Episode description

Bovo-Buch: Chivalric Romance, Cultural Collision is a four-episode podcast series produced by theatre dybbuk, presented in collaboration with Judaism Unbound.

Bovo-Buch is Elia Levita's 16th century Yiddish adaptation of the popular Italian chivalric romance Bovo d’Antona. The book was extremely popular among Jewish communities of the time, and is an example of the cultural convergence that occurs when a narrative is adapted into a new context. Our three episode podcast is a combination of scholarship around the book and its history – led by Erith Jaffe-Berg in conversation with Aaron Henne – and performed readings of the text by actors from theatre dybbuk.

In this episode, the 4th of four, the focus is on the book’s reach and popularity, as well as the problematic nature of its relationship to its Muslim characters, and the divisions among the Jewish communities of Northern Italy.

Learn more about theatre dybbuk by heading to www.theatredybbuk.org.