Milan Žonca, PhD is a lecturer of Hebrew Studies. Since 2016, he has been a member of the Academic Board of Prague Centre for Jewish Studies. In his dissertation completed in 2015 at Queen Mary, University of London, he examined the intellectual diversity in Jewish communities of late-medieval Central and Eastern Europe. In 2012, the publishing house Academia published his Czech translation and commentary of the polemical works of Moses ben Nahman (Nahmanides). Since 2022, he has been the Vice-Dean for International Relations.

Contact information: milan.zonca@ff.cuni.cz

Research Interests

• The cultural history of Judaism in medieval Christendom
• Religious interaction between medieval Christians and Jews
• Jewish philosophy and its impact on religious thought and practice
• The study of sacred texts and related rituals
• Jewish interpretations of memory and concentration

Selected Publications

 “The ‘Imagined Communities’ of Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen: Heresy and Communal Boundaries in Sefer Nizzahon”, in: Christoph Cluse, Lukas Clemens (eds.), European Jewry Around 1400 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, in print)

“‘…and order was upset’: Easter, the Eucharist, and the Jews of Prague, 1389”, in: Jonathan Adams, Cordelia Heß (eds.), Antisemitism: Continuity and Change from the Middle Ages to the Present Day (London: Routledge, v tisku)

“Několik poznámek k intelektuálnímu profilu Avigdora Kary” [Some Remarks on the Intellectual Profile of Rabbi Avigdor Kara], in: Daniel Boušek, Magdalena Křížová, Pavel Sládek (eds.), Dvarim meatim: Studie pro Jiřinu Šedinovou (Praha: Filozofická fakulta UK, 2016), 35–56.

Projects

(with Daniel Boušek) “The Reflection of Interreligious Relations in Medieval Aragon in the Works of Solomon ibn Adret and Profiat Duran”, Czech Science Foundation, 2016–2017