Robert Chazan

Daggers of faith : thirteenth-century Christian missionizing and Jewish response

Our understanding of both Jewish history and the history of Western civilization is deepened by this finely balanced account of Christian missionizing among the Jews. Arguing that until the thirteenth century Western Christendom showed little serious commitment to converting the Jews, Robert Chazan proceeds to detail the special circumstances of that critical century in European history. The Roman Catholic Church, characterized at that time by a remarkable combination of vitality and confidence on the one hand and deep-seated insecurities on the other, embarked on its first vigorous campaign to convert the Jews in significant numbers. Chazan examines the new missionizing endeavor in its formative stages, roughly from 1240 to 1280, and analyzes Christian efforts to convince Jews of the truth of Christianity and, at the same time, of the nullity of the Jewish religious tradition. At least as interesting is his investigation of the Jewish lines of response. These ranged from the postures adopted in public debate to the reassurances penned by Jewish leaders for the eyes and ears of their followers only. Although few Jews were converted by the first wave of this new missionizing thrust, it ranked high among the developments that eventually sapped the strength of late medieval European Jewry.

Barcelona and beyond : the Disputation of 1263 and its aftermath

In late July 1263 a public disputation was convened by King James I of Aragon, pitting Friar Paul Christian against the distinguished rabbi of Gerona, Moses ben Nahman. Organized by leading figures in the Dominican Order to give Friar Paul an opportunity to test his innovative missionizing argumentation against a worthy opponent, the spectacle in Barcelona was colorful, impressive, surely somewhat frightening to the Jews, and ultimately indecisive. Both sides claimed victory, and their documented claims have given rise to substantial disagreement among historians over the tone and outcome of this important event. Robert Chazans masterly analysis reconstructs the Barcelona disputation from the conflicting Christian and Jewish sources and sets it in its broad historical context, with particular attention to the post-disputation maneuvers on both sides. His richly detailed account focuses on Rabbi ben Nahmans eloquent efforts to reassure his fellow Jews in the face of new missionizing pressures.

Fashioning Jewish Identity in Medieval Western Christendom

During the course of the twelfth century, increasing numbers of Jews migrated into dynamically developing western Christendom from Islamic lands. The vitality that attracted them also presented a challenge: Christianity – from early in its history – had proclaimed itself heir to a failed Jewish community, and thus the vitality of western Christendomwas both appealing and threatening to the Jewish immigrants. Indeed, western Christendom was entering a phase of intense missionizing activity, some of which was directed at the long-term Jewish residents of Europe and the Jewish newcomers. Jewish religious and intellectual leaders bore responsibility for providing guidance to Jews who were subjected to Christian pressures. The writings of five such twelfthand thirteenth-century leaders from southern France and northern Spain constitute the first evidence of Jewish anti-Christian polemics from within western Christendom. These leaders were fully cognizant of the core Christian thrusts, described them in detail for their co-religionists, and rebutted them carefully. This study recreates some of the clarification and rebuttal. It also examines the techniques of persuasion adopted by the Jewish polemicists in order to reassure their Jewish readers of the truth of Judaism and the error of Christianity. At the very deepest level, these Jewish authors sketched out for their fellow Jews a comparative portrait of Christian and Jewish societies – the former powerful but irrational and morally debased, the latter weak but reasonable andmorally elevated – urging that the obvious and sensible choice was Judaism.

Joseph Kimhi's Sefer Ha-Berit : Pathbreaking Medieval Jewish Apologetics

Christian anti-Jewish polemics have a long and rich history, stretching all the way back to the early stages of the new faith community. Anti-Jewish treatises dot the history of Christian literature from the third century onward. By contrast, Jews seem to have been much less concerned with combatting Christianity. It has been widely noted that the earliest Jewish compositions devoted to anti-Christian polemics stem from the twelfth century. While the twelfth-century provenance of the earliest Jewish anti-Christian tracts has long been recognized, little attention has been focused on the significance of this dating. The fact that sometime toward the end of the twelfth century, perhaps in the 1160s or 1170s, two anti-Christian works, the forerunners of a substantial body of Jewish anti-Christian polemical-apologetic works, were composed almost simultaneously begs interpetation. What changes gave rise to a new Jewish sensitivity, to a need to present Jewish readers with formulation and rebuttal of Christian claims? The answer clearly lies in the enhanced agressiveness of western Christendom toward the Jews, as well as other non-Christians, a development that has been recognized and discussed extensively in modern scholarly literature. In the face of an increasingly aggressive Christendom, Jewish intellectual and spiritual leadership had to reassure the Jewish flock of the rectitude of the Jewish vision and the nullity of the Christian faith. This is precisely what the first two anti-Christian treatises, the Milhamot ha-Shem of Jacob ben Reuven and the Sefer ha-Berit of Joseph Kimhi, undertook to achieve. Given the pioneering nature of these works, it is striking that insufficient scholarly attention has been accorded to these two efforts. They surely have much to tell both of perceived Christian thrusts and of meaningful Jewish rebuttal of these challenges.

From “Jewish Memory” to Jewish History

In his influential Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi analyzed brilliantly the transition in Jewish conceptions of Jewish history from premodern to modern times. The present paper discusses a number of alternative perspectives on this transition. Yerushalmi argued convincingly the importance of the traditional conception of Jewish history, which he labeled “Jewish memory,” for Jewish survival. This paper challenges the terminology, agrees with the role played by the traditional Jewish thinking in Jewish survival, and emphasizes the premodern circumstances that made the traditional thinking so vital and effective. With respect to modern conceptions of Jewish history, which Yerushalmi associates with Jewish history writing, this paper argues that an examination of the circumstances of modernity reveals the creativity of this altered view of the Jewish past and the ways in which it in turn has fostered Jewish survival in the face of radically new challenges.

A New Vision of Jewish History: The Early Historical Writings of Salo Baron

While rejecting the traditional belief that Jewish fate was controlled by God, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians of the Jews maintained prior perceptions of post-70 Jewish history as a sequence of unmitigated disasters. Beginning in 1928, the young Salo Baron combatted this perspective on the Jewish past, which he dubbed “the lachrymose conception of Jewish history.” In his well-known 1928 essay “Ghetto and Emancipation” and more substantially in the 1937 edition of his Social and Religious History of the Jews, Baron vigorously rejected this view. In the process, he formulated a new periodization of the Jewish past and moved beyond the ideologically grounded and programmatic reconstruction of Jewish history to a rigorously descriptive portrayal of the multi-faceted Jewish historical experience. In so doing, Baron laid the foundations of the flourishing contemporary Jewish historiographic enterprise.

Memoirs of Fellows and Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America: Haim Beinart

Haim Beinart, who died in Jerusalem on 16 February 2010, was the foremost authority on the history of Iberian Jews in medieval times—particularly in the century preceding their expulsion in 1492—and of the conversos inside and outside Spain up to and including the seventeenth century.

Judaism without Jews: Philosemitism and Christian Polemic in Early Modern England (review)

Vol. 28, No. 4 ♦ 2010 tally, is compromised by the fact that names and references occurring in his extensive footnotes are not included.) Austin interprets Tremellius’ defensive letter as evidence of his persisting unease about his Jewish past, but Aubert’s notes point to a more orthodox Calvinistic concern. Though the original market for his Talmud was to have been a Jewish one, printer Froben was covering his bases. In addition to securing the services of local Reformed examiner Pierre Chevallier, Froben’s edition was also expurgated by the Venetian Inquisitor Marco Marino, and it appeared with the imprimatur of the Council of Trent! Burnett’s article was written before Tremellius’ letter to Bèze was made available, so that he was unaware of Tremellius’ role in censoring at least part of the edition and possibly suggesting arguments to Froben as to its usefulness to Christian scholars, topics inferable from the letter. John Tedeschi’s monumental 1047-page critical bibliography The Italian Reformation of the Sixteenth Century and the Diffusion of Renaissance Culture (Ferrara, Panini, 2000), missing from Austin’s otherwise meticulous bibliography, would only have added half a dozen items on Tremellius, but it is an essential resource for Italy in the early modern period. Anthony Oldcorn Brown University

Spiritual challenges, successes, and failures

The Jews in medieval western Christendom have often been portrayed as having lived comfortably (or sometimes uncomfortably) isolated lives, having maintained their ancestral faith effortlessly, and having pursued their traditional culture with a high level of equanimity and unanimity. While it is acknowledged that Jews living in the medieval Muslim sphere were fully conversant with the culture surrounding them and were deeply influenced by that culture, the Jews of western Christendom have often been projected as removed from the broad majority ambience, unchallenged in their Jewishness, and sustained solely by their own cultural heritage. In fact, this beguiling picture is highly inaccurate. The Jews of medieval western Christendom were very much a part of the social and cultural ambience in which they lived, encountered a creative majority milieu seething with new ideas and ideals, and were profoundly challenged by their dynamic environment. While both majority and minority religious leadership attempted to limit Christian–Jewish social contact, three factors militated against truly effective isolation of the Jews in medieval western Christendom – demography, economics, and language. The towns of medieval western Christendom were very small by modern standards, and the Jewish communities housed in these small towns were minuscule. We recall Benjamins portrayal of a few hundred Jews at most in the urban enclaves of northern Spain and southern France that he visited. In such small towns with their tiny Jewish communities, there could be no true isolation of the Jews as desired by both the Church hierarchy and the Jewish leadership.

The pan-European Roman Catholic Church

Medieval western Christendom encompassed a vast area and included diverse peoples, languages, economies, political systems, and cultures. This heterogeneity makes a linear history of the Jews in medieval Latin Christendom impossible, necessitating the treatment of diverse sets of Jewries, which will be undertaken shortly. There was, to be sure, one unifying institution in medieval western Christendom, and that was the Roman Catholic Church, hierarchically organized with its center at the papal court in Rome. The Roman Catholic Church was in fact the common element that enables us to speak of western Christendom as a more or less coherent entity. It was also the institution on the medieval scene with the richest heritage as regards Judaism and the Jews, a legacy of late antiquity that demanded respect. Finally, it was the institution in medieval western Christendom with the most intense commitment to clear formulation of doctrine and behavioral norms. All this is not meant to suggest that consistency was achieved all through western Christendom with respect to theological doctrine, ecclesiastical policy, or imagery of Judaism and the Jews. The diversity of medieval western Christendom and the varying perspectives of different groupings within majority society and even within the Church itself precluded unanimity with respect to the Jews or any other issue. In this chapter, the focus will be on broad issues of doctrine, policy, and imagery of the Jews, as reflected largely in papal pronouncements. On occasion, a relatively authoritative non-papal voice will be introduced.