Professor Dr Willem Smelik is a professor of Hebrew and Aramaic Literature at University College London (UK). He held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2018-2019), a Harry Star Fellowship of the University of Harvard (2017-2018), received a Rothschild Foundation Europe Post-doctoral research grant (2010-2011), was a European Seminar on Advanced Jewish Studies Fellow at Oxford University (2010), received the Yad Hanadiv/Beracha Foundation Fellowship (2003-2004), was a visiting professor, Lady Davis Fellowship Trust at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (2003), received a British Academy research grant (2000) and multiple other honours. He was president of the International Organisation for Targum Studies (2007-2018). He is, since 2003, editor of Aramaic Studies (Leiden: Brill) and, since 2001, member of the Targum Edition Exploration Committee. He is a member of the board of the Journal for the Study of Judaism as well as its supplement series. He also was a member of the executive committee of the British Association for Jewish Studies.

Work programme and Research Focus 2021:

Professor Smelik is the expert for the Aramaic translation of Biblical books. The Book of Esther is known for its two (or three – the latter is still debated) Aramaic translations, which are called Targumim. This expertise, Professor Smelik brings to Salzburg, where he will engage in research that deals with the origins of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, esp. as it relates to the book of Esther, in which the first (or one of the first) pogrom against the Jews is described. Whereas the relation between the Hebrew text and the Aramaic texts of the Book of Esther are complex but understandable, the link between the Aramaic texts and the Greek versions of the Book of Esther is rather problematic.  Professor Smelik has developed a theory on “code-switching” and will apply this theory to the complexities of the textual variety of the book of Esther. The focus will be on those texts that deal with the pogrom against the Jews as set up in the first half of the book of Esther and the dismantling of this plan as described in the second half of the book.