MA Honors 2016/17

Research subject: Aspects of comedy and humor in the second part of Cervantes' Don Quixote.

Supervisor: Prof. Ruth Fine

Supervisor: Dr. Roni Granot

Abstract: My research examines categorical perception of musical intervals. Categorical perception is a cognitive phenomena in which a continuous stimulus is divided perceptually to create distinct units. The research aims to expand our knowledge on categorical perception to the music field, as well as study its implications to our understanding on cultural differences in music perception and on perfect pitch. 

Subject: Postclassical Narratology - Reader and Reading

Supervisor: Prof. Jonathan Garb

Abtract: In my dissertation, I plan to discuss the ways in which sixteenth-century kabbalistic knowledge was organized in the Mediterranean by focusing on scholarly (lamdanut) and encyclopedic writings. The study will concentrate on the scholarly methods and practices of the central kabbalists of this period, who, within their compositions, tackled a variety of diverse kabbalistic opinions and methods and generally arbitrated between them. This mapping and discussion will provide an in-depth look at Jewish learning culture in a formative period and the textual practices used by these erudite scholars.

Bio: In my studies, I concentrated on the early modern period, specifically the reception, transmission, and dissemination of Safedean kabbalah to the European continent. My master’s thesis explored the initial reception of Moses Cordovero’s (1522–1570) kabbalah, an area that had yet to be systematically analyzed, and the organization and clarification of this kabbalistic knowledge by him and his successors. By mapping Cordovero’s encyclopedic trends and examining their reception by two generations of his disciples, the study explores the organization of kabbalistic knowledge presented by the Italian kabbalist Menaḥem Azariah of Fano (1548–1620) and is the first to characterize the genre of kabbalistic abridgment through the case-study of Pelaḥ ha-Rimon (Mantua 1600).

In my dissertation, I plan to discuss the ways in which sixteenth-century kabbalistic knowledge was organized in the Mediterranean by focusing on scholarly (lamdanut) and encyclopedic writings. The study will concentrate on the scholarly methods and practices of the central kabbalists of this period, who, within their compositions, tackled a variety of diverse kabbalistic opinions and methods and generally arbitrated between them. This mapping and discussion will provide an in-depth look at Jewish learning culture in a formative period and the textual practices used by these erudite scholars.

Publications:

• "על מהדורות ספר פלח הרימון לר' מנחם עזריה מפאנו", קבלה: כתב עת לחקר כתבי המיסטיקה היהודית, מב (תשע"ח), עמ' 209–236.
• “The Epistle of Nathan of Gaza to Raphael Joseph and the Issue of the Lurianic Prayer Intentions”, El Prezente: Journal of Sephardic Studies, 12–13 (2018–2019), pp. 73–89.
• “Kabbalah for Beginners?: Moses Cordovero's Early Oeuvre and its Initial Reception”, Journal of Jewish Studies, Forthcoming.
 

President Scholarship 2020/2021

MA Honors 2016/2017

Supervisor: Prof. Moshe Sluhovsky

Subject: Hebrew Spoken by Haredi Litaim (Litvish-Yeshivish) in Israel: A Linguistic Description

Supervisors: Prof. Yochanan Breuer (Hebrew University) and Dr. Dalit Asulin (University of Haifa)

Bio: Dina Sender completed her B.A. and M.A. studies (summa cum laude) in the Hebrew Linguistics department at the Hebrew University. Her M.A. thesis focuses on a linguistic phenomenon, Ashkenazi pronunciation, that characterizes Haredi Hebrew, aiming to examine it from multiple angles: to map the lexical sources of the linguistic forms with Ashkenazi pronunciation, to analyze its phonological characteristics, to trace grammatical changes that occur in forms with Ashkenazi pronunciation, and to discuss the pragmatic functions that this pronunciation serves. This work was written under the supervision of Prof. Yochanan Breuer (the Hebrew University) and Dr. Dalit Asulin (University of Haifa).

Dina is currently a PhD student in the Hebrew Linguistics department at the Hebrew University. Her research aims to describe comprehensively the Haredi Litai community’s unique linguistic repertoire, and to enrich this examination with a sociolinguistic analysis of the links between the speakers' linguistic choices and their ideology, values, and group affiliation.

Publications:

"Hebrew as a Language of Speech and Yiddish as a Language of Emotion among the Ultra-Orthodox in Israel," Language Studies (in Hebrew, forthcoming)

"Ashkenazi Pronunciation in Spoken Haredi Hebrew in Israel: Grammar and Pragmatics," Leshonenu (in Hebrew, forthcoming)

President Scholarship 2020/2021

MA Honors Program 2016/2017

Subject: “Is the Lord Among Us or Not?”: The Question of Divine Presence as a Motivation for the Prophecies of Zechariah 

Supervisor: Dr. Naphtali Meshel

Abstract: The study will examine Zechariah 1–8 and further prophetic corpora from the beginning of the Persian Period, suggesting that major parts in these prophecies are a reaction to a theological polemic among the returnees concerning God's will to dwell in the Jerusalem Temple. Different research methodologies will be integrated, including Hebrew linguistics, textual criticism, historical reading, and comparative religion. The study will contribute to a better understanding of the world of perceptions and conceptions in the early post-exilic period, and assist in a correct valuing of its place in the sequence of intellectual shifts that led from the Biblical world of thought to Second Temple Judaism.

Bio: Graduate of the Departments of Hebrew Lanuage and Jewish History at the Hebrew University. My master's thesis, advised by Prof. Nili Wazana, dealt with the presence of angels in the Temple built by the Returnees to Zion according to Zechariah 3-4. In my PhD. dissertation, advised by Dr. Naphtali Meshel, I intend to broaden this subject, and to deal with the question of the divine presence in the Temple according to prophetic literature from the beginning of the Persian period. This work aims to be part of a larger project, in which I seek to examine the conceptual and perceptual shifts that Jewish thought underwent between the Biblical and the Second Temple periods. Other fields of interest, academic and non-academic, include Classical Hebrew, the Masora, and existential and Eastern thought. I teach, guide and write on all of these subjects in various frameworks. Besides my intellectual interests, I also deal with poetry and essay writing, and I have published one poetry book ("אל תעשה מזה ענין", the Bialik Insitute 2019, edited by Liat Kaplan).

President Scholarship 2020/2021

MA Honors Program 2016/2017