Institute of Galicia and Bukovina

Jewish Heritage Center in Galicia and Bukovina
galiciascholars@gmail.com

In the fall of 2011, a center for research and study on the heritage of the Jews of Galicia and Bukovina was established at the Herzog College, with an emphasis on Torah and spiritual heritage.
The center operates as a research center within the college, and is one of the activities of the association for the Study of the Heritage of Galicia and Bukovina http://jgaliciabukovina.net/en.

Goals of the Center:
– promoting professional research in the field of the rabbinical and scholarly heritage of Galicia and Bukovina Jewry.
– to introduce the general public to the broad and profound heritage of Galician Jewry and its contribution to Jewish culture in recent generations and to contemporary Israeli and Jewish society.
– to enable the processing of the intellectual potential of Haredi society to contribute to Jewish and Israeli society and to the research discourse taking place in the aforementioned fields.

Admission:
The first course of the center is composed of a group of researchers with broad knowledge and proven talent, members of the Haredi society, whose level of familiarity with the heritage of rabbinical and Torah works is profound and wide.

The Center’s program:
In the first stage, research will focus on rabbinical and Torah literature and history, in the broadest sense of the subject. In the second stage, research will be added to the extensive literary and cultural work. The research activity is accompanied by various courses taught by different lecturers from different academic fields – a group of researchers that will formulate their academic contribution – within the Haredi community and the general research discourse – through academic training in specific fields: literacy and library systems;  And of course a systematic study of the history of the Jews of Galicia and Bukovina between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. All of these advance the analytical abilities, scientific research and academic writing of the members of the group and develop the thinking processes and the products of research.

Research topics for the year 2011:

The Rama’s library and the ways in which it is used in its rulings

The second Maharshal – lines for the activity of an unknown Galician rabbi in the 17th century

Distribution of Hasidism in Galicia and Bukovina

Jacobs Meshulam Orenstein – his life and work

Struggles against the Enlightenment movement in the light of Halachic halakhic rulings

Maharatz Chayut: Re-editing and introductory chapters

Galician scholarship

Fatimot in the ruling of the Maharsham