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Judaic Studies Newsletter
Spring 2001 | No. 2
Judaic Studies Awards Certificates
 Three Students received certificates for completing courses in Judaic Studies at UCF. Bessie Torres (second from right) is graduating from UCF with a Minor in Judaic Studies. Two community students, Holly Mandelkern (first from left) and Ruth Aronson (third from left) were awarded certificates for completing 5 courses in Judaic Studies. Dr. Moshe Pelli (right) presented the awards. For more information about the Judaic Studies Program at UCF or the certificate program please call (407) 823-5039.
Prof. Leon Yudkin spoke on War and Peace in Israel: The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Recent Israeli Literature
 Dr. Leon Yudkin, University College London (second from right), presented a public lecture on "The Arab-Israel Conflict in Recent Israeli Literature" at UCF, sponsored by the Judaic Studies Program. He also conducted a seminar on "Masculine Voices and Feminine Voices in Current Israeli Fiction." Picture: Prof. Moshe Pelli (R.), director of the Program, and community members (Evelyn Melnik, on left, and Florence Kuppe).
 Dr. Leon I. Yudkin of University College, London, was the second speaker in this Spring's Judaic Studies Distinguished Lecturers Series. His lecture
focused on the Arab-Israel conflict as reflected in modern Israeli literature. The lecture titled "War and Peace in Israel: The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Recent Israeli Literature" was held Monday, March 26, 2001, at 7:30
PM, in the UCF Math & Physics Building Auditorium, Room 260. Dr. Yudkin also held a seminar on modern Israeli literature, titled "Masculine Voices and Feminine Voices in Current Israeli Fiction," on Tuesday, March 27, 2001, at 10:00AM, in the UCF Library, Room 230.
Dr. Leon I. Yudkin teaches Hebrew and comparative literature at University College, London. He has been the director of an ongoing workshop on the teaching of Hebrew literature in translation since 1986 (Hebrew University, Jerusalem).
He has authored many books, among these are: A Home Within: Varieties of Jewish Expression in Modern Fiction (1996); Modern Jewish Writing: Public Crisis and Literary Response (forthcoming, early 2001).
He is editor of the monograph series Jews in Modern Culture, and has edited numerous other books. Many journals in Europe, Israel, the US and the UK have featured his articles. He has lectured extensively in many countries. In 1998 he won the "Distinguished Visitor" award in the Symposium on Modern Jewish Writing. His recent lecture in Berlin on the Arab-Israel conflict as reflected in Israeli literature will be published as an introduction to a book.
Prof. Shalom Paul spoke on Bible from Archeaological Discoveries
 Prof. Shalom Paul of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem was the first speaker in this Spring's Judaic Studies Distinguished Lecturers Series. His lecture will focus on the recent Archaeology-Bible Controversy. The title of his lecture was "New Light on the Bible from Archaeological Discoveries." Prof. Shalom Paul also held a seminar on the Dead Sea Scrolls, titled "The Ever Alive Dead Sea Scrolls," on Tuesday February 6, 2001.
Dr. Shalom Paul is a Professor of Bible at the Hebrew University and former Chair of the department of Bible. He is also the Chair of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, an international organization of leading scholars in Dead Sea
Scrolls, which is responsible for all the publications of the texts.
In addition, Prof. Shalom Paul is the chair of the curriculum committee of Bible for the Ministry of Education for all grades in Israel. Prof. Paul's specialty is the Bible and the Ancient Near East, its cultures, languages, and theologies.
His latest books: a full-scale commentary on Amos for the Hermeneia series with Augsburg-Fortress press, and the Illustrated Dictionary and Concordance of the Bible.
Dr. Eyal Zisser spoke on War and Peace: The Middle East Peace Process
Dr. Eyal Zisser, Senior Research Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University, spoke on War and Peace: The Middle East Peace Process, on November 20, 2000.
He was the final guest speaker in our Distinguished Lecturers Series for fall of 2000.
His fields of specialization are the modern history and politics of Syria and Lebanon. Among his Books are: Asad's Syria at a Crossroads (Tel Aviv, 1999), Lebanon - The Challenge of Independence (London, 2000),
and Asad's Legacy - Syria in Transition (New York, 2000). He has written numerous articles, and presented research papers at conferences on all aspects of Syria.
Prof. Pelli's Book on the First Hebrew Journal Just Published
 Moshe Pelli
The Gate to Haskalah
An Annottated Index to Hame'asef,the First Hebrew Journal; The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University; Jerusalem 2000
Prof. Moshe Pelli's new book on the first Hebrew journal, Hame'asef, has just been published by the Hebrew University's Magnes Press in Jerusalem, Israel. Titled The Gate to Haskalah [Enlightenment], the book includes
a monograph on the journal, and an annotated, computerized index to its ten volumes, as well as bibliographies, and an English abstract. Hame'asef was the literary journal of Hebrew Enlightenment in Germany and was published from 1783 to 1811.
The publication of the book was the culmination of some thirty years of continuous research that took Pelli to three continents, many countries, and some twenty five research libraries in search of rare copies of the 18th-century Hebrew
periodical. It represents a computer programming accomplishment, creating a bi-lingual computer program to sort and format the multi-lingual index.
The book presents the scholar and the student of the period and its literature with a comprehensive view of the achievements of Hebrew Enlightenment literature in Germany. The Index serves as a reliable reference tool for examining
the material published in the ten volumes of Hame'asef. Furthermore, it is now convenient to evaluate the contribution of various authors to Haskalah literature and to assess the contents of the diversified literary genres employed by the authors and editors of Hame'asef.
This alphabetical author-and-subject index is a comprehensive list, covering all articles, poems, fables, stories, news, editorial comments and announcements included in the journal. The entries include concepts, events, institutions
and organizations, leading personalities and authors, literary genres and book titles, Judaic and secular disciplines, and the like. Annotations were added to many entries, identifying authors, deciphering initials, and providing cross-references and some bibliographical references.
Pelli began to work on this annotated Index in the early 1970s, proceeding on it on and off while continuing his research on the literature of Haskalah. Throughout the years, he has undertaken to check rare volumes of Hame'asef in research libraries in Israel, Europe and America. As a result of this endeavor, a manually written index has been initially prepared and then typed. It was converted to a computer-generated index in the early 1990s, using a sorting and cross-referencing software program written especially for this project.
The inventory
of the Index contained in the final run of the software, 1,078 original entries which were cross-referenced to 2,076 additional entries, totaling 3,154 entries. The final output contained 107 double-column, folio-size pages with some 83,019 words totaling 1,716,307 bytes. The literary 'inventory' of Hame'asef contains 122 poems, 18 stories (4 idylls in prose included), 55 fables, 94 epigrams, 27 riddles, as well as 10 biographies and 52 items of literary criticism.
In addition, a German Index to all German Supplements appended to the Hebrew journal
is included in the Index. Finally, the appendices contain bibliographies
on Hame'asef and bibliographical data on the journal and its volumes,
and information about its editors.
The monograph introduces the reader to the cultural background of the phenomenon of this periodical. It examines the history and development of the journal, its editors and writers. It analyzes qualitatively and quantitatively the literature and the thought of the period, the literary genres, and the ideology expressed in the journal vis-à-vis the contemporary trends in European literature, and against the background of similar journals in Germany and England.
Director Attended European Conference
On September 10-14, 2000, Dr. Moshe Pelli attended the European Conference of Hebrew Professors which took place in Milan, Italy. He presented a paper on the first Hebrew journal, Hame'asef. Dr. Pelli held
discussions with representatives of European Universities, such as Paris 8 University, about future cooperation between UCF Judaic Studies and the respective departments in Europe.
Faculty Highlights...
Prof. Moshe Pelli is Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Judaic Studies, and a professor of Judaic Studies. His major area of specialization is Modern Hebrew Literature, especially Hebrew Haskalah (Enlightenment) in the 18th and 19th centuries. He has written extensively on the Literature of the Holocaust, and has lectured on Literature of the Bible. He has taught courses in these areas. He is widely published: six scholarly books on
Hebrew Enlightenment and 136 research papers, 2 novels, 8 children books, 3 text anthologies, 38 review articles, 59 book reviews, 4 bibliographies and indices, 15 short stories. Awarded the Friedman Prize for his contribution
to Hebrew Culture in USA in 1991, he was the Researcher of the Year award for 1996 at UCF, and many other awards and grants. He was Fellow of the prestigious Moses Mendelssohn Center at the University of Potsdam in Germany in May 2000. He is listed in many Who's Who books in USA, Europe and Israel. He is on the editorial board of Lamishpaha, Hebrew Monthly, and a member of the Executive Council of the National Association of Professors of Hebrew in the USA.
Prof. Joseph Gutmann is an Adjunct Professor in the University of Central Florida Judaic Studies Program, teaching courses in the spring semesters. He is Prof. Emeritus of Art History, Wayne State University, Detroit and Adjunct Curator Emeritus of the Detroit Institute of Art. He has published 18 books, including Hebrew Manuscript Painting (twice featured as a Book of the Month Club selection which sold 38,000 copies and was issued in French, Dutch, German and English editions). He has also contributed over 200 learned articles to leading scholarly journals and encyclopedias and writes a monthly column, Gutmann on Art, for the National Jewish Post and Opinion. He teaches history, cultural history, archaeology, and Biblical art. He received an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, New York in 1999.
Dr. Kenneth Hanson is an Adjunct Professor in the University of Central Florida Judaic Studies Program. He has published three books, which are in their second printings, including Words of Light: Spiritual Wisdom from
the Dead Sea Scrolls, released in March 2000, Dead Sea Scrolls: The Untold Story, Treasures in Earthen Vessels: The Legacy of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Words of Light is featured (with a seven page essay) in the August 2000 issue of Jewish Book News. Dr. Hanson also continues to give public lectures. In the coming months he will be speaking in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Michigan, North Carolina, and Miami. He teaches History, Culture, Dead Sea Scrolls and Bible. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Rollins College in the Department of Religion and Philosophy.
Dr. Moshe Elbaz is an Adjunct Professor in the University of Central Florida Judaic Studies Program. He has been teaching Hebrew courses in the University of Central Florida for the past 12 years and has been an educator for the past 25 years. In the past four years Dr. Elbaz has served as the spiritual leader of the newest Conservative Congregation in Central Florida, where he strides to promote education and social action. Dr. Elbaz volunteers in the Seminole County Public Schools, speaking about Judaism and the Holocaust. In 1999, Dr. Elbaz introduced a Statewide Community College System Judaic Studies program. Together with Dr. Hanson, the program was presented to the director
of Academic/Vocational Planning and Review Committee, and in June 2000 it was presented to the College Vice President of Academics. It is hoped that the Central Florida Community Colleges will begin offering Judaic classes in the fall of 2001. Dr. Elbaz is the recipient of several awards including the Jewish National Fund Shalom Award and Sinai Award among others. Dr. Elbaz leads an annual tour to Israel.
Mr. Merril Shapiro teaches the history of Judaism. He is the spiritual leader of Beth Am Congregation in Longwood, FL, and an active member of the Orlando board of Rabbis.
Recent Publications and Research Activities
Dr. Moshe Pelli has published the following articles:
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"When Did Haskalah Begin? Establishing the Beginning of Haskalah and the Definition of 'Modernism,'" Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, XLIV (1999), pp. 55-96.
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"Hameasef Project: An Annotated, Computerized Index of the First Hebrew Periodical," Hadoar, 74, (17, July 28,2000), pp. 22-23; (18, August 11, 2000), pp. 21-23 [Hebrew].
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"Poetry and Poetic Theory in Hameasef, the First Modern Periodical in Hebrew Haskalah," Dappim Research
in Literature, 12 (1999/2000), pp. 65-116 [Hebrew].
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"Hameasef (1783-1811): Breakthrough in Hebrew Periodical Literature: the History, Way and Essense of the First
Modern Hebrew Periodical," Hadoar, 79 (19, August 25, 2000), pp. 18-21; (20, September 9, 2000), pp. 18-20;
Dr. Joseph Gutmann has published the following articles:
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"Das Zeugnis der Bar Kokhba-Muenzen" Antike Welt, 31 (2000), pp. 485-486.
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"The Strange History of the Kapporet Ritual," Zeitschrift Fuer die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 112, (2000), pp. 624-626.
He organized the International Symposium on Jewish Ritual Art held in conjunction with the exhibit, "For Everything a Season," at Cleveland State University on Sept. 13, 2000.
He also presented a paper,
"With this ring I thee wed: Unusual Jewish Wedding Rings."
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