Elisheva Baumgarten - Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in the Middle Ages

Jewish Culture and Contexts

Published in association with the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania

SERIES EDITORS:

Shaul Magid, Francesca Trivellato, Steven Weitzman

A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

Elisheva Baumgarten

PENN

University of Pennsylvania Press

Philadelphia

Copyright 2022 University of Pennsylvania Press

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

Published by

University of Pennsylvania Press

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

www.upenn.edu/pennpress

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

10987654321

Hardcover ISBN 9780812253580

Ebook ISBN 9780812297522

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Baumgarten, Elisheva, author.

Title: Biblical women and Jewish daily life in the Middle Ages / Elisheva Baumgarten.

Description: First edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2021] | Series: Jewish culture and contexts | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021033977 | ISBN 978-0-8122-5358-0 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Women in the Bible. | Women in Judaism Europe History To 1500. | Bible. Old Testament Criticism, interpretation, etc., Jewish History To 1500. | Bible Influence Medieval civilization. | Judaism Europe History To 1500. | Jewish way of life History To 1500. | Jews Europe Social life and customs To 1500. | Jews Europe History To 1500.

Classification: LCC BS1199.W7 B38 2021 | DDC 220.9/2082 dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033977

For my parents, Al and Rita Baumgarten

T his study seeks a point of entry into the everyday lives of medieval Jews who left no written record because they did not belong to the learned elite whose oeuvre has reached us. It uses the Bibleas read and interpreted by the Jews of medieval Ashkenazas a tool for social history. By exploring select narratives, with attention to particular figures, and their varied tellings (and retellings) as explanations and validations for ritual practice, this book presents case studies that provide access to the daily existence of Jews who lived in northern France and Germany, particularly within urban social milieux, where they lived among a Christian majority. These Jewish communities are broadly known as the Jews of Ashkenaz because of their shared customs and cultural commonalities.This book does not attempt to be a comprehensive study of the Bible or its medieval interpretations. Nor do I posit that the genres I analyze hereliterature, art, exegesis, legal directivesmirror social practice. Rather, my goal is to examine Jewish medieval engagement with the Bible as a window on aspects of the daily lives and cultural mentalits of medieval Ashkenazic Jews in the High Middle Ages, with the working assumption that these sources contributed to shaping and conveying elements of their world. Throughout, I explore this as an avenue along which social historians may access the quotidian circumstances of people of the past, in this case, medieval Jews who left no written accounts of their beliefs and practices.

By concentrating on biblical heroines and the everyday practices that emerge from examining these figures and their portrayals, In the pages that follow, I set the stage by presenting the Ashkenazic communal frameworks and sources that I examine in this study and outline the complex role of the Bible in medieval Jewish life: as an internal source that was discussed within Jewish communities; as an external source that was considered and interpreted by Christians in relation to their own practices; and as a shared source providing the underpinnings of medieval Jewish-Christian dialogue and polemics.

The Jews of medieval Ashkenaz are often referred to collectively, despite the significant political, cultural, and social distinctions that differentiated them within this region. These communities are documented from the decades before 1000 CE, as is evident in the charters and mentions of their presence from this time in northern France, then in Germany, and finally in England after the Norman conquest. By the late Middle Ages, Jews from Ashkenaz dwelled in Central and Eastern Europe as well as in northern Italy.

Throughout the region, scholars and businesspeople moved from one area to another. So, for example, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, students from France journeyed to Germany to study; and during the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, German students regularly frequented French yeshivas.

The Jewish population and the number of Jewish settlements, both small and large, grew tremendously over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Nonetheless, various Jewish communities survived in the lands of the Holy Roman Empire through modern times.

The characteristics of Jewish life in medieval Ashkenaz have been the subject of significant scholarly interest during the past century and a half. The pendulum has swung between viewing Ashkenazic Jewry as an isolated group, forcibly and volitionally separated from the Christian milieux within which it lived, and considering medieval Ashkenazic Jews to be an integrated community that had an important role in the daily urban life of predominantly Christian medieval Europe. This book follows those who see medieval Ashkenazic Jews as simultaneously entangled in their surroundings and distinct from them. In this study I both examine mutually held traditions and investigate how medieval Jews saw themselves as distinct and made tangible that differentiation.

Within the medieval European urban landscape, Jews and Christians were joined by many elements of daily life, as well as by the biblical text they shared. Living in close proximity, the Jews, as a religious minority, and the Christians, as both the majority and ruling class, came into frequent contact. Jews dwelled alongside Christians in the various neighborhoods of medieval cities, and the synagogue was often located close to the municipal center, main churches, and town hall. Jews thus were part of the fabric of medieval urban life. Through their involvement in local trade, they were often associated with specific Christians as neighbors and business partners. Much recent research has considered the integration or separation of Jews in relation to their Christian neighbors, but it often lumps all the Jews together rather than seeking variety within the Jewish community, or assumes that Jews consistently adapted understandings from their surroundings or rejected them rather than allowing for a combination of both strategies. In some cases, contrasting understandings of the same issue or story existed, with some Jews appropriating the Christian interpretation and other Jews understanding it in a distinctly Jewish manner. Sometimes Jewish exegetes and storytellers adapted a new interpretation, and sometimes they chose to adhere to traditional narratives. In this study there are certain instances where I suggest that Jews incorporated concepts from their surroundings and others where I demonstrate how they chose to intentionally contrast Christian interpretation. Only by examining and comparing medieval Jewish understandings to their Christian parallels, whether concerning the Bible or relating to other elements of daily life, can we better comprehend and contextualize their meanings.