Jewish Archive
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Rare 15th-Century Manuscript of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah purchased by The Israel Museum, Jerusalem and The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Posted on April 30, 2013 | No CommentsThe Mishneh Torah was created by Moses Maimonides (d.1204), and is considered one of the most important documents of medieval Jewish law. -
Jewish Hawking in Medieval France: Falconry, Rabbenu Tam, and the Tosafists
Posted on April 29, 2013 | No CommentsFalconry reached an apex in the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods, but in the modern era it was displaced to a great extent by the use of firearms. The present article explores the medieval Jewish knowledge of, and especially the exploitation of this technique, centered in twelfth-century Northern France in the communities surrounding the great master Tosafist, Rabbenu Tam. -
Wonders and Wisdom: Anglo-Saxons and the East
Posted on April 11, 2013 | No CommentsWhat the Anglo-Saxons ‘‘knew’’ about Moslems and Jews, and about Babylon and Egypt and India, depended upon Biblical exegesis, saints’ lives, and other texts derived from Latin sources. Numerous Old English texts, as well as Latin versions that circulated and were copied in Anglo-Saxon England, concern Asia; these are quite varied in genre and in content. -
The Cathedral of Bourges: A Witness to Judeo-Christian Dialogue in Medieval Berry
Posted on April 1, 2013 | No CommentsPositing any kind of Jewish-Christian “golden age” in Western Europe during the medieval centuries may seem somewhat foolish in light of what happened to Jews between 1240 and 1492: expulsions, forced conversions, social and political ostracism, deprivation of income and compa- rable economic oppression, accusation of and prosecution for so-called “crimes” against Christians, periodic rampages by Crusaders, and other attacks—both physical and mental— which functioned as insults to Judaism. -
Why There May Have Been Contacts between Slovenes and Jews before 1000 A.D.
Posted on March 16, 2013 | No CommentsThe first documented evidence of a Jewish presence in Slovenia dates from the 13th century, when Yiddish- and Italian-speaking Jews migrated south from Austria to Maribor and Celje, and east from Italy into Ljubljana. This is a good three centuries after the first mention of Jews in the Austrian lands. -
Jews of Medieval Eastern Europe migrated from Caucasus region, study shows
Posted on January 22, 2013 | No CommentsDespite being one of the most genetically analysed groups, the origin of European Jews has remained obscure. -
Was there Race before Modernity? The Example of ‘Jewish’ Blood in Late Medieval Spain
Posted on January 20, 2013 | No CommentsLess than a lifetime ago many scholars agreed that racial concepts offered reasonable explanations for the differences they perceived between certain human populations. -
Reception of Christian Hebrew Studies in Renaissance Poland
Posted on December 31, 2012 | No CommentsWhile talking about Polish Renaissance I mean the period from the end of 15th century until 1638, when the Arian printing house in Raków was closed. Referring to Poland, I mean, first of all, the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, which was tightly connected with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its fiefdom lands. -
Hebrew Astrology in Byzantine Southern Italy
Posted on December 23, 2012 | No CommentsIt is a commonplace that our modern, tidy distinction between astronomy and astrology does not apply to the Middle Ages. -
The Fourteenth-Century Tring Tiles
Posted on December 9, 2012 | No CommentsWhile the sweet face of the Child Jesus as drawn on the Tring Tiles may belie the strangeness of his actions, it clearly reflects the resurgence in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries of Christianity’s focus on the humanity of Christ and the desire on the part of the Christian faithful to know more about his childhood years. -
The myth of Jewish male menses
Posted on November 25, 2012 | No CommentsSeveral scholars have asserted that medieval Christians believed that Jewish men menstruated. Their arguments, made in support of a grander claim that Jews as a collectivity were gendered feminine in Christian thought, rest on numerous misreadings. -
Transylvanian Identities in the Middle Ages
Posted on November 25, 2012 | No CommentsIdentity has become a subject of historical exploration as it is also one of the themes examined from the perspectives of various disciplines belonging to the social sciences such as sociology, psychology or anthropology. -
The Law’s Violence against Medieval and Early Modern Jews
Posted on November 19, 2012 | No CommentsKen Pennington examines the issue of forced baptism of Jewish children in the legal literature from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. -
Medicine and Health Care in Later Medieval Europe: Hospitals, Public Health, and Minority Medical Practitioners in English and German Cities, 1250-1450
Posted on November 18, 2012 | No CommentsThis interdisciplinary study, written from the standpoint ofan aspiring physician, seeks to contribute to the humanistic dimension of medicine by helping to integrate it further with its past, illuminating the meaning of health and disease in medieval society while adding depth to current thinking about medicine and public health. This study places various aspects ofhealth and disease within the framework of two major topics, religious beliefs and urban social history. -
Prescribing Love: Italian Jewish Physicians Writing on Lovesickness in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Posted on October 29, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper begins with a general survey of early modern European medical literature concerning lovesickness. This is followed by a short introduction to the Jewish physicians who lived and worked in the geographic area currently constituting Italy during the beginning of the early modern period, focusing on three physicians who wrote about lovesickness... -
‘You say that the Messiah has come.’:The Ceuta Disputation (1179) and its place in the Christian anti-Jewish polemics of the high middle ages
Posted on October 28, 2012 | No CommentsDisputation could be the result of the Christian protagonist’s meeting with the North AfricanJew face-to-face and discovering that the Messianic promise was a subject of considerableinterest for his opponent. More importantly, regardless of whether the discussion in Ceuta hador had not taken place, the new Christian attitude towards anti-Jewish polemics expressed inthe Disputation’s text was most likely inspired by real-life discussions between Jews andChristians. Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Jewish and Christian relations; Mediterranean trade in the middle ages; Ceuta; Genoa;Scriptural exegesis, Almohads The Messiah came in the twelfth century. This time he did not arrive in themanner anticipated by the prophets of the Bible. Rather, his arrival occurred in theworld of polemics, where he suddenly emerged from relative obscurity to becomethe central topic of the continuing religious debate between Jews and Christians -
The Preaching of the First Crusade and the Persecutions of the Jews
Posted on October 26, 2012 | No CommentsIn the spring and summer of 1096, bands of crusaders, at times with the help of the local population, destroyed Jewish life and property before leaving for the East. -
Jewish Lightning Rod: Between Magic and Science
Posted on October 21, 2012 | No CommentsPeople learned how to “tie up a portion of lightning” only recently. We have no information aboutany experiments of medieval scientists with lightnings, and even the fundamental dictionary of thehistory of science by Mayerhöfer is silent about it. -
The Regulations of James I concerning the Jewish Moneylenders: a Preliminary Report
Posted on October 15, 2012 | No CommentsThis article enumerates the constitutions and statutes dictated by James I regarding the usurers, and the usurers of the Jews, between 1228 and 1251, from shortly before to shortly after the conquest of the kingdoms of Majorca and Valencia. -
Social Deviancy: A Medieval Approach
Posted on October 10, 2012 | No CommentsWhy bother with the weakest members of society by allocating substantial resources for keeping them alive and well in designated spaces? -
King João II of Portugal “O Príncipe Perfeito” and the Jews (1481-1495)
Posted on September 24, 2012 | No CommentsKing João II of Portugal, who reigned over the Portuguese from 1481 un- til 1495, has enjoyed a rather positive posthumous reputation in Portugal and in Portuguese historiography...In Jewish historiography, however, the ruthlessness of King João II has earned him considerable infamy. -
Falconry in Jewish Art, Law, and Lore
Posted on September 23, 2012 | No CommentsWhen I explain that I am studying the topic of Falconry in Rabbinic Literature, people are usually bewildered, or just plain shocked. 'Jewish hunting? Is that Kosher? Are there really any sources?' -
The Rare Oxford Machzor Vitry: A Rosh Hashana essay
Posted on September 17, 2012 | No CommentsThe Machzor Vitry work is, as mentioned above, not just a prayer book but includes much more, including many laws and a commentary. It consists of three portions; the halakhic legal portion, the liturgical formulae, and commentaries to the prayers taken from the aggadah. -
Jewish Collaborators in Alfonso’s Scientific Work
Posted on September 16, 2012 | No CommentsWhat is remarkable about the Jewish translators whose work was sponsored by Alfonso, following an already old tradition of Jewish translation activity, was their concentration almost exclusively on scientific literature and their significant contribution to the development of the Spanish language. -
The Bones of Saint Peter
Posted on September 10, 2012 | No CommentsSometime in AD 48, Peter had a tense meeting in Jerusalem with an enthusiastic missionary called Paul, who had been travelling among the peoples of the Near East, spreading news of Jesus' teachings. Peter and his Jewish friends in Jerusalem were anxious that male converts to the new sect should be circumcised, as a sign that their commitment was genuine.
