Subject: JUICE History 12 - Jews in Medieval Europe
Date:    Thu, 11 Jun 1998 00:21:27 +0000
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From:          JUICE Administration <juice@wzo.org.il>
To:            history@wzo.org.il
Subject:       JUICE History 12

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                  World Zionist Organization
                Jewish University in CyberspacE
          juice@wzo.org.il         birnbaum@wzo.org.il 
                     http://www.wzo.org.il 
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Course: Medieval Jewish History
Lecture: 12/12
Lecturer: Prof. Howard Adelman

XII.  Jewish Culture in Medieval Christian Europe

In this concluding lecture, which touches on so many subjects to which
entire courses and even academic fields are devoted, we will discuss the
development of medieval Jewish social and cultural life in Christian
Europe, both in the Askenazic lands of northern Europe and the Sephardic
area of the Iberian peninsula.  As we have shown, Jewish fortunes
deteriorated in Europe by the fifteenth century, and the Jews left in many
directions, taking their culture  with them to Poland, Italy, the land of
Israel, north Africa, north America, and eventually back to northern
Europe.  In many of these places Askenazic and Sephardic cultures would
come into contact with each other as well as with the culture of country.  

As a result of these interactions several questions arise about Jewish
culture:  1) To what extent has it been a product of independent lines of
development among Jews?  2) To what extent has it reacted to the violence
that Jews experienced?  3) To what extent was it influenced by trends
among other peoples and nations?  Ultimately, then, these questions raise
the fundamental issue of what it means to be Jewish:  Is there some sort
of eternal essence that Jews in each generation share or does each
generation, even each location, produce a synthesis between variously
transmitted qualities and local circumstances?  By asking this question
and by phrasing it as I have, not to mention the material presented during
this course, I have already indicated my sense of Jewish history as a
dialectic between a rich, flexible heritage and changing circumstances and
influences.  

What has surprised me over the years is how resistant so many of my
students, Jews and non-Jews, religious and secular, Americans, Germans,
and Israelis, are to such a notion.  I am regularly confronted with the
demand that certain values, norms, ethics, and beliefs are "Jewish" while
others are not.  These discussions invariably lead to the scenario in
which members of the class try to construct what they often will call
"normative" Judaism.  The process inevitably involves including all those
elements about Judaism with which one is personally comfortable and
rejecting everything that makes one uncomfortable.  Some of the topics
which tend to produce such conversations include: the role of mediators
between the deity and people, attitudes towards non-Jews, issues of
gender, the use of language, and the position of the land of Israel.  Some
build their positions on halakhah, often prefaced with "the," some on
Jewish rational philosophy, and some on various ideologies, such as
Yiddishism, Zionism, Feminism, or Pacifism. These conversations tend to
have a reductionist quality because of the inability to accept the fact
that among Jews in the past, a range of attitudes and behaviors existed
side by side. Universalism and particularism competed with each other in
the past as they do today.  Christianity and Islam influenced the beliefs
and behaviors of Jews as much as they produced reactions against
them--which are also, by the way, a form of influence.  

Most historically based discussions about contemporary Jewish life tend to
look for patterns of continuity and points of disjuncture.  Again, most
depict as continuous that with which they are comfortable and see as
forces of division that which they do not accept.  The Jewish community
often appears as a bastion of traditional, rabbinic authority,
universally accepted by all Jews. The rise of the Reform and Conservative
movements in the nineteenth century are therefore depicted has having been
the first break in a continuous tradition usually attributed to having
lasted for four thousand years. Others present a yearning for return to
the land of Israel as a central feature of Jewish thought. And Hebrew or
Yiddish are variously described as eternal languages of the Jewish
experience. 

Contrary to widely circulated myths, Jews and Judaism did not enter the
modern world unified.  Diversity and pluralism, perhaps overused terms,
did characterize Jewish life:  Karaites and Rabbanites, Maimonideans and
anti-Maimonideans, rich and poor, men and women, rabbinic and lay,
Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Middle Eastern, Crypto-Jews and Jews, and so
forth. Jacob Katz, of blessed memory, one of the leading Jewish social
historians of the generation, has pointed out that the term Orthodox was
only used at the end of the eighteenth century in reaction to changes that
were taking place then, including growing dissent from Judaism and a
substantial conversionary movement to Christianity, trends which the new
movements tried to slow.  In a course in modern Jewish history, which I
hope to offer next year, we can see how many of the aspects of Judaism
that we now see as central developed in response to the challenges of the
modern period and cannot be seen as characteristic of the earlier medieval
Jewish experience.

I make these comments not out of a spirit of gratuitous revisionism or as
an academic attacking what is sacred to the people, but as someone
committed to working with the Jewish community both in the US, Europe, and
Israel.  I believe that the critical study of history is not only useful
for those concerned about Jewish life, but necessary for its survival.
Such a position excludes two other competing myths:  1) That there is an
objective version of history and that it is possible to teach simply basic
facts.  2)  That mere memory, feelings, and good wishes on the part of
Jews and others is enough to sustain growth.  On the one hand, the
historian can be an agent of memory, on the other, its greatest enemy.
The historian's use to the Jewish community, however, lies not with the
extremes of confirming that which is comfortable nor with being hostile to
what he or she is personally uncomfortable, but by bringing the tools of
analysis and the methods for coping with competing claims on the truth.  

While the major goal of an introductory course such as this was to present
the larger picture, one of the features of this final lecture is to show
the that the history was ultimately made up of individuals. Each
individual, sometimes under severe pressure to the contrary, made a
conscious decision to retain, to join, or to rejoin Judaism. Once so
identified, however, decisions were neither automatic nor easy.  Rather
than identifying norms, internal Jewish legislation, usually embodied in
rabbinic literature, existed because of the wide range of behavior on the
part of Jewish men and women.  Many of the expectations articulated by
rabbis represented their frustration with actions contrary to their
wishes.  Thus this literature serves the historian not as a description of
actual behavior but as a mirror image of it.  Just because  rabbis said
something does not mean that was how Jews acted.  Moreover, among the
rabbis there were often strident controversies, which ended up with one
side excommunicating the other--bans of severance from the community which
had short and long term social, economic, and spiritual consequences-- or
burning its writings, acts which had little practical impact but great
symbolic significance and continue to serve as a marker for the level of
the lack of consensus among even rabbis.

A. The Medieval Jewish Community

At the beginning of the medieval period in Europe individual Jews received
charters from the various ruling authorities to provide specific services
for them.  Gradually charters were granted to Jewish communities on a
corporate basis.  The exact origins of medieval Jewish communal
organization are obscure.  Some historians showed the influence external
Christian patterns of organizations.  Others, argued for not only the
ancient Jewish origins of communal structures, but that the Jews brought
these to the Christian communities of Europe as well. In fact, each Jewish
community combined in a unique manner rabbinic precedents and local
circumstances on an ongoing basis (Baba Batra 8b).  A key feature of each
local community was the way in which rabbinic and wealthy lay leaders
wrestled for control. In local ordinances, called takkanot, each Jewish
community strove for control over matters of settlement, taxation, real
estate, business practices, law and order, marriage and divorce, relations
with the Christian authorities, lost and stolen property, religious needs,
charity, and orphans.  The communal leaders tried base their authority on
coercive devices such as excommunication, fines, floggings, recourse to
the gentile authorities, and, in a few rare instances, capital punishment.
Crucial to understanding these dynamics is an understanding of to what
extent the secular authorities tolerated internal Jewish jurisdiction.  As
we have mentioned on several occasions the polemical impact of Christian
understanding of Genesis 49:10, which connected the loss of Jewish
political sovereignty with the coming of Christ, added a theological
animus for limiting Jewish communal autonomy, especially in matters of
civil and criminal jurisdiction and sometimes even in matters of religion
and economics, although usually Jews were allowed enough corporate
autonomy and coercive authority for the efficient collection of taxes for
the government.  Rabbinic literature from Germany and Spain reports
instances of corporal and capital punishment.  To what extent these events
constituted extraordinary measures and tolerated extremes as opposed to
theoretical rhetorical posturings requires further research. What is
clear, however, is that the Jews did not live in insular communities.
They did not live in ghettos and enjoyed a wide range of relations with
Christians.  Despite communal tensions, communal authority was hardly
voluntary and it was to each Jew's benefit to conform to expectations or
suffer official or informal sanctions.  

B. The Languages of Jews in the Middle Ages

The main language of Jewish literature was Hebrew and the Jews spoke the
language of the country whether it was German, French, Spanish, Italian,
or English, or one of the local dialects. Contrary to popular opinion,
until around the year 1250 there appeared very few sources and little
evidence of the Yiddish language, a combination of middle high German and
Hebrew vocabulary later mixed with Slavic grammar. The key element in the
development of Yiddish, therefore, was the movement of Jews from the
Germanic lands of western Europe to the Slavic environment of eastern
Europe. Early Yiddish, really still Judeo-German, developed from 1250 to
1500 in southeastern Germany and Bohemia.  The meager evidence from this
period includes glosses on a twelfth century biblical manuscript, verses
in a prayerbook from Worms in 1272, fables in a manuscript from 1382, a
letter from 1392, and epics verse adaptations of biblical tales from the
fourteenth century. 

C. Major Figures in the Development of Ashkenazic Rabbinic Culture

1. Rabbenu Gershom, Meor Hagolah,  "the light of the Exile," of Mainz
(960-1028) may have been born in Metz and died in about 1028 although
later tradition tried to extend his years till 1040 so that he would die
the same year that the famous Rashi was born, following Ecclesiastes 1:5
(and Ernest Hemingway), "The sun also rises and the sun goes down."
Little is known about Rabbenu Gershom or the Jews of the Rhineland at this
time, when Jews began to receive protection in the area, especially Mainz,
a center for the preservation and study of rabbinic texts.   Rabbenu
Gershom devoted a major component of his work to copying texts, including,
in his own hand, the entire Mishnah, Talmud, and Bible--including the
Massorah, the critical apparatus of the vowels and accents--and Jossipon,
a Hebrew rendition of Josephus from tenth century Italy, editions that
would become important reference works for future generations. He also
wrote religious poetry.  
        
To enhance their authority, many takkanot formulated by the early synods
of German Jewry were attributed to Rabbenu Gershom.  Among these rulings
were a ban on polygamy  (whose many exceptions make it almost
meaningless), a ban on a man divorcing his wife without her consent, a ban
on reading the mail of others, a ruling making Jewish transients subject
to the local Jewish courts, a policy allowing disgruntled members of the
community to stop the synagogue service in order to present their
grievances, a ban on excluding other Jews from services held in private
homes, the assertion that the majority rules, and the provision that Jews
must pay contested tax assessments and then discuss them with the
authorities.  The central principle of these ordinances was that the
Jewish community had the right to make rules according to the time and the
place and to punish violators with excommunication (For these texts, see
Louis Finkelstein, Jewish Self-Government in the Middle Ages). 

Rabbenu Gershom wrote important responsa, she'elot uteshuvot, in which he
granted rabbinic scholars the exclusive right, at the expense of other
Jews, called a maarufiah, to monopolies as suppliers, lenders, or
financial administrators to knights, merchants, priests, and monasteries.
He also ruled that Jews could take as pledges on loans ecclesiastical
vestments from Churches, a practice denounced by the Church; deal with
Christians on Christian holidays, also a practice denounced by the Church;
lend money on interest to other Jews; use wine touched by non-Jews; flog a
Jew who bought a horse on the Sabbath; disinherit converts to
Christianity, against Church policy; grant to converts who revert back to
Judaism all previous privileges, including serving as priests;  and not
rent a house from which a gentile owner has expelled a Jewish tenant.
These rulings show a rabbi attempting to protect a vibrant Jewish
community from some of the usual limitations that the Church tried to
impose on them and to encourage them to take advantage fully of
opportunities available to them.  The Jewish community--or the various
communities to which he wrote-- was also flexing its muscles to control
members of the community who violated the basic principles of the
community (See S. Freehoff, A Treasury of Responsa).

In 1012, perhaps because a Christian clergyman converted to Judaism, again
providing evidence of the attractiveness of Judaism to some Christians and
the Church's panic over such a possibility, an attempt to forcibly convert
the Jews of Mainz and their expulsion followed. During this period,
Rabbenu Gershom's son was converted to Christianity, but he died before he
had a chance to revert to Judaism. As a result, Rabbenu Gershom mourned
him deeply.  An extant marriage contract from 1013 for Rabbenu Gershom
indicates that he either issued his wife a new one or he had remarried.
During the 1940s his tombstone was discovered, but without any dates on
it.
        
2. Rabbi Solomon Itzhaki, Rabbi Shlomo Hatzarfati, or Rashi, 1040-1105:
The towering figure of medieval Ashkenazic Jewry during the middle ages,
Rashi was born in Troyes, the chief city of Champagne, the mercantile and
industrial center where fairs were held twice a year.  About a hundred
Jewish families there, involved in grape growing and trade, spoke French,
and enjoyed good relations with their Christian neighbors.  The Jews gave
the Christians Purim gifts, because it was the Lenten period, and the
Christians gave the Jews food on the last day of Passover, because the
Jews could not have prepared leavened food during the preceding week.  The
exchange of food between Christians and Jews was viewed by medieval
religious leaders as problematic, thus the Jews and Christians clearly
enjoyed intimate relations.  

Without much information about his parents or his youth, later generations
invented miraculous legends about Rashi's youth.   After his marriage in
around 1065 at the age of about 25 Rashi went to Worms and Mainz to study
the important rabbinic manuscripts there.  He returned to Troyes, where he
set up a school for the study of the Bible and the Talmud, and for a while
was able to return to Worms until he became too involved with his wine
production in France to return.  During the nineteenth century his
tombstone was discovered but it did not contain any dates on it.

In Worms, the synagogue, which had been built in 1035, survived nine
hundred years until 1938, but it was rebuilt during the 1950s.  The chapel
there associated with Rashi was built in 1642, but it may contain the
chair that he sat in. One of the fascinating sights in Worms includes the
generations of Hebrew graffiti carved into the sandstone of this chapel.
Behind it now stands a Jewish museum and the well preserved medieval
underground ritual bath. The Jewish cemetery in Worms, mentioned
previously in connection with Meir of Rothenburg, located across town,
remains an enchanting place to visit for its beauty and the presence of so
many important graves that are located there.

Rashi had three daughters:  One, Yocheved, married Meir ben Samuel, one of
Rashi's students, and they had four sons, Jacob--Rabbenu Tam,
Samuel--Rashbam, Isaac, and Solomon.  Rashi's grandsons became the nucleus
of the Tosafists, the medieval French school of Talmudic interpretation
whose extensive comments appear in the margin's of the published text
opposite those of Rashi.  They became the fundamental basis for subsequent
Ashkenazic rabbinic law and practice, and in many instances their
influence was felt in Sephardic and Middle Eastern Jewish communities as
well.  Another daughter of Rashi, Miriam, married Judah ben Nathan, one of
her father's students.  Not much is known about the third daughter Rachel.
According to legend when her father was sick she copied a responsum for
him for Rabbi Abraham Cohen of Mainz.  His granddaughters, Anna and
Miriam, were later cited as authorities on the Jewish dietary laws. Rashi
also had either an aunt or cousin named Belle Assez or Joselin who may
have converted to Christianity.

Rashi's commentaries on the Bible and the Talmud made him central to all
subsequent Jewish study.  The commentaries are noted for an economy of
style and a felicity of expression, including many turns of phrase that
became standard in Hebrew.  In his biblical commentaries he blends
selected aspects of  traditional midrashic commentary and the literal
sense of the text to establish the continuity of the narrative.  All
Rashi's manuscripts, many of which also provided diagrams and
illustrations which were never published, are no longer extant, lost in
the burning of Hebrew books in Paris in 1242.  Therefore, contrary to
popular belief, what is known as  "Rashi script," the type font in which
many traditional rabbinic texts are published, including Rashi's
commentaries, was not based on his handwriting, but invented by Christian
Hebrew typesetters in Italy during the sixteenth century.  Rashi used two
thousand French terms in his Bible commentary and 1,000 French terms in
his Talmud commentary, showing that the knowledge of French possessed by
the Jews of his day and the way that it was pronounced. Because of its
great popularity, Rashi's commentary on the Torah was published three
times during the fifteenth century, even before the publication of the
Torah itself.  Additional proof of his popularity is seen in over a
hundred commentaries on his biblical commentary.  In his talmudic
commentaries, based on Rabbenu Gershom and the Geonim of Babylonia as well
as his own insights, he did not provide summaries of the arguments, only
useful explanations of terms, occasionally indicating that he could not
understand the text.  On a few of these occasions he tried to emend the
talmudic text with an alternative reading, some of which have been
incorporated into the text of the Talmud itself.

Rashi wrote at least 360 responsa, 260 of which have been published.  One
of his most important decisions, based on talmudic precedents, involved
the right of converts to return to Judaism, "A Jew who sins is still a
Jew," was cited throughout the generations.  Rashi, a wine merchant, also
ruled that the wine of Christians was not to be considered the wine of
idolaters, either a liberal interfaith attitude or a good business
decision (Marcus, nos. 60 and 74).

3. Judah ben Samuel the Pious of Regensberg (Ratisbon):  A talmudist and
rabbinic scholar in Speyer, he was involved with the movement known as
Hasidei Ashkenaz, the German pietists, which flourished from about 1150 to
1250 in Regensberg, Speyer, Worms, and Mainz.  He compiled the central
text of this movement, Sefer Hasidim, The Book of the Pious, an  ethical
work that covers all aspects of life, showing a Jewish reaction to the
violence against them during the First Crusade and parallels with
Christian ideas.  Some historians, such as Yitzhak Baer, thought that
Judah the Pious had had discussions with Christians which had influenced
his thinking.  Gershom Scholem, however, asserted that Sefer Hasidim had
developed out of the whole of Jewish life and folkways since antiquity.
In fact, Jewish mysticism, he argued, reached Germany before Christian
mysticism.  Persecution created apocalyptic feelings among Jews that were
expressed spontaneously.  Scholem, like many other Jewish historians on
other themes,  refused to accept the fact that Jewish practices could have
been influenced by people from other religions and he consistently
asserted that any apparently new expressions of spirituality among Jews
represented longstanding ancient traditions (Other recent authors on
Hasidei Ashkenaz include Ivan Marcus and Joseph Dan).

Aspects of the world view of Sefer Hasidim which has led researchers to
such conclusions of Christian influence include: ascetic aspects,
including a renunciation of the world; a call for serenity of mind and the
ability to endure shame and insult; a spirit altruism beyond the duty to
seek strict justice; a love of God which was expressed at times in erotic
terms; the practice of magic, including the creation of a golem, an
animated clay man, the use of secret names, and alphabetical
manipulations, and concern with demons; a call for penitence, including
physical self-inflicted punishments in snow, ant hills, and with bees,
often taking on sadomasochistic tendencies; and the notion of a strong a
connection between the living and the dead, including the idea that the
dead pray for the living.

This Jewish ethical system went beyond that of the Talmud, asserting that
a Jew can be innocent according to the law of the Torah, but guilty
according to the law of heaven.  Sefer Hasidim  tried to come to grips
with Jewish involvement in moneylending as a function of living in the
diaspora, justifying it on the grounds that Christians were idol
worshipers, unreliable allies, and violent oppressors.  This constituted
a mirror image of Christian thought at the time that allowed Jews to lend
money to Christians in spite of the commandment in Deuteronomy 25 not to
lend money to one's brother precisely because they did not believe that
the Jews were their brothers.  Nevertheless, Jews were urged to show
righteousness in all business transactions.  

Sefer Hasidim  also displayed a great deal of concern with physical
cleanliness, especially in matters of excrement, urine, flatulence, and
other bodily functions, attempting to establish a high level of purity
during prayers.  For this reason, perhaps others as well, Jewish men were
discouraged from picking up babies during the prayers.  An extensive
section on excommunication borrowed from Maimonides shows the continued
concern with communal coercion as well as the interchange between
Ashkenazic and Middle Eastern Jews.
        
4. Meir ben Baruch of Rothenburg, the Maharam, 1215-1293: Born in Worms,
he studied in Wuerzburg, little else is known about his life.  He may have
studied with Rabbi Isaac ben Moses of Vienna, the author of Or Zarua, a
student of Judah the Pious, and Rabbi Yehiel of Paris, who engaged in a
disputation with Nicholas Donin in Paris in 1240.  As a result, when
Hebrew books were burned there he wrote an elegy.  Until 1286 he lived
with his students in Rothenburg in a twenty-one room house where he wrote
over a thousand responsa, serving as a high court of appeals among
medieval rabbis.  To earn his living he read Torah, served as a cantor,
engaged in business, and taught students.  As mentioned earlier, during a
chaotic interregnum he tried to leave for Italy, but was apprehended and
died in captivity in 1293, refusing to allow the Jews to pay additional
taxes to the emperor for his release. 

C. Major Figures in Sephardic Rabbinic Literature

1. Solomon ibn Adret, Rashba, 1235-1310, of Barcelona, a student of
Nahmanides, a rabbi, kabbalist, and bible commentator whom we discussed
concerning his involvement in the disputation of Barcelona in 1263. Rashba
ran a rabbinic academy and wrote commentary on the Talmud, a code of
Jewish law, and thousands of responsa to Jews all over the world. His
responsa and those of Meir of Rothenberg represent the fullest and most
often cited collections from the middle ages.  Adret also opposed the
study of Maimonides' philosophy by Jews and proposed a ban to limit the
age of those who studied it.

2.  Asher ben Yehiel, Rosh, 1250-1327, a student of Meir of Rothenberg
came from Germany to Barcelona in about 1303. He became a rabbi in Toledo
where he held rabbinic, teaching, and judicial positions in the Jewish
community.  He wrote responsa and a code of Law, Hilkhot Harosh which
dealt with Ashkenazic and Sephardic traditions.

3. Jacob ben Asher, Baal Haturim, 1270-1340, the son of Asher ben Yehiel
succeeded his father as rabbi in Toledo.  Born in Cologne, Germany, he
preceded his father to Spain. He first compiled a law code, Piskei Harosh,
based on his father's Hilkhot Harosh,  then set out to develop a code,
Arbaah Turim, the four columns, that would encompass all of Jewish law,
talmudic and post-talmudic, practiced by both Ashkenazim and Sephardim.
To do so he, he drew on the work of the Rashba and the Rosh and developed
four new inclusive categories for Jewish law: 1. Orah Hayyim, The Way of
Life, prayers, Sabbath, holidays, 2. Yoreh Deah, Teacher of Knowledge,
ritual law, diet, 3. Even Haezer, The Stone of Help, laws related to
women, 4. Hoshen Hamishpat, The Breastplate of Judgment, civil and
criminal law. These categories became definitive and, after he wrote an
exhaustive commentary on the Tur, Joseph Caro used them in compiling his
sixteenth century Shulhan Arukh as well.  Writing in the land of Israel,
Caro preserved rules for converting proselytes to Judaism, a practice long
illegal in Europe, and the administration of corporal punishment among the
Jews, also a practice highly limited for Jewish communities (Marcus, no.
42).

D. Suesskind von Trimberg, 1200-1250, a Jewish Minnesinger, singer and
poet

Record of the only known medieval Jewish poet who wrote in German is
preserved in the fourteenth century manuscript of Minnelieder, the Manesse
Codex, now at the University of Heidleberg. Depicted with a long beard and
a pointed yellow hat, typical of those the Jews had to wear, like other
minstrels he may have traveled from castle to castle to sing before
knights and ladies. In his six extant poems, there are no references to
Christians, only Jews (Recently a  novel about Suesskind was published in
German, but it has not yet been translated into English).

Why should I wander sadly,
My harp within my hand,
O'er mountain, hill, and valley?
What praise do I command?

Full well they know the singer
Belongs to race accursed;
Sweet minne doth no longer
Reward me at first.

Be silent, then my lyre,
We sing 'fore lords in vain.
I'll leave the minstrels' choir,
And roam a Jew again.

My staff and hat I'll grasp, then,
And on my breast full low,
By Jewish custom olden
My grizzled beard shall grow.

My days I'll pass in quiet,--
Those left to me on earth--
Nor sing for those who not yet
Have learned a poet's worth.
(translation in G. Karpeles)

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