Mothers and Children

Mothers and Children
Author: Elisheva Baumgarten
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2004
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9780691091662

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.

Cultural Exchange

Cultural Exchange
Author: Joseph Shatzmiller
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2017-05-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691176183

Demonstrating that similarities between Jewish and Christian art in the Middle Ages were more than coincidental, Cultural Exchange meticulously combines a wide range of sources to show how Jews and Christians exchanged artistic and material culture. Joseph Shatzmiller focuses on communities in northern Europe, Iberia, and other Mediterranean societies where Jews and Christians coexisted for centuries, and he synthesizes the most current research to describe the daily encounters that enabled both societies to appreciate common artistic values. Detailing the transmission of cultural sensibilities in the medieval money market and the world of Jewish money lenders, this book examines objects pawned by peasants and humble citizens, sacred relics exchanged by the clergy as security for loans, and aesthetic goods given up by the Christian well-to-do who required financial assistance. The work also explores frescoes and decorations likely painted by non-Jews in medieval and early modern Jewish homes located in Germanic lands, and the ways in which Jews hired Christian artists and craftsmen to decorate Hebrew prayer books and create liturgical objects. Conversely, Christians frequently hired Jewish craftsmen to produce liturgical objects used in Christian churches. With rich archival documentation, Cultural Exchange sheds light on the social and economic history of the creation of Jewish and Christian art, and expands the general understanding of cultural exchange in brand-new ways.

Queering the Text

Queering the Text
Author: Andrew Ramer
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2020-03-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1532665121

Ramer plays and grapples with traditional midrashim, drawing inspiration from the homoerotic love poems of medieval Spain, and envisioning alternate versions of the present. Inspired by the pioneering work of Jewish feminists, he has crafted stories that anchor LGBT lives in the 3,000-year-old history of the Jewish people.

Living Together, Living Apart

Living Together, Living Apart
Author: Jonathan Elukin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2013-12-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691162069

This book challenges the standard conception of the Middle Ages as a time of persecution for Jews. Jonathan Elukin traces the experience of Jews in Europe from late antiquity through the Renaissance and Reformation, revealing how the pluralism of medieval society allowed Jews to feel part of their local communities despite recurrent expressions of hatred against them. Elukin shows that Jews and Christians coexisted more or less peacefully for much of the Middle Ages, and that the violence directed at Jews was largely isolated and did not undermine their participation in the daily rhythms of European society. The extraordinary picture that emerges is one of Jews living comfortably among their Christian neighbors, working with Christians, and occasionally cultivating lasting friendships even as Christian culture often demonized Jews. As Elukin makes clear, the expulsions of Jews from England, France, Spain, and elsewhere were not the inevitable culmination of persecution, but arose from the religious and political expediencies of particular rulers. He demonstrates that the history of successful Jewish-Christian interaction in the Middle Ages in fact laid the social foundations that gave rise to the Jewish communities of modern Europe. Elukin compels us to rethink our assumptions about this fascinating period in history, offering us a new lens through which to appreciate the rich complexities of the Jewish experience in medieval Christendom.

Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times

Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2014-03-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004267840

This volume brings together articles on the cultural, religious, social and commercial interactions among Jews, Christians and Muslims in the medieval and early modern periods. Written by leading scholars in Jewish studies, Islamic studies, medieval history and social and economic history, the contributions to this volume reflect the profound influence on these fields of the volume’s honoree, Professor Mark R. Cohen.

Medieval Jewish Civilization

Medieval Jewish Civilization
Author: Norman Roth
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 726
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1136771557

This is the first encyclopedic work to focus exclusively on medieval Jewish civilization, from the fall of the Roman Empire to about 1492. The more than 150 alphabetically organized entries, written by scholars from around the world, include biographies, countries, events, social history, and religious concepts. The coverage is international, presenting people, culture, and events from various countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. For a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia website.

Regional Identities and Cultures of Medieval Jews

Regional Identities and Cultures of Medieval Jews
Author: Javier Castano
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2018-05-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1786949903

The origins of Judaism’s regional ‘subcultures’ are poorly understood, as are Jewish identities other than ‘Ashkenaz’ and ‘Sepharad’. Through case studies and close textual readings, this volume illuminates the role of geopolitical boundaries, cross-cultural influences, and migration in the medieval formation of Jewish regional identities.

The Origin of Israelite Zion Theology

The Origin of Israelite Zion Theology
Author: Antti Laato
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2018-08-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567680037

In this examination of Zion theology and how it arises in the book of Psalms Antti Laato's starting-point is that the Hebrew Bible is the product of the exilic and postexilic times, which nonetheless contains older traditions that have played a significant role in the development of the text. Laato seeks out these older mythical traditions related to Zion using a comparative methodology and looking at Biblical traditions alongside Ugaritic texts and other ancient Near Eastern material. As such Laato provides a historical background for Zion theology which he can apply more broadly to the Psalms. In addition, Laato argues that Zion-related theology in the Psalms is closely related to two events recounted in the Hebrew Bible. First, the architectural details of the Temple of Solomon (1 Kings 6-7), which can be compared with older mythical Zion-related traditions. Second, the religious traditions related to the reigns of David and Solomon such as the Ark Narrative, which ends with David's transfer of the Ark to Jerusalem (2 Sam 6). From this Laato builds an argument for a possible setting in Jerusalem at the time of David and Solomon for the Zion theology that emerges in the Psalms.

Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln

Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln
Author: Gluckel
Publisher: Schocken
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2011-09-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0307806383

Begun in 1690, this diary of a forty-four-year-old German Jewish widow, mother of fourteen children, tells how she guided the financial and personal destinies of her children, how she engaged in trade, ran her own factory, and promoted the welfare of her large family. Her memoir, a rare account of an ordinary woman, enlightens not just her children, for whom she wrote it, but all posterity about her life and community. Gluckel speaks to us with determination and humor from the seventeenth century. She tells of war, plague, pirates, soldiers, the hysteria of the false messiah Sabbtai Zevi, murder, bankruptcy, wedding feasts, births, deaths, in fact, of all the human events that befell her during her lifetime. She writes in a matter of fact way of the frightening and precarious situation under which the Jews of northern Germany lived. Accepting this situation as given, she boldly and fearlessly promotes her business, her family and her faith. This memoir is a document in the history of women and of life in the seventeenth century.