Former projects

• Title: Between two worlds: The tractate "Light of the Nations" of ‘Ovadyah Sforno (ca. 1475-1550)
• Time Span: 2015 - 2021
• Sponsor: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
• Director: Prof. Giuseppe Veltri
• Associates: Giada Coppola, Florian Dunklau

At the core of this project is the philosophical work 'Or Ammim by Ovadyah Sforno (1475?-1550) ("Light of the Nations", first print: Bologna 1537). Although he is known as one of the most eminent Biblical commentators, Sforno’s philosophical works have remained largely unnoticed. He is considered the last Hebrew scholar to have produced a book on central questions of medieval religious philosophy written in the classical form of a scholastic 'Summa'. His work attempts to defend Jewish dogmas against Aristotelian-Averroist arguments, thereby setting Judaism on a rational footing. Sforno is an example of cultural intermediation in the Italian Renaissance. He gained a doctorate in medicine at a Christian university, and self-translated his work into Latin in order to make it accessible to his Christian colleagues ("Lumen Gentium" (first print: Bologna 1548)).

The project aims to produce both a new Hebrew critical edition “The Light”, based on the original print and a previously unknown unique autograph manuscript, and the first scientific edition of the author’s own remarkable Latin translation. Both versions will be translated into English for the first time, making the whole work accessible to the respective academic audience, i.e. scholars in Jewish Studies, Latin Studies, Renaissance Studies, Philosophy and Theology. A lexicographical analysis of the ways in which Sforno uses terminology in both works will shed light on the development of the Hebrew scientific and philosophic language, thereby contributing a comparative study to the intercultural phenomenon of the translation movement from Hebrew to Latin and Latin to Hebrew. A commentary to the work will contextualise and give insights into Sforno’s thinking in the light of General (Greek, Latin and Arabic-Islamic) and Jewish philosophy. Finally, much of the project will focus on the relationship of this work to the author’s exegetical writings, which are marked by his method of rational and philosophical reasoning.

The outcome will be a comprehensive two-volume edition that will add a crucial but neglected aspect to our knowledge of this influential Jewish exegete and philosopher of the early modern period.

• Title: PESHAT - Premodern Philosophic and Scientific Hebrew Terminology in Context
• Time Span: 2014 - 2026
• Sponsor: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
• Director: Prof. Giuseppe Veltri
• Associates: Daniel Davies, Michael Engel, Florian Dunklau
• Web: https://peshat.gwiss.uni-hamburg.de/

An Online Thesaurus The "PESHAT in Context" long-term project aims at the systematic study of the emergence and development of the philosophic and scientific terminology of premodern Hebrew in its cultural and historical context. The result of this undertaking will be an innovative multilingual online thesaurus, where each Hebrew term is accompanied by explanations, definitions and extensive quotations from a vast array of Hebrew sources that document its precise usage. Together with detailed background information, including geographical and chronological data, the exact circumstances in which a term was formed are highlighted.

Hebrew philosophical and scientific literature emerged as a result of a cultural transfer, with texts being translated into Hebrew from Arabic or Latin, and from Hebrew into Latin. This multilingual and multicultural background will be documented in the database through the addition of parallel quotations in these languages, rendering the PESHAT database into an indispensable tool in the comparative study of terminology on a linguistic and historic basis.

Since the appropriation of knowledge from the Arabic world and from Latin Europe by Jewish culture between the 10th and 15th centuries happened in different "waves" of literary activity, the leading principle of our working method will be to investigate each of these historical phases separately, focusing on its distinct historical and cultural characteristics. This research will yield the publication of monographic studies and collections of papers on each of these historical phases.

The PESHAT database provides unprecedented technical means for the storage and organization of lexicographical information about Hebrew terms. In addition to the rich multilingual textual basis provided for each entry, the database contains references to equivalent terms in Arabic, Latin, Greek, as well as in English, French and German. Furthermore, each author and translator, and each work referred to are documented in detail in the database. Cross-references allow for a qualified acquisition, organization and processing of data according to various criteria, such as term, author, work, time, place, subject etc.

• Magia Figurata - Visual Effect of Jewish Magical Manuscripts of the Early Modern Era (defended)
  
• Supervisor: Prof. Giuseppe Veltri

The research project entitled “Magia Figurata” intends to analyse, describe and categorise the physical and visual characteristics of early modern manuscripts containing Jewish magical texts. It thereby aims at achieving a better understanding of physical and visual aspects of the production and use of these magical manuscripts. The project will also illustrate how magical manuscripts shaped or even created reality due to the inherent authority they were claimed to possess.

Contact Information

• Title: Life, Works and Thought of Simha (Simone) Luzzatto
  
• Time Span:
• Sponsor:
• Director: Prof. Giuseppe Veltri

The project focuses on two aspects of Luzzatto's intellectual activity: his political and economic appraisal of Jewish people and his elaboration of sceptic philosophy. After the Italian edition of Luzzatto's Discorso and Socrate the project is currently focused on:

1. English translation of Discorso and Socrate with commentary.

2. In-depth analysis of Luzzatto's political and philosophical thought by the means of an

3. Advanced investigation of sources, evident and hidden in Discorso and Socrate.

The project's further developments will involve:

4. Edition of archival sources about Luzzatto's family, life and his involvement in the Venetian economy.

5. Edition of Luzzatto's Hebrew works (Mish'an mayim, Responsa and a commentary of Ecclesiastes and Job)

Publication

Simone Luzzatto. Scritti politici e filosofici di un ebreo scettico nella venezia del Seicento, a cura di G. Veltri, Milano: Bompiani, 2013.

• Title: Cultural Transition in Renaissance Italy: The Sermons of Judah ben Joseph Moscato
• Time Span:
• Sponsor:
• Director: Prof. Giuseppe Veltri

Judah ben Joseph Moscato (c.1530-1593) was one of the most distinguished rabbis, authors, and preachers of the Italian-Jewish Renaissance. The book Nefuzot Yehudah belongs to the very centre of his important oeuvre. Composed in Mantua and published in Venice in 1589, the collection of 52 sermons addresses the subject of Jewish festivals. Moscato's theological and philosophical positions stem from the rabbinic tradition, classic and contemporary authors, as well as from Neoplatonic and Kabbalistic teachings.

Our project will provide the edition of the original Hebrew text accompanied by an English translation and a commentary. So far three volumes have been published; the fourth and last is in preparation. In addition, a collected volume of essays has been published. The edition project is funded by resources from the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Publications

Judah Moscato. Sermons. Edition and translation. Vol. 1-3. Edited by Gianfranco Miletto and Giuseppe Veltri. Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2011-2014.

Rabbi Judah Moscato and the Jewish Intellectual World of Mantua in the 16th-17th Centuries. Edited by Giuseppe Veltri and Gianfranco Miletto. Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2012.

• Title: Conceptions of Language
  
• Time Span: 2009 - 2015
• Sponsor: DFG
• Coordinator: Prof. Giuseppe Veltri and Prof. Ernst-Joachim Waschke

• Title: The Leopold Zunz Archives
  
• Time Span: 2008- 2010
• Sponsor: DFG
• Director: Prof. Giuseppe Veltri
• Web: http://www.jewish-archives.org

The Archive

The Leopold Zunz Archive was housed at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin until 1939, and was spared destruction at the hands of the National Socialists at the last minute. It was brought to Jerusalem and entrusted to Gotthold Weil, the then director of the National Library of Israel. Weil created the provisional catalogue of all the documents contained in the Archive; the catalogue retains the order of the files as they were originally organized in Berlin. The Archive is presently found under the signature of ARC 4° 792 in the Archives Department of the National Library of Israel. It comprises approximately 25,000 pages and contains four distinct collections:

1) The estate of Leopold Zunz
2) The estate of Lazarus Bendavid
3) The archive of Association for the Culture and Sciene of the Jews"
4) The archive of the Zunz Foundation

The Project

Since October 2007, within the framework of a project supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the documents found in the Zunz Archive are being digitalized, reorganized and rendered accessible to the wider public through the Internet. The materials found in the Archive will be re-structured according to their content and registered with the catalogue “Kalliope” for posthumous papers and autograph manuscripts.

The Partners

The development and digitalization of the Archive is a project of the Leopold Zunz Center at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany) in cooperation with the National Library of Israel (Israel), the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the University and State Library Saxony-Anhalt. The technical realization of the project will be handled by the firm semantics GmbH in cooperation with Walter Nagel GmbH & Co KG.

Staff

Evelyn Burkhardt
Dr. Rachel Livneh-Freudenthal
Paul Maurer
Grit Schorch