Introduction: The Foreign in the Own - the Own in the Foreign. Jewish Biographical Writing about Others

In terms of historiographical potential and literary value, depictions of the lives of others are considered inferior to autobiographies. One finds autobiographies, which promise to provide exclusive insights into the historical inner worlds, epistemically more revealing. While their study has become a very important part of Jewish Studies, investigations into the life stories of others represent a notable research gap. This issue takes this remarkable bias in the perception of the two genres within Jewish Studies as its starting point. The contributions gathered here interrogate historical examples of biographical narrative with the aim of unlocking its historiographical potentials and thus highlighting the relevance of biographical writing for the study of Jewish cultures.