Books by Elisabeth Hollender
This volume is a compendium of all known commentaries on Hebrew liturgical poetry (piyyut) preser... more This volume is a compendium of all known commentaries on Hebrew liturgical poetry (piyyut) preserved in manuscript form. It includes references to commentaries from many different Jewish communities, most prominent among them Ashkenaz, Tsarfat, Sepharad, ...
A short sketch of the development of piyyutim in the Ashkenazic Mahzor, showing how groups of piy... more A short sketch of the development of piyyutim in the Ashkenazic Mahzor, showing how groups of piyyutim were imported or composed in Ashkenaz at different times. The paper serves to delineate possibilities and methodological problems for a future full study of developments that created the different Ashkenazic rites.
Studia Judaica, 2008
Monograph on Ashkenazic piyyut commentary as compilatory genre, describing the history of the gen... more Monograph on Ashkenazic piyyut commentary as compilatory genre, describing the history of the genre, the main commentators. Contains a taxonomy of commentary elements and types of compilation. Includes several edited piyyut commentaries.
Papers by Elisabeth Hollender
Menachem Butler and Jonathan Grossman, eds., Avraham Grossman on the Cultural Dynamic of Medieval Jewish History and Thought (Cambridge, MA: The Institute for Jewish Research and Publications, 2024), 67-70., 2024
In his exhaustive research on medieval sages, Avraham Grossman delved into every available and ex... more In his exhaustive research on medieval sages, Avraham Grossman delved into every available and extant medieval Hebrew manuscript, meticulously analyzing texts across all genres with unwavering dedication and focus. His scholarly journey was marked by an insatiable curiosity and an unrelenting pursuit of knowledge, leaving no stone unturned in his quest to understand the intellectual and spiritual landscape of the medieval Jewish world. One particular genre that captured his scholarly attention, ultimately meriting an entire chapter in his seminal work The Early Sages of France: Their Lives, Leadership, and Works (1995), was piyyut commentary. This field, previously overshadowed and underappreciated within academic circles, was illuminated by Grossman's pioneering efforts, which brought to the forefront the profound exegetical contributions embedded within these liturgical poems and their commentaries. His work revealed the rich intellectual and spiritual dimensions of piyyut commentary, establishing it as a vital area of study in medieval Jewish scholarship. This genre was primarily known through the
Jewish Quarterly Review 111 (2), 2021
LAY LEADERSHIP HAS PLAYED a role in nearly every Jewish community
across time; medieval Ashkenaz... more LAY LEADERSHIP HAS PLAYED a role in nearly every Jewish community
across time; medieval Ashkenaz was no exception. By “leadership,”
we mean people—usually a group but sometimes individuals—who
were entitled to make decisions that influenced the lives of others
and who performed communal functions such as intercommunal arbitration, validation of legal transactions, representation of the community to outside authorities, division of taxes and financial burdens, and more. The term “lay,” in this context, refers to people who, although informed about religious norms, were not primarily known for their scholarly erudition and did not compose normative or legal
texts. In medieval times, leadership positions were mostly entrusted to the financially successful and the learned male elite. While the role of rabbinic scholars in the organization and leadership of medieval Ashkenazic communities has been thoroughly researched in the past, information regarding the lay leadership is limited and usually appears in passing in rabbinic writing. Unlike the rabbinic scholars who gradually moved from an oral to a written culture, explaining the norms of individual and communal life, lay leadership tended not to leave much of a paper trail, to the best of our knowledge. Even though written forms were accepted for many legal
procedures in the Jewish tradition, everyday leadership activities were
usually not recorded in writing and were not systematically archived until
a much later period. Yet even in communities with strong rabbinic academies and a strong rabbinic presence, a lay leadership existed, organized into a body of elect leaders, or parnasim, similar to the Christian city council. From the information available to us, this body comprised scholars and laymen alike. In this essay, we collected and analyzed evidence from Cologne, where there was no strong rabbinic academy
during the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, in order to show some features that we associate with lay leadership and the differences between lay leadership and rabbinic scholars who led communities. This will be achieved by contrasting the lay leadership with the more prominent form of decision making in medieval Ashkenaz—namely, the scholarly leadership documented in halakhic literature, which is our main, and often only, source of information. Texts composed by the rabbinic elite have been scrutinized for information on those “beyond the elite,” such as women, the poor, and the sick; thus we seek to extract from rabbinic texts traces of a lay leadership, a presence that, since it did not actively contribute texts, has remain silenced behind the literate culture associated with the rabbinic academies of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz (collectively referred to by the acronym ShUM).
The Poet and the World, 2019
Jewish History
We do not detail all the articles written on this topic since Marcus's collection. For an interim... more We do not detail all the articles written on this topic since Marcus's collection. For an interim summary see the Jewish Quarterly Review Forum on Sefer H. asidim, Elliot Horowitz, "Introduction: A Splendid Outburst of Spirituality," Jewish Quarterly Review 96, no. 1 (2006): v-vii, and the articles in that collection. See also the recent publication of all Haym Soloveitchik's work on the topic in the third volume of his Collected Essays (Liverpool, 2020), which includes two previously unpublished essays. As this volume appeared as we were copyediting this article, the essays are referenced but not addressed at length in this introduction. 5 For a discussion of this problem in the context of Jewish studies, see Peter Schäfer, "Research into Rabbinic Literature: An Attempt to Define the Status Quaestionis,"
'His Pen and Ink Are a Powerful Mirror', 2020
Entangled Histories, 2016
The Poet and the World, 2019
Exegesis and Poetry in Medieval Karaite and Rabbanite Texts, 2017
In 1758, Berakha ben Joseph ha-Kohen of Kale composed Sēfer ṭūḇ ṭaʿam, a commentary on the liturg... more In 1758, Berakha ben Joseph ha-Kohen of Kale composed Sēfer ṭūḇ ṭaʿam, a commentary on the liturgical poems of Aaron ben Joseph. Unlike other piyyūṭ commen taries, this work is actually a supercommentary, which treats these liturgical poems as biblical commentaries. Rather than discussing the poetic features of Aaron the Elder's poetry, Berakha ben Joseph strives to discern the best understanding of the underlying biblical text. In this effort, he draws on Aaron ben Joseph's Sēfer ha-miḇḥār, as well as Rabbanite exegetical and philosophical texts as sources for his composition. Despite his assertion that Aaron ben Joseph sought to explain the secrets (sōdōt) of the Torah, Berakha makes no attempt to reveal them in his commentary. His approach to Karaite (and, to some extent, Rabbanite) traditions and exegesis resembles that of his literarily more productive contemporary Simhah Isaac Lutski.
"Genizat Germania" - Hebrew and Aramaic Binding Fragments from Germany in Context
Medieval Ashkenaz. Papers in Honour of Alfred Haverkamp, 2021
The paper investigates three zulatot transmitted in the early modern Worms liturgy for the time b... more The paper investigates three zulatot transmitted in the early modern Worms liturgy for the time between Shavuot and Tisha beAv. All commemorate persecutions that took place in the early 13th century outside of Worms.
Festschrift for Günter Stemberger on the Occasion of his 75th Birthday, 2000
Die SchUM-Gemeinden. Speyer-Worms-Mainz. Auf dem Weg zum Welterbe, 2012
Giving a Diamond. A Festive Volume for Joseph Yahalom on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, ed. W. van Bekkum, N. Katsumata. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2011, pp. 265-278., 2011
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Books by Elisabeth Hollender
Papers by Elisabeth Hollender
across time; medieval Ashkenaz was no exception. By “leadership,”
we mean people—usually a group but sometimes individuals—who
were entitled to make decisions that influenced the lives of others
and who performed communal functions such as intercommunal arbitration, validation of legal transactions, representation of the community to outside authorities, division of taxes and financial burdens, and more. The term “lay,” in this context, refers to people who, although informed about religious norms, were not primarily known for their scholarly erudition and did not compose normative or legal
texts. In medieval times, leadership positions were mostly entrusted to the financially successful and the learned male elite. While the role of rabbinic scholars in the organization and leadership of medieval Ashkenazic communities has been thoroughly researched in the past, information regarding the lay leadership is limited and usually appears in passing in rabbinic writing. Unlike the rabbinic scholars who gradually moved from an oral to a written culture, explaining the norms of individual and communal life, lay leadership tended not to leave much of a paper trail, to the best of our knowledge. Even though written forms were accepted for many legal
procedures in the Jewish tradition, everyday leadership activities were
usually not recorded in writing and were not systematically archived until
a much later period. Yet even in communities with strong rabbinic academies and a strong rabbinic presence, a lay leadership existed, organized into a body of elect leaders, or parnasim, similar to the Christian city council. From the information available to us, this body comprised scholars and laymen alike. In this essay, we collected and analyzed evidence from Cologne, where there was no strong rabbinic academy
during the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, in order to show some features that we associate with lay leadership and the differences between lay leadership and rabbinic scholars who led communities. This will be achieved by contrasting the lay leadership with the more prominent form of decision making in medieval Ashkenaz—namely, the scholarly leadership documented in halakhic literature, which is our main, and often only, source of information. Texts composed by the rabbinic elite have been scrutinized for information on those “beyond the elite,” such as women, the poor, and the sick; thus we seek to extract from rabbinic texts traces of a lay leadership, a presence that, since it did not actively contribute texts, has remain silenced behind the literate culture associated with the rabbinic academies of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz (collectively referred to by the acronym ShUM).
across time; medieval Ashkenaz was no exception. By “leadership,”
we mean people—usually a group but sometimes individuals—who
were entitled to make decisions that influenced the lives of others
and who performed communal functions such as intercommunal arbitration, validation of legal transactions, representation of the community to outside authorities, division of taxes and financial burdens, and more. The term “lay,” in this context, refers to people who, although informed about religious norms, were not primarily known for their scholarly erudition and did not compose normative or legal
texts. In medieval times, leadership positions were mostly entrusted to the financially successful and the learned male elite. While the role of rabbinic scholars in the organization and leadership of medieval Ashkenazic communities has been thoroughly researched in the past, information regarding the lay leadership is limited and usually appears in passing in rabbinic writing. Unlike the rabbinic scholars who gradually moved from an oral to a written culture, explaining the norms of individual and communal life, lay leadership tended not to leave much of a paper trail, to the best of our knowledge. Even though written forms were accepted for many legal
procedures in the Jewish tradition, everyday leadership activities were
usually not recorded in writing and were not systematically archived until
a much later period. Yet even in communities with strong rabbinic academies and a strong rabbinic presence, a lay leadership existed, organized into a body of elect leaders, or parnasim, similar to the Christian city council. From the information available to us, this body comprised scholars and laymen alike. In this essay, we collected and analyzed evidence from Cologne, where there was no strong rabbinic academy
during the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, in order to show some features that we associate with lay leadership and the differences between lay leadership and rabbinic scholars who led communities. This will be achieved by contrasting the lay leadership with the more prominent form of decision making in medieval Ashkenaz—namely, the scholarly leadership documented in halakhic literature, which is our main, and often only, source of information. Texts composed by the rabbinic elite have been scrutinized for information on those “beyond the elite,” such as women, the poor, and the sick; thus we seek to extract from rabbinic texts traces of a lay leadership, a presence that, since it did not actively contribute texts, has remain silenced behind the literate culture associated with the rabbinic academies of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz (collectively referred to by the acronym ShUM).
Anyone interested in the Hebrew Bible, biblical exegesis, medieval Jewish culture and literature, Hebrew poetry, Jews in the Islamic World, the Byzantine Empire and Christian Europe, and Karaite-Rabbanite relations.
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
List of Abbreviations
Transliteration of Arabic
Transliteration of Hebrew
Introduction
Part 1 From Jerusalem to Alexandria
Chapter 1 Wout van Bekkum and Naoya Katsumata, “Singing Songs about Songs”: Biblical and Exegetical Interconnections in Three Hebrew Hymns for Yōm Vayyōshaʿ (the Seventh Day of Passover)
Chapter 2 Sivan Nir and Meira Polliack, “Many Beautiful Meanings Can Be Drawn from Such a Comparison”: On the Medieval Interaction View of Biblical Metaphor
Part 2 From Granada to Sanaʿa
Chapter 3 Mordechai Cohen, “The Distinction of Creative Ability” (Faḍl al-ibdāʿ): From Poetics to Legal Hermeneutics in Moses Ibn Ezra
Chapter 4 Haviva Ishay, The Biblical Exegesis of Abraham Ibn Ezra as a Hermeneutical Device: A Literary Riddle as a Case Study
Chapter 5 Adena Tanenbaum, The Uses of Scripture in Zechariah al-Ḍāhirī’s Sēfer ha-mūsār
Part 3 From Constantinople to Candia
Chapter 6 Daniel J. Lasker, The Interplay of Poetry and Exegesis in Judah Hadassi’s Eshkōl ha-kōfer
Chapter 7 Joachim Yeshaya, Aaron ben Joseph’s Poem for Pārāshat Yitrō Considered in Light of His Torah Commentary Sēfer ha-miḇḥār
Chapter 8 Saskia Dönitz, Shemarya ha-Ikriti and the Karaite Exegetical Challenge
Part 4 From Istanbul to Trakai
Chapter 9 Philip Miller, The Methods of Judah Gibbor’s Biblical Exegesis in Minḥat Yĕhūdā
Chapter 10 Riikka Tuori, “The One Who Defeats the Power of the Stars”: Medieval Exegetics in Polish-Lithuanian Karaite Poetry
Chapter 11 Elisabeth Hollender, Berakha ben Joseph’s Commentary on the Piyyūṭīm by Aaron ben Joseph