Thursday, October 08, 2009

Hebrew manuscript fragments in Morocco

An upcoming conference advertised on H-Judaic, taking place in Paris in November, sounds very cool. The unspecific title is 'Ongoing research on Hebrew manuscripts at EPHE: present and future'. I'll mention two lectures that sound interesting. One is by Justine Isserles (who is/was? working on Mahzor Vitry last I heard) about MS Parma de Rossi 403 (a fascinating French halakhic compendium - see Simcha Emanuel, Shivre Luhot, p. 300) and haroset.
There will be another lecture by Judith Kogel about fragments from Alsace. One about fragments from South-West France and Switzerland. And Wissem Gueddich is speaking about Hebrew manuscript fragments from Morocco. I wish I could be there (and that my French were good enough for me to understand the lectures).

1 Comments:

Blogger Jesús said...

Thank for the heads-up.

She (Justine) is indeed still working on Ashkenazi mahzorim as soundly and rigorously as she always does with every aspect of research. She is bound to submit her thesis in the very near future (written in French, incidentally). Her supervisor is Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (and mine too).

Judith Kogel is speaking on the Colmar fragments as she did in J'lem this summer but one should note she's conducting her research within a much larger framework: Hebrew fragments in French libraries (and the project website will be presented in this conference), led by our one-woman band, Judith Olszowy-Schlanger. Élodie Attia and Justine Isserles are also working within this framework (in Southern France and Switzerland).

On the Hebrew-script manuscript (and printed) fragments from Figuig (Région de l'Oriental, Morocco), Judith Olszowy-Schlanger assembled a team made up of Silvia Di Donato, Wissem Gueddich, Gabriel Hagaï and this present writer and we went to Morocco in October last year. Silvia is also speaking in the Paris postgraduate conference on the new BNF's Hebrew manuscripts catalogue; a couple of volumes, if my memory serves me well, have already been released. The fragments were found in a pillaged Geniza in the former private house-cum-synagogue of a local rabbi (Amsallem family). Fragments are mostly 19th and early 20th century material with some fairly earlier witness (late 17th-century [?] Leghorn Judeo-Spanish and (Jewish) Spanish printed fragments).Fragments are mostly in Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic with some Spanish, Judeo-Spanish, Yiddish (oh, yes), French, French in Hebrew script and some other nice rarities. Wissem will speak on behalf of the group and all papers will hopefully and promptly find their way into a printed, readable form. Its release will graciously be pointed out to you.

It's good to see that French (along with German or Italian or Spanish) is still a useful language for Jewish Studies. Diuersa est ueritas....

4:28 PM  

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