Approaching Shared Heroes: Cultural Transfer and Transnational Jewish History

Abstract

This special issue of Jewish History is devoted to shared heroes in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It explores diverse images of heroes that are shared by at least two of these religious traditions by comparing each figure's origin, inventions, and reinventions within varying cultural contexts in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the early modern period and by highlighting the cross-cultural significance of their counterstories and entangled histories. The construction and deconstruction, interpretation and reception of these heroic figures and their sociocultural roles over time and space bear witness to the encounters of Jews and Judaism with neighboring cultures. The approaches to our subject presented in this collection illuminate how the long-established rubric of "the hero" benefits from a cross-cultural approach. In turn, empirical data culled from the cross-cultural study of heroes demonstrate the inner workings of cultural transfer and, we believe, contribute an original perspective to the field of transnational history, which focuses on cultural entanglement.

“Jewish History” beyond binary conceptions: Jewish performing musicians in Vienna around 1900

“…8 The difference between similarity and other approaches in cultural studies that explore common ground and “mutuality” between two or more people can be highlighted by analysing the respective understanding of overlaps between two spheres of culture. In cultural studies, such realms of contact have been major topics in the recent past, as the ideas of blurring boundaries or shared/entangled history reflect (Schmale and Steer 2006 ; Rosman 2007 ; Penslar 2009 , 10–14; Perry and Voß 2016 , 1–13). To date they have always been, at least implicitly, conceived of as spaces where commonalities between otherwise clearly distinct cultures were negotiated .…”