Aspects of Jewish Culture in the Middle Ages

Aspects of Jewish Culture in the Middle Ages PDF

Author: Paul E. Szarmach

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1438421699

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These are the papers and discussions of the eighth annual conference of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies at the State University of New York, Binghamton. The topics discussed were the relationship between Jewish and medieval studies, the patristic basis for Christian attitudes on the Jews, the Hispanic literary tradition, Jewish Spain, problems in Jewish art, and myth criticism and medieval studies.

Jewish Life in the Middle Ages

Jewish Life in the Middle Ages PDF

Author: Israel Abrahams

Publisher: Jewish Publication Society

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 0827605420

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This classic work of scholarship illustrates the richness, complexity, and fullness of medieval Jewish life. Readers will discover how much was hidden from the inquisitive and often hostile gaze of Christian Europe. Israel Abrahams vividly details the customs, manners, and mores, and delves into the social culture of Jewish life at this time.

Jewish Life in the Middle Ages

Jewish Life in the Middle Ages PDF

Author: Thérèse Metzger

Publisher: New York : Alpine Fine Arts Collection

Published: 1982

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13:

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The miniatures which enhance medieval Hebrew manuscripts, whether in prayerbooks, ceremonials for feast days, ritual, legal or philosophical treatises, clearly reflect various aspects of Jewish life during the period. In addition to religious and ceremonial practices, the many facets of everyday life in the family, in cities and in the countryside are treated, as are social and economic activities at all levels and in all professions. Drawing upon the surviving miniatures in illuminated Hebrew manuscripts as primary source material, Thérèse and Mendel Metzger have reconstructed a detailed and exhaustive account of Jewish life in Europe during the Middle Ages. The volume is divided into five sections which encompass historic and geographic background, everyday surroundings, family life and education, social and economic life, and religious activity.--From publisher description.

Rituals of Childhood

Rituals of Childhood PDF

Author: Ivan G. Marcus

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2015-05-01

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 030015674X

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In medieval times, when a Jewish boy of five began religious schooling, he was carried from home to a teacher and placed on the teacher's lap. He was then asked to recite the Hebrew alphabet and lick honey from the slate on which it was written, to eat magically inscribed cooked peeled eggs and cakes, to recite an incantation against a demon of forgetfulness, and then to go down to the riverbank with the teacher, where he was told that his future study of the Torah, like the rushing river, would never end. This book--Ivan Marcus's erudite and novel interpretation of this rite of passage--presents a new anthropological historical approach to Jewish culture and acculturation in medieval Christian Europe. Marcus traces ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman elements in the rite and then analyzes it from different perspectives, making use of narrative, legal, poetic, ethnographic, and pictorial sources, as well as firsthand accounts. He then describes contemporary medieval Christian images and initiation rites--including the eucharist and the Madonna and child--as contexts within which to understand the ceremony. He is the first to investigate how medieval Jews were aware of, drew upon, and polemically transformed Christian religious symbols into Jewish counterimages in order to affirm the truth of Judaism and to make sense of living as Jews in an intensely Christian culture.

Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in the Middle Ages

Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in the Middle Ages PDF

Author: Elisheva Baumgarten

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2022-06-07

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0812297520

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In Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in the Middle Ages, Elisheva Baumgarten examines how medieval Jewish engagement with the Bible--especially in the tellings, retellings, and illustrations of stories of women--offers a window onto aspects of the daily lives and cultural mentalités of Ashkenazic Jews in the High Middle Ages.

Judaism in Practice

Judaism in Practice PDF

Author: Lawrence Fine

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-04-13

Total Pages: 555

ISBN-13: 0691227985

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This collection of original materials provides a sweeping view of medieval and early modern Jewish ritual and religious practice. Including such diverse texts as ritual manuals, legal codes, mystical books, autobiographical writings, folk literature, and liturgical poetry, it testifies to the enormous variety of practices that characterized Judaism in the twelve hundred years between 600 and 1800 C.E. Its focus on religious practice and experience--how Judaism was actually lived by people from day to day--makes this anthology unique among the few sourcebooks available. The volume encompasses the broad scope and complex texture of Jewish religious practice, taking into account many aspects of Jewish culture that have hitherto been relatively neglected: the religious life of ordinary people, the role and status of women, art and aesthetics, and marginalized as well as remote Jewish communities. It introduces such remarkable personalities as Moses Maimonides, Leon Modena, and Gluckel of Hameln, and presents extraordinary texts on festival practice, Torah study, mystical communities, meditation, exorcism, the practice of charity, and folk rites marking birth and death. Representing state-of-the-art scholarship by distinguished academics from around the world, the volume includes many materials never before translated into English. Each text is preceded by an accessible introduction, making this book suitable for college and university students as well as a general audience. Whether read as a deliberate course of study or dipped into selectively for a glimpse into fascinating Jewish lives and places, Judaism in Practice holds rich rewards for any reader.

The Jew in the Medieval World

The Jew in the Medieval World PDF

Author: Jacob R. Marcus

Publisher: Hebrew Union College Press

Published: 1999-12-31

Total Pages: 603

ISBN-13: 0878201769

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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.