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.