Jewish culture places a great deal of emphasis on texts and their means of transmission. At various points in Jewish history, the primary mode of transmission has changed in response to political, geographical, technological, and cultural shifts. Contemporary textual transmission in Jewish culture has been influenced by secularization, the return to Hebrew and the emergence of modern Yiddish, and the new centers of Jewish life in the United States and in Israel, as well as by advancements in print technology and the invention of the Internet. Volume XXXI of Studies in Contemporary Jewry deals with various aspects of textual transmission in Jewish culture in the last two centuries.Essays in this volume examine old and new kinds of media and their meanings; new modes of transmission in fields such as Jewish music; and the struggle to continue transmitting texts under difficult political circumstances. Two essays analyze textual transmission in the works of giants of modern Jewish literature: S.Y. Agnon, in Hebrew, and Isaac Bashevis Singer, in Yiddish. Other essays discuss paratexts in the East, print cultures in the West, and the organization of knowledge in libraries and encyclopedias.

SymposiumTextual Transmission in Contemporary Jewish CulturesAvriel Bar-Levav, Library Awareness and Textual Intimacy in Contemporary Jewish CultureItay Marienberg-Milikowsky, Digital Research of Jewish Texts: Challenges and OpportunitiesYaniv Hagbi, Textual Transmission as Textual Participation: The Case of Materialism in S.Y. Agnon's Perception of LanguageJan Schwarz, The Lost Souls of Meshugah: Textual Transmission of Isaac Bashevis Singer's World LiteratureGennady Estraikh, Yiddish Publishing in the Soviet Union, 1953-1991Andreas Lehnardt, The Discovery and Recovery of Hebrew Manuscripts: The Case of GermanyEdwin Seroussi, The Jewish Liturgical Music Printing Revolution: A Preliminary AssessmentIdo Ramati, Media in the Dissemination of Land of Israel SongsGuy Bracha, Digitization of Jewish Nahda Texts: "Knowing the Enemy" or Preserving a Heritage?Yigal S. Nizri, "Fit to Sacrifice on the Altar of Print": Approbation Letters and the Printing of 19th-Century Moroccan Halakhic BooksArndt Engelhardt, Transferring Jewish Knowledge: F.A. Brockhaus as a Publisher of Judaica and OrientaliaDan Tsahor, Knowledge and the Making of a Jewish Nation: Encyclopedia, Historical Narrative, and the Origins of Jewish NationalismEssayAdi Livny, Fighting Partition, Saving Mount Scopus: The Pragmatic Binationalism of D.W. Senator (1930-1949)Book Reviews (arranged by subject)Antisemitism, Holocaust, and GenocideEliyana R. Adler and Sheila E. Jelen (eds.), Reconstructing the Old Country: American Jewry in the Post-Holocaust Decades, Sean MartinEugene M. Avrutin, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, and Robert Weinberg (eds.), Ritual Murder in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Beyond, David BialeBatya Brutin, Hayerushah: hashoah biytzirotehem shel omanim yisreelim benei hador hasheni (The Inheritance: The Holocaust in the Artworks of Second Generation Israeli Artists), Tamara AbramovitchDiana Dumitru, The State, Antisemitism, and Collaboration in the Holocaust: The Borderlands of Romania and the Soviet Union, Samuel BarnaiMark Edele, Sheila Fitzpatrick, and Atina Grossmann (eds.), Shelter from the Holocaust: Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union, Zvi GitelmanAmir Goldstein, Derekh rabat panim: tziyonuto shel Zeev Jabotinsky lenokhah haantishemiyut (Zionism and Anti-Semitism in the Thought and Action of Ze'ev Jabotinsky), Avi ShilonPatrizia Guarnieri, Italian Psychology and Jewish Emigration under Fascism: From Florence to Jerusalem and New York, Sergio DellaPergolaCultural Studies, Literature, and ReligionKen Frieden, Travels in Translation: Sea Tales at the Source of Jewish Fiction, Nancy SinkoffSarah Hammerschlag, Broken Tablets: Levinas, Derrida, and the Literary Afterlife of Religion, Michael RoubachVivian Liska, German-Jewish Thought and Its Afterlife: A Tenuous Legacy, Paul Mendes-FlohrEdna Nahshon (ed.), New York's Yiddish Theater: From the Bowery to Broadway, Vassili SchedrinKaren E.H. Skinazi, Women of Valor: Orthodox Jewish Troll Fighters, Crime Writers, and Rock Stars in Contemporary Literature and Culture, Naomi MandelJeffrey Summit, Singing God's Word: The Performance of Biblical Chant in Contemporary Judaism, Sonja K. PilzHistory, Biography, and Social ScienceMatthew Baigell, The Implacable Urge to Defame: Cartoon Jews in the American Press, 1877-1935, Diana L. LindenMatthew Baigell, Social Concern and Left Politics in Jewish American Art, 1880-1940, Diana L. LindenIdo Bassok, Tehiyat hane'urim: mishpahah vehinukh beyahadut polin bein milhamot ha'olam (Revival of Youth: Family and Education among Interwar Polish Jewry), Samuel D. KassowShannon L. Fogg, Stealing Home: Looting, Restitution, and Reconstructing Jewish Lives in France, 1942-1947, Renée PoznanskiZvi Gitelman (ed.), The New Jewish Diaspora: Russian-Speaking Immigrants in the United States, Israel, and Germany, Larissa RemennickMaxine Jacobson, Modern Orthodoxy in American Judaism: The Era of Rabbi Leo Jung, Samuel HeilmanKamil Kijek, Dzieci Modernizmu: Swiadomosc, kultura i socjalizacja polityczna mlodziezy zydowskiej w II Rzeczpospolitej (Children of Modernism: The Consciousness Culture and Political Socialization of Jewish Youth in the Second Polish Republic), Samuel D. KassowAndreas Kilcher and Gabriella Safran (eds.), Writing Jewish Culture: Paradoxes in Ethnography, Harvey E. GoldbergBer Kotlerman, Broken Heart/Broken Wholeness: The Post-Holocaust Plea for Jewish Reconstruction of the Soviet Yiddish Writer Der Nister, Mikhail KrutikovSimone Lässig and Miriam Rürup (eds.), Space and Spatiality in Modern German-Jewish History, Shulamit VolkovEli Lederhendler, American Jewry: A New History, Jeffrey S. GurockVladimir Levin, Mimahpekhah lemilhamah: hapolitikah hayehudit berusiyah, 1907-1914, (From Revolution to War: Jewish Politics in Russia, 1907-1914), Brian HorowitzJacob Jay Lindenthal, Abi Gezunt: Explorations into the Role of Health and the American Jewish Dream, together with The Lindex: A Companion to Abi Gezunt, Gil RibackSean Martin, For the Good of the Nation: Institutions for Jewish Children in Interwar Poland: A Documentary History, Shaul StampferUzi Rebhun, Jews and the American Religious Landscape, Yaakov ArielJacques Roumani, David Meghnagi, and Judith Roumani (eds.), Jewish Libya: Memory and Identity in Text and Image, Emanuela Trevisan SemiMaurice Samuels, The Right to Difference: French Universalism and the Jews, Michael R. MarrusMel Scult (ed.), Communings of the Spirit: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, vol. 2, 1934-1941, Noam PiankoJeffrey Veidlinger (ed.), Going to the People: Jews and the Ethnographic Impulse, Dani SchrireZionism, Israel, and the Middle EastTal Dekel, Transnational Identities: Women, Art, and Migration in Contemporary Israel, Lynne SwartsMichael Feige, 'Al da'at hamakom: mehozot zikaron yisreelim (Al Da'at Ha'makom: Israeli Realms of Memory), ed. David Ohana, Edna Lomsky-FederYaron Harel, Damesek nikhbeshah zemanit: hatziyonut beDamesek 1908-1923, Norman (Noam) A. StillmanYaron Harel, Zionism in Damascus: Ideology and Activity in the Jewish Community at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century, trans. D. Gershon Lewental, Norman (Noam) A. StillmanDana Hercbergs, Overlooking the Border: Narratives of Divided Jerusalem, Menachem KleinAbigail Jacobson and Moshe Naor, Oriental Neighbors: Middle Eastern Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine, Yair WallachMichal Kravel-Tovi, When the State Winks: The Performance of Jewish Conversion in Israel, Harvey E. GoldbergDaniel Kupfert Heller, Jabotinsky's Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism, Joseph HellerColin Shindler, The Rise of the Israeli Right: From Odessa to Hebron, Joseph HellerTamar Wolf-Monzon, Bahir vegavohah kezemer:Ya'akov Orland: poetikah, historiyah, tarbut. (Ya'acov Orland: Poetics, History, Culture), Jehoash HirshbergStudies in Contemporary Jewry XXXIINote on Editorial Policy