The Hebrew Folktale in Premodern Morality Literature

Printed works on morality and ethics in premodern Jewish culture served as a channel for classic Jewish folktales, with author Vered Tohar categorizing them into four genres: tragedy, comedy, parable, and theological allegory. These tales, originally printed and circulated in Jewish communities, contained themes of love, hate, good, evil, loyalty, and betrayal, and were an important archive of Hebrew tales and their ideological traditions.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 176 pages
Publication date: 30 November 2023
Publisher: Wayne State University Press

This groundbreaking exploration reveals that in the early modern world, printed works on morality and ethics played a vital role in conveying classic Jewish folktales and serving as a significant leisure reading source in premodern Jewish culture. Author Vered Tohar, through a comprehensive corpus of over 400 Musar tales, meticulously opens a path to understand the thematic and poetic intricacies of these tales. This innovative reinterpretation of early modern Musar texts unveils a fresh perspective on Jewish folklore, highlighting the enduring continuity of Hebrew literature from the medieval to the modern era.

Tohar categorizes these stories, known as Musar folktales, into four genres derived from classical poetic studies: tragedy, comedy, parable or social exemplum, and theological allegory. Originally printed and circulated within early modern Jewish communities, these works featured themes of love and hate, good and evil, loyalty and betrayal, or life and death. Beyond their traditional purpose of ethical and moral education, Tohar posits the Musar texts as an invaluable archive of Hebrew tales and their ideological traditions. This groundbreaking re framing of early modern Musar texts unveils a new history of Jewish folklore and offers a fresh approach to interpreting these texts.

Weight: 272g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780814350829