2005 National Jewish Book Award, Runner-up
Views tradition and modernization among Sephardic communities in the Ottoman Empire through the lens of rabbinic literature written in Ladino.
". . . an incisive examination of rabbinic authors and their readers that highlights the importance of vernacular musar literature as a valuable and underutilized resource for the reconstruction of Ottoman Jewish culture. . . . [T]his book is a welcome addition to the burgeoning field of Sephardic and Mizrahi studies, and it should appeal to anyone interested in the interplay between religion and culture in the modern world." —AJS Review
". . . [a] detailed and profound study . . . . Lehman's book is an important comtribution to the study of Ottoman Jewry as well as of Middle Eastern social and cultural history in general." —Rachel Simon, Princeton University Library, INTNL JRNL MID EAST STD - IJMES , Vol. 40 2008
In this pathbreaking book, Matthias B. Lehmann explores Ottoman Sephardic culture in an era of change through a close study of popularized rabbinic texts written in Ladino, the vernacular language of the Ottoman Jews. This vernacular literature, standing at the crossroads of rabbinic elite and popular cultures and of Hebrew and Ladino discourses, sheds valuable light on the modernization of Sephardic Jewry in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 19th century. By helping to form a Ladino reading public and imparting shape to its values, the authors of this literature negotiated between perpetuating rabbinic tradition and addressing the challenges of modernity. The book offers close readings of works that examine issues such as social inequality, exile and diaspora, gender, secularization, and the clash between scientific and rabbinic knowledge. Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman Sephardic Culture will be welcomed by scholars of Sephardic as well as European Jewish history, culture, and religion.
Matthias B. Lehmann is Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and History at Indiana University.
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Distribution: World
Publication date: 10/12/2005
Format: cloth 280 pages, 5 b&w photos, 1 maps, 1 bibliog., 1 index, 6.125 x 9.25
ISBN-13: 978-0-253-34630-8
ISBN: 0-253-34630-4
