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Humanities
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Comparative Jewish Literatures
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Comparative Jewish Literatures

A special issue of Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2025) | Viewed by 5554

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Kitty Millet

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Jewish Studies, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA 94132, USA
Interests: holocaust literatures; diasporic narratives; testimonio in Latin American Jewish narratives; Haskalah Jewish experience; secular Jewish studies; modern Jewish thought; comparative Jewish literatures from antiquity to modernity
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Within Comparative Literature, the new subfield of Comparative Jewish Literatures offers scholars another way of thinking about the multivalent nature of Jewish writing. For this Special Issue, the editors seek contributions that examine different theoretical approaches to Jewish writers, to texts that explore representations of the Jewish lived experience, to the diachronic development of Jewish secular traditions in multiple languages as well as national traditions, and to the transformation of sacred Judaic content into profane objects of knowledge pertinent to non-Judaic cultural expressions. Hence, new ways of analyzing Jewish writing against the grain of scholarship rooted exclusively in the Jewish lived experience are particularly welcome.
Papers might include the following:

  • Comparative analyses of Jewish writers in different national traditions;
  • Jewish writing beyond English and American traditions;
  • The Hebrew Bible as literature;
  • Jewish writers and/or Jewish writing from the Global South;
  • Jewish writing in a post-colonial context;
  • Theoretical approaches to Jewish texts;
  • The tradition of the Jewish literary critic.

Prof. Dr. Kitty Millet
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Humanities is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • comparative literature
  • Jewish studies
  • Jewish writer
  • sacred text
  • profane
  • Talmud
  • Hebrew bible
  • kabbalah
  • Yiddish
  • Hebrew
  • national traditions
  • post-colonial
  • Global South

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 284 KB  
Article
Miriam in Shreveport: Black History and Jewish Hermeneutics in Marian D. Moore’s Louisiana Midrash
by Brian Hillman
Humanities 2026, 15(3), 45; https://doi.org/10.3390/h15030045 - 17 Mar 2026
Viewed by 656
Abstract
Jewish thinkers and artists have used Midrash as a framework for exploring the entanglement of cultural inheritance and social justice projects. Marian D. Moore’s (1956–) poetry collection Louisiana Midrash (2019) exemplifies this dynamic. It blends Moore’s cultural landscape, Shreveport and New Orleans, Louisiana, [...] Read more.
Jewish thinkers and artists have used Midrash as a framework for exploring the entanglement of cultural inheritance and social justice projects. Marian D. Moore’s (1956–) poetry collection Louisiana Midrash (2019) exemplifies this dynamic. It blends Moore’s cultural landscape, Shreveport and New Orleans, Louisiana, African History and the Biblical and Midrashic literary traditions. Moore’s unique poetic voice, in the context of twenty-first century Midrash grounded in Jewish tradition, explores the intersection of African American history and Jewishness. Moore’s Midrashic poetry integrates African American and Jewish traditional biblical interpretation with the cultural reality of post—Katrina Louisiana. This article will discuss several of Moore’s poems in the context of her Black poetic Midrashic framework. The analysis illustrates how Louisiana Midrash shows the flexibility of Midrash as a creative genre and literary form, as it grows beyond a normative Jewish framework and becomes open to a multitude of voices and perspectives. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Comparative Jewish Literatures)
26 pages, 292 KB  
Article
“So He Set a Royal Diadem on Her Head”—Queen Esther in Contemporary American Jewish Midrashic Poetry
by Anat Koplowitz-Breier
Humanities 2026, 15(1), 12; https://doi.org/10.3390/h15010012 - 6 Jan 2026
Viewed by 990
Abstract
Feminist poets and scholars have transformed Queen Esther from a relatively silent biblical figure into a complex literary character, yet systematic analysis of their interpretive strategies remains limited. This study examines how these poets employ feminist hermeneutical frameworks to reimagine Esther’s experiences and [...] Read more.
Feminist poets and scholars have transformed Queen Esther from a relatively silent biblical figure into a complex literary character, yet systematic analysis of their interpretive strategies remains limited. This study examines how these poets employ feminist hermeneutical frameworks to reimagine Esther’s experiences and choices. Using a close-reading methodology, the analysis applies Alicia Ostriker’s hermeneutical modes (suspicion, desire, and indeterminacy) and Wendy Zierler’s hermeneutics of identification to poems by Janet Ruth Heller, Carol Barrett, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Stacey Zisook Robinson, Jill Hammer, Enid Dame, Yala Korwin, and Bonnie Lyons from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The poems organize into three thematic categories: transformation and identity formation during Esther’s preparation for queenship; the interior and moral costs of her heroic actions; and retrospective reflections comparing her strategic compliance with Vashti’s direct defiance. The analysis reveals that these poets challenge traditional binary oppositions between the two queens, positioning both strategic accommodation and direct refusal as legitimate forms of feminist resistance within patriarchal structures. By giving Esther a first-person voice and exploring her interior life, these works create a new literary midrash that addresses contemporary concerns about women’s agency while maintaining deep engagement with Jewish textual tradition. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Comparative Jewish Literatures)
13 pages, 243 KB  
Article
Objecting to the Burden: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi’s Zakhor and American Jewish Literature
by Ariel Horowitz
Humanities 2025, 14(10), 204; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14100204 - 20 Oct 2025
Viewed by 890
Abstract
In his seminal book Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (1982), renowned historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi argues that it is literature and culture, and not historiography, that shaped Jewish collective memory for generations. In Yerushalmi’s telling, the boundaries between historiography and literature, “truth” [...] Read more.
In his seminal book Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (1982), renowned historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi argues that it is literature and culture, and not historiography, that shaped Jewish collective memory for generations. In Yerushalmi’s telling, the boundaries between historiography and literature, “truth” and “myth,” are set and strict. However, the reception of Yerushalmi’s work itself challenges this assumption and obscures the clear-cut distinctions between literature and historiography. This paper reads Yerushalmi’s book alongside its preface, written by Harold Bloom, in an attempt to understand Zakhor not only as a historiographic argument, but as a narrative of Jewish modernity, a literary meditation, embodying the very shift in collective memory that Yerushalmi himself lamented. The paper then explores the ways in which Yerushalmi’s work has inspired two prominent contemporary American Jewish writers: Joshua Cohen, in his novel The Netanyahus (2021), and Nicole Krauss, in her short story “Zusya on the Roof” (2013). In their literary work, one can hear echoes of Yerushalmi’s work, distinct and identifiable, yet incorporated in a fictional, imaginative world. Zakhor thus serves not only as an inspiration but as a catalyst for a deep, insightful rendering of Jewish history and one’s grappling with it. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Comparative Jewish Literatures)
12 pages, 239 KB  
Article
Miriam’s Red Jewel: Jewish Femininity and Cultural Memory in Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun
by Irina Rabinovich
Humanities 2025, 14(10), 186; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14100186 - 24 Sep 2025
Viewed by 980
Abstract
This article offers a new perspective on Miriam’s red jewel in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun (1860), interpreting it as a symbol of Jewish femininity, diasporic memory, and aesthetic resistance. Although the jewel has received little critical attention, this study suggests that it [...] Read more.
This article offers a new perspective on Miriam’s red jewel in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun (1860), interpreting it as a symbol of Jewish femininity, diasporic memory, and aesthetic resistance. Although the jewel has received little critical attention, this study suggests that it plays a central role in shaping Miriam’s identity and in articulating broader cultural anxieties around gender, ethnicity, and visibility. Through intertextual readings of Shakespeare’s Jessica and Walter Scott’s Rebecca and Rowena, the essay situates Miriam within a literary tradition of Jewish women whose identities are mediated through symbolic adornments. In addition to literary analysis, the article draws on visual art history—particularly Carol Ockman’s interpretation of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s 1848 portrait of Baronne de Rothschild—to explore how 19th-century visual culture contributed to the eroticization and exoticization of Jewish women. By placing Hawthorne’s portrayal of Miriam in dialogue with such visual representations, the essay highlights how the red jewel functions as a site of encoded cultural meaning. The analysis is further informed by feminist art theory (Griselda Pollock) and postcolonial critique (Edward Said), offering an interdisciplinary approach to questions of identity, marginalization, and symbolic resistance. While not claiming to offer a definitive reading, this article aims to open new interpretive possibilities by foregrounding the jewel’s narrative and symbolic significance. In doing so, it contributes to ongoing conversations in Hawthorne studies, Jewish cultural history, and the intersections of literature and visual art. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Comparative Jewish Literatures)
16 pages, 494 KB  
Article
Kaddish and Other Millin Setimin: Esoteric Languages in Jewish–American Narratives
by Ofra Amihay
Humanities 2025, 14(7), 149; https://doi.org/10.3390/h14070149 - 15 Jul 2025
Viewed by 975
Abstract
In this article, I analyze the use of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Aramaic texts—and the Kaddish in particular—as esoteric tongues in Jewish–American narratives, including poems, plays, television shows, and films. I suggest that by doing so, the creators of these works evoke the Lurianic [...] Read more.
In this article, I analyze the use of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Aramaic texts—and the Kaddish in particular—as esoteric tongues in Jewish–American narratives, including poems, plays, television shows, and films. I suggest that by doing so, the creators of these works evoke the Lurianic notion of millin setimin or “secreted words”—utterances that transcend the communicative function of everyday speech and partake in some profound revelations. I hope to show that from Allen Ginsberg, through Tony Kushner, to the Coen Brothers and beyond, Jewish–American creators have been evoking Jewish tongues both as symbols of a lost past and as millin setimin that aspire to restore the connection to that past, within the Jewish–American community and beyond. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Comparative Jewish Literatures)
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