The Sword of Judith Judith Studies Across the Disciplines Edited by Kevin R. Brine , Elena Ciletti and Henrike Lähnemann THE SWORD OF JUDITH Abraham Bosse, Judith Femme Forte , 1645. Engraving in Lescalopier, Les predications . Photo credit: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Kevin R. Brine, Elena Ciletti and Henrike Lähnemann (eds.) The Sword of Judith Judith Studies Across the Disciplines Cambridge 2010 40 Devonshire Road, Cambridge, CB1 2BL, United Kingdom http://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2010 Kevin R. Brine, Elena Ciletti and Henrike Lähnemann Some rights are reserved. This book is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. This license allows for copying any part of the work for personal and non-commercial use, providing author attribution is clearly stated. Details of allowances and restrictions are available at: http://www.openbookpublishers.com As with all Open Book Publishers titles, digital material and resources associated with this volume are available from our website: http://www.openbookpublishers.com ISBN Hardback: 978-1-906924-16-4 ISBN Paperback: 978-1-906924-15-7 ISBN Digital (pdf): 978-1-906924-17-1 All paper used by Open Book Publishers is SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initia- tive), and PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes) Certified. Printed in the United Kingdom and United States by Lightning Source for Open Book Publishers Contents Introductions 1. The Judith Project 3 Kevin R. Brine 2. The Jewish Textual Traditions 23 Deborah Levine Gera 3. Judith in the Christian Tradition 41 Elena Ciletti and Henrike Lähnemann Writing Judith Jewish Textual Traditions 4. Holofernes’s Canopy in the Septuagint 71 Barbara Schmitz 5. Shorter Medieval Hebrew Tales of Judith 81 Deborah Levine Gera 6. Food, Sex, and Redemption in Megillat Yehudit (the “Scroll of Judith”) 97 Susan Weingarten 7. Shalom bar Abraham’s Book of Judith in Yiddish 127 Ruth von Bernuth and Michael Terry Christian Textual Tradition 8. Typology and Agency in Prudentius’s Treatment of the Judith Story 153 Marc Mastrangelo 9. Judith in Late Anglo-Saxon England 169 Tracey-Anne Cooper 10. The Prayer of Judith in Two Late-Fifteenth-Century French Mystery Plays 197 John Nassichuk 11. The Example of Judith in Early Modern French Literature 213 Kathleen M. Llewellyn 12. The Aestheticization of Tyrannicide: Du Bartas’s La Judit 227 Robert Cummings 13. The Cunning of Judith in Late Medieval German Texts 239 Henrike Lähnemann 14. The Role of Judith in Margaret Fell’s Womens Speaking Justified 259 Janet Bartholomew Staging Judith Visual Arts 15. Judith, Jael, and Humilitas in the Speculum Virginum 275 Elizabeth Bailey 16. Judith between the Private and Public Realms in Renaissance Florence 291 Roger J. Crum 17. Donatello’s Judith as the Emblem of God’s Chosen People 307 Sarah Blake McHam 18. Costuming Judith in Italian Art of the Sixteenth Century 325 Diane Apostolos-Cappadona 19. Judith Imagery as Catholic Orthodoxy in Counter-Reformation Italy 345 Elena Ciletti Music and Drama 20. Judith, Music, and Female Patrons in Early Modern Italy 371 Kelley Harness 21. Judith in Baroque Oratorio 385 David Marsh 22. Judith in the Italian Unification Process, 1800–1900 397 Paolo Bernardini 23. Marcello and Peri’s Giuditta (1860) 411 Alexandre Lhâa 24. Politics, Biblical Debates, and French Dramatic Music on Judith after 1870 431 Jann Pasler 25. Judith and the “Jew-Eaters” in German Volkstheater 453 Gabrijela Mecky Zaragoza Bibliography 469 Abbreviations 495 Indexes 497 Online Resources: http://www.openbookpublishers.com Illustrations page Title-page to the Book of Judith in a 15th century German Bible, workshop of Diebold Lauber (1441-1449) Heidelberg University Library, Cpg 21, fol. 70v (http://diglit.ub.uni- heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg21/) cover Abraham Bosse, Judith Femme Forte , 1645. Engraving in Lescalopier, Les predications . Photo credit: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. ii 2.1. Odecha ki anafta bi , 1434. Hebrew poem on Judith. Hamburg miscellany, Cod. Heb. 37, fol. 81, Mainz (?). Photo credit: Deborah Levine Gera. 35 Hans Holbein, Judith , 1546. Woodcut from Sefer Yossipon . Zürich, Christophe Froschauer. Photo credit: Wiesemann, 2002, Abb. 5 (K 11). 69 4.1. Workshop of Ludwig Henfflin, German Bible , ca. 1479. Heidelberg University Library, Cpg 17, fol. 255v. Photo credit: Heidelberger historische Bestände – digital (http://diglit.ub.uni- heidelberg.de/) 72 4.2. Herrad of Hohenbourg, Hortus Deliciarum , fol. 60r, 1167–85. Photo credit: Green II, p. 99. 77 5.1. Hanukkah-Story , 16th century. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale 1459.2. 90 7.1. Shalom bar Abraham, Shmue fun der vrume Shoshane , 1571. Title page. Cracow. Photo credit: National Library of Israel. 128 7.2. Zurich Bible , 1536. Woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543). Photo credit: The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. 132 7.3. Jean Jacques Boissard, Icones virorum illustrium , 1597–99. Engraving by Theodor de Bry. Frankfurt am Main. Photo credit: The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. 136 Hans Holbein, Judith , 1538. Woodcut from Biblia Latina . “Icones,” Lyon. Photo credit: Wiesemann, 2002, Abb. 4 (K 10). 151 viii The Sword of Judith 10.1. Ci baigne Judi , ca. 1245. Judith-Window D-126. Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, Judith-Window. Photo credit: Centre des Monuments Nationaux, Paris. 198 10.2. Ci prie Judit dieu quele puist enginier , ca. 1245. Judith-Window D-136. Sainte-Chapelle, Paris. Photo credit: Centre des Monuments Nationaux, Paris. 199 13.1. German Miscellany , early 15th century. Washington, Library of Congress, Rosenwald Collection MS 4, fol. 8r. Photo credit: The Library of Congress. 244 13.2. Judith-song “In the tune of the song about the battle at Pavia,” ca. 1560. Cover. Strasbourg: Christian Müller. Photo credit: Bibliotheca Palatina, Micro-Fiche F5290. 247 Elisabetta Sirani, Judith Triumphant , ca. 1658. Burghley House, Stamford, UK. Photo credit: G.E.M.A. (Grande Enciclopedia Multimediale dell’Arte). 273 15.1. “Judith, Humilitas, and Jael,” Speculum Virginum , ca. 1140. London, British Library, MS Arundel 44 , fol. 34v. © British Library Board. 276 15.2. “Perpetua’s Ladder,” Speculum Virginum , ca. 1140. London, British Library, MS Arundel 44 , fol. 93v. © British Library Board. 280 15.3. “The Three Types of Women,” Speculum Virginum , ca. 1140 London, British Library, MS Arundel 44 , fol. 70r. © British Library Board. 285 15.4. “The Quadriga,” Speculum Virginum , ca. 1140. London, British Library, MS Arundel 44 , fol. 46r. © British Library Board. 287 15.5. De laudibus sanctae crucis , ca. 1170. Munich, Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 14159, fol. 6r, Regensburg-Prüfening. Photo credit: urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00018415-2 © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. 289 16.1. Lorenzo Ghiberti, Detail of Judith and Holofernes from the Gates of Paradise , 1425–1452. Baptistry, Florence, Italy. Photo credit: Timothy McCarthy/Art Resource, NY. 295 16.2. Sandro Botticelli, Judith , ca. 1472. Uffizi, Florence, Italy. Photo credit: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 296 Illustrations ix 16.3. Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Judith , ca. 1470 (bronze with traces of gilding). The Detroit Institute of Arts/Gift of Eleanor Clay Ford, Detroit, MI. Photo credit: The Bridgeman Art Library. 297 16.4. Baccio Baldini, Judith with the Head of Holofernes . The British Museum. Photo credit: © The Trustees of the British Museum. 298 16.5. The Master of Marradi, Florentine, Judith and Holofernes , 15th century. The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH. Photo credit: The Dayton Art Institute. 298 16.6. Andrea Mantegna, Judith , 1491. National Gallery of Art, Widener Collection, Washington, DC. Photo credit: G.E.M.A. (Grande Enciclopedia Multimediale dell’Arte). 299 17.1. Donatello, Judith and Holofernes , 1457–64. Palazzo della Signoria, Florence, Italy. Photo credit: Scala/Art Resource. 308 17.2. Donatello, bronze David , late 1430s?. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, Italy. Photo credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. 309 17.3. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Justice, from Allegory of the Good Government , 1338–40. Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Italy. Photo credit: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 315 17.4. Anonymous, Fresco of Judit Ebrea, Aristotle, and Solomon, ca. 1463–65. Palazzo del Comune, Lucignano, Italy. Photo credit: Elena Ciletti. 317 17.5. Niccolò Fiorentino, style of (Ambrogio & Mattia della Robbia?): Girolamo Savonarola, Dominican Preacher [obverse]; Italy Threatened by the Hand of God [reverse], ca. 1497. National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection, Washington, DC. Photo credit: © 2008 Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. 319 17.6. Anonymous, The Martyrdom of Savonarola , 15th century. Museo di S. Marco, Florence, Italy. Photo credit: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 321 17.7. Play of Iudith Hebrea staged in 1518. Title-page. Florence, 1589. National Art Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum. Photo credit: Sarah Blake McHam. 322 x The Sword of Judith 18.1. Judith’s upper body and right hand with sword from Donatello, Judith and Holofernes , 1457–64. Palazzo della Signoria, Florence, Italy. Photo credit: Scala/Art Resource, NY. 326 18.2. Athena Armed as Athena Parthenos , Third century b.c.e. Musée du Louvre MR285, Paris. Photo credit: Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY. 333 18.3. Michelangelo, Judith with the Head of Holofernes , 1509–11. Sistine Chapel, Vatican City, pendentive fresco; (left) detail of the same. Photo credit: G.E.M.A. (Grande Enciclopedia Multimediale dell’Arte). 334 18.4. Giorgio Vasari, Judith and Holofernes , ca. 1554. Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis. Photo credit: Saint Louis Art Museum, Friends Fund and funds given in honor of Betty Greenfield Grossman. 336 18.5. Michelangelo, Libyan Sibyl , 1515. Sistine Chapel, Vatican City. Photo credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. 337 18.6. Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes , ca. 1620. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence; (left) detail of the same showing Judith’s left lower arm with cameo bracelet. Photo credit: G.E.M.A. (Grande Enciclopedia Multimediale dell’Arte). 339 18.7. Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith with Her Maidservant , ca. 1613–14. Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence; (bottom left) detail of the same showing cameo ornament (brooch?) in Judith’s hair; (bottom right) detail of the same showing sword hilt with head of Medusa. Photo credit: G.E.M.A. (Grande Enciclopedia Multimediale dell’Arte). 341 19.1. Giovanni Guerra and Cesare Nebbia, Judith Cycle , 1588–89. Palazzo Lateranense, Rome. Photo credit: Elena Ciletti. 347 19.2. Guerra and Nebbia, 5th bay, Judith Cycle , 1588–89. Palazzo Lateranense, Rome. Photo credit: Elena Ciletti. 348 19.3. Guerra and Nebbia, 6th bay, Judith Cycle , detail, 1588–89. Palazzo Lateranense, Rome. Photo credit: Elena Ciletti. 348 19.4. Bartolomeo Tortoletti, Ivditha Vindex et Vindicata , 1628. Title page. London, British Library, 11409.gg.17. Photo credit: © British Library Board. 353 Illustrations xi 19.5. Diego de Celada, Ivdith Illustris perpetuo commentario , 1635. Title page. London, British Library, L.17.e.8.(2.). © British Library Board. 354 19.6. Giovanni Guerra, Judith Praised by the High Priest , ca. 1606. Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York. Photo credit: Avery Library, Drawings and Archives Department. 359 19.7. Lionello Spada, Judith Beheading Holofernes , ca. 1615. Basilica della Madonna della Ghiara, Reggio Emilia. Photo credit: G.E.M.A. (Grande Enciclopedia Multimediale dell’Arte). 361 19.8. Giovanni Caroto, Virgin Annunciate , ca. 1508. Museo del Castelvecchio, Verona. Photo credit: ARTstor, 103-41822000556140. 364 19.9. Domenichino, Judith Triumphant , ca. 1628. Bandini Chapel, San Silvestro al Quirinale, Rome. Photo credit: G.E.M.A. (Grande Enciclopedia Multimediale dell’Arte). 364 Thomas Theodor Heine, comic drawings for Johann Nestroy’s Judith , 1908. 369 20.1. Giovanni Battista Vanni or Cecco Bravo, Judith . Villa Poggio Imperiale, Florence. Photo credit: G.E.M.A. (Grande Enciclopedia Multimediale dell’Arte). 375 24.1. Paul Hillemacher, Judith (1876). Paris: H. Lemoine. Photo credit: Jann Pasler. 436 24.2. Charles Lefebvre, Judith (1877). Paris: F. Makar. Photo credit: Jann Pasler. 438 24.3. Charles Lefebvre, Judith (1877). Paris: F. Makar. Photo credit: Jann Pasler. 441 24.4. Paul Hillemacher, Judith (1876). Paris: H. Lemoine. Photo credit: Jann Pasler. 444 24.5. Veronge de la Nux, Judith (1876). Paris: H. Lemoine. Photo credit: Jann Pasler. 446 24.6. Camille Saint-Saëns, Samson et Dalila (1868–77, 1890, 1892). Paris: Durand, Schœnewerk & cie. Photo credit: Jann Pasler. 449 Author biographies Diane Apostolos-Cappadona is Adjunct Professor of Religious Art and Cultural History, Georgetown University. Her research, teaching, and pub- lications are centered on the interconnections of art, gender, and religion, and discuss issues such as the human figure, the body, and iconoclasm. She has a particular interest in the iconology of biblical women, including Mary Magdalene, Salome, and Judith. Guest curator for “In Search of Mary Magdalene: Images and Traditions” (2002), she coordinates the curatorial team for “Salome Unveiled” (2012) for Amsterdam and New York. Elizabeth Bailey is Professor of Art History at Wesleyan College in Georgia. She is currently Chair of the Art Department. She conducts research on medieval and Renaissance tabernacles and rituals in Florence. The impor- tance of the virtue and expression of humility led her to her study of Judith in medieval manuscripts. She is presently co-editing a book of essays. Janet Bartholomew received her M.A. in English from Tennessee State University where she studied protofeminist biblical exegesis in the writ- ings of Early Modern women. She currently teaches at Albion College as a part-time visiting faculty member and is an adjunct professor at Jack- son Community College. She has also held faculty positions at Tennessee State University and Nashville State Community College. Her most recent conference papers include “Created for Labor: Rachel Speght’s Intertwined Gender Labor System in A Mouzel for Melastomus ” and “Defending ‘Heuah’s Sex’: Biblical Exegesis in Two Early Modern Protofeminist Tracts.” Paolo Bernardini is Professor of Early Modern European History at the School of Law of Insubria University (Como, Italy). The publication of his Fragments from a Land of Freedom. Essays on Fin de Siècle America is forth- coming. He co-edited, with Norman Fiering, The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to West (2001). xiv The Sword of Judith Ruth von Bernuth is assistant Professor of early modern German studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation focused on ideas of natural folly in medieval and early modern German literature ( Wunder, Spott und Prophetie. Natürliche Narrheit in den Historien von Claus Narren (2008)). She is currently researching the relationship between texts in Old Yiddish and the German literature of the early modern period. Sarah Blake McHam is Professor of Art History at Rutgers University. She has published numerous books and articles on Italian fifteenth- and six- teenth-century sculpture. Her most recent publications are articles dealing with the legacy of Pliny the Elder on such diverse artists as Giambologna, Giovanni Bellini, and Raphaelle Peale, offshoots of her forthcoming book on Pliny’s influence on Italian Renaissance art and theory. Kevin R. Brine , the founder and director of the Judith Project is an inde- pendent scholar and visual artist. He is Member of the Board of Overse- ers of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of New York University, and the co-founder, with Clifford Siskin of The Re-Enlightenment Project at New York University and The New York Public Library. Mr. Brine co-edited, with Garland Cannon , Object of Enquiry: The Life, Contributions and Influ- ence of Sir William Jones (1746–1797) ( 1995 ). Mr Brine’s paintings are pub- lished in Kevin R. Brine : The Porch of the Caryatids: Drawings, Paintings and Sculptures (2006). Elena Ciletti is Professor of Art History at Hobart and William Smith Col- leges in Geneva, New York. Her research interests include Italian patron- age and art from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. She has contributed articles on images of Judith to Refiguring Woman: Perspectives on Gender and the Italian Renaissance ( 1991 ) and The Artemisia Files (2005). She is working on a book-length study of the iconography of Judith in Catholic Reformation culture. Tracey-Anne Cooper is Assistant Professor at the Department of History, St. John’s University, Queens. Her publications include “Basan and Bata: The Occupational Surnames of Two Pre-Conquest Monks of Canterbury” (2004); “Two Previously Unrecorded Marginal Illustrations in Cotton Tiberius A. iii” (2005); “Tovi the Proud’s Irregular Use of the Good Friday Liturgy” (2005); “The Homilies of a Pragmatic Archbishop’s Handbook in Context: Cotton Ti- Author biographies xv berius A. iii” (2006); “Lay Piety, Pastoral Care and the Compiler’s Method in Late Anglo-Saxon England” (2006); “Why is St. Margaret’s the Only Saint’s Life in London BL, Cotton Tiberius A. iii?” (forthcoming) and “Inculcating the Inner Heart of the Laity in Pre-Conquest England” (2008). Roger J. Crum is Professor of Art History at the University of Dayton where he has held the Graul Chair in Arts and Languages. He currently serves as the College of Arts and Sciences Liaison for Global and Intercultural Initia- tives. A former member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Professor Crum has published on a variety of subjects ranging from the art and politics of Renaissance Florence to Hitler’s visit to Florence in 1938. He is the co-editor with John T. Paoletti of Renaissance Florence: A Social History (2008) and, with Claudia Lazzaro, of Donatello Among the Blackshirts: History and Modernity in the Visual Culture of Fascist Italy (2005). Robert Cummings is Honorary Research Fellow in the University of Glas- Honorary Research Fellow in the University of Glas- gow. He has edited Spenser: The Critical Heritage and Seventeenth-Century Poetry for the Blackwell Annotated Anthology series. He is the author of critical and bibliographical articles, mainly on sixteenth- and seventeenth- century British poetry (Gavin Douglas, Drummond, Spenser, Jonson, Her- bert, Marvell) but also on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century topics. His interests in neo-Latin literature are reflected in publications on Alciati. He is Review Editor of Translation and Literature, and has written on a variety of translation-related topics. Deborah Levine Gera is an Associate Professor of Classics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia (1993), Warrior Women (1997), and Ancient Greek Ideas on Speech, Language, and Civi- lization (2003). At present she is working on a commentary on the Book of Judith for the de Gruyter series, Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature, as well as for the Yad Ben-Zvi Hebrew series, Between the Bible and the Mishna. Kelley Harness is an Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Minnesota. Her articles on early Florentine opera have appeared in the Journal of the American Musicological Society and the Journal for Seventeenth- Century Music . She is the author of Echoes of Women’s Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence (2006). She is currently working on a study of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century intermedi. xvi The Sword of Judith Henrike Lähnemann holds the Chair of German Studies at Newcastle University. Her main areas of research are medieval German literature in the Latin context, manuscript studies and the interface of text and image. In 2006, she published a monograph on medieval German versions of the Book of Judith (“Hystoria Judith. Deutsche Judithdichtungen vom 11. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert”). Alexandre Lhâa is a PhD student at the History Department of the Univer- sity of Provence and member of the TELEMME research unit, in Aix-en- Provence (France). In June 2008, he attended the International Symposium Ottoman Empire & European Theatre, in Istanbul. His most recent con- ference papers include “Exotisme et violence sur la scène du Teatro alla Scala” and “Ho introdotto un leggiero cambiamento nell’argomento: Les tragédies antiques adaptées à La Scala (1784–1823).” Kathleen M. Llewellyn is Associate Professor of French and International Studies at Saint Louis University. She has published articles on L’Heptaméron of Marguerite de Navarre, the poetry of Madeleine des Roches and Gabri- elle de Coignard, conduct literature for widows in early modern France, and the widow in early modern French literature. She is currently working on a book exploring representations of the figure of Judith in French Ren- aissance literature. David Marsh who studied Comparative Literature at Yale and Harvard, is Professor of Italian at Rutgers University and specializes in the influence of the classical tradition on the Italian Renaissance. His books include The Quattrocento Dialogue and Lucian and the Latins , and he has edited and translated works by Petrarch, Alberti, Leonardo, Vico, and mathemati- cian Paolo Zellini. Marc Mastrangelo is Associate Professor and Chair of Classical Studies at the Dickinson College. He has written on Socrates, Plato, Sophocles, and the fourth-century Christian poet Prudentius. He is an editor and contribu- tor to The Unknown Socrates (2002) and is the author of The Roman Self in Late Antiquity: Prudentius and the Poetics of the Soul (2008). Gabrijela Mecky Zaragoza received her Ph.D. in German Studies from the University of Toronto in 2005. For her work on Judith, she was awarded both Author biographies xvii Canada’s Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal (2005) and the Women in German Dissertation Prize (2006). In 2007–2008, she has held lecturer posi- tions at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and at the University of Toronto. She is currently working on a critical edition of little known eight- eenth- and nineteenth-century German texts on the conquest of Mexico. John Nassichuk is associate Professor of French Studies at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. His research interests include Renaissance literature, poetics, aesthetics, and Latin erotic literature from the Quattro- cento. He recently published “Le couronnement de Judith, représentation littéraire au XVIe siècle d’une héroïne deutérocanonique” (2008) and con- ducted a graduate seminar in the department of French on Judith in the medieval French canon. Author of many chapters in books and scholarly articles, in 2005 Professor Nassichuk co-authored, with Perrine Galand- Hallyn, L’Amour conjugal dans la poésie latine de la Renaissance (2005). Jann Pasler , Professor of Music at University of California, San Diego, has recently published Writing through Music: Essays on Music, Culture, and Poli- tics (2008) and C omposing the Citizen: Music as Public Utility in Third Republic France (2009). Currently she is working on another book, Music, Race, and Colonialism in Fin-de siècle France . Her article, “The Utility of Musical In- struments in the Racial and Colonial Agendas of Late Nineteenth-Century France,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association (2004), won the Colin Slim award from the American Musicological Society for the best article in 2005 by a senior scholar. Barbara Schmitz’s main research interest is on Jewish texts from the Hel- lenistic-Roman times. She wrote her PhD thesis on the function of prayer and speech in the Book of Judith and is currently working on a commentary on the Book of Judith for the series Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament . Her most recent book is on the Book of Kings. She is full professor of Old Testament Studies at the Universität Dortmund. Michael Terry is curator of the Dorot Jewish Division of the New York Public Library and the organizer of a number of exhibitions, including The Hebrew Renaissance – chiefly about the “rediscovery” of Jewish lit- erature in sixteenth- to seventeenth-century Europe – at the Newberry Library in Chicago and Jewes in America – chiefly about seventeenth- to xviii The Sword of Judith eighteenth-century notions regarding Jews and destiny – at The New York Public Library. His Reader’s Guide to Judaism received the National Jewish Book Award. Susan Weingarten is an archaeologist and historian in the research team of the Sir Isaac Wolfson Chair for Jewish Studies, Tel Aviv University, Israel. After publishing The Saint’s Saints: Hagiography and Geography in Jerome (2005), she decided to move from ascetic Christianity to Jewish food. She has just finished a book on haroset, the Jewish Passover food and is working on her major project, “Food in the Talmud.” The Judith project has led her to a new interest in medieval European Hanukkah food. Introductions