IMC 2023: Sessions

Session 543: 'Inconsolable': Memory and Forgetfulness of Jewish Communities in Medieval Europe

Tuesday 4 July 2023, 09.00-10.30

Organiser:	Shamma Boyarin, Department of English, University of Victoria
Moderator/Chair:	Joseph Isaac Lifshitz, Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center, Tel Aviv University / Shalem College, Jerusalem
Paper 543-a	The Stones of Basel (Language: English) Eva Frojmovic, Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Leeds Index terms: Archaeology - General, Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Local History, Religious Life
Paper 543-b	Language of Destruction: Multilingualism in 12th-Century Lamentations Commentaries (Language: English) Ruth Nisse, Department of English, University of Nebraska, Lincoln Index terms: Biblical Studies, Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Language and Literature - French or Occitan
Paper 543-c	Memory in the Margin: English Piyyut in French Manuscripts (Language: English) Shamma Boyarin, Department of English, University of Victoria Index terms: Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Language and Literature - Semitic, Liturgy
Abstract	The three papers in this session look at intersections of 'lamentation', 'memory', and 'erasure' in the network of European Jewish communities. The Christian 'recycling' of old Hebrew tombstones constitutes a melancholic inability to mourn their dead Jewish neighbours. The use of French glosses in Hebrew commentaries on the Book of Lamentations offers an alternate version of diaspora and lament. And the survival of a single copy of a Hebrew poem from England in the margins of a French codex connects these two Jewish communities. All of these scenarios challenge consolation from within and without.