Download or read book Antisemitic Hate Signs in Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts from Medieval Germany written by Ruth Mellinkoff and published by Jerusalem : Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This book was released on 1999 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rejects the widely-held theory that medieval artists distorted the human faces in Hebrew illuminated manuscripts due to anti-iconic attitudes of German Jewry. Presents the hypothesis that the illustrations were done by Christian artists under the supervision of Jewish scribes and for Jewish patrons. Concludes that artistic devices such as profile portrayal and animal features were antisemitic signs, whereby the artists expressed hatred and denigration. The animals chosen had negative connotations (e.g. asses and pigs). Another feature, closed eyes, suggested the "blindness" of the Jews. Further, human features were often distorted according to stereotypes (beaked noses) or deformed to the point of grotesque or demonic, suggesting that Jews were less than human. To the question of how the Jewish scribes and patrons overlooked such signs, responds that the "looking but not seeing phenomenon" operated in the past as it does in the present.
Download or read book The Monstrous Middle Ages written by Bettina Bildhauer and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The figure of the monster in medieval culture functions as a vehicle for a range of intellectual and spiritual inquiries, from questions of language and representation to issues of moral, theological and cultural value. Monsters embody cultural tensions that go far beyond the idea of the monster as simply an unintelligible and abject other. This text looks at both the representation of literal monsters and the consumption and exploitation of monstrous metaphors in a wide variety of high and late-medieval cultural productions, from travel writing and mystical texts, to sermons, manuscript illuminations and maps. Individual essays explore the ways in which monstrosity shaped the construction of gendered and racial identities, religious symbolism and social prejudice in the Middle Ages. Reading the Middle Ages through its monsters provides an opportunity to view medieval culture from fresh perspectives. It should be of interest in the concept of monstrosity and its significance for medieval cultural production.
Download or read book German Jewry and the Allure of the Sephardic written by John M. Efron and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as German Jews struggled for legal emancipation and social acceptance, they also embarked on a program of cultural renewal, two key dimensions of which were distancing themselves from their fellow Ashkenazim in Poland and giving a special place to the Sephardim of medieval Spain. Where they saw Ashkenazic Jewry as insular and backward, a result of Christian persecution, they depicted the Sephardim as worldly, morally and intellectually superior, and beautiful, products of the tolerant Muslim environment in which they lived. In this elegantly written book, John Efron looks in depth at the special allure Sephardic aesthetics held for German Jewry. Efron examines how German Jews idealized the sound of Sephardic Hebrew and the Sephardim's physical and moral beauty, and shows how the allure of the Sephardic found expression in neo-Moorish synagogue architecture, historical novels, and romanticized depictions of Sephardic history. He argues that the shapers of German-Jewish culture imagined medieval Iberian Jewry as an exemplary Jewish community, bound by tradition yet fully at home in the dominant culture of Muslim Spain. Efron argues that the myth of Sephardic superiority was actually an expression of withering self-critique by German Jews who, by seeking to transform Ashkenazic culture and win the acceptance of German society, hoped to enter their own golden age. Stimulating and provocative, this book demonstrates how the goal of this aesthetic self-refashioning was not assimilation but rather the creation of a new form of German-Jewish identity inspired by Sephardic beauty.
Download or read book Monsters and Monstrosity in Jewish History written by Iris Idelson-Shein and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-02-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first study of monstrosity in Jewish history from the Middle Ages to modernity. Drawing on Jewish history, literary studies, folklore, art history and the history of science, it examines both the historical depiction of Jews as monsters and the creative use of monstrous beings in Jewish culture. Jews have occupied a liminal position within European society and culture, being deeply immersed yet outsiders to it. For this reason, they were perceived in terms of otherness and were often represented as monstrous beings. However, at the same time, European Jews invoked, with tantalizing ubiquity, images of magical, terrifying and hybrid beings in their texts, art and folktales. These images were used by Jewish authors and artists to push back against their own identification as monstrous or diabolical and to tackle concerns about religious persecution, assimilation and acculturation, gender and sexuality, science and technology and the rise of antisemitism. Bringing together an impressive cast of contributors from around the world, this fascinating volume is an invaluable resource for academics, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates interested in Jewish studies, as well as the history of monsters.
Download or read book How the West Became Antisemitic written by Ivan G. Marcus and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-11 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of how the Jews—real and imagined—so challenged the Christian majority in medieval Europe that it became a society that was religiously and culturally antisemitic in new ways In medieval Europe, Jews were not passive victims of the Christian community, as is often assumed, but rather were startlingly assertive, forming a Jewish civilization within Latin Christian society. Both Jews and Christians considered themselves to be God’s chosen people. These dueling claims fueled the rise of both cultures as they became rivals for supremacy. In How the West Became Antisemitic, Ivan Marcus shows how Christian and Jewish competition in medieval Europe laid the foundation for modern antisemitism. Marcus explains that Jews accepted Christians as misguided practitioners of their ancestral customs, but regarded Christianity as idolatry. Christians, on the other hand, looked at Jews themselves—not Judaism—as despised. They directed their hatred at a real and imagined Jew: theoretically subordinate, but sometimes assertive, an implacable “enemy within.” In their view, Jews were permanently and physically Jewish—impossible to convert to Christianity. Thus Christians came to hate Jews first for religious reasons, and eventually for racial ones. Even when Jews no longer lived among them, medieval Christians could not forget their former neighbors. Modern antisemitism, based on the imagined Jew as powerful and world dominating, is a transformation of this medieval hatred. A sweeping and well-documented history of the rivalry between Jewish and Christian civilizations during the making of Europe, How the West Became Antisemitic is an ambitious new interpretation of the medieval world and its impact on modernity.
Download or read book The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture written by Colum Hourihane and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 4064 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers unparalleled coverage of all aspects of art and architecture from medieval Western Europe, from the 6th century to the early 16th century. Drawing upon the expansive scholarship in the celebrated 'Grove Dictionary of Art' and adding hundreds of new entries, it offers students, researchers and the general public a reliable, up-to-date, and convenient resource covering this field of major importance in the development of Western history and international art and architecture.
Download or read book Jesus of Hollywood written by Adele Reinhartz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the advent of the cinema, Jesus has frequently appeared in our movie houses and on our television screens. Indeed, it may well be that more people worldwide know about Jesus and his life story from the movies than from any other medium. Indeed, Jesus' story has been adapted dozens of times throughout the history of commercial cinema, from the 1912 silent From the Manger to the Cross to Mel Gibson's 2004 The Passion of the Christ. No doubt there are more to come. Drawing on a broad range of movies, biblical scholar Adele Reinhartz traces the way in which Jesus of Nazareth has become Jesus of Hollywood. She argues that Jesus films both reflect and influence cultural perceptions of Jesus and the other figures in his story. She focuses on the cinematic interpretation of Jesus' relationships with the key people in his life: his family, his friends, and his foes. She examines how these films address theological issues, such as Jesus' identity as both human and divine, political issues, such as the role of the individual in society and the possibility of freedom under political oppression, social issues, such as gender roles and hierarchies, and personal issues, such as the nature of friendship and human sexuality. Reinhartz's study of Jesus' celluloid incarnations shows how Jesus movies reshape the past in the image of the present. Despite society's profound interest in Jesus as a religious and historical figure, Jesus movies are fascinating not as history but as mirrors of the concerns, anxieties, and values of our own era. As the story of Jesus continues to capture the imagination of filmmakers and moviegoers, he remains as significant a cultural figure today as he was 2000 years ago.
Download or read book Muslims in the Western Imagination written by Sophia Rose Arjana and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Islam in the Western imagination -- The Muslim monster -- Medieval Muslim monsters -- Turkish monsters -- The monsters of Orientalism -- Muslim monsters in the Americas -- The monsters of September 11th.
Download or read book Opening Doors written by Lynn F. Jacobs and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A study of Netherlandish triptychs from the early fifteenth century through the early seventeenth century, covering works by Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes, Hieronymus Bosch, and Peter Paul Rubens. Explores how the triptych format structures and generates meaning"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz written by Elisheva Baumgarten and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2014-11-07 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the urban communities of medieval Germany and northern France, the beliefs, observances, and practices of Jews allowed them to create and define their communities on their own terms as well as in relation to the surrounding Christian society. Although medieval Jewish texts were written by a learned elite, the laity also observed many religious rituals as part of their everyday life. In Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz, Elisheva Baumgarten asks how Jews, especially those who were not learned, expressed their belonging to a minority community and how their convictions and deeds were made apparent to both their Jewish peers and the Christian majority. Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz provides a social history of religious practice in context, particularly with regard to the ways Jews and Christians, separately and jointly, treated their male and female members. Medieval Jews often shared practices and beliefs with their Christian neighbors, and numerous notions and norms were appropriated by one community from the other. By depicting a dynamic interfaith landscape and a diverse representation of believers, Baumgarten offers a fresh assessment of Jewish practice and the shared elements that composed the piety of Jews in relation to their Christian neighbors.
Download or read book Marking the Jews in Renaissance Italy written by Flora Cassen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-03 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the discriminatory marking of Jews in Renaissance Italy and the impacts this had on the Jewish communities.
Download or read book Jews in Byzantium written by Robert Bonfil and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-10-14 with total page 1059 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Byzantine Jews: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures is the collective product of a three year research group convened under the auspices of Scholion: Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The volume provides both a survey and an analysis of the social and cultural history of Byzantine Jewry from its inception until the fifteenth century, within the wider context of the Byzantine world.
Download or read book Cultures of the Jews Volume 1 written by David Biale and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2006-01-10 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scattered over much of the world throughout most of their history, are the Jews one people or many? How do they resemble and how do they differ from Jews in other places and times? What have their relationships been to the cultures of their neighbors? To address these and similar questions, some of the finest scholars of our day have contributed their insights to Cultures of the Jews, a winner of the National Jewish Book Award upon its hardcover publication in 2002. Constructing their essays around specific cultural artifacts that were created in the period and locale under study, the contributors describe the cultural interactions among different Jews–from rabbis and scholars to non-elite groups, including women–as well as between Jews and the surrounding non-Jewish world. What they conclude is that although Jews have always had their own autonomous traditions, Jewish identity cannot be considered the fixed product of either ancient ethnic or religious origins. Rather, it has shifted and assumed new forms in response to the cultural environment in which the Jews have lived. Mediterranean Origins, the first volume in Cultures of the Jews, describes the concept of the “People” or “Nation” of Israel that emerges in the Hebrew Bible and the culture of the Israelites in relation to that of neighboring Canaanite groups. It also discusses Jewish cultures in Babylonia, in Palestine during the Greco-Roman and Byzantine periods, and in Arabia during the formative years of Islam.
Download or read book Jews and the Wine Trade in Medieval Europe written by Haym Soloveitchik and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-03 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Jews were at the centre of commercial activity in medieval Europe, a talmudic ban on any wine touched by a Gentile prevented them from engaging in the lucrative wine trade. Wine was consumed in vast quantities in the Middle Ages, and the banks of the Rhineland hosted some of the finest vineyards in northern Europe. German Jews were, until the thirteenth century, a merchant class. How could they abstain from trading in one of the region’s major commodities? In time, they ruled that it was permissible to accept wine in payment of debt, but forbade trading in it, and they maintained that ban throughout the Middle Ages. Further study in the twelfth century, however, led Talmudists to discover that Jews were only forbidden to profit from trading in Gentile wine if they dealt with idolaters, but that trade with Christians and Muslims was permitted. Nevertheless, the German community refused to take advantage of this clear licence. Using Jewish and Gentile sources, this study probes the sources of this powerful taboo. In describing the complex ways in which deeply held cultural values affect Jews’ engagement in the economy of the surrounding society, this book also illustrates the law of unintended consequences—how the ban on Gentile wine led both to a major Jewish contribution to German viticulture and to the involvement of Jews in moneylending, with all its tragic consequences.
Download or read book Crafting Jewishness in Medieval England written by M. Krummel and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-01-31 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Miriamne Ara Krummel challenges the accepted history of the English Middle Ages as a monolithic age of Christian faith. By cataloguing and explicating the complex depictions of semitisms to be found in medieval literature and material culture, this volume argues that Jews were always present in medieval England.
Download or read book Handbook of Medieval Culture Volume 3 written by Albrecht Classen and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-08-31 with total page 1523 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A follow-up publication to the Handbook of Medieval Studies, this new reference work turns to a different focus: medieval culture. Medieval research has grown tremendously in depth and breadth over the last decades. Particularly our understanding of medieval culture, of the basic living conditions, and the specific value system prevalent at that time has considerably expanded, to a point where we are in danger of no longer seeing the proverbial forest for the trees. The present, innovative handbook offers compact articles on essential topics, ideals, specific knowledge, and concepts defining the medieval world as comprehensively as possible. The topics covered in this new handbook pertain to issues such as love and marriage, belief in God, hell, and the devil, education, lordship and servitude, Christianity versus Judaism and Islam, health, medicine, the rural world, the rise of the urban class, travel, roads and bridges, entertainment, games, and sport activities, numbers, measuring, the education system, the papacy, saints, the senses, death, and money.
Download or read book Cultures of the Jews Volume 3 written by David Biale and published by Knopf Group E-Books. This book was released on 2011-08-17 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scattered over much of the world throughout most of their history, are the Jews one people or many? How do they resemble and how do they differ from Jews in other places and times? What have their relationships been to the cultures of their neighbors? To address these and similar questions, some of the finest scholars of our day have contributed their insights to Cultures of the Jews, a winner of the National Jewish Book Award upon its hardcover publication in 2002. Constructing their essays around specific cultural artifacts that were created in the period and locale under study, the contributors describe the cultural interactions among different Jews–from rabbis and scholars to non-elite groups, including women–as well as between Jews and the surrounding non-Jewish world. What they conclude is that although Jews have always had their own autonomous traditions, Jewish identity cannot be considered the fixed product of either ancient ethnic or religious origins. Rather, it has shifted and assumed new forms in response to the cultural environment in which the Jews have lived. Modern Encounters, the third volume in Cultures of the Jews, examines communities, ways of life, and both high and folk culture in the modern era in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe; the Ladino Diaspora; North Africa and the Middle East; Ethiopia; mandatory Palestine and the State of Israel; and the United States. From the Trade Paperback edition.
