Miruna Belea completed her joint PhD ('thèse en co-tutelle') at École Pratique des Hautes Études and at the University of Hamburg (Center for the Study of Manuscript Cultures). Her thesis focused on the transmission history of 'Sefer Shimmush Torah', a hitherto unpublished medieval magical treatise. As part of her doctoral studies, she received training in medieval Hebrew codicology and palaeography. Additionally, she engaged with the study of discrete fragments for the international project 'Books within Books: Hebrew Fragments in European Libraries', where she published codicological descriptions of several documents.
Between 2022-2024, Miruna was a research associate ('assegnista di ricerca') on the ERC project 'Early Jewish and Christian Magic in Comparison and Contact' at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. The results of her research, which include material aspects of Jewish late antique ritual practices, are going to be published as part of a co-authored monograph.
Miruna’s interests revolve around materiality and the transfer of knowledge between different Jewish cultures across space and time, with particular attention to the production of manuscripts for and as part of ritual performances.
Between 2022-2024, Miruna was a research associate ('assegnista di ricerca') on the ERC project 'Early Jewish and Christian Magic in Comparison and Contact' at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. The results of her research, which include material aspects of Jewish late antique ritual practices, are going to be published as part of a co-authored monograph.
Miruna’s interests revolve around materiality and the transfer of knowledge between different Jewish cultures across space and time, with particular attention to the production of manuscripts for and as part of ritual performances.
Electronic publications
- Belea, Miruna. "Codicological Description: Document on the Status of the New Tailors' Guild (fol. 28r)". Books within Books: Hebrew Fragments in European Libraries, 2022. Available at: http://www.hebrewmanuscript.com/bwb-database/notice/ca8fb9c68319265f494e0b7b81679752.htm (last accessed 15 December 2024).
2022
- Belea, Miruna. "The first Hebrew fragment from Romania on Books within Books", in: Books within Books Magazine, 2022. Available at: https://bwb.hypotheses.org/786 (last accessed 15 December 2024).
- Belea, Miruna; Barile, Elena; in collaboration with Isserles, Justine. “Codicological Description: Mahzor for Yom Kippur. Amidah of Shaharit, liturgical poems”. Books within Books: Hebrew Fragments in European Libraries, 2023. Available at: http://www.hebrewmanuscript.com/bwb-database/notice/ffd610c99997d1bfa0fbf05d38c31634.htm (last accessed 15 December 2024).
2023
- Belea, Miruna; Barile, Elena. “Hebrew Fragment(s) From Escholzmatt Parish (Switzerland)” in: Books within Books Magazine, 2024. Available at: https://doi.org/10.58079/vxhy (last accessed 15 December 2024).
2024
Articles
- Belea, Miruna Stefana. "Women, Tradition and Icons: The Gendered Use of the Torah Scrolls and the Bible in Orthodox Jewish and Christian Ritual", in: Feminist Theology, Vol. 25 No.3, 2016. DOI: 10.1177/0966735017695954.
2016
In Press
- Belea, Miruna. "By the Name of God and the Merits of the Fathers: The Composition and Elaboration of Two Jewish Magico-Medical Amulets from Gaster's Collection at the John Rylands Library." Accepted for publication in the Journal of Semitic Studies as of May 2016.
(forthcoming)
- Belea, Miruna. "‘As Customary In All Guilds’: The Statutes Of The Jewish Tailors’ Pinqas From Iași (1814)", in: Elena Barile and Miruna Belea (eds.), La vie écrite des communautés juives. Études de cas sur les pinqasim européens (XIIIe-XIXe siècles), Droz, forthcoming.
Other publications
- Belea, Miruna. 'Review of Jewish Magic before the Rise of Kabbalah, by Yuval Harari, trans. by Batya Stein', in: Enoch Seminar Online, 2019. Available at: http://enochseminar.org/review/16207 (last accessed 27th January 2021).