Jewish History最新文献

Since the nineteenth century, conversos have been among the most prolific lines of research for medievalists and early modern historians. The persecution they suffered at the hands of the Inquisition, the veracity of the claims that attributed to them a clear tendency to remain Jewish in secret long after they were baptized, and their role as cultural agents and active contributors to Spanish culture, particularly in the field of literature, have appealed greatly to researchers. However, in contrast to the vast amount of academic research focusing on Jews from a social perspective, our knowledge of the first generations of conversos is limited. In this article, we present the results of prosopographical research devoted to the converso collective of Valencia from July 9, 1391—the year of the violent and massive conversion of the city’s Hebrew population—to 1420. In particular, we discuss the methodological obstacles presented by such research; evaluate whether the converted population in Valencia can be considered a community after 1391; analyze the socio-professional structure and general economic activities of conversos; and study the social dynamics and interpersonal conflicts that developed both within the group and with Old Christians during this thirty-year period.

What was the role of the medieval pietistic heritage in the re-formation of eighteenth century’s Jewish cultures, consciousness, and identities? Rabbi Judah he-Ḥasid’s will, a short, vague, and enigmatic document, played an important role in the consolidation and crystallization of halakhic identities in the early modern era. This paper traces the document’s infiltration into the canonical halakhic literature of the sixteenth century and then turns to the multifaceted storm that ensued among its critics in the eighteenth century. The study reveals fundamental upheavals in the management and codification of sources of knowledge in the Jewish discourse of the early modern era. Tracing the rejection or the adoption and adaptation of Judah he-Ḥasid’s will in new structures of thought bears on central and contradictory phenomena in Jewish modern trends such as kabbalistic—especially Lurianic—influence; the emergence of humanist philology; internalization of self-criticism and self-reflection; the influence of science; and the birth of Ḥasidism. These tensions and constraints are reflected through the fiery discourse of culture and identity in which this pietistic heritage played a pivotal part during the modern era.

Recent scholarship has suggested that teachings and practices of the German Pietists permeated Tosafist circles in the Rhineland and elsewhere in Germany. This study demonstrates that there were intellectual and methodological contacts between the Pietists and the Tosafists of northern France as well, in the areas of talmudic studies and Jewish law. Judah he-Ḥasid offered interpretations that were known in the study hall of Isaac (Ri) of Dampierre (d. 1189); passages found in northern French Tosafot parallel other interpretations and derivations associated with Judah; Judah’s main Pietist student commented and critiqued Tosafot to tractate Bava Qamma that were produced in Ri’s study hall; and halakhic rulings and traditions put forward by Judah are cited and followed by thirteenth-century Tosafists in northern France such as Isaac b. Joseph and Perez of Corbeil. All of this suggests that what separated the Pietists and Tosafists even in northern France has to be formulated in a more nuanced fashion.

This paper examines R. Judah he-Ḥasid’s approach towards journeys to distant places, including pilgrimage to the land of Israel. Unlike other twelfth-century rabbinic authorities who did not object to travel for various purposes and, in certain cases, even encouraged it, R. Judah he-Ḥasid held a uniform, consistent approach that opposed almost any journey beyond the local area. Some scholars have suggested that R. Judah he-Ḥasid’s opposition to undertaking a pilgrimage to the land of Israel reflects his opposition to messianic activism. However, this study suggests that R. Judah he-Ḥasid’s negative approach towards traveling to Palestine ought to be examined in light of his overall rejection of travel. In his writings, R. Judah he-Ḥasid laid out a new path to achieve redemption and atonement for one’s sins. This path does not depend on physical journeys to holy places or on the national redemption of the Jewish people, but rather aimed at achieving personal redemption, through the adoption of the pietistic way of life as detailed by R. Judah he-Ḥasid in Sefer Ḥasidim: repentance by confessing one’s sins before a sage and performing the prescribed mortification rites. This approach remained unique in Jewish thought, yet one can find parallels in Christian theology of the tension between stability and inner self-improvement, on the one hand, and the advantages of a physical journey to holy sites to achieve atonement for sins.

This article examines the content and structure of the manuscripts of Sefer Ḥasidim, engaging with ideas concerning its production addressed in Ivan Marcus’s recently published book on Sefer Ḥasidim. Marcus has argued that the book was written piece by piece and not as an integral book and further suggested that each and every manuscript of Sefer Ḥasidim should be taken as a distinct edition of the book prepared by Judah he-Ḥasid. The present study demonstrates that, notwithstanding the gradual process in which Sefer Ḥasidim was written and the great variations among the manuscripts, it is possible to reconstruct a textual process that led to the larger compilations found in the three well-known text editions of Sefer Ḥasidim, represented by MS Parma 3280, MS JTS Boesky 45, and the edition printed in Bologna in 1538. The analysis focuses on the distribution of the text in the manuscripts. While it is difficult to show linear relations among them, the different versions demonstrate a gradual process of growth and enlargement of the material around topical structures. Since most of the material is transmitted in more than one exemplar and few passages appear in one manuscript alone, it is argued that the manuscripts can be linked to show how the material grew from random collections of single paragraphs to topically ordered clusters and into the larger compilations of Sefer Ḥasidim.