About

I am Assistant Professor in the Taube Department of Jewish Studies at the University of Wrocław. Previously, I was Ray D. Wolfe Postdoctoral Fellow at the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto, and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wrocław. My book Eternity Now (SUNY 2019) explores the teachings of Shneur Zalman of Liady, the founding rebbe of Chabad. My current research project, funded by the National Science Centre in Poland, concerns Chabad Hasidism in interwar Poland.

From 2013 to 2018, I served as the workflow coordinator and Yiddish translator for the Ringelblum Archive Translation Project carried out under the auspices of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. From 2019 to 2021 I was involved in the collaborative project entitled A Canon of Memoir Literature by Polish Jews (University of Wrocław). Currently, together with Marcin Wodziński, I am preparing an anthology of Hasidic stories in Polish translation, to be published in the Biblioteka Narodowa (National Library) series of the Ossolineum Publishing House. Since 2020, I have been involved in processing and cataloguing of Ada Rapoport-Albert’s library and archive held in the library of the Taube Department of Jewish Studies in Wrocław.

Education

Ph.D., Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London

M.A., Philosophy, Jagiellonian University

B.A., Hebrew, University of Warsaw

Other Publications

Books:

Eternity Now: Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady and Temporality (SUNY 2019).

Nathan Sternhartz, Dni Natana (PWN 2021). [Yeme Moharnat: Helek rishon]. Introduction, translation, and commentary.

Articles:
“The Eastern European Problem of Hasidic Studies,” Jewish Quarterly Review 112, No. 2 (Spring 2022) 256–259.
“A Different Type of Seminary: Priests, Cyclists, and Other Tourists Visit the Lublin Yeshiva,” In Geveb 2021.
“O chasydyzmie w pierwszej osobie: “Dni Natana” Natana Sternharza,” Kwartalnik Historii Żydów – Jewish History Quarterly 278 (2021): 487-518.
“Hasidic Attitudes towards the Non-Jewish World,” Jewish Social Studies 25.3 (2020): 35-70 (with Marcin Wodziński).

“Mystic, Teacher, Troublemaker: Shimono Engel Horovits of Żelechów and the Challenges of Hasidic Education in Interwar Poland,” Jewish Quarterly Review 110:2 (2020): 312-342.

“Beyond Hagiography with Footnotes: Writing Biographies of the Chabad Rebbe in the Post-Schneerson Era,” AJS Review 43.2 (2019): 409-435.

“Between Hagiography and Historiography: Chabad, Scholars of Hasidism, and the Case of The Portrait of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady,” East European Jewish Affairs 47:1 (2017): 3-27.

“Setting Time for Torah Study in R. Shneur Zalman of Liady’s Thought,” AJS Review 38.1 (2014): 29-57.

Book chapters:
“Staging Hasidism: Representation of the “Yossele Schumacher Affair” in a Hasidic Yiddish Play ‘Vi iz Yossele?’,” Representing Jewish Thought: Proceedings of the 2015 Institute of Jewish Studies Conference Held in Honour of Professor Ada Rapoport-Albert, ed. Agata Paluch, Leiden: Brill, 2021, 47-67.

“The Scroll of 19 Kislev and the Construction of an Imagined Habad Lubavitch Community in Interwar Poland,” 2020, Polin 33: Jewish Religious Life in Poland since 1750, 309-337.

Migdar u-zeman be-khitve R. Shneur Zalman mi-Ladi,” in Habad Hasidism: History, Theology and Image, Collected Articles, edited by Jonatan Meir and Gad Sagiv, Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center, 2016, 57-76 (Hebrew).

Encyclopaedia entries (peer-reviewed):

“Lubavitch Hasidism,” Oxford Bibliographies (2017).

Translations:

The Ringelblum Archive: Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto, vol. 3. “Oyneg Shabes: People and Works,” edited by Aleksandra Bańkowska and Tadeusz Epsztein. Translations from Polish: Anna Brzostowska, Jerzy Giebułtowski. Translated from Yiddish: Jennifer Bell, Vincent Homolka, Daniel Kennedy, Fleur Kuhn, Dianne Levitin, Barry Smerin, Wojciech Tworek, Elena Watson, revised and edited by Barry Smerin. Warszawa: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, 2020.

The Ringelblum Archive: Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto, vol. 2. “Accounts from Borderlands, 1939-1941,” edited by Andrzej Żbikowski. Translations from Polish: Anna Brzostowska, Jerzy Giebułtowski, Katarzyna Gucio. Translated from Yiddish: Jennifer Bell, Vincent Homolka, Daniel Kennedy, Fleur Kuhn, Dianne Levitin, Barry Smerin, Wojciech Tworek, Elena Watson, Rebecca Wolpe. Warszawa: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, 2019.

Wieża Dawida: Chasydzi lelowscy, (Migdal David, Piotrków 1930), edited by Michał Galas and Mirosław Skrzypczyk.Translation from Hebrew by Agata Paluch and Wojciech Tworek. Kraków and Budapest: Austeria, 2018.

The Ringelblum Archive: Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto, vol. 1, “Warsaw Ghetto: Everyday Life,” edited by Katarzyna Person. Translations from Polish: Anna Brzostowska, Katarzyna Gucio, Jerzy Giebułtowski. Translations from Yiddish: Helen Beer, Khayke Beruriah Wiegand, Vincent Homolka, Wojciech Tworek, Lena Watson. Warszawa: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, 2017.

Oz Almog, Wielokulturowy Izrael, Warsaw: WSP TWP, 2011. Translation from Hebrew: Agnieszka Olek, Aleksandra Rawska, and Wojciech Tworek.

Menahem Mendel Schneerson, “Bati le-gani 5711,” Studia Judaica 1 (25) 2010, 77-91. Translation from Hebrew.

Viktor Pelevin, “Prince of Gosplan,” Kresy 64:4 (2005). Translation from Russian.

Other articles:

“Ada Rapoport-Albert: In Memoriam,” East European Jewish Affairs, 50:1-2,259-260.

“Faith-Trust-Redemption: The Alphabet of Hasidic Theater,” Afn Shvel 384-385, Summer-Fall 2019, 25-28 (Yiddish).

“A 17th Century Copy of Sa’adi’s Collected Works (IO Islamic 843),” British Library, Asian and African Studies Blog, 28 April 2017 (with Ursula Sims-Williams).

“Dosliwood: The Factory of Kosher Dreams,” Afn Shvel 364-365, Summer-Autumn 2014, 29-37 (Yiddish).

“Lipa Schmeltzer: The Voice of Yiddish in the Hasidic World,” Afn Shvel362-363, Winter-Spring 2014, 43-46 (Yiddish).

Reviews:
“With Us More than Ever: Making the Absent Rebbe Present in Messianic Chabad by Yoram Bilu,” AJS Review 46.1 (2022): 220-222.
“George Y. Kohler, Kabbalah Research in the Wissenschaft des Judentums (1820–1880),” European Journal of Jewish Studies 14 (2020), 165-67.

“Philip Wexler: Social Vision: The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Tranformative Paradigm for the World,” H-Judaic (2020).

“Shaul Magid, Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism, Stanford University Press, Stanford 2015, 271 pp,” Studia Judaica 43 (2019): 187-90.

“How The Wise Men Got to Chelm: The Life and TImes of a Yiddish Folk Tradition” by Ruth von Bernuth.

 

 

Blog Posts

    Projects

    “Galut Polin”: Chabad Lubavitch in Interwar Poland (1918-1939).

    Antologia chasydzkiej opowieści – Taube Department of Jewish Studies, University of Wrocław and Wydawnictwo Ossolineum

     

     

    Memberships

    Association for Jewish Studies

    European Association for Jewish Studies

    World Union of Jewish Studies

    Polish Association for Jewish Studies

    Polish Association for Yiddish Studies

    Wojciech Tworek

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    @wtworek

    Active 1 year ago