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Rosh Hodesh Adar 5764
February 23, 2004
Dear Board Members,
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS SUPPORTED BY THE MEMORIAL FOUNDATION,
2002-03
The list of publications received by the Foundation during the
academic year 2002-2003 is part of the Foundation's ongoing program
of supporting the publication of books. The Foundation has since
its inception assisted in the publication of close to 4,000 volumes,
covering all aspects of Jewish culture, broadly defined.
As we approach the 40th anniversary of the Memorial
Foundation this summer, it is worthwhile to highlight more fully
this aspect of our work. Essentially, what the Foundation has
engaged in since 1964-65 has been the creation, dissemination,
and intensification of Jewish culture in Jewish communities all
around the world after the Shoah.
Intensification of Jewish culture refers specifically to our work
of cultural reconstruction and renewal, particularly in the Jewish
communities in Eastern Europe, that were culturally decimated
in the second World War and during the Communist era, as well
as in dispersed Jewish communities in other parts of the globe
— communities far removed from the
nucleus of Jewish life, geographically, socially and culturally.
Dissemination entails the training of cultural leaders and the
publication of books that transmit extant Jewish culture through
schools, universities, and other educational and cultural bodies
to the Jewish people. These aspects of the Foundation's work have
been very visible among the Foundation's programs in recent years.
But the Foundation has been equally and very successfully also
involved in the creation of Jewish Culture, most notably in Jewish
scholarship. Through our doctoral, fellowship and institutional
programs, we have supported individuals and universities in promoting
original research and publications in the widest range of Jewish
scholarly activity. We have played a very unique and special role
in this area on the international scene; as such support is often
scarce and not always a high priority in Jewish communities.
Women Scholars
The two volumes which I will be highlighting in this report reflect
the highest level of Jewish scholarship. Remarkably, both were
written by women, and deal with rabbinical studies and mysticism,
areas of hard-core Judaica. What I should like to emphasize here
is the growing role of Jewish women scholars in serious scholarly
research, and the role of the Foundation in supporting these women
scholars. When I came to the Foundation several decades ago, few
women were recipients of Foundation grants. Today about half the
grantees in our doctoral and special doctoral fellowship programs
are women.
Megillat Ta'anit: Versions, Interpretations, History,
by Dr. Vered Noam is based on her doctorate, which she received
with distinction from Hebrew University. Prof. Noam is at the
beginning of her academic career and currently serves as professor
of Talmud at Tel Aviv University. Dr. Noam was awarded a Memorial
Foundation Ephraim Urbach postdoctoral fellowship to help publish
this new critical edition of Megillat Ta'anit.
Megillat Ta'anit is a fascinating and esoteric work in
Aramaic from the Second Temple period. The historical importance
of the text, often cited in the Talmud, is because it is the only
extant manuscript from the Pharisaic period of the Second Temple,
with the exception of the Qumran works.
The title "Megillat Ta'anit" ("Scroll
of Fasting") is misleading. It is not a list of fasts, but
of days when fasting was forbidden, compiled by the sages at the
end of the Second Temple period.
The historical events recorded here are scattered broadly over
500 years, from the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, the builders of
the walls of Jerusalem in the fifty century B.C.E., to the destruction
of the Temple. Many of the historical events alluded to in Megillat
Ta'anit are shrouded in mist. Some are enigmatic and indecipherable;
others are the source of scholarly debate. Gaps in our historical
knowledge, the use of Aramaic and the terse style —
all these contribute to the mystery.
In the book, Prof. Noam brings all the versions and variations
of the text itself and the scholium (rabbinic commentary appended
to the text). Prof. Noam's work, especially her efforts to untangle
the mystery of the dates, is solidly grounded in the relevant
literature — rabbinic lore, writings
from the Second Temple period and later, academic scholarship
and more.
Prof. Noam has helped to rescue Megillat Ta'anit from
oblivion. Not that people have not known about it or studied it.
But like other such works, parts of the text have become garbled
over the centuries. There is no longer a clear line between the
composition as it was originally handed down, and material added
in the course of transcription.
According to a scholarly reviewer in Haaretz, "
Those who sit down and give this stunning volume its due will
see how successful she has been."
(May I note that Prof. Noam is also the mother of six children.)
The second book, Temple and Chariot, Priests and Angels, Sanctuary
and Heavenly Sanctuaries in Early Jewish Mysticism, was authored
by Rachel Elior, the John and Golda Cohen Prof. of Jewish Philosophy
at Hebrew University. Prof. Elior received several fellowships
from the Foundation, one of which was for the preparation of this
book, as well as two doctoral scholarships to assist her in completing
her doctoral studies at Hebrew University. Prof. Elior, a prolific
scholar and author, has published a whole series of works on Jewish
mysticism, including most recently Heikalot Literature and
Merkavah Tradition: Ancient Jewish Mysticism and its Sources;
The Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism;
and Studies in the Mystical Foundations of Hasidism.
The central idea in Elior's work is her perception of the early
history of Jewish mysticism. Professor Gershom Shalom's studies
of Shabtai Zvi and his movement and its source in Kabbalah played
a historic role in introducing mysticism into the field of Jewish
history. Since his pioneering work, it has been difficult to separate
the history of Kabbalah from the history of the Jewish as a whole.
Mysticism has become one of the dominant elements of historical
research.
Until now, however, the study of ancient Jewish mysticism has
been conducted separately from the historical reality of the Jewish
people. Elior's work challenges that premise and links early Jewish
mysticism to the history of the sects in Israel and the relations
between the priests and the Pharisees.
Her work is also devoted to contrasting two varieties of religious
experience, one that relies on direct Divine revelation, which
is dominant in Second Temple literature, and the religious outlook
that relies on the study and discussion of the Written and Oral
Law, represented in the Mishna and in the traditions of the Sages,
the pillars of Judaism as it has been known since then.
Best wishes for a joyous Purim.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Jerry Hochbaum
Executive Vice President
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