Social History Commons^™

Rabbinic Authority And Community In 18th Century Germany: Moses Brandeis Levi And The Jewish Community Of Mainz, Stefan Litt

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Moses Brandeis Levi (d. 1767) was one of the important rabbis of the early modern community in Mainz. Besides his local duties, he was also in charge for the rural communities in the territory of the archbishopric of Mainz. A number of sources indicate that his relations both to the local community and to the Gentile authorities were all but easy. In my presentation, I will introduce an unknown source from the records of the Jewish community in Mainz (Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem, D/Ma7/5, pp. 100-102). This Yiddish text is about a sharp dispute …

The Struggle To Transcend Differences And Conflicts Among Early American Jewry, Eli Faber

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Exploration of two contrary tendencies among colonial American Jews to achieve consensus within their religious fellowship. In one case, they relied upon European precedent by attempting to recreate the kehilla in America, while in the other they rejected European precedents that forbade commonality among Ashkenazim and Sepharadim. The outcome was a new kind of community: the voluntary one.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Minute Book of the Congregation Shearith Israel in New York (1730-1760)

Regulating Communal Space: Mikvaot In Seventeenth-Century Altona, Debra Kaplan

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Over the course of a few years in the latter half of the seventeenth century, the community of Altona made several changes in the administration of local ritual baths. A series of entries in the communal pinkas, or logbook, elucidates how the community raised funds from mikvaot, how lay and rabbinic leaders worked together, and how communal leaders regulated ritual space both in homes and in communal space.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Pinkas/Communal Logbook of Altona (CAHJP AHW 14 [50])
• Pinkas/Communal Logbook of Altona (CAHJP AHW 14 [90])
• Pinkas/Communal Logbook of Altona (CAHJP AHW 14 [91])

Minhag And Migration: A Yiddish Custom Book From Venice, 1553, Lucia Raspe

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation focuses on a Yiddish book of customs written in Venice in the mid-sixteenth century, which describes synagogue and home observances over the course of the Jewish year. Comparing MS Oxford Can. Or. 12 to the fifteenth-century Hebrew custumal it is based on (MS Frankfurt hebr. oct. 227), the presentation will discuss the efforts of Ashkenazic émigrés to northern Italy trying to preserve their identity in the face of a Jewish world suddenly become complex.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Book of Customs (MS Frankfurt hebr. oct. 227)
• Book of Customs (MS Oxford Can. Or. 12)

Communities Developing In Association With Place: Testament Of Ginebra Blanis, 1574, Stefanie Siegmund

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Recent attention to Jewish demography and to the spatial characteristics of Jewish residential patterns has demonstrated that in more than one region, Early Modern Jews were associated with each other more loosely, and less locally, than has previously been imagined. The "communities" to which Jews may have felt they belonged are difficult to know as they are likely to have varied with economic or social status, gender, age, and ethnic origin. The testament translated below is that of a merchant woman in the first years of the existence of the Florentine ghetto (founded 1571). The study of early modern bequests …

Jewish Community And Identity In The Early Modern Period, Emw 2010

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The 7th Early Modern Workshop took place from August 15-17, 2010 at Wesleyan University. The topic was “Jewish Community and Identity in the Early Modern Period.”

The traditional approach to “Jewish community” has been focused on the formal communal structures of Jewish self-government. This approach often traced the presence of “autonomous” Jewish self-government in the diaspora from antiquity till the modern times, when, it was stressed, these “autonomous” structures were shattered by the interference of modern states in Jewish communal affairs.

Scholars discussed takkanot (decisions and regulations by Jewish community leaders), privileges granted to Jews, correspondence between Jews across different …

The Jews And Ius Commune, Kenneth Stow

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

From the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, there was a gradually increasing integration of Jews into systems of ius commune, loosely, the law of the land, but actually a legal tradition based on Roman law, which subsumed local law, usually called ius proprium. The integration might be purely theoretical or in fact, as certainly occurred in the papal state and it seems elsewhere in Italy, too. This legal integration prepared the way for the major legal upheaval worked by the French Revolution. The implications are many. The details mostly unresearched. The Tractatus de Iudaeis of Giuseppe Sessa (Turin, 1713) is the …

When The Indelible Sacrament Of Baptism Met Mercantile Raison D'Etat, Benjamin Ravid

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In theory, under almost all circumstances, once a Jew had been baptized, s/he became a Christian and any relapse constituted heresy and was liable to severe punishment, often by death. However, in the mid-sixteenth century the Papacy adopted a far more lenient policy out of considerations of commercial raison d' état and invited New Christian merchants to assume Judaism in Ancona with assurance of complete freedom from any persecution. At the same time, Venice expelled all Marranos from the city and forbade them to return. The papal attitude changed with the Counter-Reformation and former New Christians who had reverted to …

Trying Issues: Polish-Lithuanian Jews Under Multiple Jurisdictions, Adam Teller

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The texts presented here highlight issues of multiple jurisdiction Jews were subjected to in early modern Poland-Lithuania

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Privilege for the Jews of Lwów (1692)
• Privilege for the Jews of the Przemyśl Region and Rus' (1660)

Jews At The Court Of The Kadi, Yaron Ben-Naeh

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

One of the most astonishing phenomena of Jewish life in the Ottoman state is the widespread appeal to the kadi's court - a muslim court. I intend to describe the frequency of this norm, against explicit regulations, and explain the motivation to use the kadi's services, as well as the reasons for the ban against it. I shall conclude with the social and cultural significance of this practice.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Mordechai Halevi, Darkei Noam (Pleasant Ways) (Venice, 1697)
• The court records of istanbul/ Istanbul sher'iyye sijilleri (1662)

Under Imperial Protection? Jewish Presence On The Imperial Aulic Court In The 16th And 17th Centuries, Barbara Staudinger

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

From the middle ages on Jewish life in the holy roman empire was characterized by their egal status as servants of the imperial chamber (servi camerae, Kammerknechte). Paying taxes to the imperial chamber, the Jews stood under special protection of the Emperor. The so-called Speyrer Jew Privilege (1544) stated the legal framework of the Jewish community of the Empire, prohibiting expulsion, and „unjustified“ acusations of ritual murder and securing undisturbed religious practice, and imperial conduct and protection. But what was this privilege along with other privileges from indiviuals worth in reality? Based on two cases from the Imperial Aulic Court …

Evasion As A Legal Tactic: The 1616 Amsterdam Regulations Concerning The Jews, Miriam Bodian

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Early modern rulers (or ruling bodies) who chose to readmit Jews in places where they had long been banned were faced with theological dilemmas and practical problems. Although it is true that the principle of freedom of conscience was gaining increasing acceptance, its adherents were rarely clear about whether it could be applied to non-Christians. And while the economic interests of rulers favored the settlement of Jews in their lands, the opposition of guilds and clergy could not be ignored. In these circumstances, a rather striking policy of evasion was adopted - in France, in the Netherlands, and in England. …

The Herem As The Source Of Authority Of The Lay Governing Council, Anne Oravetz Albert

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

A treatise on the herem composed by Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, the head rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam. Specifically, this pamphlet defends the authority of the lay leadership council to do so, arguing against unnamed members of the community who are causing scandal by denying that authority.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Exhortation to those who fear the Lord, not to fall into sin due to lack of understanding of the precepts of his Holy Law by Isaac Aboab de Fonseca (1679/80)

Challenging Herem In Hamburg, 1732, David Horowitz

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

These documents represent one of the earliest calls for state intervention by the Hamburg authorities into the internal decisions of the bet din. The bed din of the Triple Community of Hamburg-Altona-Wandsbek compelled Joseph Jonas, a resident of Hamburg, to divorce his wife after she was suspected of adultery. When he refused, the chief rabbi and kahal put him and his wife in the ban (herem). Jonas turned to the Hamburg Senate for assistance in reversing the decision and removing himself from the ban. The documents comprise letters from Jonas and the Hamburg kahal in defense of their respective positions …

Takkanot Kahal And The Origin Of Communal Structures In A Franconian Village Community In The 17th Century, Stefan Litt

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Takkanot Kahal are clearly a phenomenon of early modern Jewry in Europe. Throughout the Ashkenazi world there were four common ways to enact them. By elaborating takkanot, Jewish leaders copied the Gentile custom of creating legal digests in that time, thus adapting the communities to the administrative structures of the early modern state. The short statutes of the community in Ühlfeld, dating fromm 1688, are a rare example for takkanot enacted in an early stage of the local Jewish history. The text clearly shows the efforts of the author, R. Asher Enslen of Schnaittach, to strenghten the ties in the …

Expanding Legal Horizons?, Edward Fram

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Legal change was not only a result needs to adapt the law to new situations but could be stimulated by new information. New sources were not always accepted and this presentation will attempt to locate the point in time in which acceptance of a large number of new sources took place in the eastern European community of the early modern age.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Shulhan `arukh, Yoreh De'ah 19.1 (1567)
• Siftei Kohen-The Priest's Lips on Yoreh De'ah 19.1 (1647)
• Turei Zahab-The Golden Columns on Yoreh De'ah 19.1 (1646)

Material Possessions And Religious Boundaries In Early Modern Poland, Magda Teter

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The 1719 trial of two Jews from Brest (Brześć) accused of breaking into a Bernardine church and robbing a tomb of a prominent noble woman, raises questions of material possessions and religious boundaries. Among things stolen were clothes and textiles used in wrapping the coffin of the deceased woman. They were also one of the reasons that the robbery was discovered and the Jews were caught: some months following the robbery the daughters of the two Jewish robbers were spotted wearing dresses made of the stolen textiles. This case is certainly most notorious but it is not the only example …

Symbolic Clothes Marginality And Otherness Of Jews And New Christians As Reflected By Their Dress In Two Christian Texts, Nadia Zeldes

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Clothes in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period denoted legal status and social standing. Jews (and other minority and marginal groups) were distinguished by clothing regulations, sometimes supplemented by the wearing of a special badge. However, beyond custom and law, there were subtle cues that signaled marginality such as the wearing of certain fabrics and colours etc. In Mediterranean Europe, that is in Italy, Sicily and the Iberian kingdoms, Jews wore more or less the same fashions as the surrounding society though there were restrictions and distinguishing marks imposed by either the ruler and the Church or the …

The Estates Of A Jewish Merchant And Of A Rabbi In Seventeenth Century Venice, Bernard D. Cooperman, Benjamin Ravid

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

As is well known, the Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASV; Venetian State Archives) is among the largest in Europe, and contains much material dealing with the Jews of Venice. This includes inventories of the estates of Jews compiled for the purposes of implementing the will of the deceased, and very fortunately two inventories of the estates of arguably the two most prominent Jews of the first half of the sixteenth century, representing two completely different types of Jews, both of whom have been the subject of considerable scholarly attention, have been located and published in the original Italian. One …

An Inventory Of An Inquisitorial Prisoner's Possessions, Miriam Bodian

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The presentation will describe how an inventory of an inquisitorial prisoner's possessions, routinely drawn up at the time of a prisoner's arrest, throws light on the material circumstances and consumption patterns of the prisoner and his/her family, as well as on the material milieu he/she inhabited. The inventory is that of Francisco Maldonado de Silva, a physician in the Viceroyalty of Peru, drawn up at the time of his arrest for judaizing in 1627.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Inventory of the possessions of the licentiate Francisco Maldonado de Silva (1627)

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Jewish Consumption And Material Culture In The Early Modern Period, Emw 2007

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

At the 2007 Early Modern Workshop, speakers discussed the representation of Jews and their way of life in art and the use of various types of images and objects by scholars trying to learn about Jewish rituals, customs, and culture: images from Christian sources (Shalom Sabar), beakers (Vivian Mann), cloth and textiles used to make parokhet (Rachel Greenblatt). Can symbols used in synagogues and books tell us much about the values of the Jewish community? What role did ideology play in public representations of the Jewish community (Limor Mintz-Manor)? Scholars discussed the usefulness and pitfalls of using inventory records, focusing …

A Challenge To Sexual And Marital Propriety And Communal Reaction, Kenneth Stow

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The selection of sources from the early 1550's Rome deal with the question of honor of young women and their fathers.

The Jewish Community of Rome was unimpressed. It wanted it made clear that one did not make accusations that could harm the well-being, in fact, mostly financial, but also the honor, of young women. Indeed, the bride Ricca was herself awarded what amounted to a hefty fine; we know that among Christians, it was the father’s honor that was considered impugned, and any monetary sanctions would go to him. Not here.

Finally, we learn something about sacred and profane. …

Two Cases Of Apostasy In Dubno In 1716 Jews, Christians, And Family Life, Magda Teter

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This text relates a trial of two Christian women who accepted to Judaism that took place in the city of Dubno in eastern Poland in 1716. The text presented here comes from a collection of primary sources published in Kiev [now Kyiv] in 1869, as part of effort by scholars at the time to collect and publish primary source materials about Ukraine. The collection is called Arkhiv Iugo-zapadnoi Rossii, or The Archive of South-Western Russia, and contains documents from the South-Western part of Ukraine.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Two Cases of Apostasy in Dubno in 1716

The Role Of Marriage And Marital Sexuality In Lurianic Kabbalah, Lawrence Fine

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The presentation situates the development of Lurianic Kabbalah in its context of sixteenth-century Safed. Focusing on two texts by Hayyim Vital, Lawrence Fine discusses sexuality and marital relations in Lurianic Kabbalah and among the Kabbalists themselves.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Ta'amei Mitsvot, Parshat Bereshit (Reasons for the Commandments concerning “Be Fruitful and Multiply”) by Hayim Vital (1570s)
• Sha'ar Kavvanot (The Gate of [Contemplative] Intentions, Concerning Sabbath Eve) by Hayim Vital (1570s)

“The First Duty Of Nature Is To Preserve Life” A Jewish Woman’S Plea For Divorce In Late 18th-Century Trieste, Lois Dubin

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The presentation discusses a letter from Relle [Rachele] Morschene (1770-1844) of Trieste to Chief Rabbi Raffael Natan Tedesco, written in the throes of her three-year long effort to extricate herself from her marriage to husband Lucio Luzzatto (1755-1801). From 1793 to 1796, Morschene pursued separation and civil divorce through the Habsburg courts at the same time as a Jewish religious divorce. Indeed, she was one of the first European Jewish women to seek and obtain a civil divorce. Her legal situation was novel because Jews in the Habsburg Monarchy were among the first to be subjected to civil marriage regulation …

The Woodstruck Deed The Documentation Of Accidental Defloration Among The Jews Of Early Modern Italy, David Malkiel

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The “woodstruck” (mukat ets) deed, a Hebrew document that officially records the accidental defloration of a young girl, appears in sixteenth-century Italy, in a block of deeds recorded by Jewish notaries in Rome, in a rabbinic responsum and in the record book of the Padua community. Prior to that, there is no record of such an instrument anywhere in Jewish history and literature, despite the fact that the frequency of accidental defloration must have been a constant. Moreover, the registers of the Jewish notaries of sixteenth-century Rome contain over a hundred such deeds for the sixteenth century alone. The appearance …

Jewish Women And Economic Encounters With Christians, Debra Kaplan

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

R. Yair Hayyim ben Moses Samson Bacharach (1638-1702) is well-known for his knowledge of halakha and Kabbalah. Over the course of his lifetime, he served as the rabbi in several locations in the Holy Roman Empire. In these two responsa, Bacharach deals with one of the halakhic problems surrounding women’s trade with non-Jews. Such trade inevitably caused women to enter into seclusion (yihud) with non-Jews, especially since according to Jewish law, the presence of the non-Jew’s wife did not alleviate the prohibition of seclusion with a non-Jew.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Havvot Yair, Responsum 66
• Havvot Yair, …

Unequal Opportunities The Economic Possibilities Open To Jewish Women In 18th Century Poland-Lithuania, Adam Teller

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The following texts present an image of economic opportunities, and gender roles in Jewish society in eastern Europe. The first text is an 18th-century supplication by a Jew, Bunim Szlomowicz, against his wife; the second is a 1751 decree by the Council of Lithuania regulating women's roles in trade.

An Early 17th Century Ketubah From Sefer Tikun Sofrim By Rabbi Itzhak Zabakh, Ruth Lamdan

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In Jewish Law, the halakha, there is an extensive importance to the accurate scribing of legal documents (shtarot). Any slight deviation from the standard formula of one word, or even of one character, might invalidate a formal bill or cancel a personal or commercial obligation. The importance bestowed on each word encouraged many famous rabbis to write and edit books of standard legal bills, and Hebrew scribes used to copy samples of bills for their personal use in the future. Qualified scribes made exemplary collections of documents for their students, and young trainees would copy such samples – as well …

Family Ties & Political Structure In Pisa And Livorno, Bernard D. Cooperman

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In his presentation of two documents pertaining to Jews in Pisa and Livorno, Bernard Cooperman discusses the link between family connections and the construction of a new formal Jewish community and explores the connection between family and business networks. Cooperman argues here that new communities in early modern Italy were often structured as merchant companies, and it was a family that was a base of trade networks. Family also became a method of joining the community, while at the same time families and individuals used membership in a community to legitimize a family. The presentation further explores interracial marriages and …