Robert Chazan, “Introduction,” in Robert Chazan, ed., Medieval Jewish Life: Studies from the Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1976), vii-xiv (original) (raw)
Related papers
Parergon, 2015
Produced, as we shall see, in early Ottoman Cairo, the manuscript eventually known as BnF, MS Ar. 1 came to Europe with the collection of François Savary de Brèves, an adroit diplomat and outstanding Arabic and Turkish scholar of his time. 1 He served as ambassador of France to the Sublime Porte during the years 1591-1604. Upon the termination of his diplomatic service in Istanbul, Savary de Brèves embarked on a journey through the Levant, Egypt, and North Africa during which he eagerly collected manuscripts. Once more appointed to diplomatic service, he established a printing press in Rome, the Typographia Savariana. With the collaboration of Gabriel Sionita (Jibrīl al-Ṣaḥyūnī) and Vittorio Scialac Accurensis (Naṣr Allāh Shalaq al-'Aqūrī), whom he had recruited from the Maronite College, and Husain, a Turk from Buda, Savary de Brèves issued a Psalter in Arabic in 1614. e manuscript he had secured in Jerusalem. However, the book constituted a mere coup d'essai for a much larger project. It was his aspiration to print the entire bible in Arabic, and this time BnF, MS Ar. 1 would serve as a basis for this. e codex was most apt for his 'haute entreprise' , as he would call this printing project in his correspondence, since it contained the entire Old Testament. As a minor defect, it only omitted the Book of Ruth. Gabriel Sionita had already started transcribing the Pentateuch when Savary de Brèves was called back to France. De Brèves returned to his native country, taking with him not only the printing press and his manuscripts, but also his collaborators Gabriel Sionita and Vittorio Scialac Accurensis. Back in France, his 'haute entreprise' was soon absorbed by Cardinal du Perron's larger project of preparing an extended and improved version of the Antwerp Polyglot, issued by Christopher Plantin in 1569-72. However, funding di culties, the passing away of Savary de Brèves and Cardinal du Perron, the major patrons of the whole enterprise, and a lawsuit against Sionita caused severe delays to the project. e last volume of the Paris Polyglot only rolled o the press in 1645, more than a decade later than the rst. BnF, MS Ar. 1 was deposited at the Bibliothèque Colbert, and from there it was transferred to the Bibliothèque du Roi in 1753, which ultimately, mutatis mutandis, constituted the main source of the Ancien Fond at the Bibliothèque nationale. 2
2003
One of the most spectacular yet quiet revolutions in the modern study of the history of the Mediterranean world has resulted from the recovery just over a hundred years ago of the contents of an attic storehold in the Ben Ezra Synagogue of Old Cairo. The Cairo genizah (the technical, religious term applied to a storage area for consigning, or hiding away the worn remains of texts considered narrowly or generally sacred, or even heretical, but in either case unfit for ritual use), has yielded an unprecedented cache of more than 200,000 fragmentary documents, most of which date from the 9th through the 15th centuries CE. The story of a major part of this treasure trove, its origins, rediscovery and relocation from Cairo to Cambridge University, and the significance of its contents is the subject of this much needed survey by Stefan C. Reif
Texts and Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Judaism 14, 1999
Undoubtedly one of the most fascinating areas of Judaic research, Jewish manuscripts, has experienced a remarkable renaissance. What the field has largely lacked, however, is professional publications to bring together researchers who, albeit in different specialist areas (history, philosophy, Kabbalah, bibliography, art history, comparative manuscript studies, paleography and codicology), all deal variously with Hebrew manuscripts. This desideratum of Judaic scholarship appears all the more reasonable when we look at the situation of the classical philologies which have a long tradition of specialist publications devoted exclusively to the study of Latin and Greek manuscripts. The authors of the collected eight articles show the perspectives and the possibilities of such a discourse based on Jewish manuscripts within Judaic Studies; moreover numerous tie-ins with disciplines relating to general Medieval and early modern history and culture can be developed.
The European history of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism is mostly a story of misunderstanding and of a lack of mutual knowledge and respect in everyday life. This is true of academic life too which, for the most part, Jewish students were neither allowed to join nor actively participate in until the 19th century. A notable exception was the study of medicine in Renaissance Italy and the early modern period. As a positive element in this complicated relationship, I would also like to emphasize that Protestant academies in the 19 th century were sometimes more 'tolerant' than the negative stereotype generally assumed. My present paper will support this by revealing some forgotten details of academic life at the University of Halle where Wilhelm Gesenius was professor and where a relatively large number of rabbinical candidates became doctores philosophiae.
The Festschrift that follows honors a colleague for two pivotal roles that he has played in the field of hebrew and Judaic studies in the american university context. Through his books and articles, Robert Chazan has reshaped the study of european Jewry in the Middle ages, particularly as it relates to Jewish-Christian relations. at the same time, through his work in the major organizations representing the field of Judaic studies-the association for Jewish studies and the american academy for Jewish Research-Chazan has helped to build the field and to situate it firmly in the context of the american academy. additionally, through his service as founding chair of the skirball department of hebrew and Judaic studies at new York University, and later through his leadership of the dual-degree programs of the skirball department together with the Wagner school of public administration and the steinhardt school of education, he pioneered in making the university a place for the training of professionals dedicated to Jewish communal service and education. to all of these efforts he has consistently brought his impeccable scholarly credentials, his administrative acumen, and the integrity and friendship for which he is so well known. Chazan was born in 1936 and grew up in albany, new York, where he received his earliest hebrew education. In 1958 he earned his b.a. from Columbia College and b.h.L. from the Jewish Theological seminary. he received an M.h.L. and Rabbinical ordination from the seminary in 1962. during his years at the Jewish Theological seminary he was privileged to be part of the talmud program, which was essentially a program to train scholars. There he met and established permanent relationships with leading scholars who brought together deep understanding of traditional hebrew texts and critical historical inquiry. he went on to acquire his ph.d. at Columbia University, where he studied with salo baron and completed his dissertation under the supervision of Gerson Cohen in 1967. his dissertation was entitled Thirteenth-Century Jewry in Northern France: An Economic and Political History. This topic and the wider interest it indicated