Jews and Journeys: Travel and the Performance of Jewish Identity

363 Pages·2021·6.747 MB·English

by  Joshua Levinson (editor), Orit Bashkin (editor)

Jews and Journeys
JEWISH CULTURE AND CONTEXTS
Published in association with the Herbert D. Katz Center for
Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania
Series Editors: Shaul Magid, Francesca Trivellato, Steven Weitzman
A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
JEWS AND
JOURNEYS
Travel and the Per for mance of Jewish Identity
Edited by Joshua Levinson and Orit Bashkin
university of pennsylvania press
philadelphia
Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from the
Herbert D. Katz Publications Fund of the Center for
Advanced Judaic Studies.
Copyright © 2021 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for
purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book
may be reproduced in any form by any means without written
permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
www . upenn . edu / pennpress
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca on acid- free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library
of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-8122-5295-8
Contents
Acknowl edgments ix
Part I. Introduction 1
Chapter 1. Departures 3
Joshua Levinson
Chapter 2. Why Do We Need a Cultural History of Travel— and
What Do the Jews Have to Do with It? 10
Joan- Pau Rubiés
Part II. Traveling with the Bible
Introduction by Joshua Levinson 23
Chapter 3. Te Travels and Travails of Abraham 29
Joshua Levinson
Chapter 4. Wondrous Nature: Landscape and Weather in Early
Pilgrimage Narratives 46
Ora Limor
Chapter 5. Prophecy and Peregrination: Curious Encounters
with Biblical Lands and Biblical Texts in the Eigh teenth and
Nineteenth Centuries 63
Elliott Horo witz
Part III. Jewish Orientalism
Introduction by Orit Bashkin 93
Chapter 6. Flying Camels and Other Remarkable Species:
Natu ral Marvels in Medieval Hebrew Travel Accounts 100
Martin Jacobs
vi Contents
Chapter 7. A Jewish Critique of Eu ro pean Orientalism in the
Eigh teenth C entury: Marco Navarra’s Lettere orientali 116
Asher Salah
Chapter 8. No Place Like Home: Te Uses of Travel in Early
Maskilic Translations 129
Iris Idelson- Shein
Part IV. Traveling With and Without O thers: Te Efects of the
Familiar and Unfamiliar
Introduction by Orit Bashkin 147
Chapter 9. Travel and Poverty: Te Itinerant Pauper in
Medieval Jewish Society in Islamic Countries 154
Miriam Frenkel
Chapter 10. Te Jewish Tradition of the Wandering Jew:
Te Poetics of Long Duration 171
Galit Hasan- Rokem
Chapter 11. Between the Wild and the Civilized: A Yiddish
Travel Writer in Peru 183
Jack Kugelmass
Part V. Repre sen ta tions of Travel: Mapping and Remapping
Introduction by Joshua Levinson 211
Chapter 12. Te New Zionist Road Map: From Old Gravesites to
New Settlements 217
Israel Bartal
Chapter 13. Heritage Utterances in Jewish Destinations: Travelers,
Texts, and Museum Visitor Books 230
Chaim Noy
Chapter 14. Traveling, Seeing, and Painting: Amsterdam and the
Creation of Jewish Art in the Work of Max Liebermann and
Hermann Struck 256
Nils Roemer
Contents vii
Chapter 15. Jerusalem Journeys: Wandering W omen in
Con temporary Israeli Cinema 269
Anat Zanger
Notes 283
Contributors 339
Index 343

Acknowl edgments
Tis book, like its topic, was a long, yet fascinating, journey. Te journey began
with a research group at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the
University of Pennsylvania initiated by Ora Limor and Joshua Levinson. We
thank the center’s director, the tireless David Ruderman, for his support of the
proj ect, his leadership, and his friendship. We also express our profound thanks
to the Center’s associate director, Natalie B. Dohrmann, its dedicated staf, in
par tic ul ar, Carrie Love and Esther Lassman, its curator of Judaica collections,
Arthur Kiron, and its current director, Steven Weitzman. Tis book would not
have reached completion without the dedication and guidance of Jerome E.
Singerman from the University of Pennsylvania Press, as well as the insightful
commentary provided by two of its readers. We are grateful to all the contribu-
tors in this collection for their cooperation and patience. We dedicate this book to
the memory of our friend and colleague Elliott Horo witz, who started the journey
with us but has lef us too soon, before the proj ect came to fruition. A scholar
of Jewish cultural and social history and early modern Judaism, his remarkable
erudition (and sense of humor) was an inestimable contribution to how we
think about cultural complexity and transformation, movement, vio lence, and
image. We miss him a g reat deal.