Dov Noy

Dov 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 {{ill|Shimshon Meltzer|he|שמשון מלצר}}.{{cite journal |last1=Hasan-Rokem |first1=Galit |title=Dov Noy (1920–2013) |journal=Fabula |date=1 January 2014 |volume=55 |issue=3–4 |doi=10.1515/fabula-2014-0021 |url=http://www.chaimnoy.com/Abstracts/GalitonAbaFabula.pdf |access-date=3 July 2024}} He emigrated to Palestine in 1938 and studied Talmud, Jewish history and the Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.{{cite web |title=Jewish Folklorist Dov Noy Dies at 92 |url=https://forward.com/schmooze/184832/jewish-folklorist-dov-noy-dies-at-92/ |website=The Forward |access-date=3 July 2024 |language=en |date=1 October 2013}} He served as a volunteer for the British Army Royal Engineers from 1941 to 1945. Most of Noy's family were killed in the Holocaust, with the exception of himself and his brother Meir, who emigrated to Israel in 1948.

After the war, in 1946, Noy got his MA from the Hebrew University. He then worked as a teacher in British internment camps for Holocaust survivors in Cyprus in 1947–1949, where he met his brother Meir. From 1949 to 1952, he was part of the editorial team of a children's weekly magazine Davar Le'yeladim.

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. 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. This work was later included into Thompson's six-volume Motif-Index of Folk-Literature,{{cite journal |last1=Ben-Amos |first1=Dan |title=Dov Noy (1920–2013) |journal=Journal of American Folklore |date=2014 |volume=127 |issue=506 |pages=467–469 |doi=10.5406/jamerfolk.127.506.0467 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/560388 |access-date=3 July 2024 |issn=1535-1882|url-access=subscription }} "greatly raising the status of Jewish folklore in the field". Noy was the first folklorist who applied the Aarne-Thompson classification to Jewish folklore.{{cite journal |last1=Schram |first1=Peninnah |title=Remembering Dov Noy (1920–2013) |journal=Storytelling, Self, Society |date=September 2013 |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages=277–283 |doi=10.13110/storselfsoci.9.2.0277}} Thompson called Noy "one of the most brilliant disciples I have ever had".{{cite web |url=https://blog.nli.org.il/en/dov_noy/ |title=By Three Things a Person Is Known |first=Chava |last=Levine |publisher=National Library of Israel}}

Upon returning to Israel in 1955, Noy began teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, focusing on aggadah. The same year, he founded the Israel Folktale Archives in Haifa, which would go on to collect more than 25,000 Jewish folktales from around the world. 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. 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.

He also founded the Folklore Research Center at the Hebrew University and taught Jewish Folklore course there. Noy travelled a lot, giving lectures and attending conferences. In 1985–92, he was also the Professor of Yiddish Folklore at Bar-Ilan University.

In 2004, Noy was awarded the Israel Prize, the country's highest honor, for his folklore research.{{cite journal |last1=Bar-Itzhak |first1=Haya |title=Dov Noy (1920–2013): The Doyen of Jewish Folkloristics |journal=Folklore |date=2 January 2014 |volume=125 |issue=1 |pages=125–127 |doi=10.1080/0015587X.2014.890782}} In 2002, he got the Bialik Prize. He was called "The Doyen of Jewish Folkloristics",{{cite book |last1=Deutsch |first1=Nathaniel |author1-link=Nathaniel Deutsch |title=The Jewish Dark Continent: Life and Death in the Russian Pale of Settlement |date=2011 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Mass |isbn=978-0674047280 |page=319}} and that he "single-handedly established the study of Jewish Folklore in Israel".{{cite web |last1=Schwartz |first1=Howard |author1-link=Howard Schwartz (writer and editor) |title=Recalling Professor Dov Noy: World's Foremost Jewish Folklorist {{!}} Jewish Book Council |url=https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/pb-daily/recalling-professor-dov-noy-worlds-foremost-jewish-folklorist |website=www.jewishbookcouncil.org |access-date=3 July 2024 |language=en |date=25 February 2014}}

Noy died on 29 September 2013, in Jerusalem.

File:Meir Noy.jpg

Composer and ethnomusicologist {{ill|Meir Noy|he|מאיר נוי}} (1922–1998), Dov Noy's brother, founded a music archive, the "Hebrew Song Collection", in Tel Aviv.

Noy was married to historian {{ill|Tamar Noy|he|תמר נוי}}; their son Chaim Noy is a media and communication professor. He was married before, and had two sons, poet Amos Noy{{citation |last1=Noy |first1=Amos |title=Three Variants of a Riddle and a Solution: In Memory of Dov Noy |url=https://jstudies.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/jstudies/files/folklore_-_33_-_00_-_abstracts_e.pdf |access-date=9 July 2024}} and Izhar.{{cite web |title=Chaim Noy's Academic Home Page |url=http://www.chaimnoy.com/ |website=www.chaimnoy.com |access-date=3 July 2024}}

Among his students are {{ill|Heda Jason|de|Heda Jason}}, Dan Ben-Amos, Aliza Shenhar, {{ill|Eli Yassif|he|עלי יסיף}}, {{ill|Tamar Alexander|es|Tamar Alexander-Frizer}}, Haya Bar-Itzhak, and Galit Hasan-Rokem. Noy was known for his "astounding memory" and good sense of humor. Noy was fluent in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, Russian, and German.{{cite web |title=Dov Noy Archive |url=https://www.nli.org.il/en/archives/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL990043725570205171/NLI |publisher=National Library of Israel |access-date=14 July 2024}}

• {{Cite thesis |last1=Neuman (Noy) |first1=Dov |year=1954 |title=Motif-Index of Talmudic-Midrashic Literature |url=http://folkmasa.org/motiv/NOY_%20Dov_%20Motif-Index_of_Talmudic-Midrashic_Literature.pdf |type=PhD |publisher=Indiana University |access-date=3 July 2024}}
• {{Cite journal |last1=Noy |first1=Dov |date=1 January 1961 |title=The First Thousand Folktales in the Israel Folktale Archives |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=99–110 |doi=10.1515/fabl.1961.4.1.99 |journal=Fabula}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Noy |first1=Dov |date=1963 |title=Folktales of Israel |publisher=University of Chicago Press |url=https://archive.org/details/folktalesofisrae00dovn |access-date=3 July 2024}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Noy |first1=Dov |last2=Ben-Amos |first2=Dan |last3=Frankel |first3=Ellen |date=2006 |title=Folktales of the Jews, Volume 1: Tales from the Sephardic Dispersion |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eKceGfr-al4C |publisher=Jewish Publication Society |isbn=978-0-8276-0829-0 |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Ben-Amos |first1=Dan |last2=Noy |first2=Dov |date=2006 |title=Folktales of the Jews, Volume 2: Tales from Eastern Europe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lE2mDIMk5mAC |publisher=Jewish Publication Society |isbn=978-0-8276-0830-6 |access-date=3 July 2024 |language=en}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Ben-Amos |first1=Dan |last2=Noy |first2=Dov |date=2011 |title=Folktales of the Jews, Volume 3: Tales from Arab Lands |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aMI4DzpymSIC |publisher=Jewish Publication Society |isbn=978-0-8276-0871-9 |access-date=3 July 2024 |language=en}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite web |last=Ben-Amos |first=Dan |date=8 December 2014 |title=Jewish Folklore as Counterculture |url=http://perspectives.ajsnet.org/the-peoples-issue/jewish-folklore-as-counterculture/ |website=AJS Perspectives |access-date=3 July 2024}}

• [https://www.nli.org.il/en/archives/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL990043725570205171/NLI Dov Noy Archive]
• [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlVWd8KbdNhjYv5cm4kj9R9wcsAob6e2N Stroum Lectures 1986 by Dov Noy]
• [https://ifa.haifa.ac.il/index.php/en/ Israel Folktale Archives]

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Category:1920 births

Category:2013 deaths

Category:Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni

Category:Indiana University Bloomington alumni

Category:Israel Prize recipients

Category:Israeli folklorists

Category:Jewish folklorists