Illustrated Jewish Books of Time

The University of Minnesota Center for Jewish Studies is pleased to present its Ninth Annual Community Lecture Series, in cooperation with synagogues and other sponsoring partners across the greater Twin Cities. Join us as writers and thinkers from varied fields address intriguing questions relevant to the Jewish experience today.

Jewish calendar books began to appear in the early modern period in Western Europe, reflectingJewish life in Christian lands. Calendars are maps on which a society inscribes its conception of time and marksits place within the larger world. This illustrated lecture will explore the way in which Jewish calendars ofearly modern Europe offer a fascinating window into previously unknown aspects of Jewish popular culture,economic activity (in the recording of markets and fairs), the Jewish sense of past and future, the penetration of
Christian culture into Jewish life and Jewish responses before modern times.