Goethe University Frankfurt
Elisabeth Hollender is Professor of Jewish Studies at the Department of Jewish Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt. She is a specialist on medieval Jewish culture in Ashkenaz with a focus on liturgical poetry and exegesis, including commentaries on liturgical poetry. After her first book Qedushta’ot des Simon b. Isaak nach dem Amsterdam Mahsor. Übersetzung und Kommentar on liturgical poetry from Mainz, she published widely on piyyut commentary, including Clavis Commentariorum of Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in Manuscript and Piyyut Commentary in Medieval Ashkenaz.
Research related to commentary
My continued work on piyyut commentary currently focuses on the relation between poetry and exegesis. I have co-edited the volume Exegesis and Poetry in Medieval Karaite and Rabbanite Texts, and currently work on the treatment of Song of Songs in liturgical poetry from medieval Italy and Ashkenaz and in the commentaries of this poetry. Additionally, I cooperate with Prof. Alessandro Guetta (INALCO, Paris) in preparing a fully commented edition of Moses da Rieti’s Miqdash Me’at, a monumental Hebrew poem in terza rima, inspired by Dante’s Divina Commedia, but using the metaphor of the Jerusalem Temple to place first pagan, than Jewish authors and philosophers. We will also study the 16th century commentary to this work.
Publications related to commentary
“Berakha ben Joseph’s commentary on the “Piyyūṭīm” by Aaron ben Joseph”, in: Exegesis and Poetry in Medieval Karaite and Rabbanite Texts, ed. Joachim Yeshaya, Elisabeth Hollender, Leiden: Brill 2016, pp. 292-–317.
Piyyut Commentary in Medieval Ashkenaz. Studia Judaica. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008.
Clavis Commentariorum of Medieval Hebrew Piyyut-Commentary. Clavis Commentariorum Antiquitatis et Medii Aevi 4. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
“Die verlorene Qedushta אמצה עשירייה von Elʿazar birabbi Qallir und ihr Kommentar aus Rashis Lehrhaus.” Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 34 (2007–8): 53–89.
Clavis Commentariorum of Medieval Hebrew Piyyut-Commentary. Clavis Commentariorum Antiquitatis et Medii Aevi 4. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
Other publications
“Seferad in Tzarfat: Sefardi and Sefardi-Style Piyyutim in MS Bernkastel-Kues 313”, in ‘His Pen and Ink are a Powerful Mirror’ Andalusi, Judaeo-Arabic, and Other Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Ross Brann, edited by Adam Bursi, S.j. Pearce, Hamza M. Zafer, Leiden, Boston: Brill 2020, pp. 94–117.
Liturgie und Geschichte. Der Aschkenasische Machsor und Jüdische Mobilität Im Mittelalter – Ein Methodologischer Versuch, Arye-Maimon-Institut für Geschichte der Juden: Texte und Studien 10. Trier: Klio Media 2015.
“The Ritualization of Circumcision in Medieval Judaism in Relation to Islam and Christianity: An Overview.” Religion 42:2 (2012), pp. 233–246.
“Verachtung kann Unwissenheit nicht entschuldigen. Reaktionen auf die Kritik Paul de Lagardes an der Wissenschaft des Judentums”, Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 30 (2003), pp. 169–205.
Qedushta‘ot des Simon b. Isaak nach dem Amsterdam Mahsor. Übersetzung und Kommentar, Frankfurt/Main: P. Lang Verlag 1994.