Last Jewish Music Forum Event of the 2016-17
“Songs of the Nation”: Maskilic Readings of Psalms after
Moses Mendelssohn
A talk by Dr. Yael Sela Teichler, with Dr. Michah Gottlieb (discussant)
The biggest bestseller of the German Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) was Sefer Zemirot Yisrael — “The Book of the Songs of Israel” — a bilingual (German-Hebrew) edition with Hebrew commentary of Moses Mendelssohn’s translation of the Psalms. Published in Berlin in 1791, the book’s novelty lies in three pioneering Hebrew essays by the young maskil, Joel Brill Löwe, the first of their kind to investigate the poetics of biblical poetry and the history of music of the Hebrews. Introducing the book, the first part of the talk discusses its significance and ontological status as a practical and seemingly traditional edition of Psalms, or a daring representation of the Hebrew Psalms as objects of modern Jewish aesthetic and historical investigation. The core of the lecture focuses on Brill’s essay on the history of music in the lands of the Hebrews. Tracing Brill’s sources, from Scriptures to early rabbinic and medieval Jewish literature as well as his implicit non-Jewish interlocutors, the talk explores Brill as a forerunner of modern scholarship of Jewish music history reclaiming the Psalms as the musical heritage of Jews, past and future, thereby challenging traditional notions of exile and redemption.
Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 6pm
Free: Please rsvp to [email protected]
Center for Jewish History | 15 West 16th Street | New York, NY 10011
This program is co-sponsored by the Leo Baeck Institute and the American Jewish Historical Society
Dr. Yael Sela Teichler became a faculty member at the Open University of Israel in 2014, where she serves as director of the Program in Musicology. Having received her PhD at Oxford University in 2010 in historical musicology, she has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Humboldt University in Berlin, Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, and the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Her current research is concerned with aesthetics and concepts of music in the Berlin Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) of the late 18th century, especially in the philosophy of Moses Mendelssohn. Her articles have appeared, among others, in Renaissance Studies and Jewish Quarterly Review. She is currently writing a monograph on music, aesthetics, and biblical poetry in the philosophy and commemoration of Moses Mendelssohn.
Discussant: Dr. Michah Gottlieb, Associate Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU. He is author of many books and articles including: Faith and Freedom: Moses Mendelssohn’s Theological-Political Thought (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Faith, Reason, Politics: Essays on the History of Jewish Thought (Academic Studies Press, 2012). A new book on German-Jewish Bible translations will be published by Oxford University Press.
Moses Mendelssohn
A talk by Dr. Yael Sela Teichler, with Dr. Michah Gottlieb (discussant)
The biggest bestseller of the German Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) was Sefer Zemirot Yisrael — “The Book of the Songs of Israel” — a bilingual (German-Hebrew) edition with Hebrew commentary of Moses Mendelssohn’s translation of the Psalms. Published in Berlin in 1791, the book’s novelty lies in three pioneering Hebrew essays by the young maskil, Joel Brill Löwe, the first of their kind to investigate the poetics of biblical poetry and the history of music of the Hebrews. Introducing the book, the first part of the talk discusses its significance and ontological status as a practical and seemingly traditional edition of Psalms, or a daring representation of the Hebrew Psalms as objects of modern Jewish aesthetic and historical investigation. The core of the lecture focuses on Brill’s essay on the history of music in the lands of the Hebrews. Tracing Brill’s sources, from Scriptures to early rabbinic and medieval Jewish literature as well as his implicit non-Jewish interlocutors, the talk explores Brill as a forerunner of modern scholarship of Jewish music history reclaiming the Psalms as the musical heritage of Jews, past and future, thereby challenging traditional notions of exile and redemption.
Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 6pm
Free: Please rsvp to [email protected]
Center for Jewish History | 15 West 16th Street | New York, NY 10011
This program is co-sponsored by the Leo Baeck Institute and the American Jewish Historical Society
Dr. Yael Sela Teichler became a faculty member at the Open University of Israel in 2014, where she serves as director of the Program in Musicology. Having received her PhD at Oxford University in 2010 in historical musicology, she has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Humboldt University in Berlin, Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, and the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Her current research is concerned with aesthetics and concepts of music in the Berlin Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) of the late 18th century, especially in the philosophy of Moses Mendelssohn. Her articles have appeared, among others, in Renaissance Studies and Jewish Quarterly Review. She is currently writing a monograph on music, aesthetics, and biblical poetry in the philosophy and commemoration of Moses Mendelssohn.
Discussant: Dr. Michah Gottlieb, Associate Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU. He is author of many books and articles including: Faith and Freedom: Moses Mendelssohn’s Theological-Political Thought (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Faith, Reason, Politics: Essays on the History of Jewish Thought (Academic Studies Press, 2012). A new book on German-Jewish Bible translations will be published by Oxford University Press.
The Jewish Music Forum is a project of the American Society for Jewish Music, with the support of the American Jewish Historical Society and the Center for Jewish History. Founded in 2004, the Jewish Music Forum is now in its thirteenth season.
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Site last updated May 1, 2017
Site last updated May 1, 2017
