A new issue of the journal Judaica Bohemiae (Vol. 54/2019, 1) came out at the end of June 2019. It starts with a study by Marie Buňatová that examines trade contacts between Prague Jews and Northern Italy and their engagement in the Italian commodity trade in the 16th and early 17th centuries. The next study, by Daniel Soukup (Holy Curiosity: Circumcision as a Rhetorical Concept in a Bohemian Catholic Sermon from the 18th Century) explores the topic of Jewish circumcision through an analysis of three intertextually connected Christian Hebraic treatises from the early modern period. It shows what role these texts may have played in the formulation of Baroque piety and in the depiction of the contemporary Jewish community in the Bohemian lands. The Documents section contains a pioneering study on Jewish sigillography by Pavel Kocman, Tereza Dlesková and Milan Žonca, which examines stamps and seals relating to the Jewish community in the small town of Dambořice (Ger. Dambořitz) in southern Moravia.
In the Reports section, Petr Pálka provides an overview of the 25 years of the “Jews and Moravia” conference. The final section of the journal contains three book reviews: Rudolf Klein’s 2017 book Synagogues in Hungary, 1782–1918. Genealogy, Typology and Architectural Significance (reviewed by Arno Pařík), Janusz Spyra’s 2018 book Rabbiner in der Provinz. Die Rolle des Rabbiners im Leben der jüdischen Gemeinschaft in Teschener und Troppauer Schlesien (reviewed by Pavel Kocman), and Luděk Vacín’s 2018 book The Unknown Benno Landsberger: A Biographical Sketch of an Assyriological Altmeister’s Development, Exile, and Personal Life (reviewed by Daniel Baránek).

Published since 1965 by the Jewish Museum in Prague, Judaica Bohemiae focuses on Jewish history and culture in Bohemia, Moravia and the wider Central European area (the territory of the former Habsburg Monarchy). The texts are in English and German.