In the 18th century we observe in Frankfurt am Main a unique interaction between various religious, intellectual and cultural traditions from Eastern and Western Europe, esp. with respect to the amalgamation of literary genres from various backgrounds shaping a new narrative and a new identity for certain social and religious groups. The dynamics and synergies of such exchange of knowledge and the positioning of various religious communities will be exemplified through the work of Pinchas Hurwitz (1731‐1805), who by his role as immigrant rabbi from Eastern Europe (Galicia) and by his affiliation to the currents of Hasidism as an intermediary of ideas and agent of change, shows a fascinating transformation and mixing of various literary genres in his writings.

The focus of the project will be on homiletic treatises. The examination of homiletic literature requires the analysis of both oral and literal layers/elements of a text, the selection of material, the criteria of the editorial processes and the comparison to materials originating in literary activity that is not oral. Analyzing the various genres that make up the printed book also makes it possible to examine the rhetoric that characterizes the public speech and its social meanings. However, a book should not be seen as a product of a linear process of an author publishing his/her ideas, but rather, one must take also the book’s editors into account, who, collect and select the material and printers as the designers of the narrative of the community. It may therefore be sustained that all of the factors involved in the printing of the book deal with sorting the sections to be printed, omitting some of the texts and emphasizing other parts of the story, i.e. take part in shaping the new narrative of a community. Therefore, it is not alone the official leadership that shapes the narrative of the community, but rather anonymous elements with economic and ideological interests. An examination of the manuscripts present in a community in comparison to the printed materials may shed light on the role of the above mentioned factors in shaping and transforming the narrative of the community. The method proposed here combines perspectives of orality and literacy, along with other research ethods from the »History of the Book«, in the field of homiletics and social contexts. This intersection of Jewish studies with methodology from historical, sociological, political and literary studies will provide an innovative approach also to similar topics within the humanities. (Roee Yakov Goldshmidt)