Download or read book Ageing in Medieval Jewish Culture written by Elisha Russ-Fishbane and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-01 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a seminal study of cultural attitudes to old age among Jews of the medieval Mediterranean and Near Eastern regions. Rigorously researched and accessibly written, it will appeal to scholars across a range of disciplines as well as to the broader public. While the focus is on Jewish society and culture, critical context regarding the social history of ageing is provided by comparative perspectives from the Muslim world as well as from Spain and Provence and other areas of Christian Europe that were in the Arabic Andalusian cultural orbit. The study draws on many literary genres and scholarly disciplines: philosophy and theology, ethics and law, biblical commentary, Hebrew poetry, medical literature, and a host of marriage contracts, personal letters, and family and communal records from the Cairo Genizah. The result is a nuanced portrait of ageing as both a lived reality and a cultural paradigm in medieval Jewish society.

Download or read book Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt written by Eve Krakowski and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of what we know about life in the medieval Islamic Middle East comes from texts written to impart religious ideals or to chronicle the movements of great men. How did women participate in the societies these texts describe? What about non-Muslims, whose own religious traditions descended partly from pre-Islamic late antiquity? Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt approaches these questions through Jewish women’s adolescence in Fatimid and Ayyubid Egypt and Syria (c. 969–1250). Using hundreds of everyday papers preserved in the Cairo Geniza, Eve Krakowski follows the lives of girls from different social classes—rich and poor, secluded and physically mobile—as they prepared to marry and become social adults. She argues that the families on whom these girls depended were more varied, fragmented, and fluid than has been thought. Krakowski also suggests a new approach to religious identity in premodern Islamic societies—and to the history of rabbinic Judaism. Through the lens of women’s coming-of-age, she demonstrates that even Jews who faithfully observed rabbinic law did not always understand the world in rabbinic terms. By tracing the fault lines between rabbinic legal practice and its practitioners’ lives, Krakowski explains how rabbinic Judaism adapted to the Islamic Middle Ages. Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt offers a new way to understand how women took part in premodern Middle Eastern societies, and how families and religious law worked in the medieval Islamic world.

Download or read book Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures written by Gad Freudenthal and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides the first comprehensive overview by world-renowned experts of what we know today of medieval Jews' engagement with the sciences.

Download or read book Rituals of Childhood written by Ivan G. Marcus and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In medieval times, when a Jewish boy of five began religious schooling, he was carried from home to a teacher and placed on the teacher's lap. He was then asked to recite the Hebrew alphabet and lick honey from the slate on which it was written, to eat magically inscribed cooked peeled eggs and cakes, to recite an incantation against a demon of forgetfulness, and then to go down to the riverbank with the teacher, where he was told that his future study of the Torah, like the rushing river, would never end. This book--Ivan Marcus's erudite and novel interpretation of this rite of passage--presents a new anthropological historical approach to Jewish culture and acculturation in medieval Christian Europe. Marcus traces ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman elements in the rite and then analyzes it from different perspectives, making use of narrative, legal, poetic, ethnographic, and pictorial sources, as well as firsthand accounts. He then describes contemporary medieval Christian images and initiation rites--including the eucharist and the Madonna and child--as contexts within which to understand the ceremony. He is the first to investigate how medieval Jews were aware of, drew upon, and polemically transformed Christian religious symbols into Jewish counterimages in order to affirm the truth of Judaism and to make sense of living as Jews in an intensely Christian culture.

Download or read book Aspects of Jewish Culture in the Middle Ages written by Paul E. Szarmach and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These are the papers and discussions of the eighth annual conference of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies at the State University of New York, Binghamton. The topics discussed were the relationship between Jewish and medieval studies, the patristic basis for Christian attitudes on the Jews, the Hispanic literary tradition, Jewish Spain, problems in Jewish art, and myth criticism and medieval studies.

Download or read book Studies in Medieval Jewish Intellectual and Social History written by David Engel and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-01-20 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirteen leading scholars offer a fresh look at four key topics in medieval Jewish studies: the history of Jewish communities in Western Christendom, Jewish-Christian interactions in medieval Europe, medieval Jewish Biblical exegesis and religious literature, and historical representations of medieval Jewry.

Download or read book Medieval Jewish Civilization written by Norman Roth and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 726 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first encyclopedic work to focus exclusively on medieval Jewish civilization, from the fall of the Roman Empire to about 1492. The more than 150 alphabetically organized entries, written by scholars from around the world, include biographies, countries, events, social history, and religious concepts. The coverage is international, presenting people, culture, and events from various countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. For a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia website.

Download or read book Role Model and Countermodel written by Carsten Schapkow and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-12-09 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the “Golden Age” of Sephardic Jewry on the Iberian Peninsula and its perception in German Jewish culture during the era of emancipation. For Jews living in Germany, the history of Sephardic Jewry developed into a historical example with its distinctive valence and signature against the pressure to assimilate and the emergence of anti-Semitism in Germany. It provided, moreover, a forum to engage in internal dialogue amongst Jews and external dialogue with German majority society about challenging questions of religious, political, and national identity. In this respect, the perception of prominent Sephardic Jews as intercultural mediators was key to emphasizing the skills and values Jews had to offer to civilizations in the past. German Jews invoked this past significance in their case for a Jewish role in present and future societies, especially in Germany.

Download or read book Pious and Rebellious written by Avraham Grossman and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first complete look at the social status and daily life of medieval Jewish women.

Download or read book A Heart of Wisdom written by Susan Berrin and published by Jewish Lights Publishing. This book was released on 1999-05 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We all are growing older. A Heart of Wisdom shows us how to understand and meet the challenges of our own process of aging?and the aging of those we care about?from a Jewish perspective, from midlife through the elder years. How does Jewish tradition influence our own aging? What are the tasks and the meaning of aging? How does being Jewish inform our relationships with the elderly? How does living, thinking and worshipping as a Jew affect us as we age? How can Jewish tradition help us retain our dignity as we age? Over 40 contributors?people who themselves are dealing with the unique life passages that aging brings; their loved ones; and the rabbis, social workers, and other professionals who assist them?offer their insights about the changes and new perspectives that come with aging, retiring, growing, learning, caring for elderly parents, living, and dying. By sharing experiences in direct and personal narratives, poems, ceremonies, and stories, they help us explore: ? What traditional religious texts have to teach us about aging. ? Ways to cherish the integrity of the aging process. ? Women's unique roles as they age in our changing society. ? Advice for all generations on how to meet the opportunities and difficulties of aging. ? Creative ceremonies to mark milestones in our lives and in the lives of senior citizens. Offering enlightenment from Jewish tradition, A Heart of Wisdom is not just for the middle-aged, the old or the soon-to-be old. It is for all of us.

Download or read book The Golden Age of Aragonese Jewry written by Yom Tov Assis and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 1997-07-01 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The medieval Crown of Aragon reached the peak of its power and influence in the thirteenth century, and Jews took an active part in this expansion. In this detailed and meticulously researched study Yom Tov Assis deals with many important aspects of this period, which was truly a 'Golden Age' in the history of Aragonese and Catalan Jewry, both in terms of their relationship with the Crown and of their own cultural achievements. Professor Assis provides the most extensive treatment yet of Jewish self-government in the Hispanic kingdoms and the mutual interdependence of the Jewish and Christian communities. He describes institutions in very great detail, and examines the acute social problems that arose in the Jewish community and the dissent, polemics, and controversies that divided it. He shows how the proximity of the country to France and Provence on the one hand, and to Castile and Andalusia on the other, made Catalan Jewry a point of contact between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewry, demonstrating the effect this had on religious and cultural life, and in particular the consequences of the growing influence in Spain of Franco-German Jewry. The book is based on a very wide variety of primary sources-Jewish and non-Jewish, archival and halakhic material, notarial and royal records-in Latin, Catalan, Aragonese, and Hebrew. By drawing on these extensive sources, the author has been able to create a comprehensive description of the social, religious, and administrative aspects of Jewish life that throws much light on the wider society and economy of that period under the Crown of Aragon. The abundant detailed source notes make this an indispensable work of reference for all scholars of medieval Spanish history.

Download or read book The Jews in the Greek Age written by Elias Joseph Bickerman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the Jews in the Greek age, charting issues of stability and change in Jewish society during a period that ranges from the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great in the fourth century, until approximately 175 B.C.E. and the revolt of the Maccabees.

Download or read book Rabbis and Revolution written by Michael Miller and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-02 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Habsburg province of Moravia straddled a complicated linguistic, cultural, and national space, where German, Slavic, and Jewish spheres overlapped, intermingled, and sometimes clashed. Situated in the heart of Central Europe, Moravia was exposed to major Jewish movements from the East and West, including Haskalah (Jewish enlightenment), Hasidism, and religious reform. Moravia's rooted and thriving rabbinic culture helped moderate these movements and, in the case of Hasidism, keep it at bay. During the Revolution of 1848, Moravia's Jews took an active part in the prolonged and ultimately successful struggle for Jewish emancipation in the Habsburg lands. The revolution ushered in a new age of freedom, but it also precipitated demographic, financial, and social transformations, disrupting entrenched patterns that had characterized Moravian Jewish life since the Middle Ages. These changes emerged precisely when the Czech-German conflict began to dominate public life, throwing Moravia's Jews into the middle of the increasingly virulent nationality conflict. For some, a cautious embrace of Zionism represented a way out of this conflict, but it also represented a continuation of Moravian Jewry's distinctive role as mediator—and often tamer—of the major ideological movements that pervaded Central Europe in the Age of Emancipation.

Download or read book Mothers and Children written by Elisheva Baumgarten and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-24 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a synthetic history of the family--the most basic building block of medieval Jewish communities--in Germany and northern France during the High Middle Ages. Concentrating on the special roles of mothers and children, it also advances recent efforts to write a comparative Jewish-Christian social history. Elisheva Baumgarten draws on a rich trove of primary sources to give a full portrait of medieval Jewish family life during the period of childhood from birth to the beginning of formal education at age seven. Illustrating the importance of understanding Jewish practice in the context of Christian society and recognizing the shared foundations in both societies, Baumgarten's examination of Jewish and Christian practices and attitudes is explicitly comparative. Her analysis is also wideranging, covering nearly every aspect of home life and childrearing, including pregnancy, midwifery, birth and initiation rituals, nursing, sterility, infanticide, remarriage, attitudes toward mothers and fathers, gender hierarchies, divorce, widowhood, early education, and the place of children in the home, synagogue, and community. A richly detailed and deeply researched contribution to our understanding of the relationship between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors, Mothers and Children provides a key analysis of the history of Jewish families in medieval Ashkenaz.

Download or read book The Jewish Life Cycle written by Ivan G. Marcus and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this original and sweeping review of Jewish culture and history, Ivan Marcus examines how and why various rites and customs celebrating stages in the life cycle have evolved through the ages and persisted to this day. For each phase of life--from childhood and adolescence to adulthood and the advanced years—the book traces the origin and development of specific rites associated with the events of birth, circumcision, and schooling; bar and bat mitzvah and confirmation; engagement, betrothal, and marriage; and aging, dying, and remembering. Customs in Jewish tradition, such as the presence of godparents at a circumcision, the use of a four-poled canopy at a wedding, and the placing of small stones on tombstones, are discussed. In each chapter, detailed descriptions walk the reader through such ceremonies as early modern and contemporary circumcision, weddings, and funerals. In a comparative framework, Marcus illustrates how Jewish culture has negotiated with the majority cultures of the ancient Near East, Greco-Roman antiquity, medieval European Christianity, and Mediterranean Islam, as well as with modern secular and religious movements and social trends, to renew itself through ritual innovation. In his extensive research on the Jewish life cycle, Marcus draws from documents on various customs and ritual practices, offering reassessments of original sources and scholarly literature. Marcus’s survey is the first comprehensive study of the rites of the Jewish life cycle since Hayyim Schauss's The Lifetime of the Jew was published in 1950, written for Jewish readers. Marcus’s book addresses a broader audience and is designed to appeal to scholars and interested readers.

Download or read book Jewish Culture and Creativity written by Eitan P. Fishbane and published by Academic Studies PRess. This book was released on 2024-02-20 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jewish Culture and Creativity honors the wide-ranging scholarship of Prof. Michael Fishbane with contributions of his students on subjects that cover the gamut of Jewish studies, from biblical and rabbinic literature to medieval and modern Jewish culture, and concluding with case studies of the creative application of Prof. Fishbane’s thought and theology in contemporary Jewish life. The innovative scholarship represented in this volume offers critical new perspectives from antiquity to contemporary Judaism and will serve as a stimulus for new directions in and beyond the field of Jewish studies.

Download or read book Jewish Studies in the Digital Age written by Gerben Zaagsma and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-10-03 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As in all fields and disciplines of the humanities, Jewish Studies scholars find themselves confronted with the rapidly increasing availability of digital resources (data), new technologies to interrogate and analyze them (tools), and the question of how to critically engage with these developments. This volume discusses how the digital turn has affected the field of Jewish Studies. It explores the current state of the art and probes how digital developments can be harnessed to address the specific questions, challenges and problems that Jewish Studies scholars confront. In a field characterised by dispersed sources, and heterogeneous scripts and languages that speak to a multitude of cultures and histories, of abundance as well as loss, what is the promise of Digital Humanities methods--and what are the challenges and pitfalls? The articles in this volume were originally presented at the international conference #DHJewish - Jewish Studies in the Digital Age, which was organised at the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH) at University of Luxembourg in January 2021. The first big international conference of its kind, it brought together more than sixty scholars and heritage practitioners to discuss how the digital turn affects the field of Jewish Studies.