Bovo D Antona By Elye Bokher A Yiddish Romance

In Bovo d’Antona, Claudia Rosenzweig presents a critical and annotated edition of a Yiddish Romance, composed in the first half of the 16th century by the Jewish polymath Elye Bokher (Elia Levita).

"Bovo d'Antona by Elye Bokher (Elyiahu ben Asher haLevi Ashkenazi, 1469-1549) is a chivalry poem written in Yiddish in Padoa, in the year 1507, and printed under the author's supervision in Isny (Germany) in the year 1541. The present book intends to present a critical edition of this poem, together with a commentary. An introduction will focus on various related questions, such as the place of the Bovo d'Antona in European literature and in Italian literature, Bovo d'Antona and the chivalric genre in Old Yiddish literature, the analysis of the manuscript versions in comparison with the printed edition, the relationship with the Italian source and the readership. An appendix will deal with later transformations of the Bovo-Bukh"--

This is a 16th century Yiddish verse romance which relates the adventures of the hero Bovo d'Antona. The poet spins an episodic tale of friendship and betrayal, of disguise and discovery, and of knightly battles. Professor Smith's prose translation makes this little book accessible to the English-speaking public for the first time.

Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- 1. Introduction -- 2. "Whither Am I to Go?": Old Yiddish Love Song in a European Context -- 3. (Non- )Intersecting Parallel Lives: Pasquino in Rome and on the Rialto -- 4. Purim Play as Political Action in Diasporic Europe and/as Ancient Persia -- 5. Vashti and Political Revolution: Gender Politics in a Topsy-Turvy World -- 6. The Political Liminality of Mordecai in Early Ashkenaz -- 7. Feudal Bridal Quest Turned on Its Jewish Head -- 8. The Other of Another Other: Yiddish Epic's Discarded Muslim Enemy -- 9. Conclusion -- Appendix: Elia Levita's Short Poems (English translation) -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- H -- I -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y

Musical culture in Jewish communities in early modern Italy was much more diverse than researchers originally thought. An interdisciplinary reassessment, Music and Jewish Culture in Early Modern Italy evaluates the social, cultural, political, economic, and religious circumstances that shaped this community, especially in light of the need to recognize individual experiences within minority populations. Contributors draw from rich materials, topics, and approaches as they explore the inherently diverse understandings of music in daily life, the many ways that Jewish communities conceived of music, and the reception of and responses to Jewish musical culture. Highlighting the multifaceted experience of music within Jewish communities, Music and Jewish Culture in Early Modern Italy sheds new light on the place of music in complex, previously misunderstood environments.

In Yiddish Writers in Weimar Berlin, Marc Caplan explores the reciprocal encounter between Eastern European Jews and German culture in the days following World War I. By concentrating primarily on a small group of avant-garde Yiddish writers—Dovid Bergelson, Der Nister, and Moyshe Kulbak—working in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, Caplan examines how these writers became central to modernist aesthetics. By concentrating on the character of Yiddish literature produced in Weimar Germany, Caplan offers a new method of seeing how artistic creation is constructed and a new understanding of the political resonances that result from it. Yiddish Writers in Weimar Berlin reveals how Yiddish literature participated in the culture of Weimar-era modernism, how active Yiddish writers were in the literary scene, and how German-speaking Jews read descriptions of Yiddish-speaking Jews to uncover the emotional complexity of what they managed to create even in the midst of their confusion and ambivalence in Germany. Caplan's masterful narrative affords new insights into literary form, Jewish culture, and the philosophical and psychological motivations for aesthetic modernism.

This volume brings together the latest scholarship on Jewish literary products and the ways in which they can be interpreted from three different perspectives. In part 1, contributors consider texts as literature, as cultural products, and as historical documents to demonstrate the many ways that early Jewish, rabbinic, and modern secular Jewish literary works make meaning and can be read meaningfully. Part 2 focuses on exegesis of specific biblical and rabbinic texts as well as medieval Jewish poetry. Part 3 examines medieval and early modern Jewish books as material objects and explores the history, functions, and reception of these material objects. Contributors include Javier del Barco, Elisheva Carlebach, Ezra Chwat, Evelyn M. Cohen, Naftali S. Cohn, William Cutter, Yaacob Dweck, Talya Fishman, Steven D. Fraade, Dalia-Ruth Halperin, Martha Himmelfarb, Marc Hirshman, Tamar Kadari, Israel Knohl, Susanne Klingenstein, Katrin Kogman-Appel, Jon D. Levenson, Paul Mandel, Annett Martini, Jordan S. Penkower, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, Shalom Sabar, Raymond P. Scheindlin, Seth Schwartz, Sarit Shalev-Eyni, Moshe Simon-Shoshan, Peter Stallybrass, Josef Stern, Barry Scott Wimpfheimer, Elliot R. Wolfson, Azzan Yadin-Israel, and Joseph Yahalom.