Dr. Roni Cohen

Post-Doctorial Researcher

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Roni Cohen recently submitted his Ph.D. dissertation to the Department of Jewish History at Tel-Aviv University. His research focuses on popular culture in European Jewish communities of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. He is particularly interested in Jewish texts that were not necessarily written only for rabbinic elites, but for a relatively wide and varied audience. Within the JEWTACT project Roni is investigating the putative connection between the rise of Yiddish musar (lit. moral) literature in the sixteenth century, and the corresponding genre of German conduct literature.

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Selected Publications: 

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• "Parodies for Purim in the Early Modern Period and the Excommunication which was not.” Zion 81A (2023) 103-128 (Hebrew)

• “The Jewish Traveler and the Protestant Shoemaker: A Hans Sachs’ Poem in Yiddish”, Zutot 21 (2024) 1-14 (with O. Cohen)

• “Between ‘Blessed Mordecai’ and ‘Cursed Haman’: The Story of Esther in Kalonymos ben Kalonymos’ Massekhet Purim and the Medieval Custom of Hitting Haman”, Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore 34, 2021 (Hebrew).

• ‘A Present for Purim’: An Unknown Yiddish Poem on the Megillah, introduction and commentaries: Roni Cohen, Tel Aviv: H. Leyvik Farlag, 2021 (Yiddish).

• “‘They say I am becoming greater than my peers’: An apprentice-scribe in early 18th century Amsterdam”, Studia Rosenthaliana: Journal of the History, Culture and Heritage of the Jews in the Netherlands, Vol. 46 (2020), p. 137–154.