jesse
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einsofist.bsky.social
jesse
@einsofist.bsky.social
medievalist
Pinned
"Hebraism, in our day, is such a rare science that it can no longer imagine itself to be nondescript or mediocre." (Levinas)
saying "lips" when I mean "two languages"
February 8, 2026 at 10:40 PM
Do you want to come through tonight? I’m getting some people together to forget a number of things in common
February 1, 2026 at 3:26 PM
Other than weather what has ever been inclement
January 25, 2026 at 3:32 AM
I wonder if the old guard Oxbridge philologists pronounced “etc” with the proper Latin et KETera
January 14, 2026 at 9:23 PM
* spelled, sorry, my mind is with the sensorium…
January 11, 2026 at 9:26 PM
Wish I could take this wow
January 11, 2026 at 7:18 PM
Alphabet switching for the name of God in Judeo-Arabic: the word Allah الله is smelled with Arabic letters in this otherwise Hebrew-script text!
January 11, 2026 at 7:17 PM
Me on the right
A broadside against coffee. London, 1672.
Folger Library J147.
December 10, 2025 at 11:08 PM
(Jewish lit theory guy seeing a Christmas tree for the first time) wow. Dickensian
December 9, 2025 at 11:06 PM
poetic description of a bilingual manuscript from a lecture today: “naturally the Latin begins where the Hebrew ends”
December 3, 2025 at 5:13 AM
Announcing my Jewishness by being the only guy in class to defend Freud
November 17, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Reposted by jesse
How late medieval Middle Eastern peasants adopted Arab cultural identities and formed village clans.

Becoming Arab by Yossef Rapoport arrives next week on 18 November (13 Jan UK pub).

Preorder yours today: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

#History
November 10, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by jesse
Just found out about this amazing example of #manuscript #recycling . The whole manuscript is made up from the margins of an earlier liturgical manuscript, cut out and rearranged (hence the unusual format), the (mostly) blank margins then used to copy various magical texts in the mid 16th century.
November 6, 2025 at 5:33 PM
This is more of a sneeze than a question. This is more of a yawn than a question. Hi thanks for your talk. This is more of a threat than a question
November 4, 2025 at 4:11 PM
The future is satmar
October 30, 2025 at 12:56 AM
Roommate listening to Oppenheimer soundtrack in the shower
October 21, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Reposted by jesse
Medieval angel roof boss
October 4, 2025 at 6:38 AM
Reposted by jesse
"Jonah and the Whale", Folio Probably from a Jami al-Tavarikh (Compendium of Chronicles)

Persia, c. 1400

(Met Museum)
September 27, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Oh, you want to study Hebrew manuscripts? Get ready to do regression analysis on the distribution of Chinese potsherds in 7th century Oman buddy
September 25, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Graduate education at its best follows a kind of dream logic, and at its worst the logic of a paranoid conspiracy theorist. The rules of association in either case are functionally the same
September 25, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Getting confused and wishing the hasidim an Eid Mubarak
September 22, 2025 at 10:40 PM
9th century rabbi described posthumously by his students as "accustomed to amulets and whispers, and similar things"
September 16, 2025 at 6:50 PM
55 EARTHEN CAULDRONS 55 COPPER POTS 55 ANDALUSI ROBES 55 RAW ANDALUSI CLOTHS 100 CLAY LAMPS 100 BAHARS OF SANDALWOOD 100 MANNS OF SILK 100 DINARS OF SILVER 100 SHEETS OF PAPER 55 BAHARS OF IRON 55 DAMASCENE SWORDS 55 BAHARS OF PEPPER 55 BAHARS OF CARDAMOM 155 BETEL NUTS
September 7, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Reposted by jesse
Earliest example of a lead funerary cross from pre-Conquest England: “On the 11th March 1063 departed out of this life Wlfmaeg, sister of Wlfric the Abbot”. St Augustine’s, Canterbury.
August 17, 2025 at 9:12 PM