HEDA JASON

Jason immigrated to Israel in 1949, shortly after the founding of the state. She
studied cultural science of the Near and Middle East at the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem and received her bachelor's degree in 1964.

From 1963 to 1964 she took courses in folklore, ethnology, linguistics and simple
literary forms at the University of Göttingen, then anthropology and folklore at the
University of California, Berkeley, and then at Indiana University, Bloomington,
where she met with Dov Noy. 1] Noy had earned his doctorate here and then also
habilitated, so Jason in 1967 his first doctoral student. She also gave her
knowledge and research results, namely from 1968 to 1978 at the University of Tel
Aviv within the Department of poetry and comparative literature. Prior to that, she
made considerable pioneering work in the field of exploring folkloric roots of the
Jews between 1955 and 1963, conducting surveys of immigrants from Arab and
Muslim countries of origin, and capturing and categorizing the traditions thus
obtained.

[1] Their collection then also formed the basis for Noy's compilation Folktales of
Israel from 1963. [2] She developed a theoretical analysis method based on the
writings of the then relatively unknown in the West Russian formalists. Their
views she combined with the semantic approach of the Swiss fairy tale interpreter
Max Lüthi. With this combination, she created a unified scientific framework for
dealing with traditional folk material and coined the term "Ethnopoetics", for
which the term "Ethnote texts" is used in German. [3] This was accomplished
without the backing of a university, albeit under the auspices of the Israeli Institute
of Ethnography. [2] With her collecting zeal she brought the Israel Folktale
Archives (IFA) founded by Noy in Haifa in 1955 significantly ahead.

[1] There are now - also thanks to Heda Jason - 21,000 "Folktales" from the 13
cultural circles, which the current population of Israel (mainly) has sprung. [5] Of
their numerous publications are mainly the lists of folk poetry, or better said ethical
texts, their categorization and the necessary classification instructions to highlight.
 The Structure of Jewish-Near Estern Sacred Legends. Kongress-Manuskript
(IV. Congress of Jewish Studies), 1965.
 Jewish Narrating Art in Yemen and in Israel. In: Fabula. 8, 1966, S. 93–
106.
 The Russian Criticism of the „Finnish Shool“. In: Folktale Scholarship.
Februar 1968.
 A Multidimensional Approach to Oral Literature: A Proposal. 1968.
(online)
 The Narrative Structure of Swindler Tales. In: Arv. 27, 1971, S. 141–160
(war bereits 1966 Vortrags-Manuskript).
 Jewish Near Eastern Numskull Tales. An Attempt at Interpretation. In: Asian
Folklore Studies. 31, 1972, S. 1–31.
 Studies in Jewish Ethnopoetry. Oriental Cultural Service, Taipeh 1975.
 Ethnopoetics. Multilingual Terminology. Israel Ethnographics Society,
Jerusalem 1975.
 Types of Oral Tales in Israel. 1975.
 Märchen aus Israel. 1976.
 Ethnopoetry. Form, content, function (= Forum Theologiae Linguisticae.
11). Linguistica Biblica, Bonn 1977, ISBN 3-87797-021-4. (online)[1]
 The Fairy Tale of the Active Heroine: An Outline for Discussion. In:
Geneviève Calame-Giraule, Veronika Görög-Karady: Le Conte, pourquoi?
Comment? Actes des journées d’études en littérature orale. Editions du
CNRS, Paris 1982.
 Whom Does God Favor: The Wicked or the Righteous? The Reward-and-
Punishment Fairy Tale. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki 1988, ISBN
951-41-0570-2.
 „God bless you!“ The legend of curse and redemption. In: Ingo Schneider
(Hrsg.): Europäische Ethnologie und Folklore im internationalen Kontext.
Festschrift für Leander Petzoldt zum 65. Geburtstag. Lang, Frankfurt am
Main u. a. 1999, ISBN 3-631-34651-4, S. 129–144.
 Index of Content Types for Oral Epics: A Report. In: Walther Heissig,
Rüdiger Schott (Hrsg.): Die heutige Bedeutung oraler Traditionen. Ihre
Archivierung, Publikation und Index-Erschließung. Westdeutscher Verlag,
Opladen/ Wiesbaden 1998, ISBN 3-322-83676-2, S. 269–278.
 Motif, type and genre. A manual for compilation of indices & a biblio-
graphy of indices and indexing Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki 2000,
ISBN 951-41-0879-5.
 Literary Aspects of the Siri Pâddana. Some Preliminary Observations. In:
Indian Folklore Research Journal. National Folklore Support Centre, Vol. 1,
No. 2, May 2002, S. 35–39.
 King David: a Folklore Analysis of his Biography. In: Studies in the Bible
and the Ancient Near East, in Hebrew and Semitic Languages.
Archaeological Center Publications, Tel Aviv, Jaffa 2004, S. 87–106.