period

Judaism in practice from the middle ages through the early modern period

E d i t e d b y L a w r e n c e F i n e , Pr i n c e t o n U n i v e r s i t y Pr e s s

Reviewed by Jo Landy This book has been gathering dust on a succession of my bookcases for at least 15 years. The sight of it has repeatedly made me feel both guilty and inadequate. Then lockdown happened and I actually picked it off the shelf and began to read. I think what finally prompted me was the thought that I and my Jewish life were having to adapt in the face of History. This renewed my interest in finding out about what had gone before. The book is essentially a sourcebook covering the 1200 year period between 600 and 1900 CE. The reason it came to reside on my bookcase was the content. It covers many areas about the lives, rituals, and problems encountered by ordinary and extraordinary people. Judaism in Practice is divided into seven sections covering diverse subjects from religious rituals to sectarianism. Other sections include a history of the Jews of China, ‘Art and Aesthetics’, ‘Magic and Mysticism’, and ‘Great Lives’. It provides a broad overview into aspects of the lives of our ancestors.

The extracts are, all too often, frustratingly, tantalisingly short. Surviving documents provide brief glimpses into the lives of others. I was surprised that many chapters of the book concerned lives of women. Some more surprising than others. An Egyptian woman who wrote to the head of her community to help bring her husband back from a Sufi Monastery. During the Renaissance a single Jewish woman

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from Mantua was issued with a licence to slaughter fowl. A decade later, married, she had passed further rigorous examinations and was issued with another license allowing her to slaughter and porge cattle. There are insights into dark times with several chapters on Spanish Crypto Jews with accounts drawn from documents taken from the Spanish Inquisition. There is a German Jewish account of the first Crusade. The section entitled “Remarkable Lives” includes Rabbi Eleazar ben Judah of Worms’ interesting account of the life and heart rending violent death of his wife and their daughters. We are all buffeted by history. Judaism in Practice gathers together accounts that have survived and that provide a window into the past. Tragedy is present but also the joyful passion that our ancestors had for Judaism. And then there is just the plainly bizarre. I had heard about Shabbtai Zvi’s antics, but had not heard that he was expelled from Salonika for “marrying” a Torah scroll. All in all a compendium of fascinating vignettes of past Jewish life and lives.

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