Begutachtete Open-Access Zeitschrift zu allen Bereichen der Judaistik/Jüdischen Studien. Nachfolgerin der Zeitschrift Judaica. Beiträge zum Verstehen des Judentums.
Gavin D’Costa, Etienne Vetö und Thomas Joseph White, Hg. Catholic-Jewish Engagement on Israel: The Holy Land, Political Territory, or Theological Promise? Catholic University Press of America, 2025
Copyright (c) 2026 Christian Rutishauser https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Eli Rubin, Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: Chabad’s Existential History of Ṣimṣum. Stanford University Press, 2025
Copyright (c) 2026 Daniel Reiser https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Martin Steiner. Jesus Christus und sein Judesein: Antijudaismus, jüdische Jesusforschung und eine dialogische Christologie. Kohlhammer, 2025
Copyright (c) 2026 Judith Hélène Stadler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Bill Rebiger and Gerold Necker, eds. Editing Kabbalistic Texts: New Philological and Digital Approaches. Studies in Magic and Kabbalah 2. Harrassowitz Verlag, 2024
Copyright (c) 2026 Miruna-Ștefana Belea https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Introduction: Nature Miracles and Paradoxography in Biblical Reception of the First Centuries
Nature Miracles and Paradoxography in Biblical Reception of the First Centuries CE (2026)
Natural History, Late Antiquity, Judaism. Early Christianity
Copyright (c) 2026 Monika Amsler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Zum Gedenken an Prof. Esther Starobinski-Safran (1938–2023)
Copyright (c) 2026 René Bloch, Uri Kaufmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The “Miracle-Mongers”: the Gospels at the Edges of Empire
This contribution proposes that the canonical gospels of the New Testament should be placed in direct conversation with paradoxographical writing. With their accounts of Jesus’ miraculous conception and birth, healings, and depictions of the peoples and traditions of Judea—a conceptually “foreign” territory in the imperial imagination—the gospel writers engage in the same ethnographic, aetiological, and paradoxographical project as their literary contemporaries. This brand of literary engagement is evident in the Gospel of Mark’s presentation of Jesus as a literary thauma or “wonder” in the tradition of paradoxography and epic, demonstrating that theological concepts like the “Messianic Secret” are better understood as a topos designed to be both didactic and tantalizing to Roman audiences.
Copyright (c) 2026 Robyn Walsh https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Abraham Rubin. Conversion and Catastrophe in German-Jewish Émigré Autobiography. University of Toronto Press, 2024
Copyright (c) 2026 Carlolyn Sanzenbacher https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Eine Italienische Reise im Jahr 1932 – Gershom Scholems Briefe an seine erste Frau, Escha Burchhardt
The year 1932 is pivotal for understanding Gershom Scholem’s academic trajectory at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the foundations he laid for modern, scholarly research on the history of Kabbalah. This article presents new findings from the Scholem Archive, focusing especially on his correspondence with his first wife, Elsa Escha Burchhardt. His handwritten letters and postcards from Europe, written during his research trip, document how he established Kabbalah research as a distinct academic discipline through his meticulous examination of Hebrew manuscripts in major libraries in Italy and England. At the same time, these letters shed light on his personal circumstances, his family relationships, and the social-political atmosphere shaped by the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany.
Gershom Scholem, Briefe an Escha Burchhardt
Copyright (c) 2026 Gerold Necker https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This article examines the intellectual double life of Swiss-Jewish publicist Salcia Landmann, who achieved widespread literary acclaim while simultaneously maintaining a decades-long involvement with the German-speaking far right. Although she actively self-styled herself as the leading authority dedicated to rescuing destroyed Eastern European Jewish culture from oblivion, contemporary Jewish critics frequently accused her of perpetuating anti-Jewish clichés. Paradoxically, Landmann regularly contributed to New Right and extremist publications, where she utilised her Jewish identity to attempt the rehabilitation of pseudoscientific racial concepts and to legitimise fierce anti-immigration sentiments. Within these radical networks, she served as a willing ‘Jewish alibi’, effectively shielding right-wing actors from accusations of racism and providing discursive legitimacy to their prejudices. Ultimately, this study embeds Landmann’s unusual trajectory within Jewish historiography to illuminate the underexplored phenomenon of Jewish political participation in conservative and right-wing milieus.
Jewish popular cultures between tradition and modernity
Copyright (c) 2026 Fabian Weber https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Carolyn Sanzenbacher. Tracking the Jews: Ecumenical Protestants, Conversion, and the Holocaust. Manchester University Press, 2024
Copyright (c) 2026 Todd Endelman https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Maren R. Niehoff, Hg. The Art of Contextualizing Philo of Alexandria. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 190. Mohr Siebeck, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Vassiliki Pothou https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Elye Falkovitsh. Jiddisch: Phonetik, Graphemik, Lexik und Grammatik. Herausgegeben von Valentina Fedchenko, Efrat Gal-Ed, Simon Neuberg und Daria Vakhrushova. Jiddistik: Edition und Forschung 7. De Gruyter, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Shifra Kuperman https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Paradoxography at Dura? Miracles and Natural Wonders in the Paintings of the Synagogue
A solution to the problem of mismatch between the wall paintings in the Dura Europos Synagogue and the written biblical account is to consider these panels as depictions of the catechetical activities of the community there. Threaded by miraculous episodes and natural wonders, these images are fitting to the wider discourse of ancient and late antique paradoxography. I review the iconography of wonders, consisting in miracles and natural phenomena, and connect these episodes to the discourse of theoria intended as the pilgrimage-like activity of delegations travelling to explore the customs and sights of distant lands and foreign people. I argue that a similar practice well explains the finds at Dura Europos not only in terms of iconography, but also concerning the town's economic flourishing and diplomatic activities as a border town in the Late Roman Empire. A papyrus fragment of Herodotus completes the evidence for the communities' interest in and use of wondrous tales.
Copyright (c) 2026 Barbara Crostini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Krista N. Dalton. How Rabbis Became Experts: Social Circles and Donor Networks in Jewish Late Antiquity. Princeton University Press, 2025
Copyright (c) 2025 Monika Amsler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Ludewig, Anna-Dorothea und Hannah Lotte Lund. Rahel Levin Varnhagen: Rezeption – Projektion – Imagination. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Sharon Rom https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Between Paradoxography and Aretalogy: The Jewish Scroll of Fasts
This article argues that the Jewish Scroll of Fasts (Megillat Taanit), an Aramaic calendar of 35 auspicious days or periods, is a paradoxographic composition. While its present form probably dates from the early Roman period, the text is likely the product of a long and complex redactional history. Since it is almost entirely devoid of narrative, outside Knowledge is required to understand that a miracle occurred on these days and under what circumstances. The origins of some of the commemorations can be found in earlier Jewish-Greek works that interpreted them as miracles resulting from divine intervention. While similar interpretations were widespread in the Greco-Roman world, the fact that the same potentially innocuous events were regarded as miracles by several Jewish authors who did not rely on each other suggests the existence of other, now lost, Jewish miracle compilations. While the Scroll and its Sources are closely related to aretalogy, they show a strong political bias: the Scroll, or one of ist paradoxographic predecessors, was intended as Hasmonean propaganda. Consequently, the miracles that benefited the Jews of the Ptolemaic kingdom and were commemorated annually by them were excluded. The scroll may have been reused by the Herodian rulers. In late antiquity it was appropriated by the rabbis, who altered the etiology of some commemorations by providing them with narrative developments that did not necessarily involve a miracle. Paradoxography had become such a powerful tool that the reuse of the scroll's framework was considered sufficient to confer legitimacy on those claiming authority.
Copyright (c) 2026 Maureen Attali https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Life of Makarios the Roman (BHG 1004–1005i) and the Alexander Romance: Truth, Fiction and the Paradoxographic
Paradoxography and narratives of wondrous travels and adventure tread the borderline between truth and fiction. On the one hand, they lend importance to, for instance, eyewitness reports, while on the other, they portray distant, unknown and fantastic lands. This article discusses both aspects as they emerge in the Life of Makarios the Roman, a popular early Byzantine saint’s Life and ego-narration about the fantastical journey of three monks to the end of the world, where they meet saint Makarios. The trip leads them through pitch-dark forests and over dangerous cliffs, along lands inhabited by dog-headed people, centaurs, and other terrifying creatures. To make sense of the Life’s contradictory features, the article takes stock of the Life’s relation to the paradoxographic tradition and particularly to Ps-Callisthenes’ Alexander Romance, known for mixing truth and fiction. The latter relation serves as a stepping stone towards explaining the specific ways in which truth and fiction work together in the Life of Makarios, and for what purpose. The article argues that, in a typically paradoxographic fashion, the Life’s authenticating strategies and imaginative narrative elements are part of a coherent literary strategy to inspire wonderment. Yet, taking a Christian approach to the paradoxographic, the Life thus communicates the unfathomable and elusive aspects of the Christian faith and specifically sanctity.
Copyright (c) 2026 Julie van Pelt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Reception of Paradoxography in the Babylonian Talmud
This article demonstrates that the authors of the texts collected in the Babylonian Talmud, like their contemporaries, used nature miracles to think the unthinkable, to explore the biblical past and the world to come, or to unravel mysteries in the biblical text. Taking the Torah as the blueprint for creation, the rabbis see the text and the natural world as mirroring and explaining each other. To understand the mysteries in the blueprint and in the lands beyond their reach, the rabbis resort to the kind of knowledge that was systematized in collections of nature wonders, so-called paradoxographies. But the rabbis also add to the paradoxographic tradition by identifying nature wonders in the biblical text. The basis of the present analysis is a series of short stories that appear most prominently in tractate Baba Batra 73b-74b, but have cognates or parallels elsewhere in the Talmud. The stories imagine rabbinic sages on the high seas or in the desert and look through their eyes at the landscape described by the biblical text, which they read as a map. Earlier scholarship dismissed these stories mostly as tall tales and entertaining hyperbole. In contrast, building on recent work on ancient world making, this paper argues that the stories reflect a systematic inquiry into the natural world at the height of the science of their time, using natural curiosity as a driving force for analysis and discovery.
Anna Rosa Galiley, Der israelische Dichter Elazar Benyoëtz zwischen Deutsch und Hebräisch: Zweisprachigkeit als poetische Kraft. Walter de Gruyter, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Verena Lenzen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Matthew Tapie, Alan Brill und Matthew Levering (Hrsg.). The Challenge of Catholic-Jewish Theological Dialogue. The Catholic University of America Press, 2025
Copyright (c) 2025 Christian Rutishauser https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Michael B. Cover und Lutz Doering, Hg. Philo of Alexandria and Philosophical Discourse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 René Bloch https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Zwischen Gesetz und Geschichte: Leo Baecks Offenbarungsverhältnis
Dieser Artikel beleuchtet Leo Baecks Geschichtstheologie, wie sie sich insbesondere in seinem Werk Dieses Volk zeigt, das er während seiner Internierung in Theresienstadt schrieb. Für Baeck ist Offenbarung kein abgeschlossenes Ereignis, sondern ein fortwährender Prozess, der sich im Handeln, Erinnern und Denken des jüdischen Volkes durch die Geschichte hindurch vollzieht. Geschichte ist für ihn nicht bloß chronologische Abfolge, sondern geistiger Raum, in dem sich die Beziehung zwischen Gott und Israel ständig neu entfaltet. Im Zentrum steht der Bund – nicht als metaphysische Idee, sondern als ethische Verpflichtung. Gesetz, Erinnerung und Tradition bilden bei Baeck eine Einheit: Die Tora ist kein starres Regelwerk, sondern Ausdruck lebendiger Treue, die in jedem Zeitalter neu aktualisiert werden muss. Dabei spielt das Konzept des „Eingedenkens“ eine zentrale Rolle: Erinnerung ist kein nostalgischer Rückblick, sondern ein moralischer Akt in der Gegenwart. Besonders in der Liturgie, etwa zu Pessach, wird Geschichte immer wieder neu erlebt – als Verpflichtung und Hoffnung zugleich. Baecks Theologie vermeidet jede Theodizee. Er deutet das Leiden nicht, sondern besteht auf Treue im Angesicht der Vernichtung. Dieses Volk wird so zu einem Akt geistigen Widerstands: ein Ruf, der Geschichte nicht als Niederlage, sondern als fortwährenden Auftrag versteht. Die jüdische Tradition erscheint nicht als rückwärtsgewandte Bewahrung, sondern als fortlaufender Dialog – eine lebendige, ethisch fundierte Offenbarung, die selbst unter unmenschlichsten Bedingungen Hoffnung ermöglicht. Baeck zeigt: Geschichte erinnern heißt, Verantwortung zu übernehmen – auch und gerade in Zeiten größter Bedrohung. Im Zentrum steht der Bund – nicht als metaphysische Idee, sondern als ethische Verpflichtung. Gesetz, Erinnerung und Tradition bilden bei Baeck eine Einheit: Die Tora ist kein starres Regelwerk, sondern Ausdruck lebendiger Treue, die in jedem Zeitalter neu aktualisiert werden muss. Dabei spielt das Konzept des „Eingedenkens“ eine zentrale Rolle: Erinnerung ist kein nostalgischer Rückblick, sondern ein moralischer Akt in der Gegenwart. Besonders in der Liturgie, etwa zu Pessach, wird Geschichte immer wieder neu erlebt – als Verpflichtung und Hoffnung zugleich. Baecks Theologie vermeidet jede Theodizee. Er deutet das Leiden nicht, sondern besteht auf Treue im Angesicht der Vernichtung. Dieses Volk wird so zu einem Akt geistigen Widerstands: ein Ruf, der Geschichte nicht als Niederlage, sondern als fortwährenden Auftrag versteht. Die jüdische Tradition erscheint nicht als rückwärtsgewandte Bewahrung, sondern als fortlaufender Dialog – eine lebendige, ethisch fundierte Offenbarung, die selbst unter unmenschlichsten Bedingungen Hoffnung ermöglicht. Baeck zeigt: Geschichte erinnern heißt, Verantwortung zu übernehmen – auch und gerade in Zeiten größter Bedrohung.
Copyright (c) 2026 Elias S. Jungheim https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Nathan Sznaider. Die jüdische Wunde: Leben zwischen Anpassung und Autonomie. Hanser, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Sarah-Maria Hebeisen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Manfred Deselaers im Gespräch mit Piotr Żyłka. Die Wunde von Auschwitz berühren: Ein deutscher Priester erzählt. Aus dem Polnischen übersetzt von Andreas Volk. Herder, 2024
Copyright (c) 2025 Gerhard Langer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Catherine Hezser. Rabbinic Scholarship in the Context of Late Antique Scholasticism: The Development of the Talmud Yerushalmi. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025
Old Vision in a New Perspective: Marc B. Shapiro. Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook. Liverpool University Press, 2025
Copyright (c) 2025 Dov Schwartz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Did Josephus write 4 Maccabees? Reconstructing the authorship debate through editions of the text.
In today’s scholarship, no one would question the fact that the author of 4 Maccabees is unknown. However, for many centuries the work was believed to have been written by Flavius Josephus. This article investigates when exactly in the long reception history of this text, and for what reasons, it was first suggested that the Jewish historian could not be its author. Furthermore, it explores how long it took for this view to become the consensus among scholars and other readers of Josephus. By analysing paratexts of editions of 4 Maccabees and other sources from the 16th to the 20th century, this article establishes that Hugo Grotius was most likely the first to argue in print against the text’s authenticity, which makes it probable that 4 Maccabees was first considered spurious in the milieu of Protestant late humanism. Moreover, this article also shows that despite this relatively early scepticism, it took until the beginning of the 20th century for the idea of unknown authorship to be generally accepted by all editors and translators of Josephus.
Copyright (c) 2025 Andreas Ammann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Vassiliki Pothou. Thukydides Second-Hand bei Josephus: Zur Rezeption thukydideischer Motive im Bellum Judaicum. Brill, 2023
Copyright (c) 2025 A. Judith Göppinger https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
David Frankfurter. Ich tötete einen Nazi. Erzählt und bearbeitet von Schalom Ben-Chorin, herausgegeben von Sabina Bossert und Janis Lutz. S. Marix Verlag, 2022
Copyright (c) 2025 Sebastian Schirrmeister https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0