NEJS 140b: Jews of Europe to 1791
Prof. Freeze (; x62987)
Office: Lown 312 (F: 12:30-2:00)
This course examines the history and culture of the Jews in the early modern period (1450s to 1790s). It explores transformations in Jewish culture, religion, everyday life, and economics with a special focus on the Hebrew printing revolution; innovations among conversos(New Christians) and Portuguese Jews; Kabbalah; messianic movements; rabbinic culture, women, gender, and family; everyday leisure (coffee, nocturnal habits); material culture; mercantilism; the impact of the Reformation (the momentous changes that resulted from the wide dissemination of the Hebrew Bible) and Counter Reformation in Europe (Christian fears of heresy and competition from the Jews); and Jewish engagement in science, philosophy, and literature. The course traces the Sephardic diaspora; the development of Jewish life in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; and the recreation of Jewish centers in German and Bohemian lands, as well as northern Europe after earlier periods of expulsion. The course will draw on primary sources (letters, autobiographies, sermons, divorce cases, rabbinic texts), literature, and visual and material culture.
Required Books
John Merriman, A History of Modern Europe From the Renaissance to the Present
R. Po-Chia Hsia, Trent 1475
Mark Cohen, trans. and ed., The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena's Life of Judah
Beth-Zion Abrahams, trans.The Life ofGlückel of Hameln: a Memoir
John Efron, et. al, The Jews, A History
Learning Goals
To identify the major events, persons, and ideas of early modern Jewish history;
To read primary sources critically and to explain their significance to relevant historical problems;
To communicate your ideas effectively, both orally and in writing.
Course Requirements and Grading:
Undergraduates:
1) Class Participation - 10%: Students are expected to have read the texts for each class and participate actively in discussions.
2) Journal - 25%: Write a one-two page response (typed) about the starred primary sources or text for each class. You should include the following: Who wrote the document and for whom? What is the genre or format (letter, responsa, etc.), and how does the format shape the information? What kinds of questions does the document raise? What is the historical significance of the document? What does the document not tell us? How does it relate to the readings?
Type your journal with your name and date at the top and place in a three-ring binder. Please bring your journal to every class. You will turn in the journal at the end of the semester.
3) In-class midterm: 20% (Identifications, Essay, Map Test)
4) Paper (5-6 pages) 20% on Leon Modena
4) Final Examination 25%
LATE PAPERS:
Most students are able to meet deadlines successfully. The few who fail to turn in assigned work by the deadline have the advantage over the rest of the class of extra time to consider and compose their papers.
Out of fairness to the others, assignments that arrive after the deadline will not receive full credit; they will be penalized by 1/2 a grade lower for every day the work is late. For example, a B paper due Monday that arrives Tuesday will receive an B-
Please note: Late papers will normally receive full credit only when they are supported by a written note from a doctor or dean.
Graduate Students:
Option A: Same requirements as the undergraduate students (but with take-home exams, not in-class exams with the undergrads)
Option B: (Required for Ph.d. students): 1) An annotated bibliography of all the readings(excluding the primary documents) plus supplemental secondary readings to be decided together with the professor based on comprehensive readings list (see below) (50%)
2) Take home midterm and final exam (25% each)
Academic integrity: Academic integrity is central to the mission of educational excellence at Brandeis University. Each student is expected to turn in work completed independently, except when assignments specifically authorize collaborative effort. It is not acceptable to use the words or ideas of another person–be it a world-class philosopher or your lab partner–without proper acknowledgment of that source. This means that you must use footnotes and quotation marks to indicate the source of any phrases, sentences, paragraphs, or ideas found in published volumes, on the internet, or created by another student.
Violations of University policies on academic integrity, described in Section three of Rights and Responsibilities, may result in failure in the course or on the assignment, or in suspension or dismissal from the University. If you are in doubt about the instructions for any assignment in this course, it is your responsibility to ask for clarification.
Disability: If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you, please see me immediately. Please keep in mind that reasonable accommodations are not provided retroactively.
Jan 14Introduction
Merriman, 1-19
Jan 17Background: Medieval Legacies and Transformations
Merriman, 19-33
The Jews, 147-73
Jan 21Trent: Blood Libel(write a two-page response in your journal)
Discussion:Ronald Po-Hsia, Trent 1475 Stories of a Ritual Murder Trial (entire)
Jan 24Sephardim on the Iberian Peninsula: Conversions and Expulsions
The Jews, 174-183
David Nirenberg, "Enmity and Assimilation: Jews, Christians, and Converts in Medieval Spain," Common Knowledge 9:1 (2003): 137-155
RenéeMelammed, "Maria Lopez: A Convicted Judaizer from Castile," in Women in the Inquisition," 53-72
Documents:
*Don Isaac Abrabanel, "Twilight of Spanish Glory," Memoirs of My People 43-47
*Samuel Usque, Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel, pp.12-17 (skim for information about the author), 38-40
Jan 28Ottoman Empire
The Jews, 183-193
Solomon Schechter, "Safed in the Sixteenth Century: A City of Legist and Mystics,"Studies in Judaism (2003): 202-230
Alisa MeynhasGinio, "Returning to Judaism: The Reconversion of New Christians to Their Ancestral Jewish Faith in the Ottoman Empire," The Medieval History Journal 12:2 (2009): 383-404
Documents:
*"Rabbi Jacob Berab's Attempt to Reintroduce Ordination" A Treasury of Jewish Letters, ed. Franz Kobler, 341-343
*"The Tale of Safed, the City of Mystics in the Letter of a Moravian Jew,"393-399
* Jews in the Court of the Kadi: Responsa R. Mordechaihalevi, "DarkeiNo'am (Pleasant Ways)"
Jan 31Italy: Ghettos and the Renaissance
Merriman, chpt 2 (read over next three classes)
The Jews, 192-200
Benjamin Ravid, "From Geographical Realia to Historiographical Symbol: The Odyssey of the World Ghetto" in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, 373-385.
Howard Adelman, “Jewish Women and Family Life, Inside and Outside the Ghetto” in Robert Davis and Benjamin Ravid, eds.,The Jews of Early Modern Venice, pp. 143-165
Documents:
*The Documentation of Accidental Defloration: Minute Book of the Council of Padua 1577-1603
*Responsa of Rabbi AzrielDiena (1528)
*Isaac Lampronti, PahadItzhak
*Judah b. Shabbatai, Shtarmukat 'etz (1544)
*Sara CopiaSullam Vindicates Her Faith Against Temptation and Calumny, A Treasury of Jewish Letters, 436-448
Feb 4Film: The Merchant of Venice (dir. Michael Radford, 2004)
*Text: William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice esp. act 1, scene 3; act 3, scene 1; act 4, scene 1 (ebook)
Feb 7Italy: Early Modern Autobiography
Discussion: The Autobiography of a Seventeenth Century Rabbi: Leon Modena's Life of Judah
Feb 11Luther's Challenge to the Medieval Church: The Reformation and its Impact
Merriman, chpt 3
The Jews, 200-202
Documents:
*Martin Luther, "Jesus was Born a Jew" (1523)
*"On Jews and Their Lies" (1543)
Feb 14Printing, Reading, and New Cultural Practices
The Jews, 176-75
Reiner, "The Ashkenazic Elite at the Beginning of the Modern Era: Manuscript Versus Print," Polin 10 (1997): 85-98.
AmnonRaz-Krakotzkin, "Censorship, Editing, and the Reshaping of Jewish Identity: the Catholic Church and Hebrew Literature in the Sixteenth Century," in HebraicaVeritas, 125-55.
(Optional) Shlomo Berger, "An Invitation to Buy and Read: Paratexts of Yiddish Books in Amsterdam, 1650-1800," Book History 7 (2004): 31-61.
Documents:
Preface to Tsene Rene
Feb Vacation
Feb 25Mysticism and Popular Spirituality
Elliot Horowitz, "The Eve of the Circumcision: A Chapter in the History of Jewish Nightlife," in Essential Papers on Jewish culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, 554-588.
----- "The Early Eighteenth Century Confronts the Beard: Kabbalah and Jewish Self Fashioning," Jewish History 8:1-2 (1994): 95-115 (Optional)
Moshe Idel, "Differing Conceptions of Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century," in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, 137-200.
Documents: *Selections from the Diary of Haim Vital, in Morris Faierstein, Jewish Mystical Autobiographies
Feb 26First Paper due (5:00 PM in my mailbox)
Feb 28Messianism and Sabbateanism
The Jews, 227-229I
Jacob Barnai, "Christian Messianism and the Portuguese Marranos: The Emergence of Sabbateanism in Smyrna" Jewish History 7:2 (1993): 119-126
Optional: Ada Rapoport Albert, Women and the Messianic Heresy of SabbataiZevi, selections
Documents: *"ShabbathaiZebi, False Messiah, 1666" in Jew in the Medieval World
*Jacob Emden, "Defeat of Satan" Memoirs of My People
Mar 4Eastern Europe: Self Government, Communal Structure, Leadership
The Jews, 204-210
Adam Teller, "The Laicization of Early Modern Jewish Society: the Development of the Polish Communal Rabbinate, in SchöpferischeMomente des europäischenJudentums in der frühenNeuzeit.
Documents: *Cracow Community Ordinance of 5355
*Ordinance of the Pinkas of the Jewish Community in Poznan
*ResponsaBe'er Yitzhak
Mar 7Eastern Europe: Religion, Culture, and Society
The Jews, 211-213
Edward Fram, "Two Cases of Adultery and the Halakhic Decision Making Process," AJS Review 26: 2 (2002): 277-300.
Documents: *The Legal Status of a Wife in Responsa Shut Maharshal
*Selections from Tales of the Hasidim
*Seder MitzvotNashim
Mar 11Eastern Europe: Violence and Frankism
Edward Fram, "Creating a Tale of Martyrdom in Tulczyn, 1648"
Documents:*Selections from YevenMetsulah
Mar 14Midterm Exam
Mar 18Jewish Prague
Hillel Kieval, "Pursuing the Golem of Prague: Jewish Culture and the Invention of a Tradition, Modern Judaism 17:1 (1997): 1-23
Documents: *"Private Letters from the Ghetto of Prague Written on the Threshold of the Thirty Year' War" A Treasury of Jewish Letters, 449-479
*Anonymous, "Memories of an Unhappy Childhood," (1668), Memoirs of My People, 103-114
Mar 21The Thirty-Year War, Mercantilism, andCourt Jews
Optional: Merriman, 159-177
The Jews, 213-217
Michael Gratz, "Court Jews in Economics and Politics," in From Court Jews to the Rothchilds: Art, Patronage, and Power
Documents: * Select probate inventories of the Oppenheimers
*“Appointment of Samson Wertheimer,” in Paul Mendes-Flohr and JehudaReinharz, eds.,The Jew in the Modern World, pp. 17-19.
*"How the Jews of the Diaspora Fought the Empress Maria Theresa to Avert the Expulsion of the Jews from Prague," in A Treasure of Jewish Letters, 590-611"
Mar 25Discussion: Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln
Mar 28Amsterdam: Conversos Return to Judaism
Merriman, 260-271; The Jews, 216-226 (Read over next three classes)
Miriam Bodian, “Men of the Nation”: The Shaping of Converso Identity in Early Modern Europe,” in Past and Present 143 (May 1994): 48-76. (Latte)
(Optional) Yosef Kaplan, “From Apostasy to Return to Judaism: The Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam.” In Binah: Studies in Jewish History, vol. 1, ed. Joseph Dan, New York: Praeger, 1989, pp.99-117.
Documents: *Responsa of R. Zemah ben Shlomo Duran as cited by Orobio de Castro of Amsterdam
Apr 1Amsterdam: Religion and Culture
Yosef Kaplan, "The Social Function of the Herem," in An Alternative Path to Modernity, 108-42
Optional: Steven Nadler, Rembrandt's Jews
Documents: *Isaac Aboab, "Exhortation to Those Who Fear the Lord" (on the Herem)
*Saul ha-Levi Morteira, "The People's Envy" (Sermon) in Jewish Preaching 1200-1800, 270-28
Apr 4Amsterdam: Radical Deviations
Steven Nadler, A Book Forged in Hell (prologue and chpt 2)
Documents: *Selections from Baruch Spinoza, TractatusTheologico-Politicus (trans. Jonathan Israel)
*Uriel da Costa, "My Double Life and Excommunication," in Leo Schwarz, ed., Memoirs of My People, pp.84-94
Apr 8Colonial Exploration and Jews of England
The Jews, 225-226
Y. Kaplan, The Jewish Profile of the Spanish-Portuguese Community of London During the Seventeenth Century," Judaism 41 (1992): 229-40.
Maria José Pimento Ferro Tavares, "Portuguese Jews and Portuguese Discoveries," World Congress of Jewish Studies 11 (1994): 123-129
Documents: *Menassah Ben Israel, "How Profitable the Nation of the Jews Are"
Apr 11Jews Welcome Coffee
RobertLiberles, Jews Welcome Coffee, chpt. 3 ("The Rabbis Welcome Coffee")
---- "Coffee, Coffeehouses, and the Nocturnal Rituals of Early Modern Jewry," AJS Review 14:1 (1994): 95-115
Novel: David Liss, The Coffee Trader, 1-26
Passover Break
Apr25The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment
Skim Merriman, 327-353
David Fishman, "Rabbi Moses Isserles and the Study of Science Among Polish Rabbis," in Science in Context 10:4 (1997): 571-588
Optional: David Ruderman, "Padua and the Formation of a Jewish Medical Community in Italy," in Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe, 100-117
Document: *"Monstrous Births and Marvelous Creatures," in Matt Goldish, Jewish Questions: Responsa on Sephardic Life in the Early Modern Period, 106-108
Apr 29Enlightened Absolutism and the Beginnings of Enlightenment
The Jews, 231-240
Lois Dubin, The Port Jews of Habsburg Trieste, selections
*Text: Solomon Maimon, Solomon Maimon: An Autobiography (selections)
*"Privilege and Statute of Maria Theresia for the Jews of Trieste" (1771)
Three-Hour Final Examination
Graduate Reading List: FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS ONLY(Option B of Syllabus)
Primary Sources:
Edward Fram, My Dear Daughter: Rabbi Benjamin Slonik and the Education of Jewish Women in Sixteenth Century Poland
Joanna Weinberg, The Light of the Eyes: Azariah ben Moses de Rossi
SarraCopiaSulam, Jewish Poet and Intellectual in Seventeenth-Century Venice
Martin Cohen, Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel: Samuel Usque
Marc Saperstein, Exile in Amsterdam: Sermons by Saul Levi Morteira
Jonathan Israel, Theological Political Treatise: Benedict Spinoza
Mordecai Kaplan, The Path of the Just: Moses HayimLuzzatto
Fishman, Talya. Shaking the Pillars of Exile. ‘Voice of a Fool’, an Early Modern Jewish Critique of Rabbinic Culture.
Isaac Rabinowitz, The Book of the Honeycomb's Flow: Messer Leon
Allan Arkush, Jerusalem: Moses Mendelssohn
General Studies, Methodology, Periodization
Edwards, John. The Jews in Christian Europe, 1400-1700 London, 1988
Foa, Anna.Ebrei in Europa dallapesteneraall’emancipazione. Rome and Bari, 1992, and review by D. Ruderman in AHR (12/2001), pp. 1863-4.
Funkenstein, Amos. Perception of Jewish History.Berkeley, 1993 (chapters 1, 2, 6).
Hundert, Gershon. “A Reconsideration of Jewish Modernity,” in Michael Graetz, ed. SchoepferischeMomente des europäischenJudentums in der frühenNeuzeit.Heidelberg, 2000, pp. 321-32
Israel, Jonathan.European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550-1750. London and Portland, Oregon, 1998 (3rd), and reviews by D. Ruderman in JQR 78 (1987), pp. 154-159; G. Hundert, in Polin 2, pp. 407-09
Kaplan, Yosef. “An Alternative Path to Modernity”, in Y. Kaplan. An Alternative Path to Modernity: The Sephardi Diaspora in Western Europe. 2000, pp. 1-28
Meyer, Michael. “Where does the Modern Period of Jewish History Begin?,” in Judaism 23 (1975), pp. 329-338
.
Renaissance Culture in Italy
Bonfil, Robert.Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy.Berkeley, 1994 (1991)
______. “The Historian’s Perception of Jews in the Italian Renaissance. Towards a Reappraisal”, in REJ 143 (1984), pp. 59-82
______. “Introduction”, in Id, ed. Kitve ‘Azaryah min ha-Adumim: mivharperakimmitokhseferMe’or ‘enayimve-seferMtsref la-kesef, Jerusalem, 1991
______. “Aspects of the Social and Spiritual Life of the Jews in Venetian Territories at the Beginning of the 16th century”, in Zion 41, pp. 68-96 (Hebrew)
Lesley, Arthur. “Jewish Adaptation of Humanist Concepts in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth- Century Italy”, in David Ruderman ed., Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. New York, 1992, pp. 45-62
Roth, Cecil.The Jews in the Renaissance.Philadelphia, 1959
Ruderman, David. “The Italian Renaissance and Jewish Thought”, in A. RabilJr, ed. Renaissance Humanism: Foundation and Forms. 1987, vol. 1, pp. 382-433
______.The World of a Renaissance Jew.The Life and Thought of Abraham ben MordechaiFarissol.Cincinnati, 1981
Tirosh-Rothschild, Hava. “Jewish Culture in Renaissance Italy: A Methodological Survey”, in Italia 9 (1990), pp. 63-96
______. Between Worlds: The Life and Thought of Rabbi David ben Judah Messer Leon. Albany, NY, 1991
Renaissance Historiography
Bonfil, Robert. “How Golden was the Age of Renaissance Jewish Historiography?,” in David Ruderman ed., Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. New York, 1992, pp. 219-251
Breuer, Mordechai. “Modernism and Traditionalism in Sixteenth-Century Jewish Historiography: A Study of David Gans’ Tzemach David,” in B. Cooperman, ed. Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge, MA, 1983, pp. 49-88
Yerushalmi, Yosef H. Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory. Seattle, 1982
______. “Clio and the Jews: Reflections on Jewish Historiography in the Sixteenth Century”, in David Ruderman ed., Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. New York, 1992, pp. 191-218
Ghettos and Baroque Culture in Italy
Bonfil, Robert. “Lo spazioculturaledegliebreitrarinascimentoedetàbarocca”, in CorradoVivanti, ed. GliEbrei in Italia, Turin 1996, pp. 413-73
______. “Changing Mentalities of Italian Jews between the Periods of the Renaissance and the Baroque” in Italia 11 (1994), pp. 61-79
______. “Changes in the Cultural Patterns of a Jewish Society in Crisis: Italian Jewry at the Close of the Sixteenth Century”, in David Ruderman ed., Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. New York, 1992, pp. 401-25
Dweck, Yaacob, The Scandal of Kabbalah, Princeton, 2011.
Stow, Kenneth. Theater of Acculturation. The Roman Ghetto in the 16th Century. Seattle and London, 2001
______. “The Consciousness of Closure: Roman Jewry and its Ghet,” in David Ruderman, ed. Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. New York, 1992, pp. 386-400
Ravid, Benjamin. “From Geographical Realia to Historiographical Symbol: The Odyssey of the Word Ghetto”, in David Ruderman, ed. Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. New York, 1992, pp. 373-385
______.Economics and Toleration in Seventeenth Century Venice. The Background and Context of the Discorsoof Simone Luzzatto. Jerusalem, 1978
Ruderman, David, ed. Preachers of the Italian Ghetto. Berkeley, 1992 (selections: introduction, art. by Marc Saperstein, art. by Robert Bonfil)
Siegmund, Stefanie B. The Medici State and the Ghetto of Florence.The Construction of an Early Modern Jewish Community.Stanford, 2006.
Family Life and Women
Adelman, Howard. “The Educational and Literary Activities of Jewish Women in Italy During the Renaissance and Catholic Restoration,” in ShlomoSimonsohn Jubilee Volume. Tel Aviv, 1993, pp. 9-23
______. “Servants and Sexuality: Seduction, Surrogacy and Rape: Some Observations Concerning Class, Gender and Race in Early Modern Italian Jewish Families”, in T.M. Rudavsky, ed. Gender and Judaism. The Transformation of Tradition.New York, 1995, pp. 81-98
______. “Jewish Women and Family Life, Inside and Outside the Ghetto”, in Robert Davis and Benjamin Ravid, eds.,The Jews of Early Modern Venice. Baltimore, 2001, pp. 143-165
Davis, Natalie.Women on the Margins. Three Seventeenth-Century Lives. Cambridge, MA, 1995 (chapter on Glickl).
Horowitz, Elliott. “Families and Their Fortunes: The Jews of Early Modern Italy”, in David Biale, ed. Cultures of the Jews: A New History. New York, 2002, pp. 573-638
Hundert, Gershon. “Jewish Children and Childhood in Early Modern Central Europe,” in David Kraemer, ed. The Jewish Family: Metaphor and Memory. New York, 1989, pp. 81-94