Jewish Art and Visual Culture Research
Chief Researcher: Dr. Naomi Feuchtwanger-Sarig
Email: nsarig@post.tau.ac.il
Tel: 03-6407040
The Jewish Art and Visual Culture Research project seeks to enable inter-disciplinary research on the life of Jews, through the connection of researchers from different fields. The underlying basis of this research will be visual testimony, to be investigated as any other historical document.
About the Project
Chief Researcher: Dr. Naomi Feuchtwanger-Sarig
The underlying basis of this research is visual testimony, to be investigated as any other historical document. The research addresses the technical, iconographic and stylistic aspects of each object. In order to place the object within the context of its era and culture, layers of research from the Halacha and the Minhag are added, as well as comparison to textual sources from the non-Jewish world that are relevant to the topic.
The Life of Jews in South Germany at the End of the 16th Century – the Nuremberg Manuscript, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 80 Hs. 7058
The study of the illustrations in a southern German manuscript from the late sixteenth century is now completed. The text has been read by an internal lector from the Center as well as by an external lector – a leading scholar of Hebrew illuminated manuscripts. The book has been accepted for publication by the De Gruyter Publishing House in Berlin. The book is expected to appear in January 2018.
The Invention of a Textual and Visual Printed Tradition: The Sefer Minhagim by Shimeon ha-Levi Guenzburg
Dr. Feuchtwanger-Sarig dedicated the past year to basic research of the Sefer Minhagim, focusing mainly on the decorative plan of the woodcuts embedded in the book and comparing them to similar Ashkenazi books in manuscript and print alike. Currently, the research concentrates on iconographic decipherment of the numerous woodcut illustrations, their origin, meaning and significance. Special notice is given to the relationship between the images and the text in Yiddish, after Prof. Jean Baumgarten has completed the preparation of the scholarly edition of the text. Prof. Baumgarten is presently translating the text into English. It is expected to significantly impact the understanding of the images in the Sefer Minhagim.