David Wasserstein | Vanderbilt University (original) (raw)

Papers by David Wasserstein

Translations of the Bible into the vernacular language of the Jews of the Genizah world, Arabic, ... more Translations of the Bible into the vernacular language of the Jews of the Genizah world, Arabic, are widely known and preserved in hundreds, if not thousands, of manuscript copies. Less well-known, and less frequently found, are translations of important rabbinic texts. T.-S. E1.124 (one page of it pictured below) is part of the Mishnaic tractate Kelim, with a translation in Judeo-Arabic interspersed every few lines. Jacob N. Epstein published this and another related fragment in 1950. As he pointed out, the translation demonstrates that the Mishnah was being studied by people who needed a version in their daily language. The format reminds us of modern-day Loeb editions of Greek and Latin texts, with Greek or Latin on the left-hand pages facing English versions on the right. Epstein argued that the presence here of passages from two tractates, Eduyot and Kelim, shows that in all likelihood the entire Mishnah was translated in the manuscript from which these pages come.

Al-Qanṭara, 2019

I recently published an article, in a collection of studies of Jewish orientalists dedicated to B... more I recently published an article, in a collection of studies of Jewish orientalists dedicated to Bernard Lewis on his eightieth birthday, dealing with the life and work ofEvariste Lévi-Proven9al. 1 I suggested there that there seemed to be sorne little mystery attached to that scholar's identity, especially insofar as concerns his name. I said that «According to the late Eliyahu Ashtor ... this scholar's name was actually Mabkhush», adding that it was not clear whether Ashtor meant by this to refer to Lévi-Proven9al's first name or to his family name. 2 In the article as a whole, I argued that, beyond the matter of his name, the identity of Lévi-Proven9al left a number of questions unresolved. This most important of ali the students of al-Andalus, Islamic Spain, in the twentieth century seemed to know nothing of the important cultural legacy of the Jews of that country. Despite the bulk and the significance of what remains of their writings, mainly but not entirely in Hebrew (and Aramaic), Lévi-Proven9al seemed wholly unaware of the contents of these works, and treated of the Jews there, in one of the great periods of Jewish history, as of any small and unimportant minority in any other part of the Islamic world in any period. The Jewry of which Lévi-Proven9al himself was a product, moreover, that of North Africa, was in part and saw itself as an extension of that Iberian Jewry of the middle ages. lt would have been natural to expect Lévi-Proven9al, as a Jew with such a background, to devote special attention to the Jews of al-Andalus and to

Kernos, 2018

Centre international d'étude de la religion grecque antique

Al-qantara, 1999

Islamic numismatics has a long history.̂ Nearly half a century ago, the late Richard Ettinghausen... more Islamic numismatics has a long history.̂ Nearly half a century ago, the late Richard Ettinghausen wrote of the «head start» enjoyed by numismatics, «which put it in advance of all other branches of Muslim art and archeology».̂ It can be said to have its remote origins in the eighteenth century, when Islamic coins minted between the eighth and the eleventh centuries began to turn up in some numbers in north European areas round the Baltic, in Scandinavia, in northern Germany and in Russia, the product of lengthy medieval trade routes. The first real evidence of scholarly interest in such coins lies in the appearance in 1724 of George Jacob Kehr's study of their inscriptions.^ And as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century, we see the establishment in a long series of publications by C. M. Fraehn, of the classification of the coins of Islam, and the arrangement of their issuing dynasties, which remains more or less the standard to our own day.̂ The next hundred years witn...

Seismological Research Letters

Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (1126–1198), the famous Muslim philosopher, reported an earthquake in the re... more Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (1126–1198), the famous Muslim philosopher, reported an earthquake in the region of Cordoba (Spain) in the twelfth century. The information in his reports is self‐contradictory. We have several other reports of the same event, which are themselves not always very clear. I am now attempting to clarify the problems and offer an analysis of the available information.

Al-Qanṭara

El período entre la caída de los Omayas de Córdoba y la emergencia de los estados sucesores está ... more El período entre la caída de los Omayas de Córdoba y la emergencia de los estados sucesores está muy poco claro. En este artículo intento ofrecer un microestudio del proceso, usando fuentes escritas y numismáticas, en lo que respecta a Toledo, así como la lista de sus gobernantes en las primeras décadas del siglo v. Una lista mucho más larga de la que se conocía. Dada la importancia de Toledo como ciudad fronteriza, es particularmente importante dilucidar el proceso de transferencia de la autoridad en ese lugar y en ese tiempo. Los jefes locales no parecen haber atribuido mucha importancia a la ciudad mientras que la población local parece dispuesta a aceptar cualquier gobernante que les defienda de la amenaza cristiana. El estudio muestra el valor potencial de microestudios para iluminar aspectos más amplios tales como facciones rivales en las ciudades, pero también pone de relieve el punto de vista metropolitano y las limitaciones de nuestras fuentes. Se añaden tres apéndices en l...

Les non-dits du nom. Onomastique et documents en terres d'Islam, 2000

One of the features of a career as varied as it has been fruitful is the interest for and devotio... more One of the features of a career as varied as it has been fruitful is the interest for and devotion to the character of the sources of our knowledge that Jacqueline Sublet has demonstrated over many years 1. This trait appears also in the pleasure that she so visibly took from seeing, on an early visit to London, her name emblazoned everywhere in people's windows-"Sublet", announcing flats to let. Both reflect a delight in the details of texts, little words, half-unnoticed expressions which nevertheless mean much for the correct, even the intimate, understanding of the whole. These unnoticed details, each in itself, do not mean much ; it is only in the slow, gradual, erratic accumulation of these details, over many years, across many a study, produced by numberless researchers in the community of scholarship, that we begin, bit by bit, to understand that whole. in the lines that follow, dedicated to a respected colleague and a good friend, i should like to offer an essay, rigorous i hope in her own style, in how to interpret details in our sources.

Sefarad Revista De Estudios Hebraicos Y Sefardies, 1983

Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09518968708569519, Jun 2, 2008

Speculum, 2005

Page 1. Cultural Memory Our Place in al-Andalus&quot; KABBALAH, PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE IN... more Page 1. Cultural Memory Our Place in al-Andalus&quot; KABBALAH, PHILOSOPHY, LITERATURE IN ARAB JEWISH LETTERS GIL ANIDJAR Page 2. Page 3. OUR PLACE IN AL-ANDALUS UK90-9TE-U4SK Page 4. Page 5. Cultural Memory in ii n» i ii mm» MI&#x27;«. ...

Revista De Filologia Espanola, 1991

Sefarad Revista De Estudios Hebraicos Y Sefardies, 1998

Al Qantara Revista De Estudios Arabes, 1992

Al Qantara Revista De Estudios Arabes, 2000

Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, 1987

Scripta Classica Israelica, 1998

Awraq Estudios Sobre El Mundo Arabe E Islamico Contemporaneo, 1997

Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 2006