IMC 2025: Sessions
Session 329: Jewish Geography and Geographies of Jews: Transmission and Impact of Real and Imagined Geographical Knowledge by and about Jews
Monday 7 July 2025, 16:30-18:00
| Sponsor: | Centrum für Religionswissenschaftliche Studien, Ruhr-Universität Bochum |
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| Organiser: | Alexandra Cuffel, Centrum für Religionswissenschaftliche Studien, Ruhr-Universität Bochum |
| Moderator/Chair: | Adam Knobler, Centrum für Religionswissenschaftliche Studien, Ruhr-Universität Bochum |
| Paper 329-a | Replicating Rome: Christian and Jewish Perspectives (Language: English) Index terms: Geography and Settlement Studies, Hebrew and Jewish Studies |
| Paper 329-b | The Two Lands of the Betä Ǝsraʾel (Ethiopian Jews)?: On the Distinction between Səmen and Ṣällämt in Descriptions of Betä Ǝsraʾel Political Autonomy (Language: English) Index terms: Archaeology - General, Geography and Settlement Studies, Hebrew and Jewish Studies |
| Paper 329-c | The Lost Tribes, the Enclosed People of the Apocalypse, and the Amazons: A Gendered Feature of an Anti-Jewish Late Medieval Apocalyptic Concept and Its Possible Roots (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Geography and Settlement Studies, Hebrew and Jewish Studies |
| Abstract | Jews, Christians and Muslims were, to varying degrees, aware of Jewish travel and settlements throughout medieval Afro-Eurasia, however, Jewish realms were also the subject of much imaginative speculation--whether as distant Jewish kingdoms, virtuous of sinful tribes separated from the rest by God until the end of time, or the neighbor of the fabled Christian king, Prester John, among others. Likewise, local geographies of Jewish habitation or pilgrimage affected Jews' knowledge of and interaction with non-Jews. This panel explores medieval Jewish geographical knowledge, the transmission of knowledge and/or ideas about Jewish travel and settlement, and the impact of geography--again, real or imagined -- on Jewish interaction with non-Jews. |