Matthias B. Lehmann
- Associate Professor, Department of History
- Associate Professor, Jewish Studies Program
Education
- Ph.D. at Freie Universität Berlin, 2002
Contact Information
| Ballantine Hall, Rm. 836 |
| (812) 855-4250 |
Background
I am a historian of early modern and modern Jewish history with a special interest in the history of the Spanish Jews and the Sephardi diaspora in the Mediterranean world. In my first book, Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman Sephardic Culture (Indiana University Press, 2005), I look at the transformation of Ottoman Jewry in the nineteenth century through the lens of popularized rabbinic literature written in the vernacular language of the Ottoman Sephardim, Ladino or Judeo-Spanish. This vernacular rabbinic literature, negotiating between perpetuating rabbinic tradition and addressing the challenges of modernity, provides a fresh perspective on the modernization of Ottoman Jewry and the complex role of the rabbis in this process. My current project, tentatively entitled Networks of Beneficence: Rabbinic Emissaries from Palestine and the Making of a Modern Jewish Diaspora, looks at rabbinic networks and networks of support for the Jewish communities of Palestine in the Sephardi diaspora prior to the advent of European and European-Jewish international organizations in the second half of the nineteenth century. I studied at the universities of Freiburg, Berlin, and Jerusalem, and did my graduate work at Freie Universität Berlin and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Madrid. I am teaching courses on early modern and modern European and Mediterranean Jewish history.
Selected Awards
- Ernst Reuter Prize for outstanding dissertation at Freie Universität Berlin (2002)
- Humboldt Foundation Fellowship (2002, offer declined)
- Maurice Amado Research Grant in Sephardic Studies (2001 and 2004)
- Yad Hanadiv Fellowship (2005, offer declined)
- Indiana University College Arts and Humanities Institute Fellowship (2005)
Research Interests
- Early modern and modern Jewish history
- Sephardic studies
Courses Recently Taught
- Introduction to Jewish History: Bible to Spanish Expulsion
- Introduction to Jewish History: Spanish Expulsion to Present
- Sephardic History and Culture
- From Expulsion to Revolution: Early Modern Jewish History
- Jews in Muslim Lands
- Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Medieval Mediterranean (co-taught with Dr. Edward Watts)
- The Jews of Spain (intensive writing seminar)
- Ottoman History
- Constructions and Deconstructions of Jewish History (graduate seminar and colloquium)
Publication Highlights
Books
Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman Sephardic Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.
Co-author (15%), with John Efron, Steven Weitzman, and Joshua Holo, The Jews: A History. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2008.
Guest editor, Sephardi Identities, special issue of Jewish Social Studies 15:1 (2008) (forthcoming).
Networks of Beneficence: Rabbinic Emissaries from Palestine and the Making of a Modern Jewish Diaspora. In preparation.
Articles
"The Balkans and South-Eastern Europe," in: Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 8, ed. Mitchell Hart and Tony Michels (scheduled to appear in 2010).
"Linguistic Transformations: Ladino," in: Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 7, ed. Jonathan Karp and Adam Sutcliffe (scheduled to appear in 2010).
"The Case for Israel: Ottoman Jews, Ottoman Palestine, and Ladino Literature," Jewish Studies Quarterly 16 (2009) (forthcoming).
"Rethinking Sephardi Identity: Jews and Other Jews in Ottoman Palestine," Jewish Social Studies, 15, no. 1 (2008) (forthcoming).
"Levantinosand Other Jews: Reading H.Y.D. Azulai's Travel Diary,"Jewish Social Studies, 13, no. 3 (2007), 1-34.
"A Livornese 'Port Jew' and the Sephardim of the Ottoman Empire." Jewish Social Studies 11, no. 2 (2005): 51-76.
"Representations and Transformation of Knowledge in Judeo-Spanish Ethical Literature: The Case of Eli'ezer and Judah Papo's 'Pele Yo'ets'", in Klaus Hermann et al., eds., Jewish Studies Between the Disciplines, (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 299-324.
"The Intended Reader of Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Judeo-Spanish Reading Culture." Jewish History 16 (2002): 283-307.
