The Invention of Jewish Identity: Bible, Philosophy, and the Art of Translation

Index

Abravanel, Isaac, xiii Abu Aswad al-­Duwali, 33, 35 Abulafia, Abraham, 140n71 adab, 37, 44, 55 aesthetics, xiii, xv, 11, 14, 22, 32, 38, 43, 54, 60, 62, 71, 76–77, 81, 85, 86, 90, 91, 102, 103, 118, 120, 121, 132, 134; and artistic production, 13, 120; and memory, 39; role in sustaining imagined communities, 84– 87; social and historical construction of, 68; and translation, xiii, 62–64. See also Hebrew; Ibn Ezra, Moses; Maimonides; Mendelssohn, Moses; translation Alfarabi, 58–59, 113 Allony, Nehemiah, 84–86 ambiguity, 16 al-­Andalus, 43, 58, 70, 85, 90, 98; poetic tradition of, 54–55, 62. See also adab; Ibn Ezra, Moses; Maimonides; Saadya Gaon anthropomorphisms, 16, 41–43, 54, 61, 81, 95. See also Bible; Ibn Ezra, Moses; Maimonides; “Torah speaks in the language of humans” anticipation, xii, 127, 129; as historiographic category, 23–24 “antiquity,” 22, 68, 71, 115, 117, 124. See also Buber, Martin; Rosenzweig, Franz; Saadya Gaon apologetics, 43, 68–92, 93 Arabic, 20–21, 24, 32, 38–39, 86, 93, 96, 111, 115, 117, 118, 121, 122. See also Hebrew; Ibn Ezra, Moses; Maimonides ; Saadya Gaon; translation arabiyya, 19, 84–85 Arabophone, xiii, 14, 84, 86 Arayan. See Indo-­European archaism, 80–81, 82, 95 Arisotelianism, 16, 44, 45, 81, 113, 121, 134 Asharites, 46 assimilation, x, 29 “authentic tradition” (of Saadya),­ 52–53 authenticity, 14, 19, 20, 23, 28, 31, 77, 80, 87, 90, 102, 105, 126, 129; rhetoric of, 87–88 Bakhtin, Mikhail M., 11 batin, 14 Bayart, Jean-François, 86 Benjamin, Mara, 31 Benjamin, Walter, 4, 6, 7, 71, 108, 125, 131 Bhaba, Homi, 11, 70 Bible, 1, 8, 9, 11, 13, 29, 59, 76, 80, 82, 91, 95, 111–130; auditory dimension of, 78–81; as beyond aesthetics , 103–104; as discursive site, 11; language of, 41–67; literal level of, 3, 95, 116, 118; as literature, xvi, 13; prob­ lematic language of, 41–67; rhetorical dimensions of, 81–83; secrets of, 63, 118; uniqueness, 116– 118; and the unseeable face of God, 8. See also aesthetics; anthropo­ Index 172 index morphisms; Buber, Martin; Ibn Ezra, Moses; language; Maimonides; Saadya Gaon; Rosenzweig, Franz; silence; translation; “Torah speaks in the language of humans” biblical authority, 13 Bildung, 19 Bodian, Miriam, 11–12 Bonfil, Robert, 123 borders: fluidity of, x, 85, 114, 121; between the “foreign” and the “home,” xv, 36, 121, 132; between “Hebraic” and “non-­ Hebraic,” xi, xvi, 9, 11, 74, 113, 114, 123–124; between Jew and Muslim, 86; between “Jew” and “non-Jew,” x, 10–11, 12, 69, 87–88, 92, 93, 113–115, 117, 119, 121; between physical and metaphysical, 51 boundary maintenance, 89–90, 112, 121, 131 Bourdieu, Pierre, 11, 12, 136–137n14. See also habitus Boyarin, Daniel, 87, 121, 150n45 Braiterman, Zachary, 79 Brann, Ross, 85 Buber, Martin, ix, xii, xiii, xiv, 1, 26, 28, 29, 71, 73–92, 94, 95, 102–105, 117, 124; and ancient tonality, 77– 81; and premodern mode of reading , 76–77; and rhythm of the biblical text, 78–80. See also authenticity; Bible; language; Rosenzweig, Franz; translation Celan, Paul, 8 Cicero, 71, 75, 81, 82 Cohen, Hermann, 111 creation, 79, 115 cultural extraversion, 86 cultural production, 12–13, 77 cultural studies, 11–12, 87–88 culture, xii, 1, 11, 73, 75, 77, 105, 111, 120; imagining of, 11–12; invention of, 11–12. See also identity; Jewish culture death, 47, 54–57 Derrida, Jacques, 5 Drory, Rina, 141n88, 143n38 ecstases, 126, 129, 134. See also Heideg­ ger, Martin; temporality; Wolfson, Elliot R. English, xiii esotericism, 95–96, 97 Esperanto, 25 exile, 29–30, 45, 75, 90. See also Im-­ Exile-Sein fasih, 22, 87 forgetting. See memory French, 111 Friedrich, Hugo, 6, 9 Gellner, Ernst, 107 German, 20–21, 24, 28, 31, 39, 75, 93, 111, 117, 120, 124; un-German, 29. See also aesthetics; Buber, Martin; Hebrew; Mendelssohn, Moses; Rosenzweig, Franz; Weimar Republic Germany, xiii, 73 Gersonides, xiii Goethe, 130 Gordon, Peter, 79 Greek, 1 habitus, 5. See also Bourdieu, Pierre halakhah, x, 45 Halevi, Judah, xiii, 26 haqiqa, 46, 47, 53, 54, 55, 56 al-Harizi, Judah, 96, 97 Hebraic consciousness, 113–116, 133 Hebrew, x, 9, 20, 23, 28, 31, 34, 45, 74–75, 83, 90, 96, 115, 118, 120, 124, 127; erasure of, 108–110; imagination of, 41; as invention, 38; as language of revelation and prophecy , 37, 115; in other languages, 115–116, 117; otherness of, 23, 30, 115; perceived purity of, 86–87, 111, 120; poetics...