Publications

2022
Introduction to the Exhibition in Germany (in English and German)
Elisheva Baumgarten, Ido Noy . Introduction to the Exhibition in Germany (in English and German). In In and Out, Between and Beyond Jüdisches Alltagsleben im mittelalterlichen Europa, 2:13-18. 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Beyond the Elite: Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Europe, 2022. https://beyond-the-elite.huji.ac.il/catalogue-1. PDF icon elisheva_baumgarten_and_ido_noy.pdf
The Exhibit In and Out, Between and Beyond in the Old Synagogue Erfurt (in English and German)
Stürzebecher, Maria . The Exhibit In and Out, Between and Beyond in the Old Synagogue Erfurt (in English and German). In In and Out, Between and Beyond Jüdisches Alltagsleben im mittelalterlichen Europa, 2:7-12. 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Beyond the Elite: Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Europe, 2022. https://beyond-the-elite.huji.ac.il/catalogue-1. PDF icon maria_stuerzebecher.pdf
Gender and Sexuality in Ashkenaz in the Middle Ages
Levinson, Eyal . Gender and Sexuality in Ashkenaz in the Middle Ages. 2022nd ed. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center and Leo Baeck Institute, 2022. https://www.shazar.org.il/product/%D7%95%D7%99%D7%92%D7%93%D7%9C%D7%95-%D7%94%D7%A0%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/. Abstract

This book examines youth culture in Ashkenaz, mainly in northern France and Germany, during the eleventh to fifteenth centuries, within the context of mainstream Christian majority culture. By examining adolescence and youth culture in medieval Ashkenaz and the values that shaped the Jewish young men’s gendered identities, this book is an initial attempt to fill a lacuna that the historian Michael Satlow recently pointed at, the absence of critical studies on medieval Jewish masculinities.

The book surveys sources from different genres, which allows for a complex and wide-ranging examination of Jewish adolescence, the social ideals that adults tried to impart to young people, the cultural images in which adults described the youth of their communities, and the daily lives of young men and women. These sources include responsa and halakhic literature, moral treatises, biblical and talmudic commentaries, custom books, folk tales and legends, Crusade chronicles, epitaphs, illustrations in medieval Hebrew books, archaeological findings, and frescoes.

The vibrant youth culture of medieval Ashkenaz that this book brings to light, features young men and women who enjoyed drinking together in taverns, who loved dancing in mixed company at weddings, dressed in their finest clothes for the occasion. There were Ashkenazic young men who participated in pseudo–tournaments at weddings, some joined real tournaments, and many protected their cities alongside their Christian neighbors.

The book argues that the lives of Jewish adolescents were not so different from those of their Christian peers. Jewish and Christian youth interacted with one another as part of their daily lives, shared values related to gender, dressed in similar fashions, danced to the same melodies, and knew the same stories and legends. Like their Christian neighbors, young Jewish men liked to run wild, behave violently, enjoyed competitions, and demonstrated their physical strength and fighting skills. And like their Christian neighbors these young Jewish men held masculine knightly ideals and were influenced by chivalric culture, esthetics, and values. Concurrently, these same men were shaped by halakhic norms and the values of rabbinic masculinity.

All in all, this study allows a path to better understanding of not only medieval Jewish culture and everyday life during this period, but also medieval urban culture at large. Readers interested in the history of childhood, adolescence, sexualities, and formations of gendered identities will also benefit from this study.

Poisoned Wells: Accusations, Persecution, and Minorities in Medieval Europe, 1321-1422
Barzilay, Tzafrir . Poisoned Wells: Accusations, Persecution, and Minorities in Medieval Europe, 1321-1422. 2022nd ed. Pennsylvania : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022. https://www.academia.edu/70823183/Poisoned_Wells_Accusations_Persecution_and_Minorities_in_Medieval_Europe_1321_1422. Abstract
Between 1348 and 1350, Jews throughout Europe were accused of having caused the spread of the Black Death by poisoning the wells from which the entire population drank. Hundreds if not thousands were executed from Aragon and southern France into the eastern regions of the German-speaking lands. But if the well-poisoning accusations against the Jews during these plague years are the most frequently cited of such cases, they were not unique. The first major wave of accusations came in France and Aragon in 1321, and it was lepers, not Jews, who were the initial targets. Local authorities, and especially municipal councils, promoted these charges so as to be able to seize the property of the leprosaria, Tzafrir Barzilay contends. The allegations eventually expanded to describe an international conspiracy organized by Muslims, and only then, after months of persecution of the lepers, did some nobles of central France implicate the Jews, convincing the king to expel them from the realm.

In Poisoned Wells Barzilay explores the origins of these charges of well poisoning, asks how the fear took root and moved across Europe, which groups it targeted, why it held in certain areas and not others, and why it waned in the fifteenth century. He argues that many of the social, political, and environmental factors that fed the rise of the mass poisoning accusations had already appeared during the thirteenth century, a period of increased urbanization, of criminal poisoning charges, and of the proliferation of medical texts on toxins. In studying the narratives that were presented to convince officials that certain groups committed well poisoning and the legal and bureaucratic mechanisms that moved rumors into officially accepted and prosecutable crimes, Barzilay has written a crucial chapter in the long history of the persecution of European minorities.
Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in the Middle Ages
Baumgarten, Elisheva . Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in the Middle Ages. 2022nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022. https://www.academia.edu/81147842/Elisheva_Baumgarten_Biblical_Women_and_Jewish_Daily_Life_in_the_Middle_Ages_Philadelphia_University_of_Pennsylvania_Press_2022_. Abstract

In Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in the Middle Ages, Elisheva Baumgarten seeks a point of entry into the everyday existence of people who did not belong to the learned elite, and who therefore left no written records of their lives. She does so by turning to the Bible as it was read, reinterpreted, and seen by the Jews of medieval Ashkenaz. In the tellings, retellings, and illustrations of biblical stories, and especially of those centered around women, Baumgarten writes, we can find explanations and validations for the practices that structured birth, marriage, and death; women's inclusion in the liturgy and synagogue; and the roles of women as community leaders, givers of charity, and keepers of the household.

Each of the book's chapters concentrates on a single figure or a cluster of biblical women—Eve, the Matriarchs, Deborah, Yael, Abigail, and Jephthah's daughter—to explore aspects of the domestic and communal lives of Northern French and German Jews living among Christians in urban settings. Throughout the book more than forty vivid medieval illuminations, most reproduced in color, help convey to modern readers what medieval people could have known visually about these biblical stories. "I do not claim that the genres I analyze here—literature, art, exegesis—mirror social practice," Baumgarten writes. "Rather, my goal is to examine how medieval Jewish engagement with the Bible offers a window onto aspects of the daily lives and cultural mentalités of Ashkenazic Jews in the High Middle Ages."

In a final chapter, Baumgarten turns to the historical figure of Dulcia, a late twelfth-century woman, to ponder how our understanding of those people about whom we know relatively more can be enriched by considering the lives of those who have remained anonymous. The biblical stories through which Baumgarten reads contributed to shaping a world that is largely lost to us, and can help us, in turn, to gain access to lives of people of the past who left no written accounts of their beliefs and practices.

Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Northern Europe, 1080-1350 A Sourcebook
Elisheva Baumgarten, Eyal Levinson, Tzafrir Barzilay . Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Northern Europe, 1080-1350 A Sourcebook. 2022nd ed. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2022. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/mip_teamsdp/9/. Abstract
Designed to introduce students to the everyday lives of the Jews who lived in the German Empire, northern France, and England from the 11th to the mid-14th centuries, the volume consists of translations of primary sources written by or about medieval Jews. Each source is accompanied by an introduction that provides historical context. Through the sources, students can become familiar with the spaces that Jews frequented, their daily practices and rituals, and their thinking. The subject matter ranges from culinary preferences and even details of sexual lives, to garments, objects, and communal buildings. The documents testify to how Jews enacted their Sabbath and holidays, celebrated their weddings, births and other lifecycle events, and mourned their dead. Some of the sources focus on the relationships they had with their Christian neighbors, the local authorities, and the Church, while others shed light on their economic activities and professions.
2021
Table of Contents
Table of Contents. Medieval Encounters 27, no. 4-5 (2021). https://brill.com/view/journals/me/me-overview.xml. Image icon me_027_04_05_cover_table_of_contents.jpg
Pawned Horses: Risk and Liability in Fourteenth Century German Small-Credit Market
Doron, Aviya . Pawned Horses: Risk and Liability in Fourteenth Century German Small-Credit Market. Medieval Encounters 27, no. 4-5 (2021): 387–409. https://brill.com/view/journals/me/me-overview.xml. Abstract
Many Jewish-Christian credit transactions relied on pawns as collateral, which presumably eliminated the risk in the case of debtors’ default. However, keeping and maintaining certain pawns involved particular risks that further complicated these transactions. This paper focuses on live pawns, specifically horses, where the safekeeping of the animal involved far greater difficulties and risks than with other valuable objects that were pawned with Jews. By tracing how legal norms and practices addressed some of the unique risks attached to receiving horses as pawns, this article will outline the expectations both Jews and Christians had when engaging in credit transaction secured by horses. Relying on responsa literature, urban legislation, and court cases from the late thirteenth to mid-fourteenth centuries, this analysis will discuss some of the complications relating to liability over live pawns, with the goal of demonstrating how a specific type of pawn, and its unique risks and benefits, reflects previous assumptions and expectations regarding risk and trust.
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Dismantling a Monopoly: Jews, Christians, and the Production of Shofarot in Fifteenth-Century Germany
Lehnertz, Andreas . Dismantling a Monopoly: Jews, Christians, and the Production of Shofarot in Fifteenth-Century Germany. Medieval Encounters 27, no. 4-5 (2021): 360–386. https://brill.com/view/journals/me/me-overview.xml. Abstract
This essay presents a case study from Erfurt (Germany) concerning the production of shofarot (i.e., animal horns blown for ritual purposes, primarily on the Jewish New Year). By the early 1420s, Jews from all over the Holy Roman Empire had been purchasing shofarot from one Christian workshop in Erfurt that produced these ritual Jewish objects in cooperation with an unnamed Jewish craftsman. At the same time, two Jews from Erfurt were training in this craft, and started to produce shofarot of their own making. One of these Jewish craftsmen claimed that the Christian workshop had been deceiving the Jews for decades by providing improper shofarot made with materials unsuitable for Jewish ritual use. The local rabbi, Yomtov Lipman, exposed this as a scandal, writing letters to the German Jewish communities about the Christian workshop’s fraud and urging them all to buy new shofarot from the new Jewish craftsmen in Erfurt instead. This article will first examine the fraud attributed to the Christian workshop. Then, after analyzing the historical context of Yomtov Lipman’s letter, it will explore the underlying motivations of this rabbi to expose the Christian workshop’s fraud throughout German Jewish communities at this time. I will argue that, while Yomtov Lipman uses halakhic explanations in his letter, his chief motivation in exposing this fraud was to discredit the Christian workshop, create an artificial demand for shofarot, and promote the new Jewish workshop in Erfurt, whose craftsmen the rabbi himself had likely trained in the art of shofar making.
PDF icon pages_from_dismantling_a_monopoly_lehnertz.pdf
Between Foreigners, Strangers and Jews: The Changing Perception of Parisian Jews on the Eve of the 1306 Expulsion
Dermer, Nureet . Between Foreigners, Strangers and Jews: The Changing Perception of Parisian Jews on the Eve of the 1306 Expulsion. Medieval Encounters 27, no. 4-5 (2021): 308–334. https://brill.com/view/journals/me/me-overview.xml. Abstract
An unpublished document from late thirteenth-century Paris contains evidence of a Jewish-Christian public confrontation, on the one hand, and of Jewish-Christian economic criminal collaboration on the other. Using methods of micro-history, this article traces the story of Merot the Jew and his father-in-law, Benoait of St. Denis, who were caught attempting to smuggle merchandise by way of the River Seine. Their story is told in a verdict handed down by the parloir de Paris, the municipal judicial authority in charge of economic infractions. The parloir decreed the complete confiscation of Merot and Benoait’s merchandise on the grounds that “they were foreigners.” Taking this terminology as a point of departure, this paper tackles broader socio-economic aspects of belonging and foreignness among medieval Parisian Jews, and asks: in what ways were Jews considered “foreigners” in late thirteenth-century Paris? What were the implications of such a designation, and how did these perceptions change in the years leading up to the expulsion of 1306?
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Money Matters: Individuals, Communities and Everyday Economic Interactions between Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe
Baumgarten, Elisheva . Money Matters: Individuals, Communities and Everyday Economic Interactions between Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe. Medieval Encounters 27, no. 4-5 (2021): 293–307. https://brill.com/view/journals/me/me-overview.xml. Abstract
This special issue of Medieval Encounters offers new perspectives for studying the activities and the roles of Jews in the medieval economy.1 Scholarship to date has tended to approach these subjects from a communal perspective, discussing the activities of Jews as an organized group rather than as individuals, and emphasizing collective norms, legislation, ideologies, and policies. In such studies, the status of Jews as a tolerated religious minority was the point of departure and religious difference was paramount.2 While these perspectives were undoubtedly a defining feature of medieval Jewish life, a top-down communal perspective is just one facet, albeit an important one, of the economic activities of medieval Jews. In addition, most studies focused on moments of change, tension, and crisis, rather than on the ongoing roles of Jews both within their communities and in interaction with their Christian neighbors.
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Medieval Ashkenaz: Views from the 21st Century
Noy, Ido . Medieval Ashkenaz: Views from the 21st Century. Jewish Studies Quarterly 28, no. 4 (2021): 429-447. https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/medieval-ashkenaz-views-from-the-21st-century-101628jsq-2021-0024?no_cache=1. Abstract
Examining a selection of modern urban spaces, this article describes how the history of medieval Ashkenazi Jewry is displayed in Germany today, as well as who displays it and for whom. The preoccupation of Germany with its Jewish past is not trivial; it is an institutionalized trend designed not only to teach the public about local medieval history, but also to educate it to re-include medieval Jews into its history.
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Ancient Waters from New Fountains: Municipal Water Sources in 15th-Century Haggadot from Nuremberg
Barzilay, Tzafrir . Ancient Waters from New Fountains: Municipal Water Sources in 15th-Century Haggadot from Nuremberg. Jewish Studies Quarterly 28, no. 4 (2021): 406-428. https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/ancient-waters-from-new-fountains-municipal-water-sources-in-15th-century-haggadot-from-nuremberg-101628jsq-2021-0023?no_cache=1. Abstract
This article analyses visual representations of urban water fountains in two 15th-century haggadot, drawing attention to the use Jews made of water sources during their preparations for Passover. The first section concludes that these images present features unique to 15th-century Franconia, particularly Nuremberg. The second section shows that the Jews of Nuremberg made daily and exclusive use of the local urban water system, and argues that some of the images in the haggadot portray this reality. The final section focuses on rabbinic sources that discuss halakhic deliberations regarding the drawing of water for baking matzah and highlights the connection between this discussion and the images, as well as practical concerns associated with water usage in Nuremberg. This analysis shows that the images represent the tension between older halakhic traditions regarding drawing water for matzot and the practical constraints on local Jews' daily practices imposed by the contemporary urban environment.
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Margarete, Reynette and Meide: Three Jewish Women from Koblenz in the 14th Century
Lehnertz, Andreas . Margarete, Reynette and Meide: Three Jewish Women from Koblenz in the 14th Century. Jewish Studies Quarterly 28, no. 4 (2021): 388-405. https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/margarete-reynette-and-meide-three-jewish-women-from-koblenz-in-the-14th-century-101628jsq-2021-0022?no_cache=1. Abstract
This paper explores the lives of three Jewish women in the Late Middle Ages – Margarete, Reynette and Meide of the Bonenfant family – who lived in Koblenz, which was part of the archdiocese of Trier. It aims to shed light on how the roles and relationships with each other and to the city changed in light of economic, political and legal settings that impacted Jewish life. I argue, that these three women's lives were centered around their hometown and that all three struggled with different economic, political and legal obstacles. Methods from gender studies as well as discussions of space will be utilized along with understudied archival material such as seals, Hebrew signatures and notes on business records to gain new insights into the lives of these three women. It will become clear, that these three women were extraordinary figures living at times of upheaval, holding leading roles within their family.
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Romanesque Beyond Christianity: Jewish Ritual Baths in Germany in the 12th and 13th Centuries
Bodner, Neta . Romanesque Beyond Christianity: Jewish Ritual Baths in Germany in the 12th and 13th Centuries. Jewish Studies Quarterly 28, no. 4 (2021): 369-387. https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/romanesque-beyond-christianity-jewish-ritual-baths-in-germany-in-the-12th-and-13th-centuries-101628jsq-2021-0021?no_cache=1. Abstract
This article examines Jewish Christian relations in the High Middle Ages through the prism of religious architecture and ritual, focusing on the architecture of Jewish ritual baths from the Rhineland region in Germany. I argue that the baths of Speyer, Worms, Friedberg, Offenburg and Cologne were designed to maximize the experiential power of ritual immersion and arouse symbolic associations to support the ceremony. Architectural details such as unusual depth, ornament, lighting schemes and monumentality contributed to a spectrum of immersion ceremonies described in contemporary sources. These are contextualized in concurrent developments in Christian religious architecture and ceremonial use of architectural space.
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Into the Market and Back Again: Jews, Trust and the Medieval Marketplace
Doron, Aviya . Into the Market and Back Again: Jews, Trust and the Medieval Marketplace. Jewish Studies Quarterly 28, no. 4 (2021): 349-368. https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/into-the-market-and-back-again-jews-trust-and-the-medieval-marketplace-101628jsq-2021-0020?no_cache=1. Abstract
The marketplace was the central hub for economic activity in the medieval city. Among its important functions was the provision of an open, visible space within which transactions were subject to official and communal oversight, thus according them legitimacy. This article examines the validating space created by the marketplace with respect to Jewish-Christian economic interactions. The reliance on spatial divides in Jewish-Christian economic exchange is explored by examining the local variations of the Jewish trade privilege, which allowed Jews in the German Empire to receive compensation for stolen items found in their possession. While the public space of the city initially provided Jews with protection regarding this privilege, later in the 13th century the privilege could not be applied once goods were exposed outside of Jews' homes. The changing attitudes and approaches toward Jewish economic activity are traced by contextualizing local legislation from the German Empire during the 13th century with contemporaneous responsa literature.
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Who Was a Hasid or Hasidah in Medieval Ashkenaz? Reassessing the Social Implications of a Term
Baumgarten, Elisheva . Who Was a Hasid or Hasidah in Medieval Ashkenaz? Reassessing the Social Implications of a Term. Jewish History 34, no. 1-3 (2021): 125-154. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10835-021-09378-3. Abstract
This article examines the use of the words h. asid and h. asidah in a wide variety of medieval texts, primarily from Germany, in order to question current scholarly understandings of H. asidei Ashkenaz as a social entity. The article outlines the appearance and contexts in which the term can be found in poems, on tombstones, lists of dead, and in stories. The final section of the article investigates possible parallels for the word h. asid/ah in vernaculars spoken by Jews. The result of this broad survey that seeks out not just men but also women, and that focuses on a variety of genres rather than primarily on Sefer H. asidim, is that the words h. asid and h. asidah did not indicate a particular group, circle, or movement. Rather these terms were used to describe honest, upstanding members of the community who were seen as fulfilling their religious and social duties.
Special Issue: Sefer Ḥasidim: Book, Context, and Afterlife. Studies in Honor of Ivan G. Marcus
Elisheva Baumgarten, Elisabeth Hollender, Ephraim Shoham-Steiner . Special Issue: Sefer Ḥasidim: Book, Context, and Afterlife. Studies in Honor of Ivan G. Marcus. Jewish History 34, no. 1-3 (2021): 1-14. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10835-021-09372-9. Abstract
Sefer H. asidim is one of those texts that has continued to challenge its readers—medieval, early modern, and modern—since its inception. Consisting of thousands of distinct passages, these disparate (and not always consistent) parts come together to provide a complex and nuanced glimpse into the thoughts and mindset of its author(s) that is far richer than almost any other surviving text from medieval Ashkenaz. Attributed to three authors— R. Samuel b. Kalonymous, his son R. Judah b. Samuel, both of whom are often known as he-H. asid (the pious),1 and Judah’s disciple R. Eleazar b. Judah of Worms—the text that has reached us is far from uniform and eludes all attempts at easy definitions, containing an array of genres including exegesis, mystical traditions, halakhic rulings, stories, and moral advice. The existence of so many different versions2 and numerous manuscripts may be due to the fact that, according to his son R. Moshe Zaltman, the work was incomplete when Judah he-H. asid passed away in Adar of 1217.
Moving Bodies: Corpses and Communal Space in Medieval Ashkenaz
Fenton, Miri . Moving Bodies: Corpses and Communal Space in Medieval Ashkenaz. Jewish Studies Quarterly 28, no. 3 (2021): 331-348. https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/moving-bodies-corpses-and-communal-space-in-medieval-ashkenaz-101628jsq-2021-0018?no_cache=1. Abstract
Analysis of the impact of death in high medieval Ashkenaz has focused on practices of mourning and rituals of remembrance. The current article builds on this work by attending to the time immediately following death and before burial. It follows the corpse on its journey from the house to the cemetery through the streets. Focusing on the corpse itself rather than the surrounding mourners, it explores how the presence of the corpse impacted the social interactions and practices undertaken in the house and the street, endowing those spaces with a communal dimension that they did not usually possess. By creating these temporary communal spaces, Jews in high medieval Ashkenaz reordered the spaces the corpse inhabited. Moreover, focus on practices in space illustrates that interactions between Jews and Christians in high medieval Ashkenaz were not only prevalent in secular affairs, but also permeated lifecycle rituals.
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Jewish Widows' Homes in Ashkenaz in the 12th and 13th Centuries
Kalaora, Etelle . Jewish Widows' Homes in Ashkenaz in the 12th and 13th Centuries. Jewish Studies Quarterly 28, no. 3 (2021): 315-330. https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/jewish-widows-homes-in-ashkenaz-in-the-12th-and-13th-centuries-101628jsq-2021-0017?no_cache=1. Abstract
This paper discusses the plight of several Jewish women living in 12th and 13th-century Ashkenaz, and the situations they faced as widows, with regard to their accommodations. Responsa reveal that, despite halakhic regulations regarding provision for them, widows were highly vulnerable to eviction from the homes that had belonged to their late husbands and encountered threatening and precarious living situations. This issue sheds light on the social and financial possibilities and unique challenges faced by medieval Jewish women after becoming widows.
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