherearetwograndchildren.Philip’sentry in Who’s Who lists his hobbies as hillwalking, swimming, Rembrandt, Bach andShakespeare;thefirstofthoseissharedregularlywith Tom and the rest are just the tip of theicebergofhisinterestsandenjoyments.Lovedayhasbeenahighlysignificantpartnerinacademiclife too; as a distinguished classical and NewTestamentscholar, recently fetedwithherownFestschrift, they sharea studyathomeandarecontracted for joint publications which willenrich certain select topics with freshperspectives and the kind of controlled textualanalysisforwhichbothofthemarerenowned.

When embarking upon the compilation of thisFestschriftwewerefacedwithadilemma.Ifweproceeded with an open call for contributions,we knew thatwewould be overwhelmedwithmany riches fromall across JewishStudies.Weapologizetoallthosewhowouldhavewishedtowrite something in Philip’s honour. However,although a Festschrift based on such essayswould indeedbe a splendid snapshotof JewishStudies in its time, it would inevitably be verydiverse and lack coherence. So we decided totake another path: to fix on one topic that weknowtobeclosetoPhilip’songoinginterestsandtoinviteselectcontributionsthatwouldmakeforastronglythemedvolumewhichwehopewillbeofenduringvalue.Philip’slongstandingconcernwiththe interactionof JerusalemandAthens inthe firstmillennium CE, based not least on histraininginbothClassicsandOrientalStudies,andhis ongoing and current interest in ancientschools, prompted us to choose the theme ofeducation.

We hope that many readers will find thiscollectionastimulatingpointofentryintoatopicto which Philip Alexander has made valuablecontributions;wehopeformorefromhispenonthe matter too. But most importantly, Philiphimselfhasbeenaneducatorparexcellence,onewho has deeply exemplified how to excitestudents at the introductory level, how to

integratecuttingedgeresearchwithteachingtoincludestudentsinthejourneyofdiscovery,howto lead in setting research agendas in severalfields.

Philip,youhavebeenandstillareanexemplarystudentandabrilliantteacher.YouarethekindofwiseandknowledgeableeducatorwhomBenSira encourages enthusiastic pupils to learnfrom:“Ifyouseeanintelligentperson,riseearlytovisithim;letyourfootwearouthisdoorstep”(Sir6:36).EnjoythisbookonJewisheducation,aswehopeotherswilltoo.Admultosannos.

GeorgeJ.BrookeandRenateSmithuis

Contents:

GeorgeJ.Brooke:AspectsofEducationintheSectarianScrollsfromtheQumranCaves

†Seán Freyne: Could Jesus Really Read? Literacy inRomanGalilee

TessaRajak:PaideiaintheFourthBookofMaccabees

MartinGoodman:TheShapingofMemory:JosephusonAgrippaIIinJerusalem

WilliamHorbury:Pedagogues and Primary Teachers,fromPaultotheMishnah

RobertHayward:TheAramaicTargumanditsAncientJewishScholarlyEnvironment

Alexander Samely: Educational Features in AncientJewishLiterature:AnOverviewofUnknowns

Loveday Alexander: Anecdotal Evidence: Memory,Tradition and Text in Early Christianity and the

HellenisticSchools

Sebastian Brock: God as the Educator of Humanity:SomeVoicesfromtheSyriacTradition

Stefan Reif: Liturgy as an Educational Process inTalmudicandMedievalJudaism

GeoffreyKhan:LearningtoReadBiblicalHebrewintheMiddle Ages: The Transition from Oral Standard to

WrittenStandard

JudithOlszowy-Schlanger:GlossaryofDifficultWordsintheBabylonianTalmud(SederMo‘ed)onaRotulus

Gideon Bohak: A Jewish Charm for Memory andUnderstanding

Renate Smithuis: Preaching to his Daughter: JacobAnatoli'sGoadforStudents(Malmadha-talmidim)

Colette Sirat: Entering the Field of Philosophy:Provence,Mid-FourteenthCentury

BAJSBulletin201712

SpecialFocus:

PoliticsandJewishStudies

JewishStudiesAfterBrexit

LarryRay,Kent

Writing abouttheimpactoftheUK’s departurefrom the EUposes at leasttwo difficulties.First,afterayearfollowing the

referendumpretty mucheverything thatcanbesaidabout

itsimpactonuniversitiesandintellectuallifehasprobably been said. We are living theconsequences of the referendum in ourprofessionalandsometimespersonallives,soithasbecomeaseriousfocusofconcernthatisalltoo familiar.But secondly, ayearafter thevotewearestill little cleareras towhatBrexitdoesactuallymean andwhat kinds of academic andresearch association with the EU might besalvaged, if indeed any at all. The largelyunexpected outcome of the General Electionseemed to pleasingly throw plans for ‘hardBrexit’ into disarray and the possibility of afurtherelectioninthenearfuturemeansthatitwould be reckless to predict how the post-referendum academic world will actually beconfigured.Atthesametime, forthepresentatleast there has been no obvious change ofdirectionandboththemainpoliticalpartiesareindenialregardingthecatastrophicdamagethatBrexit will do. However, it needs to beemphasised that we are not, or should not be,passivewitnessestothisprocessbutthroughallthe means available to us – professionalassociations, learned societies, universities andother networks – should be campaigning andlobbyingtoinfluencethefinaloutcome.

Itisclearthoughthattheunexpected‘Leave’votelastyeargavenewvoicetomanyformsofanti-globalism, anti-cosmopolitanism, and anti-intellectualism that are hostile to scholarlyinquiry,whichisbyitsnatureinternationaland

2 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/eu-students-numbers-apply-uk-universities-fall-7-per-cent-brexit-latest-news-figures-a7558131.html 3 Figurescollectedfrominformationathttp://www.manchesterjewishstudies.org/ThisincludesgrantsfromRothschildFoundationHanadivEurope.

cosmopolitan.ThismaybenomoreorlesstrueforJewishStudiesthanforotherfieldsalthoughresearch and teaching in our area is intimatelytied to ideas of transnationalism and Diaspora.An international (and not merely European)orientationisessentialtothepracticeofthefield.A cursory look at the contributors list of anyJewish Studies journal and editorial board willreveal a European-wide and internationalcomposition. According to UUK researchpublications resulting from internationalcollaborationshavehighcitationimpactsandEUcolleagueshavebeenanimportantsourceofthiscollaboration. We have become accustomed toopenmovementacrossthecontinentwhichwilltosomeextentatleastbecurtailed.

We will encounter the familiar threats andconstraints imposed on academia by Brexit.Jewish Studies in UK universities is heavilydependent on academics from the EU and tocaterforourglobalaudienceweneedtoattractthebrightestandbestacrossEurope. IntheUKHE sector as a whole over 31,000 academicscomefromtheEU–sixteenpercentofthetotalandaroundfifteenpercentofstaffsubmittedtothe2014REFwereEUnationals.These figuresvary a lot between institutions of course buthighlight how essential the EU is to HErecruitment. While BAJS does not collectinformationonthenationalityofitsmembers,itisstrikingthatsevenofthe14currentmembersofthecommitteeareEUnationals.

WestandtoloseimportantsourcesofEUfundingsuchasHorizon2020andthewholeframeworkofexchangeandEurope-wideco-operationcouldbe threatened. ERASMUS for example isimportant to theconsolidationofnetworksandcontactsacrossa continent fromwhichwewillbeincreasinglyisolated.InthecurrentacademicyeartherehasbeenafallofnearlyhalfamillionEU students applying to UK universities.2According to my reckoning, and from publiclyavailable information, one leading centre ofUKJewish Studies alone (Manchester Centre forJewish Studies) has acquired £2,058,500 infundingfromEuropeansourcessince2012.3ItisalsoatManchesterthatextensiveproposedcutsin academic positions in the faculties of arts,languages,biology,medicineandbusinesshavebeen (somewhat perversely) attributed touncertainties exacerbated by Brexit.4 Loss ofaccesstootherculturalandheritagefundscould

4 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/10/university-of-manchester-to-axe-171-staff-amid-brexit-concerns

BAJSBulletin2017 13

alsohaveanadverseimpactonJewishStudies–suchasexclusionfromEUculturalprogrammessuch as European Capital of Culture, EuropeanHeritageLabeldesignations,EUPrizeforCulturalHeritage. There is clearly a risk that BritishJewish Studies will become more isolatedintellectually since it is dependet on theexchangeofpeopleandideasacrosscontinentalEuropeandbeyond.

ItisofcoursedifficulttopredictwhateffecttheUK’s leaving the EU will have and we need torecognize too that for hundreds of years ideasandscholarscrossednationalborders,whichwillcontinuetohappenwhethertheUKisintheEUornot.Evenso,thesymbolicisolationofBritainfrom the European intellectual project is aserious worry. Further, for Jewish Studies theincreasing isolation of theUK could exacerbateexisting problems. The 2014 BAJS Review ofJewishStudiesintheUKreportedthatwhiletheoverall picturewas one of stability, thereweresome hints of threat. Responses to the surveyrevealed anxieties about student recruitment,particularlyatMAlevel,andsuggestedthatinthelonger term a lack of government funding (towhichwecannowaddEUfunding)wouldhavealarger impact on course provision than wascurrentlyreflectedintheresults.InacontextinwhichsomeUKuniversitiesarealreadymakingpre-emptive ‘Brexit’ cuts the future for JewishStudiescouldbeuncertain.

Hungary,SorosandCEU:Antisemitismasa

politicaltool

AndorKelenhegyi,Budapest

CentralEuropeanUniversity(CEU)isagraduateinstitution of advanced research and teachinglocatedinBudapest,Hungary.Inrecentmonths,CEU became the victim of an intense politicalstruggleandthetopicofheatedmediacoverageboth in Hungary and in academia worldwide.Foundedin1991byGeorgeSoros,afinancierofHungarianJewishoriginwholefthishomelandin1947,CEUiscommittedtoprinciplesadvocatedbyMr. Soros – open society, civic engagement,human rights and human dignity. SinceamendmentstoHungary’shighereducationlawwere proposed that targeted CEU, effectivelyforcing it to close or leave Hungary, theinstitution has become not only the focus ofattention, but a symbol of academic freedom,both within Hungary and in the internationalpoliticalarena.

CEU has more than 1,400 students from 108countriesandover400facultyfrom45countries

– one of the world’s most internationaluniversities, according to Times HigherEducation.CEUfocusesongraduateeducationinfields such as economics, history, philosophy,genderstudies,andpoliticalscience.ItalsohasagrowingJewishStudiesprogrammewhichplaysa pivotal role in reviving the discipline, whichwas pushed to the sidelines in Eastern andCentralEuropeduringtheregion’ssocialistera.The Jewish Studies programme publishes a bi-annual Yearbook, hosts international con-ferences, and organizes field trips to lesserknown locations of importance for Jewishculture.Theprogrammehasanannualintakeofapproximately 10-15 students including at thedoctoral level. Students studying in otherprograms at the University also regularlysupplementtheirstudieswithcoursesinJewishStudies. Compared to degree programmesofferedatCEU,JewishStudiesissmall,butithasachieved academic recognition, employs threefull-timeprofessors,andhostsagreatnumberofvisitingfacultyeveryyear.

The passage of legislation attacking CEU wasextremely hasty. Proposed on 28 March, theamendments were passed by the nationalassemblyon4April,andsignedintolawbythePresident ofHungary on 10April, disregardingboth domestic and international uproar.Moreover, in subsequent debates and mediacoverage, many discovered a not-too-thinlyveiledanti-semitismcapitalizingonthemesandnotionswellknownintheculturalmilieuofEastandCentralEurope.Eversincethebeginningofthe legal process, CEU has been called “Soros-university” by media outlets controlled by thegovernment(TVchannels,magazinesandonlinenews outlets alike). Through the association ofCEU with its founder, the university has beendefamed in various ways. It has been called a“fake university”, a “janissary school” (hintingthatstudentsoftheuniversityareindoctrinatedto further the goals of its founder) and – inconnectionwith the public discourse provokedand maintained by the government on therefugee crisis – an institution “trying to floodHungary with migrants”. In this orchestratedcoverage, CEU appears as a “training base” forMr. Soroswho is presented (although the term“Jew” is cautiously avoided) both visually (ingovernment advertisements) and verbally (inmedia coverage) in a way that is clearlyreminiscent of propaganda materials from theanti-semitic tradition, even recalling NaziGermany:Mr.Sorosisdepictedasamemberofasecret organization governing the world withmanipulation.

BAJSBulletin201714

A striking similarity. Top: an illustration of Jewishmachinations behind international politics from anissue of Fliegende Blätter (1942/5) (see original athttps://www.radioislam.org/cartoons/german-ww2/satiric.htm) Bottom: an excerpt from agovernmental poster depicting George Soros as apuppeteer controlling László Botka, leader of theoppositionpartyMSZP(seeoriginalatagovernment-controlled newspaper, https://www.lokal.hu/2017-06-botka-es-soros-brusszelben-haknizott/)

The legislationhasprovoked intenseresistanceand opposition bothwithin the country and in

the international community. This has beenpartlyduetoCEU’ssuccess inshowingthat theconflict is part of a broader struggle withinHungary, with academic freedom at stake in aEuropean union country. Despite governmentattempts to declare the legislation a purelyadministrative measure to remedy an ex legesituation, CEU has managed to make manifestthatitonlyappearstobeofalegalnature,butinfact aims at closingor chasing awayoneof thelast academic institutions that enjoys completeacademicfreedominHungary.Ashasbeennotedby many, among them László Sólyom, formerPresidentofHungaryandformerPresidentoftheConstitutional Court, the amendments imposeunreasonable conditions on CEU, such as aninternationalagreementbetweentheHungariangovernment and the federal government of theU.S.,whichaccordingtotheU.S.Constitutionhasnojurisdictioninmattersofeducation.Thetruenature of the legislation is corroboratedby thefact that the government managed to gainwidespreadpoliticalinfluenceinpubliclyfundeduniversities by directly appointing chancellorsstarting in 2014, greatly diminishing academicintegrity.

The first weeks following the introduction andpassage of the legislation saw a sequence ofdemonstrations,thebiggeston9April,drawingca. 70,000 protesters. This magnitude isnoteworthy, if one takes into account thatBudapesthasapopulationofca.1.8million,andthat the last demonstration of comparable sizewasheldtoprotestagovernmentproposalthatconcernedtheentireHungarianpopulation:ataxon internet usage. The legislation against CEUmanaged tomobilizemany inHungary society,andthus,CEUalsobecameapoliticalsymbol.

Support for the cause of CEU and academicfreedom came from a broad spectrum ofHungarian society. Numerous Hungarianinstitutionsofhighereducation, includingmostuniversitiesandthePresidentof theHungarianAcademy of Sciences, have expressed theirconcern or even explicit opposition to thelegislation and theway inwhich itwas rushedthroughwithoutevenanominaldiscussionwithinterested parties such as the very institutionsaffected. CEU received strong support fromvarious international organizations (such asEAJS,BAJS,theAmericanHistoricalAssociation,AcademiaEuropaeaetc.),anduniversities(suchas NYU, the University of Leiden, PrincetonUniversityetc.),aswellas24Nobellaureates.

CEUalsoreceivedwidespreadpoliticalsupport.The U.S. Embassy, and later on the U.S.DepartmentofState,declareditsobjectiontothelackofdiscussionwithCEUandtotheovertones

BAJSBulletin2017 15

of the legislation. U.S. Senators and otherlawmakers have also expressed their concernabout an attack on an American institutionabroad. The governments of Germany, France,Canada, and Sweden and the Parliament ofPortugal also expressed serious concern.Moreover,on26April,theEuropeanCommissioninitiated infringement proceedings againstHungarywithregardtothelegislation.

InlightofsuchheatedresponseinHungaryandin the international community, the conflictbetween CEU and the Hungarian governmentreached a standstill. Either outcome - CEUleavingHungaryorthegovernmentbackingoff-wouldhaveseriouspoliticalramificationsforthegovernment and the majority party, Fidesz.Therefore, thegovernment iscautious intakinganyfurthersteps.AnyactionappearingashostiletowardCEUcouldunleash further andperhapsmoreseverediplomaticconflicts,whilebackingoff could send a message of weakness todomesticcriticsandthepoliticalopposition.Onepossible solutionwouldbe if theConstitutionalCourt ofHungary,which is currently reviewingthelegislationinresponsetoaformalrequestbyopposition parties, would declare it to beunconstitutional, thus saving some of thegovernment’sreputation(adecisionisexpectedearliest by mid-July or latest by the end ofSeptember).WhiletherehavebeenrumoursthattheuniversitywillmovetoVienna,PresidentandRectorMichaelIgnatieffannouncedMay30thatCEUwill stay inBudapest in 2017-18. There iscautious hope within the CEU community thatnegotiationsbetweentheStateofNewYorkandHungary starting on June 23 are the first steptowardasolutionandtheuniversitywillnotbeforced to leave Hungary, where it hassuccessfully fulfilled its roleasan institutionofacademicexcellenceformorethan25years.

SpecialFocus:

Thenextgenerationofscholars

inJewishStudies

BAJS is strongly committed to supporting the

teachingofJewishStudiesandweaimtofosterthe

next generation of scholars in the field. We are

pleased that the annual essay prize competition

continuestoattractstrongsubmissions.Oneoflast

year’s winners, Adam Groves, will introduce his

findings below.We have created a new honorary

role in the committee to represent the needs of

postgraduateandearlycareerresearchersandthe

first post holder, Marton Ribary, will present his

vision. The following section also introduces a

number of researchers in the early stage of their

careerstodemonstratethevitalityofthefield.

BAJSEssayPrize2016

Warmest congratulations to the followingstudentswhowona£200prizefortheirresearchdissertations:Undergraduateprize:

Adam Groves, From Gaza to the Streets ofBritain:BritishSocialMediaCoverageofthe2014

Israel-GazaConflict(Southampton)

Emilie Wiedemann, Processes of narrativeconstruction and the politics of memory in the

interpretationofHolocaustart(Edinburgh)

Postgraduateprize:

MirunaBelea,TheMagicalUseofReligiousTexts:A cognitive approach to religious and cultural

textual elements on an amulet from Gaster’s

Collection at The John Rylands Library(Manchester)

Adam Groves, From Gaza to the Streets ofBritain: British Social Media Coverage of the2014Israel-GazaConflictDuring my final year at the University of

Southampton, Ideveloped a par-ticular interest intheIsraeli-Palesti-nian conflict afterundertaking amodule led byJoachim Schlör.The moduleexplored thedevelopmentoftheStateofIsraelfrom

BAJSBulletin201716

1948tothepresentday,examiningawiderangeof social, cultural, and political issues andthemes. In short, it provided a broad andnuancedperspective, allowingone to grasp thecomplexity of contemporary Israel (asmuch aspossible). Such a balanced perspective, withequal consideration of Israeli and Palestinianhistories,tendstoeludepublicdiscussionoftheconflict. This is, of course, not surprising or anoriginal observation: contemporary scholarshipis saturated with works that point out thepolarised and ideologically charged discoursethatpervadesmediacoverageoftheconflict.Itiswelldocumentedthat this is thecase inBritainandtheIsraeli-Palestinianconflicthasbecomeadivisive issue at different levels of political,public and cultural life. But the rise of socialmedia and a newmedia landscape has furtherintensifiedthishostilityandpolarisation;indeed,itisnocoincidencethatsincethe2014GazaWarpermeatedsocialmedia,theconflicthasbecomea frequently contested issue within Britishsociety. High-profile fallouts over the issue ofIsrael and Palestine have become a relativelycommonsightinrecentyears.Byfocusingontheconflict’simpactoneverydayBritishsocialmediaplatforms, my dissertation aimed to determinehowandwhythishashappened.

Accordingly, themethodologicalandtheoreticalframeworkIsketchedoutwasinterdisciplinary,merging paradigms from social history andmedia studies to hypothesise how socialmediamay have influenced the conflict’s reception inpresent-day British society. It is essential toconsider the impact of social media under thehistorical theme of change and continuity inordertoavoidthedangerofanalysingitthrougha utopian or dystopian lens. Media andcommunication ‘revolutions’ are historicallyrecurringnotions,andinthissense,thepresent‘social media age’ is no different from thebeginning of the television age in the 1950s.However, although one must be careful not tosuggestthatsocialmediahashadadeterministicimpact on British society, it is important torecognise that occurrences within online andofflinespaceareincreasinglyboundtogetherinoureverydaysocialenvironment.Thisformsthenecessary theoreticalandhistoricalspotlight tounderstandhowthecompetingnarrativesoftheconflict have intersected with both virtual andpublicspaceinBritainsince2014.

Drawing upon a variety of online sources,including Tweets, Facebook comments/posts,images,andvideos,IexaminedhowBritishuserswere continually exposed to politicisednarrativesofeventsduringthesummerof2014.Thisnarrow timeframewitnessed a substantial

coverageoftheviolenceinGazaonFacebookandTwitter. Most strikingly, I found that thesenarratives became intertwined with ordinarynetworking practices. On the one hand, onlinecontentproducedby the IsraeliDefenceForceswas often ‘shared’ and re-circulated by Britishpro-Israeli users, thereby intertwining supportofIsrael’smilitaryactionwithregular‘etiquette’onsocialmedia.Ontheotherhand,hashtagssuchas ‘#GazaUnderAttack’, ‘#PrayForGaza’, and‘#Here4Gaza’ were routinely deployed by pro-Palestinian users to normalise a discourse ofPalestinian suffering in the BritishTwittersphere.Whilsttheseonlineactsappeartobe banal and harmless, they illustrate theeverydaywaysinwhichBritishusersmaintainedconflictingnarrativesoftheconflict.

Most importantly, I found that the impact ofsocial media could be contextualised throughdevelopments relating to the Israel-PalestineconflictinBritishsociety:inparticular,I lookedatthepublicdisputessurroundingtheUniversityofSouthamptonin2015,andtheclashbetweentheIsraelandPalestinesocietiesatKingsCollegeLondon in 2016, with the latter highlight theongoingrelevanceofthisresearch.Bothoftheseincidents were arguably demonstrative of thedestablisingimpactthatsocialmediacoverageoftheconflicthashadonBritishsociety.Ofcourse,adirectcausallinkcouldnotbedrawnbetweentheseincidentsandsocialmedia.But lookingatsocial media provided an insight into howpolarisationhasdevelopedsincethe2014GazaWar. For example, I analysed the Facebookactivity of the Kings College London ActionPalestine group before the protests and foundusers sharing and disseminating biasedperceptions of the conflict. It is thereforenecessarythatweconsiderthewider impactofsocialmediamoreseriously,especiallysincetheclashesatKCLrevealedthattherearetwostarklydifferent views of the conflict in present-dayBritain.

An analysis of this kind had not been widelyattemptedbefore,soIhopethatmydissertationhasmadeacontributiontohowweunderstandthe conflict and its reception. Importantly, myresearchhascreatedanarchiveconsistingoftheordinary ways in which the conflict isrepresented and engaged with in Britain. Yet,much research remains to be done. In his newbook The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn,Israel and Anti-Semitism, Dave Rich examineshowthepoliticsofIsrael-Palestineisinextricablyconnected to fresh concerns of antisemitism inBritain’sJewishcommunity.Itwouldperhapsbevaluabletoconsiderhowsocialmediacoverageof the Gaza conflicts is linked to this

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development. Above all, however, it remainsclear that recent events surrounding Britishsocietyandthe Israeli-Palestinianconflict leavemuchroomforfascinatinganalysis;onethatcallsforusingsocialmediaasahistoricalsource.

Sincegraduation,IhavebeenstudyinganMAinJewishHistory and Culture at theUniversity ofSouthampton,andformycurrentdissertation,Iam comparing British responses to Jewishrefugees in the 1930s with modern-dayresponses to Syrian refugees. I am grateful toJoachimSchlörandtheParkesInstitutefortheirongoingsupportandencouragement,andtotheBAJSforawardingmelastyear’sessayprize.

Representingthenextgeneration

MartonRibary

BAJSPostgraduateandEarlyCareerResearchRepresentative

When the call came out for the position ofPostgraduate and Early Career Research(PG&ECR) Representative of the BritishAssociationforJewishStudies(BAJS),Ihadlittlehesitation to put in my application. As theAdministratorofManchester’sCentreforJewishStudies(CJS),Ihadtheopportunitytoworkalongco-directors Daniel Langton and AlexanderSamelyandcontributemeaningfullytooneoftheUniversity’s most successful research centres.MyManchester experience had taught me thatcommitment and enthusiasm could make aninstitution thrive despite a generally hostileenvironmenttowardsminorhumanitiessubjectsin-andoutsidetheuniversitywalls.

I learnt about the ethos of BAJS from formerPresident Daniel Langton and I have beenexperiencing it first-hand during theAssociation’s annual conferences since 2013.WhenIsubmittedmyapplication, IknewIwasaspiring to become a member of a committeewhich is similar to Manchester’s CJS in manyrespects. BAJS is one of the most active and

innovative learned societies in humanitiessubjectsintheBritishIsles,anditisalsooneofthe most open and democratic ones. ThePresident stays in office for a year as shearranges the annual conference at her homeinstitution, and she quietly steps down at theclosing session of the conference. TheAssociation makes a deliberate effort torepresent the various disciplines andgeographical areas of Jewish Studies in UK,Ireland and beyond. Scholars from EuropeancountriesandIsraelregularlyattendtheannualconference,andtheAssociationhasbuiltstronglinks with other national and internationalJewish Studies associations. The Committee ofBAJShassuccessfullyavoidedtobecomeagreyand alienated governing body, and instead, itremained a friendly and efficient one as theAssociationhasgrownovertheyears.

Ispentsevenyears intheHungarianuniversitysystem(2002-2009)beforestartingmyMastersstudies in Oxford (2009-2011) followed bymycurrent doctoral studies in Manchester (2013-2017). Unfortunately, Hungary makesinternational headlines these days as an EUcountryshamelesslylegislatingagainstacademicfreedom and civil liberties. The currentHungarian government manually controlsfinancialandstrategicdecisionofuniversitiesbycentrally appointed “Chancellors” and it hasrecentlyoutlawedtheoperationoftheprivatelyfundedCentralEuropeanUniversitywhich fallsoutside its control. The tendencies which haveescalatedtotheextremebynowwereinheritedfromtheSocialisteraofthecountry,anditwaspoisoning university administration at thelowestlevelsalreadytenyearsagowhenIwasanundergraduate student in Budapest. Studentrepresentation mirrored the highest level ofHungarian administration: it was overlypoliticised, nepotistic, corrupt and quiteincapable to achieve any results. I learnt thelesson the hardway as I was blocked tomakechange and advised to leavemy representativeposts by senior administrators. In one extremecase, Iwas offered to stay inactive in return ofmoneyandthreatenedtofaceconsequences,ifIchose not to. It was fortunately a bluff. Thedisappointmentanddisillusionmentdrovemetoapersonalexile.Iconcentratedallmyeffortsonmystudiesandstartedtopreparemyselftoleavemyhomecountryforaplacewhereacademicandcivil liberties are cherished. The linguistic andcultural adaptation to my new Britishenvironmenttookgoodfewyears,andthereforein January 2014 the opportunity to serve thenoble values of academia came at the idealmoment at Manchester’s Centre for JewishStudies.

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The timing of the call for the PG&ECRRepresentative of BAJS was similarly ideal.Manchester’sCJShadjustsecuredamajorgrantwhich enabled to maximise its potential andgrew regionally, nationally and internationally.As a result, the Centre appointed a dedicatedAdministrator,butIwasaskedtostayonboardto advise and support the transition. This wasalso a transition period for me as I started toapproach the end ofmydoctoral studies, and Iwaslookingforanopportunitytorepresenttheuniversal values of learning and academicfreedom outside my home Manchesterenvironment. Iwasbursting from ideas for theexcitingroleofPG&ECRRepresentativeofBAJS.WhenIwasinterviewedattheannualconferencein Birmingham in July 2016, I quiteunprofessionallyoverwhelmedmyinterviewerswiththeseideaswhichmighthavecomethroughaschaoticanddelusional.Itwas,therefore,anicesurprise and a great honour to be offered thepositiontwodayslaterduringacoffeebreakoftheconference.

With the support of BAJS Secretary Dr HelenSpurling, I started my work shortly after theannualconferenceinBirminghaminJuly2016.Icreated a Facebook group for the Postgraduateand Early Career Research community of theAssociationwhichwentliveinearlyMay2017.Ialso created a proposal for a mentoringprogrammewhichtheBAJSCommitteeapprovedwith minor alterations. In order to engage thecorrect audience, I had to identify theappropriate cohort of our current members aswell as reach out to potential new ones. Icontacted members who were or had beenstudent members of the Association in recentyears.Ireceivedinformationabouttheircurrentstatus and gauged their interest about theinitiatives planned to serve the PG&ECRcommunity.Thereplyratewassurprisinglyhighwhich indicated that the Association hadcorrectlyidentifiedaneedforextrasupportforthejuniorcohort.

When I proposed to launch a mentoringprogramme, my idea was to build on theexcellent human capital of the Association toprovideassistanceforfuturescholars,educatorsand public figures representing our field. Ithought that it was important for us aspostgraduate and postdoctoral researchers tounderstand how to adapt to the changinginstitutional, financial and social environment.Weareenteringafieldwhichhasbeenandwillkeepdeveloping, and the invaluableexperienceof our senior colleagues can help us to setrealistic career goals for ourselves and makeinformed decisions on how to achieve them. I

pictured a mentoring relationship which isflexibleand focusesonareaswhich thementeefinds most pressing such as life and workbalance,overcomingpossiblewritingblocksandother obstacles, networking opportunities, andthinking strategically about one’s career in- oroutside academia. Applicants have been pairedwithseniormembersoftheAssociationwhohadkindlyvolunteeredtooffersupport.Mentorsandmentees have been advised to hold meetings(eitherinpersonorvirtually)atleasttwice,butnomorethanfourtimesayear.Eventhoughtherelationship between mentor and mentee hasbeenarrangedandfacilitatedbytheAssociation,itremainsfullyconfidentialinordertoprovideacomfortableandinformalsettingfordiscussion.

Inadditiontothementoringprogramme,Ihavebeen also organising a PG&ECR event for theannual conference in Edinburgh in July 2017.With the support of BAJS PresidentDrHannahHoltschneider,apaneldiscussionistakingplaceon Monday, 10 July, where panellists andPG&ECR members will exchange ideas aboutfundingopportunities,fundingpoliciesandtheirchanging British and international circum-stances.DrMiaSpiro(Glasgow)willgiveashortpresentation about how North American andBritish funding policies compare andMariannaVotsi (Edinburgh) will talk about the UK'sfunding landscape in the Brexit era. The shortpresentationsgenerated livelydiscussionaboutfunding structures and strategies, and how toapproach funding applications in (post-)BrexitEurope.

I gladly accepted the invitation to stay onCommittee and serve the Association as itsPG&ECRRepresentativeforanadditionalyearin2017-2018.As Iamcurrently finishingmyPhDstudies, I will myself face the transition frombeingapostgraduatestudenttofindingmywayinacademiaasanearlycareerresearcherduringthisperiod.Itwillbeinterestingtoseehowthementoringprogrammedevelopsandhowitcanbe modified to cater for the needs for morepeople in future years. Even though thevulnerability of humanities subjects and theposition of junior academics is not expected toeaseinthecomingyears,strategicandforward-thinking associations like ours can nurture astrategic and forward-thinking next generationwhich will continue to grow with the field ofJewishStudies.

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IntroducingBAJSStudentMembers:

CarsonBay:

Carson Bay is a Ph.D.Candidate in ReligionsofWesternAntiquityatFlorida State Uni-versity, and is for the2016-2017 academicyear a FulbrightGraduate Fellow at theInstitutum JudaicumDelitzschianum at theWestfälische WilhelmsUniversität inMünster,

Germany. Carson’s project while in Münster,“Multiculturalism in Flavius Josephus,” hasexploredthewaysinwhichJosephus’workhelpsusunderstandhowcategoriesthatwemightcall‘racial’ and ‘ethnic’ and ‘national’ identityfunctionedinearlyJewishthoughtanddiscourse.Hisdissertationjumpsforwardseveralcenturiesfrom Josephus, and deals with a late-fourthcentury Latin Christian adaptation of Josephus’JewishWar,theso-calledPseudo-Hegesippus,orOn the Destruction of Jerusalem. This work,perhaps the only true piece of classicalhistoriographywithin theChristian tradition, ishighly significant for understanding fourth-century Jewish-Christian relations. Carson’sdissertation argues that this work is bestunderstood as one making an argumentsimultaneouslyhistorical,theological,andethnic(i.e. engaging in identity discourse): Pseudo-Hegesippus argues that the destruction of theSecondJewishTempleinCE70(history)markedthedivineabandonment(theology)oftheJewishpeople/Judaism (ethnicity/identity). While thiswork is not the first to make such claims,understandinghowandwhyitdidsowhenitdidso is highly significant for understandingChristianperceptionsofandreactionstoJudaismand Jewish identity in the late fourth century.Carson’sdissertationseekstoexplainthisworkintermsof1)howitmakesitscentralargumentataliterary-rhetoricallevel,and2)whysuchanargument made sense to write when it waswritten(sometimearoundCE370).

Carson came to work on such things afterundertakingaB.S.inBiblicalStudiesfromMoodyBibleInstitute–Spokane,duringwhichtimeheworkedinthesummersasawildlandfirefighterfortheU.S.ForestService.Thereafter,hetookanM.A. inTheology&ReligiousStudies from JohnCarroll University in Cleveland, OH beforecoming to Florida State. He is also pursuing,concurrenttohisPh.D.,anM.A.inGreek&Latin

in Florida State’s Classics Department. He hasbeen married to his wife, Lindsay, since 2010,and outside of academics enjoys whitewaterkayaking and rafting and a variety of otherendeavors.

MariaVittoriaComacchi:

Born in Florence in 1989, after a high-schooldiploma inclassics (maturitàclassica), IearnedmyLaureaTriennale(B.A.)inPhilosophyattheUniversitàdegliStudidiFirenze,graduatingwith110/110 cum Laude. During my LaureaMagistrale(M.A.)inPhilosophicalSciencesattheUniversitàdegliStudidiFirenze,Ispecialisedinaesthetics and I graduated with 110/110 cumLaude in February 2015 presenting a researchthesis, supervised by Prof. Sergio Givone andProf.GianlucaGarelli, on the issuesof loveandbeauty in theDialoghi d’amore, a philosophicaldialogue written at the beginning of thesixteenth-century by Yehuda Abarbanel, bestknown as Leone Ebreo. Winner of a PhDscholarshipattheUniversitàCa’FoscariVenezia,my PhD research began in September 2015under the scientific supervision of Prof MariaEmanuela Scribano and it is an externalcontribution to the ERC projectAristotle in theItalianVernacularundertheexpertsupervisionofProf.MarcoSgarbi.

My cross-curricular PhDproject focuses on theItalianvernacularphilosophyof lovedevelopedby the Renaissance Jewish thinker YehudaAbarbanel. This study will provide a detailedanalysis of Leone Ebreo’s work, the Dialoghid’amore, rethinking the conceptualisation ofpriscatheologiaandinvestigatingtheissueofthedeificatiohominisinrelationtoMarsilioFicino’sphilosophyandFrancescoCattanidaDiacceto’sworks.TheanalysisofLeone’sDialoghi aims toprovide the instruments to understand if theDialoghihaveaphilosophicalvalue,pinpointingtheirpositionwithinthecontemporaneousinter-faith(Jewish-Christian)debateonNeoplatonism

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anddeterminingif,towhatextent,andinwhichway the humanistic and Renaissance culturalthemes have influenced Yehuda’s JewishSephardiceducation.SofarIhavebeenVisitingPhD student at the Hamburg Universität (hostadvisor:Prof.GiuseppeVeltri),attheInstitutdesLanguesetCivilisationsOrientalesinParis(hostadvisor: Prof. Alessandro Guetta) and at theLaboratoire d’études sur les monothéismes ofCNRS in Villejuif, Paris (host advisor: Prof.Stéphane Toussaint). As yet, I have publishedreviewsonPhilosophicalReadings,entriesontheSpringerEncyclopediaofRenaissancePhilosophyand my papers have been accepted forinternationalandnationalconferencesinMilan,Edinburgh,ModenaandLondon.

LouiseK.Gramstrup:

I recently com-pletedmyPhD inReligious Studiesfrom the Uni-versity of Edin-burgh. My thesisentitled “Jewish,Christian, andMuslim Women

Searching for Common Ground: ExploringReligious Identities in the American Women’sInterfaith Book Groups, the Daughters ofAbraham”examineshowwomennegotiatetheiridentification within and as a group whenengaging in interreligious dialogue. It is an in-depth case study of a women’s interreligiousencounterthatbringstogether Jews,Christians,and Muslims in discussion of texts, fiction andnon-fiction, about their religious worldviews. Iexplore the tensions arising from religiousdiversity,andtheconsequencesofparticipatingin an interreligious dialogue group forunderstandingsofreligiousselfandothers.Ialsoexamine the power dynamics and boundarywork done in the Daughters of Abraham. Thisanalysisilluminatesthatengagingwithissuesofsamenessanddifferenceofreligion,gender,andsociopoliticalvaluesgeneratescomplexandfluidunderstandingsofselfandthe“other.”Itshowsthattheabilitytopointtosuchcommonalitiesisessential for encouraging engagement withreligious diversity, and resulting interreligiousunderstanding.Moreover,ithighlightsnumeroustensionsarisingonvarious levelsof interactionwithinandinrelationtoDaughtersofAbraham,forinstancethattheorganization’semphasisoninter-religious commonalities brings out intra-religious differences that can complicate themaintenanceofacoherentsenseofreligiousself.Overall, my thesis provides insight into the

following interlinked areas: formalized inter-religious dialogue, interreligious encounters onthe grassroots level, women’s interreligiousdialogue,sharedreadingpractices,abookgroupapproach to engaging with religious diversity,and interreligious encounters in the Americancontextpost-September11th2001.

My PhD project is relevant to Jewish Studiesbecause it advances knowledge aboutexpressions of Jewishness in contemporaryAmerica. It elucidates how engaging in inter-religious and intra-religious relations nuancesindividual ideas of being Jewish. Specifically, itshowsthefluidwaysinwhichordinarywomennegotiate their Jewish identity in relation toChristiansandMuslimsaswellastootherJewsbypointingtoissuesofsamenessanddifference.ItalsoilluminatesChristianandMuslimviewsofthe American Jewish community. Accordingly,my PhD project brings to light the complexitycharacterisingcontemporarywaysofidentifyingas Jewish with the added dimension of howinterreligious engagement influences suchunderstandings.

OlgaGrochowska:

Iamafinal-yearundergraduatestudent at theUniversity of StAndrews, pur-suing a jointdegree in Com-parative Lite-ratureandGeo-graphy. At pre-sent, I amworking on a

projectinvestigatinghowthepre-SecondWorldWar Jewish community of Pułtusk, a town incentral Poland, is remembered locally. Theprincipal aim of the study is to determine theplace that the long-lasting presence and theextermination of the local Jews occupies in theconsciousness of the inhabitants of the town,witha focusonphysical spacesofmemoryandthe topic’s coverage in the press and otherwritten sources. By analysing the narrativesconstructed around the past of Pułtusk, I amhoping to identify and give expression to theplurality of local histories, an intention thatreflectsmywider interests in culturalmemoryandidentityformation.

TheprojectisundertakenaspartoftheLaidlawUndergraduate Internship Programme inResearchandLeadership,astudentdevelopment

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schemelaunchedbytheUniversityofStAndrewsattheinitiativeofLordLaidlawofRothiemay.

VladyslavaMoskalets:

Vladyslava

Moskalets is a4th yeargraduatestudentat the

JagiellonianUniversity,

Krakow, whereshewritesaPhDdissertation onJewish industrialelites inDrohobych andBoryslav, 1860-1900 under thesupervision of

Prof. Michał Galas and Prof. Yaroslav Hrytsak.TheresearchfocusesonkinshipamongJewishfamiliesintheDrohobychandBoryslavbusinessmilieu (1860-1914). In her project Vladyslavaanalyses thedifferentwaysof participationof theJewsinthedevelopmentoftheDrohobych-Boryslavoil-industry during 1860-1900 and the impact ofindustrialisationprocessonthecommunity,bothinitssocialandeconomicdimensions.TheuniquenessofDrohobychandBoryslav,astheearliestexamplesofindustrialisationinGalicia,allowsonetoseethemodernisationofJewishelitesoutsideoftheLvivorBrody context. Comparing the Galician case withindustrial cities of other regions could aid inunderstandingtheconnectionsbetweeneconomicand cultural processes in a wider context. ThisresearchmakessensenotonlyinthelocalcontextofGalicia,butalsoasitconcernswiderproblemsofthetransformationoftheJewishcommunityasaresultoftheindustrialisationandmodernisationofJewishelites in Eastern Europe. The example of JewishindustrialelitesofDrohobychshowstheimportanceof familial and personal connections to theformationoftheelitemilieu.

VladyslavaMoskaletsworksascoordinatorandHebrewteacherattheJewishStudiesProgramatUkrainian Catholic University, Lviv. Academicinterests include economics, family history,historyofEasternEuropeanJewry.

OksanaKuchirko:

IcompletedmyBachelorandMaster’sdegreeatKyiv-Mohyla academy in Kyiv, Ukrainespecializing in history of travel, intellectualhistory,Jewishstudiesandhistoryofidentities.Imainly use ego-documents and travel notes asmy sources written in English, Russian and

Yiddish. My currentPhDresearchentitledAdaptation of

Central–European

Jews to American life

in19thcentury(based

on the diaries)examines the Jewishadaptationtothenewlife, which includesadaptation toeconomic challenges,adaptationtocity lifeandrecessionfromthestrongreligiousbelieves.The main emphasis is given to the authors’identities as a Jews, the way they manifest itthroughencounteringchallengesinthenewland.Theresearchalsofollowstheauthors’visionsofthe future of Jewry America. In addition, myprojectfocusesontheideaofconsideringtheUSas the “promised land” and New Jerusalem,whichwasverycommonamongEuropeanJewryofthattime.

I amalso thememberofUkrainianAssociationforJewishStudiesandEuropeanAssociationforJewishStudies.

MartonRibary:

Marton Ribary is afinal-year PhDcandidate at theUniversity of Man-chester supervisedby Alex Samely(Jewish Studies),TimParkin(Romansocial history) andFran-cesco Giglio(Roman law). He

investigates linguistic and discursive strategiesinpassagesselectedfromtractateBavaQammaoftheTalmudYerushalmiandJustinian’sCorpusIuris. The comparative literary analysis hasresultedintheobservationthattwomajorformsof legal thinking developed in virtual isolationfromeachotherintheEasternMediterraneanofLate Antiquity. The idea runs against thedominantscholarlyconsensuswhichassumesashared context between neighbouring cultures.Thethesisoffersanewmethodologymotivatedby Bernard Jackson’s structuralist-semioticapproachtoancientlegaltextsaswellasbytheliterary analysis developed during his doctoralresearch with Alex Samely. The case studieshighlight structural phenomena whichdemonstrate how the law was formulated: the

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quoting strategy which constructs a divisionbetweentheeditingvoiceofthepresentandthelegal authorities of the past; establishing legaltermsbydefinitionsinRomanlawandthemoreanarchicstrategyof “labelling” inRabbinic law;and the conceptual vocabulary and strategy ofclassification.

After completing his PhD,Marton takes up theposition of Librarian at Leo Baeck College(London) from September 2017. He is alsoplanning to study for an MA in Library andInformation Studies at University CollegeLondon.MartonwillemployhisnewlyacquiredDigital Humanities skills in a future researchproject entitled “The changing grammar ofJewish and Rabbinic legal documents”. Theproject will seek to provide linguistic evidencefor a conjecture formulatedduringhisdoctoralresearch,namely,thattheabstractionrelatedtothescholasticattitudeof the juristsofRabbinicandRomanlawinLateAntiquityistheendpointof a longer historical development. ThediachronicanalysiswillapplyNaturalLanguageProcessing (NLP) methods and focus on twolinguistic phenomena, the shift from verbal tonominalised word forms, and the shift fromconditional to relative clauses.His recent guestpost on Talmud Blog, “NLP of Rabbinic Texts:Contexts, Challenges, Opportunities”, expressesMarton’sunderstandingofthestateofresearchinthisexcitinguncharteredfield.

ZehraŞamlıoğluBerk:��

I have a BA degree in English Language andLiteratureandanMAdegreeinCulturalStudies.

My MA thesis isentitled as “TheLanguage ofExile: Languageand Memory inIstanbul Jewry”.Based upon

personalobservation, in-depth interviewswith IstanbulJewry fromdifferent agegroups, andanalysis of

primaryandsecondaryresourcesrelatedtothehistory of Istanbul Jewry, as well as language,diaspora, and collective memory theories, thisstudy examines the language changes thatoccurredamongtheJewsofIstanbulduringthelastcentury.

I am currently a PhD candidate at BogaziciUniversity,AtaturkInstituteforModernTurkishHistory.Mymainsubjectofstudyislegalreformsand rural crime in the 19th century OttomanEmpirewithafocusonMuslimandnon-Muslimrelations. Through court records, Iwill explorehow Muslim and non-Muslim populations inrural provinces reacted to the tanzimat (thepolitical reforms made in the ottoman state in1839) and the new legal changes in the 19th

OttomanEmpire.Iaimtofocusonthewayslocalpeopleusedprovincialcourtsthroughthecasesof reckless homicide, voluntary manslaughter,abortion,injury,assaultandbattery.

Thelegalreformsintroducedanewcourtsystemto the Empire and provide new spaces ofnegotiations with the state. For ordinary non-Muslims who had little to lose the reformsbecame a hope. With the legal reforms a newcourt system called nizamiye courts wereintroducedasanalternativesitetocenturiesoldshari’a courts. In the shari’a law, witnessaccounts of Muslims and non-Muslims andwomenwerenotequal.However,withthenewpenalcodestanzimatgrantedequalstandingforallthesubjectsbeforethelaw.Thejudgenowhadtoactinaccordancewiththewitnessstatements,whichweretakenaccordingtotherules.Unliketheshari’acourtrecords,witnesstestimoniesinthe nizamiye courtswere verbatim accounts ofwhatwassaidduring the investigativeprocess.Thus they provide useful raw data for socialhistorystudies.

With this study I hope to contribute to theOttomansocialhistoryingeneralandthehistoryof rural crime in the 19th century OttomanEmpire in particular. I hope micro historiesrelated to nizamiye courts and rural crime invariousprovinceswill provide amorenuancedunderstanding related to the relationshipbetween Ottoman centre and subjects in theperipheries, legal knowledge, power relationsandlocalpolitics.

WegratefullyacknowledgethefinancialsupportforBAJS2017conferencebursariesbyoursisterorganisation,theEuropeanAssociationforJewishStudies(EAJS),for

VladyslavaMoskalets,OksanaKuchirkoandZehraŞamlıogluBerk.

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Members’publications:

Tim Corbett, ‘A “CapableWife”ora“WomanofValor”?ReadingGendered Discourses and theCommemoration of Women inVienna’s Jewish Cemeteries’,Nashim, 32 (Fall 2017,forthcoming).Idem, ‘The Jewish Cemetery ofWähring, Vienna: CompetingVoicesandContestedDiscoursesin the Austrian RestorationDebates’,in:DavidSeymourandMercedes Camino, eds., The

Holocaust in the Twenty-First

Century: Con-testing/Contested

Memories. London: Routledge,2017.Idem,‘BetweenMemoryandOb-livion:TheJewishCemeteries inVienna’, LBI News, No. 101(Summer2016).Maria Diemling, ‘Patronage,Representation and Conversion:Victor von Carben (1423-1515)and his Social Networks', in: J.AdamandC.Heß,eds.,Revealingthe Secrets of the Jews: Johannes

Pfefferkorn and Christian

Writings about Jewish Life and

Literature in Early Modern

Europe. Berlin: De Gruyter,2017,157-181.

Yulia Egorova, ‘Redefining theConverted Jewish Self: Race,Religion and Israel’s BeneMenashe’, American Anthro-

pologist,2015,117(3):493-505.Eadem, ‘Holocaust memory inIndia’,inJ.Eder,P.GassertandA.E. Steinweis, eds., HolocaustMemory in a Globalizing World.WallsteinVerlag,2017,215-228.

Eadem with Fiaz Ahmed, ‘TheImpact of Antisemitism andIslamophobia on Jewish-MuslimRelations in the UK: Memory.Experience, Context’, in JamesRenton and Ben Gidley, eds.,AntisemitismandIslamophobiain

Europe:ASharedStory?PalgraveMacmillan,2017,283-303.Eva Frojmovic and CatherineKarkov, eds., Postcolonising theMedieval Image. Routledge,2017.

Eadem, “Neighbouringand mixta in thirteenth-centuryAshkenaz”,in:PostcolonisingtheMedieval Image. Routledge,2017.

François Guesnet, CécileLaborde, Lois Lee, eds.Negotiating Religion: Cross-

disciplinary Perspectives. Abin-gdon-New York: Routledge,2017.

Idem, “The Jews of Poland-Lithuania, 1650-1815,” inJonathan Karp and AdamSutcliffe,eds.,CambridgeHistoryof Judaism, 1500-1815,

Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press. (forthcoming2017):Idem, “Negotiating UnderDuress: The Expulsion ofSalzburgProtestants(1732)andthe Jews of Prague (1744),” inidem, Cécile Laborde, Lois Lee,eds.,NegotiatingReligion.Cross-disciplinary perspectives.

Abingdon-New York: Routledge,2017,31-46.Idem,‘TheEmergenceoftheFirstEuropean Jewish Metropolis inWarsaw,1850-1880,’ in AlinaGromowaetal.:JewishandNon-Jewish Spaces in the Urban

Context. Berlin: Neofelis, 2016,183-196.ShirliGilbert,FromThingsLost:

ForgottenLettersandtheLegacy

of the Holocaust. Wayne StateUniversityPress,2017.

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Eadem, ‘Foreword’, in EstherJilovsky, Jordy Silverstein, andDavidSlucki,eds.IntheShadowsofMemory:TheHolocaustandthe

Third Generation, ValentineMitchell2015,pp.xxiii-xxiv.Eadem, ‘Holocaust Memory inPost-Apartheid South Africa’ inAlan Steinweis, Philipp GassertandJacobS.Eder,eds.HolocaustMemory in a Globalizing

World(forthcoming).Lily Kahn, North Sámi: An

Essential Grammar. Co-authoredwith Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi.London:Routledge,2017.Eadem, ‘Representationsof ItalyintheFirstHebrewShakespeareTranslations’. In ChrisStamatakis and Enza DeFrancisci, eds., Shakespeare andItaly.London:Routledge,2017.Eadem with Aaron Rubin, eds.,Handbook of Jewish Languages,Leiden:Brill,2016.

Eadem, ‘Yiddish’. In Lily KahnandAaronRubin,eds.,Handbookof Jewish Languages. Leiden:Brill,2016,641-747.Charlotte Hempel with ArielFeldman and Maria Cioată,eds.,IsThereaTextinthisCave?Studies in the Textuality of the

Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of

George J. Brooke. STDJ 118.Leiden:Brill,2017.

Eadem,‘WisdomandLawintheHebrew Bible and atQumran,’JournalfortheStudyofJudaism48(2017):1-27Eadem, ‘Reflections on Literacy,Textuality,andCommunityintheQumran Dead Sea Scrolls,’ in IsThereaTextinthisCave?Studies

in theTextualityof theDeadSea

Scrolls in Honour of George J.

Brooke(ed.withA.FeldmanandM.Cioată.Leiden:Brill,2017,69-82.Eadem, ‘The Profile andCharacterofQumranCave4:TheCommunityRuleManuscriptsasaTestCase,’inMarcelloFidanzio,ed., The Caves of Qumran:

Proceedings of the International

Conference, Lugano 2014.Leiden:Brill,2017,80-61.Eadem, ‘Cutting the Chord withtheFamiliar:WhatMakes4Q265Miscellaneous Rules Tick?,’ inJoel Baden et al, eds., Sibyls,Scriptures, and Scrolls: John

Collins at Seventy. JSJSup 175.Leiden:Brill,2016,534-41.Sandra Jacobs, ‘Circumcision’,inTheDictionary of the Bible intheAncientMediaed.E.Stern,R.Person,C.KeithandT.Thatcher.T&TClark/Bloomsbury,2017.

Eadem,‘Babatha’,inE.Orlinetal,eds.,TheRoutledgeEncyclopediaof Ancient Mediterranean

Religions. London: Routledge,2017,122.Eadem, Book Review: David T.Sugimoto,ed.,Trans-formationofa Goddess: Ishtar – Astarte –

Aphrodite (Orbis biblicus etOrientalis, 263; Fribourg,Gottingen: Academic PressFribourg and Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht, 2014), Strata: TheBulletin of the Anglo-Israel

Archaeo-logical Society 34(2016):230-235.Eadem, Book Review: Bill TArnold,NancyEricksonandJohnWalton eds. Windows to theAncient World of the Hebrew

Bible:Essays inHonorof Samuel

Greengus(WinonaLake,Indiana:Eisenbrauns, 2014), SOTS BookList40/5(2016):3.Eadem,BookReview:Taka-yoshiOshima, Babylonian Poems ofPious Sufferers: Ludlul Bēl

Nēmeqiand the Babylonian

Theodicy (ORA 14; Tübingen:MohrSiebeck,2014),SOTSBookList40/5(2016):172.Eadem, Book Review: RichardSteiner, Disembodied Souls:

TheNefesh in IsraelandKindred

Spirits in the Ancient Near East,

with an Appendix on the

Katumuwa Inscription (AncientNear Eastern Monographs, 11;Atlanta: Georgia: SBL Press,2015), SOTS Book List 40/5(2016):162.Eadem, Book Review: RussellHobson, Transforming Litera-ture into Scripture:Texts asCult

Objects at Nineveh and Qumran.(Sheffield:Equinox,2012),VetusTestamentum.66/1(2016):167-168.

BAJSBulletin201726

Eadem, Book Review: JosephFleishman, Father-Daughter

Relations in Biblical Law (CDLPress: Bethesda, Maryland,2011),VetusTesta-mentum66/1(2016):159-161.James Renton and Ben Gidley,eds., Antisemitism and

IslamophobiainEurope:AShared

Story? Palgrave Mac-millan,2017.Idem, 'The End of the Semites'in JamesRentonandBenGidley(eds), Antisemitism and

IslamophobiainEurope:AShared

Story?. Palgrave Macmillan,2017,99-140.

Idem and Ben Gidley,'Introduction: The Shared Storyof Europe's Ideas of theMuslimand the Jew - A DiachronicFramework', in James Rentonand Ben Gidley, eds.,AntisemitismandIslamophobiain

Europe:ASharedStory?PalgraveMacmillan,2017,1-21.Stefan C. Reif, Jews, Bible and

Prayer: Essays on JewishBiblical

Exegesis and Liturgical Notions,BZAW 498, de Gruyter, BerlinandBoston,2017.

Idem, Articles on ‘Cairo Geniza’and ‘Shema’ for the RoutledgeDictionary of Ancient

MediterraneanReligions,ed.L.S.Friedetal.NewYork,2016,154–55,872.Idem, ‘Howdid JewishPrayer inthe Medieval Islamic WorldDiffer from its Equivalent inChristian Countries?’ in JosefMeri, ed., Muslim-Jewish

Relations Past and Present: A

KaleidoscopicView.Brill:Leiden,2017,94–114.

Idem, “Jewish Prayer” in OxfordClassical Dictionary. New York,2017,onlineedition.

SachaD.Stern,‘Subversionandsubculture: Jewish time-keepingin the Roman Empire’, in M.Popovic, M. Schoonover, M.Vanden-berghe, eds., Jewish

Cultural Encounters in the

AncientMediterraneanandNear

Eastern World, Leiden: Brill,2017,246-264.

Idem, ‘The Jewish Aramaictombstones from Zoar’, Journalof Jewish Studies, 2017, 68 (1),158-179.Vanessa Waltz, ‘Anne’,PRISM: An Interdisciplinary

Journal for Holocaust Educators,2016,68-69.

BAJSBulletin2017 27

CurrentPhDsupervisions:

Birmingham:

CharlotteHempel:

HanneKirchheiner,QumranSocialIdentityintheLightofExegesisandAnthropology

RabbiHelenFreeman,AJungianInterpretationoftheDeadSeaScrolls

NickWoods,TheQumranWisdomTextsandtheGospelofJohn(co-supervisedwithKarenWenell)AshleyLyons,TheEvolvingShapeofthePsalterintheSecondTemplePeriodTupaGuerraGuimarãesdaSilva,DemonologyintheDeadSeaScrolls

MikeDeVries,LiturgicalandRitualizedWarfareintheWarScroll

JoeScales,ReligiousIdentityandSpatialityinGalilee(co-supervisedwithKarenWenell)CanterburyChristChurchUniversity:

MariaDiemling:

GiffordRhamie,Image,TextandAgency:TheEthiopianEunuch(Acts8:26-40)andConceptualityin

theImperialImaginationofBiblicalStudies(co-supervisedwithRobertBeckford)UniversityofKent:

LarryRay:

RachelKayBurns,SequestrationofconcentrationcampsinNaziGermany:Knowingabout,andattitudes

towardsthecampsintheecasestudies(submittedDecember2016)

UCL:

FrancoisGuesnet:

NoëmieDuhaut,TheEuropeanisationofFrenchJews:French-JewishPerceptionsofJewsinSoutheastEurope,

1840-1880(completedJanuary2017)ZuzannaKrzemień,SolomonDubnoandtheImpactofEasternEuropeanJewishLearningontheGerman-

JewishEnlightenmentNataliaRomik,Post-JewisharchitectureinformereasternEuropeanshtetls(UCLBartlettSchoolforArchitecture,secondsupervisor)LilyKahn:PaulMoore,ASyntacticAnalysisofTargumCanticles(secondsupervisor)

DeborahFisher,ACriticalEditionofTargumEcclesiastes(secondsupervisor)BenWhittle,TheTranslationoftheBiblicalHebrewVerbalStemsintheSeptuagint(secondsupervisor)SachaStern:

KineretSittig,AcriticaleditionwithtranslationandcommentaryofIggerethaShabbatbyAbrahamibn

Ezra(completionexpected2018).JosephCitron,ThecontoursofspiritualityintheSeventeenthCentury:R.IsaiahHorowitz'sShelahasa

visionofJewishPietismYonatanBirnbaum,InclusivismintheWorksofTwentiethCenturyJewishAmericanOrthodoxPosqim

Southampton:

ShirliGilbert:

KasiaDziekan,Polish-ZionistrelationsintheinterwarperiodLauraMusker,JewsandCatholicsinPiedmont,1938-45

AbiMcKee,BalletmusicinNazi-occupiedParisScottSaunders,HolocausttourisminPolandSusanWachowski,HolocaustmemoryintheGDR

OngoingResearchProjects:

ShirliGilbert,Southampton:3-yearBritish-AcademyfundedprojectwithProfessorDeborahPoselattheUniversityofCapeTown:'SouthAfricanJewsandtheHolocaust-Israel-ApartheidTriangle'LilyKahn,UCL:

AHRCEarlyCareerLeadershipFellowship(2015-17):'TheFirstHebrewShakespeareTranslations'PhilipLeverhulmePrize(2017-19):'AReferenceGrammarofMaskilicHebrew'EmilyMichaelson,StAndrews:

AHRCEarlyCareerLeadershipFellowship(2017-19):‘ImaginaryJewsinEarlyModernRome’BritishAcademymid-careerFellowship(2016-17)SachaStern,UCL:

ERCproject(2013-2018):‘CalendarsinLateAntiquityandtheMiddleAges:StandardizationandFixation’

BAJSBulletin201728

STUDY ONLINE WITH THE WOOLF INSTITUTE Our online courses offer individuals the opportunity to interact with interesting and like-minded people from all over the world and from all walks of life. Further details: http://www.woolf.cam.ac.uk/study/e-learning/ Jews, Christians and Muslims in Europe: Modern Challenges This timely online course focuses on the relationships between Jews, Christians and Muslims in modern Europe. Running for the 7th time, the course is multidisciplinary and examines historical trends, religious and cultural interaction, and issues of contemporary citizenship. Further details: http://www.woolf.cam.ac.uk/study/e-learning/jcme.asp Representations of Jewish-Christian Relations in Literature Literature is a powerful tool which can influence the way readers think and act. Evoking strong feelings and offering vivid imagery, literature can perpetuate age-old misconceptions, untruths and stereotypes. This online course will provide participants with the opportunity to engage with various texts from English Literature through the lens of interfaith studies, to understand the narrative of deep-seated prejudices and to recognise the value of dialogue to dispel these views. Further details: http://www.woolf.cam.ac.uk/study/e-learning/rjcrl.asp Bridging the Great Divide: the Jewish-Muslim Encounter No two world religions are closer in belief and practice than Judaism and Islam, yet today, Jewish-Muslim interactions are often the source of intense religious conflict. Returning for its 6th year, this course will explore the history, culture and theology of Muslims and Jews, reflecting both on similarities and differences as well as discussing the major challenges. Further details: http://www.woolf.cam.ac.uk/study/e-learning/mj.asp Religion is… Many of the misunderstandings and misinterpretations surrounding religion today stem from a lack of study as well as scrutiny. This course will provide participants with an introduction to religion and will allow anyone who has a thirst for knowledge to discover narratives and stories and to travel through time and reflect on key events and historical moments. Further details: http://www.woolf.cam.ac.uk/study/e-learning/religion-is.asp Interreligious Understanding Today As we live in an age of increasing plurality but also instability, the need for interreligious understanding, which is grounded on solid academic research and in touch with the realities of interreligious encounter, is greater than ever. This course will provide a forum in which participants will explore different kinds of interreligious understanding between Abrahamic religions and beyond and compare the ways in which such understanding can be achieved in different cultural and political contexts in the world. Further details: http://www.woolf.cam.ac.uk/study/e-learning/interreligious-understanding.asp

BAJSBulletin2017 29

BritishAssociationforJewishStudiesAnnualConference2017

Edinburgh10-12July2017

British Association for Jewish Studies Conference 2017

Jews on the Move Exploring the movement of Jews, objects, texts, and ideas in space and time

Keynote speakers:

Prof. Charlotte Hempel (Birmingham) Prof. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (New York / Warsaw) Prof. Tony Kushner (Southampton) Prof. Hana Wirth-Nesher (Tel-Aviv)

10-12 July 2017 New College, Mound Place, Edinburgh, EH1 2LX

More Information http://wp.me/P2HpFu-bo

Image: The Long Road West, © Tony Gilbert 2017

The conference is supported by: The Astaire Seminar Series in Jewish Studies

‘JewsontheMove:ExploringthemovementofJews,objects,texts,and

ideasinspaceandtime’

TheconferenceisorganisedbyDrHannahHoltschneideronbehalfoftheBritishAssociationforJewishStudies(BAJS),incooperationwiththeSchoolofDivinityattheUniversityofEdinburgh.

Wegratefullyacknowledgethefollowinggrantsreceivedinsupportoftheconference:

• theEuropeanAssociationforJewishStudies(EAJS).• theAstaireSeminarSeriesinJewishStudies

Confirmedkeynotespeakers:

• ProfessorCharlotteHempel(Birmingham):Peopleandideasonthemove:theevidencefromQumran

• ProfessorTonyKushner(Southampton):Jewsasrefugees:specialornot?• ProfessorBarbaraKirshenblatt-Gimblett(NewYork/Warsaw):ExpandedGeography:An

EpiloguetotheHistoryofPolishJewsatPOLINMuseum• ProfessorHanaWirth-Nesher(TelAviv):ToMove,toTranslate,ToWrite:JewishAmerican

ImmigrantVoices

Conference programme Sunday 9th July 16:00-18:00. BAJS Committee Meeting. Senate Room. 15:30-17:00. Jewish Edinburgh on Foot.

Optional walking tour of historic Jewish neighbourhoods in Edinburgh. Meet at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Royal Mile. The walk will end at the synagogue in Salisbury Road. 18:30. Informal dinner in local restaurant. Tbc.

Monday 10th July 08:30-09:00. Registration. Foyer. Registration will remain open until 11:00. 09:00:10:30. Welcome by Dr Hannah Holtschneider and Dr Peter Hayman. Elizabeth Templeton Room. Keynote Lecture by Professor Charlotte Hempel. Elizabeth Templeton Room. Chair: Professor Timothy Lim. People and Ideas on the Move: the evidence from Qumran. The settlement by the north western shore of the Dead Sea occupied by a Jewish movement from the 1st c. BCE onwards has for a long time been seen as indicative of the move of a small Jewish community into isolated withdrawal away from Jerusalem. More recently such a perception has been challenged both by archaeologists and experts on the literature from Qumran. This paper will suggest that, by contrast, the Scrolls tell us a great deal about the temple, the establishment, scribal practices and elites. Even if there was a move from Jerusalem then much of the culture and learning moved with those Jews from Jerusalem to the Judean Desert making Qumran, paradoxically, an outstanding resource on key aspects of Second Temple Jerusalem intellectual and religious life.

10:30-11:00. Refreshments. Rainy Hall. 11:00-12:30. Session 1 Medieval

travels Chair: Ben Outhwaite

Elizabeth Templeton

Tavim, José Mucznik, Lucia

Jews in the archives, moving Jews: results on a project concerning "Portuguese Jewish mediaeval sources"

Commachi, Maria Vittoria

A son of exile: the case of Leone Ebreo through his poetical and philosophical works

Fuchs, Uziel Isaac the son of Moses of Vienna - a 13th century traveling scholar

Postgraduate

funding

applications in

(post-)Brexit

Europe

Chair: Marton Ribary

Martin Hall Mia Spiro & ERI representative

The training event is dedicated to Postgraduate and Early Career Research members. A short presentation about how North American and British funding policies compare, followed by a talk about the UK's changing funding landscape and its European context. The short presentations aim to generate discussion about funding structures and strategies, and how to approach funding applications in (post-)Brexit Europe. Senior members of the Association are most welcome to join the discussion.

Social Thought

in Rabbinic

Literature

Chair: Renate Smithuis

Althaus-Reid

Schvarcz, Benjamin

Conflicting political views of Palestinian and Babylonian rabbis: questioning the status of city inhabitants

Fenton, Miri Rabbinic social thought meets medieval migration: responsa literature as a bridge between social thought and everyday life

Feuchtwanger, David

The exegetical transition from the celestial to the terrestrial in post-destruction rabbinic Judaism

Memories of

places, spaces,

and things

Chair: Hannah Holtschneider

Oldham/ Porteous

Lieberman, Sue

Invisible baggage: silent memory and lost history, 1880-1914

Hirsh, Anna Transcendent reunions: vanished places in new spaces

Szczepan-Wojnarska, Anna

Shadows of the success stories

Negotiating

collective

boundaries:

Israeli

perspectives

on Jews and

Jewishness

Chair: Tsila Ratner

Baillie Zion-Waldoks, Tanya

The politics of making yourself at home: orthodox women activists in Israel's unhomely rabbinic courts

Asscher, Omri "Philip Roth, come home!" Jewish-American literature in Israeli Eyes

Sherzer, Adi The Jewish collective and the Israeli narrative: world Jewry as presented in Israel's first Independence Days

Religion,

philosophy,

Zionism

Chair: Yulia Egorova

Senate Chertok, Ted Two case studies in mobility of religious philosophies: S.R. Hirsch and A.J. Heschel

Patterson, David

From Galut to Galui: Exile, revelation, and a tenuous redemption in Jewish thinking about Jewish history

Katz, Malka The Israeli religious Zionists' attitude to the traditions of Mizrahi and Sephardi Immigrants - ethnicity, religiosity, and national identity

12:30-13:30. Lunch. Rainy Hall.

13:30-15:00. Session 2 Russia, USSR,

Far East

Chair: Gabriel Finder

Elizabeth Templeton

Segev, Dror "And There I Stood in Awe, Watching": Zev Wolf-Schur (1844-1910), A European Jew in the Far East

Shulman, Nelly The image of the Jewish autonomous Region in Russian-language USSR media of the 1930s

Belsky, Natalie Contested identities in displacement: Jewish evacuees and refugees on the Soviet Home Front during the Second World War

Jewish

literature

Chair: Peter Davies

Martin Hall Ratner, Tsila An American tale: Dvora Baron's "America" as a prototype of migration narratives

Rabinovich, Irene

Rebekah Hyneman's private and religious poetry: a portrait of the artist in exile

Koplowitz-Breier, Anat

A Jewish poet on the move: movement and dislocation in Shirley Kaufman's poetry

Pilgrimages

and other

journeys

Chair: Maria Cioată

Althaus-Reid

Dal Bo, Federico

Importing mysticism from the Orient: Jewish "Orientalism" in the 11th century travelogue "The Chronicle of Ahima'az"

Freedman, Marci

Tomb tours to the Holy Land: exploring Jewish pilgrimages in the Middle Ages

Griffiths, Toni England's Medieval Jews and Travelling with the Dead

Jewish travel

in the Roman

world

Chair: Helen Spurling

Oldham/ Porteous

van ‘t Westeinde, Jessica

All roads lead to Rome: "Jewish" travel to the centre of the Empire in the later Roman (Amoraic) Period

Schneidenbach, Esther

The migration background of Jews in ancient Rome

Bay, Carson Twice Beyond the Euphrates: immigration, social capital, and Josephus' account of the Second Temple's beginnings

Memory, the

nation, and

Jerusalem

Chair: David Patterson

Baillie Zered, Eliran "Torah of the Heart": the metaphors shaping Ahad Ha'am's Conception of the Jewish nation

Cohen, Boaz Israeli Holocaust memory in Israeli spaces: a new look at commemoration, memory and space

Zaban, Hila Transforming the Holy City: cultural and spatial effects caused by Western Jews moving to Jerusalem

Jews in Britain

and America

Chair: Mia Spiro

Senate Breuer, Edward German Jews, the Bible, and acculturation in Victorian England

Birnbaum, Yoni Inclusivism in the works of twentieth century American orthodox poskim

Kita, Miyuki Conveying justice to the South: American Jews in the Civil Rights Movement

15:00-15:30. Refreshments. Quad. 15:30-17:00. Session 3 Books,

manuscripts,

and archives

Chair: Andrea Schatz

Elizabeth Templeton

Silverstri, Stefania

Beyond a closed box: a Yeminite Pentateuch manuscript, its box binding and production models

Keim, Katharina

The sale and export of Samaritan manuscripts to Western collections in the early twentieth century: a comparative analysis of the Samaritan collecting of Moses Gaster, E.K. Warren, and William E. Barton

Urban, Susanne

The Worms Machzor: a book on the move from 'Warmaisa to Jerusalem'

World War II

Chair: Larry Ray Martin Hall Largillière,

Florence Conflicting identities: discourses of French and Italian Jewish veterans faced with racial laws

Barre, Delphine

Art in exile, memory of exile? Jewish women refugee artists in France at the dawn of the Second World War

Dvorkin, Yehuda

The meanings and motives of the transfer of cultural property from the British zone of occupation in Germany

Medieval

exegesis and

travel

Chair: Stephen Bowd

Althaus-Reid

Viezel, Eran Exegesis which move and the paradox of the plain meaning: a melancholy reading of Jewish exegesis on the Pentateuch in the Middle Ages

Sklarz, Miriam The forefathers' journeys mark their descendants' path - from passivity to activism in Nachmanides' typological exegesis

Geula, Amos Journeys of the author of Seder Eliyahu Rabba in the Diaspora of Israel - real or fiction?

The Hebrew

Bible, codices,

and other

manuscripts

Chair: Ann Conway-Jones

Oldham/ Porteous

Zellentin, Holger

The Biblical basis of the rabbinic Noahide Laws: a new approach to an old problem

Outhwaite, Ben

On the biography of Samuel b. Jacob, scribe of Codex Leningradensis

Sandman, Israel

Constants and variables within faithful manuscript transmission

Jews in/and

the military

Chair: Maria Diemling

Baillie Lederhendler, Eli

Military service as a Jewish migration vector

Finder, Gabriel Jakob Rosenfeld: a Jewish doctor in Mao Zedong's People's Liberation Army

Breier, Idan Jews on the move 2005: Hanan Porat's use of the Bible to Describe the evacuation of Gush Katif

Jewish Space

and Travel in

Roman

Alexandria

Chair: Peter Hayman

Senate Hartog, Barry Space and travel in Philo's Legatio ad Gaium

Adams, Sean Movement and Travel in Philo's Migration of Abraham: The Adaptation of Genesis and the Introduction of Metaphor

Rajak, Tessa Josephus and Alexandria

17:15-18:15. Launch of Festschrift for Philip Alexander. Elizabeth Templeton Room. 18:15-19:00. Wine Reception. Quad. Welcome to the School of Divinity and the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences by Professor Paul Foster, Head of the School of Divinity. 19:00-21:00. Dinner. Rainy Hall.

Tuesday 11th July 08:30-09:00. Registration. Foyer. Registration will remain open until 11:00. 09:00-10:30. Keynote Lecture by Professor Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. Elizabeth Templeton Room. Chair: Dr Eva Frojmovic. Expanded geography: an epilogue to the history of Polish Jews at POLIN Museum. An estimated 70 percent of the world's Jewish population can trace its history to the historical territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, today Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, and neighboring regions. This territory was once home to the largest Jewish community in the world. Today, as a result of mass emigration, from the second half of the nineteenth century, and the Holocaust, it is home to the smallest. Facing the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes on the site of the Warsaw ghetto and prewar Jewish neighborhood, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews presents the thousand-year history of Jews living in this territory. That history is not complete without the story of those who left. The epilogue, which is now being developed, explores the following questions: Where did Jews from this territory go? What did they take with them? How does the legacy of the civilization created by Polish Jews shape their lives today? 10:30-11:00. Refreshments. Rainy Hall. 11:00-12:30. Session 4 Jewish Law,

and the

Talmud

Chair: Barry Hartog

Elizabeth Templeton

Shrell-Fox, Paul; Palmer, Craig

Jewish Law and Ritual as Explicit Long-Term Evolutionary Strategy to Leave-Descendants

Katz, Menachem

Moving words - the travels of Talmudic manuscripts

Israeli, Anat Mother Babylonia and Fatherland of Israel: the story of Rav Asi and his mother

Education

Chair: Katharina Keim

Martin Hall Conway-Jones, Ann

Moving between history and theology: teaching early Jewish-Christian relations in the context of Christian ministerial formation

Cioată, Maria Dr Moses Gaster's Istoria Biblica on the move

Bamberger, Annette

French-Jewish youth on the move: a case study of motivations and decision-making processes for undergraduate study in Israel

Jewish Lives,

Scottish

Spaces

Chair: Natalie Wynn

Althaus-Reid

Spiro, Mia The Dybbuk in the archive: the haunting of Glasgow's Jewish Arts Festival 1951

Holtschneider, Hannah

The rabbi and the archive: Rabbi Dr Salis Daiches and Scotland's Jewish history

Alexander, Phil

From Vitebsk to Glasgow: a tale of two cantors

Early modern

journeys

Chair: Stephen Bowd

Oldham/ Porteous

Andreatta, Michela

Chthonic journeys in the Hebrew Baroque: Moses Zacuto's Tofteh 'Arukh

Aguilar, Susan Seder Nashim: text and context in a 16th century Sephardic diaspora prayer book for women

Smithuis, Renate

Donning borrowed clothes: Judah Halevi, Ibn Kammuna and Shi'i Theology

The Bible, and

art

Chair: Sean Adams

Baillie Sawyer, John "Then my people shall dwell in a peaceful habitation": hearing the voice of Isaiah in the diaspora

Tzion, Orit The dispute prophet - a look at two Hebrew biblical inscriptions in two pieces of Christian art

McDonald, Chad

A "remarkable turn": St Paul's Cathedral and the Holocaust sculptures

Apocalyptic

texts,

astronomy,

epitaphs

Chair: Holger Zellentin

Senate Spurling, Helen

The Representation of the Arabs in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature

Gordin, Alexander

Astronomical texts from Iranian and Sephardic regions among the Jewish scholars of late medieval Constantinople

Saar, Ortal-Paz

Emotions in late-antique Jewish epitaphs: Palestine and the Diaspora

12:30-13:30. Lunch. Rainy Hall.

13:30-15:30. Session 5. 20th century

dislocations:

migration and

displacement

in a museum

/heritage

context

Chair: Eva Frojmovic

Elizabeth Templeton

Kochavi, Shir Jewish heirless cultural property in the aftermath of World War II

Findling, Heather

Serge Sabarsky: Renegotiating Austrian Cultural Heritage

Pieren, Kathrin The wandering Jew as archetypal (im)migrant? Jewish museums and the migration narrative

Cohen, Julie-Marthe; Heimann-Jelinek, Felicitas

Handbook on Judaica Provenance and Quovadience Research

Holocaust

memory

Chair: Mia Spiro

Martin Hall Stępień, Monika

The return of Polish Jews to their home towns in light of personal accounts

Cholewinska, Dominika

Divided memory: Polish-Jewish relations during the Second World War

Williams, Amy The fictionalisation of the Kindertransports: The loss and rediscovery of the self

Papier, Sylwia Representations of the Holocaust in contemporary monodrama: personal family stories on stage

Jews in

Ireland,

Scotland, and

England

Chair: Maria Diemling

Althaus-Reid

Wynn, Natalie The migration of an ideology: liberal Judaism in Ireland, 1946-1967

Sarg, Cristin Scottish Jewish "Madness": an examination of Jewish admissions to the Scottish Royal Asylums of Glasgow and Edinburgh and the impact on Jewish identity, spaces and places

Morawska, Lucia; Learman, Poppy

Galkoff's and the secret life of Pembroke Place: moving people, moving places

Travel

narratives,

travelling

archives

Chair: Tessa Rajak

Oldham/ Porteous

Grazi, Alessandro

A journey through time and space: David Levi's search for Jewish identity in his "Il mistero delle Tre Melarancie"

Zion, Eldad Emissaries from the Land of Dreams: depictions of Eretz Yisra'el in 18th century writings of Shadarim

Münz-Manor, Ophir

Literature, history and the production of travel narratives in Judah Al-Harizi's Tahkemoni and Zachariah Al-Dahri's Sefer Hamusar

Vasyutinsky, Daria

How the private archive and library of Avraham Harkavy made their way to Kiev and what came out of it

Jewish-Muslim

encounters,

religious

studies

Chair: Maria Cioată

Baillie Şamlıoğlu -Berk, Zehra

An Alliance impact: agricultural schools and class consciousness within Ottoman Jewry

Kozłowska, Magdalena

"I saw strange things and strange Jews, who we are not aware of": Jews from Islamic countries seen by Polish Jews in the 1920s and 1930s

Egorova, Yulia Jews, Muslims, India: ethnographic reflections on security, religion and race

Reicher, Rosa Gershom Scholem: Scholar between Atheism and Secularism

Optional visit

to the Centre

for Research

Collections in

the Main

Library,

George Square

Meet in the Foyer at 13:30

During this session, you will have a rare chance to go behind the scenes at the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Research Collections (CRC), home to the University's historic collections, spanning rare books, museum objects, musical instruments, fine art and archives. Louise Williams, Archivist at Lothian Health Services Archive (LHSA), will introduce you to some of our treasures and lead a tour of the places researchers don't normally get to see. You'll have the opportunity to view star collection items related to Jewish Studies 'up close' (including a story of emigration to Scotland in the 1930s) and visit a store and conservation studio, learning how staff preserve the treasures of the CRC. In a visit to the Digital Imaging Unit, you'll see University collections reaching global audiences and technology helping evidence of the past be understood in new ways.

15:00-15:30. Refreshments. Rainy Hall. 15:30-17:00. Keynote Lecture by Professor Hana Wirth-Nesher. Elizabeth Templeton Room. Chair: Professor Peter Davies To move, to translate, to write: Jewish American immigrant voices. An immigrant's geographical journey is followed by a linguistic and cultural one, where translation both to and from the mother tongue and culture becomes a daily preoccupation. Since not every word or concept is translatable, immigrant writers are often drawn to untranslatability, which they dramatize as moments of estrangement. This lecture will examine the significance of diverse forms of the untranslatable in the works of Jewish immigrant writers who wrote both in English and in Yiddish, among them Isaac Raboy, Lamed Shapiro, Mary Antin, Henry Roth, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. This keynote is part of the Astaire Seminar Series in Jewish Studies. 17:00-18:00. BAJS AGM. Elizabeth Templeton Room. 18:00-20:00. Dinner. Rainy Hall.

Wednesday 12th July 09:00-10:30. Keynote Lecture by Professor Tony Kushner. Elizabeth Templeton Room. Chair: Dr Tim Buchen Jewish Refugees and Other Forced Migrants: From Exodus 1947 to Lampedusa In the 1930s and 40s, tens of thousands of Jews tried to reach Palestine by sea, many against the wishes of the British mandatory authorities. Today, the number of migrants trying to reach Europe across the Mediterranean has run into the millions. This keynote will explore the continuities and parallels, as well as differences, between the two movements and especially the idea of migrants being 'illegal'. More generally it asks whether Jewish refugees from Nazism can be better understood in a longer tradition of forced migration in and beyond the twentieth century or whether their experiences were exceptional. 10:30-11:00. Refreshments. Rainy Hall. 11:00-12:30. Sessions 6

Religion in

America and

Europe

Chair: Phil Alexander

Elizabeth Templeton

Glenn, Susan "The wooden shoe on the other foot": how the Finaly and Beekman Affairs crossed the Atlantic in the 1950s

Weber, Donald On and Off the Derech: A Family Story

Grill, Tobias From West to East: German Rabbis and the "regeneration" of East European Jewry

Jews on the

run

Chair: Hannah Holtschneider

Martin Hall Jones, Rory The wandering revolutionary Jew? The emigration, exile and identity of Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919)

Rohatyn, Dennis

What made Einstein run?

Ben-Horin, Michal

Story on the move: Seghers and Benjamin between biography and fiction

Objects and

Memory

Chair: Kathrin Pieren

Althaus-Reid

Wallen, Jeffrey The migration of objects and the trusteeship of memory

Newmark, Serena

Berlin to Melbourne: Jewish German modern art photography in transit

Nezer, Orly The Jewish experience and ceramics

Early modern

Jewish

communities

Chair: Stefania Silvestri

Oldham/ Porteous

Borysek, Martin

Jewish communities in a moving world: reflexions on exile, expulsions and the diaspora existence in early modern takknot ha-kahal

Schatz, Andrea Exploring links and lineages: Abraham Zacut's Sefer Yuhasin in Cracow

Jánošíková, Magdaléna

"Peaceful, safe, and quiet was my home": transforming self-portrayals through the case study of Eliezer Eilburg

The land of

Israel in

Midrash and

medieval texts

Chair: Helen Spurling

Baillie Pearce, Sarah; Salvesen, Alison

Israel in Egypt: Jewish identity in an Egyptian setting, from Elephantine to the Cairo Geniza

Cordoni, Constanza

The land of Israel in late midrash

Spaces,

places,

memories

Chair: Larry Ray

Senate Hultman, Maja "Up here in high north": Jewish movements of multiplicity in 1930s Stockholm

Ockova, Katarina

Uncovering the family secret: temporality, politics and young people learning about their Jewishness in post-socialist Slovakia

Gramstrup, Louise

A moving memoir of a Jewish journey: developing understanding of religious identities by engaging with textual "others"

12:30-13:30. Lunch. Rainy Hall. 13:30-15:00. Session 7 Scotland's

Jews:

migration,

research and

resources

Chair: Gabriel Finder

Elizabeth Templeton

Tobias, Michael

The ancestral origins and dispersal of Scottish Jewry

Collins, Kenneth

The Jewish experience in Scotland: writing a new narrative

Kaplan, Harvey Documenting Jewish immigrants in Scotland

Habsburg

Galicia as the

space of

Jewish

migration and

mobility

Chair: Tim Buchen

Chebotarov, Oleksii

Borderland as a point of passage: movement of Jewish migrants from the Russian Empire through Habsburg Galicia

Janik-Freis, Elisabeth

La trata de blancas – Trafficking in Jewish women from Galicia to South America, 1880–1914.

Moskalets, Vladyslava

Challenging the common pattern: migration of Galician Jewish elites at the edge of the 20th century

Jews in

America

Chair: David Patterson

Althaus-Reid

Kuchirko, Oksana

"Americanization" and liberalisation of United States Jewry in the middle of the 19th century (based on diaries)

Sakal, Vered Land of the free - the encounter between Judaism and Liberalism in the New World

Shalev, Alon The "Yeshiva" comes to America

Migration, the

press, and

genealogy

Chair: Helen Spurling

Oldham/ Porteous

Sperber, Haim Yiddish newspapers and mass immigration, 1897-1924

Wallman, Adrienne

Forging new Jewish identities, reclaiming Jewish pasts: spiritual and physical journeys of Jewish genealogists

McCarthy, Angela; Evans, Nicholas

Jewish epitaphs in global perspective

Religious

texts, and

liturgy

Chair: Louise Gramstrup

Baillie Roos, Avraham

Taking the Pesach Haggadah through time and space: why so many flies in English Haggadot?

Horakova, Jana

19th century discussions about the Talmudic origin of Hevra Kaddisha in German-speaking areas

Borts, Barbara The Shabbos journey of the Jew: entering the synagogue and stepping into Shabbat

Travelling

writers,

rabbis, and

mystics

Chair: Phil Alexander

Senate Stuerzenhofecker, Katja

Displaying religious Jews in Jewish Studies classrooms

Marx, Farina; Freis, David

Migration, translation, and the search for ecstasy: Fischl Schneersohn's 'science of man' between modern psychology and Hasidic mysticism

Richardson, Alasdair

Travelling witnesses –students encountering Jewish narratives at Auschwitz Birkenau

END OF CONFERENCE.

BAJSBulletin201739

BAJSCommittee

PRESIDENTandCONFERENCE2017ORGANISER:DrHannahHoltschneider:SchoolofDivinity,UniversityofEdinburgh,NewCollege,MoundPlace,EdinburghEH12LX.Email:H.Holtschneider@ed.ac.uk

TREASURER:DrHolgerZellentin:FacultyofArts,UniversityofNottingham,HumanitiesBuilding,UniversityPark,NottinghamNG72RD.Email:Holger.Zellentin@nottingham.ac.uk

SECRETARY:DrHelenSpurling:History,FacultyofHumanities,AvenueCampus,UniversityofSouthampton,SouthamptonSO171BFEmail:h.spurling@southampton.ac.uk

BULLETINEDITOR:DrMariaDiemling:SchoolofHumanities,CanterburyChristChurchUniversity,NorthHolmesRoad,CanterburyCT11QU.Email:maria.diemling@canterbury.ac.uk

WEBOFFICER:DrZuleikaRodgers,DepartmentofNearandMiddleEasternStudies,ArtsBuilding,TrinityCollege,Dublin2,Ireland.Email:rodgersz@tcd.ie

STUDENTREPRESENTATIVE:MartonRibary:CentreforJewishStudies,DepartmentofReligionsandTheology,UniversityofManchester,OxfordRoad,Manchester,M139PL.Email:marton.ribary@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

Prof.NathanAbrams(until2021),SchoolofCreativeStudiesandMedia,BangorUniversity,GwyneddLL572DG.Email:n.abrams@bangor.ac.uk

DrYuliaEgorova(PresidentElect2018):DepartmentofAnthropology,DurhamUniversity,DawsonBuilding,SouthRoad,DurhamDH13LE.Email:yulia.egorova@durham.ac.uk

DrEvaFrojmovic(until2020),CentreforJewishStudies,SchoolofFineArt,HistoryofArtandCulturalStudies,UniversityofLeeds,LeedsLS29JT.Email:clsef@leeds.ac.uk

DrFrançoisGuesnet(until2020),DepartmentofHebrew&JewishStudies,UniversityCollegeLondon,GowerStreet,LondonWC1E6BT.Email:f.guesnet@ucl.ac.uk

DrCharlotteHempel(until2017),SchoolofPhilosophy,TheologyandReligion,UniversityofBirmingham,Edgbaston,BirminghamB152TT.Email:c.hempel@bham.ac.uk

Prof.LarryRay(until2020),SchoolofSocialPolicy,SociologyandSocialResearch,TheUniversityofKent,Canterbury,KentCT27NZ.Email:L.J.Ray@kent.ac.uk

DrJamesRenton(until2021),DepartmentofEnglishandHistory,EdgeHillUniversity,StHelensRoad,Ormskirk,LancashireL394QP.Email:James.Renton@edgehill.ac.uk

DrAndreaSchatz(until2019),DepartmentofTheology&ReligiousStudies,King’sCollegeLondon,22Kingsway,LondonWC2B2LE.E-mail:andrea.schatz@kcl.ac.uk