Piety, Secrets, and Physic. Facing Epidemics through Shared Remedies in Early Modern Yiddish

Public lecture by Dr. Daniella Zaidman-Mauer (University of Amsterdam)

Beschrijving

In times of epidemic, the mother tongue became a lifeline: Yiddish texts carried healing knowledge across religious and cultural boundaries into Jewish homes throughout early modern Europe. Drawing on sources that span from kabbalistic charms and sympathetic magic, through the materia medica of classical and Christian traditions, to the promotion of the first vaccine in history, Zaidman-Mauer demonstrates that Yiddish functioned as a vernacular bridge, making shared remedies accessible to ordinary readers. Branded probatum est (tried and tested), these cures reveal a worldview in which the boundaries between segules (sympathetic charms) and refues (natural cures), between prayer and physic, remained fluid. Piety and Yiddish worked in tandem: the sacred duty to preserve life demanded accessible knowledge, and the mother tongue became the vehicle through which epidemic remedies reached those who needed them most.

Programma

18:00 Introduction

18:10 Lecture

19:00 Q&A

19:30 End

Opmerkingen

​Lecture in English.

Admission is free. Register via email: ijs@uantwerpen.be.​