Judith Olszowy-Schlanger – författare

From Cairo Genizah to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, the spread of books in Jewish vernacular languages and Hebrew characters offers us an extraordinary insight into the linguistic richness of Jewish life. For over two millennia, Jewish communities have used languages other than Hebrew for daily oral communication, including Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-French, Judeo-Italian, Yiddish and Ladino. They used the Hebrew alphabet to write these languages down and developed sophisticated systems to transmit texts in them. Many of these vernacular languages became also languages of book culture. Produced and sold cheaply, using the tools of the book cultures of host societies, these publications reached a wide audience. The Bodleian Libraries’ collections host an unparalleled collection of texts in Judeo-languages, giving us a picture of the works created and of the specific ways in which they were produced and communicated. Since some of the languages are now extinct or moribund, these manuscripts and books are also important testimonies to cultures that are no more. Generously illustrated and ranging in time from the Middle Ages to the Emancipation, this collection of essays showcases important hallmarks in the intellectual and social history of the Jews.

In honor of the writings of Giulio Busi, scholar of Jewish culture, the book investigates from a multidisciplinary perspective the extraordinary richness of Jewish culture in the Diaspora from antiquity to the latter part of the 20th century. A number of rabbinic writings, medieval manuscripts from the South of France, visual qabbalah, the Yiddish language, artistic expressions as well as the philosophical and social traditions of some prominent twentieth-century figures will be explored. While the Jewish cultural tradition has always incorporated the cultural influences of the broader socio-historical context in which it was embedded, it has in turn been a source of inspiration for the intellectual élite of the majority society. In this regard, the volume will examine the fruitful mutual exchange between Jewish scholars and Christian humanists during the Renaissance. However, the life of Jews in the Diaspora did not always take place in a context of peaceful integration. It was punctuated by harsh confrontations and persecution. Finally, the book will illustrate how precisely during the darkest and most tragic period of the 20th century, Jewish culture was an important tool of resistance and struggle against Nazi-Fascism.

Books within Books presents some recent findings and research projects on the fragments of medieval Hebrew manuscripts discovered in the bindings of other manuscripts and early printed books across Europe. This is the second collection of interdisciplinary articles on Hebrew binding fragments presenting current scholarship and its international scope.From the contemporary perspective, the fragments of medieval Hebrew manuscripts preserved until today, through their numbers (estimated 30,000 fragments, so more than double of the number of the known Hebrew volumes produced in medieval Europe ), the texts they carry (some of them have been previously unknown), the insights into book making techniques and finally their economic impact, are an unprecedented source for our knowledge of the Hebrew book culture and literacy as well as the economic and intellectual exchanges between the Jewish minority and their non-Jewish neighbours.