Regional identities and cultures of Medieval Jews
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Regional identities and cultures of Medieval Jews
(The Littman library of Jewish civilization)
Littman Library of Jewish Civilization in association with Liverpool University Press, 2018
Available at 1 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographies and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Though the existence of Jewish regional cultures is widely known, the origins of the most prominent groups, Ashkenaz and Sepharad, are poorly understood, and the rich variety of other regional Jewish identities is often overlooked. Yet all these subcultures emerged in the Middle Ages. Scholars contributing to the present study were invited to consider how such regional identities were fashioned, propagated, reinforced, contested, and reshaped-and to reflect on the developments, events, or encounters that made these identities manifest. They were asked to identify how subcultural identities proved to be useful, and the circumstances in which they were deployed. The resulting volume spans the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, and explores Jewish cultural developments in western Europe, the Balkans, North Africa, and Asia Minor. In its own way, each contribution considers factors-demographic, geographical, historical, economic, political, institutional, legal, intellectual, theological, cultural, and even biological-that led medieval Jews to conceive of themselves, or to be perceived by others, as bearers of a discrete Jewish regional identity. Notwithstanding the singularity of each essay, they collectively attest to the inherent dynamism of Jewish regional identities.
Table of Contents
List of Contributors
Note on Transliteration
Introduction - Talya Fishman
Part I. Identity Claims
1. The Emergence of the Medieval Jewish Diaspora(s) of Europe from the Ninth to the Twelfth Centuries, with Some Thoughts on Historical DNA Studies - Michael Toch
2. Medieval Jewish Legends on the Decline of the Babylonian Centre and the Primacy of Other Geographical Centres - Avraham Grossman
Part II. The Impact of Non-Jewish Cultures on Regional Traditions
3. The Sacrifice of the Souls of the Righteous upon the Heavenly Altar: Transformations of Apocalyptic Traditions in Medieval Ashkenaz - Paul Mandel
4. The Bifurcated Legacy of Rabbi Moses Hadarshan and the Rise of Peshat Exegesis in Medieval France - Hananel Mack
5. A New Look at Medieval Jewish Exegetical Constructions of Peshat in Christian and Muslim Lands: Rashbam and Maimonides - Mordechai Z. Cohen
6. The 'Our Talmud' Tradition and the Predilection for Works of Applied Law in Early Sephardi Rabbinic Culture - Talya Fishman
Part III. Geopolitical Boundaries and Their Impact on Jewish Regional Identities
7. From Germany to Northern France and Back Again: A Tale of Two Tosafist Centres - Ephraim Kanarfogel
8. Rabbinic Politics, Royal Conquest, and the Creation of a Halakhic Tradition in Medieval Provence - Pinchas Roth
9. Mediterranean Regionalism in Hebrew Panegyric Poetry - Jonathan Decter
10. Framings of Sephardi Identity in Ashkenazi Prayer Books - Elisabeth Hollender
11. Minhag and Migration: Yiddish Custom Books from Sixteenth-Century Italy - Lucia Raspe
Part IV. Cultural Content as a Marker of Jewish Regional Identities
12. A Collection of Jewish Philosophical Prayers - Y. Tzvi Langermann
13. Prophets and Their Impact in the High Middle Ages: A Subculture of Franco-German Jewry - Moshe Idel
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"