Daniella Mauer MA

PhD candidate

E-mail: d.mauer@uva.nl

Area(s) of interest: Languages & Literature, Religious History & Theology

Cohort/Start PhD: 2021-2022

Responses to the Plague in Early Modern Ashkenaz: Pandemics and Piety in Yiddish Remedy Books in the 17-18th century

University of Amsterdam
Supervisor(s): Prof. Irene Zwiep and Prof. Bart Wallet
Aanstelling: vanaf januari 2020

The aim of my thesis is to bring to light remedy books in Yiddish, published in the 17th and 18th Century in the great and organized Jewish communities, especially Amsterdam, while focusing on their responses with pandemics and their recommendations.

Based on a corpus of Yiddish Refue Bikher of the 17th and 18th Century printed in Amsterdam, and responses from the Jewish Ashkenaz Community of Amsterdam (Hoogduitse Synagoge) I will try to establish how the spheres of spirituality and piety intersected with the medical and scientific domain, and their impact on the Jewish community.