Reassessing Jewish Life in Medieval Europe. Robert Chazan

ISBN-13: 9780521145435 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 292 str.

Robert Chazan

Opis

This book reevaluates the prevailing notion that Jews in medieval Christian Europe lived under an appalling regime of ecclesiastical limitation, governmental exploitation and expropriation, and unceasing popular violence. Robert Chazan argues that, while Jewish life in medieval Western Christendom was indeed beset with grave difficulties, it was nevertheless an environment rich in opportunities; the Jews of medieval Europe overcame obstacles, grew in number, explored innovative economic options, and fashioned enduring new forms of Jewish living. His research also provides a reconsideration of the legacy of medieval Jewish life, which is often depicted as equally destructive and projected as the underpinning of the twentieth-century catastrophes of antisemitism and the Holocaust. Dr. Chazan s research proves that, although Jewish life in the medieval West laid the foundation for much Jewish suffering in the post-medieval world, it also stimulated considerable Jewish ingenuity, which lies at the root of impressive Jewish successes in the modern West."

Recenzje

'A thought-provoking assessment of Jewish life in the Middle Ages that eschews persecutions and expulsions to concentrate on the remarkable growth in the number of Jews living under Christian rule between 1000 and 1500.' Anna Sapir Abulafia, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge

Spis treści

Prologue: group narratives: tenacity and accuracy; Introduction: the emergence of medieval European Jewry; Part I. Historical Schemes: 1. The Jewish middle age: the Jewish view; 2. The Jewish middle age: the Christian view; 3. The European middle ages; 4. The European Jewish middle ages; Part II. Historical Themes: 5. Demographic movement and change; 6. Economic activity; 7. Status; 8. Relocations within the Christian populace; 9. Identity; Epilogue.

O autorze

Chazan, Robert
Robert Chazan is S. H. and Helen R. Scheuer Professor of Jewish History in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. His most recent books are God, Humanity, and History: The Hebrew First Crusade Narratives (2000), Fashioning Jewish Identity in Medieval Western Christendom (Cambridge University Press, 2004), and The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom (Cambridge University Press, 2006).