Department of History
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