R. Joseph Ben-Naim and the Renewed Jewish-Moroccan Library: A Local Alternative Literary Path to Modernity?

• Applicant: Dr. Michal Ohana
• Subject Area: Religious Studies and Jewish Studies
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 576950196

The research project "R. Joseph Ben-Naim and the renewed Jewish-Moroccan Library: An Alternative Local Literary Path to Modernity?" explores the diverse literary work of Joseph Ben-Naim (1882-1961), one of the most prolific Jewish scholars of Fez in his time. As the author of over forty books and booklets, Ben-Naim’s extensive literary output serves as a case study for the expansion of the Jewish library in the late modern period within the North African Jewish diaspora. Likewise, through a close examination of his work, the current research project seeks to enrich and diversify the academic discourse on the multiplicity of modernities from the Moroccan perspective. Put differently, the proposed study seeks to analyze Ben-Naim's literary works and to locate them within both the broad and hegemonic context of Jewish-European Maskilic literature and the narrower, local context of ‘modernity without secularization’ as it appears in local rabbinical literature.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants