Gotha Manuscript Talks, Fall 2025

Wednesday, 22 October 2025, 6:15 CET

From Jaffa to Alexandria to Paris: The Extraordinary Journey of Betsalel Frenkel’s Yiddish Book Collection

Tal Hever-Chybowski (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)

This talk will explore the remarkable story of the Yiddish book collection assembled by Betsalel Frenkel (1876–1963), a multifaceted figure who worked as a bookseller, librarian, furniture maker, and animation filmmaker. Born in Rechytsa (today Belarus), Frenkel emigrated to Palestine (Jaffa) in 1905, where he lived until 1914. Then he moved to Alexandria, where he and his sons became pioneers of Arabic cartoons and creators of the famous Mish Mish Efendi films. While the Frenkel Brothers are known today primarily for their cinematic work, this presentation focuses on Betsalel’s precious Yiddish library/bookstore collection, which offers a unique window into the transfer of Ashkenazi literary and intellectual culture from Eastern Europe to Palestine and Egypt in the first half of the 20th century. The collection, which was sealed in a French cellar in the 1950s and rediscovered only in the 1990s alongside the film reels of Mish Mish Efendi, includes books obtained through documented relationships with Eastern European bookstores, volumes printed in Egypt itself, and unique artifacts binding Arabic and Yiddish materials together. Now housed in the Medem Library in Paris, this largely unstudied collection illuminates the complex geographical and cultural trajectories of Yiddish print culture in the Middle East and North Africa.

Tal Hever-Chybowski is a scholar, educator, and cultural activist specializing in Yiddish and Jewish history. From 2014 to 2025, he directed the Paris Yiddish Center – Medem Library. Since 2025, he serves as a research associate at the Seminar for Jewish Studies at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. He has taught Yiddish language and literature at all levels at institutions including YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the Yiddish Book Center, the Free University of Berlin, the University of Basel, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, the University of Mannheim, The Yiddish Summer Seminar in Warsaw, and others internationally.

Watch the video of the event in the media library.
 

Wednesday, 12 November 2025, 6:15 CET

The Circulation of a 17th-Century Theological Controversy in Northwest Africa 

Prof. Dr. Caitlyn Olson (Bucknell University)

Around the early 1670s, in the southeast Moroccan oasis city of Sijilmasa, a man named Muhammad b. ʿUmar b. Abi Mahalli became concerned with what he saw as a crucially important problem. Many ostensible Muslims were, he asserted, so ignorant of basic theological doctrine that they could not even be considered monotheists. Undertaking to identify, rectify, and discipline this ignorance, Ibn ʿUmar also sought to warn people in neighboring regions of its pervasiveness by sending them a sort of explanatory, exhortative pamphlet. For their part, many of Ibn ʿUmar’s contemporaries saw these ideas and activities as dangerously disruptive, and they composed their own writings in rebuttal. Even so, Ibn ʿUmar’s texts continued to spread, especially further south into West Africa. In this talk, I take stock of the manuscripts that survive – and do not survive – from this episode, as well as the role played by the written word in disseminating and extinguishing ideas.

Dr. Caitlyn Olson is the Josephine Hildreth Detmer and Zareen Taj Mirza Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Bucknell University. Her research focuses on Islamic intellectual history in Morocco and the surrounding region between the 14th–18th centuries. She is currently working on a monograph with the tentative title Creed for the Common Folk: Orthodoxy and Elitism in the Early Modern Maghrib, and she also plans to undertake a critical edition of the exhortative creedal writings by Muhammad b. ʿUmar b. Abi Mahalli, the 17th–century Moroccan scholar who features in this talk.

Watch the video of the event in the media library.

Wednesday, 26 November 2025, 6:15 CET

Recovering Syro-Chalcedonian Historical Memory: The Maronite Chronicle of 713 and its Manuscript Transmission

Dr. Adrian C. Pirtea (Austrian Academy of Sciences)

In the early thirteenth century, a Christian Arabic scribe – likely working in Damascus – produced the sole surviving copy of an anonymous world chronicle originally composed in 713 CE. Its author was probably a Syriac monk from the region of Apamea who adhered to Monotheletism, the doctrine of Christ’s unique will, which was condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 681 CE. This work, conventionally titled the Maronite Chronicle of 713, was originally composed in Syriac, but survives only in Arabic and has remained virtually unknown until now. The Chronicle provides a unique perspective on the religious and political history of the Eastern Mediterranean during the early Islamic period and sheds new light on the so-called ‘Eastern source(s)’ behind the well-known chronicles of Theophanes the Confessor, Michael the Syrian, Agapius of Mabbug, and others. In this talk, I will first introduce this new source and highlight its importance for Syriac historical writing, Syro-Chalcedonian identity, and the formative period of Islam. The second part of the talk will focus on the Chronicle’s sole manuscript witness, examining its thirteenth-century context and reflecting on its place in Maronite historical memory and the factors that contributed to its eventual marginalization.

Dr. Adrian C. Pirtea (PhD Freie Universität Berlin 2017) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Institute for Medieval Research, Department of Byzantine Research). His research focuses on the history of Eastern Christianity, with particular expertise in Syriac, Byzantine Greek, and Christian Arabic patristic and monastic literature. He is currently the Principal Investigator of the ERC Starting Grant Reviving the Ascetic Ideal in the Eastern Mediterranean: Entangled Memories of Early Egyptian Asceticism in Syriac, Arabic, and Armenian Christianity (969–1375 CE), running from October 2023 to September 2028.

Wednesday, 3 December 2025, 6:15 CET

Looking Over the Shoulders of Scribes of Medieval Culinary Manuscripts and Reading Between the Lines 

Nawal Nasrallah (Independent Scholar)

The talk will explore the fascinating world of medieval Arabic cookbooks, moving beyond simply viewing them as collections of recipes. Drawing on my research translating several of these manuscripts into English, the presentation will highlight how different versions, transcribed across centuries and in various locales, reveal significant alterations and modifications. I will also explore dialogues and negotiations within these texts, where modifications reflect changing traditions and individual choices, as well as the human element behind their creation – exploring themes of responsibility in dealing with and preserving culinary knowledge and the dynamics of conforming to or deviating from established traditions.

Nawal Nasrallah, Independent Scholar, has published books and articles on the history and culture of Arab food, with a particular interest in translating into English medieval Arabic cookbooks. Her works include Delights from the Garden of Eden on Iraqi Cuisine and its History, Dates: A Global History, and English translations Annals of the Caliphs’ Kitchens from Baghdad, Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table from Egypt, and Best of Delectable Foods and Dishes and Smorgasbords of Andalusi and Maghribi Dishes and Their Salutary Benefits from al-Andalus.