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Reconstructing Ashkenaz: The Human Face of Franco-German Jewry, 1000-1250
Reconstructing Ashkenaz shows that, contrary to traditional accounts, the Jews of Western Europe in the High Middle Ages were not a society of saints and martyrs. David Malkiel offers provocative revisions of commonly held interpretations of Jewish martyrdom in the First Crusade massacres, the level of obedience to rabbinic authority, and relations with apostates and with Christians. In the process, he also reexamines and radically revises the view that Ashkenazic Jewry was more pious than its Sephardic counterpart.
- GenresHistory
376 pages, Hardcover
First published October 10, 2008
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March 8, 2015
A large body of historical commentary suggests that medieval Ashkenazim were simple but pious, while the Jews of Spain were so lax as to drift into apostasy. Malkiel challenges this view- sometimes successfully, sometimes less so.
One of his essays focuses on the Crusader massacres of 1096; the conventional wisdom is that Jews could have easily saved themselves by converting to Christianity, but chose to be martyrs. Malkiel points out that many antecdotes involve crusaders who offer baptism as an option only after they have killed many Jews and "having slaked their bloodlust... offer baptism to a handful of survivors." He therefore reasons that the crusaders' primary goal was murder rather than conversion, and that few Jews had the option of conversion.
Another essay focuses on apostates. He notes that rabbinic works on this issue rarely drew a distinction between voluntary and involuntary apostates, which might mean that voluntary conversions to Christianity were more common than many modern historians believe. Similarly, Malkiel suggests that Jews interacted with Christian culture than later historians think; for example, non-Jewish names (especially for girls) might not have been uncommon.
A more interesting, but more flawed, essay is about halakhic deviance. Malkiel discusses many instances in which Franco-German Jewish custom deviated from the Talmud; Ashkenazic rabbis often sought to accommodate such customs rather than rejecting them. He uses these examples to show that rabbis did not have total control of popular conduct. On the other hand, these customs usually involved fairly borderline issues such as women wearing jewelry on Shabbat- which certainly seems to imply that major halachic violations (such as complete nonobservance) were rare. By contrast, Malkiel quotes rabbis condemning much more flagrant halachic violations in Spain. Having said that, there is no way of knowing to what extent rabbinic complaints reflected what large numbers of people were doing.
One of his essays focuses on the Crusader massacres of 1096; the conventional wisdom is that Jews could have easily saved themselves by converting to Christianity, but chose to be martyrs. Malkiel points out that many antecdotes involve crusaders who offer baptism as an option only after they have killed many Jews and "having slaked their bloodlust... offer baptism to a handful of survivors." He therefore reasons that the crusaders' primary goal was murder rather than conversion, and that few Jews had the option of conversion.
Another essay focuses on apostates. He notes that rabbinic works on this issue rarely drew a distinction between voluntary and involuntary apostates, which might mean that voluntary conversions to Christianity were more common than many modern historians believe. Similarly, Malkiel suggests that Jews interacted with Christian culture than later historians think; for example, non-Jewish names (especially for girls) might not have been uncommon.
A more interesting, but more flawed, essay is about halakhic deviance. Malkiel discusses many instances in which Franco-German Jewish custom deviated from the Talmud; Ashkenazic rabbis often sought to accommodate such customs rather than rejecting them. He uses these examples to show that rabbis did not have total control of popular conduct. On the other hand, these customs usually involved fairly borderline issues such as women wearing jewelry on Shabbat- which certainly seems to imply that major halachic violations (such as complete nonobservance) were rare. By contrast, Malkiel quotes rabbis condemning much more flagrant halachic violations in Spain. Having said that, there is no way of knowing to what extent rabbinic complaints reflected what large numbers of people were doing.
Displaying 1 of 1 review