Author: Jon Irving Bloomberg
Publisher: KTAV Publishing House, Inc.
ISBN: 9780881256840
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description

Author: Jacob R. Marcus
Publisher: Hebrew Union College Press
ISBN: 0878201769
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 603

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Book Description
To gain an accurate view of medieval Judaism, one must look through the eyes of Jews and their contemporaries. First published in 1938, Jacob Rader Marcus's classic source book on medieval Judaism provides the documents and historical narratives which let the actors and witnesses of events speak for themselves. The medieval epoch in Jewish history begins around the year 315, when the emperor Constantine began enacting disabling laws against the Jews, rendering them second-class citizens. In the centuries following, Jews enjoyed (or suffered under) legislation, either chosen or forced by the state, which differed from the laws for the Christian and Muslim masses. Most states saw the Jews as simply a tolerated group, even when given favorable privileges. The masses often disliked them. Medieval Jewish history presents a picture wherein large patches are characterized by political and social disabilities. Marcus closes the medieval Jewish age (for Western Jewry) in 1791 with the proclamation of political and civil emancipation in France. The 137 sources included in the anthology include historical narratives, codes, legal opinions, martyrologies, memoirs, polemics, epitaphs, advertisements, folk-tales, ethical and pedagogical writings, book prefaces and colophons, commentaries, and communal statutes. These documents are organized in three sections: The first treats the relation of the State to the Jew and reflects the civil and political status of the Jew in the medieval setting. The second deals with the profound influence exerted by the Catholic and Protestant churches on Jewish life and well-being. The final section presents a study of the Jew "at home," with four sub-divisions with treat the life of the medieval Jew in its various aspects. Marcus presents the texts themselves, introductions, and lucid notes. Marc Saperstein offers a new introduction and updated bibliography.

Author: Jacob Rader Marcus
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Jews
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description

Author: Anthony Bale
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 178023001X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
In Feeling Persecuted, Anthony Bale explores the medieval Christian attitude toward Jews, which included a pervasive fear of persecution and an imagined fear of violence enacted against Christians. As a result, Christians retaliated with expulsions, riots, and murders that systematically denied Jews the right to religious freedom and peace. Through close readings of a wide range of sources, Bale exposes the perceived violence enacted by the Jews and how the images of this Christian suffering and persecution were central to medieval ideas of love, community, and home. The images and texts explored by Bale expose a surprising practice of recreational persecution and show that the violence perpetrated against medieval Jews was far from simple anti-Semitism and was in fact a complex part of medieval life and culture. Bale’s comprehensive look at medieval poetry, drama, visual culture, theology, and philosophy makes Feeling Persecuted an important read for anyone interested in the history of Christian-Jewish relations and the impact of this history on modern culture.

Author: Jacob Rader Marcus
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Jews
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description

Author: Ephraim Kanarfogel
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814336531
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
Paperback edition of a favorite text on the literary creativity and communal involvement in the production of the Tosafist corpus.

Author: Carol Bakhos
Publisher: SBL Press
ISBN: 1628374721
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
For many, the Middle Ages in general evokes a sense of the sinister and brings to mind a world of fear, superstition, and religious fanaticism. For Jews it was a period marked by persecutions, pogroms, and expulsions. Yet at the same time, the Middle Ages was also a time of lively cultural exchange and heightened creativity for Jews. In The Jewish Middle Ages, contributors explore the ways in which the stories of biblical women, including, Eve, Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Zipporah, Ruth, Esther, and Judith, make their way into the rich tapestry of medieval Jewish literature, mystical texts, and art, particularly in works emanating from Ashkenazic circles. Contributors include Carol Bakhos, Judith R. Baskin, Elisheva Baumgarten, Dagmar Börner-Klein, Constanza Cordoni, Rachel Elior, Meret Gutmann-Grün, Robert A. Harris, Yuval Katz-Wilfing, Sheila Tuller Keiter, Katrin Kogman-Appel, Gerhard Langer, Aurora Salvatierra Ossorio, and Felicia Waldman. These essays give us a glimpse into the role women played and the authority they assumed in medieval Jewish culture beyond the rabbinic centers of Palestine and Babylonia.

Author: Robert Chazan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139493043
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
This book re-evaluates the prevailing notion that Jews in medieval Christian Europe lived under an appalling regime of ecclesiastical limitation, governmental exploitation and expropriation, and unceasing popular violence. Robert Chazan argues that, while Jewish life in medieval Western Christendom was indeed beset with grave difficulties, it was nevertheless an environment rich in opportunities; the Jews of medieval Europe overcame obstacles, grew in number, explored innovative economic options, and fashioned enduring new forms of Jewish living. His research also provides a reconsideration of the legacy of medieval Jewish life, which is often depicted as equally destructive and projected as the underpinning of the twentieth-century catastrophes of antisemitism and the Holocaust. Dr Chazan's research proves that, although Jewish life in the medieval West laid the foundation for much Jewish suffering in the post-medieval world, it also stimulated considerable Jewish ingenuity, which lies at the root of impressive Jewish successes in the modern West.

Author: Robert Chazan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108340199
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Volume 6 examines the history of Judaism during the second half of the Middle Ages. Through the first half of the Middle Ages, the Jewish communities of western Christendom lagged well behind those of eastern Christendom and the even more impressive Jewries of the Islamic world. As Western Christendom began its remarkable surge forward in the eleventh century, this progress had an impact on the Jewish minority as well. The older Jewries of southern Europe grew and became more productive in every sense. Even more strikingly, a new set of Jewries were created across northern Europe, when this undeveloped area was strengthened demographically, economically, militarily, and culturally. From the smallest and weakest of the world's Jewish centers in the year 1000, the Jewish communities of western Christendom emerged - despite considerable obstacles - as the world's dominant Jewish center by the end of the Middle Ages. This demographic, economic, cultural, and spiritual dominance was maintained down into modernity.

Author: Elisheva Baumgarten
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400849268
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
This book presents a synthetic history of the family--the most basic building block of medieval Jewish communities--in Germany and northern France during the High Middle Ages. Concentrating on the special roles of mothers and children, it also advances recent efforts to write a comparative Jewish-Christian social history. Elisheva Baumgarten draws on a rich trove of primary sources to give a full portrait of medieval Jewish family life during the period of childhood from birth to the beginning of formal education at age seven. Illustrating the importance of understanding Jewish practice in the context of Christian society and recognizing the shared foundations in both societies, Baumgarten's examination of Jewish and Christian practices and attitudes is explicitly comparative. Her analysis is also wideranging, covering nearly every aspect of home life and childrearing, including pregnancy, midwifery, birth and initiation rituals, nursing, sterility, infanticide, remarriage, attitudes toward mothers and fathers, gender hierarchies, divorce, widowhood, early education, and the place of children in the home, synagogue, and community. A richly detailed and deeply researched contribution to our understanding of the relationship between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors, Mothers and Children provides a key analysis of the history of Jewish families in medieval Ashkenaz.