Lecture | Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series
Jewish angels who speak Arabic: Yemeni-Jewish vernacular religion in immigration context
- Tom Fogel (Tel Aviv University)
- Date
- Monday 24 March 2025
- Time
- Serie
- Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series
- Address
- Online via Zoom (register below)
The lecture explores the ethnographic representation of Yemeni Jewish vernacular religion, through Rabbi Yosef Qāfiḥ’s influential work, Halikhot Teman. Research has highlighted the prominence of occult knowledge in 19th and 20th century Yemen, manifested in practices of healing and protection, performed by Jews and Muslims alike Jewish manuscripts of medicine and magic include a complex matrix of Muslim and Jewish sources and contain a mosaic of Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic languages. Qāfiḥ's nuanced approach to folk traditions will be discussed by analyzing his portrayals of folk medicine alongside a unique manuscript from his library. The lecture situates Qāfiḥ's work within a broader historical context, including his grandfather's reformative actions and the ongoing dialogue within the Yemeni Jewish community regarding its cultural heritage, in the context of immigration to Israel.
About the speaker
Tom Fogel is a folklorist specializing in Jewish culture in Muslim lands, the history of ethnographic research in Yemen, and the study of Tradition Archives. He is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Tel Aviv University, and at the International Research Center for Cultural Studies, University of Art and Design Linz (IFK Vienna), there he investigates Jewish vernacular religion in Yemen. Previously, Tom held the Ephraim E. Urbach Post-Doctoral Fellowship, and held postdoctoral fellowships at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Ben Gurion University in the Negev.
Registration
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Register for this eventThe Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series is supported by the Horizon-2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions project EMStaD YEMEN.
An overview of all events in this series can be found on the series page.
