Jewish Hymnography

Jewish Hymnography PDF Author: Leon J. Weinberger
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1909821853
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 517

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Book Description
Leon Weinberger draws on a wealth of material, much of it previously available only in Hebrew, to trace the history of Jewish hymnography from its origins in the eastern Mediterranean to its subsequent development in western Europe (Spain, Italy, Franco-Germany, and England) and Balkan Byzantium, on the Grecian periphery, under the Ottomans, and among the Karaites. Focusing on each region in turn, he provides a general background to the role of the synagogue poets in the society of the time; characterizes the principal poets and describes their contribution; examines the principal genres and forms; and considers their distinctive language, style, and themes. The copious excerpts from the liturgy are presented in transliterated Hebrew and in English translation, and their salient characteristics are fully discussed to bring out the historical development of ideas and regional themes as well as literary forms. Professor Weinberger’s study is a particularly valuable source-book for students of synagogue liturgy, Jewish worship, and medieval Hebrew poetry. It provides new perspectives for students of religious poetry and forms of worship more generally, while enabling the general reader to acquire a much-enriched appreciation of the synagogue services.

Jewish Hymnography

Jewish Hymnography PDF Author: Leon J. Weinberger
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1909821853
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 517

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Book Description
Leon Weinberger draws on a wealth of material, much of it previously available only in Hebrew, to trace the history of Jewish hymnography from its origins in the eastern Mediterranean to its subsequent development in western Europe (Spain, Italy, Franco-Germany, and England) and Balkan Byzantium, on the Grecian periphery, under the Ottomans, and among the Karaites. Focusing on each region in turn, he provides a general background to the role of the synagogue poets in the society of the time; characterizes the principal poets and describes their contribution; examines the principal genres and forms; and considers their distinctive language, style, and themes. The copious excerpts from the liturgy are presented in transliterated Hebrew and in English translation, and their salient characteristics are fully discussed to bring out the historical development of ideas and regional themes as well as literary forms. Professor Weinberger’s study is a particularly valuable source-book for students of synagogue liturgy, Jewish worship, and medieval Hebrew poetry. It provides new perspectives for students of religious poetry and forms of worship more generally, while enabling the general reader to acquire a much-enriched appreciation of the synagogue services.

Shbahoth – Songs of Praise in the Babylonian Jewish Tradition

Shbahoth – Songs of Praise in the Babylonian Jewish Tradition PDF Author: Sara Manasseh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351900439
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Sara Manasseh brings a significant, but less widely-known, Jewish repertoire and tradition to the attention of both the Jewish community (Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Oriental) and the wider global community. The book showcases thirty-one songs and includes English translations, complete Hebrew texts, transliterations and the music notation for each song. The accompanying downloadable resources include eighteen of the thirty-one songs, sung by Manasseh, accompanied by 'ud and percussion. The remaining thirteen songs are available separately on the album Treasures, performed by Rivers of Babylon, directed by Manasseh - : www.riversofbabylon.com. While in the past a book of songs, with Hebrew text only, was sufficient for bearers of the tradition, the present package represents a song collection for the twenty-first century, with greater resources to support the learning and maintenance of the tradition. Manasseh argues that the strong inter-relationship of Jewish and Arab traditions in this repertoire - linguistically and musically - is significant and provides an intercultural tool to promote communication, tolerance, understanding, harmony and respect. The singing of the Shbahoth (the Baghdadian Jewish term for 'Songs of Praise') has been a significant aspect of Jewish life in Iraq and continues to be valued by those in the Babylonian Jewish diaspora.

Jewish Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity

Jewish Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity PDF Author: Laura Suzanne Lieber
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004365893
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
In Jewish Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity, Laura Suzanne Lieber offers annotated translations of sixty-nine poems written between the 4th and 7th century C.E. in the Land of Israel, along with commentaries and introductions. The poems celebrate a range of occasions from the ritual year and the life-cycle: Passover, Shavuot (Pentacost), the Ninth of Av, Purim, the New Moon of Nisan, the conclusion of the Torah, weddings, and funerals. Written in the vernacular of the Jews of living in Palestine after the Christianization of the Roman Empire, these works offer insight into lived Jewish experience during a pivotal age. The volume contextualizes the individual works so that readers from a range of backgrounds can appreciate the formal, linguistic, exegetical, theological, and performative creativity of these works. "Lieber has produced reliable renderings, as well as learned and helpful annotations, and has consistently expressed herself in clear and elegant fashion....Her volume is an important, scientific study in its own right, as well as a useful reference tool (if read alongside the Sokoloff-Yahalom edition), and certainly deserves a wide readership." - Stefan C. Reif, St John's College, Cambridge, UK, in: Journal of Jewish Studies 70.2 (2019) "Scholars of Judaism in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages will certainly appreciate Lieber’s effort in offering all of this textual material to them in conveniently accessible form. Almost every student of Judaism in those eras, regardless of academic specialty, is likely to find something of interest and value in the poems that she has translated." - Mose J. Bernstein, Yeshiva University, Speculum 95/3 (2020)

Jewish Prayer Texts from the Cairo Genizah

Jewish Prayer Texts from the Cairo Genizah PDF Author: Stefan C. Reif
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900431332X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Jewish Prayer Texts from the Cairo Genizah, which sets a new tone for future studies, consists of a selection of transcribed and translated Genizah fragments that contain some of the earliest known texts of rabbinic prayers. Reif describes in detail the physical makeup of each manuscript and assesses the manner in which the scribe has tackled the matter of recording a preferred version. He then places the prayer texts included in the manuscript within the context of Jewish liturgical history, explaining the degree to which they were innovative and whether they established precedents to be followed in later prayer-books. He offers specialists and more general readers a fresh understanding of the historical, theological, linguistic, and social factors that may have motivated adjustments to their liturgical formulations.

Jewish Manuscripts, Prayers and Scholars

Jewish Manuscripts, Prayers and Scholars PDF Author: Stefan C. Reif
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111577732
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
The introduction offers some thoughts on each of the four areas covered by the essays and draws some broad conclusions. Studies of the history of manuscripts and of their acquisition demonstrate their impact on research into Jewish studies and on modern Judaism’s understanding of itself. What emerges from liturgical studies here included is how important it is not only to analyze texts but also to identify overall historical, geographical and cultural developments. Prayer may have been used as an educational tool and, in turn, influenced educational ideas and agendas. The liturgical themes that occur and recur over the centuries (and especially in the talmudic and medieval periods) reflect the ideological and theological notions that lie behind prayer texts and the variant forms that they take. Some common prayers are seen to include concepts of time, views of creation, attitudes to non-Jews and definitions of Jewish peoplehood. The appreciations of some leading modern scholars of Jewish studies set them in their educational, historical and religious contexts and indicate what they had in common as experts in scientific Jewish studies as well as what remained individual about their lives, research publications and achievements.

A Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism

A Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism PDF Author: Gwynn Kessler
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119113970
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 615

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Book Description
An innovative approach to the study of ten centuries of Jewish culture and history A Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism explores the Jewish people, their communities, and various manifestations of their religious and cultural expressions from the third century BCE to the seventh century CE. Presenting a collection of 30 original essays written by noted scholars in the field, this companion provides an expansive examination of ancient Jewish life, identity, gender, sacred and domestic spaces, literature, language, and theological questions throughout late ancient Jewish history and historiography. Editors Gwynn Kessler and Naomi Koltun-Fromm situate the volume within Late Antiquity, enabling readers to rethink traditional chronological, geographic, and political boundaries. The Companion incorporates a broad methodology, drawing from social history, material history and culture, and literary studies to consider the diverse forms and facets of Jews and Judaism within multiple contexts of place, culture, and history. Divided into five parts, thematically-organized essays discuss topics including the spaces where Jews lived, worked, and worshiped, Jewish languages and literatures, ethnicities and identities, and questions about gender and the body central to Jewish culture and Judaism. Offering original scholarship and fresh insights on late ancient Jewish history and culture, this unique volume: Offers a one-volume exploration of “second temple,” “Greco-Roman,” and “rabbinic” periods and sources Explores Jewish life across most of the geographic places where Jews or Judaeans were known to have lived Features original maps of areas cited in every essay, including maps of Jewish settlement throughout Late Antiquity Includes an outline of major historical events, further readings, and full references A Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism: 3rd Century BCE - 7th Century CE is a valuable resource for students, instructors, and scholars of Jewish studies, religion, literature, and ethnic identity, as well as general readers with interest in Jewish history, world religions, Classics, and Late Antiquity.

Yannai on Genesis

Yannai on Genesis PDF Author: Laura S. Lieber
Publisher: Hebrew Union College Press
ISBN: 0878201041
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 817

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Book Description
Piyyut is the art of Hebrew or Aramaic poetry composed either in place of or as adornments to Jewish statutory prayers. Laura S. Lieber uses the piyyutim of a single poet, Yannai (ca. sixth century C.E.), to introduce readers to this important but largely unfamiliar body of writings. Yannai, the first Hebrew poet to sign his name to his works (by means of an acrostic), influenced Hebrew sacred poetry for centuries beyond his lifespan. He was the first to consistently use true end rhyme, and he was among the first to have written for the weekly service and festivals rather than just particular holidays. As literary works, his poems are as dazzling as they are complex, rich with sound and play, allusion and linguistic beauty. Lieber presents the Hebrew texts of Yannai's 31 extant piyyutim which embellish the Book of Genesis. She translates, annotates, and analyzes these complex poems, which display the poet's transformative treatments of some of the most familiar biblical narratives. She contextualizes these poems and teaches readers how to read and appreciate piyyut by studying Yannai's poetic language and the formal structures of the poems; his exegetical, cultural, and societal importance; and intriguing motifs in Yannai's worldview such as mysticism, holiness, Jewish-Christian relations, and the role of women. Lieber's groundbreaking study is an invitation to those with interests in areas such as liturgical studies, rabbinic literature and targum studies, the early synagogue and its art, Byzantine Christian culture and society, and the history of biblical interpretation to engage with these beautiful and neglected texts and include them in larger intellectual conversations.

Judaism and Its Bible

Judaism and Its Bible PDF Author: Frederick E. Greenspahn
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0827619049
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
Judaism and Its Bible explores the profoundly deep and complex relationship between Jews, Judaism, and the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible has been ubiquitous in Jewish life and thought: Jews read it, interpret it, and debate it. They translate the Bible even as they deem those translations inadequate, and they cite the Bible as the basis for observances that are not even mentioned in it. Jews quote the Bible as authority for their tradition's preservation and innovation, as both the word of God and the language of humans, and as justification for both pro- and anti-rabbinic movements. Fascinating and comprehensive, Judaism and Its Bible describes the extraordinary two-and-a-half-millennia journey of a people and its book that has changed the world.

The Poet and the World

The Poet and the World PDF Author: Joachim Yeshaya
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110599236
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
A collection of seventeen essays on pre-modern Hebrew poetry in honor of Wout van Bekkum. The articles in this volume all seek to examine how the religious, cultural, and social context in which the poet functioned impacted on and is visible, either explicitly or more elliptically, in their poetical oeuvre. For this purposes a broad understanding of "world" has been accepted, including both the natural world and the constructed one (society, culture, language) as well as the spiritual and emotional world. History, a pillar of the man-made constructed world, has been used to determine the boundaries: from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, and—in instances where the topic connects to older traditions—to Early Modern Judaism, i.e. pre-modern Hebrew (and Aramaic) poetry. The articles in this volume, in the breadth of their temporal and spatial range and their multiplicity of approaches and methodologies, highlight the richness of contemporary scholarship on Hebrew poetry. The volume invites the reader to engage with this astonishing body of poetry, while providing a glimpse into the world of the payṭanim, and the cultures and societies from which they drew their ininspiration and to which they made such important contributions.

Religious Diversity in Late Antiquity

Religious Diversity in Late Antiquity PDF Author: David Morton Gwynn
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004180001
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 584

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Book Description
This volume in the ongoing Late Antique Archaeology series draws on material and textual evidence to explore the diverse religious world of Late Antiquity. Subjects include Jews and Samaritans, orthodoxy and heresy, pilgrimage, stylites, magic, the sacred and the secular.