New post: Language Tutor in Modern Hebrew (part time)

Language Experience for All Programme (LEAP). "You must possess near-native command of both Hebrew and English; demonstrate excellent language-teaching skills; and have an educational background appropriate to the delivery of the specified duties. Experience of teaching and assessing advanced Hebrew language skills at tertiary level, in person and online, are essential. Experience teaching in UK higher education and a track record in curriculum development are highly desirable..." Deadline: 13 May 2022. Further information.

Conference paper report, EABS

Biblical Studies. PhD student Sherry Ashworth was amongst those contributing to the EABS' Graduate Symposium in Prague, with a paper entitled 'It's complicated: The relationship between Esther and Mordecai in the Book of Esther, mediated by Charles Dickens' novel, Bleak House' (30 March 2022). She reports: "At the very end of March I presented a paper at the European Association of Biblical Studies’ Graduate Symposium. The Symposium is intended for PhD candidates who might not have presented before (like me!) and is a very supportive, while scholarly rigorous, event. It was fascinating to meet other biblical scholars from all over Europe, and as ever, I was impressed at how excellent everyone’s English is, and was keenly aware that many students were presenting in a second language. I was struck by the diversity of methodologies, given that the Bible is such a small text – it’s a bit like the Tardis in there! The conference organisers took us for a tour of Jewish Prague, led by the Jewish Museum director. This is an emotionally gruelling experience, as the devastation caused by the Holocaust is very immediate and tends to drown out the other aspects of Jewish history, such as the ancient cemetery with the grave of the Maharal of Prague, AKA Rabbi Loew, the inventor of the legend of the Golem. The tour ended with a visit to the beautiful Spanish Synagogue, which is used by the progressive Jewish community of Prague, and so plays host to bat mitzvahs, thus looking toward an egalitarian Jewish future in the city."

Conference, Paris

Holocaust studies. Jean-Marc Dreyfus was part of the scientific committee for a conference on 'The spoliation of musical instruments in Europe. 1933-1945'. Jennifer Verson (University of Warwick) presented a paper, "Musical Scores in the archives of the Jewish Museum of Prague". 7-9 April 2022. Further information.

Public lectures online, Jewish and Muslim studies

Jewish and Muslim Studies. CJS Hon. Research Fellow Michael Hilton announces the coming programme for the course 'Judaism and Islam: A shared history' that he is leading with Dr Harith Ramli. 10 May: 'Why we love Jerusalem.' Jewish and Muslim traditions and teachings about the holy city. 14 June: 'The Jewish Orientalists.' The little-known story of the leading Western scholars of, and enthusiasts for Islam, who came from Jewish backgrounds. This lecture, the culmination of the course, is the Rabbi Dr David J. Goldberg Memorial Lecture. On Zoom and in-person. Liberal Jewish Synagogue. Booking and further details from Debi Penhey.

Ehrhardt Seminar, Centre for Biblical Studies

Esther and Dickens. Sherry Ashworth, University of Manchester, ‘It's complicated: the relationship between Esther and Mordecai, mediated by Charles Dickens' Bleak House.’ 14:00 - 15:30 05 May 2022. The Centre for Biblical Studies weekly seminar series. Sessions will take place in a hybrid format - attendance is possible in person or online via Zoom. To register to attend online, please email siobhan.jolley@manchester.ac.uk.

Seminars, Yad Vashem

Holocaust Education. Seminars available for Jewish educators at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 2022. Further information.

Online Conference

Jewish Studies. Moshe Behar opened the Edge Hill University conference 'Duel' Obligation? Palestine in the Mandate Years on 29 March 2022. A recording of the presentation can be found here.

New publication

Dead Sea Scrolls. Hon research fellow Helen R. Jacobus, "Science Fiction in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Case of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the Nephilim," in Fountains of Wisdom. In Conversation with James H. Charlesworth, eds. Gerbern S. Oegema, Henry W. Morisada, and Loren T. Stuckenbruck (London: T & T Clark, 2022), 455-466. She presented a paper of the same title at the Festschrift Conference for James Charlesworth, the McGill-Munich-Grinnell Conference on 40 Years of Pseudepigrapha Research, in Montreal, on April 3-5, 2022. Further information.

Research paper, Hebrew University

Dead Sea Scrolls. PhD student John Darby gave a paper entitled 'Singing, performing and Textuality in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice', chaired by George Brooke. Zoom, 6 April 2022. Further information.

Screen and Talk

Jewish Studies. The Centre for Jewish Studies and the Department of Drama at Manchester University are pleased to announce that the next Screen & Talk event will be the streaming of ‘The Commissar’ Aleksandr Askoldov’s topical Soviet film The Commissar (1967) tells the story of a pregnant Red Army commissar, who stays with a Jewish family to give birth during the Russian civil war in Ukraine. Co-written by the Ukrainian Jewish writer Vassiliy Grossman, the film was among the rare productions of its era that featured Jewish protagonists and referenced the Holocaust in ways that subtly undermined the Soviet-state narrative of revolutionary heroism. The film and its director were immediately banned after completion and Commissar premiered internationally only at the 1988 Berlin Film Festival, when late Soviet Glasnost policies had finally enabled the film’s release. 7 April 2022, 5.45pm BST, online, register here. Further information.