Many people today are no longer aware that Jews did not always speak Hebrew. This lecture takes you to medieval France (especially Champagne, Lorraine, Normandy, Franche-Comté), where Old French—the langue d’oïl—was also the native language of Jewish men and women, in which they annotated and explained their sacred texts. What makes this unique is that they wrote French using Hebrew letters, and their interpretations of the Bible show clear influences from contemporary French literature. The lecture presents medieval French Judaism, where the Song of Songs could certainly be understood as a counterpart to the chansons des femmes. Furthermore, it becomes clear that there are quite a few French words that are accessible to us only through Jewish texts.

About the speakers: Prof. Dr. Hanna Liss studied Jewish Studies, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, and Biblical Studies in Tübingen, Jerusalem, Munich, and Berlin. After teaching and conducting research in Israel, Heidelberg, and the United States (Lexington, Harvard), she has been a professor of Bible and Jewish Biblical Interpretation at the College of Jewish Studies in Heidelberg since 2003.
Dr. Stephen Dörr studied Romance languages, history, and political science and received his doctorate in Heidelberg in 1994 with a dissertation in Romance languages. After many years of work on the “Dictionnaire étymologique de l’ancien français” (until 2020), he worked at the Mannheim research project for the “Lessico etimologico italiano.” Since 2023, he has been co-directing the project “Bible glossaries as hidden cultural carriers” with Hanna Liss (internal link).

About the lecture series: This public lecture series has been taking place for over 20 years now, featuring scholars from the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities as well as from its seven sister academies. The lectures are aimed at a broad audience to provide insights into the research. Afterward, attendees have the opportunity to engage in conversation with the scholars over pretzels and wine in the Academy’s courtyard garden.

We are grateful that the vhs Heidelberg also promotes this series.

Program “Insights. For you." (internal link)

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