Acknowledgments

It is not often that an historian, especially a cultural historian, makes a discovery that significantly transforms their view of the past. But one winter’s afternoon back in 2008, I was perusing the stacks of old Hebrew books at the National Library of Israel when I read something—a few sentences, maybe a paragraph—that made me revisit not only my understanding of early modern Jewish literature but also my most basic historiographical methods and assumptions. I was, at the time, writing a dissertation on the reception of modern notions of racial difference among thinkers of the Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment) in the late eighteenth century. I had been planning to juxtapose my maskilic (members of the Haskalah) authors, and their burgeoning secular world view, with the deeply religious thinking of their rabbinical contemporaries. A colleague had suggested that I have a look at an old work on Jewish geography titled Gevulot arets (Borders of the land). The work was attributed to the well-known rabbinical thinker and son of the Vilna Gaon, Avraham ben Eliyahu of Vilna. In a few previous studies and bibliographies, it had been presented as a kind of rabbinical geography of Jews in the diaspora, a traditional text, which I therefore thought could be easily pitted against my more “modern” maskilic works. But as I opened the book and began reading, I sensed a strange familiarity arising from this dense rabbinical text. It was not long before I realized that what I was reading was in fact a heavily domesticated, and pointedly concealed, translation of a few chapters from one of the best-known works of the French Enlightenment, Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle. The realization sent my head spinning. The maskilim certainly knew Buffon, and they cited him here and there, but none of them had ever dared to actually translate the works of this controversial French thinker. How was it, then, that the earliest (and still, to date, only) known Hebrew translation of Buffon had been produced by such a high-ranking member of the rabbinical elite? What was I to make of this curious encounter between an east European rabbinical thinker and a French philosophe and suspected deist? Why had the translator concealed his source? And, perhaps most pointedly, was this a unique historical oddity? Or, I tentatively began to reflect, might there be other such translations?

This book is the direct result of the serendipitous discovery I made that wintry afternoon in 2008. In the years that have passed since, I have become a detective of sorts, making my way slowly through what has often been termed “the Jewish library,” while attempting to unlock the doors to the hidden libraries that underlie it. I would never have been able to do this alone. Indeed, this book bears testimony to the immeasurable support, advice, collaboration, and kindness of my colleagues, students, friends, family, and the generosity of the funding agencies that have supported this endeavour. It is my distinct pleasure to be able to thank them here.

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement no. 801861). I am grateful to the ERC for the generous support I received, which allowed me to set out on this adventure, not knowing whether I would ever be able to prove my initial hunch correct. I did, and this book is the result.

David B. Ruderman has been my longtime mentor and a source of unfailing inspiration, encouragement, and friendship over the years. Every chapter of this book is, in one way or another, a response to his scholarship, which has shaped my thinking on history, early modernity, and translation in profound ways. Rebekka Voß read large parts of this manuscript with unmatched sensitivity and insight, generously sharing with me her vast knowledge and wisdom, as well as her constructive critiques. Her brilliance, friendship, and eager engagement in this project have contributed greatly to its completion. I have also benefited tremendously from the dedication, intellect, enthusiasm, and hard work of the members of the JEWTACT research team: Roni Cohen, Ahuvia Goren, Magdaléna Jánošíková, Tamir Karkason, Yakov Z. Mayer, Tamar Nadav, Mellanie Plewa, Ossnat Sharon-Pinto, and Gal Sofer. Discussing translation with such brilliant friends and colleagues has been a rare privilege and a true joy.

I am grateful to my colleagues and friends at the Department of Jewish History at Ben-Gurion University, Menashe Anzi, Edward (Ted) Fram, Haviva Pedaya, Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, Amram Tropper, Cana Werman, Alisa Yunik and Mira Shalom, for creating such a wonderfully supportive, invigorating, and collegial intellectual community. My most heartfelt thanks go out to Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin and Yael Segalovitz, for their salient remarks on the different chapters of the book, their constant encouragement and support, and for being such inspiring interlocutors and such kind friends.

Several friends and colleagues have been happy to talk translation with me and help me refine (and, where necessary, rethink) some of the arguments made in this book. Warm thanks especially to Aya Elyada and Amir Engel, who provided precious advice during the writing and researching of this book, and to David Sorkin, whose generous invitation to present my ideas as the Arffa visiting scholar at Yale University encouraged me to complete this book and from whose sage advice and insight the book has greatly benefited. I would also like to thank Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, Francesca Bregoli, Flora Cassen, J. H. (Yossi) Chajes, Oren Cohen-Roman, Alexandra Cuffel, Ofer Dynes, Shmuel Feiner, Abigail Gillman, Debra Glasberg-Gail, Hanan Harif, Tal Kogman, Pawel Maciejko, David Manrique, Daniella Mauer, Osnat Emily Rance, Dani Schrire, David Sclar, Naomi Seidman, Zohar Shavit, Joshua Teplitsky, Scott Uri, Shulamit Volkov, and Ruth Von Bernuth for their advice, conversation, and interest in this project throughout the various stages of its gestation. Heartfelt thanks as well to Dena Ordan, for her skillful editing of the manuscript, and to the JEWTACT project manager, the incomparable Raya Even-David.

I am grateful to the many friends and colleagues who have contributed to the development of the JEWTACT database and, in particular, to Sarai Aharoni, Eliezer Baumgarten, Ilona Geller and everyone at the Aranne Library at Ben-Gurion University, Tal Ilan, Itai Marienberg, Yael Netzer, Tamar Seter, and Mor and Adam Soffer. At Ben-Gurion University, I have been fortunate to be able to develop my thoughts on translation with smart, enthusiastic, and critical students. I am grateful to the participants of the “Speaking in Tongues” seminar that I delivered with Yael Segalovitz in 2022 and to Shir Shmueli and Maayan Zadok, who took part in a particularly intense and (to me, at least) rewarding seminar on Jewish translation in 2023.

At the University of Pennsylvania Press, I would like to thank Steven Weitzman, Jerry Singerman, and the members of the Jewish Cultures and Contexts editorial board for their enthusiasm and faith in this project from its very initial phases. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of the manuscript and for their constructive comments and criticism, and Marie Deer for her careful editing of the final manuscript. I am especially grateful to Elisabeth Maselli, senior acquisitions editor at Penn Press, for shepherding the book so smoothly and expertly through the review and publication process.

Chapter 2 develops some of the ideas first articulated in my Hebrew-language essay “Meni‘im le-tirgum be-paratekstim shel tirgumin le-Ivrit u-le-Yiddish ba-‘et-ha-ḥadahshah ha-mukdemet” (Zion 86, no. 4 [2021]: 535–62). The sections on Ladino and Judeo-Italian translations in Chapter 1 build, in part, on my entry “Jewish Translation, Early Modern Period,” in the Encyclopaedia of Jewish Book Cultures (Leiden, 2023). The final section of chapter 3 reproduces portions of my article “Rabbis of the (Scientific) Revolution: Revealing the Hidden Corpus of Early Modern Translations Produced by Jewish Religious Thinkers” (American Historical Review 126, no. 1 [2021]: 54–81). I thank Brill and Oxford University Press for the permission to reuse the material here.

As is so often the case, my deepest debt is to my family. My parents, Tmima Idelson and Arie Idelson, have been my most avid, and probably most forgiving, readers. Their encouragement and support know no bounds, and my gratitude to them is equally profound. My sister, Daphna Idelson, is my best friend, and I thank her for being such a talented, beautiful, and unique person. I would also like to thank my mother-in-law, Liah Shein, for her kindness and support.

Finally, my husband, Mark, and our children, Adam and Amalia, are magical. They make the world a better place and are a source of inestimable love, laughs, happiness, and pride. I could write a whole book about each of them. Instead, I dedicate this one to them.