A Joint Workshop by the Center for the Study of Conversion & Inter-Religious Encounters, the  ERC Project LATTAL (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and the David Berg and Family Chair for European History,  Ben-Gurion University of the Negev  was held on the 13^th February 2018.

In 1240's Paris, following the confiscation, condemnation and burning of manuscripts of the Talmud (at the instigation of Nicholas Donin, a convert to Christianity who composed a work known as The Thirty-Five Articles against the Talmud), Pope Nicholas IV asked that the Talmud be re-examined. A result of this was the translation of over 1500 passages from the Talmud gathered together in a work entitled Extractiones de Talmud, the most complete manuscript of which is in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Over the past few years, an ERC funded project led by Alexander Fidora (ICREA and UAB) has been working on a critical edition of this corpus. This joint workshop was an opportunity for the research group from Barcelona to meet with the fellows of the Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters, present the results of their research, and get feedback based on the work being carried out at the Center. The lectures were fascinating as was the Q&A, but without doubt, the highlight of the day was the joint study session focused on passages from the Extractiones comparing them with the original text of the Talmud and trying to figure out why they were chosen, how the translation was actually done, and how the passages were understood by the translators. 

For the full program,  press here

  The Renegade Admirals

In the early tenth century, the eastern Mediterranean basin was dominated by Muslim fleets. These fleets raided the Byzantine coast line, conquered several islands in the Aegean Sea, most important among them was Crete, and in 904 even threatened the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, and sacked Thessalonica, which was considered "the second capital". The admirals who commanded these Muslims fleets at the time were called Leo and Damian. They were both Christian converts to Islam who rose to military prominence and cooperated continuously against their former co-religionists.

Leo was originally from Attaleia, modern-day Antalya in Turkey. Damian was also from the Byzantine Empire. Their personal life-story prior to their conversion to Islam is not known. It seems that they both, at some point or another in the late ninth century, fell into Muslim captivity as part of the ongoing naval raids ravaging the Mediterranean at the time. In captivity they converted to Islam and became clients of important military figures on the Syrian coast. Damian served Yazaman al-Khadīm, the governor of the border city of Tarsus, an important center of land and sea raids into the Byzantine empire. Leo was converted and trained by Zarāfa, the governor of Tripoli (in modern-day northern Lebanon), and is mentioned frequently in Arabic sources as 'the client of Zarāfa' (ghulām zarāfa).

Both Leo and Damian, now called Lāun (or Lāwī) and Damyānah, rose to prominence in their new locations, and by the turn of the ninth and early tenth century they were in command of the Muslim fleets of their respective cities. It is possible that their naval knowledge and expertise stem from their Byzantine backgrounds. This is at least true for Leo who originated from the capital of the southern coastal district of Byzantium, the kibyrrhaiōtai. Such expertise could also help explain their quick rise to power and success. Damian briefly served as the governor of Tarsus, but was then deposed, and served as the admiral (amīr al-baḥar) of the fleet during the first decades of the tenth centuries. Leo is mentioned in the sources as an admiral and as governor of Tripoli. Al-Masʿūdī, the known Arab author and contemporary of the two, met Leo in person and describes him as "one of the best navigators and commanders".

Leo and Damian cooperated frequently in their naval expeditions. In 904 they both subdued the Tulunid dynasty in Egypt and brought Egypt back under Abbasid control. In 911 they defeated and annihilated the Byzantine fleet near Chios. They also ventured separately, as for example Damian's destructive punitive raid against Cyprus in 912.

Probably the most known and daring naval attack by one of these two renegade admirals was Leo's raid against Constantinople in the summer of 904. This time he apparently acted without Damian but was accompanied by an Egyptian fleet. The combined naval force did not attack Constantinople, but on their way back they sacked Thessaloniki, which was called "the second capital of Byzantium". The sack and its results are detailed in a composition written by one of the inhabitants of Thessaloniki who was captured by Leo's forces. As part of his description he mentions that the Muslim warriors "blew fire by means of air through tubes" – a unique testimony to Muslim use of flame-throwers (siphōnes) to project 'Greek fire'.

It seems, then, that both converts and admirals immersed themselves completely in their new religious, political and military worlds. They attacked their previous co-religionists ferociously and gained important victories for the Muslim side. They both died in raids against the Byzantines in the early 920's, and their disappearance from the scene marks the decline of Muslim naval force in the eastern Mediterranean. 

Moshe Yagur

Dr. Ayelet Harel-Shalev, a senior lecturer, researcher, chair of Conflict Management and Resolution Program, member of the Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters, and affiliated faculty at Politics and Government Department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev won the AIS award; an academic prize to honor a promising emerging scholar in the field of Israel Studies.

 For more information, press here (in Hebrew) 

 For Ayelet's publications page, press here 

Prof. Ram Ben-Shalom received Izhak Ben-Zvi award for the research of Israel communities in the east and Spain communities diaspora. The prize ceremony was held on April 16th, 2018 in Jerusalem.

For the Schedule of the  Full Program (in Hebrew)

A series of nine lectures under the auspices of the Center is being held during 2017-2018 at The Museum of Islamic and Near Eastern Cultures, Beer Sheva. 

Lectures (partly given by members of the Center) will discuss different aspects of everyday life among different communities and social circles throughout the Middle East and beyond.

Each lecture will be followed by a guided tour featuring unique aspects of the exhibition or by an artist's workshop. Coordinated by Dr. Keren Abbou Hershkovits, member of The Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters.

For the Schedule of the  Full Program (in Hebrew)

Chen Sarina, 'Speedily in our Days'. The Temple Mount Activists and the National-Religious Society in Israel , The Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

The event (in Hebrew) was held on Tuesday, April 10th 2018. 

For the full program,  press here (in Hebrew).

For photo album,  press here 

Ram Ben-Shalom, The Jews of Provence and Languedoc: Renaissance in the Shadow of the Church , Raanana 2017.

The event (in Hebrew) will be held on Wednesday, May 16th 2018, Oren Hall (bldg. 26), Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

For the full program,  press here (in Hebrew)

May 8, 2018

 June 12, 2018

The conference will take place at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Beer-Sheba, Israel),  May 28th-31st, 2018 .

For more details,  press here

Keren Abbou-Hershkovits  

"Women and the Truth that is Islam", lecture to be presented at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Conference, Helsinki, 30.7.2018-3.8.2018.

Amir Ashur

Visiting Scholar, Department of Religious Studies, University of Tokyo, 1.12.17-27.1.18.

“The Cairo Geniza - Its Discovery and Importance to the Study of Jewish History – new discoveries”, Ben Gurion University, Nov. 2017.

“Marriage and Family life as Reflected in the Cairo Geniza”, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan, 15.12.2017.

“Protecting the Wife in Pre-nuptial contracts from the Cairo Geniza and in parallel Muslim sources”, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan, 15.1.2018.

“The Cairo Geniza as a source for Muslim and Arabic history and culture”, Workshop: Waseda University, Tokyo, 20.1.2018.

“The Jewish Community and its Leaders - From Ancient to Medieval”,  Symposium: Tokyo University, Hongo Campus, 21.1.2018.

“The India Trade - Stories of two Merchants”, University of Hirosaki, Japan, 25.1.2018.

Sarina Chen

“To Challenge and to Obey. The Double Role of Women in Temple Mount Activist Groups”, School of law, Harvard University, Nov. 27-28, 2017. 

Leonardo Cohen

"Patriarch Mendes's Futile Struggle for the Return of the Portuguese Army to the Red Sea," The Red Sea as Space for Religious, Cultural, and Economic Exchange: The Annual International Workshop of the Department of Middle East Studies in Cooperation with the Tamar Golan Africa Centre, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, 2-3 January.

Dennis Halft

“Twelver Shiite-Jewish Interaction in Early Modern Iran,” International conference: Jews in Muslim Majority Countries – History and Prospects, Jewish Museum, Berlin. 26 October 2017.

“Judaeo-Persian Bible Translations in a Shiite Milieu”, International conference: The Bible in Arabic: Jewish and Christian Translations, Muslim Interpretations - State of the Art and Future Prospects, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv,  9 November 2017.

“New Evidence for the History of Iranian Jewry and Imāmī-Jewish Relations from Shīʿī Manuscript Repositories in Iran” , International conference: Shii Studies: The State of the Art, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J.  8 December 2017.

Recently, Dennis was appointed as a postdoctoral fellow of The Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (buberfellows.huji.ac.il), from the academic year 2018/19 onwards.

Alexander van der Haven

“Everything is Predetermined”, at: The Rise and Fall of Double Predestinatio - Sixth Conference of Judaism, Spirituality, and Myth, Bar-Ilan University, Levin Foundation, (Hebrew), 2 February 2018.

“Estrangement and Modern Religion”, Syndrome of the Present Project, Thessaloniki, 27 January 2018.

“Varieties of Conversion to Judaism in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam”, Bar-Ilan University, Department of General History, (Hebrew) 25 December 2017.

Daniel J. Lasker

“Interreligious Debate and the Development of Medieval Religious Philosophy,” Jewish-Christian-Muslim Intellectual Exchanges in the Medieval & Early Modern Mediterranean, University of Connecticut, Storrs, October, 2017.

“Karaites and Jerusalem: From Anan Ben David to the Karaite Visitors’ Center in the Old City,” Next Year in Jerusalem: Exile and Return in Jewish History, Creighton University, October, 2017.

“Jewish Anti-Christian Polemics in Islamic Countries and the Unchanging Nature of the Jewish-Christian Debate,” Can Polemics Innovate? Change and Continuity in Jewish-Christian Polemics from Late Antiquity to the Modernity,” University of Vienna, November, 2017.

“Christian Hebraism and Karaism: The Swedish Connection,” Uppsala University, December, 2017.

“Why is Ashkenazi Anti-Christian Polemic Different from Other Jewish Anti-Christian Polemic?” Annual Conference, Association for Jewish Studies, Washington, DC, December, 2017.

“What Can We Learn from Jewish-Christian Polemics in Islamic Countries,” Conference in Honor of Sarah Stroumsa, December, 2017.

“The Two Aarons and the Conflict over the Direction of Byzantine Karaite Theology,” Byzantium between East and West – the Intellectual Cosmos of the Jews in the 14th Century,” Goethe University, Frankfurt, February, 2018.

Additional Activity:

Conference to mark Prof. Lasker's retirement: November, 2017.

Lecturer, Paideia - The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden, November-December, 2017.

Ora Limor

“Can Polemics Innovate?” Change and Continuity in Jewish–Christian Polemics from Late Antiquity to the Modernity. Holy Places as Polemical Argument. Workshop, The University of Vienna. 14-15 November 2017.

Mirjam Lücking

“Between Arab-Phobia and Pop-Arabness: Ambivalent Muslim lifestyles in Contemporary Indonesia”, Introducing Indonesia – International Conference, The Hebrew University 29/30 November 2017.

Chana Shacham-Rosby

'שניים מקרא ואחד תרגום: ייצוגים של אליהו הנביא באומנות דתית באירופה במאה החמש עשרה', כנס: המקרא באֹמר ובתמונה, אוניברסיטת בן גוריון 14/3/18.

' "מה לך פה אליהו?": נוכחותו של אליהו הנביא בחייהם של יהודי אשכנז בימי הביניים', כנס: ימי הביניים, עכשיו!, אוניברסיטת בן גוריון, 22/3/18.

'מלאך הברית: אליהו הנביא וזהות יהודית בטקסי מילה באשכנז בימי הביניים', כנס: היסטוריה צעירה, אוניברסיטת בן גוריון, 30/4/18.

“(Re)Claiming Elijah the Prophet in Medieval Ashkenaz”, Rethinking Jewish and Non-Jewish Relations: Transdisciplinary Conference for Early Career Researchers in Jewish Studies, Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Graz, Graz, Austria. May 7-9, 2018.

Moshe Yagur

Moshe submitted his PhD dissertation, titled "Religious Identity and Communal Boundaries in Geniza Society (10th-13th Centuries): Proselytes, Slaves, Apostates" on October 2017, and it was approved March 2018.

“Circumcision as an Identity marker in anall-Circumcised Society”,  Workshop University of Haifa's Young Scholars of Antiquity Annual, October 16th 2017.

“Circumcision as a Shared Custom in Medieval Egypt", 7thInternational conference of the Center for the Study of RelationsBetween Jews, Christians and Muslims, Open University of Israel. December 28th 2017.

“Children choosing Religious Identity inMedieval Egypt”,Children and Childhood in Jewish Communities of Islamic lands, Ben Zvi Institute, March 21st 2018.

Nadia Zeldes

“The stepping stones that built the Spanish Inquisition in Sicily: royal decisions, negotiation, and compromise”, Workshop: Decision making processes of the Spanish Inquisition during the Reign of the Catholic Monarchs, 11.-12.01.2018, Münster, Germany.

Keren Abbou-Hershkovits  

“Kinship, Expectations and God”, HAWWA 15(3): 293-314, 2017.

 “Agency as Seen through the Lenses of Conversion” in: Women and Gender in the Middle East – New Perspectives, Mira Tzoreff and Tami Razi (eds.). forthcoming.

Review on: Zohar Amar and Efraim Lev , Arabian Drugs in Early Medieval Mediterranean Medicine . pp. xiv, 290. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 201 8. Forthcoming in Ginzei Kedem [in Hebrew].

"The Mysterious Prophet of the Science," forthcoming in: http://www.humanities.org.il/  

Amir Ashur

 "On autographs of Saadya Gaon attested in the Genizah: CUL Or.1080 1.85 and T-S 8D.1", Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the month:

https://tinyurl.com/y7kf84ej

"The India Trade and the Emergence of the Engagement Contract: A Cairo Geniza Study", The Medieval Globe, 3.1 (2017), pp. 27-46

" A Jewish marriage deed from nineteenth-century Yemen " (together with Ben Outhwaite), Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 25 (2018. in press)

Leonardo Cohen

“A Postmortem of the Jesuits’ Banishment from Ethiopia,” in Wim François and Violet Soen (eds.), The Council of Trent: Reform and Controversy in Europe and Beyond (1545-1700). Between Artists and Adventurers, vol. 3, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018, pp. 257-276.

"António Fernandes and his Book on the Virgin Mary: A Contribution to the Ethiopian-Jesuit Debate over Asceticism and Matrimony," in Antje Flüchter and Rouven Wirbser (eds.), Translating Catechisms, Translating Cultures. The Expansion of Catholicism in Early Modern World, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2017, pp. 197-222.

“Introduction,” in Wendy L. Belcher (ed.), Latin Letters on Ethiopia (1609-1641),trans. Jessica Wright and Leon Grek, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2017, pp. 1-30.

Alexander van der Haven

“An Ashkenazic Halakhic Fragment found in Leiden University Library.” With Yakov Z. Mayer. Books with in Books : New Discoveries in Old Book Bindings.European Genizah: Texts and Studies 3. Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Ed. Andreas Lehnardt, Judith Olszowy-Schlanger. Leiden/Boston: Brill (forthcoming).

“Onzekere zielenvangst: De vroege Nederlandse protestantse zending in internationaal verband.” Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Kerkgeschiedenis 21 no. 2 (June 2018, forthcoming).

“Predestination and Toleration: The Dutch Republic’s Single Judicial Persecution of Jews in Theological Context.” Renaissance Quarterly 71 no. 1 (Spring 2018): 165–205

“Eine Erlöserin mit Schnurrbart: Daniel Paul Schrebers religiöse Offenbarungen.” Kleingärten – einst und jetzt 25 (Winter 2017/2018): 20–26.

Religion und Wahnsinn um 1900 : Zwischen Pathologisierung und Selbstermächtigung. Religion and Madness Around 1900: Between Pathology and Self-Empowerment. Diskurs Religion: Beiträge zur Religionsgeschichte und religiösen Zeitgeschichte 14. Edited with Sebastian Schüler and Lutz Greisiger. Baden-Baden: Ergon, 2017.

“Beyond the Modern Self: Madness and Divine Communion in fin-de-siècle Germany.” Religion und Wahnsinn um 1900 : Zwischen Pathologisierung und Selbstermächtigung. Religion and Madness Around 1900: Between Pathology and Self-Empowerment. Diskurs Religion: Beiträge zur Religionsgeschichte und religiösen Zeitgeschichte 14. Ed.Lutz Greisiger, Sebastian Schüler, Alexander van der Haven. Baden-Baden: Ergon, 2017: 69–100.

Axel Kaplan Szyld

"¿Adversus Iudaeos or "Pro Converso"?: Pro Converso Theology in the 'Fourth Part of the Introduction of the Symbol of  Faith'(1583)", Hispania Sacra 171 (2018), 31 pp. (in press).

"The Fourth Part of Friar Luis of Granada's 'Introduction of the Symbol of Faith' (1583): The Camouflage of a 'Pro-Converso' Catechism?, in J. F. Forméis Casals, P. Numhauser y M. Orfali (ed.), Escrituras Silenciadas, heterodoxias y disidencias en la península ibérica y América. Madrid: Universidad de Alcalá, 26 pp. (in press).

 "The 'Conversos' and the Fourth Part of the 'Introduction of the Symbol of Faith': Crypto Jew or Paulinians affinities?, Cadernos de Estudos Sefarditas 19, 25 pp. (forthcoming, 2019).

Daniel J. Lasker

“Polemics, Religion and Scepticism in Judah Halevi’s Book of Kuzari,” Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies, 2 (2017): 206-214.

Ora Limor

"The Tale of the Shroud: An Inter-Religious Encounter in Seventh Century Jerusalem through the Eyes of an Irish Monk", in: Te'uda 28: Essays in Folklore and Jewish Studies in Honor of Professor Eli Yassif, eds. Tova Rosen, Nili Aryeh-Sapir, David Rotman, Tsafi Sebba-Elran, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2017, pp. 275-299.

Mirjam Lücking

‘Imbalanced Reciprocity in Research Relationships’, In: Stodulka et al.: Affective Dimensions of Fieldwork. New York: Springer. (under review)

 ‘Working in Mecca. How Informal Pilgrimage-Migration from Madura, Indonesia, to Saudi Arabia Challenges State Sovereignty’, In: European Journal of East Asian Studies. Volume 16, Issue 2, Special Issue: Challenging State Sovereignty: A multi-level approach to Southeast and East Asian migration, 2017, pp. 248–274.

 ‘Images of Authentic Muslim Selves: Gendered Moralities and Constructions of Arab Others in Contemporary Indonesia’ (together with Evi Eliyanah), In: Social Sciences 6(3), 2017, pp. 1-20.

Nadia Zeldes

“Tunis in Avraham Zacut’s Day: A Safe Refuge for Exiles from Spain and Portugal?”, Hispania Judaica Bulletin, forthcoming.