Jewish–Christian Translation Cultures in the Context of the Eighteenth-Century Pietist Mission to the Jews

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This project deals with translation as a medium of cultural transfer between Jews and Christians in Early Modern Europe. The focus is on Yiddish translations made for the Pietist mission to the Jews by Jewish converts and Christian missionaries who belonged to the Institutum Judaicum in Halle.

Expanding upon the research design of the first SPP phase, translation is understood on the one hand in a literal sense and on the other hand as a performed action. The aims, strategies, and tactics of the missionaries and translators working on behalf of the mission will be studied from both of these angles. The project aims to show that the missionary work was not planned and executed in a static manner, but rather involved processes of translation that developed in dynamic interaction between the missionary impetus and the Jewish reaction.

The project will compare the development of missionary translation practices in Germany and Poland in order to analyse such practices in eastern and western Europe from a long-term, inter-cultural perspective.

The project is based at the Institute for Judaic Studies at the Goethe University Frankfurt, and is being carried out by Dr Avi Siluk and Johannes Müller under the direction of Professor Rebekka Voß.

• Project website at the Goethe University Frankfurt.
• Project presentation of phase I

Publications (project-related):

• Prof Dr Rebekka Voß
• Dr Avi Siluk