Publications

2017
Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place, 500-1500
Bartal, Renana, Neta Bodner, and Bianca Kuhnel, eds. Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place, 500-1500. London ; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017. https://www.routledge.com/Natural-Materials-of-the-Holy-Land-and-the-Visual-Translation-of-Place/Bartal-Bodner-Kuhnel/p/book/9781472451774. Abstract

Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place, 500-1500, focuses on the unique ways that natural materials carry the spirit of place. Since early Christianity, wood, earth, water and stone were taken from loca sancta to signify them elsewhere. Academic discourse has indiscriminately grouped material tokens from holy places and their containers with architectural and topographical emulations, two-dimensional images and bodily relics. However, unlike textual or visual representations, natural materials do not describe or interpret the Holy Land; they are part of it. Tangible and timeless, they realize the meaning of their place of origin in new locations.

What makes earth, stones or bottled water transported from holy sites sacred? How do they become pars pro toto, signifying the whole from which they were taken? This book will examine natural media used for translating loca sancta, the processes of their sanctification and how, although inherently abstract, they become charged with meaning. It will address their metamorphosis, natural or induced; how they change the environment to which they are transported; their capacity to translate a static and distant site elsewhere; the effect of their relocation on users/viewers; and how their containers and staging are used to communicate their substance.

2016
Praying separately? Gender in medieval Ashkenazi Synagogues (thirteenth-fourteenth centuries)
Baumgarten, Elisheva . “Praying separately? Gender in medieval Ashkenazi Synagogues (thirteenth-fourteenth centuries)”. Clio. Women, Gender, History 44, no. 2 (2016): 43–62. https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-clio-women-gender-history-2016-2-page-43.htm.
The Sages on the ׳Unlearned׳: On Social Constructions, Social Stratification, and Special Privileges
Levinson, Eyal . “The Sages on the ׳Unlearned׳: On Social Constructions, Social Stratification, and Special Privileges”. Bifrat U'bikhlal 2 (2016): 102–144. https://www.academia.edu/31616733/%D7%97%D7%9B%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%A2%D7%9C_%D7%A2%D7%9D_%D7%94%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%A5_.pdf.
Early Accusations of Well Poisoning against Jews: Medieval Reality or Historiographical Fiction?
Barzilay, Tzafrir . “Early Accusations of Well Poisoning against Jews: Medieval Reality or Historiographical Fiction?”. Medieval Encounters 22, no. 5 (2016): 517–539. https://brill.com/view/journals/me/22/5/article-p517_2.xml. Abstract
This article reexamines the idea prevalent in existing historiography that Jews were accused of well poisoning before 1321. It argues that the historians who studied the origins of such accusations were misled by sources written in the early modern period to think that Jews were charged with well poisoning as early as the eleventh century. However, a careful analysis of the sources reveals that there is little reliable evidence that such cases happened before the fourteenth century, much less on a large scale. Thus, the conclusions of the article call for a new chronology of well-poisoning charges made against Jews, starting closer to the fourteenth century.
The Fleuron Crown from Neumarkt in Silesia (Środa Ślᶏska): Christian Material Culture in a Jewish Context
Noy, Ido, ed. “The Fleuron Crown from Neumarkt in Silesia (Środa Ślᶏska): Christian Material Culture in a Jewish Context”. In Bar-ilan journal of jewish art., 23–38. Place of publication not identified: Littman Lib Of Jewish Civ, 2016.

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