Jüdische Studien: Tagungen und Veranstaltungen

Mittwochs, 16-18 Uhr, Campus am Neuen Palais, Haus 8, Raum 0.64

Mehr Informationen finden Sie hier

Summer Term 2025, thursdays, 6.15-7.45 o.m., on Zoom

Conversos are baptized Iberian Jews and their descendants between the Middle Ages and Early Modern times. After the mass conversions between 1391 and 1497, conversos continued to live in considerable numbers across Iberian societies. Some of them made their way into Christianity, whereas others continued to live secretly as Jews.

Histories of the conversos influenced Spanish and Portuguese politics, societies, and cultures well into modern times. Collective anxieties vis-à-vis the conversos contributed to the establishment of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, the distinction between “New Christians” and “Old Christians”, as well as the emergence of “purity of blood” (limpieza de sangre)statutes, which some scholars identify as the beginning of modern antisemitism.

Beyond the question of anti-Judaism, the conversos’ fates, networks, and positionings have been used to discuss questions of crypto-religiosity, martyrdom, and belonging. In his controversial 2009 “The Other Within,” for example, Yirmiyahu Yovel designated the conversos as “forerunners of modernity,” and highlighted their importance, among others, for the modern transformation of religion, the rise of the individual, religious hybridity, and plural identities. The book has triggered heavy criticism but it also provoked major discussions that continue until today.

This lecture series touches upon some of these discussions and the background needed to understand fully the conversos’ impact and importance. Internationally renowned researchers feature prominently in this series, as they share their respective insights, questions, and scholarly critiques with students, fellow scholars, and the wider public.

Find the poster for this lecture series here

Tradition, Transformation, and Identity: The Turkish Sephardic Community Between Two Homelands

Organised by Adem Muzaffer Erol

27 November 2024, Potsdam
Am Neuen Palais 10, Haus 8, Raum 0.56

We are pleased to announce an upcoming workshop titled “Tradition, Transformation, and Identity: The Turkish Sephardic Community Between Two Homelands”, which will be held on November 27, 2024, under the auspices of the University of Potsdam's Institute for Jewish Studies and Religious Studies and the Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg. This event will bring together scholars and researchers to explore the multifaceted historical and contemporary experiences of Sephardic Jews in Turkey and Israel, focusing on the transformations within cultural traditions, identities, and diaspora dynamics from the 1920s to the present day.

More Info here​​​​​​​

Internationales Workshop: Shaping Identities Through Polemics – The Jewish Portuguese Nation in Amsterdam (17th and 18th Centuries)

24 October 2024 – University of Potsdam, Am Neuen Palais 10, Potsdam. Room 1.08.0.58.

The international workshop “Shaping Identities Through Polemics”, hosted by the University of Potsdam and the Selma Stern Zentrum, aims at investigating the prolific production of polemical texts among Sephardic scholars living in Amsterdam during the 17th and 18th centuries. The contributors will examine methodological issues that arise in working with polemical literature and contemplate some of the major research questions. They will also explore what Jewish authors in Amsterdam knew about the Jewish and non-Jewish “others”, how they portrayed them and how they used polemical texts to shape religious and social identities.

More information can be found here.

Semestereröffnung des Instituts für Jüdische Studien und Religionswissenschaft am 17. April 2024

Mittwoch, 17. April 2024| 16 Uhr Am Neuen Palais 11 | Haus 12 | Raum 0.39

Vortrag:  "Navigating Complexity Amidst Polarization: Postcolonial Perspectives & Jewish Studies"
Yael Attia & Jonathan Hirsch (Universität Potsdam)

Im Anschluss laden die Fachschaftsräte Jüdische Studien und Religionswissenschaft zu einem kleinen Umtrunk/Empfang im Foyer Haus 11 ein.

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Sephardic Perspectives Research and Reading Group

Organised by Adem Muzaffer Erol

The research and reading group Sephardic Perspectives continues earlier work of the BMBF funded project “Sephardic Perspectives” (2014-2023) at the ZJS. It ams at strengthening Sephardic Studies in German academia by bringing together early career scholars through discussion groups, workshops, and conferences. Topics to be discussed include Sephardic networks, cultures, and identites, in early modern, modern and contemporary European and non-European, colonial and post-colonial worlds. A focus will be on inter-religious and inner-Jewish entanglements and/or encounters, in particular entanglements, and/or encounters between Ashkenazim and Sephardim and/or Sephardim and Sephardim from early modern times to the present. This includes discussons about different concepts and uses of the term “Sephardi/Sephardic” in dfferent contexts and (academic) cultures. Last but not least, the group will also pay attention to topics of Converso history, religion, and thought, both in the Iberian Peninsula and in the Western Sephardic Diaspora. Regular meetings will be scheduled once a month via zoom.  Scholars interested in participating are encouraged to contact Adem Muzaffer Erol (erol.muzaffer@gmal.com).  

More information can be found here