This dissertation delves into the portrayal of Sabbatai Zevi, the 17th-century Jewish messiah who converted to Islam, within 20th-century literary works. Specifically, it scrutinizes how this historical figure is woven into literature and delves into the significance of his portrayal in works written in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English. Utilizing Fred Davis’s insights on nostalgia’s correlation with historical disruptions and Svetlana Boym’s notions of nostalgia for both the past and future, this study interprets Sabbatai Zevi’s melancholic demeanor and his followers’ disillusionment with his conversion as manifestations of a concept termed here as “melancholic nostalgia,” denoting feelings of irretrievable loss. Given that these literary pieces emerged during pivotal moments in 20th-century Jewish history, this dissertation asserts that Sabbatai Zevi’s literary representation serves as a poignant symbol of melancholic nostalgia, resonating with the profound shifts in modern Jewish narrative.

What is a “Jewish book”? Does the history of Jewish secularism necessarily follow a Christian example? Did the Jews living in early modern Europe and the Ottoman Empire understand themselves by the same terms contemporary ones do? This dissertation examines five books printed by Jewish printer Gershom (Hieronymus) Soncino (1460[?]-1534) in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, in Italy and in the Ottoman Empire, which are posited as ‘secular.’ While Gershom is mainly known in “Jewish bibliography” circles – a concept the dissertation investigates and challenges – as a printer of religious Jewish tomes, a critical microhistorical analysis of the five books, their production, material makeup and reception, reveals a ‘secularity,’ a comfort in being-in-the-world which upends the received temporality of Jewish secularization. In rejecting a retrojection of later ideas of ‘secularization,’ often Christian-inflected and ideologically-biased, onto early modern Jewish cultural production, the dissertation asks that the Jews living in Renaissance Italy and the Ottoman Empire be understood by their own lights. To correctly treat Gershom’s books a critical list of his published titles spanning five languages, was necessary: the dissertation therefore first follows the “political economy of classification” which has historically governed what material has been deemed “the Jewish book,” revealing the embedded discursive biases of this scheme and problematizing some of its techniques. It then moves to investigate the ‘world’ each of five secular books was created and consumed in. The ‘world’ of Isaac ibn Saḥula’s 𝘔𝘦𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘭 𝘩𝘢-ḳ𝘢𝘥𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘪 (1490–1491), a compendium of animal fables and the first Hebrew illustrated book in print, is treated as a series of translations between medieval Spain, northern Italy and modern Germany. What do its woodcut illustrations reveal about the representation of the human, the animal and the Jew in Renaissance Italy? The dissertation contends that they reveal a specific Renaissance visual Jewish being-in-the-world. The ‘world’ treated I a grouping of six epic titles Gershom printed in the early 16th century similarly questions ideas of Jewish visuality and national Jewish literature(s): were these chivalric and macaronic titles ‘Judaized’ as ‘foreign’ material, or did the Jews of Italy read and enjoy them all along? An economy of print reuse in these titles further reveals an economic and cultural circuit between the Marche region and Venice. The ‘world’ investigated in connection with the 1534 𝘚𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘢-𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘳, an arithmetic primer by Elia Mizraḥi that Gershom printed in Constantinople is one of a “Trans-Adriatic circuit” of scientific dissemination, following certain problematics of intercultural and inter-religious ‘translation’ in the Renaissance. Is printing ‘Western’? Was a book printed in Hebrew in the Ottoman Empire – one of the first ever – an ‘Italian’ production? Did its different readers – Jewish and non-Jewish – understand mathematics and science as ‘secular’? The ‘world’ which a chapter on a trilingual Christian exegesis of the Talmud (𝘋𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘦 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘴, 1518) investigates centers on the question of why a devout Jewish printer would publish a fiercely anti-rabbinic tract. By reading the rise of the 16th-century intellectual-religious phenomenon of Christian Hebraism against the contemporaneous invention of the world’s first Ghetto in Venice, the chapter asks whether the ‘extraction’ of Hebrew and other forms of ‘Jewish knowledge’ during this period can be read as analogous to the rising logic of race, as well as the nascent capitalistic logic of the colony prior to the colony. Questioning and following this ‘early modern extractivism,’ the chapter places 𝘥𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘴 in its larger intellectual context, positing a secular Jewish being-in-the-world even within a religiously Christian context, rereading the modern birth of ‘Jewish studies.’ The final chapter investigates some visual aspects of the sumptuous woodcut illustration accompanying a Christian theological title, 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘶𝘮 𝘤𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘶𝘮 (1507): were they the reason for some bibliographers’ anxieties regarding Gershom’s ‘correct’ religious affiliation? Continuing a discussion on Italian-Jewish worldliness, the chapter fleshes out Gershom’s – and other Jews of the time – adamancy to ‘be in the world’ in which they lived. Taken together, the different ‘worlds’ investigated in this dissertation feature recurring situations of polyglossic hybridity, of ‘diglossia,’ of trans-national circuits operating before the modern formulation of a nation, of a repeated crossing of borders and religious lines of demarcation, of constant translation across and between languages, as well as between the textual and the visual, between the abstract and the material. Gershom himself, the dissertation shows, exhibited a comfort and an ease with ‘being in the world.’ An intervention into both the study of religion and secularity and the history of the book, the dissertation combines insights from Italian history, Ottoman history, Jewish history, book history, art history, sociology, philosophy, and postcolonial and critical theory to counteract a “lachrymose” view of early modern Jewish culture and religion, emphasizing instead its wonderful inventiveness, malleability, intellectual brilliance and its celebration of pleasure.

This thesis deals with the fable collection called Mishle Shu'alim, written by the Jewish author Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Nakdan who lived in the 12th/13th century either in France or in England. The aim of this thesis is to introduce the work along with the genre of the fable and its examples in Jewish literature of the Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Bible, Talmud, midrashic literature and a few of medieval scripts). The essential part of the thesis contains information about the author and all his works, characterization and analysis of the collection, and the list of the existing manuscripts, all known editions, and all translations of the collection or those of individual fables. Special attention is being paid to the Prague Jesuit edition of 1661. The thesis furthermore contains a commented translation of three selected fables.

L'utilisation de l'arabe écrit en caractères arabes par les Juifs entre la fin du XIX° et la fin du XX° siècle s'inscrit dans la continuité d'un rapport de longue durée entre les Juifs et la langue arabe, et constitue un phénomène linguistique jusqu'à présent peu étudié. Afin d'en délimiter les contours et d'en prendre la mesure, nous avons constitué, à partir du travail de Shmuel Moreh en Israël, un corpus bibliographique de 654 notices de textes publiés en langue arabe par des auteurs juifs. Son analyse nous a permis de mettre en évidence la faible ampleur de ce phénomène. Premièrement du point de vue de son étendue dans le temps, car même si la première notice de notre corpus date de 1847 et la dernière de 2008, ce n'est qu'entre 1930 et 1970 que se concentre la plupart des documents répertoriés. Deuxièmement, du point de vue de son étendue géographique, car c’est essentiellement en Egypte, en Iraq et finalement en Israël que se développe ce phénomène. A ce sujet, nous préciserons cependant que celui-ci s’est exporté vers Israël, suite au départ des Juifs des pays arabes principalement durant les années 1950. Troisièmement, car il n’est soutenu que par un petit nombre d'individus, sur l’ensemble des auteurs de notre corpus. Ces considérations mises à part, nous avons pu observer un certain dynamisme dans cette production écrite. Celui-ci se manifeste d’abord du point de vue de l'hétérogénéité des genres observés dans le corpus, allant de la poésie au théâtre, en passant par les romans, les nouvelles, les essais et le journalisme. Il apparaît ensuite à travers les différentes variétés de langue arabe utilisées, telles que l’arabe classique, ou les dialectes locaux. / The use of Arabic language, in Arabic characters, by the Jews between the end of the XIXth century and the end of the XXth century is one aspect of the long-standing relationship between the Jews and the Arabic language, and constitutes a distinctive linguistic phenomenon which has so far been little researched. In order to outline it and describe it, and building on Shmuel Moreh’s pioneering work in Israel, we have established a bibliographic corpus of some 654 texts and works published by Jewish authors in the Arabic language in Arabic characters. Its analysis has enabled us to highlight the limited extent of this phenomenon. First of all, from a chronological point of view: although the first reference at our disposal dates back to 1847 and the last one to 2008, most of this literature was produced between 1930 and 1970. Secondly, from a geographical point of view: this phenomenon is associated mainly with Egypt, Iraq and later Israel. In this regard, it must be noted that the phenomenon was exported to Israel after the departure of the Jews from the Arab countries principally during the 1950s, and involves almost exclusively émigré writers. Thirdly, because it involves only a small number of individuals, out of the total number of authors listed in our corpus. However, despite all these considerations, this literature is characterised by a certain degree of dynamism. This can be seen first of all in the heterogeneity of the genres observed, spanning poetry, theatre, novels, short stories, essays and journalism, and in its employ of different varieties of Arabic, such as Classical Arabic or local dialects.

Anhand von gesellschaftspolitischen, demographischen und kulturellen Entwicklungen werden in Anlehnung an Michel Foucault die konstituierenden Regeln eines innerjüdischen Diskurses beschrieben, welcher vor zwei Jahrzehnten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der DDR entstanden ist. Innerhalb dieses Diskurses wird die junge jüdische Gegenwartsliteratur verortet, die durch signifikante Korrespondenzen zur gesellschaftlichen Wirklichkeit gekennzeichnet ist. Mithilfe einer methodenpluralistischen Vorgehensweise, die neben literatur-wissenschaftlichen Ansätzen auch solche der geschichtsphilosophischen, sozio-psychologischen, kunst- und kulturhistorischen Forschung einbezieht, wird die Konstruktion junger jüdischer Identität in ausgewählten Texten exemplarisch untersucht. Wiederkehrende Konstanten der Identitätskonstruktionen werden genauso herausgearbeitet wie Divergenzen der ästhetischen Verfahren, durch die subversive, oftmals geschlechtsspezifisch konnotierte Deutungsebenen eröffnet werden. Dem übergeordneten Interesse der Arbeit folgend, werden die Ergebnisse der Textanalysen innerhalb des diskursiven Aussagekontextes betrachtet. / Following Michel Foucault, the author uses socio-political, demographic, and cultural developments to define a set of rules organizing the inner-Jewish discourse that emerged approximately two decades ago in the Federal Republic of Germany and the former GDR. Within that discourse, the author locates a body of contemporary German-Jewish literature characterized by strong resemblances to socio-historical reality. The dissertation examines the construction of contemporary Jewish identity within selected works of literature, using a variety of methodological approaches from the fields of literary criticism, history of art, culture and philosophy as well as socio-psychology. Recurring identity traits within those constructions are emphasized as well as differences in the aesthetic scheme which often bear subversive, gender specific connotations. Consistent with the overall aim of the dissertation, the results of the literary analyses are transferred to the discursive level.

Tzava'at Ha-RIBaSH ve-hanhagot yesharot: The Influence of Non-Lurianic Kabbalah on East-European Hasidism of Modern Age Mgr. Antonín Šedivý This dissertation thesis consists of Introduction, three chapters, and Conclusion. Furthermore, it includes name index, list of traditional Jewish sources used in the second chapter, list of sources, literature and other relevant resources, and four supplements. The Introduction of this dissertation deals with several issues important for its research. First of all, the East-European Hasidism is introduced, then follows very thorough overview of current state of knowledge of Tzava'at Ha-RIBaSH ve-hanhagot yesharot, and the definition of goals, hypothesis, and methods of this dissertation, and finally, it also contains technical notes about the dissertation thesis. The first chapter "Tzava'at Ha-RIBaSH ve-hanhagot yesharot" is devoted solely to Tzava'at Ha-RIBaSH, which is the central point of my dissertation. It is divided into chapters that are dedicated to fundamental information about Tzava'at Ha-RIBaSH, to its content, to its place within Hasidic literary collection, and to its reflexion by the opponents of Hasidism. The second chapter "Translation and Commentary of Selected Texts of Tzava'at Ha-RIBaSH" contains translation and short commentary of fifty-one selected...

This dissertation establishes a category of early Soviet “exodic” literature, which consists of works published in Yiddish or Russian between 1917 and 1935. Reading together texts by Peretz Markish, Andrei Platonov, Moyshe Kulbak, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, Yiddish texts are placed on equal footing with Russian texts to underscore the singular role of Jews in the early Soviet period and demonstrate shared anxieties and practices of resistance to hegemony among groups seemingly separated by language and culture. These anxieties and modes of resistance are what make the Soviet exodic a literature of revolution as it grapples with the complexity of the Soviet period and Soviet identity formation. Drawing upon political theorist Michael Walzer and his text Exodus and Revolution as well as the critical response from Edward Said, this dissertation uses the biblical book of Exodus as a theoretical matrix for the identification and elaboration of narrative sequences and thematic material that constitute a revolutionary genre and applies it to the study of early Soviet literature. Because they are written and published between 1917 and 1935, exodic texts are positioned between the Bolshevik Revolution and the crystallization of high Stalinism. Therefore, they are situated within what is commonly known as the “interwar period.” Such a definition relies upon absence (the absence of war). The Soviet exodic provides this historical moment and its attending texts a positive definition in deference to the revolutionary framework that guides it. This dissertation also considers how the texts enact revolution with the help of critical and queer theory, most notably Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology and Mary Rubenstein’s Pantheologies. These theoretical supports serve to articulate the various queer—that is, non-normative—ways that the selected texts engage pluralism to resist ideological regimes and forces of control as they re-evaluate social and political categories and norms. Queer theory also serves to express the entanglement of self, other, and place, and in so doing, brings ecological anxieties to the fore. Resistance in the Soviet exodic thus takes shape through the queering or misalignment of categories like space, language, or gender performance, and culminates in the figure of the Soviet trickster, who, by means of their unfinalizability, is the embodiment of revolution.

One of the most innovative and original Hasidic leaders and thinkers, Rabbi Nachman of Braslav (1772 – 1810), related thirteen long, complex fables during the final four years of his life. This doctoral thesis presents an analysis of the quest for the Lost Princess in Rabbi Nachman of Braslav's "Book of Stories in Ancient Times." The image of the Lost Princess and the quest to find and rescue her, which appear in four of these stories (including the first and the last ones), are central symbols in Rabbi Nachman's thought. The most important key to an analysis of this image and theme lies in understanding the symbols and concepts of the Jewish mystical tradition (the Kabbalah), as Rabbi Nachman himself suggested. / Classsics, Near & Far East & Religious Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Judaica)

This Master’s thesis explores Jewish masculinity and identity within early twentieth-century literature (1903-1925), using texts written by Jewish authors in late imperial Russia and the early Soviet Union. This was a period of change for Russia’s Jewish community, involving increased secularization and reform, massive pogroms such as in Kishinev in 1903, newfound leadership within the 1905 and 1917 Revolutions, and a rise in both Zionist and Revolutionary ideology. Subsequently, Jewish literary masculinity experienced a significant shift in characterization. Historically, a praised Jewish man had been portrayed as gentle, scholarly, and faithful, yet early twentieth century Jewish male literary figures were asked to be physically strong, hypermasculine, and secular. This thesis first uses H.N. Bialik’s “In the City of Slaughter” (1903) and Sholem Aleichem’s “Tevye Goes to Palestine” (1914) to introduce a concept of “Jewish shame,” or a sentiment that historical Jewish masculinity was insufficient for a contemporary Russian world. It then creates two models for these new men to follow. The Assimilatory Jew, seen in Isaac Babel’s Red Cavalry cycle (published throughout the 1920s), held that perpetual outsider Jewish men should imitate the behaviour of a secular whole in order to be accepted. The Jewish Superman is depicted in Vladimir Jabotinsky’s “In Memory of Herzl” (1904) and Ilya Selvinsky’s “Bar Kokhba” (1920), and argues that masculine glory is entirely compatible with a proud Jewish identity, without an external standard needed. Judith Butler’s theories on gender performativity are used to analyze these diverse works, published in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian by authors of varying political alignments, to establish commonalities among these literary canons and plot a new spectrum of desired identities for Jewish men. / Graduate / 2020-04-10

Les polémiques ont joué un rôle important dans la réception des romans de Mordecai Richler au Québec francophone. Contrairement à l’idée reçue voulant que cet antagonisme ait empêché la lecture de l’oeuvre richlérienne, c’est plutôt à partir de la publication des essais sur le nationalisme québécois que la critique commencera à s’intéresser à l’écrivain. En effet, que ce soit avant ou après les polémiques, c’est au nom d’un rapport de correspondance au collectif que sera jugée l’oeuvre de Richler. L’abandon d’une conception restreinte de l’identité québécoise ouvre la porte à la relecture contemporaine des romans de Richler, même si cette relecture ne fait pas pour autant l’économie d’un rapport au collectif et cherche plutôt à opposer une identité québécoise exclusivement francophone à une identité prête à inclure un auteur longtemps identifié comme un ennemi public. Les mécanismes de ce rapatriement peuvent être mis en parallèle avec les conflits identitaires qui marquent le personnage richlérien. Dans Son Of A Smaller Hero (1955), Noah Adler tente de se définir en tant qu’être humain et de trouver une morale qui lui est propre en fuyant ses origines. Toutefois, cette fuite ne peut se solder que par un échec et le héros apprend que son idéal d’émancipation passe par une réinterprétation de son héritage plutôt que par l’abandon de celui-ci. Barney’s Version (1997) est en partie le récit de formation d’un écrivain tardif. Si Barney Panofsky s’en prend aux impostures collectives dans le roman, son incapacité à être totalement honnête par rapport à lui-même et à plonger dans une création et une défense sincères de ce en quoi il croit le poussera à s’aliéner ceux à qui il tient véritablement. Cette situation laisse le narrateur avec une oeuvre inachevée qui ne pourra s’accomplir que par l’intervention de ses héritiers. Dans les deux romans, la définition du personnage passe par une réappropriation herméneutique de son héritage qui rappelle, dans son rapport à la trace, au collectif et à l’illégitimité, les relectures francophones de l’oeuvre richlérienne. / Polemics have played an important role in the reception of Mordecai Richler’s novels in French Quebec. Contrary to the common idea that this opposition has prevented Quebec’s critics from reading the novelist’s work, Richler’s articles and essays on nationalism are the starting point of its reception. Whether it has been published before or just after the polemics, Richler’s writing is evaluated for the accuracy of his depiction of communities. The progressive rejection of a strictly French conception of Quebec’s identity opens the way to contemporary readings of the writer’s production. Still, these new readings are mostly attached to a conception of the collective, opposing an inclusive portrayal of Quebec’s identity, ready to let in the old enemy, to a uniquely French perspective on the imaginary. The mechanisms of this repatriation can be read in parallel with conflicting identities in Richler’s novels. In Son Of A Smaller Hero (1955), Noah Adler tries to define himself as a human being and to find his own moral standards by rejecting his origins. However, this escape path can only lead to failure and the main character learns that his ideal of freedom can only happen by a reinterpretation of his heritage rather than by its denial. Barney’s Version (1997) is, in part, the story of the education of a late writer. If Barney Panofsky attacks every collective imposture in the novel, his incapacity to be completely honest with himself and to accept a sincere creative activity and defence of his beliefs leads him to be alienated from those he truly loves. This situation leaves the narrator with an unfinished story, which can only be told by his successors. In both novels, the self definition of the character’s identity can only happen by a hermeneutical re-appropriation of his heritage that is similar to francophone readings of Richler’s work by its relation to the trace, the collective and illegitimacy.