Jewish Studies Commons^™

Emw 2006: Gender, Family, And Social Structures, Emw 2006

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The 2006 Early Modern Workshop on the topic of “Gender, Family, and Social Structures” addressed a spectrum of topics about the transformation of the concept and form of family in general, and of Jewish family in particular in the early modern period.

The workshop took up questions of: marriage rituals, as represented by early modern (Elisheva Baumgarten) and Christians (Jacob Deutsch), and marriage contracts (Ruth Lamdan), responsibilities of the Jewish community to women and out-of-wedlock children (Elisheva Carlebach), challenges to marriage and marital propriety (Debra Kaplan on rabbinic responses to Jewish women’s encounters with Christian men; David Malkiel and Kenneth …

Domestic Interiors Of Two Viennese Jewish Elites Probate Court In Vienna, 1730s, David Horowitz

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The probate inventories of mid-eighteenth-century Viennese Court Jews provide a rare opportunity to reflect upon the role of material consumption in the processes of acculturation and class formation among Central European Jewish elites during the decades preceding the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment). Probate inventories are lists of assets and possessions drawn up by government officials in the process of settling the estate of the deceased. These inventories require cautious interpretation by the historian, but potentially yield precious rewards since they afford a glimpse into the individual’s complex material world.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Domestic Interiors of Two Viennese …

The City As A Place Of Regulation, Border And Exclusion, Bernard D. Cooperman

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Supplications to the Government, Jewish Settlement in Livorno Atti Civili del Ufficio di governatore di Livorno (1605, 1610)

Law, Boundaries, And City Life In Early Modern Poland-Lithuania, Magda Teter

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The dynamics of relations within cities thus are shaped not only by class or religious or ethnic membership but also by the legal framework. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, divisions between the private and royal domains within cities disrupted not only their legal coherence but also that of Jewish communities themselves, sharpening economic competition and often also conflict. This is what the 1711 decree of the Lithuanian Tribunal against the kahal of Minsk highlights--legal distinctions sometimes exacerbated urban tensions.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Decree of the Lithuanian Tribunal against the Kahal of Minsk (1711)

Click here to view …

Marching Soldiers, Opera Houses And Young Jewish Men In Eighteenth-Century Hague: Haag Jewish Community Minute Book, Stefan Litt

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The presented sources have been selected from the oldest minute book, the pinkas, of the Ashkenazi community in The Hague, which was kept from 1723 until 1786. The Hague was then the Dutch capital and residence of the Orange Stadholders. The city was much smaller than Amsterdam, but it was still one of the most important urban centers of the Dutch Republic. As the capital, its urban population included many officials, diplomats and soldiers, and these people formed and influenced the urban life significantly. The second half of the eighteenth century witnessed the high point of the Rococo with its …

The Personal Record Book Of Hayyim Gundersheim Dayyan (1774), Edward Fram

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Rabbinic courts were and remain an integral part of the Jewish community and the Jewish community in Frankfurt in the late eighteenth century had not one but two such courts. The courts handled a wide range of issues including divorces, contracts, real estate transactions, trusts, estates, and also gave opinions on the scope of Jewish communal authority. This particular case deals with a house on the so called "Judengasse" in Frankfurt. The Jewish ghetto was divided up into lots that had names rather than street numbers and houses on the lots were often owned by more than one family. The …

Close Quarters Privacy And Jewish House Space In Early Modern Polish Cities, Adam Teller

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The following texts were chosen in order to illustrate the implications of the growth in Jewish population in Poland's larger towns during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the number of Jews grew faster than the non-Jewish authorities would allow the Jewish quarters to expand. This led to an increasing degree of crowding in the Jewish quarter as a whole as well as in individual houses. To illustrate this, some demographic data on the situation in the Jewish quarter of Poznan may be seen in the presentation.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Cracow Community Ordinance of 5355 (1595) …

Rural Jews Of Alsace, Debra Kaplan

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

From 1348/9-1477, the Jews of Alsace were expelled from the cities in which they had lived throughout the Middle Ages. While many opted to leave the Empire for centers in Eastern Europe and Italy, some Jews remained, moving to the towns and villages in the countryside. By the 1470's, the majority of Alsatian Jews lived in rural areas. Quotas often dictated residential policies in towns and villages, so it was not uncommon to find one or two Jewish families per village/town. The following documents detail the relationship of rural Alsatian Jews, as represented by their communal leaders, with two Alsatian …

Taverns And Public Drinking In Florence, Stefanie Siegmund

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The texts presented here (from Florence, Italy, 1571-1622) draw our attention to a set of spaces neither specifically Jewish nor Christian, but decidedly urban and early modern: the eating and drinking establishments of the cities. Not included here but relevant are the rabbinic laws that forbid Jews to eat non-kosher food, regulate the wine Jews drink, and prohibit Jews from spending or handling money on the Sabbath and on festival days. As a set, the texts both hint at chronological developments in the city of Florence and in the ghetto and also serve to caution against facile readings of any …

Proceedings Of Old Bailey (18th Century), Todd Endelman

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Todd Endelman discusses the following six texts were published in The Whole Proceedings upon the King's Commission of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery for the City of London and also the Gaol Delivery for the County of Middlesex, a series of printed volumes recording cases tried at the Old Bailey in the City of London in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (now accessible on line at www.oldbaileyonline.org.)

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• The Proceedings of the Old Bailey

Click here for the video

Question Of The Eruv In Early Modern Europe, David Katz

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Both the responsum of Rabbi Aboab and that of Hakham Zvi Ashkenazi reflect a feature of pre-modern kehillah life almost never dealt with in scholarly literature, namely, the urban eruv, a physical boundary delineating space in which one is permitted to carry items on Sabbath, erected by the kehillah.

This presentation is for the following text(s), available in the PDF file:

• Samuel Aboab's Responsum 257
• Hakham Zvi Ashkenazi's Responsum, She'elot u'Teshuvot Hakham Zvi no. 6 (1699)

Click here to view the video

The Shtetl In Context, Thomas Hubka

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The town plans that will be analyzed were part of a greater, pre-nineteenth century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including most of today's Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and western Ukraine. The overall organization and character of the Polish, eighteenth century, small Jewish town was primarily developed during the fourteenth-through-eighteenth century Polish colonization of its eastern provinces in what is now Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine.

Emw 2005: Jews And Urban Spaces, Emw 2005

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The second Early Modern Workshop (August, 2005) was hosted by the Louis L. Kaplan Chair in Jewish History, the Department of History, and the Rebecca and Joseph Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland; by the Hebraica Section of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., and supported by Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT.

Texts and maps cover a number of urban and geographic settings from London, to The Hague, Frankfurt, Livorno, Florence, Strasbourg, Prague, Poznań, and Minsk. They deal with physical personal space (minutes from the Poznań community record book; responsum of Rabbi Isaac the Great from Poznań; …

Sefer Zikhronot-Book Of Remembrances By Samuel Aboab (1650), Bernard D. Cooperman

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Sefer Zikhronot-Book of Remembrances

Records Of The Metz Beit Din: Jewish Court Records (1771-1789), Jay R. Berkovitz

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Until roughly 1789, the hallmark of Jewish communal autonomy was the authority granted to rabbinic courts to adjudicate civil cases involving Jewish litigants. Nevertheless, the exclusive civil jurisdiction of these tribunals was challenged regularly by individuals seeking to resolve their disputes in the general courts. In Metz, the much esteemed rabbinic court (beit din) continued to convene until early 1790. Three registers from the beit din are preserved in manuscript at the YIVO Archives in New York. Commencing in 1771, the registers contain nearly two decades of judicial cases totaling 1167 decisions.

The texts included are two cases …

The Jewishness Of Conversos, Talya Fishman

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Talya Fishman discusses rabbinic views on the Jewishness of conversos in the early modern period.

This presentation is for the following text(s):

• Keshet U-Magen
• Respuesta A Un Cavallero Frances
• She'elot u-Teshuvot Yakhin u-Vo'az
• Voice of a Fool

The Order Of Women's Commandments Seder Mitzvot Nashim By Benjamin Slonik (1577), Edward Fram

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Using Benjamin Slonik's Seder mitsvot ha-nashim (1577), Edward Fram discusses the impact of printing on Jewish culture in the early modern period.

Anti-Jewish Accusations In Poland: A Medieval Or Early Modern Phenomenon?, Magda Teter

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Anti-Jewish accusations of host desecration and ritual murder, both of medieval origin and nature, became characteristic of the early modern period in Poland. Despite their medieval roots, some of the medieval characteristics of the accusations were gradually lost in the early modern period, even though their traces continue to appear in the sources. The presentation discusses the loss of theological significance of the accusations. The host desecration accusations gradually become church robbery cases, even if some theological rhetoric is retained, and the blood libels become cases of Jewish hostility and not of reenacting of the Crucifixion.

This presentation is for …

Trent 1475: The Responses Of A Pope And A Jewish Chronicler, Kenneth Stow

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This presentation discusses two responses to the 1475 trial of Jews accused of ritually murdering a Christian boy, Simon, in the city of Trent. One comes from Pope Sixtus IV and another, a century later, from a Jewish chronicler, Joseph ha-Cohen.

The Letters Of Bella Perlhefter (1674-75), Elisheva Carlebach

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Elisheva Carlebach discusses the literary legacy of Bella bat Jacob Perlhefter (born c. 1650), accomplished writer, instructor of music and rhythm, and entrepreneurial seventeenth-century businesswoman. Her letters provide a rare glimpse into the life of a seventeenth-century Jewish woman (other than Glikl).

Letter From Jerusalem By Obadiah Of Bertinoro (1488), Elliott Horowitz

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Elliott Horowitz discusses letters by the fifteenth-century Jewish traveler, Obadiah of Bertinoro, who traveled from northern Italy to Jerusalem, as an example of early modern travel literature and encounters with different cultures.

Sefer Ha-Heshek By Hillel Baal Shem (1739), Moshe Rosman

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Moshe Rosman discusses the 1739 book by Hillel Baal Shem as an example of early modern Jewish culture. It focuses on the tension between manuscript and print culture, and esoteric and exoteric knowledge.

The selected passages highlight Hillel's training, the problems caused by charlatans, the undesirable popularization of mystical techniques fostered by the publication of simplistic handbooks, and the tangled relationship between ba'al shem type practices and "proper" medicine.

Click here for the video of the presentation.

Introduction To Triumpho Del Govierno Popular, Anne Oravetz Albert

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The Triumpho del Govierno Popular, y de la Antiguedad Holandesa by Miguel de Barrios (Daniel Levi de Barrios) describes the political and religious 'government' of the community, and includes accounts of its literary and charitable associations, along with poems, encomia, funeral orations, and other miscellanea from de Barrios' Jewish oeuvre. This excerpt constitutes the opening of the work, part of a 58-page introduction which sets a theme for the rest by relating the exilic governance of the Jewish people to the six days of creation, and the restored monarchy of the messianic age to the seventh day, on which God …

Popularization Of The Kabbalah: Two Early Modern Perspectives, Boaz Huss

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In this presentation Boaz Huss of Ben Gurion University discusses two texts, one from the sixteenth century, and one from the eighteenth century, illustrating the popularization of the Zohar, the foundational kabbalistic text, in the early modern period.

Introduction To R Hayim Vital And His Treatise Etz Hayim - The Tree Of Life [And To] The Sha'ar Hahaqdamot - Gate Of Principles (1572), Yosef Hacker, Menachem Kallus, Brian Ogren

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Yosef Hacker of Hebrew University in Jerusalem discusses Hayim Vital's Ets Hayim.

Privilege And Statute Of Maria Theresia For The Jews Of Trieste (1771), Lois Dubin

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In 1771 the Habsburg ruler Maria Theresia issued a Privilege and a Statute to Jews in Trieste, both to confirm their status and to attract additional Jewish merchants to help develop the Adriatic Free Port.

Lois Dubin discusses the legal and historical significance of this privilege.

Click here to view the presentation.

Jewish Legal Status In The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Adam Teller

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

In this presentation, Adam Teller discusses the change of status of Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the subjects of the King in the late medieval period to subjects of lords, in private dominions during the early modern period. He contrasts two legal documents: a privilege granted to Jews by King Kazimierz Jagiellończyk (1453) and a privilege granted to Jews in the town of Jampol by the town's owner.

Elia Schadeus' Mysterium: About The Conversion Of The Jews (1592), Debra Kaplan

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

This text reflects Elia Schadeus' position that economic tolerance of Jews and of converts would facilitate conversion to Christianity. It also documents the desperation felt by Jewish converts to Christianity, who had difficulty integrating into both their old and new societies.

Welcome Address At Emw 2004, Magda Teter

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

Welcome address to the first annual Early Modern Workshop.

Click here to view the video

Early Modern Jewries, Emw 2004

Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

The 2004 workshop’s goal was to look broadly at the early modern period, and develop a number of themes that might be pursued at subsequent workshops. At the workshop, a number of scholars worked together for three days trying to define the parameters of this chronological period in Jewish history. Participants have covered a broad, if still necessarily limited, range of geographic, thematic, and disciplinary topics, resulting in the first collection of impressive texts on early modern Jewish history. They include privileges granted by monarchs and lords to Jews (privileges granted to Jews of Great Poland in 1453, to a …