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Jewish Culture around the World

additional resources

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Musicians on Ritual Stand

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Musicians on ritual stand, Ashdod, late 11th or early 10th century BCE. Music and dance played an important role in Israel and the ancient Near East in both daily life and special occasions such as…

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Jewish Family Names in Ukraine

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The question of family names in general and of Jewish family names in particular is interesting in many ways. Unfortunately, Jewish scholarship has thus far devoted very little attention to this…

Guide

Early Modern Jewish Languages

1500–1750

As Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews migrated eastward, Yiddish and Ladino emerged as distinct languages. Both languages developed literary traditions, as print became more widespread.

Guide

Language in Postwar Jewish Culture

1945–1973

Language shifts transformed Jewish culture in the postwar period, as Yiddish declined and Hebrew and English gained prominence.

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Sabbath Cooking Pot

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Because observant Jews do not light fires or cook on the Sabbath, they prepare hot meals before the beginning of the Sabbath. In some communities, families brought their Sabbath stew (known as cholent…

Culture

  • Steven M. Lowenstein, The Jewish Cultural Tapestry: International Jewish Folk Traditions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

  • David Biale, Cultures of the Jews: A New History (New York: Schocken Books, 2002).

Language

  • David M. Bunis, “Characteristics of Jewish Languages,” in Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture, vol. 1, Themes and Phenomena of the Jewish Diaspora, ed. M. Avrum Ehrlich (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2009), 167–71.

  • Lutz Edzard and Ofra Tirosh-Becker, Jewish Languages: Text Specimens, Grammatical, Lexical, and Cultural Sketches (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2021).

  • Lily Kahn and Aaron Rubin, eds., Handbook of Jewish Languages (Leiden: Brill, 2016).

  • Aaron D. Rubin and Lily Kahn, Jewish Languages from A to Z (London: Routledge, 2021).

  • Lea Schäfer, Syntax and Morphology of Yiddish Dialects: Findings from the Language and Culture Archive of Ashkenazic Jewry (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2023).

  • Bernard Spolsky, The Languages of the Jews: A Sociolinguistic History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Names

  • Alexander Beider, A Dictionary of Ashkenazic Given Names: Their Origins, Structure, Pronunciations, and Migrations (Bergenfield, N.J.: Avotaynu, 2001).

  • Alexander Beider, “Jewish Family Names,” in Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd ed., ed. Patrick Hanks, Simon Lenarčič, and Peter McClure (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), vol. 1, cxli–cxlvii.

  • Alexander Beider, “The Notion of ‘Jewish Surnames,’” Journal of Jewish Languages 6, no. 2 (2018): 182–220.

  • Kirsten Fermaglich, A Rosenberg by Any Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Changing in America (New York: NYU Press, 2018).

  • Sharon R. Siegel, A Jewish Ceremony for Newborn Girls: The Torah's Covenant Affirmed (Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2014).

Music

  • Philip V. Bohlman, Jewish Music and Modernity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

  • Tina Frühauf, The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Music Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023).

  • Klara Moricz and Ronit Seter, “Jewish Studies and Music,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 65, no. 2 (2012): 557–92.

  • Kay Kaufman Shelemay, “Mythologies and Realities in the Study of Jewish Music,” The World of Music 37, no. 1 (1995): 24–38.

  • Amnon Shiloah, Jewish Musical Traditions (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995).

Food

  • Hasia R. Diner and Simone Cinotto, eds., Global Jewish Foodways: A History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018).

  • Aaron S. Gross, Jody Myers, and Jordan D. Rosenblum, eds., Feasting and Fasting: The History and Ethics of Jewish Food (New York: New York University Press, 2019).

  • Anat Helman, ed., Jews and Their Foodways, Studies in Contemporary Jewry (New York: Oxford Academic, 2016).

  • Gil Marks, Encyclopedia of Jewish Food (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2010).

  • Andrea Most and Aldea Mulhern, "Food," Oxford Bibliographies Online in Jewish Studies (2014).

  • Claudia Roden, The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day (New York: Random House, 1999).

Class 4: Jewish Food Traditions: Global Flavors and Local Adaptations