Kabbalistic Pharmacopoeia: Well-Being in the Atlantic Jewish World
This article discusses an intriguing manuscript purchased in Jerusalem at auction in 2013 for the Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania. Ta‘alumot hokhmah was composed in the Dutch provinces during the 150 years leading up to the 1830s, l...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Penn Press
2015
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| In: |
The Jewish quarterly review
Year: 2015, Volume: 105, Issue: 2, Pages: 145-153 |
| Further subjects: | B
Sifrei Segulot
B Atlantic Jewish history B receipt books B Kabbalah B Dutch Jewish history B literature of secrets B Portuguese Jews B history of science |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This article discusses an intriguing manuscript purchased in Jerusalem at auction in 2013 for the Library at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania. Ta‘alumot hokhmah was composed in the Dutch provinces during the 150 years leading up to the 1830s, largely in Portuguese and Dutch, with significant portions in French and Italian, and a smattering of Spanish, English, German, and Yiddish. Most manifestly, it is a receipt book, a compendium of medical, culinary, and housekeeping recipes, but also falls within the genre of the “literature of ‘secrets,’” whose content was magical and semi-medical, a genre known among Jews as Sifrei Segulot. Because it is composed of multiple, juxtaposed layers of texts, Ta‘alumot @hokhmah also embodies the genres of memoir, family record book, scrapbook, merchant’s guide, and folklore. The text marks the major transitions that characterize the Atlantic Jewish era: conversion from Christianity to Judaism, migration from Europe to the New World, the shift from Peninsular mono- or bi-lingualism to multilingualism, and the confrontation of traditional Judaism with modern, secularized science. It is representative of Jews in the Atlantic world, and its preservation bespeaks the historic pride that Portuguese Jews took in their accomplished physicians, the conservative nature of Portuguese Judaism, and possibly the Portuguese Jewish tradition’s role in retarding the inroads of modern science. |
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| ISSN: | 1553-0604 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The Jewish quarterly review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/jqr.2015.0010 |