'A copybook full of Hebrew texts: Johann Buxtorf the elder's approach to Jews and Judaism' Seminar

Johann Buxtorf  the elder (1564-1629), long-time professor of Hebrew at Basel, ethnographer, lexicographer, and textual critic, belongs to the category of the ‘accepted’ Hebraists and is usually regarded as one of the most distinguished Hebraists of the early modern period. In this seminar I shall discuss the nature of Buxtorf’s Hebraism –he was reputed as much for his outstanding mastery of Jewish tradition as he was notorious for his visceral  loathing of Jews-- by means of his one copybook which gives us a  special insight into his reading practices, and in particular, into his approach to Jewish literature.