Rotenstreich Scholarship

Supervisor: Prof. Yaron Ben-Naeh

Abstract: This dissertation discusses the Ottoman-Jewish Haskalah (Enlightenment), which had developed and grown in the Tanzimat period (1839-1876) and the Hamidian period (1876-1908). The study focuses on the four central urban Jewish communities in Western Anatolia, the Southern Balkans (Salonica, Istanbul, Izmir, and Edirne), and in Jerusalem, as a unique study case of an ottoman province.

The research encompasses a circle of some 30 Maskilim, which their main cultural and intellectual links, defining them as a group in this study, was to the Jewish Haskalah movement in Central and Eastern Europe, mostly in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. These Maskilim, most of whom had acquired some rabbinic education, wrote mainly in two languages: Hebrew, the Lingua Franca of Jewish Haskalah movement, and the Sephardic Ottoman vernacular – Ladino.

Publications (selection):

Tamir Karkason, “Sabbateanism and the Ma’aminim in the Writings of Abraham Elmaleh”, El Prezente: Studies in Sephardic Culture 10 (2016), pp. 123-142

---, “Sephardi Historiography: ‘Three who preceded Ben-Yehuda’ as a Test Case”, Pe’amim: Studies in Oriental Jewry 149 (2017), pp. 97-136 (Hebrew)

Yaron Ben-Naeh and Tamir Karkason, “Writings in Hebrew on Istanbul during the Last Ottoman Century and the Early Years of the Turkish Republic”, in: Christoph Hertzog and Richard Wittmann (eds.), Recovering the Voices of Late Ottoman Istanbul’s Multiethnic Residents through Self-Narratives (1830-1930): Sources and Research Paradigms, Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing (in press)

Rotenstreich Stipend 2015/16

Presidential Stipend 2015/16

Subject: Representations of the Reformation in the Protestant-Jewish Polemic: Intra-Christian Conflict in the "Presence" of Jews

Supervisor: Prof. Ram Ben-Shalom, Dr. Aya Elyada 

Abstract: My dissertation aims to explore the representation, or representations, of the Reformation in Protestant anti-Jewish polemics. It considers the ways in which Protestants referred or reacted to disputes with Catholics or with other Protestants while confronting Jews (confrontations imagined or real)—or, from a different angle, the ways in which Jewish contexts affected Protestant portrayals of intra-Christian conflict. Additionally, it attempts to understand how these references and reactions to the Reformation informed the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century polemic against the Jews, and bear upon its place in Adversus Judaeos history. In broader strokes, the proposed dissertation is a study of how the "presence" of Jews shaped Christian expression and thought, and of how such Christian expression and thought shaped engagement with a Jewish "presence."

The Reformation left its mark on practically every sphere of Western European life, calling much of what Christians had once taken for granted into question. That traces of the Reformation, and of Reformation conflict, in fact emerge in the anti-Jewish polemic is, therefore, hardly surprising—however, the scope and specificity, and correspondingly, impact, of this Reformation discourse still needs to be clarified. While the polemic against the Jews offered a convenient setting for validating a specific version of Christianity, for example, by attributing Jewish "errors" to other Christians, it was not necessarily the most natural grounds for a detailed discussion of Reformation issues or debates. In this sense, the focus of my research is not only a particular chapter in the history of the Christian-Jewish polemic or the unique convergence of, say, Protestant-Catholic or Lutheran-Reformed tensions and Christian-Jewish controversy, but also the Reformation itself, as refracted through a distinctly Jewish lens.
 

Bio: I completed my BA studies in the History Department, the School of History Honors Program, and the Amirim Honors Program in the Humanities; and my MA studies in the History Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I am currently researching representations of the Reformation in the Protestant-Jewish polemic of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Publications:

"'Such an Illumination Cannot Occur': Anthonius Margaritha, the Reformation, and the Polemic against the Jews," Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 111 (2020), forthcoming.

"אפוקליפסה של משבר נוצרי: 'אלגוריה קדושה' של יאן פרובוסט כתגובה לראשית הרפורמציה", מוזה: כתב עת לתלמידי מחקר במדעי הרוח 3 (2019), 37-20.

"בין יהדות לנצרו(יו)ת, בין אתנוגרפיה לפולמוס: כתיבתו של אנטוניוס מרגריטה על הקבלה ב'האמונה היהודית כולה', היה היה: במה צעירה להיסטוריה 14 (2019), 48-29.

“Sebastian Münster and His Sources: The Messiah in Rome and the Convergence of Christian-Jewish Polemic and Intra-Christian Conflict,” Journal of Early Modern Christianity 8 (2021): 135-151.

"'Such an Illumination Cannot Occur': Anthonius Margaritha, the Reformation, and the Polemic against the Jews," Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 111 (2020): 55-77.

"אפוקליפסה של משבר נוצרי: 'אלגוריה קדושה' של יאן פרובוסט כתגובה לראשית הרפורמציה", מוזה: כתב עת לתלמידי מחקר במדעי הרוח 3 (2019): 37-20.

"בין יהדות לנצרו(יו)ת, בין אתנוגרפיה לפולמוס: כתיבתו של אנטוניוס מרגריטה על הקבלה ב'האמונה היהודית כולה', היה היה: במה צעירה להיסטוריה 14 (2019): 48-29.
 

President Stipend 2018/19

Rotenstreich Stipend 2020/21

Subject: Spain's Golden Age Literary Genres in Historical Context: Control and Freedom under eyes of the Inquisition

Supervisor: Prof. Ruth Fine

Abstract: In my Ph.D. dissertation I plan to explore the literary mechanisms of two important Golden Age genres, the Pastoral Novel and the Picaresque Novel, in relation to the historical climate of Spain under the Inquisition. I hope that my research will bring about a new comprehension of the genres in question as well as better understanding of the fascinating complexity of the history of that period. 

Bio: I am a student of Latin languages and Spanish literature. I have studied in Spain (in Salamanca, in 2008, before I started my university studies, and in Granada, in 2016) and in Germany (in Göttingen, in 2012), but I did most of my studies in the Department of Romance and Latin American Studies at the Hebrew University. In my MA studies, I focused on Spanish literature of the golden age, and investigated, under the supervision of Prof. Ruth Fine, two literary genres: the Picaresque novel and the Pastoral novel. In my doctoral dissertation, I intend to expand the literary scope and the historical and social perspective. In addition to my academic activity, my main hobby is chess. I participate in competitions since 2002. I look forward with hope and curiosity to the next four years at Mandel School.

President Stipend 2017/18

Supervisor: Prof. Dror Wahrman and Prof. Moshe Slohovsky

Abstract: I am a historian of modern Britain and its empire, and I question the intersection between technology and emotions. My dissertation examines the ways in which changing communication technology, most prominently the rise of steam engines in the 1830s and the reorganization of mail delivery from 1840 onwards, impacted the emotional connections between British family members dispersed throughout the nineteenth century empire. It likewise analyses the ways these emotional economies in turn reflected the inherent difficulties of empire. My current project questions whether imperial encounters contributed to changing cleanliness and soaping practices in the modern West. It probes the ways these redrew lines of social and gendered distinction, reconstructed racial relations, altered emotional lives, and reconfigured the body itself.

Rotenstreich Stipend 2016/17

Presidential Stipend 2014/15

Advisors: Prof. Yigal Bronner

Abstract: The dissertation deals with the redefining of the bodily perception in Hatha Yoga. The corpus of texts dealing with Hatha Yoga contains various physical practices and deals, among other issues, with the relationship between physical energy (śakti) and the soteriological state of liberation (mokṣa). By examining these texts a new discourse of health and immortality appears as well as a detailed catalog of physical exercises. Thus, the main questions of the dissertation are: How is the human body conceptualized and constructed in this textual corpus? What, according to these texts, is the body’s direct connection with immortality, health, and the soul’s freedom from earthy existence? What is the interface between the Haṭhayogic body in its strictly anatomical sense and its underlying metaphysical body?  The way to answer these questions dominates a diachronic axis when multidisciplinary research is conducted: a textual philological study that examines texts between the 11th and 15th centuries in the Sanskrit language. The second part is an ethnographic study centered on the main three ascetic orders in modern India (Daśanāmīs, Rāmānānīs, Nāth) who are the heirs of the textual tradition and whose lives are devoted to yoga.
By examining the body as a cultural product, in both the scriptures and the living tradition, it will be possible to better understand the historical transformation of this tradition and the ways in which modernity has shaped, distorted and even reconstructed the early notions of yoga. Such an examination can shed new light on the categorization of the body in the sciences of religion and anthropology.

Publications:

Sharabi, Asaf and Hagar Shalev. 2016. From Ruler to Healer: Changes in Religious Experience in the Western Himalayas. HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies. 6 (2):20-35.

Shalev, Hagar and Sharabi Asaf. Sanskritization of the Upper Castes: the Case of Mahāsū Followers. Ethnic and Racial Studies. (excepted for publication) 

Sharabi, Asaf and Hagar Shalev. 2018. Charismatic Mediumship and Traditional Priesthood: Power Relations in a Religious Field. Religion 48 (2): 198-214. 
 

Rotenstreich Scholarship 2018/19

President  2015/16

Supervisor: Prof. Ilan Sharon and Prof. Gideon Shelach

Abstract: The research reexamines the settlement history of the Upper Galilee during the Bronze and Iron ages (third to early first millennium B.C.E.) in light of archaeological surveys. The survey identifies early remnants and enables us to classify the changes in the settlement patterns over time and space. The research examines (per each historical epoch) where, in which form and to what extent people settled within the Upper Galilee, as well as what can be deduced from the location, character and interrelation of the various settlements with regards to early demography, society and economy. Besides the renewed discussion of the local history, I examine in my research a new method of archaeological survey, whose aim is to obtain a higher level of data precision in comparison with past methods, thereby resulting in a more accurate historical picture than that which exists today in scholarly research.

Publications:

1.    Bloch, G., Francoy, T. M., Wachtel, I., Panitz-Cohen, N., Fuchs, S. and Mazar, A. (2010), "Industrial apiculture in the Jordan valley during Biblical times with Anatolian honeybees". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107 (25): 11240-11245.

2.    Mazar A. and Wachtel I. (2015), The Persian /Early Hellenistic Fortress at Hurvat Eres, Israel Exploration Journal 65(2): 214-244.

3.    Mingyu, T., Shelach, G., Marder, O. and Wachtel, I. (2014), "Archaeological Investigating Report on Fuxin District Liaoning (2012—2013)". Beifang Wenwu (3): 3-10 (Chinese with English abstract).

4.    Shelach, G., Marder, O., Mingyu, T., Goldsmith, Y., Wachtel, I., Ovadia, A. and Wan Xiongfei (2016), "Human Adaptation and Socio-Economic Change in Northeast China: Results of The Fuxin Regional Survey". Journal of Field Archaeology 41(4): 467-485.

5.    Wachtel, I. (2014), The Mystery of 'Gal Yithro': Monumental Structure in The Upper Galilee. Qadmoniot 147: 16-18 (In Hebrew).

6. Wachtel, I. (2016), La Galilea, non sempre una zona di confine, LIMES 10\15: 332-342.

7. Wachtel, I. (forthcoming), Monumentality in Early Urbanism: Early Bronze Age north Levantine monument in context. Journal of Asian Archaeology.

8.    Wachtel I. (forthcoming), "The Architecture and Stratigraphy of Area S (Lower City)" in Zuckeman S., Wachtel, I. and Bechar, S. (eds), The Rise and Decline of a Canaanite Kingdom: A view from the Lower City of Hazor. Qedem Reports, Jerusalem.

9. Wachtel, I., Zidon, R. Garti, S. and Shelach, G. (forthcoming), Predicting modeling for archeological sites location: compering logistic regression and MaxEnt in north Israel and North-East China.

10.    Wachtel, I. Sabar, R. and Davidovich, U. (forthcoming), Tel Gush Halav during the Bronze and Iron Ages, in Stern, E.,  Ben-Tor, A. and Magness J. (eds.), Eretz Israel, Volume33, (L. Stager Volume, in Hebrew).

11.    Wachtel I. and Sugimoto D. T. (2016), "Tel En Gev, Area H: Architecture and Stratigraphy", in Sugimoto D. T. and Kansha H. (eds.), Tel ‘En Gev: An Interim Report on the 2009-2011 Seasons of Archaeological Excavations, Tokyo: Keio Archaeological Expeditions to the Western Asia, pp.53-96 (Japanese, English version forthcoming). 

Presidential Stipend 2013/14

Rotenstreich Stipend 2014/15

Supervisor: Michal Biran

Abstract: My Ph.D. dissertation aims to examine the role of astronomers and physicians as agents of scientific and medical exchange in the Mongol Eurasia. I approach the question from the perspective of social history and base my analysis on a database of biographies of contemporary professionals, mainly from Yuan China and the Ilkhanate. The dissertation comprises three main chapters: the astronomers and physicians’ professional learning and practice, their social function and social networks, and their role in the process of transmission of scientific knowledge. The study will highlight the scientists’ networks and the political and social circumstances under which astronomical and medical knowledge was transmitted in the Mongol era. My research will contribute to the understanding of the mechanism of scientific and cultural exchange in Mongol Eurasia, studying it in a much deeper and broader scope than what was previously done

Rotenstreich Stipend 2017/18

Presidential Stipend 2015/16