Remembering Dov Noy (1920–2013)

Abstract

One of the twentieth century's most important masters of Jewish folklore-who can be credited with collecting, preserving, and publishing Jewish folktales more than anyone else-has recently died: Professor Dov Noy. He left this world on September 29, 2013, in Jerusalem, where had lived, and the world is a sadder place because of his death. All of us storytellers, folklorists, writers, and scholars who told and published folktales, as well as people who love stories, are indebted to him for what accomplished in order to bring respect to Jewish folklore, especially through the Israel Folktale Archives (IFA). Through his work, shone a gigantic spotlight on the Jewish oral tradition, so that it reached the attention of the world folklore community.Dov Noy was the major figure in the renaissance of preserving and perpetu- ating Jewish folk literature. While published many books and important essays (including the entry Folklore in The Encyclopedia Judaica), his two main con- tributions are that (1) applied the Aarne-Thompson international classification system to Jewish traditional narrative, and (2) established the Israel Folktale Archives. In the first case, Dov Noy (under the name Dov Neuman) wrote his doctoral dissertation in folklore at Indiana University and created a of Talmudic-Midrashic Literature. When folklorist/scholar Stith Thompson revised and republished his Motif-Index of Folk Literature (1955-58), he in turn incor- porated Noy's motifs, thus placing the Jewish traditions in a world-wide context, noted Richard Dorson (qtd. in Noy, Folktales of Israel xii). Before Dov's dissertation, some folklorists held that the Jews had not contributed anything original to world folktales. Rather, Jews were considered to be only transmitters of other people's folktales. This all changed when Stith Thompson learned about the Talmudic and Midrashic literature, thanks to Dov, who was his student at Indiana University.In 1954, Noy established the Israel Folktale Archives and Ethnological Mu- seum at Haifa University. Several years ago, the archive was named in his honor to recognize his significant contribution. At present, it contains over 25,000 folktales, classified according to tale types and motifs, of origin, informants, and so on. These folktales have been collected from all the various ethnic communities in Israel, a melting pot that reflects all the Jewish communities in the world.There is an interesting story that Dov would tell about the initial difficulty in gathering the folktales. In the beginning, when volunteers went to the Moroccan community in Beit She'an to collect some of their folktales, the residents refused to tell any of them. Instead, they told the volunteers that they did not need those folktales anymore because they were now in their new country of Israel, and, as a result, they had left the folktales back in the old country. One of the volunteers asked to tell them a story before leaving, however. This is the story she told:In a certain kingdom in olden days, it was the custom to choose a king by the will of heaven. A rare bird, known as the Bird of Happiness, was sent forth when the king died, and whoever's head the bird rested on became king. It came to pass that when the ruling king died and the bird was sent forth, it rested on a slave's head. The slave used to earn his daily bread playing the drum and dancing at weddings, dressed up in a feathered cap and wearing a belt made of lambs' hooves.When the slave was chosen as king, ordered a small hut built near the royal palace. He put inside it his treasured possessions-his feathered cap, his belt made of lambs' hooves, and his drum, as well as a big mirror.The ministers wondered very much and asked the king to explain his strange behavior. You have to guard your dignity even when you are alone, they reprimanded him.The king answered, was a slave before I became king. …