What Is Hidden in the Small Box? Narratives of Late Antique Roman Palestine in Dialogue

This study is a comparative reading of two distinct narrative traditions with remarkably similar features of plot and content. The first tradition is from the Palestinian midrash Kohelet Rabbah, datable to the fifth to sixth centuries. The second is from John Moschos's Spiritual Meadow (Pratum spirituale), which is very close to Kohelet Rabbah in time and place. Although quite similar, the two narratives differ in certain respects. Pioneers of modern Judaic studies such as Samuel Krauss and Louis Ginzberg had been interested in the question of the relationships between early Christian authors and the rabbis; however, the relationships between John Moschos and Palestinian rabbinic writings have never been systematically treated (aside from one enlightening study by Hillel Newman). Here, in this case study, I ask comparative questions: Did Kohelet Rabbah borrow the tradition from Christian lore; or was the church author impressed by the teachings of Kohelet Rabbah? Alternatively, perhaps, might both have learned the shared story from a common continuum of local narrative tradition? Beyond these questions about literary dependence, I seek to understand the shared narrative in its cultural context.

. Historiography About the Educational Activities of Jews in Dnipro Ukraine during the 19th – Early 20th centuries

The article deals with historiography about the cultural and educational development of Jews in Dnipro Ukraine during the 19th – early 20th centuries. The formation and functioning of a Jewish educational system in Volhynia during that period, the work of Zhytomyr Rabbinical School and Zhytomyr Jewish Teachers Institute, spiritual-cultural and education activities of Jews in Left-bank Ukraine, Right-bank Ukraine, South-East Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian Empire, and on Western Ukrainian lands of Austria-Hungary are reflected in the historical science. While appreciating the progress of Judaic studies, it should be noted that today this subject needs to be developed further. This is especially important for understanding the key issues of Ukraine’s History and World History. The analysis of a wide range of historical sources, especially archival materials, will contribute to the objective presentation of the history of Jewish community as unique historical and cultural phenomenon and an important part of the Culture of Ukraine. The ideological and political pressure of Soviet era has slowed down Judaic studies, fulfilment of their scientific and practical potential. In the late 1980s there has been an upsurge of interest in the Jewish history. Research studies of Independent Ukraine have contributed to introduction into the scientific activities of new historical sources, developing innovative projects and ideas, improving methodological approaches. The role of Jews in increasing European cultural influences on the Ukrainian lands is a perspective direction of the historical research. In the period of raising the national spirit of Jews during the 19th – early 20th centuries, the number of Jewish students from Ukraine who studied in European universities has increased. Attention needs to be shifted towards an important social function of ethnic research, the results of which foster establishing Ukrainian cultural environment based on tolerance, mutual respect, humanism and cross-cultural dialogue

Introduction

The Introduction explains how this book represents a new departure in the study of Mandelstam and, more broadly, reflects on what poetic difficulty means. It explains how the rise of structuralist poetics/subtext criticism and Judaic studies coincided with the rediscovery of Mandelstam, leading to an explosion of scholarly work on his poetics (essentially limited to his first two collections) and biography on those terms. Those paradigms have run their course, and work less well for the post-1930 writings because of fundamental changes in Mandelstam’s poetics that require new critical thinking. There are virtually no studies of his love lyric or the later poetry. A vast amount of new material (contextual, textual, and biographical) makes this the right time to produce a major study that sets out a revisionist picture of a poet who, far from being in retreat from his time, was an engagé in the task of cultural revolution.

‘And for the enemies — tar…’

The interview with the head of the Educational and Research Centre for Bible and Judaic Studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities begins with an account of the cultural and pedagogical exchange with the Israeli Bar-Ilan University (Ramat Gan) and Jabotinsky Institute (Tel Aviv). The interview goes into detail about the exhibition entitled ‘Nostalgia for world culture: O. E. Mandelstam’s library’, which took place in the Moscowbased Jewish Museum and Tolerance Centre from December 2018 until March 2019 and enjoyed a total turnout of 45,000 visitors. Thanks to N. Mandelstam’s personal archive display, the visitors could learn about the poet’s reading preferences and his outstanding contemporaries, as well as how N. Mandelstam shaped the poet’s image among the Russianspeaking intelligentsia in the second half of the 20th c. Also discussed in the interview are Leonid Katsis’ recently published books on V. Mayakovsky and V. Jabotinsky.