Dr. Yakov Z. Mayer wrote his dissertation in the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University under the supervision of Prof. Elchanan Reiner and Prof. Maoz Kahana in 2019. Mayer then spent 2020-2021 at Ben Gurion University of the Negev as a post-doctoral fellow at the Kreitman School for Advanced Graduate Studies and as a fellow in the ERC group JEWTACT. During 2021-2022, he was a Starr fellow at Harvard University.

Mayer's research focuses on medieval and early modern Hebrew book cultures. His Book, “Edition Princeps: The 1523 Venice Edition of the Palestinian Talmud and the Beginning of Hebrew Printing” (Magnes, 2022), examines the moment of transition from manuscript culture to print culture. At Mandel Scholion, he will be working on the early phase of Hebrew printing in Venice.

 

Selected Publications:

“Writing the Talmud Anew: Rabbi Shlomo Sirillio’s Renaissance Edition of the Talmud Yerushalmi”, Jewish Quarterly Review [forthcoming].

 “Elijah of Fulda and the Amsterdam Edition of the Palestinian Talmud”, Studia Rosenthaliana 46, 1-2, (2020), pp. 117-135.

 “Crying at the Florence Baptistery Entrance – A Testimony of a Traveling Jew”, Renaissance Studies 33.3 (2018), pp. 441-457.

"מהיסטוריה חומרית לקונטקסט היסטורי: כתב יד וטיקן 133 של התלמוד הירושלמי״, ציון פג, ג, (תשע״ח), עמ׳ 277—321.

"הקדמת ספר הזוהר: נוסח, מבנה ועריכה״, קבלה 33 (2015) עמ׳ 153—181 .