Rabbis, Philosophers, and Reformers: The Jewish Community of Prague in the Intellectual Landscape of Late Medieval Bohemia
Talk by Milan Žonca
Introduced by Pavla Niklová, Director of the Jewish Museum in Prague
Almost nine decades ago, Ruth Kestenberg (Gladstein) suggested that the Hussitereform movement, which emerged in Bohemia at the turn of the fifteenth century, drew inspiration from the local Jewish community’s thriving religious life. The possibility of intellectual and religious contacts between the Jews and the Hussites has been since examined by several scholars.
The lecture will revisit this question and, simultaneously, broaden its scope. Utilizing newly available manuscript evidence, the lecture will examine the intellectual profile of the late medieval Jewish community of Prague in the context of its interactions with contemporary religious discourses – Jewish and Christian alike. By analyzing the works and attitudes of three prominent scholars – Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen, Menaḥem Shalem, and Avigdor Kara – who were active in Prague in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, it will trace motifs and interests that shaped Jewish intellectual life of the city in this period.
Dr. Milan Žonca
Milan Žonca is a lecturer in Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, where he currently also serves as the Vice Dean for International Relations. He received his doctorate from Queen Mary, University of London, and previously held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences. His research interests include the cultural and intellectual history of Jews in the late Middle Ages, especially in Central Europe, and medieval Jewish-Christian polemics.
The event will be video recorded and accessible later on the SHCSJ YouTube channel.
The event is organized by the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews in partnership with the Jewish Museum in Prague and with the support of the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in New York and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association.
