PROJECTS ON OTHER TOPICS

Jeremy Cohen
Christ, Antichrist, and the Jews: The Role of the Jew in Christian Eschatology
This comprehensive study of the multidimensional character of the Jews in Christian eschatology throughout history will highlight: (1) the Pauline expectation that all Israel will be saved at the end of days; and (2) the Satanic association of the Jews with the Antichrist that will precipitate the cataclysmic events surrounding Gog and Magog.

The research will focus on:
(1) the New Testament and other texts of the apostolic period;
(2) the patristic literature of the Adversus Judaeos polemic;
(3) descriptions of the Jews in medieval literature;
(4) Christian iconography in its various stages.

The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities awarded the project a three-year grant.

Bat-Zion Eraqi Klorman
Yemeni Jews in Interaction with the Yishuv's Leadership and its Settling Organizations 1908-1939 (Hebrew)
While Yemeni Jewish immigration to Palestine began in 1881, it only reached the moshavot agricultural settlements in 1908. The Ashkenazi Jews, who dominated the workers' parties and the Yishuv's leadership, perceived Yemeni Jews as an auxiliary work force and channeled them into manual labor. The Yemeni Jews, however, wanted equal participation in the Zionist enterprise. This included establishing their own settlements, occupying a larger portion of the labor market, receiving equal pay for equal work, and enjoying equal representation in Zionist organizations.

The research focuses on Yemeni Jews' efforts to achieve their goals and on their aspirations to become an integral part of the Zionist center. It examines the extent of their success as well as the factors that helped or hindered the accomplishment of their objectives.

The archival material has been gathered and classified, and the writing phase has begun.

Mordechai A. Friedman
Marriage and Family Life. (Hebrew)
Marriage and Family Life in Light of Cairo Genizah Documents
(1) Preparation of an updated English version of a Hebrew book, Polygyny in a Medieval Mediterranean Society, which was published in 1986 by the School of Jewish Studies, Tel Aviv University and the Bialik Institute.
(2) Responsa on marriage and divorce law: Publication of newly discovered fragments of responsa from the Genizah composed mainly by the Gaonim in Babylon and Eretz Yisrael.
(3) Publication of Genizah documents dealing with family life and the socio-historical background of Jews in Egypt and Eretz Yisrael during the 10th through 13th centuries.

Mordechai A. Friedman
Responsa of Abraham the Son of Maimonides and Contemporaries. (Hebrew)
The responsa of Abraham Maimuni (the son of Maimonides) and of contemporary scholars found in the Cairo Genizah are published here for the first time. Over 50 new responsa of Rabbi Abraham have been identified. (The 1937 edition of his responsa contained some 128.) Approximately 60 significant responsa of contemporaries have also been identified. The responsa, all written in Judeo-Arabic, deal with everyday issues (marriage and the family, commerce, relations with the government and Muslim courts, etc.) and spiritual matters. The first volume, which is in the final stages of preparation, concerns Maimuni's prayer reforms and the dissension they sparked in the community.

Mordechai A. Friedman
Editing S.D. Goitein's "Documents from the Cairo Genizah on the Jewish Trade with India". (Hebrew)
The late Prof. S. D. Goitein began his Genizah research by identifying and collecting documents dealing with Jews who traded with India. This trade was important not only for the economies of the Mediterranean countries during the High Middle Ages but also for Jewish society. Goitein collected some 400 unpublished documents on the topic as well as numerous texts. After his death, M. A. Friedman undertook to prepare and edit the book. The first volume (chapters 1-3) is now complete.

Ruth Lamdan
Manuscript of Rabbi Yishaq Zabah's "Sefer Tikkun Sofrim" (Hebrew)
Work on the 100-odd legal and communal documents contained in this collection (Jerusalem Manuscript 8/958) is in progress. The collection was compiled by Rabbi Yizhaq Zabah, the scribe of the Jerusalem community at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century. The research deals with the history of the collection and an analysis of the documents, and compares them to similar collections.

Yehuda Nini
The Jews of Yemen, the Alliance Israélite Universelle, and the Caporti Brothers. (Hebrew)
(Hebrew) This is a comprehensive study dealing with the links between the Alliance Israélite Universelle and Yemenite Jewry from the 1870s to the First World War. The research is based on documents published elsewhere, as well as on French-language material found in the Alliance archives in Paris. In addition, new material relevant to this topic has been discovered in archives located in Florence, Venice, and Rome.

Yehuda Nini
Brotherly Love? The Eviction of Yemenite Immigrants from Moshav Tohelet by Habad and the Establishment of Kfar Habad in its Place (Hebrew)
The study is based on material from the Israel State Archives, the Central Zionist Archives and private collections.

Yehuda Nini Al-Miswwadeh - Beth-Din (Court) Records of the San'ani Jewish Community in the Eighteenth Century, vol. II (Hebrew)
The manuscript is now being prepared for publication.

Leonid Smilovitsky
Jews in Belarus, 1941-1953
The subject is divided into the following topics:
1. The Holocaust period, 1941-1944, when some 750,000 local Jews and over 65,000 Jews from other countries were exterminated in Belarus.
2. 1944-1946 - The first years after the liberation.
3. 1947-1949 - The deterioration of official policy toward the Jews.
4. Religious life as contrasted in two periods - 1944-1947 and 1948-1953.
5. The "Doctor's Plot" - 1953.
6. Jewish participation in the restoration and reconstruction of Belarus' economy, science, finance, higher education, culture and arts in the ten years following World War II.

The study will be based mainly on archival material found in Israel, Belarus and Russia, as well as excerpts from newspapers, collections of documents, statistical data, memoirs, interviews, and monographs published in various countries. To date, portions of the research have appeared as refereed articles, reviews, encyclopedia entries, chapters in books, and monographs, as well as in websites in various languages (English, Hebrew, Russian, Belorussian, French, German):
www.souz.co.il/belzem
www.jewishgen.org/Belarus/newsletter/authors.htm

Shvut, 11 (27)
Benjamin Pinkus, editor
To be published in English and Hebrew in cooperation with the Ben-Gurion Research Center of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The articles are currently being edited.

Michael, 16
Raya Cohen, editor
This volume discusses European Jewry's link to the continent's social and cultural processes in which real and imaginary Jews played an important role.