the many faces of the Jewish polymath Elijah (Bocher) Levita

The Hebrew and Jewish Studies Unit of the University of Oxford
in association with École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris
is holding a two-day international conference at Yarnton Manor :
Monday 17 th - Tuesday 18 th December 2007:
Between Jews and Christians :
the many faces of the Jewish polymath
Elijah (Bocher) Levita (1469-1549)
Elijah Levita (1469-1549) was arguably the most influential Jewish scholar of the
sixteenth century. Born in Germany he spent the main part of his life in Italy,
thirteen years of which he spent in the home of Cardinal Egidio da Viterbo to whom
he taught Hebrew and for whom he transcribed and translated kabbalistic tracts. His
important grammatical and lexical writings and pioneering work on the invention of
the Hebrew vowel-points gained him a lasting reputation. In his own lifetime his
works were translated into Latin by a host of Protestant followers including Paulus
Fagius and Sebastian Muenster. Levita was not only an outstanding scholar of the
Hebrew and Aramaic languages but also a skilled writer of Yiddish, writing
adaptations of Italian epic poems. He also wrote the first Hebrew-Yiddish dictionary.
Gérard Weil’s book Elie Levita humaniste et massorète (Leiden, 1963) was the only
full-scale work written on Levita in modern times. Although this was an important
contribution to the subject in its own time there is a great need to revise and to
reevaluate Levita’s life and work in the light of new findings and different scholarly
approaches to the subject. Above all, the purpose of the conference is to bring
together scholars who specialize in the many diverse fields of literature and scholarly
activity of which Levita was a master, and to attempt to probe the persona of this
highly gifted Jew who was able to move with ease among Jews, Protestants and
Catholics.
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Conference Participants :
Philip Alexander (Manchester University)
Jean Baumgarten (CNRS, Paris)
Malachi Beit Arié (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Saverio Campanini (Freie Universität, Berlin)
Anthony Grafton (Princeton University)
Joseph Hacker (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Scott Mandelbrote (Cambridge University)
Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (Paris Sorbonne University)
Claudia Rosenzweig (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Michael Sokoloff (Bar-Ilan University)
Chava Turniansky (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Joanna Weinberg (Oriental Institute, Oxford)
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All are welcome. For daily attendance rates and full programme details (which will be
available later this term) - please e-mail enquiries@ochjs.ac.uk in the first instance.