Dov Noy (Hebrew: דב נוי, 20 October 1920 – 29 September 2013) was an Israeli folklorist. He is considered one of the most important researchers in the field of Jewish folk tales.
Dov Noy | |
|---|---|
דב נוי | |
 Dov Noy | |
| Born | Dov Neuman 20 October 1920 |
| Died | 29 September 2013 (aged 92) |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Occupation | Folklorist |
| Known for | Founding the Israel Folktale Archives |
| Spouse | Tamar Noy |
| Children |
|
| Awards |
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| Academic background | |
| Education | |
| Thesis | Motif-Index of Talmudic-Midrashic Literature (1954) |
Early life and education
editDov Noy was born as Dov Neuman on 20 October 1920, in Kolomyia, Galicia (then Poland, now Ukraine). He got a traditional Jewish education and had a private tutor, Jewish poet Shimshon Meltzer.[1] He emigrated to Palestine in 1938 and studied Talmud, Jewish history and the Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[2][3] He served as a volunteer for the British Army Royal Engineers[1] from 1941 to 1945.[2] Most of Noy's family were killed in the Holocaust,[2] with the exception of himself and his brother Meir, who emigrated to Israel in 1948.[1]
After the war, in 1946, Noy got his MA from the Hebrew University.[1] He then worked as a teacher in British internment camps for Holocaust survivors in Cyprus in 1947–1949, where he met his brother Meir.[1] From 1949 to 1952, he was part of the editorial team of a children's weekly magazine Davar Le'yeladim.[2]
He studied in the United States from 1952 to 1954, first studying comparative literature under René Wellek at Yale University before moving to Indiana University Bloomington.[1] There, he completed his doctoral dissertation under the supervision of folklorist Stith Thompson. Titled "Motif-Index of Talmudic-Midrashic Literature", Noy's dissertation analyzed motifs in rabbinic literature.[3] This work was later included into Thompson's six-volume Motif-Index of Folk-Literature,[4] "greatly raising the status of Jewish folklore in the field".[3] Noy was the first folklorist who applied the Aarne-Thompson classification to Jewish folklore.[5]
Career
editUpon returning to Israel in 1955, Noy began teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, focusing on aggadah.[4] The same year, he founded the Israel Folktale Archives in Haifa,[3][2] which would go on to collect more than 25,000 Jewish folktales from around the world.[5][2][6][7] The archive was later renamed in Noy's honor. Noy collected and analysed folk tales of multiple Jewish communities, including Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jews.[3][2] The collection of the Israel Folktale Archives have been published in English translation in the series Folktales of the Jews, edited by Noy's student Dan Ben-Amos.[3]
He also founded the Folklore Research Center at the Hebrew University and taught Jewish Folklore course there.[2][6] Noy travelled a lot, giving lectures and attending conferences.[5] In 1985–92, he was also the Professor of Yiddish Folklore at Bar-Ilan University.[1]
Recognition
editIn 2004, Noy was awarded the Israel Prize, the country's highest honor, for his folklore research.[2] In 2002, he got the Bialik Prize.[6] He was called "The Doyen of Jewish Folkloristics",[2][7] and that he "single-handedly established the study of Jewish Folklore in Israel".[6][2]
Noy died on 29 September 2013, in Jerusalem.[3]
Family and students
edit
Composer and ethnomusicologist Meir Noy (1922–1998),[1] Dov Noy's brother, founded a music archive, the "Hebrew Song Collection", in Tel Aviv.[1][6]
Noy was married to historian Tamar Noy; their son Chaim Noy is a media and communication professor. He was married before, and had two sons, poet Amos Noy[8] and Izhar.[9]
Among his students are Heda Jason, Dan Ben-Amos, Aliza Shenhar, Eli Yassif, Tamar Alexander, Haya Bar-Itzhak, and Galit Hasan-Rokem.[6][5] Noy was known for his "astounding memory" and good sense of humor.[6] Noy was fluent in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, Russian, and German.[10]
Publications
edit- Neuman (Noy), Dov (1954). Motif-Index of Talmudic-Midrashic Literature (PDF) (PhD). Indiana University. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
- Noy, Dov (1 January 1961). "The First Thousand Folktales in the Israel Folktale Archives". Fabula. 4 (1): 99–110. doi:10.1515/fabl.1961.4.1.99.
- Noy, Dov (1963). Folktales of Israel. University of Chicago Press. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
- Noy, Dov; Ben-Amos, Dan; Frankel, Ellen (2006). Folktales of the Jews, Volume 1: Tales from the Sephardic Dispersion. Jewish Publication Society. ISBN 978-0-8276-0829-0.
- Ben-Amos, Dan; Noy, Dov (2006). Folktales of the Jews, Volume 2: Tales from Eastern Europe. Jewish Publication Society. ISBN 978-0-8276-0830-6. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
- Ben-Amos, Dan; Noy, Dov (2011). Folktales of the Jews, Volume 3: Tales from Arab Lands. Jewish Publication Society. ISBN 978-0-8276-0871-9. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i Hasan-Rokem, Galit (1 January 2014). "Dov Noy (1920–2013)" (PDF). Fabula. 55 (3–4). doi:10.1515/fabula-2014-0021. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Bar-Itzhak, Haya (2 January 2014). "Dov Noy (1920–2013): The Doyen of Jewish Folkloristics". Folklore. 125 (1): 125–127. doi:10.1080/0015587X.2014.890782.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Jewish Folklorist Dov Noy Dies at 92". The Forward. 1 October 2013. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
- ^ a b Ben-Amos, Dan (2014). "Dov Noy (1920–2013)". Journal of American Folklore. 127 (506): 467–469. doi:10.5406/jamerfolk.127.506.0467. ISSN 1535-1882. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
- ^ a b c d Schram, Peninnah (September 2013). "Remembering Dov Noy (1920–2013)". Storytelling, Self, Society. 9 (2): 277–283. doi:10.13110/storselfsoci.9.2.0277.
- ^ a b c d e f g Schwartz, Howard (25 February 2014). "Recalling Professor Dov Noy: World's Foremost Jewish Folklorist | Jewish Book Council". www.jewishbookcouncil.org. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
- ^ a b Deutsch, Nathaniel (2011). The Jewish Dark Continent: Life and Death in the Russian Pale of Settlement. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. p. 319. ISBN 978-0674047280.
- ^ Noy, Amos, Three Variants of a Riddle and a Solution: In Memory of Dov Noy (PDF), retrieved 9 July 2024
- ^ "Chaim Noy's Academic Home Page". www.chaimnoy.com. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
- ^ "Dov Noy Archive". National Library of Israel. Retrieved 14 July 2024.
Further reading
edit- Ben-Amos, Dan (8 December 2014). "Jewish Folklore as Counterculture". AJS Perspectives. Retrieved 3 July 2024.