Review of Ilana Zinguer, L'Hébreu au Temps de la Renaissance

Ilana Zinguer, who teaches French literature at the University of Haifa, has assembled an interesting selection of essays on various aspects of Hebraic studies in the Renaissance in this volume. Of the eleven contributors, most are French or specialize in French literature in the Renaissance while several are European scholars of Hebrew or Semitic studies. Despite the editor's proximity to the centers of Jewish scholarship in Israel, however, the volume displays minimal awareness of and contact with that scholarship or scholarship stemming from North America. The result, as Ilana Zinguer readily acknowledges in her introduction, is less than a systematic treatment of the study of Hebrew in the Renaissance, neither on the part of Christians nor especially on the part of Jews. While is is certainly possible to focus on the the Christian study of Hebrew alone, the reader might wonder whether such a partial picture accurately portrays the complex motivations of Catholics and Protestants in studying Hebrew and their equally complex interactions and collaborations with a living Jewish community deeply engaged in the study and production of Hebrew books.