Date/Time
Date(s) - 6 Feb 2012
5:15 PM - 7:15 PM
Location
Van Pelt Library
Category(ies) No Categories
Seminar in the History of Material Texts
Elchanan Reiner, Professor of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University, will give a presentation on “The Printed Talmud: A Project of Modern Jewish Culture.”
Reiner writes:The printing of the Babylonian Talmud in the sixteenth century made that work a fundamental text of Jewish culture. I argue that the printed Talmud is, in fact, a new text, different in important ways from the one familiar to medieval Jewish scholars. The Talmud has been seen as a traditional, conservative force in Jewish society; my thesis is that the printed Talmud was an innovative work that played a significant role in European Jewry’s transition from traditionalism to modernity.The presentation is drawn from a work-in-progress on the changes in Ashkenazi Jewish culture brought on by the advent of the printed book.
Elchanan Reiner is Professor of Jewish history at Tel Aviv University and a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Among his publications are “The Yeshivas of Poland and Ashkenaz During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries – Historical Developments,” “The Ashkenazi Élite at the Beginning of the Modern Era: Manuscript versus Printed Book,” “Beyond the Realm of the Haskalah: Changing Learning Patterns in the Jewish Traditional Society” and “‘No Jew should learn but the Talmud alone’: A Dispute over Books and Forbidden Books in 16th Century Ashkenaz.”
Martin and Margy Meyerson Conference room is located on the second floor of Van Pelt Library, diagonally across from the elevator bank.