Javier Castaño
I am a medievalist historian and my research interests encompass the interdisciplinary fields of Jewish history and socio-religious studies. I earned my PhD in Medieval History (University Complutense of Madrid, 1994) and hold a degree in Hebrew Philology.
My publications and research projects have addressed various aspects of the social and religious life of Jews in medieval Sepharad and its early modern diaspora. I am particularly interested in the study of power strategies and social networks, as well as the foundations of economic activities. Starting from the conviction that the family is the core of Jewish medieval society, I have focused on issues of inheritance transmission and dowry devolution, and their impact on both individual and social levels. More recently, I have directed my studies toward the analysis of social mobility. I have paid special attention to the concept of trauma and the objective mechanisms of religious conversion, understood as a social process. Additionally, I have dealt with the textuality of material culture and its interpretation.
A fundamental part of my recent research has been oriented towards the study and edition of documentary texts in Hebrew script (Ginze Sepharad project), and the preparation of a documentary corpus accompanied by palaeographic, diplomatic, and historical analysis.
Before joining the CSIC, I held teaching positions at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Complutense University of Madrid. I have undertaken pre- and post-doctoral research stays at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Harvard, respectively. I have been a researcher at the Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies in Philadelphia and the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. I have taught at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I served as editor-in-chief of journal Sefarad, and currently, I am the president of the European Association for Jewish Studies.
Address: Center for Human and Social Sciences, CSIC
Calle Albasanz 26-28, 28037 Madrid
My publications and research projects have addressed various aspects of the social and religious life of Jews in medieval Sepharad and its early modern diaspora. I am particularly interested in the study of power strategies and social networks, as well as the foundations of economic activities. Starting from the conviction that the family is the core of Jewish medieval society, I have focused on issues of inheritance transmission and dowry devolution, and their impact on both individual and social levels. More recently, I have directed my studies toward the analysis of social mobility. I have paid special attention to the concept of trauma and the objective mechanisms of religious conversion, understood as a social process. Additionally, I have dealt with the textuality of material culture and its interpretation.
A fundamental part of my recent research has been oriented towards the study and edition of documentary texts in Hebrew script (Ginze Sepharad project), and the preparation of a documentary corpus accompanied by palaeographic, diplomatic, and historical analysis.
Before joining the CSIC, I held teaching positions at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Complutense University of Madrid. I have undertaken pre- and post-doctoral research stays at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Harvard, respectively. I have been a researcher at the Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies in Philadelphia and the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. I have taught at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I served as editor-in-chief of journal Sefarad, and currently, I am the president of the European Association for Jewish Studies.
Address: Center for Human and Social Sciences, CSIC
Calle Albasanz 26-28, 28037 Madrid
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While much attention has been paid over the past two decades to the history of the Jewish family, patrimonial devolution has never been systematically studied. Because of the complexity and multiplicity of its dimensions (legal, socio-economic, cultural, religious, anthropological), inheritance can be considered a key to our understanding of the phenomena of social reproduction and of the functioning of Jewish societies. The multiplicity of Jewish origins and identities has probably had a significant impact on the practices of patrimonial devolution, which we propose to study from different angles and in different contexts over the long term.
EI análisis se centra en los rasgos esenciales que caracterizan a los judíos de este periodo, poniendo especial énfasis en temas como la movilidad social de grupos e individuos; el rol desempeñado por financieros, profesionales de la salud y artesanos; la crisis de autoridad y la manifestación del faccionalismo; la complejidad de las estructuras familiares (que a menudo trascienden las barreras religiosas); y la dilución de los límites religiosos, sociales y culturales, especialmente entre judíos y cristianos.
The classical rabbinic sources issue conflicting directives on the appropriate attitude to corporeal pleasures, the body, and sexuality. The lecture highlights the tensions generated by the unresolved conflict between affirmation and self-denial, suggesting that it gave rise to a peculiarly gendered evaluation of the ascetic life, which resulted in the effective exclusion of women from the entire literary record of the Jewish mystical tradition. This distinguishes the Jewish mystical tradition as it has come down to us from the comparable traditions of both Christianity and Islam, where the saintly lives and teachings of female mystics feature prominently alongside those of their male counterparts.
2. What we know about the spiritual lives of medieval and early modern Jewish women
This lecture examines the male construction of female piety as it emerges from a range of late medieval and early modern literary sources of various genres, while at the same time attempting to extract women’s own sense of their spiritual experience and aspirations from records which, with few exceptions, yield it only incidentally or indirectly.
3. The exceptional prominence of women in the 17th-century messianic movement of Sabbatai Tsevi and its 18th-century offshoots.
Sabbatai Tsevi was a kabbalist from the Ottoman port town of Izmir, who inspired a messianic movement that swept through the whole of the Jewish world during the second half of the 17th century. At the height of his international celebrity as the long-awaited Jewish messiah, he abruptly converted to Islam in the autumn of 1666. Traditionally viewed as a shameful act of betrayal, his apostasy, instantly denounced by some, was interpreted by others in kabbalistic terms as an integral part of his redemptive mission. Despite repeated attempts by rabbinic authorities to root out what was now being viewed as a heretical movement, it persisted for at least another century and a half, albeit increasingly as a clandestine sectarian organisation. One of its most distinctive features, from inception to demise, was the active involvement and high visibility of women within its ranks. The lecture explores the diverse manifestations of this anomaly, setting it in its particular historical and theological contexts.
4. From messianic prophetess to ‘madwoman’: The displacement of female spirituality in the post Sabbatian era.
The lecture considers the controversial question of the relationship between Sabbatianism and Hasidism – a movement of spiritual revival that emerged in Poland in the middle of the 18th century. The two movements shared a number of conspicuous characteristics, including their common kabbalisitic legacy and personal-charismatic leadership. It has often been suggested that Hasidism was either a direct product of or a dialectic reaction to the failure of Sabbatianism. However, one of the striking differences between them was their attitude to women. While Sabbatianism granted some women power and authority, and fully incorporated all women in the ritual and spiritual life of their communities, Hasidism, despite the fact that its doctrine was particularly conducive to the full integration of women, and even to the celebration of women as the embodied realisation of its ultimate spiritual goal, in reality excluded them from its all-male fraternities and reinforced the traditional gender norms which had been breached so spectacularly by the Sabbatians.
5. The position of women in Hasidism: myth and reality
This lecture offers a critical analysis of the popular 20th-century portrayal of Hasidism as a gender-egalitarian movement. It evaluates the sources on which this view is based, and considers the ideological agendas that underlies it, while also exploring the genuine re-evaluation of women’s relationship to the movement that has been taking place exceptionally in the hasidic school of Habad-Lubavitch since the inter-war period.
A short bio
Ada Rapoport-Albert is Professor Emerita of Jewish Studies and former Head of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London (UCL). She is a historian of the Jewish mystical tradition, with special interest in the history and historiography of Hasidism, the messianic movement of Sabbatai Zevi, ascetic practice in pietistic circles within rabbinic Judaism, and gender issues relating to all the above. Her publications include Hasidism Reappraised (1996, as editor), Women and the Messianic Heresy of Sabbatai Zevi 1666-1816 (2011), Studies in Hasidism: Essays in History and Gender (in press), and in Hebrew, Studies in Hasidism, Sabbatianism, and Gender (2015).
Mercredi 7 novembre 2018, 14h-16h
École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS),
54 Boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris,
salle BS1_28
En présence de l’auteur, Giacomo Todeschini, interviendront : Javier Castaño (CISC, Madrid), Mathias Dreyfuss (Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration), Michaël Gasperoni (CNRS / Centre Roland Mousnier), Sylvie Anne Goldberg (Études juives, EHESS), Davide Mano (Études juives, EHESS).