Traders, Chanters, and Mystics by Webster-Kogen, Ilana;

Long description:

Interdisciplinary ethnography of Torah scrolls as ritual objects and subjects

For Jews all over the world, the Torah scroll is the height of holiness, framed as the carefully designed and produced word of God. Jews give great attention to the care of Torah scrolls, ensuring they are maintained and protected so that they can be used for ritually chanting the Torah portion regularly. Traders, Chanters, and Mystics: The Networked Afterlives of North African Torah Scrolls is an interdisciplinary ethnography of these ritual objects (or subjects) and their role in embedding neighborly relations into Jewish life over centuries. Drawing on Actor-Network Theory, the book foregrounds Torah scrolls not simply as vessels of text but as agents with social lives and affect—as subjects that act within networks of devotion, memory, and migration. In analyzing the scroll's diverse afterlives—how they are celebrated and venerated, how they are chanted from in new surroundings (primarily in France), and how they are collected by Jews and non-Jews—Webster-Kogen offers a new reading of Jewish embeddedness in North African culture and history. Scrolls's afterlives constitute patrimony and restitution, and they can be approached as musical instrument or mystical medium. Anchored in France's Sephardic-majority Jewish communities, this study emphasizes liturgical continuity, offering new insights into ritual, migration, and the entangled afterlives of sacred objects in postcolonial contexts.

"Drawing upon ethnomusicology and social theory, Traders, Chanters and Mystics shows the significance of reading from Torah scrolls to Maghribi Jews in France. A vibrant portrait of this lived ritual complex emerges from within circles of interaction surrounding it."—Harvey E. Goldberg, author of Jewish Passages: Cycles of Jewish Life

"Boldly innovative and thought-provoking, Webster-Kogen recasts the social role and semiology of Torah Scrolls, literally infusing them with living agency. Considering these sacred objects as active partners in religious rituals, this groundbreaking ethnography suggests stimulating new vistas for Jewish Studies."—Edwin Seroussi, Professor Emeritus of Musicology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Visiting Scholar, Dartmouth College; Jewish Sound Scholar in Residence, University of Pennsylvania

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Part 1: Mystics Chapter

1: The Anthropomorphic Lives of North African Torah Scroll

Chapter 2: On Organology, Tikkun and Baraka

Part 2: Chanters

Chapter 3: The Submerged Afterlife of Arab/Jewish Ritual Aesthetics in France

Chapter 4:
Networks of Intensification in North African Cantillation

Part 3: Traders

Chapter 5: Widows, Caravans and Goatskins: a Biography of Torah Scroll Supply Chains

Chapter 6: Curated Afterlives: the Illicit Worlds of Torah Scroll Collecting and Display Epilogue: Restitution as Afterlife

Glossary

Bibliography