New Books in Jewish Studies

Starting nearly a thousand years ago at the Ben Ezra Synagogue of Old Cairo, worn-out books and scrolls were put in the genizah, a storage area for sacred texts. In The Illustrated Cairo Genizah: A Visual Tour of Cairo Genizah Manuscripts at Cambridge Univertity Library (Gorgias Press, 2024), Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee tell the story of the genizah and show the journey of discovery through more than 125 years of research, showcasing over 300 stunning full-colour images, revealing forgotten stories of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities over a millennium of world history.In the nineteenth century, Scottish sisters Agnes and Margaret Smith brought manuscript pages back to England where Solomon Schechter recognized the lost Hebrew book of Ben Sira, also known as Ecclesiasticus or Sirach. Schechter then traveled to Cairo and toured the genizah, an attic chamber he described as a "windowless and doorless room of fair dimensions. The entrance is ... through a big, shapeless hole reached by a ladder." Over the millenia, hundreds and thousands of documents were buried in this attic crypt, vividly described by Schechter: "It is a battlefield of books, and the literary production of many centuries had their share in the battle ... some of the belligerents have perished outright, and are literally ground to dust in the terrible struggle for space".In addition to images of the book of Ben Sira, the collection includes fragments of the oldest known Latin edition of St Augustine's sermons, Origen's Hexapla, and a 5th or 6th century copy of Aquila's translation of Kings, approximately 60 manuscripts written by Moses Maimonides, and a medieval copy of the 'Damascus Document' which was confirmed as an ancient text by the discovery of another copy among the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumram in 1947. See visual examples of the collection online.Learn more about the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit.Recommended reading:  The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit edited by Nick Posegay, Magdalen M. Connolly, and Ben Outhwaite (open access edition available)  Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

She was the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, the longest-serving Labor Secretary, and an architect of the New Deal. Yet beyond these celebrated accomplishments there is another dimension to Frances Perkins’s story. Without fanfare, and despite powerful opposition, Perkins helped save the lives of countless Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany.“Immigration problems usually have to be decided in a few days. They involve human lives. There can be no delaying,” Perkins wrote in her memoir, The Roosevelt I Knew. In March 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Perkins was appointed Secretary of Labor by FDR. As Hitler rose to power, thousands of German-Jewish refugees and their loved ones reached out to the INS—then part of the Department of Labor—applying for immigration to the United States, writing letters that began “Dear Miss Perkins . . .”Perkins’s early experiences working in Chicago’s famed Hull House and as a firsthand witness to the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist fire shaped her determination to advocate for immigrants and refugees. As Secretary of Labor, she wrestled widespread antisemitism and isolationism, finding creative ways to work around quotas and restrictive immigration laws. Diligent, resilient, empathetic, yet steadfast, she persisted on behalf of the desperate when others refused to act.Based on extensive research, including thousands of letters housed in the National Archives, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany (Citadel Press, 2025) adds new dimension to an already extraordinary life story, revealing at last how one woman tried to steer the nation to a better, more righteous course. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

The Bible shaped nearly every aspect of Jewish life in the ancient world, from activities as obvious as attending synagogue to those which have lost their scriptural resonance in modernity, such as drinking water and uttering one’s last words. And within a scriptural universe, no work exerted more force than the Psalter, the most cherished text among all the books of the Hebrew Bible.A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) clarifies the world of late ancient Judaism through the versatile and powerful lens of the Psalter. It asks a simple set of questions: Where did late ancient Jews encounter the Psalms? How did they engage with the work? And what meanings did they produce? A. J. Berkovitz answers these queries by reconstructing and contextualizing a diverse set of religious practices performed with and on the Psalter, such as handling a physical copy, reading from it, interpreting it exegetically, singing it as liturgy, invoking it as magic and reciting it as an act of piety. His book draws from and contributes to the fields of ancient Judaism, biblical reception, book history and the history of reading.New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review.A. J. Berkovitz is Associate Professor of Associate Professor of Liturgy and Ancient Judaism at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Spaces of Treblinka: Retracing a Death Camp (U Nebraska Press, 2024) utilizes testimonies, oral histories, and recollections from Jewish, German, and Polish witnesses to create a holistic representation of the Treblinka death camp during its operation. This narrative rejects the historical misconception that Treblinka was an isolated Nazi extermination camp with few witnesses and fewer survivors. Rather than the secret, sanitized site of industrial killing Treblinka was intended to be, Jacob Flaws argues, Treblinka’s mass murder was well known to the nearby townspeople who experienced the sights, sounds, smells, people, bodies, and train cars the camp ejected into the surrounding world.Through spatial reality, Flaws portrays the conceptions, fantasies, ideological assumptions, and memories of Treblinka from witnesses in the camp and surrounding towns. To do so he identifies six key spaces that once composed the historical site of Treblinka: the ideological space, the behavioral space, the space of life and death, the interactional space, the sensory space, and the extended space. By examining these spaces Flaws reveals that there were more witnesses to Treblinka than previously realized, as the transnational groups near and within the camp overlapped and interacted. Spaces of Treblinka provides a staggering and profound reassessment of the relationship between knowing and not knowing and asks us to confront the timely warning that we, in our modern, interconnected world, can all become witnesses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Is research on antisemitism even necessary in countries with a relatively small Jewish population? Absolutely, as Antisemitism in the North: History and State of Research (de Gruyter, 2019) shows. Compared to other countries, research on antisemitism in the Nordic countries (Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) is marginalized at an institutional and staffing level, especially as far as antisemitism beyond German fascism, the Second World War, and the Holocaust is concerned. Furthermore, compared to scholarship on other prejudices and minority groups, issues concerning Jews and anti-Jewish stereotypes remain relatively underresearched in Scandinavia - even though antisemitic stereotypes have been present and flourishing in the North ever since the arrival of Christianity, and long before the arrival of the first Jewish communities.This volume aims to help bring the study of antisemitism to the fore, from the medieval period to the present day. Contributors from all the Nordic countries describe the status of as well as the challenges and desiderata for the study of antisemitism in their respective countries.Cordelia Heß, University of Greifswald, Germany and Jonathan Adams, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

The Destruction of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland (Academic Studies Press, 2024) in Poland offers a comprehensive examination of the history of Jewish cemeteries in Poland, shedding light on an overlooked aspect of Holocaust history. Beginning with the settlement of Jewish communities in Poland, the book covers the establishment and subsequent destruction of over 1,200 Jewish cemeteries within the country's present borders. Krzysztof Bielawski draws on meticulous research and firsthand experience to explore the complex dynamics behind the destruction, exposing the roles played by various actors. Through a detailed analysis of texts, iconographic sources, and archival materials, the book not only documents the destruction but also seeks to identify the perpetrators, challenging common misconceptions and offering a nuanced perspective on this dark chapter in history.You may support the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage, where the author works, at www.fodz.pl. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In Nocturnal Seeing: Hopelessness of Hope and Philosophical Gnosis in Susan Taubes, Gillian Rose, and Edith Wyschogrod (Stanford UP, 2024), Elliot R. Wolfson explores philosophical gnosis in the writings of Susan Taubes, Gillian Rose, and Edith Wyschogrod. The juxtaposition of these three extraordinary, albeit relatively neglected, philosophers provides a prism through which Wolfson scrutinizes the interplay of ethics, politics, and theology. The bond that ties together the diverse and multifaceted worldviews promulgated by Taubes, Rose, and Wyschogrod is the mutual recognition of the need to enunciate a response to the calamities of the twentieth century based on an incontrovertible acknowledgment of the decadence and malevolence of human beings, without, however, succumbing to acrimony and despair. The speculation of each of these philosophers on melancholia and the tragicomedy of being is unquestionably intricate, exhibiting subtle variations and idiosyncrasies, but we can nevertheless identify a common denominator in their attempt to find the midpoint positioned between hope and hopelessness. As Wolfson articulates, Taubes, Rose, and Wyschogrod exemplify a philosophical sensibility informed by a nocturnal seeing, which is not merely a seeing in the night but rather a seeing of the night. Ultimately, the book reveals the potential for these thinkers' ideas to enhance our moral sensitivity and to encourage participation in the ongoing struggle for meaning and decency in the present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt: The History of a Diaspora Community in Light of the Papyri (De Gruyter, 2024) offers a comprehensive and nuanced history of the Jews of Egypt, who constituted an important ethnic minority ever since they first appeared in the country. As part of the Greek-speaking ruling class, the Jews played an active role in the political, social and cultural life of Ptolemaic Egypt.Drawing on old and new documentary papyri supplemented by literary and epigraphic evidence, Szántó's book focuses on reconstructing an overall picture of the Egyptian Jewish Diaspora and discusses different aspects of their life: onomastics, military life, social and legal position, religious customs and anti-Judaism. The incorporation of non-Greek (Aramaic and Egyptian) textual evidence into the research is innovative and offers new perspectives on certain topics whose understanding was previously limited.Szántó provides a diverse picture of Jewish life and demonstrates how the Jews integrated into Graeco-Egyptian society and, at the same time, preserved their ethnic identity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

The Philosophical Pathos of Susan Taubes: Between Nihilism and Hope (Stanford UP, 2023) offers a detailed analysis of an extraordinary figure in the twentieth-century history of Jewish thought, Western philosophy, and the study of religion. Drawing on close readings of Susan Taubes's writings, including her correspondence with Jacob Taubes, scholarly essays, literary compositions, and poems, Elliot R. Wolfson plumbs the depths of the tragic sensibility that shaped her worldview, hovering between the poles of nihilism and hope.By placing Susan Taubes in dialogue with a host of other seminal thinkers, Wolfson illumines how she presciently explored the hypernomian status of Jewish ritual and belief after the Holocaust; the theopolitical challenges of Zionism and the dangers of ethnonationalism; the antitheological theology and gnostic repercussions of Heideggerian thought; the mystical atheism and apophaticism of tragedy in Simone Weil; and the understanding of poetry as the means to face the faceless and to confront the silence of death in the temporal overcoming of time through time. Wolfson delves into the abyss that molded Susan Taubes's mytheological thinking, making a powerful case for the continued relevance of her work to the study of philosophy and religion today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

The exceptional opening of the archives of the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958) in 2020 did not end the controversies surrounding the silence of the pope in the face of Nazi atrocities. But, beyond the controversies, what do these new sources reveal? What do they contribute to our understanding of the Shoah, the Second World War and religious power? Do they allow us to grasp more finely the deep ambivalences of the Vatican, between charity and prejudice, in the face of anti-Jewish persecution?Based on three years of examining these considerable funds in Rome, Lukewarm Souls: The Vatican facing the Shoah (La Découverte, 2024) probes the motivations and dilemmas of the people involved in this story, their voices but also their silences. Going beyond a classic approach focused on the pope and diplomacy, this work sheds light on the political, humanitarian, religious and cultural issues of the Holy See's choices. The book raises this question in the long duration of relations between the Church and the Jews in order to evaluate the weight of a centuries-old culture of hostility in the Vatican's responses to anti-Semitic persecutions, before and during the war, but also after the Shoah. Has this unprecedented level of violence against a minority shaken the old bedrock of Christian anti-Judaism?Finally, by making the voices of those on the ground and the persecuted heard, in particular those of mixed Judeo-Christian families, this book questions more broadly the resilience of religion in the face of genocide and the capacity of our civil societies to respond to mass violence.This book was originally published in French as Les âmes tièdes: Le Vatican face à la Shoah (La Découverte, 2024)Geraldine Gudefin is a French-born modern Jewish historian researching Jewish family life, legal pluralism, and the migration experiences of Jews in France and the United States. She is currently a research fellow at the Hebrew University’s Avraham Harman Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry, and is completing a book titled An Impossible Divorce? East European Jews and the Limits of Legal Pluralism in France, 1900-1939. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies