{"title":"Confessional Divides, Cross-Confessional Connections, and Jewish Responses: Menasseh ben Israel and Daniel Levi de Barrios on De auxiliis and Dordt","authors":"Sina Rauschenbach","doi":"10.5117/SR2021.1.001.RAUS","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/SR2021.1.001.RAUS","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Studies in the Jewish reception of Christian theological discussions beyond the proper field of polemics are rare and only in their beginnings. Until now, scholars have often argued that Portuguese Jews discussed Christian concepts of divine foreknowledge and human free will because they were either struggling with their own Christian past or sought to help their ‘New Jewish’ coreligionists to turn into reliable members of the Amsterdam Sephardic community. This article uses the example of the Catholic Controversia de auxiliis, and the Protestant fight over Predestination before and after the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619) to argue that Portuguese Jews such as Menasseh ben Israel and Daniel Levi de Barrios recognised the cross-confessional dimension of the Christian debates on divine grace; they used their Iberian background and knowledge to order and explain what they observed; and they displayed their position as outsiders to deconstruct religious boundaries, imagine alternative religious landscapes, and finally re-insert themselves into their newly created religious maps and orders. The argument is based on a close reading of one chapter of the last volume of Menasseh ben Israel’s Conciliador (1651) as well as Daniel Levi de Barrios’s poem Libre Alvedrio y Harmonia del Cuerpo, por disposicion del alma (1680).","PeriodicalId":53197,"journal":{"name":"STUDIA ROSENTHALIANA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81265609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Carsten Wilke, ed. Isaac Orobio: The Jewish Argument with Dogma and Doubt, Studies and Texts in Scepticism vol. 2. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018. vi + 128 pp. ISBN 978-3-11-057561-3 (hardcover), 978-3-11-057619-1 (open access pdf).","authors":"J. Israel","doi":"10.5117/SR2021.1.005.ISRA","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/SR2021.1.005.ISRA","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53197,"journal":{"name":"STUDIA ROSENTHALIANA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80444455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Adam Teller, Rescuing the Surviving Souls: The Great Jewish Refugee Crisis of the Seventeenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020.","authors":"Jesse A. Spohnholz","doi":"10.5117/SR2021.1.008.SPOH","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/SR2021.1.008.SPOH","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53197,"journal":{"name":"STUDIA ROSENTHALIANA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73698615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rembrandt and the Illustrations for Menasseh ben Israel’s Piedra Gloriosa (1655): A Reckoning","authors":"Steven M. Nadler","doi":"10.5117/SR2021.1.002.NADL","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/SR2021.1.002.NADL","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article discusses Rembrandt’s etchings for Menasseh ben Israel’s Piedra Gloriosa (1655). After a brief review of the content of Menasseh’s book and of the scholarly discussion over an alleged collaboration between Menasseh and Rembrandt, the article examines how many known copies of the book actually have Rembrandt’s etchings, and whether their replacement by engravings by another artist represents a second edition.","PeriodicalId":53197,"journal":{"name":"STUDIA ROSENTHALIANA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88532134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Yosef Kaplan, ed. Religious Changes and Cultural Transformations in the Early Modern Western Sephardic Communities. Studies in Jewish History and Culture 54. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019. Xxxii + 616 pp. ISBN 978-90-04-36753-1 (hardback), 978-90-04-39248-9 (open access PDF).","authors":"A. Albert","doi":"10.5117/SR2021.1.007.ALBE","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/SR2021.1.007.ALBE","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53197,"journal":{"name":"STUDIA ROSENTHALIANA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76192143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Power of Song in Amsterdam: Pereq Shira in Yiddish and the Transmission of Piety","authors":"Daniella Zaidman-Mauer","doi":"10.5117/SR2021.1.003.ZAID","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/SR2021.1.003.ZAID","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract One of the most fascinating products of late antique Judaism is Pereq Shira, a collection of hymns sung by an assortment of God’s creatures in His praise. Thus far ample research has been conducted mostly into the manuscript traditions of Pereq Shira. The early modern Amsterdam Yiddish print editions have, however, escaped extensive analysis. This article provides an in-depth analysis of the paratexts of both the Yiddish and the Hebrew Amsterdam stand-alone Pereq Shira editions (1692). My main methodology will be a paratextual analysis, using the theory developed by Gerard Genette and introduced into the field of early modern Yiddish studies by the late Shlomo Berger. The spiritual utility of the book in Yiddish is at the forefront, explaining its potential audience how the book would enhance their religious observance. This research is located at the intersection of the study of early modern Ashkenaz, Amsterdam book history and Yiddish scholarship. This article introduces and examines the paratexts of the Amsterdam Yiddish and Hebrew Pereq Shira editions (1692), and reinforces the process of transmission of piety in early modern Ashkenaz through Yiddish.","PeriodicalId":53197,"journal":{"name":"STUDIA ROSENTHALIANA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90499870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Oisterwijk Memorbukh: An Age-Old Memory for a Young Kehilla","authors":"Jenneken Schouten","doi":"10.5117/SR2021.1.004.SCHO","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/SR2021.1.004.SCHO","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article is an analysis of the memorbukh of the Jewish community in the Dutch village of Oisterwijk, Brabant. The manuscript was written in 1770 as part of a protocol book by the community’s rabbi Yekutiel Ziskind Rofe, who had come to Oisterwijk in 1757. The genre of memorbikher started as a response to the large-scale persecutions of Jews at the time of the First Crusade in 1096, the Rindfleisch persecutions of 1298, and the persecutions at the time of the Black Death. In the late medieval and early modern period, the genre was incorporated into the liturgy of Ashkenazic synagogues. The memorbukh from Oisterwijk is an example of an early modern memorbukh. The author of this particular memorbukh wrote it in order to bind together his new community, which was still a young community upon his arrival in 1769, as Jews had only begun to settle in Oisterwijk in the 1750s. The author therefore wanted to create a new communal memory that would bind together all the members, despite their different backgrounds.","PeriodicalId":53197,"journal":{"name":"STUDIA ROSENTHALIANA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73361802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
B. Wallet, I. Zwiep, D. Wertheim, Rachel Boertjens
{"title":"Preface by the editors-in-chief : Relaunching Studia Rosenthaliana","authors":"B. Wallet, I. Zwiep, D. Wertheim, Rachel Boertjens","doi":"10.5117/sr2020.1-2.001.pref","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5117/sr2020.1-2.001.pref","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53197,"journal":{"name":"STUDIA ROSENTHALIANA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83581285","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Hague Dialogues","authors":"D. Ruderman","doi":"10.2143/SR.44.0.2189618","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2143/SR.44.0.2189618","url":null,"abstract":"Imagine the following scenario: A young scholar from Vilna, having wandered through several cities in Eastern Europe and Germany arrived in the city of the Hague at the close of the 1780s, enjoyed the material support of the richest family of Jewish merchants in the city, the Boaz family, and sought and gained the religious approval of the rabbi of the city, Judah Leib Mezerich. His name was Pinhas Elijah ben Meir Hurwitz (1765-1821) and he was about to complete the first draft of a manuscript of his soon-tobe published book, an encyclopedia of the sciences entitled Sefer ha-Brit (The Book of the Covenant).1 The young Hurwitz soon learned of the presence of an aging sage who lived in the city, a rigorous philosopher and émigré from Mainz, Naphtali Herz Ulman (1731-87). Ulman had completed a multivolume philosophic opus of which only the first volume, Hokhmat ha-shorashim [The Science of Roots or First Principles], had been published in 1781.2 Hurwitz was hardly a philosopher in his own right; in fact he had been drawn to the study of the kabbalah. But he did share something in common with Ulman — an appreciation of the life of the mind and particularly a fascination for the natural world and the new sciences, and they were both Ashkenazic Jews with knowledge of the German language.3 It seemed natural that Hurwitz would seek out Ulman and converse with the major intellectual figure of Hague Jewry. Disciplines European History | History | Intellectual History | Jewish Studies This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/history_papers/60 STUDIA ROSENTHALIANA 44 (2012), 221-239 doi: 10.2143/SR.44.0.2189618 The Hague Dialogues*","PeriodicalId":53197,"journal":{"name":"STUDIA ROSENTHALIANA","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81058307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}