Jewish Identity in Early Modern Germany: Memory, Power and Community

JEWISH IDENTITY IN EARLY MODERN GERMANY For Juli My best friend, my inspiration, and the love of my life In memory o...

Author: Dean Phillip Bell

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JEWISH IDENTITY IN EARLY MODERN GERMANY

For Juli My best friend, my inspiration, and the love of my life

In memory of my beloved grandparents Herman and Eva Solomon of blessed memory

Jewish Identity in Early Modern Germany Memory, Power and Community

DEAN PHILLIP BELL Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, USA

© Dean Phillip Bell 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Dean Phillip Bell has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Gower House Croft Road Aldershot Hampshire GU11 3HR England

Ashgate Publishing Company Suite 420 101 Cherry Street Burlington, VT 05401-4405 USA

Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Bell, Dean Phillip, 1967– Jewish identity in early modern Germany: memory, power and community 1. Jews – Germany – Identity 2. Jews – Germany – History – 1096–1800 3. Jews – Historiography 4. Jews – Germany – Social conditions – 16th century 5. Jews – Germany – Social conditions – 17th century 6. Collective memory – Germany – History 7. Germany – Ethnic relations – History I. Title 943’.004924’09031 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bell, Dean Phillip, 1967– Jewish identity in early modern Germany: memory, power and community / by Dean Phillip Bell. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Jews – Germany – History – 1096–1800. 2. Jews – Germany – Historiography. 3. Judaism – Historiography. 4. History – Religious aspects – Judaism. 5. Memory – Religious aspects – Judaism. 6. Reformation – Germany – History. 7. Germany – Ethnic relations. I. Title. DS135.G31B447 2007 943’.004924dc–22 2006033074

ISBN 978-0-7546-5897-9 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire.

Contents Acknowledgements

vii

Introduction

ix

1

Memory, History, and Jewish Identity

1

2

Reconsidering Early Modern German Jewish Memory and History

19

3

Community, Memory, and Governance

35

4

Jewish Social Organization: The Role of Memory, Power, and Honor

67

5

Politics, Polemics, and History: Assessing Jewish Identity

99

6

From Law to Legend: Narrating Jewish and Christian Encounters

131

Conclusion

153

Bibliography

157

Index

179

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Acknowledgements This work has evolved over many years and has benefited from the comments and insights of many people in diverse settings. In the last several years I have presented my findings at a number of conferences and to seminars at the University of Chicago, University of California at Berkeley, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, University of Illinois at Chicago, Western Michigan University, and Spertus College. I am grateful for and have benefited tremendously from the comments from all of my colleagues in these settings and in my courses at Spertus. I am also indebted to my colleagues at Spertus Institute’s Asher Library and the Newberry Library, who have supplied me with what must have been an endless request of rare, obscure, or voluminous resources. This work would never have come to be without their assistance. I express here my appreciation for the very helpful comments by the anonymous evaluators at Ashgate, who obviously invested a great deal of time in reading the manuscript and who supplied me with remarkably nurturing and constructive suggestions. Thomas Gray, Commissioning Editor at Ashgate, deserves special thanks for all his encouragement and for his assistance with this project. I thank particularly my friends and colleagues, Stephen Burnett, Constantin Fasolt, Hal Lewis, Lynda Crawford, and Miriam Ben-Yoseph, who have toiled over various drafts of this book. Their patience and encouragement have been remarkable. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Dave and Rheta Harrison for all their support, and particular indebtedness to my father and mother, Edward and Myrna Bell, for all their love, patience, and encouragement for me and for my various and sundry historical musings over many years. Finally, and most importantly, I thank my wife Juli and my children Malkaya, Chanan, and Ronia. They have afforded me a great deal of time and flexibility to think about and write this book, and though they may never realize it, they inspire me in all that I do.


Introduction In this book I present a variety of examples of how Jews in early modern Germany remembered and narrated the past. Although it has been argued that Jews possessed little in the way of formal historiographical traditions in this period, what follows demonstrates that Jews nevertheless, or precisely because, co-opted the past both consciously and unconsciously for many reasons, and in various and surprising ways. Responding to the particular conditions in which they found themselves in early modern German and Jewish culture, Jews fashioned the past for both internal and external purposes—creating communal identity in contemporary situations, while seeking connections to a broader Jewish past. While Jews related past events to present circumstances in paradigmatic ways that have been seen as traditionally religious, this study reveals that Jews also shaped the past to address both contemporary internal concerns and external relations. This book engages, but then redirects, important discussions by recent historians regarding the nature of time and the construction and role of memory and history in pre-modern Europe and pre-modern Jewish civilization. I argue that even when they did not write formal “histories,” Jews maintained a significant and lively engagement with the past that operated at various levels and divided the past into generally coherent, if long and at times changeable, units. Some of these units were based on the experiences and perspectives of individual Jews, individual communities, or clusters of communities. Some had basis in actual experiences with the past, while others were related to the lore of particular communities, or the broader religious currents and traditions of Judaism. In the end, however, all of these memories helped to define and shape early modern German Jewry. The sources examined in this book are diverse. Any form of German Jewish expression in the early modern period that contains reference to the past or past events is open to investigation. This includes, for example, chronicles, liturgical works, books of customs, memorybooks, biblical commentaries, rabbinic responsa literature, and community ledgers. Throughout, a broad comparative basis is offered, particularly through the juxtaposition of early modern Christian engagement with the past. The period covered here is roughly 1500–1700. These dates were chosen in large part because of the scope of the sources available. There were, however, additional reasons for selecting these parameters. These dates bound important German developments, such as the Reformation, forcing us to consider how more general conditions in Germany impacted the way that Jews engaged the past. But this period also had real meaning for internal Jewish developments, demarcating the boundaries of significant demographic and social shifts within the Jewish communities themselves. Throughout this book the beginning and end dates of investigation are taken rather fluidly, so that late fifteenth- and very early eighteenth-century materials are also examined as they help to clarify developments or trends.

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Jewish Identity in Early Modern Germany

A critical issue has been the selection of the geographical span of this work. One cannot speak of early modern Germany without immediately running into the complex question of just what “Germany” was. Was it defined by linguistic patterns, political territories, cultural inclinations, religious beliefs, or something still different? Even within Germany, political borders might cross traditional ecclesiastical divisions, so that the duchy of Bavaria and the Rhine Palatinate, for example, each lay in seven different dioceses, while the two Saxonies were in eleven.1 Throughout this research, I have opted to include the broader German Empire, described by Johannes Cochlaeus (1479–1552), the anti-Reformation humanist, in his Brevis Germaniae descriptio of 1512: “I believe that no region in Europe extends further than Germany … It is enclosed in the south by Italy and Dalmatia [Yugoslavia]; in the east by Hungary and Poland; in the north by the Baltic and the North Sea; and in the west by France and the English channel.”2 While one could devise many different definitions for early modern Germany, it is this broad geographical definition that I have selected to bound the investigation that follows. I should note that even for early modern Jews, the question of what was “German” could be complicated. On the one hand, many historians have found increasing evidence to suggest that “Ashkenaz” had very distinct boundaries and meanings in the world-view of early modern Jews.3 Important synods, for example, stipulated the political borders within German Jewry as well as the central location of primary German Jewish courts and tax-collection centers. Restrictions were placed on Jews seeking to take litigation from a particular region, especially crossing over into Italy or Poland. On the other hand, it has become equally clear that while Jews absorbed non-Jewish culture they also absorbed non-German Jewish customs, practices, and outlooks as well. There is a growing body of literature demonstrating the connection between German and Polish Jewish study and customs and between Italian and German Jewish legal decision-making processes. At the same time, Jews traveled broadly and maintained important business and familial connections throughout a very disperse geographical reach. For this reason, the Jewish community of Prague has been included in this study. While Prague is not really part of the German 1 Thomas A. Brady, Jr. “The Holy Roman Empire’s Bishops on the Eve of the Reformation,” in Robert J. Blast and Andrew C. Gow (eds), Continuity and Change: The Harvest of Late Medieval and Reformation History: Essays Presented to Heiko A. Oberman on his 70th Birthday (Leiden, 2000), pp. 20–47, here at p. 31, n. 44. 2 Jörn Sieglerschmidt, “Social and Economic Landscapes,” in Sheilagh Ogilvie (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, volume II: 1639–1800 (London, 1996), pp. 1–38, here at p. 2. 3 See Joseph Davis, “The Reception of the Shulhan ‘Arukh and the Formation of Ashkenazic Jewish Identity,” AJS Review 26:2 (2002): 251–76. Davis writes that, “A variety of answers, some complimentary, some contradictory, were offered to these questions by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Jews during the conflict over the reception of the Shulhan ‘Arukh. It was suggested that the Ashkenazim were the descendants of a group of common ancestors; that they were the Jews who lived in Germany, Ashkenaz; that they were those who lived throughout Central and Eastern Europe; that they were Yiddish-speaking Jews; or even, for the purposes of Jewish law, that they were exactly those Jews whose communities accepted the authority of Isserles’ code” (p. 253).

Introduction

xi

experience documented in most of the sources, it is clear that there were extremely significant connections between the Jews in Germany and Prague and, what is more, within the context of political developments in early modern Germany, Prague played a very crucial role. In addition, the very large and important Jewish community in Prague was responsible for a good deal of intellectual and cultural productivity, and the sources produced by Jews living there in this period expand the scope of material available for consideration. What follows is divided into six chapters and a brief conclusion. Chapter 1 reviews the nature of memory and history as discussed in general and Jewish scholarship, with particular emphasis on the diversity of ways in which narration of the past could be used for various political, social, and religious purposes. Chapter 2 turns more specifically to early modern German Jewish notions of memory and history as expressed in theological constructs as well as complex understandings of temporality. Here I argue that while early modern Jews frequently employed traditional paradigms in order to make sense of the past, they also narrated the past in order to forge communal identity and to mediate relations with the non-Jewish world. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss various Jewish uses of the past that had significant internal communal value. In Chapter 3, I consider the role of memory in communal governance. After a review of general and Jewish demography in early modern Germany and the structure of Jewish communities, I examine Jewish engagement with the past in community ledgers (pinkasim) and local and regional customs (minhagim). I conclude that the past narrated by Jews had great communal significance—at certain times confirming traditions and at other times challenging regnant norms and initiating serious communal change. Chapter 4 expands this discussion by considering the social organization of the Jewish communities and highlighting the role of wealth, prestige, and honor in Jewish communal politics. Here I investigate several memorybooks and autobiographical writings for what they reveal about social order and communal power. Throughout, I provide comparisons with the use of memory and history in early modern German Christian writings. Chapters 5 and 6 chart Jewish engagement with the past as a tool for confronting and, at times, contesting external authority. In Chapter 5, the role of history and memory as devices of political contestation are placed particularly within the context of the Reformation and the growth of general historical production in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. On the one hand, Jews narrated the past in order to recalibrate historical reckoning to include their history and to re-inscribe themselves as the Chosen People of God. On the other hand, such narrations also provided a moral yardstick with which to upbraid the Jews themselves. In Chapter 6, I consider the role of the past in the process of legal decision-making, the engagement with mythic time and magical stories, and the solidification of origin stories, all of which helped to re-situate Jews in early modern German society. In the end, this book is about the narration of the past by Jews living throughout the early modern or old German Empire. But, it is a book, it is hoped, that will have comparative value for both Jewish and Christian history as well. It reveals the complexities of early modern German Jewish communal life as well as the multifaceted relations that Jews had with German Christians. Fundamentally, this book challenges the assumption that Jews did not think about the past in any more than

xii


typological ways and it asserts that Jews, despite frequent and often bitter antiJudaism and anti-Jewish activity, maintained important autonomy in the governance of their own communities and significant power in their relations with the outside world. In crafting their memories, early modern Jews were remarkably sophisticated and resilient. They remembered for many purposes and with much subtlety. Their narration of these memories allows a marvelous window into their world and perceptions.

Chapter 1

Memory, History, and Jewish Identity Before I turn to the early modern sources themselves, it is instructive to review the recent literature on memory and history for what such theoretical discussions may suggest generally about the understanding and function of the past. First we summarize the important work of Maurice Halbwachs and Pierre Nora on memory and history. The work of these scholars and others serves as context for a discussion of recent approaches to Jewish memory and history, especially the work of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi. After a consideration of some of the responses to Halbwachs and Yerushalmi in particular I examine broadly the nature and use of history in the Middle Ages. This quick overview indicates that despite their apparent theoretical differences, memory and history exist on a continuum of engagement with the past, which functions in several ways. The narration of this past—whether as memory or history—helps to dictate moral standards, it mediates politics and is itself a form of power, and it reinforces tradition while simultaneously offering the tools to bring about sweeping changes. The vast and growing scholarly literature on memory and history also argues for an important connection between discussions of the past and communal identity and suggests that many significant changes associated with the early modern period can be understood by examining early modern narratives of the past. Memory and History In a now classic study, first published in 1950 but discussed increasingly more recently, Maurice Halbwachs argued that memory and history have very different characteristics and are in a sense in opposition to each other.1 In that work, Halbwachs set much of the current agenda for discussions about the relation of memory and history as well as the nature of collective memory.2 His pioneering concepts have raised significant questions for historians and, as we will see below, the ire of some scholars who prefer less rigid oppositions. 1 See Mircea Eliade, who in the late 1940s raised the question of the ahistorical nature of popular memory: “The anhistorical character of popular memory, the instability of collective memory to retain historical events and individuals except insofar as it transforms them into archetypes—that is, insofar as it annuls all their historical and personal peculiarities—pose a series of new problems, which we are obliged to set aside for the moment” (Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York, 1959 (orig., 1949)), p. 46). 2 See the evaluation of Amos Funkenstein, in his Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley, 1993), pp. 4, 8–9.

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According to Halbwachs there is an important distinction between memory and history. “General history,” he argued, “starts only when tradition ends and the social memory is fading or breaking up. So long as a remembrance continues to exist, it is useless to set it down in writing or otherwise fix it in memory. Likewise the need to write the history of a period, a society, or even a person is only aroused when the subject is already too distant in the past to allow for the testimony of those who preserve some remembrance of it.”3 History, in this interpretation, is written at points of social disintegration. It is a distant, written reflection of un-experienced events. Whereas memory is continuous and ongoing, history assumes, even demands, that everything is transformed from one period to the next. While memory is a depository and safeguard of tradition, history is merely a record of events. Memory is living, history a detached record of things no longer alive. Memory is particular in focus, but history has the capacity to treat the universal.4 According to Halbwachs, our memory of the past is composed of two kinds of elements: those from a common domain (a social or external memory) and those remembrances that are ours alone (personal and internal memory). This dichotomy is not so simple, for while individuals remember within a broader social context their memories may also vary based on their own experiences and orientations. According to Halbwachs: While the collective memory endures and draws strength from its base in a coherent body of people, it is individuals as group members who remember. While these remembrances are mutually supportive of each other and common to all, individual members still vary in the intensity with which they experience them. I would readily acknowledge that each memory is a viewpoint on the collective memory, that this viewpoint changes as my relationships to other milleus change. Therefore, it is not surprising that everyone does not draw on the same part of this common instrument. In accounting for that diversity, however, it is always necessary to revert to a combination of influences that are social in nature.5

In this assessment, there is a common memory base that is tapped into, processed, and experienced differently by different individuals within unique and varying contexts. Individual and communal memory, therefore, exist in a complex and multidirectional relationship, in which individual memory simultaneously is affected by and contributes to collective memory.6 3 Maurice Halbwachs, The Collective Memory, trans. Francis J. Ditter, Jr. and Vida Yazdi Ditter (New York, 1980 (orig., 1950)), pp. 78–9. Halbwachs notes as well that, “by the term ‘history’ we must understand, then, not a chronological sequence of events and dates, but whatever distinguishes one period from all others, something of which books and narratives generally give us only a very schematic and incomplete picture” (p. 57). 4 Ibid., pp. 80–82. 5 Ibid., p. 48. 6 Pierre Nora writes that, “Memory wells up from groups that it welds together, which is to say, as Maurice Halbwachs observed, that there are as many memories as there are groups, that memory is by nature multiple yet specific; collective and plural yet individual. By contrast, history belongs to everyone and to no one and therefore has a universal vocation.”


3

The influential French historian Pierre Nora, in a seminal work examining French national history, has presented a similar tension between what he understands as memory and history.7 Nora argues for a differentiation between memory, which is concrete and so rooted in space and structure, and history, which is rooted in temporality and so is relative. History is about change and memory about continuity, albeit at times shifting continuity. Nora posits a distinction between memory and history that revolves around a divide between the sacred and non-religious. Memory situates remembrance in a sacred context. History is critical, analytical, and so nonreligious. It is not simply that being critical and analytical are at odds with religion or that history is related to, or a part of a process of, secularization. More significantly, for Nora, is the observation that history has to do with an external reflection as opposed to a true core. Nora writes that “We no longer celebrate the nation, but we study the nation’s celebrations.”8 The less we are able to experience from within, the more we need “external props and tangible reminders of that which no longer exists except qua memory.”9 “The trace,” Nora writes, “negates the sacred but retains its aura,”10 so as history is more “critical,” it is simultaneously also more detached. Memory, while steeped in hazy impressions, symbolic details, emotion, and magic, holds the key to the core, the true or real society that history only knows by separation and reflection. But Nora reads modern memory as more akin to history than traditional memory. He sounds a note of concern, consequently, when he writes that “the ‘acceleration of history’ thus brings us face to face with the enormous distance that separates real memory … from history” and an integrated memory from “our form of memory, which is nothing but history, a matter of sifting and sorting.”11 Indeed, for Nora, the modern transformation of memory “marks a decisive shift from the historical to the psychological, from the social to the individual, from the concrete message to its subjective representation, from repetition to remembrance.”12 Modernity, in this See Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, under the direction of Pierre Nora, 3 vols, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New York, 1996–98 (orig., 1984–92)), p. 3. 7 Nora writes: “Memory is life, always embodied in living societies and as such in permanent evolution, subject to the dialectic of remembering and forgetting, unconscious of the distortions to which it is subject, vulnerable in various ways to appropriation and manipulation, and capable of lying dormant for long periods only to be suddenly reawakened. History, on the other hand, is the reconstruction, always problematic and incomplete, of what is no longer. Memory is always a phenomenon of the present; history is a representation of the past. Memory, being a phenomenon of emotion and magic, accommodates only those facts that suit it. It thrives on vague, telescoping reminiscences, on hazy general impressions or specific symbolic details. It is vulnerable to transferences, screen memories, censorings, and projections of all kinds. History, being an intellectual, nonreligious activity, calls for analysis and critical discourse. Memory situates remembrance in a sacred context. History ferrets it out; it turns whatever it touches into prose.” Ibid. 8 Ibid., p. 7. 9 Ibid., p. 8. 10 Ibid., p. 9. 11 Ibid., p. 2. 12 Ibid., p. 11.

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representation, becomes shorn of collectivity, the past, and in a certain sense, reality itself. This interpretation rings of a tone of modern alienation. Similarly, Nora’s concepts of history, modernity, and the nineteenth-century nation state fundamentally shape his argument, and lead us to ask how his assessment might or might not work for societies or communities that were not formed in the same national context. It is important to note, however, that for Nora there is some similarity between memory and history. Both are subject to manipulation. Memory can be appropriated and refashioned and is selective. History can be problematic and incomplete reconstruction; different motives and perspectives affect the nature and scope of the representation we call history. Approaches to Jewish Memory and History How have memory and history been assessed in Jewish historiography? Traditionally, the role of memory throughout Jewish history has been seen as important; formal history, however, has been cast as unimportant and often non-existent. Bernard Lewis, the renowned historian of Jews under Islam, for example, some thirty years ago noted that Jewish historiographic literature in the Middle Ages was sparse and poor.13 The purpose of “historical” writing—in the form of martyrologies, heroic narratives,14 commemorations,15 surviving custom and law,16 the history of scholarship and the succession of rabbis and pupils and teachers—was to give medieval Jews the ability to “stiffen the endurance of the survivors” and to legitimize the authority of the rabbis.17 Lewis contended that with no country, state, or dynastic focus, Jews lacked any real need to write history: the vital history was already fixed in Scripture, literature, and the calendar, and so the poverty of Jewish historiography was due not to neglect but to positive rejection.18 According to this line of thinking, critical history would develop only with the disaffection with the past and the desire to control the future.19 Medieval Jewish historiography was, for Lewis, poor, reactionary and intended as a means by which to continue religious traditions. The very topic of Jewish memory and history has received a great deal of attention since the Shoah. In the last quarter century in particular the floodgates opened for the production of a variety of scholarly investigations into the broader ways and purposes for which Jews remember the past. With some of the same assumptions as those forwarded by Lewis, and steeped in the theoretical orientation of Halbwachs and the emerging discussions surrounding Nora and his school, the prominent and ground-breaking historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, in a slender volume of published lectures from the early 1980s, set the stage for much of the subsequent discussion of Jewish memory and history. Yerushalmi concretized some 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Bernard Lewis, History: Remembered, Recovered, Invented (Princeton, 1975), p. 21. Ibid., p. 44. Ibid., pp. 45ff. Ibid., pp. 52ff. Ibid., p. 22. Ibid., p. 23. Ibid., p. 56.


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general observations about Jewish historiography and the relationship between memory and history, while forwarding an outline of the production and role of history and historiographical writing in Jewish tradition. In the pages that follow, I will restate Yerushalmi’s position, review some of the criticism and implications of his arguments, and then set a broader context—a context in which Yerushalmi was both participant and product—for the consideration of early modern German Jewish memory and history. For Yerushalmi, it was ancient Israel that “first assigned a decisive significance to history and thus forged a new world-view …”.20 The new perception was based in Israelite faith, by which “the crucial encounter between man and the divine shifted away from the realm of nature and the cosmos to the plane of history, conceived now in terms of divine challenge and human response.”21 Ancient Israel knew God for what He did in history; memory, therefore, became a central occupation.22 But even this remembering was not purely historical. The entire past was not the goal. Rather the idea of recollecting Jewish selection and uniqueness was central. Memory flowed in ancient Israel in two channels according to Yerushalmi, ritual and recital.23 Yerushalmi concludes that there is a paradox in Judaism in that although memory of the past has always been a central aspect of Jewish experience, and indeed, Jews have been divinely commanded “to remember,” it has not been the historian who has recorded that past, at least not before modern secular times.24 In the rabbinic period, the rabbis did not seek to write a new history of the biblical period, they simply sought meaning in the history they received. Nor did they demonstrate much interest in recording contemporary events.25 In the interval between the destruction of the Temple and the future redemption, the primary Jewish task was taken to be responding to the biblical challenge of becoming a holy people. While the biblical past was known and the messianic future assured, the time in between was obscure and needed to be understood according to a previously revealed pattern. The rabbis, therefore, were comfortable in making time elastic. They did not see anachronism as a flaw, nor did they see historical reckoning as of great value. This trend, according to Yerushalmi, continued through the Middle Ages. Jews devoted a great deal of time to “the position of the Jewish people in history, of ideas of Jewish history, of often profound and sometimes daring reflections on exile and redemption, but,” with the exception of the “chain of tradition” literature, expressed “comparatively little interest in recording the ongoing historical experience of the Jews.”26 As for Lewis, this lack of historiographical interest was not for Yerushalmi a flaw, but perhaps reflected a degree of self-sufficiency within Jewish culture itself.

20 Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle, 1982), p. 8. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., p. 9. See also Eliade, Cosmos and History, p. 106. 23 Ibid., pp. 11, 15. 24 Ibid., p. xiv. 25 Ibid., p. 18. 26 Ibid., p. 31.

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Jews did, however, create some historical narratives in the Middle Ages. But these typically focused on the distant past until the destruction of the Second Temple or on the most recent of events.27 New events, however, were generally assimilated within tried and familiar archetypes.28 “There are sufficient clues,” Yerushalmi argues, “to indicate that what was suddenly drawn up from the past was not a series of facts to be contemplated at a distance, but a series of situations into which one could somehow be existentially drawn.”29 For medieval and rabbinic Jews, the past provided a blueprint against which recent and contemporary life might be understood. Yerushalmi emphasizes the ritual and liturgical nature of Jewish history in the Middle Ages, noting that Jewish history was neither exclusively cyclical nor linear.30 He divides medieval Jewish histories into four categories: selihot, or penitential prayers—the religious and literary response to historical catastrophe inserted into the liturgy of the synagogue;31 memorial books, particularly kept by Ashkenazic Jews, that preserved “the names of those for whose souls communal prayers were to be offered in the house of worship;”32 “second Purims,” “instituted in Jewish communities … to commemorate a deliverance from some danger or persecution;”33 and the institution of specific fast days, which recalled “those more bitter occasions when there was no deliverance.”34 The typologies isolated by Yerushalmi as reflective of medieval Jewish historical thinking share a number of elements: they were largely in response to persecution; they were liturgical, ritual, and cyclical—not historical—remembrances of past events retold primarily within the synagogue at set times of the year (that is, they were “religious” and so, by many scholars’ definition, not historiographical); and, although they could reflect broader conditions, they were frequently related to local or regional events. According to Yerushalmi, although these remembrances could contain historical information they more often simply preserved essential memory of an event without necessarily preserving its historical details.35 As such, the methods and forms of memory produced in the Jewish Middle Ages were essentially reactive, religious, and local, at the same time that they were paradigmatic and not specific.36 For Yerushalmi, the situation seems to have changed subtly but significantly in the sixteenth century.37 The move to a more genuinely historiographical orientation at that time Yerushalmi attributes to the tragic event of the Spanish expulsion at the 27 Ibid., p. 34. 28 Ibid., p. 36. 29 Ibid., p. 44. 30 Ibid., p. 41. 31 Ibid., p. 45. 32 Ibid., p. 46. 33 Ibid., pp. 46ff. 34 Ibid., pp. 48ff. 35 Ibid., p. 51. 36 For a discussion on the paradigmatic nature of pre-modern religious and historical thinking in general, see Eliade, Cosmos and History, pp. 34ff. In discussing the regeneration of time, Eliade notes “an element of regeneration through repetition of an archetypal act, usually of the cosmogonic act” and the abolition of concrete time (p. 85). 37 Ibid., p. 57.


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end of the fifteenth century.38 In this period the history of post-biblical Jews and the history of the nations, particularly contemporary ones, were assigned positions of prominence.39 The shift to critical, historiographical thinking was, according to Yerushalmi, however, not completed until the modern, secular, period. During the sixteenth century instead of history, other outlets, such as Lurianic kabbalah eventually served to provide a psychological solution to the trauma of the expulsion. In modernity, the knowledge of history became more desirable, and with the Wissenschaft des Judentums, there were for the first time, according to Yerushalmi, no apologies for history. Judaism, in a sense, was forced to prove its validity to the world and reveal and justify itself historically. Such an effort to reconstruct the Jewish past, however, began only with a sharp break in the continuity of Jewish life, marked by assimilation without and collapse from within, in which Jewish historiography was divorced from Jewish collective memory. Similar to the position taken by Nora, history in the modern period, for Yerushalmi, became the faith of the fallen, particularly as the uniqueness of the Jews and divine providence in history were being challenged by Jews themselves. Reassessing Memory and History In response to Yerushalmi’s work, a lively debate ensued, with many embracing Yerushalmi’s synthesis, and a number of scholars challenging various aspects of Yerushalmi’s approach, assumptions, and conclusions. One reviewer, for example, writing with an eye toward Zionism and modern Israel, criticized Yerushalmi for suggesting that historical writing was a weak replacement for the fading memory that had more traditionally bound society together. Arguing that modern historiographical research was a positive and constructive force, this reviewer contended that new and deeper knowledge of history led to richer identity and that, in any event, the distant past known to modernity has little to distinguish it from the distant past known previously. The same reviewer made the more general criticism, that Yerushalmi considered only “canonical ‘historical writing,’” thereby ignoring a vast corpus of formal and informal historical works.40 (Despite such criticism, most subsequent studies have continued to focus on more traditional “historiographical” works.41) The eminent historian of Italian Jewry Robert Bonfil has also taken exception to Yerushalmi’s work, challenging the very assumption that the Jewish historiographical production of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was rich at all. Bonfil asserts that the early modern period witnessed a sharpening of opposing dichotomies (Jewish and Christian) and an increase in the sense of the lachrymose in Jewish writings. The subject matter of history as conceived in the early modern period was largely political and military; however, the Jewish experience of the time could

38 Ibid., pp. 58–9. 39 Ibid., pp. 62–3. 40 See the review of Zakhor by Yaakov Shavit in Studies in Zionism 6 (1985): 143–47. 41 See, for example, Reuven Michael, Jewish Historiography from the Renaissance to the Modern Time (Jerusalem, 1993) [Hebrew].

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supply no such history.42 According to Bonfil, therefore, radical change in Jewish historiography could only be achieved by recourse to two methods. Either Jews could be transformed into actors in political and military history, or the very conception of history could be changed. But, Bonfil concludes, the former was not possible under current conditions and the latter’s time had not yet come.43 Other scholars also responded to and challenged Yerushalmi’s assumptions and conclusions. Amos Funkenstein argued that although one might indeed claim that pre-modern Jews had no true historiography, it would be a mistake to claim that they had no historical consciousness.44 The implication was that although pre-modern Jews did not write formal histories, they might nevertheless have still thought historically. Similarly, in the late 1980s Ivan Marcus also made a very significant contribution to this discussion. Marcus distinguished between historiography more specifically and narratives about the past more broadly. According to Marcus, narratives of the past written by Sephardic Jews were mainly concerned with the rabbinic elites. Ashkenazic texts, on the other hand, generally described a broader social spectrum.45 In the Sephardic world, there was an importance attached to uninterrupted tradition. Continuity with an earlier classical past served as the basis for Sephardic legitimacy.46 Ashkenazic narratives, however, were focused on discontinuity in the community brought about by migration and trauma. Marcus writes that “the Ashkenazic texts seem to emerge especially at times when communal status is in decline, in comparison with an earlier time. The occasion for writing down a narrative about the past is not idle curiosity or 42 Robert (Reuven) Bonfil, “How Golden was the Age of the Renaissance in Jewish Historiography?” History and Theory 27 (1988): 78–102, here at pp. 93, 95. 43 Ibid., p. 101. 44 See David N. Myers, “Remembering Zakhor: A Super-Commentary,” History and Memory 2 (1992): 129–46. Myers contests Funkenstein’s position, and asks whether halakhic [legal] innovation “requires in and of itself historical consciousness, beyond a highly selective, perhaps hagiographic, recitation of one’s favorite scholarly antecedents” (p. 132). Myers maintains that Funkenstein provides no cogent explanation of a conceptual category for historical consciousness, which is intended to mediate collective memory and critical historical study (p. 133). 45 Ivan Marcus, “History, Story and Collective Memory: Narrativity in Early Ashkenazic Culture,” Prooftexts 10 (1990): 365–88, here at p. 379. This distinction is related to the important, if over-extended, theory of Gershon Cohen, regarding the differences between Sephardic and Ashkenazic culture. Cohen argues for the notion that Ashkenazic writing reveals submissiveness and acceptance of divine decrees, until God intervenes in history and restores His people. See Gershon Cohen, “Messianic Postures of Ashkenazim and Sephardim,” [reprinted] in Marc Saperstein (ed.), Essential Papers on Messianic Movements and Personalities in Jewish History (New York, 1992), pp. 202–33, here at p. 220. On the other hand, Cohen argues that Sephardic writing reveals political success and confidence in its own powers (p. 222). 46 Marcus, “History, Story, and Collective Memory,” p. 381. In this context, it might be interesting to consider the attitude toward Sephardic sources; see Eric Zimmer, Fiery Embers of the Scholars: The Trials and Tribulations of German Rabbis in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Jerusalem, 1999) [Hebrew], regarding the debate over the use of Sephardic sources in early modern Germany.


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even family pride or community self-respect but a perceived change or loss.” In a sophisticated application of this observation, he argues that, “the emphasis in the Ashkenazic narratives on the story of the changing holy community makes the remembered changes in the life of the community comparable to a dense, partially obscure, sacred text that requires interpretation.”47 Marcus assumes and then elaborates upon perceived distinctions between Ashkenazic and Sephardic culture and literary production. Working from this bifurcated model, Marcus asserts that Ashkenazic narratives were produced in response to crisis and decline. However, it is worth asking to what extent we can, or should, distinguish between Ashkenazic, and more specifically German, narratives and Sephardic narratives. Recent scholarship has indicated that differences may not have been as great as once perceived. In addition, the early modern period in Germany, just like the medieval, is clearly one that is much too complex to be denoted simply as one of crisis and decline. In fact, in some areas such as Hamburg, Prague, and Frankfurt am Main, one might more appropriately label the period one of rebirth and reintegration. Furthering the perceived differences in Ashkenazic and Sephardic experiences, Marcus’s position assumes that it is the Sephardim, because of their political audacity, and to some important extent political success, who used history for political purposes—to secure, legitimize, and challenge. But did Ashkenazic, specifically German Jewish, “histories” and memories simply retreat into a world of insulated religious segregation and passive waiting for divine intervention and salvation? Might we be able to detect instances when German Jews confronted, and co-opted, the past for other purposes than simply to lick their wounds and strengthen themselves through the hope, and expectation, of better days? Here, I take Marcus quite seriously when he suggests that Ashkenazic memory may tell us a good deal about broader social orientations and concerns; it is simply that I begin without the presupposition that early modern Ashkenazic Jews were necessarily apolitical or unengaged from the social, intellectual, and cultural streams in which they circulated and lived. In the chapters that follow, I will consider the extent to which narratives of the past can tell us about the nature of Jewish community and identity in early modern Germany, as well as how the actual condition of that Jewish community (those Jewish communities?) and the more general conditions of early modern Germany helped to shape such memories. The broader scholarly tradition from which Yerushalmi simultaneously drew and contributed has also generated significant response in recent years. The concepts forwarded by Halbwachs have been highly influential and much adapted, as in the work of Nora and some of his colleagues. Some recent scholarship has confirmed elements of Halbwachs’s argument, while other scholarship has refined, criticized, or even dismissed aspects of it. Amos Funkenstein, for example, had reservations about Halbwachs’s notion of collective memory, even while conceding that collective memory is not a mistaken or misleading term.48 Funkenstein concluded that while “memory can constitute self-consciousness, because self-identity presumes 47 Marcus, “History, Story, and Collective Memory,” p. 381. 48 Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History, p. 4.

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memory,” it also cannot be removed from its social context.49 Indeed, collective memory provides the systems of signs, symbols, and practices which instantiate individual memory.50 A good deal of recent scholarship has refined our understanding of memory and at the same time confirmed some of Halbwachs’s conclusions. Memory, it has been noted, consists of various components. It is changeable and subject to differing interpretations. Memories can take on different meanings in different contexts.51 Personal memories are culled from our perceptions. But these perceptions enter the consciousness, where they combine with other memories that then affect and transform them.52 Perceptions are affected by a variety of physical, psychological, and social factors. Memories, therefore, are constructs that take the raw data of these perceptions and reconstruct them into a broader context of knowledge and experience. Indeed, modern studies on memory have noted that “the process of recollection is not an exact one of information retrieval but rather one in which memories are put together from fragmented sources, often in a simplified form, according to pre-existing patterns. Remembering is a creative activity in which the past is constantly updated according to the requirements of the present.”53 Individual memories contribute to and are influenced by collective memories; the development of shared identity requires that individuals identify and agree on certain memories.54 There are of course also collective memories, some of which the individual him- or herself may never have experienced. Such collective memories at times seem to dictate beliefs and the rules of proper behavior.55 The apparent opposition of memory and history has received particular attention in recent scholarship. In his recent work on history and memory after Auschwitz, for example, Dominick LaCapra has criticized the underlying distinction between memory and history posited by Halbwachs and Nora. According to LaCapra, memory and history are clearly not the same, but they are equally clearly not the opposite either. “Memory,” LaCapra writes, “is a crucial source for history and has 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid., p. 6. 51 James Olney, Memory and Narrative: The Weave of Life-Writing (Chicago, 1998), p. 64. 52 Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1990), p. 339. 53 Catherine Cubitt, “Memory and Narrative in the Cult of Early Anglo-Saxon Saints,” in Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes (eds), The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 29–66, here at p. 31. 54 Ibid. See also Yerushalmi, Zakhor, p. xv, citing the work of Halbwachs. 55 Walter Pohl, “Memory, Identity and Power in Lombard Italy,” in Hen and Innes (eds), The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, pp. 9–28, here at p. 10. Regarding the imitation of saints’ lives, for example, see Cubit, “Memory and Narrative,” pp. 33–5. Although testaments of those who were not clergy or noblemen are harder to find north of the Alps before the fifteenth century, such models did serve important roles for the lay and lower orders. See Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., “The Place of the Dead in Flanders and Tuscany: Towards a Comparative History of the Black Death,” in Bruce Gordon and Peter Marshall (eds), The Place of the Dead: Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 17–43, here at p. 24.


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complicated relations to documentary sources. Even in its falsifications, repressions, displacements, and denials, memory may nonetheless be informative—not in terms of an accurate empirical representation of its object but in terms of that object’s often anxiety-ridden reception and assimilation by both participants in events and those born later.”56 Critically informed memory assists in determining what in history should be preserved in living tradition and history serves to test memory critically. LaCapra concludes that “In the foregoing respects one might contend that history and memory have a supplementary relation that is a basis for mutually questioning interaction or open dialectical exchange that never attains totalization or full closure. Memory is both more and less than history, and vice-versa …”.57 Keith Baker has similarly contested several aspects of Halbwachs’s conception of memory and history. First, he notes that Halbwachs suggests that history is written whereas memory is not, so that “the past moves from memory into history only when it leaves the living consciousness of social actors.”58 But, does writing down the past necessarily change or distance it?59 Second, Baker believes that Halbwachs assumes that history is a specialized discipline external to and above groups. Baker, however, contends that such a view ignores “the close relationship between the historian and the social and political milieu in which he writes, especially in periods before the creation of an organized historical profession.”60 In Baker’s early modernity—he focuses on the period of and leading up to the French Revolution—the historian as recorder of events is not detached from, indeed is often centrally located in relation to the events around him. The historian is affected by events while also affecting them at the same time. Finally, Baker also dismisses the idea that memory and history exist in a relationship that is purely oppositional. Noting that the past is “not always peaceably shed” and that numerous collective memories interact with each other, Baker asserts that the relationship between memory and history does not have to be irreversible. History can again become memory, as the past is redefined. “The opposition between memory and history,” Baker concludes, “appears to be less a simple dichotomy than a constantly shifting, dialectical relationship. History is memory contested; memory is history controlled and fixed.”61

56 Dominick LaCapra, History and Memory After Auschwitz (Ithaca, 1998), p. 19. 57 Ibid., p. 20. 58 Keith Baker, Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1990), p. 55. 59 Ibid.; see also Patrick H. Hutton, History as an Art of Memory (Hanover, NH, 1993). 60 Baker, Inventing the French Revolution, p. 55. 61 Ibid., p. 56. On the interconnectedness of history and memory, see Hutton, History as an Art of Memory, p. 77. See also David N. Myers, “Between Diaspora and Zion: History, Memory, and the Jerusalem Scholars” in David N. Myers and David B. Ruderman (eds), The Jewish Past Revisited: Reflections on Modern Jewish Historians (New Haven, 1998), pp. 88– 103, here at p. 89: “Rather, I would like to suggest that the categories of history and memory, often cast as irreparably detached from one another, may indeed be closer to one another than we often tend to think, that they may inhabit a continuum of attitudes toward the past …”.

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At the heart of Baker’s analysis is the assertion that the representation of the past plays an important role in the power struggles of the present. Baker contends that “accepted understandings of the events and of the implications of the past constantly become subject to contestation, as social actors draw upon the powerful resources that these understandings offer in the service of competing claims.” He writes that “History, then, becomes the domain, not of discarded memory, but of disputed memory. It does not succeed to memory by an automatic social process; on the contrary, it challenges and subverts memory, bringing into contestation what was previously regarded as fixed.” In a criticism that is particularly meaningful for this study, Baker concludes that “the different analytical categories ascribed by Halbwachs to memory and history appear more clearly as opposing discursive strategies within a continuing competition to control the symbolic meaning of the past than as expressions of entirely different forms of social consciousness.”62 This emphasis on the competition to control the symbolic meaning of the past, with the power to craft new identity and to transform and reinforce collective identity and social order, underpins both memory and history, and in a sense makes the distinction between the two somewhat irrelevant. 63 A similar conclusion—if arrived at through very different means and with somewhat different assumptions—is posited by some “postmodern” historians, who have also been concerned with the relationship between memory, political power, and propaganda. 64 Value of the past, in this scheme, is related to its utility for control of power in the present.65 According to this approach, there is an important connection between the repetition and use of specific memories and the construction and maintenance of power within society.66 In surveying the postmodern literature, Patrick Hutton notes that, “the most powerful group takes possession of the past by crowding out the traditions of its competitors or by reshaping them to conform to its own conceptions.”67 62 Baker, Inventing the French Revolution, p. 57. 63 Pierre Nora also considers the confrontations between groups in flux that lead to the “sacralization of memory.” But his approach fixes these changes within the realm of memory, avoiding the continuum stressed by Baker. Nora contends that, “the social uses of memory are as diverse and varied as the rationales of identity. But the mechanisms involved as well as the reasons for the sacralization of memory are always the same: confrontations between groups subject to constant change and consolidated through constant revival of the memories on which their identities are based” (Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, p. 636). See Patrick J. Geary’s Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton, 1994), pp. 10–11, where Geary argues that Halbwachs “failed to see the political parameters of collective memory formation, and assumed that collective memory was a natural, nonpurposeful creation of a group while history was an intentional, political and manipulative process. He thus postulated a fundamental opposition between the two.” Geary cautions that “It would be a serious mistake to think that this collection of memories is simply the sum total of what he had experienced, heard and read. Rather memory is an active and creative faculty, constantly selecting, interpreting, and transforming experience” (p. 160). 64 Hutton, History as an Art of Memory, p. xv. 65 Ibid., p. 6. Regarding Foucault, he writes that “Rather than culling the past for residual memories, each age reconstructs the past with images that suit its present needs … The reality of the past, he maintained, resides in the artifacts of its representation.” 66 Ibid, p. 7. 67 Ibid., p. 128.


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The memory related to tradition, therefore, has been seen as an important vehicle both to preserve as well as to modify “the social frameworks of memory over time,” and the “defenders of tradition … are likely to buttress its places of memory through acts of commemoration.”68 The work of Eric Hobsbawm has been especially meaningful in this regard.69 Hobsbawm distinguishes between custom—“what judges do”—and tradition—the “formal paraphernalia and ritualized practices surrounding their substantial action.”70 The invention of traditions, Hobsbawm argues, is much more frequent “when a rapid transformation of society weakens or destroys the social patterns for which the ‘old’ traditions had been designed, producing new ones to which they were not applicable, or when such old traditions and their institutional carriers and promulgators no longer prove sufficiently adaptable and flexible, or are otherwise eliminated …”.71 In the period since the industrial revolution, Hobsbawm asserts that invented traditions belong to three overlapping types, those that seek to establish or symbolize social cohesion or the membership of groups (real or artificial communities); establish or legitimize institutions, status, or relations of authority; and socialize, or inculcate beliefs, value systems, or behavior.72 So, the nature as well as the mode of commemoration is important in power relations and identification. This study asks whether such uses of tradition were employed in the early modern period, and if so, with what implications? In sum, the theoretical discussions reveal that constructing, maintaining, and contesting the past may often go hand in hand and can have significant implications for internal communal structures and identity as well as the place of the community within a broader external environment. Indeed, as the historian Constantin Fasolt has argued recently, history is a form of self-assertion.73 Memory has great power in crafting group or social identity as well as in challenging the established order—it can be a means of separation or continuity.74 The continuum of memory and history reflects a powerful tool that can be utilized in both the conscious and unconscious narration of the past. It can be a formative influence or a descriptive one, revealing to us a great deal about the community or society in question. While memory can be shaped by cultural values and experiences, it can simultaneously create culture and social value and extend them into the future. The past, it seems, never exists in isolation. It is linked in a complex and dynamic relationship with the present, and through the present to the future as well. Identity may be formed through the active engagement with and continuation of the past, or

68 Ibid., p. 79. 69 See Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983). 70 Ibid., pp. 2–3. 71 Ibid., pp. 4–5. 72 Ibid., p. 9. 73 Constantin Fasolt, The Limits of History (Chicago, 2004), p. 230. 74 The narratives forged through memory, can, in fact, “come to shape the identity of an entire society” (see the Matthew Innes, “Introduction: Using the Past, Investigating the Present, Influencing the Future,” in Hen and Innes (eds), The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, pp. 1–8, here at p. 5).

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through a more radical reinterpretation and separation from the past.75 According to one recent historian, … human life is never simply lived in the present alone but rather in three worlds: one that is, one that was, and one that will be. In theory we know these three worlds as separate concepts but we experience them as inextricably linked and as influencing each other in many ways. Every important new discovery about the past changes how we think about the present and what we expect of the future; on the other hand every change in the conditions of the present and in the expectations for the future revise our perception of the past …76

History, in this interpretation, engages the past while simultaneously trying to separate the present society from that past.77 Memory and History in the Middle Ages Do these theoretical conclusions resonate in what we know about the Middle Ages? In the Middle Ages the past was narrated and gained meaning through both memory and history. But what did memory and history mean in the Middle Ages? Already in the early Middle Ages, Augustine had noted that “the past is the remembered present, just as the future is the anticipated present: memory is always derived from the present and from the contents of the soul at present.”78 Memory in the Middle Ages as today was multivalent and its meaning closely connected with the form of its expression.79 When Augustine used the verb contexto, to weave together, he referred simultaneously to memory and narrative.80 And what of the concept of history in the Middle Ages? Since Antiquity history in the West was not a formal discipline in and of itself. It was originally a part of rhetoric, the art of persuasion in writing and speech.81 It also served at times as a form

75 According to one critical theorist, “In this way it [modern western history] is unlike tradition (religious tradition), though it never succeeds in being entirely dissociated from this archaeology, maintaining with it a relation of indebtedness and rejection” (Michel de Certeau, The Writing of History, trans. Tom Conley (New York, 1988; orig., 1975), pp. 2–3; see also p. 37). 76 Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval and Modern (2nd edition, Chicago, 1994 (orig., 1983)), p. 2. 77 De Certeau, The Writing of History, p. 37. 78 Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History, p. 7. 79 Jörn Rüsen notes that the border between chronology and historiography is fluid; he argues that chronology is a proto-history. See Jörn Rüsen, “Die vier Typen des historischen Erzählens,” in Reinhart Kosseleck, Heinrich Lutz, and Jörn Rüsen (eds), Formen der Geschichtsschreibung (Munich, 1982), pp. 514–605, here at p. 544. Rüsen isolates four different types of narratives: traditional narratives (inherited from fathers) (p. 545); exemplary narratives (p. 547); critical narratives (opposed to tradition; weapons used in the battle against the memory of a symbol) (p. 551); and, genetic narratives (structural changes of a system) (p. 555). Indeed, the act of narration is significant, whether or not that narration is formal or modern historiography or not. 80 Olney, Memory and Narrative, p. 20. 81 Beryl Smalley, Historians in the Middle Ages (New York, 1974), p. 15.


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of ethics, as it did for Sallust,82 or it might be akin to biography,83 often beginning with a recounting of the author’s own personal experiences.84 It was only in biblical exegesis that historia had a special meaning, there as a literal understanding of Scripture.85 Medieval historians were thus not historians in the professional sense that we imagine them today,86 rather they were chroniclers and registers, who believed that the past was valuable as a means of instruction.87 According to the German historian Johannes Aventinus (1477–1534), for example: “For in the old histories as in a mirror, one views the life of the other and therefore takes from the other an image, to be reminded … what he should do or allow, what is in evil or good.”88 The connection between the value of the past and behavior and knowledge of the present was frequently maintained. Although some historians have been careful to stress the continuity of historical inquiry, even through the Renaissance,89 others have noted the important developments of the later Middle Ages, and even the work of the medieval scholastics in the creation of greater systematization and the production of new historical-moral works.90 In the later Middle Ages, it has been argued, history increasingly functioned as a guarantee, a centrum securitatis, of the continued life of the individual and the community.91 In discussing the motives for the work of the late medieval German town chronicles, F.R.H. Du Boulay articulates various purposes that could exist alone or in any combination, motives that revolve around issues of politics, personal need, and professional employment. Late medieval town chronicles might furnish memorials of a leading family; record the ceremonial reception of kings; keep reports on feuds and wars, which the town engaged against external enemies; chronicle internal rebellions; and allow for the author’s own gratification, reward, or commission.92

82 Ibid., p. 19. 83 Ibid., p. 21. 84 Ibid., p. 24. 85 Herbert Grundmann, Geschichtsschreibung im Mittelaler: Gattungen—Epochen— Eigenart (Göttingen, 1965), p. 5. 86 František Graus, “Funktionen der spätmittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreibung,” in Hans Patze (ed.), Geschichtschreibung und Geschichtsbewusstsein im späten Mittelalter (Sigmaringen, 1987), pp. 11–55, here at p. 13. 87 Ibid., p. 18. 88 Ibid., p. 19. 89 František Graus, “II. Zusammenfassung der Tagung Oktober 1981,” in Patze (ed.), Geschichtschreibung und Geschichtsbewusstsein im späten Mittelalter, pp. 838–45, here at p. 840, where he argues that there was no radical break between chronicling and historical writing in the old sense and the so-called humanistic historiography. 90 Hans Patze, “Zusammenfassungen: I. Zusammenfassung der Tagungen Oktober 1980 und Oktober 1982,” in Patze (ed.), Geschichtschreibung und Geschichtsbewusstsein im späten Mittelalter, pp. 821–38, here at pp. 824, 835. 91 Graus, “Funktionen der spätmittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreibung,” p. 55. 92 F.R.H. Du Boulay, “The German Town Chroniclers,” in R.H.C. Davis and J.M. Wallace-Hadrill (eds), The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Richard William Southern (Oxford, 1981), pp. 445–69, here pp. 448–9.

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History was very fluid in the Middle Ages, and could be expressed in a variety of literary genres.93 As with memory, the very narration of the past could be an active tool in political propaganda,94 and in many lands in the later Middle Ages one can find a noticeable increase in the social and political uses of historiography.95 In the midst of revolts or other crises, for example, an ideal and lost past might be promoted or castigated96 and the past itself might be suborned as a witness to the “truth.”97 Throughout the Middle Ages history could serve as a means of legitimization, interchanging “good” and “old” law,98 noting the “good old time” and so constructing social order,99 or illustrating the authority of God.100 History, as the recalling of both memory and tradition, could serve as a means to legitimate or defend authority.101 The process of writing history might argue for legitimate knowledge, and such knowledge could form a self-defining center.102 Histories, therefore, were (and continue to be) powerful tools that mediate relationships and define identities.103 Historians—as creators and re-tellers of the narrative—themselves could become brokers of power,104 a particularly intriguing concept with the dramatic changes in Western Europe in the early modern period— 93 Graus, “Funktionen der spätmittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreibung,” pp. 25–6. 94 Ibid., pp. 28–9. 95 Ibid., p. 33. 96 Ibid., p. 34; others have also seen the birth of historiography in the fifteenth century. See, for example, Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken, “Die Rezeption mittelalterliche Historiographie durch den Inkunabeldruck,” in Patze (ed.), Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsbewusstsein im späten Mittelalter, pp. 215–36, where it is argued that historiography first appeared in the last third of the fifteenth century. 97 Graus, “Funktionen der spätmittelalterlichen Geschichtsschreibung,” p. 54. 98 Ibid., p. 23. 99 Ibid., p. 31. 100 Ibid., p. 24. 101 Leah Shopkow, History and Community: Norman Historical Writing in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Washington, 1997), p. 253. 102 De Certeau, The Writing of History, p. 127. For Michel de Certeau, narration is the art of speaking as an art of operating and of thinking; as such, it includes both practice and theory. That is to say, that ways of operating designate activities but also organize construction. Narration therefore is different than mere description. The act of narration has more meaning than the actual object or end point that the narration completes. For de Certeau, there also exists a contextual network of messages and operations; “knowledge” is a memory, with many different moments and heterogeneous elements. The very duration of that knowledge and the retelling of that knowledge intercede and change those moments and elements. See also his The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley, 1984). Some historians have, nevertheless, maintained that it is in fact possible to discern true from false narrative, and, consequently that history both represents facts and participates in making them. Nevertheless, historians themselves make history by deciding what to record and what to ignore (Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History, pp. 30ff). 103 “Histories reflected political relationships of various kinds, including relationships between institutions, between institutions and their communities, and between rulers and their subjects” (Shopkow, History and Community, p. 258). 104 See de Certeau, The Writing of History, p. 7.


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territorialization, the creation of the centralized state, the scientific development of disciplines of knowledge,105 and the crisis of authority, for example. In order to speak of a real historical tradition, František Graus stipulates three requirements: the narrative in the past is projected and is somehow relevant for the present—curiosities do not found a tradition; the narrative must be differentiated from “folklore;” and the narrative must be passed over a certain period from generation to generation orally or in written form. Graus has asserted, however, that a simple consciousness of the past, which appears in different forms, is older than all chronological historical writing. This consciousness may be clothed in mythic forms and report on the beginning of time. It serves fundamentally to bind the members of a society (Gemeinschaft), through a common past.106 The process of narrating memory and history could lead to moralizing, since the narratives require a system within which to be understood.107 But narratives of the past could also be moral in a different, broader sense as well. They involve the ethics of selecting and re-presenting the past. In describing Norman historical writing in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Leah Shopkow notes that “in the process of writing a history, the historian decided not only what ought to be remembered but also structured how the material was to be remembered, offering as a substitute for personal, social, and self-referential memories external and abstract written accounts.” Therefore, as the medievalist Brian Stock notes, “historical writing does not treat reality; it treats the interpreter’s relation to it.”108 The historian is involved in the process of creating as much as the “facts” and “texts” are,109 and as such, the product—historical writing—“is thus an apologetic whose moral is coherence.”110 Memory itself becomes moral, and so has the power to define proper behavior and to focus on the (ideal) qualities that identify a group.111 Conclusion As we have seen, in theoretical discussions as well as actual application in the Middle Ages, narration of the past could take different forms and serve a wide range of purposes. Whether couched as memory or more formal history, engagement with the past could be a powerful tool for locating authority (to challenge or uphold it), mediating relationships, and dictating proper behavior. As such, the “remembering” and use of the past played a central role in the formation, identity, and even transformation of communities. What is more, the narrators of the past themselves 105 Ibid., p. 60. 106 František Graus, Lebendige Vergangenheit: Überlieferung im Mittelaletr und in den Vorstellungen vom Mittelalter (Cologne, 1975), p. 1. 107 Consider Hayden White, for example, as discussed in Cubit, “Memory and Narrative,” p. 48. 108 Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, 1983), p. 80. 109 Ibid., p. 83. 110 Ibid., p. 84. 111 See Shopkow, History and Community, p. 257.

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served an important function in both recording and structuring community as well as internal and external communal relations. While early modern Jewish communities are generally seen as somehow “traditional” and religious and often simplistic in their understanding and use of the past, we now ask whether early modern German Jews narrated the past, through memory or history, for more sophisticated purposes than simply religious ritual.

Chapter 2

Reconsidering Early Modern German Jewish Memory and History1 Paradigms in Jewish Memory Traditionally, scholars have found pre-modern Jewish memory to be paradigmatic rather than historical. Jacob Neusner, for example, has asserted that time telling in classical Judaism made no distinction between past and present, utilizing paradigmatic modes of thought rather than historical ones.2 He concluded that Jews were indifferent to the specifics of context3 and that “the Judaism of the dual Torah transforms ancient Israel’s history into the categorical structure of eternal Israel’s society, so that past, present, and future meet in the here and now.”4 Similar conclusions have been drawn for medieval Jewish literary production. Regarding Abraham Ibn Daud’s (c.1110–1180) tale of four rabbis taken captive by a Muslim sea raider, for example, Gerson Cohen argued that the tale is not a historical account, but rather a homily, a romance with a moral. It was meant to be consolation for Jews, and it relied heavily on a symmetry in which historical reckoning is imprecise and history conforms to a set pattern.5 Likewise, in examining Hebrew narratives of the 1096 crusade riots, Ivan Marcus contended that, “The events actually reported qualify for inclusion only when they fit the narrator’s preconceived religious-literary schema. Medieval chronicles are, in this sense, fictions: imaginative re-orderings of experience within a cultural framework

1 For a very concise and good treatment of Jewish approaches to history in general, see Jay R. Berkovitz, “Does Jewish History Repeat Itself? Paradigm, Myth and Tradition,” in Dean Phillip Bell (ed.), The Solomon Goldman Lectures, vol. VII (Chicago, 1999), pp. 131–53. 2 Jacob Neusner, “History, Time, and Paradigm in Classical Judaism,” in Approaches to Ancient Judaism, Volume XVI, pp. 189–211, here at pp. 189–90. 3 Ibid., p. 190. 4 Ibid., p. 192. 5 Gerson Cohen, “The Story of the Four Captives,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 29 (1960–61): 70–123, here at p. 95. Cohen writes that, “It is a remarkable fact that virtually no modern scholar has taken seriously Ibn Daud’s repeated contention that history is not a mere record of past events, but essentially a source of consolation for the Jew.” Cohen notes the importance of symmetry in Ibn Daud’s account (overriding biblical passages or historical information) (p. 101); that rough correspondence is sufficient (p. 102); that history is always shown to conform to a pattern (p. 105); and that the reckoning of time is rather vague and imprecise, as when the text notes that “‘4750 a bit more or less’” (p. 108) or when years serve as allusions (p. 111).

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and system of symbols.”6 The accounts were preoccupied with eschatology,7 were as liturgical as they were chronological,8 and utilized central paradigms placed into new situations: Mainz became Jerusalem, for example, as Speyer became Yavneh.9 Indeed, in their approach to pre-modern Jewish memory, most scholars assume that pre-modern Judaism and Jews were a religious and homogenous group.10 Traditional and religious sensibility—often catchwords for subjective and non-critical—is therefore seen as fundamental to any Jewish engagement with the past. The consequences are that pre-modern Judaism is often seen to be unable or unwilling to differentiate modes of temporality, especially past and present, and to be able to understand the past merely in religious ways, primarily through paradigms created in biblical or talmudic texts or the paradigm of causality expressed through the motif of sin and repentance. It is worth reconsidering these assumptions. Given the function of narrations of the past in the Middle Ages and more generally that we saw in the first chapter, what can we say about Jewish memory and history in early modern Germany? Early Modern Paradigms: Sin and Penance as Causal Explanations For Jews, as for their medieval and early modern Christian counterparts, historical events were often seen to follow a particular pattern. The present was understandable within the context of tried and true typologies, or else seen to comport to some divine plan hatched at the time of creation and discernible through various means of biblical interpretation. The paradigm of four world empires that would rise and fall in succession before an expected messianic culmination, for example, was frequently espoused and described. Such a model made the unfolding of history and the ongoing suffering of the Jews understandable, and at times reassuring. The paradigm of the four world empires was not limited to Jewish writers and thinkers and it was still a marvelously powerful tool of interpretation and historical organization even when criticized by early modern Germans. Such an approach seemed to make history disposable and the past understandable only by recourse to theological models and considerations. There were other standard theological ways in which Jews attempted to understand the defeats and victories of the past and present. Early modern Jews, like their Christian contemporaries, traded in an “economy of sin,” in which various misfortunes were attributed to sin and eventual salvation to sincere repentance.11

6 Ivan Marcus, “From Politics to Martyrdom: Shifting Paradigms in the Hebrew Narratives of the 1096 Crusade Riots,” Prooftexts 2 (1982): 40–52, here at p. 42. 7 Ibid., p. 45. 8 Ibid., p. 42. 9 Ibid., pp. 49, 51. 10 Jewish feminists have offered a critique of this assumption. See, for example, Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (San Francisco, 1991). 11 See the general literature in the recent work on natural disaster in the early modern period. In particular, the concept of an “economy of sin,” is discussed in Wolfgang Behringer, “‘Kleine Eiszeit’ und Frühe Neuzeit,” in Wolfgang Behringer, Hartmut Lehmann, and


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Such an economy took on added significance within the context of various discussions about the power of God and the unique position of God’s chosen people, the Jews. The important early modern legal authority, Yair Hayyim Bacharach, for example, utilized fairly traditional language when, in his introduction to Mekor Hayyim, he noted that “Because of our sins our city of Worms was destroyed in 5449, 13 of Sivan [1 June, 1689, by the French army].”12 Of the same event, he wrote in his Havot Yair, that “In the course of time there came upon us a year of curses. In 5449, 13 of Sivan our city was destroyed and because of our great sins our Beit-ha-Mikdash, our small synagogue, was desolate. The residents of our holy congregation [of Worms] left in terror and became wanderers and roamers.” The description of the destruction mirrored in microcosm the more general and grander history of the destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of the Jews, while linking the event with Jewish sins. In confronting the hostilities of the Fettmilch uprising in early seventeenth-century Frankfurt, the author of the Megillat Vintz, a recounting cast into a rather traditional Purim tale, similarly drew a direct line of causality between sin and suffering. “How great must have been our sins,” he reflected, “even if we did not want to admit it.”13 He pointed out that “many overwhelming disasters had befallen our community up until that time. For eight or nine years we had not slept peacefully.” But the underlying explanation was sin: “The cause of all this was our great sins, revealed or hidden. God, Blessed be He, has directed us that we should act with care. And this is the duty of each one of us … Therefore, we shall turn away from our evil ways. The miracles and wonders shall not be forgotten.”14 In stressing the relation between perceived sin and tragedy, an early seventeenthcentury anonymous Prague chronicle ran through a litany of cause and effect statements, positing specific community events, such as expulsions and fires in the Jewish street, as the result of community sins. “1559 Due to our iniquities, there was a fire in the Judenstrasse here in Prague, in which seventy-two houses were consumed by the flames, as well as the Hochschul [college, referring to a yeshiva?]. This occurred on the 17th of Tammuz [a traditional day of fasting and mourning; in that year on 22 June]. A woman named Friedel Niches perished in the fire as well, due to our iniquities.”15 In part, the purpose of such recounting was to serve as a memory for the future. The Prague chronicler simply explained that “I shall recount the events occurring in the Exile subsequent to the fifth millennium: the expulsions, miracles, and news of other occurrences befalling [the Jews] in Prague and the other lands of our long exile because of our iniquities, to serve as a token of remembrance

Christian Pfister (eds), Kulturelle Konsequenzen der ‘Kleinen Eiszeit’ (Göttingen, 2005), pp. 415–508, here at pp. 466–7. 12 Shlomo Eidelberg, Medieval Ashkenazic History: Studies on German Jewry in the Middle Ages, Volume I English Essays (New York, 1999), p. 168. 13 Rivka Ulmer, Turmoil, Trauma and Triumph: The Fettmilch Uprising in Frankfurt am Main (1612–1616) According to Megillas Vintz (Frankfurt am Main, 2001), p. 127. 14 Ibid., p. 197. 15 Abraham David (ed.), A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague, c. 1615, trans. Leon J. Weinberger with Dena Ordan (Tuscaloosa, 1993), pp. 46–7.

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for us and our descendants forever.”16 The re-telling of specifics, however, might also serve as something of a communal record akin to a ledger. Conversely, salvation in many early modern Jewish narratives was generally attributed to Jewish penance and prayer. According to the Megillat Vintz, for example, “we trusted in Him, Blessed be He. He turned them away because we trusted in His holy and eternal name. We repented and afflicted ourselves with fasting and prayer. We thought we could avert the harsh, Divine decree and our great troubles.”17 The causal relationship between Jewish spiritual action and political deliverance was seen as direct. It was God who saved the Jews from their troubles, but only after Jewish prayer and repentance. Moralizing was, therefore, intimately connected with the narratives of the past that sought to explain both tragedy and redemption.18 Beyond the Use of Paradigms Throughout the early modern narratives, the language of “our sins” was common and rather formulaic.19 But should the frequent invocation of causality between sin and tragedy and repentance and deliverance be taken purely literally? Did Jews ascribe salvation only to divine intervention? Was there room for other explanations of past events? Was the causal relationship different in different Jewish narratives or in different contexts? The seventeenth-century Prague rabbi Yom-Tov Lipman Heller, for example, in describing the 1648 Chmielnicki massacres did not see the massacres only as punishment for perceived Jewish sins, but rather attributed them largely to contemporary political conditions. Indeed, as his writings make clear, Heller did not maintain an ahistorical concept of Jewish suffering.20 Was this a view shared by other early modern Jews? Even when paradigms were the primary explanatory discourse, it is not enough to say that the use of paradigms or traditional narration of the past implied that early modern Jews were only religious or simply static. In what follows we will see that paradigms could be used both to initiate and suppress change. Paradigms could have varying levels of meaning and application—local, regional, national, and even

16 Ibid., p. 21. 17 Ulmer, Turmoil, Trauma and Triumph, p. 113. 18 In a sense, the events of the past had the capacity to reflect and renew the eternal and ongoing covenant between God and His people. The power of God could at times, however, be activated for the assistance of the Jews, even without Jewish action. The anonymous Prague chronicle reported that the King allowed the expelled Jews to return, with the help of God, and did not mention Jewish penance: “5301 [1541]— King Ferdinand, may he be exalted, expelled [the Jews] from all the cities of Bohemia, and here in Prague only ten [Jewish] householders remained. Subsequently, he allowed them to return, with the help of God.” (David (ed.), A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague, pp. 44–5) The actions of the Jews mattered little in this case, since the King was apparently divinely inspired to allow the Jews back into his realm. 19 See, for example, the note by Abraham David regarding the language in the anonymous Prague Chronicle, which he argues is not intended to be literal (ibid., p. 21). 20 See Joseph Davis, Yom-Tov Lipman Heller: Portrait of a Seventeenth-Century Rabbi (Oxford, 2004), pp. 11, 13. See also pp. 146–51 for examples from Heller’s Megilat eivah.


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universal. Paradigms could be employed for a variety of purposes and in numerous contexts that belie simple or unwavering engagement with the past. When the community ledgers of the Prague community stressed that “our sins” have led to recent misfortunes, such emphasis did not have to be read only as a paradigmatic understanding of the past, with suffering as the divine punishment for sin. The mention of sins, in this case, provided a current means for moral upbraiding and the reinforcement of old, or the introduction of new, laws. According to one part of the ledger: And here, in the month of Tishri 372, by the shorter calculation [1611], we have gathered together to review what is happening within our holy community. For several days now we have observed a great number of misfortunes around us, as well as terrible dread, the most recent being lives cut sort. For a considerable number of people and children, boys and girls, have died, and they say that surely our sins have brought this upon us. Perhaps there are hidden sins, and we have decided in God’s name, and so that He may relent and take pity on those of us who remain and heal our dear ones … it has thus been decided with the consent of our holy community, to issue a law that must be respected by all those within the gates of our town who must observe it down to its precise details, which will be clarified below.21

While the document clearly posited the relationship between misfortune and sin, it also afforded the opportunity to initiate significant changes in communal legislation. At times, it was, in fact, the present and current social and political conditions that themselves gave meaning to the past! Throughout many of the narratives examined here, the past was utilized as a means to legitimate current practices or lobby for changes. The Frankfurt community minutes provide an excellent example. There it was recorded: “In the year (5)302 [1542], the heads of the people together with the scholars and the leaders of Germany assembled at Worms to correct the state of affairs of Germany. They renewed and re-issued this matter because the ordinance of the ancients was worthy in their eyes. The following scholars were mentioned specifically and signed the document … What motivated them to engage in this burden was (the fact) that they saw the later generations, including their scholars and their leaders, lose heart and faith. Perhaps, some rabbis intentionally and brutally lorded over ‘a holy people’ for their own welfare, benefit and selfaggrandizement.”22 Engagement with the past, of course, was not necessarily the same as acceptance of the past. As the Rules of the hevra kadisha (burial society) of Prague (1692–1702) demonstrate, past decisions and practices could be a means for measuring current 21 Sylvie Anne Goldberg, Crossing the Jabbok: Illness and Death in Ashkenazi Judaism in Sixteenth- through Nineteenth-Century Prague, trans. Carol Cosman (Berkeley, 1996) p. 227, “Rulings and Practices of the Sages of our Community of Prague, issued in the month of Tishri 5372 [1611].” 22 See also the following excerpt: “Now, therefore, we, the young of the flock have humbly proceeded [to re-endorse] the ordinance of the ancients which we view favorably. We listened intently to all their words and have reissued it as a new ordinance.” Eric Zimmer, Jewish Synods in Germany during the Late Middle Ages (1286–1603) (New York, 1978), p. 143.

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practices, deciding proper behavior, and giving a very real sense of authority to both old and new decisions. While the past did possess, in these contexts, a sanctity of its own, it is worth noting that the past could be selected and filtered. It had real meaning only in reference to the present, which could choose to continue, endorse, or, by inference, discard past practices. Often current legislation issued from “old rules,” or it indicated that an “old article may be preserved.” Old rules, however, might also be judged inappropriate or not reissued.23 Even when placing events within a traditional paradigm, such as those refracted into the Purim story, early modern narratives often stressed the unique features and meanings of the events being presented. The introduction to the Megillat Vintz, for example, noted its compilation at the hands of local and distinguished scholars. It detailed the “enormous hardships that befell the Frankfurt community,” specifically to inform and edify the present and future generations, by making public a very special miracle manifest in the eventual salvation of the Jewish community.24 The song recorded that: “We (the Jews) all gathered in a hurry in front of the Bockenheimer Pfort [Bockenheim Gate] with all of the members of our households. We had come from everywhere, as had the other householders who had lived under other lords. They, like we, were running to Frankfurt to be able to see what was going to happen in order that they could tell future generations.”25 While presenting the local events of the Fettmilch uprising and maintaining the local emphasis on Frankfurt and its Jewish community, the song also universalized the meaning of the events for all Jews. Like many early modern chronicles, local, regional, and universal issues and identities could be intimately connected. The anonymous seventeenth-century chronicle from Prague also reported on a broad array of events throughout Bohemia, while offering a special emphasis on the resonance of those events on the Jewish community in Prague. At times the balance between local and regional could be utilized to emphasize the effects of regional developments on or to demonstrate the unique standing of the Prague community. The chronicle was, therefore, local but subsumed within a larger regional context. The chronicle noted, for example, that “Due to our iniquities, there was another decree expelling [the Jews] from all the cities of Bohemia, and here, in Prague, only twelve [Jewish] householders remained.”26 When paradigms were employed, it is worth considering why certain paradigms were selected, for what purposes, with what meanings, and in what contexts. The emphasis on the Purim story and the figure of Esther in particular was, for example, an important motif for Portuguese Jews returning to Judaism in late sixteenth- and 23 For example: “which practices to uphold, both old and new”; “from a document written on an ancient tablet”; “this is a rule from former times …”; “there is an old law that dates back many years … ” (p. 219); “and this issues also from the old rules”; “it was decided to extend an old article” (p. 220); “for this day was chosen a long time ago”; “a general endorsement of an old article of ours”; “this, too, is contained in the old articles” (p. 221); “issues from the old rules”; “This is also an old article that we shall preserve”; “An old rule forbids …” (p. 222). All in Goldberg, Crossing the Jabbok. 24 Ulmer, Turmoil, Trauma and Triumph, p. 90. 25 Ibid., p. 179. 26 David (ed.), A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague, pp. 44–5.


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early seventeenth-century Amsterdam and Hamburg.27 These Jews could identify with Esther as the hidden Jew as well as the threats to expulsion and pogrom that were eventually overcome.28 The past was highly engaged and could be highly charged, especially in the numerous comparative statements or equations that appear throughout early modern German Jewish literature. The use of comparison could serve as a means to explain recent events within the spectrum of broader communal or Jewish history—giving that event greater and more relevant meaning—or to demonstrate the uniqueness of a particular event. Often such comparison was rather general, and intended to convey the sense that current events were important or central. The anonymous Prague chronicler wrote that “and the multitude was so great that it erased the memory of former armies.” The Megillat Vintz similarly expressed that, “We had a time of great distress as had never before been the case in our time”29 and in another place that “It was in the year 372, at that time in the great (honorable) city of Frankfurt, a great fight broke out, like none other ever seen before on the face of the earth.”30 In more dramatic fashion some comparison could be quite stirring, directing readers back to central events in Jewish history. Often such comparison presupposed audience familiarity with a range of texts, personalities, and stories. The Megillat Vintz drew significant parallels with the Purim story, writing that “This is what Vintz Hans himself spoke against us. ‘I am your present Haman; I am not afraid of (another) Mordechai, there are no such pious people among you.’”31 Not only was the paradigm of the Purim story replicated, but the central evil character himself

27 See Berkovitz, “Does Jewish History Repeat Itself?,” p. 145. See also Miriam Bodian, Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in Early Modern Amsterdam (Bloomington, 1997), pp. 10, 172 (note 24 for references). 28 Analogies in historical writing “transcend their historical specificity,” and connect past and present. And yet, different durations and periods of time possess different social value (note the concept of overtime). See Eviatar Zerubavel, Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past (Chicago, 2003), pp. 26, 45, 50. In this regard, Zerubavel argues that “History thus takes the form of a relief map, on the mnemonic hills and dales of which memorable and forgettable events from the past are respectively featured. Its general shape is thus formed by a handful of historically ‘eventful’ mountains interspersed among wide, seemingly empty valleys in which nothing of any historical significance seems to have happened …” (p. 27). Regarding national memory, he adds that: “As far as national memory is concerned … the social shape of the past is essentially bimodal, with most of the events commemorated on national holidays having occurred either in the very distant past or within the last two hundred years. Events that are calendrically commemorated by nations thus typically form two chronologically dense clusters representing their respective spiritual and political origins and separated from each other by long stretches of commemoratively ‘empty’ time” (p. 31). That certain events or comparisons were more frequently cited, then, is not surprising. That early modern German Jews presented patterns of historical memory in a similar fashion implies that such presentations need not be dismissed as ahistorical or simply paradigmatic. 29 Zimmer, Synods, p. 103. 30 Ulmer, Turmoil, Trauma and Triumph, p. 97. 31 Ibid., p. 135.

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proclaimed his affinity with Haman. In other sections the song elicited comparisons with David and Goliath,32 and, quite incredibly, even the Exodus from Egypt.33 At other times, recourse to the past served to moralize by contrasting perceived low contemporary standards with the exceptional people or behaviors of the past. According to the now famous late seventeenth and early eighteenth century Jewish memoir writer Glückel of Hameln, who had an impressive present-mindedness about her, “To tell the truth, she didn’t have to burden herself with many wares, because formerly people were satisfied with a small turnover.”34 A private Prague letter from 1619, likewise distinguished between “nowadays” and previous times: “What shall I tell you about this? I think you are clever enough to imagine what could happen in such a time. Now we have been saved from this peril, we have certainly profited by the merits of our ancestors. And I particularly have suffered terribly. I have not saved a penny for my own needs, if, God forbid, my life were to be endangered. Nowadays nobody is ready to lend anything to other people, from one hand into another. When I needed something for living, I was obliged to offer double pledges and to pay high interest.”35 In a similar vein, even more formal community accounts, such as the minutes from the Frankfurt Jewish community, utilized comparison with the past to brandish before community members a moral yardstick. It observed that, “If such was the case with previous generations most certainly beyond any doubt [it is with] the contemporary generation of their students’ students which are orphaned and which decline from day to day!”36 While the Temple was much discussed by Jews and Christians in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, it is revealing that a simple letter from 1619 found the Temple as an appropriate comparative image: “I had much to write you about horrible things, but I cannot write, about the affliction we had to endure here when riots almost occurred in our streets. It was like at the destruction of the Temple.”37 One of course would be hard pressed to believe that the author wanted to make such a direct comparison. But as a tool to activate the sense of great loss and turmoil, the 32 Ibid., p. 137. 33 “This can be compared to the powerful Exodus from Egypt where we had been slaves. All that has occurred has been the work of God to prevent (our) pride and wrongdoing or any other transgression. God, Blessed be He, cannot be deceived” (ibid., p. 197). See also the anonymous Prague chronicle, which recounted: “I shall recount another miracle as great as the Exodus from Egypt and the Splitting of the Red Sea” (David (ed.), A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague, p. 66). 34 Glückel of Hameln, The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln, trans. Marvin Lowenthal (New York, 1977; orig., 1932), p. 14 (Glikl Hamil, Memoirs (Buenos Aires, 1967) [Yiddish], p. 50). She also writes that, “no such arrogance reigned in the old days as now, and people were not wont to eat such costly meals” (p. 267; see the Yiddish version, pp. 340–41). 35 Sarel, daughter of Moses, to her husband Loeb Sarel Gutmans, November, 1619, in Franz Kobler (ed.), A Treasury of Jewish Letters: Letters from the Famous and the Humble (London, 1952), vol. II, pp. 466–7. For early modern letters, compare Steven Ozment, Flesh and Spirit: Private Life in Early Modern Germany (New York, 1999). 36 Zimmer, Synods, p. 145. 37 Sarel, daughter of Moses, to her husband Loeb Sarel Gutmans, November, 1619, in Kobler (ed.), A Treasury of Jewish Letters, pp. 466–7.


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destruction of the Temple was perceived as an appropriately stirring image. This does not imply that early modern Jews diminished the importance of the past by recalling it in such casual terms; nor does it indicate that Jews could not understand the past or present outside of paradigms. In fact, such comparisons might indicate that early modern Jews were more creative and thoughtful about their use of the past, a use that encompassed all aspects of Jewish life, not simply religious traditions and dogmatism. Resort to the past of paradigms should not, therefore, be seen as simply bowing to the past. Such discourse allowed Jews to reshape, recalibrate, or even explain change. Temporality: The Relation of Past and Present Beginning with the Renaissance, some have argued, a clearer separation of past and present developed. According to one recent study, Renaissance historical writings are characterized, more or less noticeably, by awareness of historical distance. In its purest forms, this sophistication found expression in the principle of anachronism, which began to be current among the learned and remained with them. The popular chronicles, even those of Italian provenance, did not always share the full clarity of the new perspective. Nonetheless, even they reflected, however dimly or brightly, the age’s preoccupation with the past as past.38

In traditional Jewish historiography, however, it has been generally assumed that until the end of the eighteenth century Jews “essentially inhabited a temporal world of their own,” with Jews living in a predominantly eschatological time frame.39 According to this line of thinking, it was only with nineteenth-century modern historical thinking that “pre-modern temporal continuity” gave way to “a model of succession that privileged the present over the past.”40 In this world, the distance between experience and expectation widened, as the breakdown of tradition and the crisis of time made both the past and the future seem more distant.41 Although many scholars have argued that there was a transformation of Jewish historiography in the sixteenth century, they have found the precursors to modern critical historical scholarship that seem to have been forged during the Renaissance in only a few isolated figures, particularly the erudite Azariah de’ Rossi. Sixteenthcentury Jewish historiography has been seen as at once a revival of Jewish historical thinking and a continuation of notions of the past imprinted with traditional religious sensibilities.42 Corresponding to long-standing models of periodization, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, then, represent a continuum that is still medieval but that 38 Frank L. Borchardt, German Antiquity in Renaissance Myth (Baltimore, 1971), p. 312. 39 Nils Roemer, “Between Hope and Despair: Conceptions of Time and the German-Jewish Experience in the Nineteenth Century,” Jewish History 14 (2000): 345–63, here at p. 346. 40 Ibid., p. 345. 41 Ibid., p. 355. 42 See as well Mordechai Breuer, “Modernism and Traditionalism in Sixteenth-Century Jewish Historiography: A Study of David Gans’ Tzemah David,” in Bernard Dov Cooperman (ed.), Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, MA, 1983), pp. 49–88.

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is moving closer to the modernity of the nineteenth century. One might ask, however, whether Jews experienced broader changes in temporal perspective outside of formal historical writing. Amos Funkenstein has suggested that the period between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed the creation of a new kind of contextual understanding of history and the shift, particularly in the seventeenth century, from an idea of history within the religious to one within the secular domain.43 According to Funkenstein: Somewhere between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century, a revolution occurred that was no less radical than the concurrent scientific revolution. It brought about a new contextual understanding of history, in which historical fact became ‘understood’ or meaningful only through the context in which it was embedded. This applies to both historical texts and other monuments of the past. The historian must reconstruct the context, and the reconstruction is always linked to his or her ‘point of view’ in the present.44

It is not too far of a stretch to place early modern Jews within this Renaissance context. Jewish narratives were not, of necessity, internal or hermetically sealed. They often shared similar approaches, sources, and foci with the productions of nonJewish historical writers. Like the chronicle of David Gans, much early modern German Jewish literature engaged the developments and concerns of the non-Jewish world. The anonymous seventeenth-century Prague chronicle, for example—which does not seem to have borrowed directly from Gans45—was written in a simple, unembellished Hebrew, but was influenced by the vernacular. It clearly incorporated both oral and written materials, including information from the community pinkas [community ledger], as well as non-Jewish documentary evidence.46 The chronicle reported on rainbows,47 eclipses,48 weather,49 earthquakes,50 and stars,51 while also recording recent Jewish and general history (within the preceding 50 years), such as the attack of the Turks on Vienna52 and the coronation of the king.53 Given that 43 Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History, p. 15. 44 Ibid., pp. 14–15. 45 David (ed.), A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague, pp. 5–8. 46 Ibid., p. 9. 47 Ibid., pp. 38, 40. 48 Ibid., pp. 38, 51. 49 Ibid., p. 40. 50 Ibid., p. 70. 51 Ibid., p. 52. For 1577, the chronicle recorded the following regarding a star: “May God regard it for good and a blessing, Amen. Its like had not been seen for over forty-five years.” See also Zemah David. Zinberg, in vol. 6 of his far-reaching A History of Jewish Literature, notes Gans’s recording of epidemics, troubles, afflictions, floods, earthquakes, signs as harbingers of coming oppressions and trials (p. 49). Even the minhag [custom] book of the community of Worms refers to a two-hour lunar eclipse, adding the hope that it may be a good omen for all Israel. See Eidelberg, Medieval Ashkenazic History, in his excerpts from the “Minhagim of the Worms Community,” p. 139 (16 Av 5423 (August 19, 1663)). 52 David (ed.), A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague, p. 39. 53 Ibid., p. 40. See also p. 58 for previous royal delegations and p. 61 regarding the 1609 Reichstag.


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early modern German Jewry was complex and Jews were involved with internal concerns as well as a myriad of more general developments, it is time we turn to a few illustrative examples of how early modern Jews approached time and how they focused narratives of the past. Early Modern German Jewish Temporality Even if it is true that there were relatively few purely “historical” works to be found among medieval and early modern Ashkenazic Jews, Jews did construct narratives of the past and have a sense of time and historical consciousness. Many genres of Jewish writing contain important narratives of the past: from rabbinic responsa to wonder stories, customs books, necrologies, communal records, and literature. These narratives may be brief or intricate and detailed; they may be discrete renderings or part of a broader concern; they may be based on documents, traditions, or imagination; they may examine various periods in the past. The role of such Jewish narratives of the past could, in fact, be rather complicated—similar in important ways to more general historical narrative and yet inherently different in other ways, revealing unique local concerns. Before we explore these narratives and these issues, we must first ask how early modern Jews conceived of time and what role temporality played in early modern Jewish culture. Late medieval and early modern Jewish art often reflected complex and overlapping temporal patterns. In the Yahuda Haggadah of mid-fifteenth-century south Germany, a large angel, replete with wings, conversed with a biblical Joshua dressed in contemporary garb.54 In the Prague Haggadah of 1526, ancient cities such as Pitom and Ramses were depicted as medieval fortified cities and towers respectively. The fifteenth-century Ashkenazi Haggadah similarly provided a scene depicting Jews enslaved in Egypt hard at work with medieval style buildings, European countryside, and “modern” ladders and pulleys. As in many haggadot, the rasha, or evil son, was depicted as a military figure in full armor; the son who does not know how to ask was a court jester or fool. In these examples we find a transposition of biblical and contemporary time, merging the two together in a message that reinforced the biblical story through the use of contemporary imagery.55 Does this temporal conflation imply the inability to distinguish temporal modes or, perhaps, something different? To answer this question, let us turn to several central early modern German Jewish texts. It seems fair to say that Jewish writers in early modern Germany were rarely precise in their use of memory, historical reckoning, or their understanding of time. 54 Karl Katz, P.P. Kahane, and Magen Broshi (eds), From the Beginning: Archaeology and Art in the Israel Museum (London, 1968), illus. 130. 55 Similarly, Lassner writes that: “Recent events were, therefore, reinterpreted by Muslim historians to make them consonant with the ideals and circumstances of the Prophet and his age. As a result, current times were inevitably recorded as if they were the mirror images of the historic past.” See Jacob Lassner, “Time, Historiography, and Historical Consciousness: The Dialectic of Jewish-Muslim Relations,” in Benjamin H. Hary, John L. Hayes, and Fred Astren (eds), Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication and Interaction, Essays in Honor of William M. Brinner (Leiden, 2000), pp. 1–26, here at p. 17.

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Mekor Hayyim, by Yair Hayyim Bacharach, one of the great early modern German Jewish legal experts, for example, was replete with references to “memory.” A quick inventory of the meanings of such references, however, reveals a complex and at times overlapping set of concepts. “Zakhor,” or memory, had a number of meanings throughout the text. Typically the term referred to scriptural passages or arguments,56 a traditional explanation or ruling in the Talmud57 or in the writings or codes of previous Jewish scholars.58 Often the term was used negatively, noting that the author did not remember the specific ruling in a passage.59 The term could be self-referential, pointing the reader to previous discussions within the volume itself 60 or within previous sections of works cited. Remembrance extended to memories of miracles of redemption as well.61 The term might also, particularly in its infinitive form, refer to recognition or acceptance.62 The concept of time, particularly the distinction between previous times and “our time” (“in our time”)63 or “this time,”64 was also marked throughout Mekor Hayyim and Bacharach’s other writings, suggesting that we need to reevaluate traditional assumptions that pre-modern Jews lacked historical consciousness, or that halakhic [legal] literature is necessarily atemporal. Although a variety of temporal modes were therefore combined, it hardly seems correct to argue that Bacharach did not or was not capable of distinguishing between past and present. In his Zemah David, the important Prague astronomer and historian David Gans’s sense of time was frequently blurred. Gans compared the great expulsion from France with the exodus from Egypt,65 many events were located by reference to the destruction of the Temple,66 and he frequently utilized very general dating such as “around this time”67 or “before this time.”68 Nevertheless, Gans also demonstrated the ability to differentiate time and chronological periods at the same time that he extended his analysis to contemporary times. He wrote of the period of tannaim and the days of Rabbi Akiva,69 at the same time that he discussed historical events that he heard about from great scholars and teachers of his own time.70 Indeed, for Gans, 56 Bacharach’s commentary is in Joseph ben Ephraim Karo, Shulkhan Arukh Orakh Hayyim im Perush Mekor Hayyim, 2 vols (Jerusalem, 1982), here at vol. 1, p. 39. 57 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 4, 5, 136, 217, 375; vol. 2, pp. 385, 394. 58 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 8 (“the tradition received from the geonim”), 73 (Rokeah and Maharil), and 136 (Rambam). 59 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 5, 16, 51 (regarding the Tosafists). 60 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 52, 60, 220, 333. 61 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 50, 302 (“the exodus from Egypt”). 62 Regarding a get [bill of divorce], for example, see ibid., vol. 1, p. 162. 63 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 13. 64 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 150, 230 (“customary in this time”), 245, 336; vol. 2, p. 390; and compare “in the time of the hahamim [sages]” (vol. 2, p. 401). 65 David Gans, Zemah David, ed. Mordechai Breuer (Jerusalem, 1983), p. 129. 66 Ibid., p. 80. 67 Ibid., p. 33. 68 Ibid., p. 66. 69 Ibid., pp. 88, 89. 70 Ibid., see pp. 129, 40.


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the force of past events was at times related precisely to their currency. He noted, for example, that until this day the land was called Germany, in the language of the Romans alemania; similarly, to this day the kings of Rome are called Kaiser; and the land of France is called Franken Land.71 While chronology could thus be vague and often not even sequential, Gans clearly did differentiate past and present to a significant degree. The general concept of “our time(s)”72 or “our generation,”73 as expressed in the work of Juspa Hahn of Nördlingen, a leading rabbinic figure in early seventeenthcentury Frankfurt am Main, offers yet another important example of early modern German Jewish conceptions of time, memory, and history, which were anything but systematic. Throughout the Sefer Yosef Ometz, Juspa’s definition of “this time” shifted in various places. He asserted vaguely that “we were accustomed from previous times until now,”74 and that the number of printing presses had increased “in our time” and that they print in many places in Ashkenaz.75 “This time” could include a passage from Emek Bracha in the name of the Maharshal (c.1510–1574);76 a ruling in the sixteenth-century Shulhan Arukh;77 and the writings of the Rosh (c.1250–1327).78 The use of the concept of “our time” could also be made to serve a moralizing principle, for example, when he wrote that “and because in our generation we have practically no kavanna [intention] thus I will not write only that we need more …”79 And yet there was a broad differentiation of time throughout his work. Juspa explicated a number of types of individuals, which could be divided as follows: self, father, teacher, pious person, and sages. In this regard, the text might be said to include reference to the present (himself and contemporaneous figures), the recent past (father, teachers, other scholars of note)—which at times extended several hundred years!—and the more distant past (referring mostly to the talmudic sages). There was a diverse array of words that Juspa utilized throughout the text, as well as a variety of sources of authority. He focused on practices and customs, and his relationship to sources of authority was central for much of his recounting of local customs. Throughout the text Juspa employed the terms “discovered,” “seen,” and “heard.” Corresponding to varying temporal modalities, Juspa utilized these terms to provide authority and knowledge, and to establish tradition. Such terms, which find echoes in the broader ethnographic literature of the early modern period suggest that Jews were in fact capable of distinguishing and giving meaning to periods of time, specific events, and modes of reception.

71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

Ibid., pp. 174, 204, 205. Juspa Hahn Nördlingen, Sefer Yosef Ometz (Jerusalem, 1965), pp. 30, 286, 292. Ibid., pp. 44, 56, 291. Ibid., p. 49; see also p. 117. Ibid., p. 8. Ibid., p. 57. Ibid., p. 161. Ibid., p. 352. Ibid., p. 56.

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It would seem that Jews were capable of and willing to distinguish types of temporality. The emphasis on religious practice and the search for authority, which were shared in broader German society, may have fostered the dual attempt to recognize recent events and to place them within a broader historical context. Jewish engagement with the past, however, was not simply theological or paradigmatic; rather it could be social and political as well as dynamic and changeable. Conclusions Even when we accept the centrality of the paradigmatic argument, we do not necessarily have to presuppose that the paradigms did not allow Jews to understand the nuances of the past or see recent historical developments as more than typologies. After all, paradigms were part and parcel of early modern German Jewish narratives, and so were, in a sense, part of communal record keeping, identity, and history, often serving to explain past and current events and to provide continuity with the future. One might agree that early modern German Jewish life, as visible in the literary productions that we possess, was imbued with an intimate relationship with the sacred. We do not need to assume, however, that Jewish writing, particularly narratives of the past, reflected only deep and all-consuming religious sensibility and observance. In fact, the growing literature on early modern halakhic flexibility, tolerated dissent, and intellectual confusion—depending on how one wants to approach the period and subject more generally—suggests that early modern Jewish life was more complex than is often assumed. Paradigms were important in pre-modern Jewish thinking, but that does not mean that Jews could not think beyond paradigms. Already for the medieval period, for example, Robert Chazan has argued persuasively—and in some respects similarly to Funkenstein—that there were at least two important genres that allowed Jews to reconsider the “notion of an unbroken continuum of Jewish experience.” The first was Jewish law, in which a careful context of contemporary events was often required. The second was the First Crusade chronicles, which often provided “detailed and diversified” depictions of “actual Jewish actions.”80 As we have seen, early modern German Jewish engagement with the past at times employed paradigms, but with different creative meaning, and at other times went beyond the use of paradigms to engage and refract the past for various present purposes. Given the complex and changeable nature of early modern Germany, and the often-precarious position of the Jews, we may ask how narration of the past—at times forwarded through both “tradition” and innovation—served to orient Jewish society internally and externally. There are a number of common issues that will reappear in the analysis that follows. Throughout the narratives investigated, time and the past can be complicated and changeable concepts. Nevertheless, the sources reviewed reveal that there were two primary categories into which early modern German Jewish narratives of the past fell. First, such narratives provided 80 Robert Chazan, “Representation of Events in the Middle Ages,” in Ada RapoportAlbert (ed.), Essays in Jewish Historiography: In Memoriam Arnaldo Dante Momigliano, 1908–1987 (Middletown, CT, 1988), pp. 40–55, here at pp. 47, 50, 55.


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the opportunity for collective group identity. The group was defined internally by relation to an “ideal” past. In this sense, history and knowledge were used to legitimate the present and provided authority for particular ruling groups within the community. In addition, narratives of the past provided the means for defining the collectivity through moral parameters and discussion of proper behavior. But narratives of the past also afforded the opportunity to define the collectivity vis-à-vis external groups, while simultaneously mediating and contesting relationships with external authorities. Along the way it should be clear that early modern German Jewry was multidimensional and complex; it was hardly monolithic, static, or purely religious. It is time now that we turn more fully to the texts themselves.


Chapter 3

Community, Memory, and Governance A Context: Population, Settlement, and the Jews Early Modern German Population and Settlement The early modern period throughout Europe, and especially in Germany, was a time of tremendous change and upheaval. While a simple categorization of the period as one of crisis is insufficient, it is clear that dramatic social, political, and religious changes had significant impact on the lives of Jews and Christians alike. General demographic patterns offer one example of the simultaneous volatility and growth of the period. The population of the German Empire, which had peaked to around 11 to 14 million inhabitants in 1340, declined to 7 to 10 million by around 1470,1 but then rebounded to 16.2 million by 1600—making the German population the second largest in Europe, behind the nearly 18.5 million people residing in France in 1600. With the impact of bad harvests throughout the sixteenth century,2 the heavy snow, deep cold, and late frosts between 1584 and 1622, the large number of epidemics throughout the 1630s,3 as well as decades of war, the German population dipped again, however, to 14.1 million by 1700. Such wild population swings caused massive changes in social, economic, and political order. By the late sixteenth century regional settlement density could vary widely. There were ten houses per square kilometer in the western Black Forest, for example, eight in Württemberg and two in Mecklenburg. The most thickly settled area before 1634, the Duchy of Württemberg, possessed 50 residents per square kilometer.4 In Swabia and Bavaria, chronicles of the sixteenth century report a population bursting at the seams, and we know that by 1560 the land available for settlement in these areas had run out.5 The process of growth throughout Germany, however, was geographically uneven, and the effects of settlement patterns and changing demographics could be profound, as we will see below.

1 Werner Rösener, “The Agrarian Economy, 1300–1600,” in Bob Scribner (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, volume I, 1450–1630 (London, 1996), pp. 63– 83, here at p. 63—9 million in 1500, according to Christian Pfister, Bevölkerungsgeschichte und historische Demographie 1500–1800 (Munich, 1994), pp. 10–11. 2 Robert Jütte, “Poverty and Poor Relief,” in Ogilvie (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, pp. 377–404, here at p. 380. 3 Pfister, Bevölkerungsgeschichte, pp. 12–13. 4 Ibid., p. 13. 5 Christian Pfister, “The Population of Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany,” in Scribner (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, pp. 33–62, here at p. 41.

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Around 1500, only 16 per cent of the German population lived in areas with more than 5,000 inhabitants—4 per cent in large cities of more than 10,000. By 1600 that percentage had decreased to 12.6 As in the later Middle Ages, the majority of German towns had populations of less than 2,000,7 and there were some 2,000–3,000 towns (including Swiss and Austrian towns) in early modern Germany. In the early modern period there were few new towns founded, perhaps only 200 between 1500 and 1800, and so the German urban pattern was essentially complete by the end of Middle Ages.8 When all of these cities and towns are included, approximately one quarter of the total population of the Holy Roman Empire lived in urban areas;9 in Hesse-Kassel and Saxony at the beginning of the seventeenth century, for example, 30 per cent of the population was urban (in Thuringia the percentage was 28 and in Württemberg 26).10 Cities continued to be centers of trade and industry, of education, art, and literature. As such, cities were never isolated entities. Indeed, burghers lived within a rich mix of social orders and had the opportunity to associate with a variety of city inhabitants and visitors, such as foreign travelers and businessmen. In addition to longer-term residents, cities could be home to large numbers of foreign migrants. Some 5,000– 7,000 Netherlanders, for example, migrated to Germany in 1567, as did large numbers of Huguenots in the late seventeenth century.11 Migration could, of course, be more regional as well. Württemberg, for example, took in migrants from Switzerland, Vorarlberg, Bavaria, and Tirol,12 and cities generally drew significant proportions of their immigrants from the surrounding countryside. While the percentage of the population from the surrounding land in Cologne and Hamburg was only 5, in early modern Frankfurt and Aachen it was 20 (in some border towns with exceptional religious conditions, such as Emden and Wesel, the percentage could be as high as 40 and 5013). In early modern Colmar, of 922 individuals, whose geographical origins can be ascertained, 385 (41.8 per cent) were born in Colmar, 207 (22.5 per cent) migrated from villages in Alsace, and 330 (35.4 per cent) came to Colmar from other regions.14 This migration to cities—as well as other social, economic, and political developments, such as wealth distribution—could, in many cities, correspond to a variety of factors, including confessional affiliation.15 The city afforded, in a sense almost dictated, interaction between many social and cultural groups.

6 Pfister, Bevölkerungsgeschichte, p. 14. 7 Tom Scott and Bob Scribner, “Urban Networks,” in Scribner (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, pp. 113–43, here at p. 114. 8 Ibid., p. 115. 9 Bernd Roeck, Lebenswelt und Kultur des Bürgertums in der frühen Neuzeit (Munich, 1991), p. 1. 10 Heinz Schilling, Die Stadt in der frühen Neuzeit (Munich, 1993), p. 9. 11 Pfister, “The Population of Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany,” pp. 49, 51. 12 Ibid., p. 50. 13 Schilling, Die Stadt in der frühen Neuzeit, p. 10. 14 Peter G. Wallace, Communities and Conflict in Early Modern Colmar, 1575–1730 (Boston, 1995), p. 60. 15 See ibid., pp. 62–83, for example.


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German urban life also continued to be linked closely to agriculture and petty craft production, and 40 per cent of German towns were engaged primarily in production.16 Most smaller towns fell within the sphere of influence of larger towns, which often controlled the economy, politics, and society of smaller surrounding towns and villages. In 1446, Nördlingen, for example, controlled an economic exclusion zone of 30 km. In 1512, Ulm drew its boundaries at a distance of 20 to 40 km. In 1513, Augsburg extended its radius of market monopoly to some 60 km, and later added a lower Bavarian enclave.17 Complicating these general trends and the development of early modern German settlement was the instability and war during the first half of the seventeenth century. In many places the Thirty Years’ War had remarkable demographic, economic, and political effects. In the Duchy of Württemberg, by 1640, the population had declined to one quarter of the pre-war level.18 Augsburg in 1600 had 45,000 inhabitants; by 1635, however, the city was inhabited by only 16,000 people. Between 1632 and 1635, Mainz lost 8,000 people (half of its inhabitants). Such proportional population losses could be experienced in any size town. The small town of Bietigheim on the Neckar, near Stuttgart, had 1,800 inhabitants in 1634; in 1635 there was a loss of 600 people;19 in 1636 and 1637 the loss of another 200 each year, so that by 1638 there were only around 240 people remaining in the town. Although the population losses could be quite significant and in some places long lasting, as a rule, urban populations tended to recover quickly. The war could have other serious consequences besides population loss, however. Between 1625 and 1647, the prosperous and densely populated area around Magdeburg and Halberstadt lost an average of 64 per cent of its dwellings through direct combat, dilapidation, plundering, and arson.20 The indebtedness of Nuremberg rose from 1.8 million Gulden in 1618 to 7.4 million in 1648.21 Some cities and regions were, however, more prosperous even in the midst of the chaos of the war. The north German Hanseatic cities of Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck thrived, partly through neutrality, diplomacy, trade, and finance. Hamburg grew from between 45,000 and 54,000 inhabitants in 1620 to 75,000 in 1660. Annual revenues in the city grew from 250,000 marks at the end of the sixteenth century to 1.4 million in the middle of the seventeenth century. Although overall the war did not fundamentally alter social and economic structures in most places, it did frequently allow for increased loosening of social bonds and economic and social mobility.22

16 Scott and Scribner, “Urban Networks,” p. 116. 17 Rolf Kiessling, “Markets and Marketing, Town and Country,” in Scribner (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, pp. 145–79, here at p. 159. 18 Bernhard Stier and Wolfgang von Hippel, “War, Economy, and Society,” in Ogilvie (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, pp. 233–62, here at p. 235. 19 Ibid., p. 236. 20 Ibid., p. 240. 21 Ibid., p. 241. 22 Ibid., p. 252.

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Jewish Settlement It has been estimated that at the beginning of the seventeenth century there were approximately 35,000–40,000 Jews spread throughout the German Empire, totaling roughly 0.2 per cent of the population.23 About a third of this population resided in the southeast and another third in the middle west. In addition, about 10 per cent of the Jewish population was concentrated in the southwest and some significant pockets of Jewish settlement were developing in the north and northwest. As in broader German society, Jewish demographic patterns were similarly complex and highly changeable. While there were more than a thousand areas in which Jews settled in the later Middle Ages, from full-blown communities to outposts of individuals or a hand full of Jews,24 very few of these settlements would survive into the modern period.25 Many Jewish settlements, in fact, disappeared between the end of the fourteenth and first half of the sixteenth centuries. Some were impacted by anti-Jewish legislation or expulsion, others by shifting demographics within the Jewish or general societies.26 Still, some Jewish communities managed to survive or, in some cases, were even reconstituted at various times during the early modern period.27 Given the general context we have outlined above, combined with the often frail existence of the Jewish communities in late medieval and early modern Germany, however, it should come as no surprise that Jewish settlement and community development could vary wildly according to region and over time.28 As they had earlier, throughout the early modern period Jews resided in both urban and rural areas. Some cities boasted rather large and at times influential Jewish communities. Around 1660, for example, some 6,000 Jews resided in Prague. This number swelled to more than 11,500 by the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Jews constituted more than a quarter of the total city population. While dramatic, such population increases were not to be taken for granted or easily accomplished. Throughout the sixteenth century there were numerous attempts at expelling the Jews from the city, and several interludes of multi-year banishments from the city. 23 J. Friedrich Battenberg estimates a total population of 18–20 million; here and following, see his Die Juden in Deutschland vom 16. bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 2001), p. 10. 24 See my Sacred Communities: Jewish and Christian Identities in Fifteenth-Century Germany (Boston, 2001), pp. 126–48, as well as the important work of Michael Toch cited below. 25 Michael Toch, “Siedlungsstruktur der Juden Mitteleuropas im Wandel vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit,” in Alfred Haverkamp and Franz-Josef Ziwes (eds), Juden in der christlichen Umwelt während des späten Mittelalters (Berlin, 1992), pp. 29–39, here at p. 37. 26 Ibid., p. 38 (diagram 7). 27 Michael Toch, “Aspects of Stratification of Early Modern German Jewry: Population History and Village Jews,” in R. Po-chia Hsia and Hartmut Lehmann (eds), In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 77–89, here at p. 79 (figure 5.2). 28 For more specific detail, see my essay “Jewish Settlement, Politics, and the Reformation,” in Dean Phillip Bell and Stephen G. Burnett (eds), Jews, Judaism, and the Reformation in Sixteenth Century Germany (Leiden, 2006), pp. 421–50.


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Not as large, though in some ways equally dramatic, was the Jewish population growth in the important cities of Frankfurt am Main and Worms. By the beginning of the seventeenth century there were at least 2,200 Jews in Frankfurt, congregated in a ghetto that included nearly 200 houses. Worms was home to 300 Jews in the middle of the sixteenth century and 650 by the early seventeenth century. In both Worms and Frankfurt am Main Jews constituted more than 10 per cent of the total population. As in Prague, Jewish settlement could be very tenuous. In both cities menacing social revolts in the second decade of the seventeenth century had significant and negative, if temporary, consequences for the Jews living there. Fulda also maintained a relatively significant Jewish presence, with 75 families, or approximately 450 Jews, in 1633. That number represented nearly a quarter of the total city population. Some scholars have found a pattern of openness to Jewish settlement in areas that had never allowed Jews or that had been closed to Jewish settlement for a long time. In some places, such as Vienna, where the Jews had been expelled already in the early fifteenth century, they were again permitted settlement in the seventeenth century. At the turn of the seventeenth century there were only 12 Jewish families in Vienna. Within a little over a decade, however, there were 44 Jewish families. Jews began to develop communal structures and many became involved in important work as merchants and court purveyors, leading to certain privileges and exemptions and occasional conflict with non-Jewish neighbors. A number of towns scattered throughout the Empire possessed between one and two hundred Jews. Fürth, outside Nuremberg, which was really only first settled by Jews in the sixteenth century had, by 1582, about 200 Jews. By the last quarter of the sixteenth century there were nearly a hundred Jews in Berlin, though the fortunes of that Jewish settlement and others like it hinged on the ebb and flow of various regional fairs and the development of markets. A new, but rather complicated settlement of Jews developed in and around Hamburg at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Several communities, some Ashkenazic and some Sephardic developed in Hamburg and in the neighboring towns, really suburbs that were under different political (even “national” jurisdiction) in Wandsbek and Altona. The 116 Portuguese Jews of early seventeenth-century Hamburg grew to some 600 just after the middle of the century. Most Jewish settlements remained small and dispersed throughout the early modern period. This was particularly true in the south and southwest. In mid-sixteenth-century Palatinate a small number of Jews were spread thinly across nearly 90 different areas, including only one sizeable city (Heidelberg).29 The situation was extreme in the southwest where Jews settled in a wide range of villages, which at times developed into significant local and regional Jewish communities by the beginning of the nineteenth century.30 Often the dispersed Jewish communities organized themselves— or were organized by regional princely authorities—into associations or groupings (Landjudenschaften). Such associations could be tools for territorial governance and taxation. As we will see, they also clearly had important impact on internal Jewish governance and identity. 29 Toch, “Aspects of Stratification,” p. 82. 30 See Rolf Kiessling, “Between Expulsion and Emancipation: Jewish Villages in East Swabia During the Early Modern Period,” Shofar 15:4 (Summer, 1997): 59–87.

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The Structure and Governance of Early Modern German Jewish Communities Communities can be variously defined entities that reflect many different kinds of relationships.31 Early modern German Jewish communities were simultaneously defined from within and without. They might be formed by adherence to particular customs, by geographical location, by economic or political expediency, or even by the dictates of external authorities (local, territorial, or imperial). While the nature and even function of early modern German Jewish communities could vary widely, many communities shared similar needs, organizing principles, and governance. Jewish communities might borrow from the Christian communal organization surrounding them—and in rather provocative, if extremely unusual cases even share administrative structures with Christian neighbors32—even as uniquely Jewish elements were present and specific Jewish needs were addressed. A brief review of the organization and structure helps to contextualize the role of memory in communal organization and structure. Jewish communities in early modern Germany could be organized in various ways. Often a community was equivalent to a settlement of Jews residing in a particular city. Increasingly, however, as Jews were dispersed throughout Germany33 and as rural communities further developed, a community might be defined as a group of proximate settlements that shared geographical, economic, or even political affiliations.34 Various Landjudenschaften of differing sizes and administrative structures evolved, often under the guidance or encouragement of territorial authorities. These rural Jewish communities had lay and rabbinic leaders, Jewish courts, and provided social services as well as a network of bureaucracy that dealt with internal and external affairs. How one became a member of a community could vary tremendously. In some places, communal membership began when someone settled in an area, purchased a 31 See my Sacred Communities, pp. 148ff. See more generally Jacob Katz’s pioneering Tradition and Crisis: Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages, trans. Bernard Dov Cooperman (New York, 1993 (orig., 1958)), pp. 65ff and Michael A. Meyer (ed.), GermanJewish History in Modern Times, Volume 1: Tradition and Enlightenment: 1600–1780 (New York, 1996), pp. 165–80, 194–208. For a broad discussion of Jewish community, see the introductory chapter by Alfred Haverkamp, “Jüdische Gemeinden und ihr christlicher Kontext: Konzeptionen und Aspekte,” in Christoph Cluse, Alfred Haverkamp, and Israel J. Yuval (eds), Jüdische Gemeinden und ihr christlicher Kontext in kulturräumlich vergleichender Betrachtung von der Spätantike bis zum 18. Jahrhundert (Hannover, 2003), pp. 1–32. 32 See Rolf Kiessling and Sabine Ullmann, “Christlich-jüdische ‘Doppelgemeinden’ in den Dörfern der Markgrafschaft Burgau während des 17./18. Jahrhunderts,” in Cluse, Haverkamp, and Yuval (eds), Jüdische Gemeinden und ihr christlicher Kontext, pp. 513–34. 33 And even detached from the Jewish community—see Stefan Rohrbacher, “Die jüdischen Gemeinden in den Medinot Aschkenas zwischen Spätmittelalter und Dreißig jährigem Krieg,” in Cluse, Haverkamp, and Yuval (eds), Jüdische Gemeinden und ihr christlicher Kontext, pp. 451–63, here at p. 457, citing a comment by Hayyim ben Bezalel. 34 See Katz, Tradition and Crisis, pp. 95–112; see also Rohrbacher, “Die jüdischen Gemeinden in den Medinot Aschkenas,” pp. 454–55 and on similar and differing structures see also pp. 460–61.


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house, or conducted a certain level of business. Communal membership meant tax obligations and at times communal service duties as well. At times, decisions on who could be admitted to a community were made by the members of the Jewish community themselves;35 at other times, such decisions were dictated by the policies of the non-Jewish authorities that governed the Jews.36 The Jewish community was generally viewed by Christians as a corporate or legal entity. Among Jews the community was also fashioned in legal terms, almost as a court. But in this regard it functioned as a religious association that also provided ritual services (including burial and care of the sick) and provisions and familial networks. Jewish communities in our period desperately sought to maintain autonomy within a situation in which non-Jewish territorial lords took an ever growing interest in the affairs of their subjects, and when the legal ruling and customs from other German lands, or even from across national boundaries (especially from Poland), were infringing on perceived German customs and rights. Jewish communities served various religious and social needs. As such they were governed by specific principles based on traditional halakhic (legal) literature as well as local customs and ordinances. The actualization of these principles occurred through the work of individuals in various communal positions and through a host of communal institutions. Among the employees—some paid and others “voluntary”— were the rabbi, parnasim, various gabbaim, community scribe, beadle (shammash)— whose duties included summoning people to prayer services37—and the honorary position of shtadlan. In theory the Jewish community was something of a democracy with strict stipulations for voting and office holding. Each community indeed had rules about membership, behavior, and office holding. Even among the powerful lay leaders, individuals often rotated into the main position, the parnas of the month, on a monthly basis. In some communities a new parnas was chosen by other parnasim. At times this election required the participation or at least the approval of the local bishop or city council.38 Often a festive celebration or meal—and frequently additional payments to the non-Jewish overlords—accompanied the appointment.39 Individual communities stipulated the number of parnasim that would serve on the community council. Each parnas was required to take an oath as to his impartiality. It is clear that the position of parnas, like that of the shtadlan, evoked status and recognition but also a good deal of, often financial, responsibility.40

35 See Stefan Litt, Protokollbuch und Statuten der Jüdischen Gemeinde Friedberg (16.– 18. Jahrhundert) (Friedberg, 2003), p. 230 (Hebrew, p. 45) regarding the position of “foreign Jews.” 36 See my Sacred Communities, pp. 174–6. 37 See Shlomo Eidelberg, R. Juspa, Shammash of Warmaisa (Worms): Jewish Life in Seventeenth Century Worms (Jerusalem, 1991), p. 18. 38 Ibid., p. 20; on elections in Friedberg more generally, see Litt, Protokollbuch, pp. 384–5 (Hebrew, p. 154). 39 Eidelberg, R. Juspa, pp. 20–21; Litt, Protokollbuch, p. 424. 40 See the account in the memoirs of Glückel of Hameln.

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Many medieval Jewish scholars had expressed the opinion that community rule was established by majority opinion.41 Of course there were limitations on such a rule, especially when halakhic issues or strong local customs were involved. In practice, many communities were run by a few wealthy or prominent individuals, who formed something of an early modern Jewish oligarchy.42 Generally, communal positions were intended to be held by an individual for only a delimited period, though in many cases positions evolved into lifelong monopolies of the most influential. The rabbi was simultaneously a teacher, instructing yeshivah students in Talmud and commentaries, as Juspa noted in the minhagim of the community of Worms. But he was also meant to be the guidestar for religious and legal concerns. He was expected to deliver various sermons and moral instruction, holding the power to fine and excommunicate those falling short. In Worms the rabbi was provided with housing, given certain honors, and exempted from general and property taxes. In other communities, the rabbi signed a multi-year contract and was paid an annual salary, generally from community coffers or the purses of wealthy lay leaders. As Juspa noted, the rabbi’s jurisdiction “extends to the Jewish inhabitants of neighboring hamlets” and “The rabbi is obligated to visit periodically all the aforementioned communities under his jurisdiction.”43 In the early modern period, the position of the rabbi increasingly weakened in many places. The rabbi was often a subordinate communal official.44 As various rabbinic contracts indicate, the rabbi was becoming more subject to the lay leadership in some ways, though of course individual rabbis might hold a great deal of power and carry much influence. As with communal governance more generally, external rulers often attempted to influence if not to outright appoint rabbinic leaders, with an eye toward serving their own purposes. Throughout our period, there was a palpable and growing tension between lay and rabbinic leaders in many communities. One important communal area that seemed to reflect this tension was the writ of excommunication (herem)45 intended to punish individuals who deviated from communal norms or legislation. While the rabbis generally had to issue the excommunication—so reserving important power—many communal constitutions indicated that the rabbi could do so only with the approval, or even instigation, of the lay community council.46 Community council members were generally from the wealthy strata of society and the positions were not salaried. These parnasim initiated communal legislation and regulated communal governance. Different positions, those of gabbaim, were 41 See the opinion of Yair Hayyim Bacharach, as cited by Katz in Tradition and Crisis, p. 296, n. 20. 42 See Rohrbacher, “Die jüdischen Gemeinden in den Medinot Aschkenas,” p. 459. 43 Eidelberg, R. Juspa, p. 19; for stipulations related to a rabbinic appointment in Friedberg in 1572, see Litt, Protokollbuch, pp. 274ff (Hebrew, pp. 74ff). 44 The “professionalization” theory—see my Sacred Communities, pp. 157, 169–70. 45 Inappropriate or deviant behavior might be punished in any number of ways, especially through banning of synagogue or ritual participation or fines—see my forthcoming article “Confessionalization in Early Modern Germany: A Jewish Perspective,” in Christopher Ocker et al. (eds), Festschrift for Thomas A. Brady, Jr. (Leiden, 2007), as well as Litt, Protokollbuch, pp. 367–8 (Hebrew, pp. 143–4). 46 See ibid.


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filled for specific purposes, such as the collection of charity for use among the poor of the community and for the poor in the Land of Israel. While in many communities these positions were filled for specific, and limited periods,47 in some cases they became lifelong appointments, as Juspa describes in Worms, where he writes “New Gabbaim are not chosen every year; rather the chosen Gabbaim retain their jobs for life, for they act faithfully.”48 Other communal positions related to the assessment and collection of taxes, most of which were paid to the non-Jewish authorities.49 As in the later Middle Ages, officials were charged to assess communal members’ wealth for tax purposes. In many communities individuals attested to their wealth by means of an oath. Assessors, however, who doubted the veracity of such claims could, in many cases, levy an assessment based on what they believed to be the holdings and value of the individual in question.50 Jewish communities also appointed individuals with ritual responsibilities, such as cantors, shohetim (ritual slaughterers), and educators (these might be communal servants, teaching poorer children, as opposed to the tutors of the wealthier families). Communities, especially larger ones, at times also employed individuals in other professions, such as communal physicians. Frankfurt authorities granted the Jewish community in 1631 the privilege of retaining a communal physician.51 The Jews of Posen were similarly permitted to appoint a communal physician (Isaac Bacharach) in 1631 with a set annual salary of 150 fl. and a contract for three years with exemption from all taxes.52 Serving the Jewish community were various societies or brotherhoods that often appeared to resemble Christian fraternities or civic guilds. Most important in many communities was the burial society, the hevra kadisha, which gained new heights and organization during the course of the sixteenth century.53 One of the oldest such brotherhoods developed in Prague in the 1560s.54 Other associations or welfare societies also developed more fully in the early modern period. In Frankfurt, Rabbi Akiva Frankfurt established a welfare society and fund in 1597. In the seventeenth century we find evidence of these organizations providing care for the sick,55 though by the end of the seventeenth or beginning of the eighteenth century almost every important town in central Europe had a hospital for the sick and poor.56

47 See Katz, Tradition and Crisis, pp. 88ff. 48 Eidelberg, R. Juspa, p. 22. 49 See Litt, Protokollbuch, pp. 426ff; on taxes more generally, see Katz, Tradition and Crisis, pp. 77ff. 50 See Eidelberg, R. Juspa, p. 23. 51 See Jacob Marcus, Communal Sick-care in the German Ghetto (Cincinnati, 1947), pp. 27ff. 52 Ibid., p. 34. 53 Ibid., p. 63. 54 Ibid., p. 68. 55 Ibid., p. 70. 56 Ibid., p. 86.

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In addition to communal positions, various communal institutions were significant in this period.57 Perhaps no edifice characterized the Jewish community more than the synagogue.58 The construction, or even repair, of the synagogue often required non-Jewish approval, and was frequently the subject of intense debate in the various city councils and pulpits. In the early modern period, as before, the synagogue was simultaneously a place of religious prayer, communal administration, and even conflict. The synagogue and the proper order and behavior within it was often the subject of various communal edicts and legislation.59 Jewish communities also had ritual bathhouses (mikvaot), community ovens, cemeteries, as well as study halls and dance houses (the latter of which might be located within the confines of the synagogue itself). Another form of communal institution, though not in the form of buildings, were the various records and assemblies (local or regional, occasionally even “national”) of the Jewish communities. The Jewish community legislated through various ordinances, or takkanot, (sometimes in the form of sumptuary laws that dictated proper dress and behavior) and recorded these laws as well as various transactions and events in community ledgers (pinkasim). Memorybooks, which recorded the deaths of community members, often the wealthiest or most influential, also recorded various bits of communal lore and legend as well. Customs books similarly recorded local and regional practices, while codifying various communal practices. Jewish communities, then, could be defined in many ways, and possessed important governing structures, offices, and tools. Communal Governance and Written Memory Early modern German Jewish engagement with the past was evident throughout various types of community discourse. Such discourse included community ledgers and minutes, which engaged the past to enforce order, empower authority, or record the traditions of the community. Much the same was true of writing about early modern customs. The continuation or contestation of particular customs, like the community ledgers and minutes, helped to create community structure and project that structure into the future. What is more, the very act of narration, particularly when it described conflict between competing centers of authority, could point to significant changes within the community.

57 See also Bell, “Confessionalization in Early Modern Germany: A Jewish Perspective.” See more generally Arye Maimon, Mordechai Breuer, and Yacov Guggenheim (eds), Germania Judaica. Volume III: 1350–1519, Part 3 (Tübingen, 2003), pp. 2081ff. 58 See Sabine Ullmann, Nachbarschaft und Konkurrenz: Juden und Christen in Dörfern der Markgrafschaft Burgau (Göttingen, 1999), p. 154 for Binswagen. 59 See Litt, Protokollbuch, p. 272 for Friedberg (Hebrew, pp. 73–4), as well as pp. 394ff (Hebrew, pp. 161ff).


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Community Ledgers and Community Memory Community record books became more standardized and more common in the early modern period, just as the memorybooks we will examine in Chapter 4 did. A number of Jewish communities kept ledgers, or pinkasim, in the early modern period. In the seventeenth century, for example, we possess pinkasim from Posen (1621), Schnaittach (1665), Metz (1690), Bamberg (1698), and Düsseldorf (1698), among others.60 Pinkasim were generally in Hebrew, though frequently sprinkled with Judeo-Germanic vernacular as well.61 These documents recorded property acquisitions and legislated order within the community. According to one recent scholar, the early modern pinkas created a permanent written account of business transactions intended both for the contemporary businessmen as well as for later generations.62 The documents within the pinkas could refer to individuals and transactions within the community or throughout a broader region. In the documents from Worms, which was a regional center of commerce, records of business transactions were included for the surrounding villages as well as those carried on with Jews in larger, but distant communities, such as Amsterdam, Prague, and Vienna.63 In addition to general business transactions, the pinkas of Worms recorded the sale of synagogue seats and inventoried possessions and debts. It is perhaps no coincidence that such documents proliferated in this period, a period that was marked by increasing bureaucratic organization in the non-Jewish government and growing regional associations and recordkeeping within the Jewish communities as well. In most cases, it was the rabbis or the scribe of the community who wrote the communal ordinances and pinkasim.64 The entries within the pinkas could be recorded for a variety of reasons. According to one entry in the Worms pinkas, for example, “the parnasim took upon themselves to publicly appease all who protested against or objected to the sale, until the house would be firmly established in the possession of Leser [a Jew by the name of Leser Walch].”65 The pinkas was, therefore, not only a record, but a tool of government and an arbiter of power and social and economic relations. Pinkasim could also contain communal ordinances (takkanot), community records, minutes, and tax-lists.66 Forty-five per cent of the Posen pinkas dealt with direct legislation concerning elections; 26 per cent economics; 19 per cent support for Torah education; and 10 per cent trials and laws.67

60 A. Kober, “Documents Selected from the Pinkas of Friedberg,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 17 (1947–48): 19–60, here at p. 20. 61 Eidelberg, R. Juspa, p. 97; Meir Hildesheimer (ed.), Acta Communitatis Judaeorum Schnaittach. Introductione Natisque Instruxit (Jerusalem, 1992), p. 94. 62 Eidelberg, R. Juspa, p. 97. 63 Ibid. 64 Kober, “Documents,” p. 29. 65 Eidelberg, R. Juspa, p. 102. 66 Kober, “Documents,” p. 20. 67 Dov Avron (ed.), Acta Electorum Communitatis Judaeorum Posnaniensium (1621– 1835) (Jerusalem, 1966) [Hebrew], p. xii.

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Typical of the language of the pinkasim was that the ordinances were received and established “upon ourselves and upon the generations to come,”68 or that it was “for the memory of generations after us in order that they know …”.69 The book of protocols for the community of Friedberg at the end of the sixteenth century noted that they were to serve “as a memory for the generations after us, so that they thereby know how to respond in case anyone should place himself above us in order to ruin our livelihood. As a result we have written in this book of protection, how the matters of the city arose in general, and specifically before the council, may its splendor be raised, to refer to the old ordinances and decisions, according to which the Jews should not carry on illegal business with incorrectly measured wares and should also not sell any spices, salted fish, or other things.”70 At times, the edicts in the pinkas were to be known and stand “from this day and forever,”71 or as in the Bamberg pinkas, “for a statute from today on.”72 As the scribe of one entry in the Friedberg pinkas noted, “I wrote this in order to record in this pinkas.”73 As the Posen pinkas related, the document established order,74 and served as a tool to recall the writing and seal of those in authority.75 The language of the Schnaittach pinkas similarly stressed establishing and guarding laws,76 the transgression of which was threatened with a stringent herem (excommunication). The Bamberg pinkas also stipulated “a fine on anyone who transgresses our words …”.77 The language of the pinkasim revealed both democratic tendencies and social tensions within the Jewish communities. The pinkas of Friedberg frequently recounted that its sections were “written according to the will of the kahal.”78 It was heard before the gabbaim and other officials, and enacted with the consent of the majority of the kahal.79 The authority of the ruling men of the community was significant; but throughout the Friedberg pinkas, the consent and representation of the community was central, as reflected in the phrase “elufim, parnasim, with individuals from the kahal and everyone together as one …”.80 The Posen pinkas stressed the approval of “the entire kahal or the majority of the kahal,”81 and noted that it was “for the honor of the kahal and for the honor of the kehilla.”82

68 Kober, “Documents,” p. 37. 69 Ibid., p. 34. 70 Litt, Protokollbuch, from the Hebrew, p. 88 (the German translation of which, p. 292, is not clear). 71 Ibid., p. 36. 72 David Kaufmann (ed.), Pinkas Kahal Kadosh Bamberg (Berlin, 1895), p. 9. 73 Kober, “Documents,” p. 52. 74 Avron (ed.), Acta Electorum, p. 2. 75 Ibid., p. 6. 76 Hildesheimer (ed.), Acta Communitatis Judaeorum Schnaittach, p. 158. 77 Kaufmann (ed.), Pinkas Kahal Kadosh Bamberg, p. 2; Kober, “Documents,” p. 37. 78 Kober, “Documents,” p. 34. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid., p. 40. 81 Avron (ed.), Acta Electorum, p. 3. 82 Ibid., p. 20.


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Two examples from the protocol book of the Portuguese Jewish community of Hamburg from the middle of the seventeenth century throw into relief the growing role of communal recordkeeping. According to one passage, communal archives served to validate the position and privileges of the Jewish communities within their non-Jewish context: “Samuel de Caeseres sent to this community copies of the privileges, which his majesty of Denmark had issued to Glückstadt. Through his recommendation the same was reproduced and extended for a further 25 years. He suggested, therefore, that one would want to send a copy of these privileges to Holland for perusal. The remaining, including two in gilded book-cover (case), should remain in the community archive.”83 But such engagement with past privileges and decisions could be turned inward as well, as when the protocol book noted that: The board considered it reasonable, in this community book, for the attention of the officers to come next, to present the ordinances [Ascamot] of the community both for those who should observe them as well as for those who have to keep watch over their maintenance, often times with great difficulties. It recommended that a revision of the ordinances be made, or be allowed to be made, by experienced people. Therefore, one must examine which ordinances are necessary for the governance of the community and service of God and therefore should be strongly maintained, and which proved to be superfluous or whose observance involved difficulty, in order to abolish these latter. One must direct his attention only to such laws that remain in force, which are also actually respected and are not daily violated by disregard of the board.84

And yet, while the past seems to have had the last word, it was the summoning up of that past—and as we saw earlier, its acceptance or rejection—that gave the past value and meaning. Although the various entries in most pinkasim did not necessarily follow in any chronological order, they did reference previous ordinances, and often enactments within other parts of the pinkas itself. Throughout, the pinkas noted that everything was explained in the pinkas of the takkanot of the kahal, and often stated that something was “explained in the previous takkanah [ordinance].”85 The Posen pinkas related “that [we] established all our writings according to the explanation in the pinkas kahal,” fashioning the pinkas as a legal record of the community.86 In the Bamberg pinkas, frequent reference was made to other parts of the pinkas and to sections of the “old pinkas.”87 Throughout the Posen pinkas, distinction was made between “this pinkas” and the “old pinkas.”88 But in the Posen pinkas there was an 83 Isaac Cassuto, “Aus den ältesten Protokollbuch der Portugiesisch-Jüdischen Gemeinde in Hamburg: Übersetzung und Anmerkungen,” in Jahrbuch der JüdischLiterarischen Gesellschaft 6 (1908): 1–54; 7 (1909): 159–210; 8 (1910): 227–90; 9 (1911): 318–66; 10 (1912): 225–95; 11 (1916): 1–76; 12 (1920): 55–118, here at vol. 10, p. 274 (18th of Tammuz). 84 Ibid., vol. 11, p. 73. 85 Kober, “Documents,” p. 41. 86 Avron (ed.), Acta Electorum, p. 11. 87 Kaufmann (ed.), Pinkas Kahal Kadosh Bamberg, p. 8. 88 Avron (ed.), Acta Electorum: “this pinkas” (pp. 23, 24, 53, 54); “old pinkas” (p. 31); “new pinkas” (p. 64); and “old takkanot” (p. 65).

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important “historical” differentiation. The language employed by the Posen scribe was one that distinguished between ordinances “accustomed until this day”89 and ordinances that are “ordained from new.”90 At the same time, legislation from the distant past was also distinguished.91 The actual date of the enactment or record at times contributed to its authority. The current time was seen, in the Posen pinkas, as one of galut, exile, and the decrees were to last for “our kehilla and our sons after us until the end of all the generations.” Explicit reference was at times made to current or recent events—as in the Thirty Years’ War mentioned in the Posen pinkas.92 Special takkanot were issued particularly at difficult times, in the “hour of trouble.”93 The Posen pinkas noted that “now we make new the takkanah for the sake of the time and for what is therefore the need of the hour …”.94 Similarly, in excerpts from the minutes of Frankfurt am Main referencing the synod of 1542, the following statement was quite telling: That which has been, is that which shall be! See, is this new? It has been already of old times! Behold, all the wise of former generations were induced to perceive [the matter]. They resolved, declared and decreed that no rabbi or [talmudic] instructor, collectively or individually, shall oblige anyone to appear before an alien tribunal other than their own [under the threat] of a ban of excommunication.95

Appealing to previous legislation, the members of the synod attempted to deal with an apparently increasing early modern trend of Jews taking their legal cases outside of their region, perhaps hoping for more favorable conditions or outcomes. Regional Jewish communal authorities as well as non-Jewish territorial rulers and courts, however, attempted to reinforce local authority and better control the governance of the various communities. Customs Books and Community Memory: Juspa Hahn’s Sefer Yosef Ometz A great deal can be gleaned about internal hierarchies and struggles for authority in another type of communal writing, customs books. The early modern period witnessed the collection and publication of a number of important customs books. In Sefer Yosef Ometz, Joseph Juspa Hahn of Nördlingen (1570–1637), a leading member of the Jewish community in Frankfurt am Main, who served as head of the bet din and yeshivah and as communal rabbi during a key, and particularly tumultuous time,96 provided an important collection of laws and customs related to a variety of Jewish practices and holidays. Juspa completed Yosef Ometz around

89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Ibid., p. 55. Ibid., p. 31. Ibid., p. 15. Ibid., p. 38. Kober, “Documents,” p. 38. Avron (ed.), Acta Electorum, p. 42. Zimmer, Jewish Synods, p. 141. See Markus Horovitz, Frankfurter Rabbinen (Jerusalem, 1969).


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1630,97 with many handwritten versions circulating in the family; but the text was not officially published until 1723 (in Frankfurt).98 Sefer Yosef Ometz, it could be argued, had relatively little new to say. It was largely a collection of laws and customs sifted from a variety of well-known and circulating sources. But to the group of frequently cited materials, Juspa added a number of lesser-known works, the customs of his own city of Frankfurt, and the actions of his father, teachers, and personalities of his age, particularly the leading scholars of Frankfurt. In addition to the legal portion, the emphasis on proper pious behavior, drawn from a variety of texts in the kabbalistic and musar traditions, gave the work an important quality that placed it squarely within its seventeenth-century milieu. Drawing from a broad range of sources, Juspa included scattered references throughout the work to the specific customs of his own Frankfurt community and the historical conditions in which he and his co-religionists lived. In his introduction, Juspa offered a number of reasons for compiling his work, including the memory of his father, Rabbi Pinchas Seligman of Nördlingen, who was a leader in synagogue prayers and a hasid in Frankfurt, and for whom every action was for the sake of Heaven, and whose teaching and observance of commandments was very exacting.99 Juspa also wrote of his early years and the influence of “active men” in convincing him to write.100 Juspa presented as well, a number of deeper meanings that explained the title of his work, Yosef Ometz. He wrote that the numerical value (gematria) of Yosef Ometz was equivalent to that of Pinchas, his father, at 297. Of course, Yosef hinted at his own name, and Ometz stood for the abbreviation aleph mem tsadi, or avi mori tsadik, “my father my teacher, the righteous.”101 The title also bore directly on the content and primary goal of the work as well—to increase encouragement and strength.102 Yosef Ometz was divided into three parts.103 The first, and most extensive, part examined laws, obligations, and customs regarding the daily and annual cycle and was termed the “Gate of the Exalted.”104 Section two focused on education, raising children, trust, charity and kindness to the poor, the funeral and laws of the mourner, and welcoming the bride. Juspa denoted this section as the “Earthly Gate.”105 According to Juspa, part three had two components that did not follow any particular order. One examined positive and negative commandments, the other good characteristics

97 Hava Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, “Jüdische Religion und Kultur in Frankfurt am Main im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert: Yuzpa Hahn und sein ‘Yosif omez,’” in Karl E. Grözinger (ed.), Jüdische Kultur in Frankfurt am Main von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Wiesbaden, 1997), pp. 101–21, here at p. 106. 98 Ibid., p. 107. 99 Joseph Juspa Hahn of Nördlingen, Yosef Ometz (Jerusalem, 1965), p. ix. 100 Ibid., p. x. 101 Ibid., p. xv. 102 See ibid., pp. 205 and 78, in addition to his Introduction. 103 Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, “Jüdische Religion und Kultur in Frankfurt am Main,” p. 107. 104 See Hahn, Yosef Ometz, p. xiii. 105 Ibid.

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(middot).106 Part three was rounded out with a review of the mitzvot generally, sexual relations, idol worship, the submersion of vessels, orlah, pidyon ha-ben, precedence to the elderly and to fathers and mothers, laws of magic, vows, washing, suspension of speech, middot, and the reading of Shema for small children. The most frequently cited sources and authorities were the Shulhan Arukh and commentaries of and introductions to it; the Tur; the writings of Maharil; the works of Isaac Luria, frequently his Sefer ha-Kavannot, and those of his school;107 Reishis Hokhma; Sefer Hasidim and Sefer Haredim; Moses Mat’s108 Matteh Moshe; Seder ha-Yom; Zohar; the work of Solomon Luria (Maharshal, c.1510–74); and Emek Bracha.109 Less frequent, but important, references were also made to a number of kabbalists and kabbalistic works and central German rabbinic authorities of the later Middle Ages.110 Frequently, Juspa attested to the binding authority of the Shulhan Arukh, though at times he chose to follow the German rabbis. For example, when he contrasted the opinions of Jacob Weil and the Shulhan Arukh, he wrote “that one conducts in their lands differently, but we follow according to the renowned fifteenth-century scholar Rabbi Jacob Weil, who was a German …”.111 Juspa, like his Ashkenazic coreligionists, held closely to the binding power of minhag, noting that one must hold to old customs, even when the basis for them was no longer known.112 Yet, although he cited Ashkenazic customs frequently, he did not automatically follow the father of Ashkenazic minhag, the Maharil.113 Although Juspa referred frequently to the “sages,” he did not frequently reference Talmudic sources directly. He was more likely to reference contemporary sources as well as his father, his teacher Hirtz Treves of Frankfurt, and a host of other personalities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: Avraham Shaftel; Hayyim Katz of Prague; Levi Micha; Meir ha-Levy; Yakov Lieberman; Rabbi Segal; 106 Ibid. 107 Including Rabbi Yona of Safed, a student of Ari—see Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, “Jüdische Religion und Kultur in Frankfurt am Main,” p. 109. 108 Moses Mat (c.1551–c.1606) was born in Przemysl. His work, a “compendium of Jewish ritual law,” was completed in 1584 and printed in Cracow around 1590. In addition to other things he also wrote Taryag Mitzvot (Cracow, 1581) and Minhagei Maharshal, “which describes the customs and conduct of his teacher, Luria.” See Encyclopedia Judaica. 109 Regarding Emek Bracha, written by Rabbi Abraham b. Shabbetai Sheftel haLevy Hurwitz (Cracow, 1597?)—see Bernhard Friedberg, Bet ‘eked sefarim (Antwerp, 1928–31), p. 486, no. 473. For details regarding Hurwitz, see Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, vol. 6, pp. 50–57. Zinberg traces Hurwitz’s life from his early “free-thinking” at Prague, when he was an ardent supporter of Maimonidean rationalism, to his later moral and penitent mystical asceticism, when he consciously refuted his earlier views. It is to this later period that we can trace his work Emek Bracha and his Yesh Nohalim (p. 56). 110 For example, Maharam, Maharik, Jacob Weil, Moses Mintz, the Mordechai, Terumas ha-Deshen; Cordovero, Derekh Hayyim, Sha’arei Teshuva. Passing references were made to a great many more authors and sources. 111 Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, “Jüdische Religion und Kultur in Frankfurt am Main,” pp. 109–10. 112 Ibid., p. 111. 113 Ibid., p. 110.


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Daniel Landshut; Jacob Schweinfurt; Slumiel of Prossnitz, Moses Menachem, and so on.114 According to most interpretations, although he cited kabbalistic works frequently, Juspa was no kabbalist. In fact, it is generally argued that he was ambivalent about kabbalah and he had nothing to do with many kabbalistic customs and practices.115 Juspa, however, was certainly taken with the works produced by Isaac Luria and the Lurianic school, as well as the more ethically-informed work of the Hasidei Ashkenaz, though in each case for the pietistic elements in these works. Throughout Sefer Yosef Ometz, Juspa distinguished time in the past116 and his own time.117 Often he offered specific dates, especially for community ordinances and events. He noted a custom established in 1589;118 an ordinance drawn up in 1600119 and a prohibition in 1619;120 a brit milah in 1626 that afforded a halakhic discussion about the celebratory meal;121 the expulsion of 1614;122 the pestilence of 1627;123 the date of the death of a great scholar who died in Frankfurt in 1505.124 In fact, the lives of scholars were sometimes taken as measures of the past, as when he noted that “and at the time that gaon our teacher and our rabbi Rabbi Hayyim of Prague was the av bet din [head of the rabbinic court] here.”125 Juspa referred more generally to the time of the expulsion when he mentioned customs in place at the time,126 and, referring perhaps to the salvation after the expulsion, he noted “manifest miracles that occurred in our times.”127 Within the same section, Juspa capitalized on a moralizing opportunity, writing that trust was the great root of our faith, especially in the midst of great suffering of man, which “I saw around the time of the expulsion from our city …”.128

114 See also ibid., pp. 113ff for “other small works.” 115 Ibid., pp. 107–8. 116 See Hahn, Yosef Ometz, pp. 2, 136, 49, 134, 164. See Volker Press, “Kaiser Rudolf II. und der Zusammenschluß der deutschen Judenheit: Die sogenannte Frankfurter Rabbinerverschwörung von 1603 und ihre Folgen,” in Alfred Haverkamp (ed.), Zur Geschichte der Juden im Deutschland des Späten Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit (Stuttgart, 1981), pp. 243–93. 117 Ibid., pp. 37, 24. 118 Ibid., p. 223. 119 Ibid., pp. 346–7. 120 Ibid., p. 163. 121 Ibid., p. 212. 122 Ibid., pp. 211–12. 123 Ibid., p. 106. 124 Ibid., p. 215. 125 Ibid., p. 161. 126 Ibid., pp. 149, 238, 298. 127 Ibid., p. 292. 128 Ibid., p. 298.

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Throughout the text, Juspa referred to previous and future sections. The expressions “recalled” above129 and “mentioned before,”130 ring throughout the text, marking the creation of the work as self-referential and as something of an unfolding process.131 At times, Juspa remarked simply that “I wrote” rather generally.132 Curiously, the “mentioned above” notes occurred at times only a few sections away—in section 1104, for example he noted that he had already written this above in sections 1099 and 1100!133 In other cases, as in a discussion of Purim, he noted that he would address the same issue some 80 pages later.134 At times, he wrote that the same issue was or would be taken up in a different part of the work.135 Frequently, Juspa wrote that he had discovered something different or additional “after I wrote.” There were different modes of discovery that Juspa outlined in this context. The most common was that of “finding,” for example, “after I wrote I found …” a discussion or ruling in a particular book. In a few other instances, the language is followed by the statement that “I remembered” the actions or words of a particular scholar136 or that “I saw” a particular custom or action.137 Indeed, when citing his sources, Juspa utilized a diverse vocabulary of action words, which included “read,”138 “received,”139 and “remembered,”140 but which focused on the actions of “finding,”141 “hearing,”142 and “seeing.”143 In a sense, each of these terms was related to the others, and all, therefore, formed key elements in Juspa’s scholarly method. Yet, each represented a rather different form of knowledge. A consideration of the differences allows us to peek into the mental structure of Juspa and so into his use of memory in the creation of authority and identity. The verb for finding as used by Juspa referred generally to written texts, whether published and common works or manuscripts.144 The action here, as posited

129 See, for example, ibid., pp. 25, 26, 41, 47, 51, 61, 62, 84, 89, 122, 123, 142, 153, 156, 164, 169, 170, 171, 176, 181, 182, 188, 200, 207, 208, 211, 213, 214, 220, 239, 240, 241, 267, 284, 327, 330, 332, etc. 130 For example, ibid., pp. 40, 41. 131 He referred to the writing of his book in a few places. See, for example, the introduction, ibid., pp. 78 (371), 205 (section 924). On p. 40 he wrote to his “dear students” regarding “everything that I have written in this, my book.” 132 See ibid., pp. 34, 67, 81, 86, 94, 219, 233, 271, 280, 353, 356 . 133 Similarly, in section 1086, he detailed what he wrote in section 1081 (ibid., p. 238). 134 See ibid., p. 156. 135 Ibid., pp. 288, 117. 136 Ibid., p. 274. 137 Ibid., p. 40. 138 Ibid., p. 267. 139 Ibid., pp. 216, 288. 140 Ibid., pp. 110, 140, 146. 141 For example, ibid., pp. 14, 44, 114, 144, 152, 156, 160, 176, 183, 184, 192, 202, 261, 261. 142 Ibid., pp. 28, 30, 68, 73, 99, 112, 117, 151, 191, 261. 143 Ibid., pp. 28, 52, 64, 108, 122, 140, 141, 149, 176, 184, 185, 191, 193, 196, 207, 214, 218, 228, 241, 260, 264, 269, 270, 272, 273, 290. 144 Ibid., p. 192.


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directly in one instance, was that of reading.145 The body of knowledge gleaned from “finding” had the feel of general applicability and acceptability. The language for “hearing,” was as one might expect, less determinative. Its value was in part based on its source, and it appears to have had a general role in a larger process of determining proper behavior.146 There were generally two sources invoked here: the distant, such as reports of customs in Poland,147 in the name of a distant scholar148 or simply from “others”149 or from “before”;150 on the other hand, were the reports Juspa heard directly from his teacher151 or the elders.152 It was, again, the direct transmission of proper behavior, passed down through custom that seemed most central and binding. Finally, the language of “seeing” focused on Juspa’s own experiences— generally;153 actions that he saw and remembered later154 or actions that he saw his father and other “men of action”155 or his teacher156 perform. The term also referred to general practices he had observed or heard157 or to the written text as well.158 Although this form of experience seems to have had greater validity even than the second, that is, “hearing,” Juspa felt concerned to note the truth of his observations in some cases beyond his own words or recollections.159 We saw earlier that Juspa’s use of a number of individual types had meaning for his engagement with the past and can be divided as follows: self, father, teacher, pious person, sages. Throughout, the text was very much centered on Juspa, both in terms of what he had discovered, seen, or heard but also as regards his individual actions. A very common concern was the actions to which Juspa was himself accustomed160 or the observance of which he was particularly stringent.161 The relation between action and writing took on an important dimension when Juspa noted that, “I am accustomed to do everything I write.”162 In addition to mentioning the Sefer Hasidim and the Sefer Haredim throughout the work, Juspa also focused on the actions and teachings of the individual hasid 163 145 See ibid., p. 267. 146 Ibid., p. 191. 147 Ibid., pp. 112, 151. 148 Ibid., p. 261. 149 Ibid., p. 68. 150 Ibid., p. 73. 151 Ibid., pp. 99, 191. 152 Ibid., p. 117. 153 Ibid., pp. 196, 241, 260. 154 Ibid., pp. 108, 140, 193. 155 Ibid., pp. 122, 176, 184, 185, 207, 269, 290. 156 Ibid., pp. 28, 52, 270. 157 Ibid., pp. 228, 264. 158 Ibid., pp. 214, 272. 159 See, for example, ibid., p. 101. 160 Ibid., pp. 28, 97, 113, 127, 150, 158, 159, 168. 161 Ibid., p.19. 162 Ibid., p. 68. 163 Ibid., pp. 9, 69, 86, 100, 295.

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or on pious individuals164 more generally. This type had similarities with those he labeled “men of action.”165 The term “kabbalists” also had much the same valence in the text166—focusing, however, primarily on the words and teachings of the kabbalists, rather than their actions. Here as elsewhere, Juspa folded the language of action and that of writing and teaching. At times, he distinguished between the hasid of his own day and the “early hasidim.”167 The sages also represented a typology for Juspa. He referred to them frequently, though typically in groups. By and large the sages were reflective of the “rabbis” of the Talmud, and various verbal language described their actions: said, interpreted, explained, wrote, debated, ordained, opposed. The rulings of the sages generally took on a past time, even when their rulings had contemporaneous applicability. In a few cases, Juspa used the term sage or wise one of “our city,”168 marking the term with a distinctively local or contemporary meaning. Juspa made frequent reference to his teacher, Rabbi Hirtz Treves of Frankfurt,169 and the local and contemporary scholar Rabbi Yishaya Segal170—mara d’atra [master of the place] in Frankfurt who traveled to Jerusalem,171 and who served as the head of the bet din in Frankfurt.172 From the text, we know that Hirtz Treves was a kabbalist.173 Juspa referred to his teacher frequently and rather formulaically, noting the customs and rulings he received from him.174 We learn about different aspects of Hirtz in many of the passages. However, what is clear is that Juspa saw him as his primary teacher, aside from his father, and that it was important for Juspa to anchor him in an identifiable position as head of the bet din “here” in Frankfurt. Rabbi Yishaya Segal was referenced in much the same way; focusing on his connection to Frankfurt as head of the bet din, on the ordinances he established in and for Frankfurt, and on his rulings and customs that Juspa himself followed.175 A particularly special place was made for Juspa’s father, who appeared frequently in the text,176 even though Juspa mentioned his father’s name—Pinhas Seligman—in

164 “Hasidim”— ibid., pp. 32, 67, 89, 120, 137; or “haredim” [God-fearing]—pp. 41, 61, 142. 165 Ibid., pp. 28, 44, 137, 198. 166 Ibid., pp. 64, 67, 137, 197, 209, 340. 167 Ibid., p. 32. 168 Ibid., pp. 176, 191. 169 Ibid., pp. 9, 28, 29, 37, 52, 61, 99, 111, 123, 155, 191, 216, 270, 353. See Eric Zimmer, The Fiery Embers of the Scholars: The Trials and Tribulations of German Rabbis in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Be’er Sheva’, 1999) [Hebrew], and Marcus Horovitz, Die Frankfurter Rabbinerversammlung von Jahre 1603 (Frankfurt am Main, 1897). 170 Hahn, Yosef Ometz, p. 9. 171 Ibid., p. 100. 172 Ibid., pp. 187, 162. “Yishai”—pp. 31, 41, 66, 97, 100, 187, 162, 204. 173 Ibid., pp. 9, 123. 174 Ibid., pp. 29, 37, 99, 111. 175 Ibid., pp. 31, 66, 97. 176 Ibid., pp. 35, 40, 52, 53, 54, 64, 94, 122, 147, 163, 171, 176, 179, 181, 207, 215, 221, 233, 236, 269.


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only a few places.177 Juspa referred to his father as the “hasid”178 and his teacher.179 It is clear that his father wrote—Juspa noted that his father wrote regarding the minhag that was established with a brit milah on Yom Kippur in Frankfurt in 5349 (1589)180—and that Juspa held him to be part of a chain of scholarly tradition.181 The customs and observances of Juspa’s father were central for Juspa himself.182 The study patterns of his father were at times revealed in passing. Juspa, for example, noted that he saw his father learn the commentary of Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi (Rif, 1013–1103) with his students.183 Often his father’s authority was simply accepted, and in other, less frequent cases, his observance was justified via comparison with the action of other important types,184 or central works, such as the Shulhan Arukh,185 thus completing the important relationship between action, teaching, and printed word so common in the book. A common phrase that expressed Juspa’s use of the texts he culled, was “according to its [the text’s] language”186 or “in summary.”187 When he did cite a text directly, Juspa seemed generally to be very close to the actual language of the text; but he frequently added after the quotation from related sources or the same text in different, but corresponding passages. For Juspa the transmission of religious observance and authority was passed on through memory. But various levels of significance could be attributed to local, regional, and German customs. The text referred to Ashkenaz,188 described as “our land”189 or “our region”190 and contrasted it with Poland.191 Juspa mentioned customs of Ashkenaz;192 sages of Ashkenaz;193 and the language of Ashkenaz(im).194 There were scattered references to important communities such as Prague195 177 Ibid., pp. 153, 216, referring to Isaac Norlingen? 178 Ibid., pp. 135, 153, 163, for example. 179 Ibid., pp. 147, 153, 163. 180 Ibid., p. 223. 181 Ibid., p. 215, for example, when his father cited previous Frankfurt sages from the early sixteenth century, or when he was included in a long list of scholars (p. 221). 182 Ibid., pp. 54, 64, 94, 135, 147, 179, or by negation, p. 140. 183 Ibid., p. 269. 184 “and I saw that my father, my teacher, the hasid [pious one] of blessed memory and other men of action were accustomed [to act thus], and I myself am accustomed so” (ibid., p. 28); “… according to the minhag of my father, my teacher, the hasid of blessed memory and many poskim and also the kabbalist our teacher and our rabbi of blessed memory” (p. 52). 185 Ibid., p. 52; or according to the Tur, p. 213. 186 Ibid., pp. 26, 58, 63, 70, 78, 85, 103, 136, 144, 152, 154, 196, 271, 274, 276, 296, 304, 309. 187 Ibid., pp. 110, 202, 261, 265, 266. 188 Ibid., pp. 8, 12, 15. 189 Ibid., p. 187. 190 Ibid., p. 25. 191 Ibid., p. 12; for Poland, see also p. 51. 192 Ibid., p. 136. 193 Ibid., pp. 346–7. 194 Ibid., pp. 12, 61, 68, 73, 116, 160, 168. 195 Ibid., p. 40.

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and Amsterdam196 and more substantial references to the two largest German communities197 of Worms198 and Frankfurt.199 References to Worms emphasized key rabbinic personalities of the city200 and customs.201 While similar emphases on personalities and customs permeated references to Frankfurt, that city had a very different spatial identity, referred to as “here”202 or “our city.203 When Juspa discussed customs, he included a diverse group: prior customs;204 general customs;205 customs of particular communities,206 especially those of Frankfurt.207 Juspa also mentioned customs of individual scholars,208 especially his father.209 As discussed earlier, many of the customs and personal observances of Juspa himself were stressed.210 The past as related in the customs of particular scholars or communities could be a very powerful force. The acceptance, consideration, or rejection of particular customs or authority could indicate changes in communal authority, external pressures or different means of identifying community. We will now look at some specific examples to see how engaging the past in this regard could be important for early modern German Jews. Narrating Customs and Politics Before we examine a few examples of the intersection of customs, narratives of the past, and internal social structure, it is necessary to provide some context for the history of the Jews in Frankfurt. Throughout the sixteenth century numerous ordinances restricted the business in which Jews could be involved. Early in the sixteenth century, foreign Jews were prohibited from conducting business in Frankfurt (though in some important ways such restrictions had to be remodeled in light of the growth of the Frankfurt fairs). In 1611, for example, Jews were prohibited from involvement with business in new clothes211 and the Schnürmacherordnung of 1591 and 1614 strengthened prohibitions against guild members teaching Jews their

196 Ibid., p. 14. 197 “In Ashkenaz and especially in the community of Frankfurt and the community of Worms it was established and received [as] good and beautiful” (ibid., p. 2). 198 Ibid., pp. 2, 13, 48, 58, 126, 213. 199 Ibid., pp. 2, 15, 97, 101, 121. 200 Ibid., p. 48. 201 “Spinholtz,” in ibid., p. 126; customs for mourners, p. 331. 202 Ibid., pp. 46, 66, 98, 183. 203 Ibid., p. 220; “sages of our city,” pp. 176, 191. 204 Ibid., p. 2. 205 Ibid., p. 136. 206 Ibid., p. 2; regarding Regensburg, p. 12. 207 See, for example, ibid., pp. 146, 155, 186, 187, 189, 212, 238. 208 Ibid., pp. 10, 28, 53, 97, for example. 209 Ibid., 94, 135, 142. 210 See, for example, ibid., pp. 105, 150, 159, 168, 212. 211 Isidor Kracauer, Geschichte der Juden in Frankfurt am Main (1150–1824), 2 vols (Frankfurt am Main, 1925–27), p. 315.


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handiwork on pain of expulsion.212 Numerous attempts at expulsion and accusations of Jewish criminal activity could be found in the early modern period, and at times, as in counterfeiting, the accusations were not entirely unfounded.213 In 1606, an imperial commission did, indeed find a number of Jewish transgressions.214 In Sefer Yosef Ometz, Juspa discussed the commission and noted that: The hands were exhausted, and all hearts melted, the loins broken. It was in truth a great emergency that suddenly, like water, broke over Jacob. [There was] no possibility that some relief and salvation would come, for the Commission that the Emperor had established pressured us regarding the conduct of the boaster, and especially the one of them that stood completely under the influence of this man, he had an ear to the ruler and closed the doors from us.215

In many significant and instructive ways, the history of the Jews in Frankfurt mirrored the general developments of that city. From humble origins in the later Middle Ages, the community of Frankfurt would blossom into one of the largest and most important in the German Empire. The economic development of the city expanded dramatically between the middle of the fifteenth and middle of the seventeenth centuries. In the early fourteenth century, the city was the focus of a regional economy centered on the lower Rhine, with two annual fairs. These fairs eventually gained European prominence, but had no impact on the general European economy until the late sixteenth century, when the economy was further invigorated by the immigration of Protestant refugees from the Spanish Netherlands. Like many other cities, a depression of a sort ensued during the Thirty Years’ War; but, as in many other cities, the full effects of this depression hit in the late 1620s and early 1630s, giving way in subsequent decades to a revitalization. This is well reflected in the general population, which increased by 28 per cent between 1440 and 1550 and 76 per cent between 1550 and 1620, reaching 20,200. Again, the faltering of the late 1620s and early 1630s was reflected in a 16 per cent decline by 1655 (17,000).216 Reports and legends about Jews residing in Frankfurt date back to the eleventh century. Episodic violence and expulsion characterized the medieval Frankfurt Jewish community. Riots in 1241, for example, resulted in the destruction of Jewish property and the massacre of more than three-quarters of the 200 Jewish inhabitants. Intervening advances of the community were nullified by the pogroms associated with the Black Death in 1349, even if by 1360 Jews were allowed to return to the city. In 1434/35, the Jewish community of Frankfurt paid an imperial tax of 600 Gulden, marking it as only the tenth highest contributing community, behind the

212 Ibid., p. 322. 213 Ibid., pp. 324–5. 214 Ibid., pp. 332, 340ff. 215 Hahn, Yosef Ometz, p. 170; cited in Kracauer, Geschichte der Juden in Frankfurt am Main (1150–1824), p. 344, n. 1. 216 Gerald Lyman Soliday, A Community in Conflict: Frankfurt Society in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries (Hanover, NH, 1974), pp. 1f.

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large communities of Nuremberg, Mainz, Regensburg, and Augsburg; but also behind such middling communities as Oppenheim, Halle, Zurich, and Schweinfurt.217 In 1462, a street constructed for the special purpose of holding the Jews of the city within confined quarters (Judengasse) was completed. Despite the closed quarters, Jewish life seems to have thrived. There were 110 registered inhabitants of the ghetto in 1463, 250 in 1520, 900 in 1569, 1,200 in 1580, 2,200 in 1600, and about 3,000 in 1610. In 1462, Jews constituted roughly 1 per cent of the total population. By 1610, the nearly 3,000 Jews accounted for 11 per cent of the city’s burgeoning population—a total number unlike any other in Germany at the time (outside Prague). In 1462, with the founding of the Jewish ghetto, there were six Jewish houses; by 1610 there were 195.218 The Jewish population increases are also evident when one traces the number of Jewish taxpaying households: 22 in 1473; 43 in 1543; and 453 in 1613.219 As Frankfurt became a growing center of trade, German Jews forged strong connections to the city. By the end of the seventeenth century, there were four synagogues, a cemetery, bathhouse, rabbi’s house, dance and wedding hall.220 By the end of the sixteenth century the community was at its apex and its rabbis and courts were recognized throughout Germany, with rabbinical synods held there in 1562, 1582, and, most importantly, in 1603. Frankfurt developed as a central, if not the most important Jewish community in Germany. The synod of 1603 was described as the last attempt of a powerful rabbinate to express, if ultimately not to enforce,221 its views. Among the issues taken up at the synod were the separation of Jews from Gentiles, the establishment of central courts, the collection of taxes and the territorial organization of the “General Community” or “General Organization,” and the ordination and authority of rabbis.222 At the same time that the fair and trade, particularly in textiles,223 became central in the development of Frankfurt Jewry, the Jews established important familial networks and increasing supra-regional business and credit relations with the land surrounding the city.224 The financial work and contributions of the Jews allowed them to maintain important privileges and continuity of settlement during the sixteenth century. The community, though expelled for a time, was even able to rebound after the storming, plundering and rioting of the followers of Vincent Fettmilch in 1614. The Jews returned triumphantly in 1616 even as Fettmilch and his key henchmen were being executed. 217 Toch, “Siedlungsstruktur der Juden Mitteleuropas im Wandel vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit,” p. 30. 218 Ibid., p. 39. 219 Ibid., p. 25; see also p. 40. 220 Soliday, A Community in Conflict, pp. 3–4. 221 Louis Finkelstein, Jewish Self-Government in the Middle Ages (New York, 1924), pp. 80–81. 222 See ibid., pp. 78–81; 257–64. See also Zimmer, The Fiery Embers of the Scholars and Horovitz, Die Frankfurter Rabbinerversammlung von Jahre 1603. 223 Toch, “Siedlungsstruktur der Juden Mitteleuropas im Wandel vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit,” p. 37. 224 Ibid., pp. 35–6.


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Yosef Ometz is replete with references to the expulsion of the Jews from Frankfurt in 1614, during the Fettmilch uprising, as well as other difficulties that Jews living in the city faced. In one place, Juspa noted that “if a Jew walks through the gentile streets, they cry after him ‘dog’ or other insulting epithets and throw dirt and stones at him.”225 Other repressive measures affected Jewish life and ritual as well. During one year, the gate leading to the river was closed to the Jews and guarded by soldiers, forcing the Jews to perform tashlikh (casting away sins at Rosh ha-Shannah) “at the rampart of the city where through a narrow ditch the waste water flowed.” Juspa expressed hope that the ancient custom would be restored.226 Regarding the events of 1614 Juspa wrote: 27 in Elul we established here a fast on the community [tsibur] with all its particulars because here on that day in the year 1614 we were expelled from our community by the people of the city who conspired against us, who were rebels and stood to destroy us, God forbid, or expel us; and they decided … to expel us. We were expelled from our city and also our money, which remained after the stolen goods that were stolen from us at night, and we were not able to hide it from outside the wall of the street … And the rebels, mentioned before, burned our streets and however many holy writings they found in our houses and in the synagogue, they also mishandled these sifrei Torah on account of our sins … Regarding all these matters, the day mentioned above was established a fast, and prayers and selihot—on that day many troubles overtook … and if the day mentioned above falls on the eve of Shabbat, the fast is not completed; and if it falls on Shabbat the fast is made earlier, on the eve of Shabbat.227

The passage described the expulsion, particularly the fomentation against the Jews and the robbery and destruction perpetrated. It also placed the events squarely in communal memory by establishing a memorial through the fast on the community. This is a very good example of the ritualized memorial Yerushalmi and others have noted when examining the historical thinking of pre-modern Jews (see above, Chapter 1). The Fettmilch uprising wreaked tremendous havoc on the Jewish community of Frankfurt. According to Juspa, “they burned in our streets countless holy writings, which they found in our houses [and] in the synagogue …”.228 During the uprising, 262 Jews were killed and Jewish possessions valued at 175,919 Gulden were lost to plundering. The challenges, however, were more than external. The community had, for some time, been torn by internal divisions and increasing enmity. According to the historian Isidore Kracauer, internal ferment in the Jewish quarter, the desire for a new community constitution, and the political awakening of the ghetto inhabitants were a direct consequence of the Fettmilch uprising.229 The heavily oligarchic Jewish government was already the target of constitutional upheaval at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when a weak rebellion erupted 225 Israel Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, trans. Bernard Martin, 12 vols (Cleveland and Cincinnati, 1972–78). Here at vol. 6, p. 71 (Hahn, Yosef Ometz, p. 109). 226 Ibid., paraphrasing Yosef Ometz, p. 121. 227 Hahn, Yosef Ometz, pp. 211–12. 228 Ibid., section 153, in Kracauer, Geschichte der Juden in Frankfurt am Main (1150– 1824), p. 388. 229 Kracauer, Geschichte der Juden in Frankfurt am Main (1150–1824), p. 399.

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against the highly ensconced board members, the Zehner, with calls to add an additional ten directors.230 Two feuding groups eventually emerged, and submitted their case to arbitration by a third party of judges, rabbis from Fulda, Hildesheim, and Metz. The new Zehner were forced to resign, but the old ones were not to remain in power alone—seven new colleagues had to be introduced. The old Zehner refused to accept the decision, prompting one opponent to argue that the Zehner wanted to bring the entire Frankfurt Jewry into “Egyptian servitude, so to speak.” An external imperial commission examined 212 members of the community and found that only a minority of Jews was satisfied with the current communal government. The majority demanded three policies: father and son should not sit on the council at the same time; the service of the Zehner should not be lifelong but limited to two years; and, the current Zehner should abdicate and be replaced by non-partisan men, not closely related to one another.231 The economic divisions within the Jewish community were, however, obvious to non-Jews alike. While the Frankfurt citizens’ committee pressed to have all but the wealthiest 20 Jewish families expelled in 1612, the city council compromised, agreeing in principle to expel only the poorest 60.232 In the same way that the uprising challenged the city’s patrician leaders it was simultaneously anti-patrician and antiJewish.233 In May of 1614, Fettmilch’s supporters occupied city hall, holding the councilmen and forcing them to resign and leave the city.234 The complicated history of the community, combining dramatic growth, increasing internal tensions, and broader external problems, could leave the community itself remarkably volatile. It is in this context that Juspa’s emphasis on authority and practice, and his concern for true customs took on great significance. Juspa was often concerned with new customs and the re-establishment of old customs practiced before the expulsion, once the Jews had been resettled or found themselves in more favorable circumstances.235 After all, as we saw above, Juspa maintained that, “all customs of our fathers are law … and a land cannot change its interpretation.”236 In a rather complicated and revealing passage, Juspa discussed the controversy surrounding the custom of eating the third meal on the Sabbath.

230 Ibid., p. 400. 231 Ibid., pp. 400–405. For information on the diverse wealth of Jews in the early modern period, see for example the literature on rural Jewry, the court Jews, and the Sephardic Jews in Hamburg. 232 Friedrichs, “Politics or Pogrom? The Fettmilch Uprising in German and Jewish History,” p. 192. 233 Ibid., pp. 188, 190ff, 202. 234 Ibid., p. 192. 235 Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, “Jüdische Religion und Kultur in Frankfurt am Main im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,” p. 111, n. 33 (Hahn, Yosef Ometz, section 671). See for example, Yosef Ometz, p. 238: “… and before we were exiled from our city in the year of the expulsion the simple custom was to give the gabbai two cakes …”. 236 Fraenkel-Goldschmidt, “Jüdische Religion und Kultur in Frankfurt am Main im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert” p. 112; Hahn, Yosef Ometz, pp. 591–2; Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature—every custom of our fathers is Torah (vol. 6, p. 69).


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Regarding the time of the third meal, there are various customs here and also in these holy communities in the land of Ashkenaz; there was the custom for a long time to eat the meal before the afternoon prayers, and in these places in the land of Ashkenaz and almost in most, [it was] the custom to eat the meal between the afternoon and evening prayers. Both customs were expressed in the writings of the Mordechai … and the Rosh, there [Shabbat] and [in] other passages.

After explaining the various customs and the rabbinic support for them, Juspa goes on to explain their significance for the Frankfurt communal identity within the context of the turmoil caused by the Fettmilch uprising. He notes that: And at the time of the expulsion, when we were scattered and dispersed between settlements, the villages and small cities that surround us, that were themselves accustomed … to eat between the afternoon and evening prayers, and because we were almost alike imprisoned under their hands … to eat at the time of their meal. And after we were returned to our city by He who performs miracles, the people of our city did not want to abstain from the custom that they were accustomed to when they were outside our city.

While dispersed outside Frankfurt, many Jews began to practice a different custom than that traditionally regnant in Frankfurt. They ate their third Sabbath meal between the afternoon and evening prayers, providing more time for various leisure activities. But, the rabbinic leadership was here confronted with a significant legal question. Although both customs had rabbinic support, there was a widespread practice to treat local custom as law. What is more, local custom could not simply be changed, even despite changed circumstances. Juspa records the decision of the rabbinic leadership: And behold, I put my head between the pillars in this matter and I did what the av bet din and the judge in our city, that was here in these days, [said]. The people of the yeshivah, the sages of our city, the great ones, who were at that time here, and myself, the small, I also did so and was connected to them; our agreement, that was in the va’ad [council] to legislate a response for the usage, what the words of Heaven [dictated] that a person could not alter from the previous custom that was established from olden times … and also the words of the Maharil thus proved that it was the custom in the land of Ashkenaz, and they announced then so according to their words in the synagogue with other ordinances that they then legislated.

Citing the authority of Ashkenazic minhag, Maharil, the rabbis concluded that the previous custom of the community in Frankfurt could not be altered. The decision was proclaimed throughout the community. Foreseeing that opposition to the declaration might be expected, the rabbis also explained how people would be called to the synagogue for prayers on the Sabbath and explicated the punishment for those disregarding the ruling. The av bet din also decreed to the shammash that he was not to call people to the synagogue for afternoon prayers in the summer until after seven o’clock … for the time to eat and take pleasure and for the hour of the time to call the eating before the afternoon prayers, that is five o’clock until seven. And so the gaon, sage of our city, our teacher, our rabbi Moshe Mendels, of blessed memory, resolved very much in this matter and he decreed the herem on the shammash [should he not follow this order].

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But, Juspa concludes, there were some lay leaders who preferred the new custom for personal reasons and influenced the shammash to subvert the old custom over time by calling people to the synagogue in such a way as to force observance of the newer custom. The battle over the custom, here as memory and practice of past tradition, had significant resonance in a community wracked by internal divisions and increasing tensions between rabbinic and lay leadership. And because there were then parnasim, who because of pleasure, wanted to continue the meal between the afternoon and evening prayers, because if they ate before the afternoon prayers, what would they do between the afternoon and evening prayers, they flattered the shammash with their words, until he did not listen to our teacher, and he called [people] to the synagogue at six o’clock so that the people could not eat and enjoy the Shabbat meal before the call to the synagogue came. And little by little, people got used to eating the meal after the afternoon prayers. There were also those individuals who fortified themselves in the matter to eat before the afternoon prayers, and they got used to making hamotzei before the afternoon prayers; in any case, the shammash became little by little accustomed to make the call to the synagogue earlier, every year a little bit earlier, until the previous custom of eating before the afternoon prayers was nullified, in any event.

Juspa went on to complete the section by noting what a terrible development this was, a true stumbling block, since there was a widespread custom for those with deceased parents not to drink water after the afternoon prayers. With the new custom of reciting the afternoon prayers earlier in the day being observed, the time in which people could not drink was extended. The expulsion from the city, the settlement in surrounding communities, and the return to the city served as a powerful backdrop to discussions about communal behavior and identity. This example takes on more powerful meaning when seen within the context of external pressures—such as professional restrictions and attempts at expulsion—and internal crises—such as increasing population and social tensions, declining rabbinic authority, and increasing territorialization.237 The past was engaged here for very important discussions and with very tangible results. Yair Hayyim Bacharach’s commentary to Juspa of Worms’ customs for the community of Worms also offered historical information about some of the key events in the history of the Jewish community in Worms, both in internal social and political developments and in external events. While mentioning the specific rulings of his father, he also detailed the circumcisions, weddings, and deaths of prominent members of the community.238 Particularly important in Bacharach’s work were details of the invasion of Worms by the French and the expulsion of the Jews. In commenting on the holy community of Worms, Bacharach argued that, “whoever did not see Worms in its splendour and order, had never truly viewed a noble community.”239 In being forced to flee, like 237 Friedrichs, “Anti-Jewish Politics,” p. 200. 238 See Shulkhan Arukh Orakh Hayyim im Perush Mekor Hayyim (Hereafter MH), 2 vols (Jerusalem, 1982) p. 179, for example, which mentions the death in 1670/71 of Beila and also his father; p. 249 regarding memorial; particularly members of the Oppenheim family and the parnasim and their families; see vol. 2, pp. 104, 105. 239 Fritz Reuter, Warmaisa: 1000 Jahre Juden in Worms (Worms, 1984), p. 124.


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other citizens, and witnessing the destruction, “the Jews experienced terrible anxiety, for the majority of houses in the Jewish quarter were constructed on the city wall … The cities of Worms, Speyer, and Oppenheim were almost simultaneously burned. We had to leave our houses and our courtyard and allow our holy synagogue to be ruined. We had to pack all our belongings and flee. God would be compassionate to us.”240 The continuity of the community and its practices was emphasized by Bacharach, who noted that even pious customs practiced, though perhaps not formally and publicly adopted, by the citizens of a community were incumbent upon succeeding generations.241 Responding to inquiries about whether members of the Worms community were bound to continue to observe special fasts and customs of the community after its destruction, Bacharach contended that: Even if some few individuals had given up hope, they must follow the feeling of the entire congregation (who must be assumed not to have despaired) … The summary is that this destruction was only like an expulsion, or a flight before an earthquake, or before an oppressor. Even if all of the people left, nevertheless we hoped every day for the salvation of the Lord in a natural way. Hence, it was certainly their intention to return and therefore it was incumbent upon them to maintain all the strict observances of the earlier community.242

Bacharach noted, in commenting on the customs of Worms, that the community imposed upon itself a fast on the eve of Rosh Hodesh Shevat, to recall the expulsion from Worms, and that “the scholar, our teacher and our rabbi, Vital, who was head of the bet din after the expulsion … took upon himself the fast.”243 The fast was imposed upon the community as a form of communal memory and identification.244 The discussion of particular customs in Worms not only revealed internal struggles and attempts to recollect or reconstruct, or even create, tradition, but also displayed the effects that non-Jewish reactions might have on Jewish practice. To give but one example:

240 Ibid., p. 124. 241 Solomon Freehof, A Treasury of Responsa (Philadelphia, 1963) p. 173; see Kaufmann, R. Jaïr Chajjim Bacharach, pp. 77ff. 242 Freehof, A Treasury of Responsa, pp. 174–5 (Bacharach, Havot Yair, vol. 1, responsum 126, pp. 347–9, here at p. 349). 243 Bacharach, Jair Chajim (ed.), Wormser Minhagbuch des R. Jousep (Juspa) Schammes, prepared by Erich Zimmer, 2 vols (Jerusalem, 1988) [Hebrew], here at vol. 1, p. 248. 244 One question directed to Bacharach revolved around questions of desecration of the Sabbath. The inquirer asked if it was appropriate to declare a fast on the community (tsibur) because of the sins of the community (kahal), noting that many authorities, such as Asheri, and the author of Terumas haDeshen probited such fasts [on the Sabbath] in general (ibid., vol. 2, responsum 236, p. 663). He also asked whether it was a desecration of the Sabbath to save the community by means of money [which would not be allowed to be handled on the Sabbath], if there was not a general threat to life. Bacharach responded that it was appropriate for an individual in danger to desecrate the Sabbath to lament and to impose upon himself a fast.

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Jewish Identity in Early Modern Germany I also witnessed the following: In 5429 [1669] a battle was fought between the Duke of Pfalz and the Prince of Lothringen. On Hoshana Rabba they confronted each other—camp against camp, troop against troop. They fought near the mountain known as Wingertsberg. Both sides lost many men, and the Duke himself participated in the battle. He retreated through our city, Worms, with the remnants of his troops. A great fear arose in the Duke’s state, and no bonfire was kindled for many reasons. Nevertheless, the men appointed to complete and reinitiate the annual cycle of Torah reading assembled in the Braut Haus together with the other men who customarily entered with them. They rejoiced in the customary manner as in previous years with wine and fruits. Only the fires were not kindled so as not to appear overly joyful during the Duke’s defeat.245

Conclusions Jewish communities in early modern Germany could be highly variegated and complex. Communal organization differed between communities and regions and was becoming, in some important ways, more formalized and bureaucratic. The intensification of communal recordkeeping in the form of communal ledgers reflected broader social and cultural developments. A close look at these documents reveals that Jews distinguished time and narrated past events in sophisticated ways and for many different purposes. The past was a useful tool in establishing and carrying on tradition or instituting new laws. In the same way, there were reasons for Jewish customs, and Jewish memory could serve to record, explain and, when necessary, justify the past and the practices of the past. The continuation or limiting of past practices was affected not only by internal communal and religious disposition, but by the pressures of non-Jewish society as well. Treading the fine line of negotiating with the past and past practices was a delicate exercise for a minority population; however, such delicacy did not of necessity imply powerlessness, as Jews might adapt past practices to honor custom while responding to present realities and constraints. We need not assume, therefore, that early modern German Jews lived tenuously with no ability to engage their past or shape their future. It is clear from the limited examples reviewed here that continuity with the past was central within the Ashkenazic communities. One can argue reasonably, that the emphasis on tradition was a counter to the throes of discontinuity and trauma as 245 Shlomo Eidelberg, Medieval Ashkenazic History: Studies on German Jewry in the Middle Ages, I English Essays, excerpts from “Minhagim of the Worms Community,” pp. 130–31. Or consider, “In the year 5424, a great war raged between the Kaiser and the Turks. During the war the Turks captured the city of Neustadt from the Kaiser as well as a portion of the Hungarian territory. Certain Jew-hating gentiles slandered the Jews by claiming that we rejoiced in the victory of the Turks’ unmentionable ways. They frightened us dreadfully, so that the congregation did not permit the shammash to kindle the customary fire (for Simhat Torah). However, they permitted the kindling of the fire in the courtyard of the yeshiva because they did not wish the custom to be ignored in the future. They kindled the fire in the Yeshiva courtyard only during the reading of the Torah until the congregation left the synagogue.” (Eidelberg, Medieval Ashkenazic History, excerpts from “Minhagim of the Worms Community,” p. 147).


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experienced in expulsion and internal social struggles. Yet, the battle over tradition and the power of recalling the past revealed the deep tensions penetrating even the largest and most important early modern German Jewish communities. With social divisions, contention over rabbinic and lay authority, and changing economic, political, and cultural conditions, Jewish community was undergoing serious changes and experiencing significant challenges. Narrating and recalling the past was one way to combat changes—at least changes seen from particular vantage points—but, as we have seen earlier, could also be a means for change as well.


Chapter 4

Jewish Social Organization: The Role of Memory, Power, and Honor Social Order and Change in Early Modern Germany Beyond basic demographic patterns, the social organization of early modern Germany was simultaneously traditional and volatile. While the writer Hans Sachs had noted 114 social and occupational categories already in the early sixteenth century,1 early modern Germany nonetheless remained a society of orders,2 and most scholars have found in the period from 1300–1600 a social structure that remained largely intact. An early seventeenth-century Frankfurt am Main ordinance referenced five broad social categories into which the city population could be divided: patricians; other council members and distinguished merchants; distinguished retailers and members of the legal establishment; craftsmen and ordinary retailers; and unskilled workers.3 The social and economic disparities of the later Middle Ages, however, continued or intensified in the early modern period. In Nördlingen, for example, 6 per cent of the population owned more than 40 per cent of the property recorded in the tax lists in the second half of the seventeenth century.4 In Schwäbisch Hall, in 1625, the poorest 60 per cent of the population paid only 9 per cent of the total wealth tax receipts (Beet); the wealthiest 4 per cent paid 36–42 per cent; the top quintile alone paid 25 per cent. At least one-third of the town’s wealth belonged to a mere 40 households.5 In Augsburg, in the early seventeenth century, the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population possessed 92 per cent of the wealth and the wealthiest 2 per cent owned 61 per cent.6 Similar power and wealth structures could be found in German villages in the early modern period. When combined with complex political and economic ties to cities, territorial rulers, or even the emperor, such village social structure could be quite charged.7 1 Christopher R. Friedrichs, “German Social Structure, 1300–1600,” in Scribner (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, pp. 233–58, here at p. 234. 2 Ibid., p. 233. 3 Ibid., p. 245. 4 Robert von Friedburg and Wolfgang Mager, “Learned Men and Merchants: The Growth of the Bürgertum,” in Ogilvie (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, pp. 164–95, here at p. 183. 5 Terrence McIntosh, Urban Decline in Early Modern Germany: Schwäbisch Hall and Its Region, 1650–1750 (Chapel Hill, 1997), p. 50. 6 Ibid., p. 51. 7 See, for example, David Sabean, Power in the Blood: Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1988 (orig., 1984)).

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It should also be noted that a city’s population included many more groups of people than “citizens.” In Colmar, for example, the 1610 tax registers indicate that 58.7 per cent of the householders (620 out of 1,057) were inscribed in the citizen registers. An additional 18.4 per cent (194) claimed to be citizens in the parish registers.8 But that left a substantial portion of the city’s residents—almost 23 per cent—with no formal citizens’ rights. Given such divisions and various political crises, urban unrest and confessional confrontations continued to be part of the pattern of urban life with, for example, visible protests and revolts in Aachen (1580), Augsburg (1584), Emden (1595), Lübeck (1598), and Worms and Frankfurt am Main (1612).9 The situation could be very similar, and often even more pronounced, in the rural areas. In mid-sixteenth-century Mark Brandenburg, for example, 14 of the 300 knightly families possessed nearly a third of the group’s total landholdings.10 Given this environment of demographic change, social tension, political complexity, and religious ferment, antiquity and authenticity of familial lineage were seen to be as important as economic wealth and very significant tools for the legitimization of power.11 In addition, with the increasing role of Roman Law, and its purveyors— the doctors of jurisprudence—themselves claiming nobility,12 it became ever more important for families to trace and assert their ancestry and lineage. This is a topic that will be treated in more detail later in this chapter. Social tensions were rife in early modern Germany. Great discrepancies in wealth and social status combined with complex and changing social structures. Early modern Germans navigated this world through the use of honor and recourse to the past. The contexts in which Jews found themselves could have significant resonance in internal Jewish development. Even in larger cities, where Jews were segregated in a ghetto or Jewish quarter, Jewish culture was not a culture of the ghetto. Rather, Jews often took part in the ruling cultural norms but could give external ideas a Jewish meaning.13 Indeed, the repeated appearance of sumptuary laws and ordinances (takkanot) attempting to deal with the problem of the attraction of new cultural behavior seems to imply that Jews were much more involved in the world around them than was once believed. Jews were still required to dress in ways that distinguished them from their Christian neighbors and there is evidence of at times heated conflict over religious practices, particularly those that were visible in or affected the larger public space, such as the establishment of an eruv (an extension of the private domain into the public domain, typically by using a wire, to allow carrying on the Sabbath that is 8 Wallace, Communities and Conflict in Early Modern Colmar: 1575–1730, p. 13. 9 R. Po-chia Hsia, “The Structure of Belief: Confessionalism and Society, 1500–1600,” in Scribner (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, pp. 355–77, here at p. 371. 10 Friedrichs, “German Social Structure, 1300–1600,” p. 235. 11 Ibid., p. 236. 12 Ibid., p. 237. 13 Jews could appropriate chivalric romances, for example, substituting Jewish for Christian fighters and eliminating those elements which were too Christian. See Christoph Daxelmüller, “Organizational Forms of Jewish Popular Culture since the Middle Ages,” in Hsia and Lehmann (eds), In and Out of the Ghetto, pp. 29–48.


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otherwise forbidden) or the employment of Christians on the Sabbath. Nevertheless, social separation did not have to result in political exclusion.14 Particularly in south Germany, Jews seem to have been integrated in their village societies, without being assimilated, and Jews and Christians at times even shared formal government administration.15 There is evidence throughout the early modern period of close Jewish and Christian interaction, in political administration and even in more “religious” events such as weddings and synagogue openings. Given such a permeable environment, it should not be too surprising to find that important and growing social disequilibrium and contestation of power was developing within the Jewish communities themselves. According to one recent assessment, there were four different classes in early modern Jewish society. The conflict in early modern Jewish communities involved the interaction of these groups, and not only along distinctions between rich and poor.16 Like early modern German society more generally, internal Jewish social and political structures were frequently oligarchic and contested. In Frankfurt, for example, there was growing polarization between the wealthy and the rest of the community, with power being increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few wealthy members, and growing discontent “among those Jewish householders who were excluded from political participation.”17 Christopher Friedrichs writes that “these struggles within the Frankfurt community are strikingly reminiscent of the conflicts that took place among the Christian citizens of Frankfurt and countless other German cities during the same epoch.”18 Serious internal constitutional overhaul was called for, both from within and outside the Jewish community. Such struggles within the Jewish community were never “confined to the community itself.” Non-Jewish authorities—local, regional, and even imperial—were also frequently involved in what were ostensibly internal Jewish disputes. Of course conflicts were not necessarily confined to a specific Jewish community. Stefan Rohrbacher argues that Swabian Jewry came to be defined during the course of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries not only by a physical territory but by an organizational structure with particular customs, autonomy, and self-identity. The importance of territorialization of internal Jewish governmental structures, as in the establishment of central courts, as well as the external political ramifications of growing territorial state authority have already been considered. Indeed, the nature of legal expertise and the dependence of small Jewish communities on larger halakhic centers were frequently discussed. Recourse to territorial authority could resolve as well as fan tensions.19 What is more, the conflicts within a particular region could 14 Friedrichs, “German Social Structure, 1300–1600,” passim. 15 See Rolf Kiessling and Sabine Ullmann, “Christlich-jüdische ‘Doppelgemeinden’ in den Dörfern der Markgrafschaft Burgau während des 17./18. Jahrhunderts,” in Cluse, Haverkamp, and Yuval (eds), Jüdische Gemeinden und ihr christlicher Kontext, pp. 513–34. 16 See the argument of Elhanan Reiner, as summarized by Joseph Davis in Yom-Tov Lipman Heller: Portrait of a Seventeenth-Century Rabbi, p. 8. 17 See Christopher Friedrichs, “Jews in the Imperial Cities: A Political Perspective,” in Hsia and Lehmann (eds), In and Out of the Ghetto, pp. 275–88, here at p. 283. 18 Ibid., p. 284. 19 See Zimmer, Fiery Embers.

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develop into much larger confrontations between rabbis across and beyond the borders of Germany. At times, community factions and politics could lead to the intrusion of nonJewish authorities into communal governance. In some cases, as in Prague in the 1630s, this could lead to the imprisonment of lay or rabbinic leaders. Such was the case of the important rabbi Yom-Tov Lipman Heller.20 The phenomenon of the wealthy court Jews, with tremendous financial and political resources, and, as many scholars have recently asserted, important connections to various Jewish communities, also reflects well the more general changes we have seen thus far in early modern Germany. The development of the absolutist state in the early modern period and the concomitant centralization of many European economies broke the previous concentrations of power in the noble landed estates and churches and created an important need for financial development, a need filled by Jews, among others. As early as 1695 the prohibition on usury was rescinded in parts of Europe. Moneylending became a less specifically Jewish trade, as mercantilism and the accumulation of state revenues were seen as a means to strong government. State officials did not hesitate to mobilize Jews to help stimulate trade and growth in cities, much as they had done with the original charters in the eleventh century in Germany. The court Jews (Hofjuden) became something of a new phenomenon, though of course Jewish court agents had existed earlier in the Middle Ages, particularly in Spain but also in Germany, for example in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Saxony, to the bishops of Würzburg and for the Cologne nobility. Large banks and commercial enterprises were overturned, cities impoverished, coinage devalued, and credit systems ruined, as the Thirty Years’ War drained large sums of money for troops, equipment, and reconstruction. The need for financial services and resources naturally rose sharply, as the financial strength of territories was weakened by the great war. By the end of the seventeenth century the princely expenditures, court display and construction required serious financial resources and reorganization. Within this context, the court factor became a permanent institution in the territorial states. The Jewish factors numbered in the thousands, and served large and small rulers alike. Some court factors simultaneously served several princes. Among the most important Jewish court factors was the Frankfurt banker Moses Löb Isaac Kann (court factor in Mainz, Würzburg, Bamberg, and Vienna). Many Jewish families evolved as dynastic financial powers. Three generations of the Gomperz family, for example, served the prince-bishop of Münster; six served Prussian princes in unbroken sequence; and the Behrend family created a dynasty in Hannover, while the Lehmann family did the same in Saxony, and the Oppenheimers and Wertheimers did so in Vienna. In true dynastic fashion, many court Jews created extensive networks of family and close personal friends. Through carefully planned strategies, many also married among other important court Jew families: Samson Wertheimer, successor to Samuel Oppenheimer, for example, was the latter’s nephew and Leffmann Behrend’s mother was the aunt of the Berlin court Jew Jost 20 Davis, Yom-Tov Lipman Heller, pp. 138, 144–5.


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Liebmann.21 This trend may, in part, help to explain the emphasis on marriages and honor in Glückel of Hameln’s memoirs, which we will examine below.22 Early modern German court Jews played important political and financial roles both within and beyond their communities. Court Jews were active in a variety of economic capacities: procurement, provisioning, industrial enterprises, the leasing of state monopolies, and some had manufacturing monopolies (for example, cloth, tobacco). The function of court Jews might differ by region—in the north we find more urban norms of enterprise, such as manufacturing; in the south we find a culture more akin to noble society.23 Court Jews were often granted special freedom of movement and certain exemptions. Although the position was rife with ambiguity, the court Jew could attain rank, honor, and respect; he was, however, always the servant to his sovereign. Court Jews still did not possess the rights of Christian citizens, and they were not typically viewed as socially acceptable. They were, further, often easy targets for their enemies and their broad sphere of activity and influence often fostered the hatred of an ever-impoverished population. Samuel Oppenheimer (1630–1703), the Viennese court Jew, for example, was previously the imperial army provisioner during the 1673–79 war against Louis XIV of France. He had spent his youth in Heidelberg and was the first Jew to settle in Vienna after the expulsion in 1670/71. Oppenheimer procured enormous sums that helped push back the Turks in 1682, and he played a central role in saving Vienna in 1683, Budapest in 1686, and Belgrade in 1688. Oppenheimer even paid for several of the large peace conferences afterward. Another example of a prominent court Jew was Leffmann Behrends (1634–1714), who began as a small merchant supplying luxury goods to court. He established himself as a moneylender, diplomatic mediator and minter, and further strengthened his position when he helped duke Ernest Augustus (1679–98) procure the title of elector. He was connected by marriage to the Oppenheimer and Wertheimer families in Vienna. But court Jews were not simply influential at court. Many court Jews remained extremely involved in their Jewish communities. The typical court Jew was often the benefactor and champion of his community and its interests and was usually given the title of shtadlan (intercessor) in the Jewish sources. In fact, a large number of court Jews began their careers by being appointed by their sovereign as the leader of all Jews in their particular territory. Most court Jews seem to have been successful at maintaining Jewish tradition within Baroque court lifestyle. Behrends, for example, was an ardent 21 On the court Jews generally, see the overview in Jonathan I. Israel, European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550–1750 (3rd edn, London, 1998), pp. 101–18, from which much of this summary is drawn. 22 For a discussion of court Jews and upper Jewish classes in general in relation to Glückel of Hameln’s autobiographical writing, see Rotraud Ries, “Status und Lebensstil – Jüdische Familien der sozialen Oberschicht zur Zeit Glikls,” in Monika Richarz (ed.), Die Hamburger Kauffrau Glikl: Jüdische Existenz in der Frühen Neuzeit (Hamburg, 2001), pp. 280–306, especially pp. 287–98. 23 See Rotraud Ries, “Hofjuden—Funktionsträger des absolutistischen Territorialstaates und Teil der jüdischen Gesellschaft: Eine einführende Positionsbestimmung,” in Rotraud Ries and J. Friedrich Battenberg (eds), Hofjuden—Ökonomie und Interkulturalität: Die jüdische Wirtschaftselite im 18. Jahrhundert (Hamburg, 2002), pp. 11–39.

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talmudist, he supported talmudic study, and for many years he headed the community of Hannover-Neustadt. In 1673 he acquired the right to open a cemetery. In 1687 at his request the duke agreed to permit the Jews of Hannover to appoint a Landesrabbiner. In 1700 he secured support of the elector in suppressing the anti-Jewish writings of Johann Eisenmenger. And in 1703 he built a synagogue and presented it to the community. Behrends’s sons and grandsons were also court Jews, although the family went bankrupt in 1721. Recent research has revealed that court Jews were in reality a force of continuity and tradition, as opposed to one of transformation.24 Memorialization of the Dead The social hierarchy within early modern Judaism could be constructed and navigated by narrating the past. Memorialization of the dead, for example, served to craft a communal identity that was both regional and often oligarchic. Honor, which was of increasing importance in early modern Germany, was addressed by Jews in a variety of memorials and in the burgeoning production of autobiographical writing. In the same way that it could be used to contest external marginalization and re-inscribe the Jews into world history (see chapter 5), memory of the past also allowed for the organization and disbursement of power and authority within the Jewish community itself. The boundaries between the worlds of the living and dead were very fluid in late medieval and early modern society.25 A delicate balance existed between the two worlds; the dead continued, in many important ways, to remain a part, indeed an integral component, of the living community. The relationship between the living and dead was multi-faceted: emotive and cultural, but also economic, “involving the disposition of property and the dedication of resources to the demands of intercession and commemoration.”26 Discourses about the dead, therefore—how they should be treated as well as their place in living society—tell us a great deal about the religious, social, and cultural developments and conflicts within the living communities.27 In the Middle Ages, the chief means of memorializing the dead was within a liturgical context (memoria). Such memorialization recognized the individual nature of the deceased, while allowing for the creation of communal and group cohesiveness and identity.28 Memory of the dead was perpetuated by being included in communal liturgy. The commemoration of the dead thus became a corporate obligation that extended beyond kin groups to involve the broader community, as, for example, in confraternities.29 Despite important differences in theories of salvation, death rituals, and views of the afterlife, Catholic and Protestant responses to the dead in the early

24 See Ries and Battenberg (eds), Hofjuden—Ökonomie und Interkulturalität: Die jüdische Wirtschaftselite im 18. Jahrhundert. 25 Gordon and Marshall (eds), The Place of the Dead, p. 7. 26 Ibid., p. 8. 27 Ibid., p. 3. 28 Ibid., p. 4. 29 Ibid., p. 5.


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modern period could be remarkably similar.30 The extent to which we can compare the memorialization of Jewish dead during this period will be one question treated here. Memory of the dead holds a special place in Judaism.31 In fact, the memorialization of the dead is something of an institution consecrated by ceremony and controlled by the community itself, for which the memorybooks are the surviving testimonies.32 The idea of a memorybook certainly had biblical precedence, and took important shape during the Crusades.33 Lists of Jewish victims of the Crusades exist for the communities of Speyer, Cologne, Mainz, and Worms; and the chronicles of the Crusades often added details to the bare lists of those murdered.34 Similar martyr lists could also be found at times of other grave attacks on the Jews, such as the Rindfleisch pogrom of 1298,35 or the Black Death attacks of 1348, with many entries including entire families.36 The core of the memorybook of Nuremberg, also an early example listing the Jews martyred in that city in 5109 (1349), was similarly simply a list of 105 entries. The genre of the memorybook, similar in format but more broadly focused than the simple listing of martyred Jews, has typically been seen as originating at the end of the thirteenth century, with the Mainz memorybook of Isaac ben Samuel of Meiningen.37 The memorybook genre became more frequent from the middle of the seventeenth century on, however.38 Since the turn of the twentieth century around 150 Jewish memorybooks have been found in Germany. Many of these date from the early modern period, including many from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as those from Binswagen, Koblenz, Cologne-Deutz, and Mainz, all written or begun in the sixteenth century; and those from Hanau, Minden, Frankfurt am Main, Pfersee, Kreuznach, Fulda, Trier, Baiersdorf, and Worms, all from the seventeenth.39 Memorybooks typically included four components: a brief descriptive statement including the name of the community utilizing it, the name of the scribe and the

30 Ibid., p. 12. 31 Schwarzfuchs, Un obituaire Israélite, p. i. 32 Ibid. 33 See Siegmund Salfeld (ed.), Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches: im Auftrage der Historischen Commission für Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland (Berlin, 1898). 34 Magnus Weinberg, “Das Memorbuch,” in Bernhard Purin, Buch der Erinnerung, pp. 9–26, here at p. 9; idem, Die Memorbücher; p. 1, Schwarzfuchs, Un obituaire Israélite, p. iii. 35 Weinberg, “Das Memorbuch,” p. 11. 36 See W.H. Lowe (ed.), The Memorbook of Nürnberg (London, 1881), pp. 16–17. 37 Weinberg, Die Memorbücher, p. 3; Schwarzfuchs, Un obituaire Israelite, p. ii. 38 “Das Memorbuch zu Bonn,” website (last visited July 2006) http://www.steinheiminstitut.de/projekte/memorbuch/index.xml. 39 Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, “Memorbücher: ‘Milieux de mémoire’,” in Purin, Buch der Erinnerung, pp. 27–38, here at p. 28; and the memorybooks in Salfeld and Stern. Binswagen (sixteenth century); Koblenz (begun 1580); Cologne-Deutz (1581); Mainz (begun 1583); Hanau (1601); Minden (beginning of the seventeenth century); Frankfurt am Main (begun 1629); Pfersee (1631?); Kreuznach (1638); Ehrenbreitstein (begun 1647); Rheinbach (1650); Fulda (seventeenth century); Trier (1664); Mannheim (1673); Baiersdorf (1689); Bergheim/Erft (1677); Worms (1679); Wallerstein (1684); and Fürth (1708ff).

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date of copying;40 a liturgical part, including universal (typically for those fasting on Mondays and Thursdays) and individual mi sheberah prayers;41 Psalms for individual communities, making the memorybooks simultaneously books of customs of the originating community;42 and the actual necrology that included the names of the deceased and their good deeds and accomplishments. The general part of the necrological list included famous scholars or personalities, generally individuals beyond the region. In rather formulaic ways, for example, Gershom ben Judah Me’or ha-Golah (Rabbenu Gershom, c.960–1028), Jacob ben Meir Tam (Rabbenu Tam, c.1100–71), and Meir ben Baruch of Rothenbrug (Maharam, c.1215–93) were listed.43 In a local part, individuals and their relations with roots in or connections to the community were listed, typically in roughly chronological fashion.44 All entries began with the phrase “may God remember the soul” of a particular person; different formularies were then introduced for men and women.45 In most cases, the earliest deceased listed predated the actual compilation of the book by more than a century.46 The necrology was a basic component of all of the German memorybooks, and it included pro forma prayers for individual Jews and Jewish communities in other regions.47 According to Simon Schwarzfuchs, the memorybooks offered information on three principal groups of people: those martyred, those engaged in sacred study, and those engaged in charitable deeds.48 For the memorybook of Metz in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for example, the giving of charity, for a variety of purposes— such as for the poor of the Holy Land49 or the construction of synagogues—was a frequent appellation and could represent the donation of a large amount of money.50 Other categories included the frequent participation in synagogue prayers51 and intercessions on behalf of the community.52 Memorybooks were often ahistorical and non-chronological. Many entries of the Pfersee memorybook, for example, did not follow a strictly chronological order; or rather, some entries from the eighteenth century seem to have been inserted into the text of seventeenth century entries. Memorybooks focused on particular scholarly or wealthy families, but might offer invaluable information for the general history of the Jews in a given community and region, as well as for the history of particular families.53

40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

Schwarzfuchs, Un obituaire Israélite, p. ii. Weinberg, Die Memorbücher, p. 7. Ibid., p. 8. Ibid., pp. 8–9. Ibid., p. 9. Ibid., p. 10. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 11–12. Schwarzfuchs, Un obituaire Israélite, pp. ix–x, 14. Ibid., p. 4 (no. 67), p. 12 (no. 168). Ibid., p. 1 (no. 4), for example. Ibid., p. 2 (no. 33), p. 3 (no. 57). Ibid., p. 2 (no. 31), p. 5 (no. 80). Ibid., p. 17.


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In addition to lists of names and titles, the memorybooks do provide insights into historical events as well. The Baiersdorf memorybook, for example, discussed the decision by the Margrave of Bayreuth to expel the Jews in 5440 (1680), noting the salvation of the Jews by God’s hand through the sending of the angel in the person of the protector of the Jews, Samuel Oppenheim of Frankfurt.54 The eighteenth-century memorybook of Marktbreit revealed that part of the community had fled into Marktbreit after the 1671 expulsion from Fulda. The memorybook of Binswagen in the sixteenth century offered a general plea that God should “remember … the soul of all of the dead in the kehilot and yishuvim [settlements]55 … and annul the decrees and forced apostasy and annul the customs duties and remove the sifrei Torah from the hands of the nations and remove the forced apostates from the hands of the nations …”.56 Some individuals were praised for their erudition, as in Metz, where we read of “the humble, pious and knowledgeable syndic, the rabbi Solomon Israel, son of haver [a level of ordination] Gerson, ‘because of his devotion in consolidating the community of Metz. He was a faithful citizen and led the community of Metz with gentleness and integrity for more than fifty years …’ [and] for numerous interventions and numerous charities and [the fact that] he frequented the synagogue morning and night …”.57 At times, the memorybooks tell us about scholarly accomplishments and publications. In Neuburg, for example, Rabbi Meir bar Isaac of Oettingen was listed “on account of his multiplication of Torah in Israel in his novellae … and his book on the Five Books of the Torah …”.58 Many memorybooks focused on the regional associations of the Jewish communities. The Oettingen memorybook acknowledged one individual’s “exertions for the people of the medinah [region] and the faith.” The Heidingsfeld memorybook, written no earlier than 1705, included “50 rabbis within and outside our medinah.” In seventeenth-century Aub, the memorybook included a list of martyrs, kehillot, and regions.59 Often the names of people who did not die in Aub were nevertheless listed if they were otherwise connected to the region through familial ties or had served in the community for a time.60 The Offenbach memorybook was particularly interesting in this regard. The book began with a list of communities (“Remember … Speyer, Worms, Mainz, Oppenheim, Koblenz, Cologne (?)”61) and a list of famous people to remember, such as Rabbenu Gershom, Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes (Rashi, 1040–1105), Rabbenu Tam, Maharam, and Jacob Molin (Maharil, 1365–1427).62 But many individuals listed seem only tangentially connected to Offenbach; many 54 Weinberg, “Das Memorbuch.” 55 Similar at this point to p. 32 of the Oettingen memorybook. 56 C. Duschinsky, Gedenkbücher (Memorbücher) von Offenbach a. Main u. anderen deutschen Gemeinden (Frankfurt am Main, 1924), p. 130. 57 Schwarzfuchs, Un obituaire Israélite, p. 4 (no. 59). 58 Moshe Stern, Memorybooks Written during the 16th to the 19th Century in Swabian Jewish Communities (Jerusalem, 1941) [Hebrew], p. 26, from the Neuburg memorybook of the early eighteenth century. 59 Duschinsky, Gedenkbücher, pp. 28–9. 60 Ibid., p. 31. 61 Ibid., p. 8. 62 Ibid., p. 11.

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lived, died, or were buried in the nearby community of Frankfurt63 or in Speyer.64 In fact, at times, the “here” referenced in the text referred to Mainz, and at other times to Frankfurt or Offenbach.65 By combining more universal Jewish figures, such as Maimonides, Rashi, Maharam, Maharil, and Isaac ben Solomon Luria (Ari, 1534–72) (see the memorybook of Veitschheim, 1741, for example)66 with local and regional rabbis,67 memorybooks created a community that was placed in time and multi-dimensional. The connection between great sages and important local figures solidified the image of the Jewish community as both holy and established. The historical blurring of personalities allowed the community to be defined through actions and not delimited by chronological or strictly geographical boundaries; community became in this way more than local or regional. The community created through the historical reckoning and liturgical recounting of the memorybooks was universal, and connected to disparate communities and individuals scattered both geographically and chronologically, a particularly valuable attribute at a time of increasing territorial dispersion and regional identification. A few observations regarding early modern Jewry will set the appropriate context for a clearer examination of the memorybook, particularly that of the Jewish community of Pfersee, near Augsburg. An Early Modern German Jewish Context The development of rural Jewry, particularly in south and west Germany began in the later Middle Ages, but became significant first in the early modern period, particularly after the middle of the sixteenth century.68 By the nineteenth century, some small towns and rural villages boasted more Jews than Christians in their populations.69 But the rural Jewries were more than local communities; they were

63 Ibid., pp. 15, 21 (no. 118). 64 Ibid., p. 16 (no. 90). 65 Ibid., p. 19 (no. 101) died here in Offenbach; p. 20 (no. 110), “here” is equivalent to Frankfurt; p. 17 (no. 86), buried “here” 1661. 66 Ibid., p. 75. It lists Karo, Maimonides, Mordechai Jaffe, Isaac Luria, Hayyim Vital, and local rabbis; see also Duschinsky, Gedenkbücher, p. 11. 67 Ibid., p. 74. 68 Stefan Rohrbacher, “Ungleiche Partnerschaft: Simon Günzburg und die erste Ansiedlung von Juden den Toren Augsburgs in der Frühen Neuzeit,” pp. 193ff; See J. Friedrich Battenberg, “Aus der Stadt auf das Land? Zur Vertreibung und Neuansiedlung der Juden im Heiligen Römischen Reich,” in Monika Richarz and Reinhard Rürup (eds), Jüdisches Leben auf dem Lande (Tübingen, 1997), pp. 9–35. See also Wolfram Baer, “Zwischen Vertreibung und Wiederansiedlung: Die Reichstadt Augsburg und die Juden vom 15. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert (pp. 110–27, especially p. 117) and Wolfgang Wüst, “Die Judenpolitik der geistlichen Terriotorien Schwabens während der Frühen Neuzeit (pp. 128–53, especially p. 131), both in Rolf Kiessling (ed.), Judengemeinden in Schwaben im Kontext des Alten Reiches (Berlin, 1995). 69 See Rolf Kiessling and Sabine Ullmann (eds), Landjudentum im deutschen Südwesten während der Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin, 1999).


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regional associations bound together for a variety of purposes, and subsumed under shifting and at times unstable regional temporal governments.70 The history of the Jews in early modern Germany fluctuated between one of security and privilege on one hand, and expulsion and restriction on the other. A variety of privileges, particularly at the individual level, combined with severe restrictions on Jewish business. In Swabia, for example, this was particularly true in the legislation of 1541, focusing on Memmingen and its surrounding villages; that of 1561 in Ulm, aimed at a variety of small and middling Jewish communities; and that of 1582 in Wettenhausen.71 For the early modern period, the legal position of the Jews was complex and often volatile. The Jews, who at times enjoyed privileges and protection granted by the emperor, were consequently subject to imperial feudal service, the imperial courts, and the whims and needs of the emperor himself. On the other hand, Jews were also caught in a dangerous triangle that put them within the reach of civic authority and the increasingly powerful grasp of regional and territorial lords.72 The bundling of protective relationships at the hands of a great territorial lord led to a certain collectivization of the Jews in a given land or region,73 that had both external as well as internal consequences. Jewish courts, for example, tended to become regional in the sixteenth century, with five central courts emerging.74 As we will see, however, despite such regional boundaries, Jews frequently traveled beyond them, and related to Jews in other regions. Despite the formal expulsion of the Jews from Augsburg in the early fifteenth century and from many cities throughout Bavaria and Swabia in the later Middle Ages, significant communities developed outside of some major cities by the middle of the sixteenth century, such as in Pfersee, Kriegshaber, and Steppach outside Augsburg and Fürth outside Nuremberg. Of the 82 Jewish lenders noted between 1596 and 1603 lending to Christians in Augsburg, for example, 45 were listed with origination names in Pfersee, 13 in Günzburg, eight in Burgau, three in Steppach, two in Kriegshaber, two in Fischach, and one in Binswagen.75 The differing policies 70 Rolf Kiessling, “Between Expulsion and Emancipation: Jewish Villages in East Swabia During the Early Modern Period,” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, pp. 71ff. 71 Ibid., p. 70. 72 J. Friedrich Battenberg, “Rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen jüdischer Existenz in der Frühneuzeit zwischen Reich und Territorium,” in Kiessling (ed.), Judengemeinden in Schwaben im Kontext des Alten Reiches, pp. 53–79, here at pp. 57, 66ff. 73 Ibid., p. 72. 74 Friedrich Battenberg, Das Europäische Zeitalter der Juden, 1: Von den Anfängen bis 1650 (2nd edn, Darmstadt, 2000), p. 238. 75 Sabine Ullmann, ‘Leihen umb fahrend Hab und Gut:’ Der christlich-jüsiche Pfandhandel in der Reichsstadt Augsburg,” in Kiessling and Ullmann (eds), Landjudentum im deutschen Südwesten während der Frühen Neuzeit, here at pp. 310–11. Among the key lenders were Isaac from Günzburg (140 fl., in late 1590s), Sesslin from Burgau (218 fl., in 1599/1600), Seligman of Burgau (248 fl., 1599/1600), Itzig of Pfersee (700 fl., 1600/01), Samuel of Günzburg (600 fl., 1601), Abraham of Günzburg (360 fl., 1601/02), and Solomon of Wassertrüdingen (195fl., 1601). See pp. 325–35.

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toward Jews, combined with changing demographic and social conditions, led further to the appearance of a rather large group of poor Jews, especially after the beginning of the seventeenth century.76 In Hamburg, the minutes of the Portuguese Jewish community recorded that large amounts of money were set aside for both poor local Jews and Jews dispersed throughout Europe and the Holy Land. Indeed, the Jewish communities themselves were far from homogeneous. Mordechai Breuer has posited a distinction between elite and folk religion in the early modern period. The former, according to Breuer, focused on the Talmud, philosophy, and the sciences and arts; the latter on the study of the Pentateuch, Rashi’s commentary, and the narrative-moralizing parts of the Talmud.77 Daily folk religion of Jews, particularly in the rural areas, where Jews increasingly took up residence, was centered on daily customs—particularly local or regional ones—and was largely oral.78 The memorybooks are in many ways reflections of the melding of a variety of customs and concerns, and they offer an important portal to the world of regional Jewish communities and the place of prominent Jewish families of high social and economic standing. The Jews in Pfersee and other suburban and rural areas had extensive regional connections as well as significant business contacts within the major cities. The history of the Jewish community of Pfersee just outside Augsburg in Bavarian Swabia, and the history and communal structure related in its memorybook, is complex. The Pfersee Memorybook The memorybook of the community of Pfersee began with instructions for the proper time for reading it and the injunction to remember Rabbi Gershom for his ordinances and the dissemination of knowledge among the Jews, Rabbi Solomon and his spouse for the acquisition of the cemetery in Mainz and the pains taken for the community, Rabbi Isaac and his wife in Koblenz, Rabbi Shimon bar Isaac and his companion for his efforts on behalf of the community and his poetry and panegyrics to the Omnipresent. The text proceeded to mention Rashi, Rabbenu Tam and the ba’alei Tosafot [the Tosafists], “our” rabbi Meir son of ha-Rav Maharam, and a number of other sages noted for their wisdom and perpetuation of Jewish learning. At this point the text took on a more local quality, beginning with a lengthy entry for Rabbi Shimon son of Eliezer, of blessed memory, of Ulma from Günzburg “because of his exertions for the sake of the community for more than 40 years and the stopping of the taxes, and purchasing of land for the cemetery in Burgau … and enclosing himself for the honor of God, May He be blessed, and for the honor of the deceased pious ones in his frequent intercession to remove prohibitions at the hands of the gentiles and 76 Ibid., p. 235. See also Rudolf Glanz, Geschichte des niederen jüdischen Volkes in Deutschland: eine Studie über historisches Gaunertum, Bettelwesen und Vagantentum (New York, 1968). 77 Mordechai Breuer, “Jüdische Religion und Kultur in den ländlichen Gemeinden 1600–1800,” in Richarz and Rürup (eds), Jüdisches Leben auf dem Lande, pp. 69–78, here at p. 72. 78 Ibid., p. 73.


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support the poor of the provinces of Swabia many years, as if feeding small children.”79 Rabbi Shimon Günzburg was buried in Burgau, the passage concluded, on the ninth of Shevat 5345 (1585). Shimon Günzburg was from the most important family of Jewish Swabia, the Ulma-Günzburg family.80 The founding father of the family was likely Eliezer, or Lazarus, Günzburg, who belonged to the Jews expelled from Ulm, and who settled in the small but increasingly important community of Günzburg, later to be the central community of landed Swabia in the sixteenth century. Lazarus was at the imperial court in Innsbruch in 1534, and he secured in 1542 a Schutzbrief [letter of protection] from the Bavarian Duke. In many ways, Rabbi Shimon was the true progenitor of the memorybook. Many of the subsequent entries were devoted to his familial relations and those of a handful of other central personalities. To this extent, the memorybook was more a representation of a rather oligarchic regional community. The central families were from Günzburg and Ulm, with important connections in Burgau, Worms, Frankfurt, and Prague. Of the roughly 72 entries before the beginning of the eighteenth century, more than 60 per cent were obviously from the Günzburg line; the 20 references after the seventeenth century seem to have been almost exclusively from the Ulma family. In the memorybook, Rabbi Shimon’s wife (d. 1593 in Burgau) was noted for her vows for charity. Mention was also made of the majority of his eight sons and eight daughters, as well as a variety of other relatives. The dispersion of his children and the relations developed and maintained with famous Jewish families in a very diverse geographical radius tells us quite a bit about the conscious forging of elite Jewish circles—in terms of both wealth and Torah learning—and the high mobility of Jews, the wealthy in particular. Such wide-ranging dispersion is evident in what we know about some of Shimon’s sons, who included Rabbi Moses Abraham (d. 1591); Rabbi Abraham, noted for both his community service and his redeeming of captives and maintenance of the poor; Rabbi Asher Aron who served as Landesrabbiner of Swabia around 1600; Rabbi Isaac, who traveled in his old age to Jerusalem where he was buried; Rabbi Samuel Zanvil, who died in Worms (1630); Rabbi Jacob, noted for his charity in Burgau; Rabbi Solomon, who died and was buried in Neuburg; and Rabbi Eliezer who was matched with the daughter of Moses Isserles, and who died and was buried in Safed.81 Among Rabbi Shimon’s daughters, we find Elah (d. 1594), who was married to the renowned Gaon Rabbi Akiva Frankfurter;82 Hanah (d. 1598/99 in Rankburg); Saralah (d. 1604 in Frankfurt); Brunlin (d. 1617 in Worms); Biglin (d. in Frankfurt); Frumet (d. in Worms); Adel (d. in Worms), who was the wife of the head of the Worms

79 p. 6 of the Pfersee memory book—see J. Perles, “Das Memorbuch der Gemeinde Pfersee,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 22 (1873): 508–15. 80 Stefan Rohrbacher, “Medinat Schwaben: jüdisches Leben in einer süddeutschen Landschaft in der Frühneuzeit,” in Kiessling (ed.), Judengemeinden in Schwaben im Kontext des Alten Reiches, pp. 80–109, here at pp. 84ff. 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid., p. 87.

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community, Naftali Hirtz; and, Bonlin, who married the Gaon Rabbi Eliahu Öttingen in Frankfurt.83 The text ended with a blessing for those who fulfill the mitzvot (especially those related to synagogue service), the Roman Emperor, a general blessing for the holiday of Simhat Torah, a list of names found in the community of Mainz, general formularies for the Sabbath before Shavuot and Tisha b’Av [the ninth day of the month of Av—when many sorrowful events occurred in Jewish history, including the destruction of the Temple], and a prayer for the sick. Included as well were blessings for the community of Augsburg and a number of other south and west German communities, and regions, including Swabia and Austria. Like the Pfersee memorybook, most necrologies focused on the wealthy or scholarly members of a community, or as we have indicated, the martyrs, though such individuals were frequently sequestered in a special place of the text. At times they also allow us to extract important, and otherwise un-discussed, information regarding both internal and external events, such as social hierarchies, marriage alliances, scholarly publications, travel, construction of synagogues, edicts against or in favor of Jews, expulsions and pogroms, and so on. A Comparison of Jewish and Christian Memorials Among medieval Christians, the earliest written memorials of the dead, largely of a liturgical nature, date form the Carolingian period.84 The early Christian memorial book, librum vitae, included the name and position of the deceased at times, though infrequently the origin name and hardly ever the year of death.85 Like the later Jewish martyrological lists of the crusade period, the necrologies of Cluny, for example, were nothing more than extensive lists of names.86 Particularly in the later Middle Ages and early modern period, the nature of the memorials seems to have shifted in some places, adding more detail about the individual and the deeds for which he or she should be remembered.87 A quick comparison with an early modern German Christian memorial from an autobiography highlights the significant commonalities and some increasing trends in the later Middle Ages and early modern period. In the autobiography of Georg von Ehingen (1428–1508), for example, we find the following account: Item, this Rudolff von Ehingen was completely Christian, honest, and highly sensible. He was also as a person completely well proportioned. He also helped build many churches, the foundations and good deeds of the elders, which they wanted to dispatch, open, and 83 Ibid. 84 Das Mariasteiner Anniversar Totenbuch-lebensbuch: Verzeichnis der Gedächtnistage im ehemaligen Augustinerinnen Kloster Mariasteiner bei Eichstätt/Bay, prepared by Ortrun Fina (Regensburg, 1987), p. 8. 85 Ibid., p. 7. 86 See Joachim Wollasch (ed.), Synopse der Cluniacensischen Necrologien, 2 vols (Munich, 1982). 87 See Das Mariasteiner Anniversar Totenbuch-lebensbuch, pp. 29ff, particularly during the sixteenth century.


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renew. He did much work, which the commune, prelates, counts, or noble people contracted. He was also completely amicable: when he understood a matter, he therefore brought it generally honorably to peace …88

The characteristics highlighted here were very similar to those in the Jewish memorybooks. They stressed church and community service, as well as positive personal qualities. The language of Jewish and Christian memorials bore a good deal of eulogizing similarity, emphasizing the qualities considered by the community leaders as ideal and central. It is of course not merely chance that some qualities were recorded and others not. The purpose of most memorybooks was certainly to shape and reinforce desired cultural values and religious observances, while publicizing the role of central families. The memorybooks in a sense recreated history through their particularized remembering and emphasis. Community was created utilizing the names and deeds of the dead within a liturgical cycle of remembrance; community was therefore extended in both time and space. Along the way, the memorybooks offered some information on how some members of the communities conceptualized the correct ordering of society. Between Tradition and Integration In a similar way, the memory of the dead on gravestones held great power for those still alive.89 Gravestones continued the medieval bi-directional communication between living and dead. In Prague, according to Rachel Greenblatt, gravestone inscriptions reveal two approaches to describing the deceased: mourning and, more commonly, commemoration.90 One gravestone, dated July 1628, for Hendl, daughter of Evril Gronim, wife of Jacob Bassevi von Treuenberg, declared: Where is the pious one, where is she who typified humility: In piety, in modesty; in holiness, and in purity: Her exit [from this world] did not differ from her entry: She ran to [perform] a lesser commandment as to a weighty one: And she became the foundation stone: To the afternoon service as to the morning she hastened: And her heart was [directed] faithfully to God: In fear, in awe, in clear language: Following the order and the law according to Rabbi Hamnuna: To the candle of commandment (mitzvah) and the Torah of light: She stretched out her arm and held tightly with her right [hand]:91

88 Horst Wenzel, Die Autobiographie des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, I: Die Selbstdeutung des Adels (Munich, 1980), p. 29. 89 Rachel L. Greenblatt, “The Shapes of Memory: Evidence in Stone from the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague,” Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute 47 (2002): 43–67, here at p. 50. 90 Ibid., p. 51. 91 Ibid., p. 52.

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Qualities such as respectability, propriety, and modesty were referenced. Men were similarly often characterized as pious, honest, and faithful.92 In assessing the gravestone of a wealthy individual, Greenblatt notes that the stone was commemorative history, detailing unique actions while also equating the actions with traditional typologies and figures (in this case Mordecai and Esther). At the same time, the stone did not provide sufficient details for those unfamiliar with the details to understand them; it served instead as “a short-hand reminder of longer narratives, written or not, with which the person reading the inscription is assumed to be familiar.”93 Such changes represent “the early murmurings of a shift in the processes of memory,” Greenblatt insists.94 Such early modern memories assumed that readers, listeners, or viewers would understand the events and accomplishments presented within a traditional Jewish context. At the same time, they presupposed a vision of community that was still bound geographically and chronologically. The early modern narrative of the past was here caught between traditional engagement with the past and more “modern” estrangement from the past. In between, however, a very particular notion of community and identity were assumed. Memorial and Autobiography: The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln The late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century account of Glückel of Hameln further illustrates this change. Not a memorybook itself, Glückel’s memoir nonetheless offers an interesting point of comparison in the remembrance of the deaths of her first and second husbands. Glückel’s description of her husbands may, in this light, reveal a great deal about her sense of family and self. While it is clear that Glückel understood and represented her two husbands quite differently, the comparison allows us to peer into the broader methods of and meanings associated with memory of the dead in early modern Germany. In writing about her first husband Hayyim, Glückel notes that her beloved was torn from her and left “eight forlorn children.” She attributed his death to her own sins. Ironically, it was Glückel who was often sick, and she expected to end her life first. But, she continues, No doubt, because of his piety God took him first, so that he died in riches and honour and did not live to see evil days. He had attained great wealth, he had married off his children to his satisfaction, and as for himself, he was a true soul and of noble repute. One can say of him, he was a happy man for, as Solon said, he died happy. Now you know, children of my heart, the story of Reb Chayim Hameln, your dear departed father. How good and beautiful it would have been had God left us together, so that side by side we could have led all our children beneath the wedding canopy! But my sins found me out, and I was not worthy of it.

Glückel writes that her husband’s death left her desolate and encouraged her to write these memoirs. 92 Ibid., p. 53. 93 Ibid., p. 56. 94 Ibid., p. 66.


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He left me in desolation, and my woes came “new every morning.” I shall tell thereof in my fifth book, alas, a book of bitter lament, like the lamentation for Zion. The money and goods my husband bequeathed me, though plentiful enough, are as naught against this uncountable loss. Now I will close my fourth book—may God bring us joy again, as He has brought me sorrow, and Thou one and only God, have mercy on my orphaned children.95

Glückel’s representation stressed God’s wrath, her own sins, and the great loss she and her children suffered. Glückel emphasized Hayyim’s piety—that is why God took him first—as well as the great wealth he amassed and the successes he had marrying off his children. He died with riches and honor, of noble repute. In line with her emphasis on honor throughout her memoirs, her memory of her first husband stressed what she found so central in her expanding world. But in a moralizing twist, she noted that all of the money and goods were nothing compared with the loss of her husband, who himself was the embodiment of nobility and honor, combining both social standing and traditional Jewish values. Compare this description with Glückel’s account of the death of her second husband, Hirsch: My husband fell ill at the tidings, and he took them so to heart that he succumbed beneath the worry and anguish of it. For he was an ever sickly man and had suffered woefully from the gout, and now this added blow struck him to the ground. His son Rabbi Samuel saw that he lacked for nothing, sending him whatever he needed, and ordered his agent in Metz to provide him with whatever he asked for, but all his care proved of no avail. Rabbi Samuel sent him a highly reputed physician to apply various cures. The physician remained at his side a number of days and tried his remedies; but as soon as he had laid eyes on him, he said, the man is doomed—as the event proved. The Almighty God took him back to Himself forever, and of a surety he dwells in the world to come. He was parnas of the community for long years, and he had in truth risked his life in its defence—of which much could be written. But I do not find it necessary.96

Unlike the noble Hayyim, Hirsch was not taken by God because of his piety, rather he fell ill because he succumbed to worry, one might say to worldly issues. In his very nature he was sickly and often suffering. Despite the fact that he lacked for nothing and had the best medical care—the trappings of nobility—he could not be saved; indeed his fate was evident to the physician himself. Although he was parnas for many years and did much on behalf of his community, Glückel saw little need to describe his actions or accomplishments, which though clearly significant enough to mention were not part of an intrinsic nobility she was more prepared to describe 95 The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln, pp. 144–5 (Yiddish (Glikl Hamil, Zichroines (Buenos Aires, 1967)), pp. 215–16). 96 Ibid., p. 263 (Yiddish, p. 338).

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for Hayyim. Whatever her particular relationship with her husbands, Glückel’s narrative depicts the powerful relationship between the world of the living and the dead. Indeed, the very process of narrating the past brought the dead to life, if only metaphorically and morally. As de Certeau has argued regarding the very nature of writing history, “Historiography tends to prove that the site of its production can encompass the past; it is an odd procedure that posits death, a breakage everywhere reiterated in discourse, and that yet denies loss by appropriating to the present the privilege of recapitulating the past as a form of knowledge. A labor of death and a labor against death.”97 Glückel’s constant intertwining of narratives of the past and honor is important in understanding the relationship of memory and social power. As one scholar has asserted recently, Glückel’s autobiographical writing should be understood as social practice.98 For Glückel, the purpose of recounting past events seems to have been largely directed at the honor of her family—perhaps a reflection of the growing and important court Jews, but also reflective of broader interests in concepts of honor in early modern German society.99 Many passages related to honor. A few examples suffice: “fourteen days before the marriage we set forth ‘with timbrels and with dances,’ twenty strong, for Cleves, where we were welcomed with all honours”;100 “the rich Judah Berlin, together with his wife and all the friends of his house, honoured us with his presence at the ceremony, to the great astonishment of everyone, for he had hitherto never deigned attend a wedding among the Vienna Jews”;101 “I was accorded every honour in Frankfort that a woman could receive, and as indeed I had enjoyed throughout my journey, more in truth than I deserved. Above all I recall the honours paid me in Fürth.”102

97 Michel De Certeau, The Writing of History, p. 5. 98 See Gabriele Jancke, “Glikls Autobiographie im Kontext früneuzeitlicher autobiographische Schriften,” in Richarz (ed.), Die Hamburger Kauffrau Glikl: Jüdische Existenz in der Frühen Neuzeit, pp. 91–122, here at p. 108. 99 Regarding marriages and social status in Glückel’s writing, see Rotraud Ries, “Status und Lebensstil,” pp. 283–7. 100 The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln, p. 97 (Yiddish, p. 168). 101 Ibid., p. 176 (Yiddish, p. 251). 102 Ibid., p. 236 (Yiddish, p. 314). Other examples include the following: “He provided for her the rest of her life—seventeen years she remained in his house—and honoured her as though she were his own mother” (p. 19; Yiddish, p. 57); “Sunday, the 24th of Tebet, 5449, he was buried with all honour” (p. 152; Yiddish, p. 223); “and [we] remained there [in south Germany] overnight. I cannot begin to tell you of the honours heaped upon us” (p. 205; Yiddish, p. 277); “My son Samuel and his father-in-law, the rich Moses Bamberg, proposed to do us the honour of accompanying us for several miles” (p. 206; Yiddish, p. 278); “Meanwhile a dinner was served like a banquet in the days of King Solomon. I cannot tell you what a good and wise man is Moses Bamberg and the honours he does to men” (p. 206; Yiddish, p. 278); “What, then, availed her all her wealth and honours?” (p. 216; Yiddish, p. 287); “Shall I write you of how they treated me? There would be too much to tell. May the Father of goodness reward them! They paid me all the honours in the world. The best of everything was placed on my plate, more than I wanted or deserved, and I fear lest God count these bounties against my merits, which, alas, are few enough” (p. 265; Yiddish, pp. 339–40).


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Honor, in the sense of some of these passages included an emphasis on the formalities of greeting, ceremony, kindness, hospitality, wealth, and proper recognition. As such, honor was usually bestowed upon not inherent in. Honor was a part of the self, but in so far as that self was viewed within the public and was active. Honor, as recounted by Glückel, gave the past meaning. It was her recollection of these acts that served to string Glückel’s narrative together and to give it real value. Given the centrality of trade and economics, the evolving court Jewry, and the solidification of an emerging Jewish middle class by the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, the concept of honor may have become much more central than before. The importance of honor in Christian, particularly urban, mercantile, and ruling circles needs also to be stressed. Neither honor nor dishonor always had clear meanings and usage, and they did not need to be necessarily associated with wealth, however, the concepts of honor and dishonor were being utilized and discussed more widely at the end of the seventeenth century than at the beginning.103 Memorial: Comparative Perspectives To what extent were the memories recalled and the past reconstructed in the Jewish sources reflective of broader social and cultural developments? The memorybooks, both with the type of issues raised and the family-orientation, resonate with early modern noble chronicles that became widespread in the sixteenth century. According to Erica Bastress-Dukehart, the writing of a chronicle could bring new energy to a dying lineage.104 In the same way that the Habsburgs sought to legitimize their lineage as an essential component of a national and regional identity,105 noble chronicles could cast the history of a particular family as a microcosm of the larger regional society in which the nobles lived.106 Bastress-Dukehart maintains that “by memoralizing relationships within their community, they drew attention to the increasingly important issue of how their lineages had been historically constituted,” and that “inherited land and ancestral memory manifested the nobility’s social image and demonstrated its political power.”107 Emphasizing moral training and moral obligations, humanists themselves “legitimized the fictionalization of historical materials for didactic purposes.”108 Fostering “an attachment to a sentimental past,” and establishing “the truth of the nobility’s perceived hierarchy,”109 nobles “sought to apply the insights they found in the ancient texts to their current conditions. And they learned how to ‘enhance’ historical details, how to bring their ancestors’ honor and reputation forward to heal the wounds of their dispute with the emperor, as 103 See Kathy Stuart, Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 2, 11, 16, 115–16. 104 Erica Bastress-Dukehart, The Zimmern Chronicle: Nobility, Memory and SelfRepresentation in Sixteenth-Century Germany (Aldershot, 2002), p. 2. 105 Ibid., p. 20. 106 Ibid., p. 3. 107 Ibid., p. 8. 108 Ibid., p. 11. 109 Ibid., pp. 24–5.

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they simultaneously cast their own accomplishments backward to draw attention to—and occasionally to rewrite—the history of their forebears.”110 As the Zimmern Chronicles themselves note the lineage and the status of the Zimmern family was attested to by ancient legend as well as by many knowledgeable people.111 Jewish memory in the later Middle Ages and early modern period was developed for both historical and communal and individual purposes; it could be socially-stratified, liturgical, ritual, and “historical.” Jewish memory as presented in the memorybooks could create the community, whether local, regional, or universal, as a holy entity, stressing the ideal behavior of its members and its internal interdependence. The Jewish community could be placed within a geographical and historical context that connected it with communities more broadly defined by both Jews themselves and their Christian and secular lords. But the memorybooks did not merely reveal a social insularity that the great social historian Jacob Katz found in pre-modern Jewry; nor did they reveal a Jewry devoid of real historical thought as Yerushalmi posited. The increasing usage of memorybooks in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century belied a belief in the central function of the past as a means to self-understanding and representation. To a certain extent all of history was used for much more than objective historical understanding; the memorybooks were certainly no exception. They did, however, reflect a basic historical consciousness that stressed the importance of Jewish connections to a broader past—not just the immediate or distant past that many historians have been willing to concede. In the end, memorybooks are but one piece in a larger mosaic that allows us to consider how Jewish memory created, and was used in the service of the creation of, Jewish community in early modern Germany. Autobiography and the Role of the Past With increasing frequency in the early modern period (more than 200 autobiographical texts extant), reckoning of the past took the form of autobiography and memoir writing. Some have attributed this growth to supposed increased self-awareness in Protestant theology,112 others an alleged growth of individualism as apparent in broader early modern societal developments such as social mobility, confessional conflict, and growing political administration and disciplining.113 The subject of autobiographies in early modern Germany has received a great deal of attention in the past several decades. Indeed, scholars have expanded their work on a variety of sources with autobiographical information beyond the simple category of autobiographies to 110 Ibid., pp. 8–9. 111 See Zimmerische Chronik, ed. Karl August Barack, 4 vols (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1881–82), here at vol. 1, pp. 24–5. 112 See, for example, Gabriele Jancke, “Autobiographische Texte – Handlungen in einem Beziehungsnetz: Überlegungen zu Gattungsfragen und Machtaspekten im deutschen Sprachraum von 1400 bis 1620,” in Winfried Schulze (ed.), Ego-Dokumente: Annäherung an den Menschen in der Geschichte (Berlin, 1996), pp. 73–106, here at pp. 73–4. 113 See Winfried Schulze, “Ego-Dokumente: Annäherung an den Menschen in der Geschichte? Vorüberlegungen für die Tagung ‘Ego-Dokumente,’” in idem, Ego-Dokumente, pp. 11–30.


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include diaries, memoirs, travel books, and even court records. This broader genre of material has been referred to in German literature as “ego-documents” (also referred to as “personal documents,” “human documents,” moral documents,” or “documents of life”).114 As has been noted for the case of Spain, autobiographical writing could have various geographical, political, religious, and literary contexts and stimuli.115 Autobiographies could also be central in the formation and manipulation of networks of relationships, including those between the authors and readers or recipients of the works. Autobiographies might also be communications strategies intended to exert some form of influence or to engage various religious or political power relations or conditions in society.116 Often times, autobiographical writing was composed for the author’s children or relatives. It was frequently attributed to some personal crisis or to combat later forgetfulness or even as a means of remembering previous life events.117 There was clearly a great diversity of reasons for writing, but like memorials, Jewish and Christian memoirs of the period often developed memories of the past for very specific social and cultural functions.118 The memoirs of the Jew Asher Levy (1598–1635) of Reichshofen in Alsace, for example, were replete with discussions about and uses of memory.119 Levy’s account was a mix of chronicle narrative and personal reflection that bordered on a confessional. Levy, the son of Eliezer ha-Levy and relative of Cerf Levy in Metz (the second husband of Glückel of Hameln), compiled part of the memoirs in Reichshofen after 1620, and part in Oberbronn in 1633;120 the document was concluded during the winter of 1634–35.121 Levy described his work in the following terms: This is the door to eternity, into which the righteous come … Book of the remembrances “Rich is his nourishment” (Gen 49:20), in order to lead hearts in memory of the events and happenings of the time, which have happened and for all the members of my family from 114 See the “Vorbemerkung” (p. 9) and the “Schulßbemerkung” (p. 344), both by Winfried Schulze, ibid. 115 See James S. Amelang, “Spanish Autobiography in the Early Modern Era,” in Schulze (ed.), Ego-Dokumente, pp. 59–71, here at 66–9. 116 Jancke, “Autobiographische Texte,” pp. 103–6. Jancke examined the autobiographical writings of Josel of Rosheim, Katharina Zell, and Jakob Andreae. 117 Rudolf Dekker, “Ego-Dokumente in den Niederlanden vom 16. bis zum 17. Jahrhundert,” in Schulze (ed.), Ego-Dokumente, pp. 33–57, here at pp. 48–52. 118 Wenzel, Die Autobiographie des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, for Wilwolt von Schaumburg (1446–1510), p. 91. Regarding the role of politics in writings of Josel of Rosheim, who we meet more fully in Chapter 5, see Jancke, “Autobiographische Texte,” pp. 78–84. 119 Levy apparently had an interest in more “traditional” historical writing as well and he made a copy of one of the Crusade chronicles that was eventually bound together with other Jewish historical manuscripts. See Eva Haverkamp, Hebräische Berichte über die Judenverfolgungen während des Ersten Kreuzzugs (Hannover, 2005). Thanks to Stephen Burnett for this citation. 120 Die Memoiren des Ascher Levy aus Reischshofen im Elsass (1598–1635), trans. M. Ginsburger (Berlin, 1913), p. 60. 121 Ibid., p 6.

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Jewish Identity in Early Modern Germany today on, since the eternal has led me out from the light to the darkness, in the darkness of time and its currents in this low world. And I would like therefore the day of death to be as the day of birth, without sin and free of guilt. Therefore, I decided to register with honorable pen for the preservation of the good and the evil … I have still added to it, at the conclusion of the book to record everything that has happened to my children … And further, I have still registered there, that which has happened to the Jewish people in my time, beginning with the day of my birth, Friday, the 3rd of Ellul 358 (1598).122

The memoirs cobbled together a variety of events and observations. They included central reference to the importance of study and revealed a great number of Jewish geographical destinations. The time computation of the memoirs was often exacting, for when Levy made central personal references, such as his marriage or the birth of children, he noted very specifically the year and number of days of his life: “at that time I was 19 years and 18 days old”123 or, in 1622, “at that time I was 24 years and 3 months and 3 days old.”124 At times, Levy provided very precise measurements of time, as when he noted that his daughter was, “with luck, born on Sunday between the third and fourth hours of the day,”125 or while traveling that “we were not a half an hour distant from there.”126 Like most “chronicles” of the period, Levy discussed a variety of environmental conditions, such as floods and droughts.127 And while the memoirs certainly captured some of the broader imperial historical events, particularly as being played out in the Thirty Years’ War,128 such reflections were generally linked to the experiences of Jews or his own family. Indeed, flowing through the memoirs were recollections of family129 and great Jewish sages.130 And perhaps even more striking was the moral and confessional tone of much of the writing. Like other writers we have seen in the early modern period, Levy was quick to point out the effects of “our many sins”—as in large numbers of deaths or more general suffering.131 At times, however, the sins of which he wrote were very much of a more personal nature. He noted, for example, that “And now, on the day of the emergency, I remembered the sins of my youth.”132 But mention of such sins was not an empty gesture; the sins served as catalysts for the discussion of repentance, as when he wrote that “and from today on and further I would change things for the good.”133

122 Ibid., p 9. 123 Ibid., p. 16. 124 Ibid., p. 22. 125 Ibid., p. 28. 126 Ibid., p. 53. 127 Ibid., p. 23: “in spring and summer of 385 (1625) it did not rain at the correct time.” See also p. 24. 128 Ibid., p. 17. 129 Ibid., p. 18, for example. 130 See ibid., pp. 20ff. 131 Ibid., pp. 25, 26. 132 Ibid., p. 26. 133 Ibid., p. 27.


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Throughout the memoirs, it was consciously the power of God that was stressed. God could punish.134 However, Levy, and the Jews more generally, were able to tap into this power and God’s mercy through prayer. In fact, the memoirs at times read like a series of interconnected confessions and prayers. Levy wrote that: “God, may you fulfill for me all my wishes and give me favor and grace and joy, prosperity and luck, life and peace from now until eternity. Amen.”135 God did save Levy, and Levy responded by recording the events for his successors: And God rescues us in his mercifulness and because of the merit of our fathers. Look in the second part, where I described all this thoroughly. Therefore I have taken upon myself and my descendants for the remembrance of the miracle, praised be God, to give thanks and praise, to fast in every year, as God wants, on the 17th of Adar, falling next to Nisan, and to be merry and happy on the following 18th of Adar every year, and to tell the miracle of God, except, if a matter of religious duty, for example a brit milah [circumcision] and the like, should occur for me … Thus says Asher Levi, who accepts this upon himself and upon his descendants after him.136

In many ways, Levy’s more renowned relative, Glückel of Hameln wrote very similarly oriented memoirs. Her work has received a great deal of attention both because of its own merit and because it represents one of the few examples of Jewish women’s writings in the medieval and early modern periods. Glückel was referred to as Glikl in Yiddish; and the von Hameln referred to the hometown of her first husband Hayyim. Glückel herself was born in Hamburg in 1646 or 1647 as one of six children of Judah Joseph Leib, a trader and notable of the German-Jewish community, and the businesswoman Beila, daughter of Nathan Melrich of Altona. When Glückel turned 12 years old she was betrothed to Hayyim, the son of the trader Joseph ben Baruch Daniel Samuel ha-Levi (Segal), and known as Joseph Goldschmidt or Joseph Hamel, who was a few years older than her. (Some of her daughters used the name Hamel and some Goldschmidt.) When Glückel wrote her memoirs her children ranged in age from 2 to 28, and she was clearly writing for herself—as she noted—as much as for them.137 Glückel wrote the first four books and the opening sections of book 5 in 1689; the rest of book 5 was composed in the 1690s, book 6 in 1702, book 7 in 1715, and the final paragraph in 1719.138 Her work helps to illustrate several important developments reflected in early modern autobiographical writing. As Natalie Davis notes, the memoirs are in a very real sense a book of moral tales and religious injunctions, shaped by major life cycle events.139 But they were also much more. Glückel was a gifted storyteller, with the capacity to shape her narrative very consciously and with great poignancy. As Davis argues, “the storyteller can move into the way others remember the past and change it merely by introducing an unexpected 134 Ibid., p. 60. 135 Ibid., p. 43. 136 Ibid., p. 51. 137 See Natalie Davis, Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives (Cambridge, MA, 1995), p. 6; for a more formal background see pp. 8ff. 138 Ibid., p. 30. 139 Ibid., p. 31.

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detail into a familiar account. Everything depends on the skill of the teller, on how she or he takes the stories from the ‘collective treasury of legends or everyday conversation’ and puts them into play.”140 Davis notes that Glückel details her reasons for writing at the very beginning of the memoirs: In my great grief and for my heart’s ease I began this book the year of Creation 5451 [1690– 91]—God soon rejoice us and send us His redeemer! …I began writing it, dear children, upon the death of your good father, in the hope of distracting my soul from the burdens laid upon it, and the bitter thought that we have lost our faithful shepherd. In this way I have managed to live through many wakeful nights, and springing from my bed shortened the sleepless hours.141

But Glückel crafted a palpable tension throughout the volume: at the same time that she very deliberately selected events and developed the narrative, she reiterated that the past was of no consequence142 and was unchangeable.143 The conclusion to be drawn, then, was that it was precisely the morals that one could learn from the past and from all of life’s encounters that was really significant and that one should look to God for assistance and direction. The past was, as it were, a broad canvas, upon which one could paint a more truthful life. Of course, the mix of secular and temporal events with moral lessons created a tension that infused the account. Radical social and economic changes, which we noted at the beginning of this chapter, were here placed within a more traditional Jewish framework. Much of Glückel’s memoirs were based on her own experiences and what she had heard from family. She wrote, for example, that, “Before I was three years old, the German Jews, I am told, were all driven out of Hamburg. Thereupon they settled in Altona, which belonged to the King of Denmark, who readily gave them letters of protection. This city of Altona lies barely a quarter of an hour from Hamburg.”144 As such, Glückel’s narrative gave in to internal political tensions and familial events. In recalling her father’s communal leadership, she noted that, The community prospered during the presidency of my father, so it could be said that they sat ‘every man under his vine and under his fig tree.’ In its own name, it owed not a penny of debt. I do recall, however, while I was yet a child, certain scoundrels arose against my father and his fellow officials, and sought to injure the community. Two of them managed to elicit letters from the government conveying them the right to be parnasim by royal authority. Now that they are dead and stand in judgment before the Most High, I will not name them, but everyone in our community well knows who they were.145 140 Ibid., p. 7. 141 Ibid., p. 1. 142 Glückel of Hameln, Memoirs, “The whole matter, like everything else in my book, is of no consequence and I have written it down merely to drive away the idle melancholy thoughts that torment me” (pp. 79–80 (Yiddish, p. 142)). 143 Ibid., “But these things are all over and done, and we cannot change the past. All that remains for me is to pray to God I hear and see nothing but good of my children” (pp. 227–8 (Yiddish, p. 299)). 144 Davis, Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives, p. 6. 145 Ibid., pp. 21–2.


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Mixed throughout this passage was the authority of the narrator, when recalling events from her childhood, as well as traceable community evidence—not owing debt and the fact that “everyone in our community knows who they are.” Notice that those who opposed her father, and therefore simultaneously injured the community, were clearly scoundrels and were being judged by God Himself. As we noted above in Chapter 3 and earlier in this chapter, the social context within which Glückel navigated was of great importance to her work. The concept of honor, for example, that was so central in early modern German culture more generally, had tremendous resonance throughout the memoirs, and, as we will see, through other non-Jewish memoirs of the period as well. In addition to what we may see as more factual, or at least more first-hand impressions, there was a large and varied group of morality tales, both Jewish and non-Jewish, that Glückel had likely heard and read, and then reassembled into her narrative. These tales transcended any specific context or historical event. However, when combined with stories of her own past, such as a group of rabbis swindling a householder, they took on dramatic and very relevant qualities. Glückel’s accounting even of more recent events was backward looking and meant to serve the larger narrative. Her recounting of the Shabbetai Sevi debacle,146 for example, while retelling past and important events, ended up demonstrating something more of a moral lesson for her own time. It is worth developing the context for Glückel in more detail—for what that context can tell us about the complexities of early modern German Jewish life, as well as what that context can provide in the process of assessing the memoirs and some of the observations made above. At the middle of the seventeenth century Hamburg was a free and Hanseatic city, a thriving cosmopolitan port of more than 60,000 people. It was a commercial center and financial market that offered connections to Spain, Russia, London, and the New World. In Hamburg, two different Jewish communities developed—one Sephardic, the other Ashkenazic. The Sephardic, or more appropriately Portuguese, Jews were generally better off economically, part of the Hamburg aristocracy, and more fully acculturated with the Christian society and culture that surrounded them. Hamburg’s Sephardim tended to speak and write in Portuguese, unlike their poorer, less acculturated German brethren, who communicated largely in high German or western Yiddish. The first Jews to settle in Hamburg were wealthy Marranos from Spain and Portugal at the end of the sixteenth century. They initially concealed their religious views, and when their Judaizing was uncovered some non-Jewish residents demanded that they be expelled. The city council opposed an expulsion, perhaps in large part for economic reasons. The Jews were very influential in local and regional finance, and in fact some Jewish financiers helped to found the Bank of Hamburg in 1619. Jews contributed to the economy in other ways as well. In 1612, the Jews of Hamburg paid 1,000 marks in annual tax, a figure that was doubled by 1617. Jews also functioned in a variety of important professions, such as shipbuilding, importing, weaving, goldsmithing, and diplomacy.

146 See The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln, p. 46 (Yiddish, p. 104).

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As early as 1611, there were three Sephardic synagogues in Hamburg, with a joint cemetery in Altona. These three combined under the name Beth Israel in 1652. Among the prominent people who lived for a time in Hamburg was Uriel da Costa (1585–1640) (between 1616 and 1617). There was also a pronounced Shabbatean wave in 1666, to which Glückel referred in her memoirs. The history of the Ashkenazic community in Hamburg developed differently. As early as 1583, the pearl dealer Isaak aus Salzufeln was in Altona doing business and since 1600, German Jews were admitted to Wandsbek. In 1611 some Ashkenazic Jews settled in Altona, under Danish rule. Only in 1627 did Ashkenazim actually begin to settle in Hamburg, but festival services continued to be held in Altona and disputes were submitted to the rabbi in Altona. With the large number of refugees from Poland in 1648, the clergy in Hamburg began instigating against Ashkenazic Jews, leading to their formal expulsion from the city in 1649. A large number of Jews went on to Amsterdam, though most moved to Altona and some to Wandsbek; a few remained in Hamburg in the homes of Sephardic Jews. Within a few years, many of the Ashkenazim returned to Hamburg. In 1671 the three communities—Altona, Hamburg, Wandsbek—united to form the “AHW” congregation, with a rabbinic seat in Altona. In 1674 and 1697 renewed attempts to expel the German Jews were thwarted by the city council. In 1710 these Jews were allowed to have their own community, or Gemeinde, in Hamburg. As this brief overview makes clear, internal Jewish social order was complex, at times extremely unbalanced, and reliant in important ways upon the broader social and political developments throughout Germany. In competing for legitimacy and privilege—indeed, for the permission to remain in their areas of residence—the economic role of the Jews as well as their broader social and political connections were central. Questions of lineage and descent and of courtly intrigue were much discussed and had significant impact for these external purposes as well as for internal order as well. Many of the same reflections on social issues—such as lineage, honor, and nobility—were much discussed in early modern German literature and played out in various circles of German society. Some of these discussions sought to legitimate religious orientations or reinforce developing social trends and increasing disparity. Other literature offered scathing criticisms of contemporary culture and the prevalence of social posturing through recourse to past generations. A brief comparison with two pieces of literature in the autobiographical vein helps to illuminate this argument. The first is something of an autobiographical chronicle of Friedrich Breckling; the second, Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen’s classic The Adventurous Simplicissimus.147 Friedrich Breckling, born in 1629 in Handweitt bei Flensburg (and died 1711) was a dissenter, enthusiast, theosophist, chiliast, mystic, and social critic who was opposed by some Lutherans of his age. He was the son of a parish priest, who 147 For a comparison of Glückel’s autobiographical writing with that of other early modern writers, see Gabriele Jancke, “Glikls Autobiographie im Kontext früneuzeitlicher autobiographische Schriften,” in Richarz (ed.), Die Hamburger Kauffrau Glikl, pp. 91–122, here at pp. 108–12.


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sympathized with the spirituality and piety of Johann Arndt. A student at a number of renowned universities, he also studied with some of the luminary scholars of early modern Germany, including Georg Calixt and Hermann Conring, as well as leading Lutheran authorities in Königsberg, Wittenberg, Leipzig, Jena, and Giessen.148 Intrigued by the works of the late medieval mystic Johann Tauler, Breckling began a career of spiritualism that took him to Strasbourg and eventually to the Netherlands, in Zwolle, Amsterdam, and at the end of his life in The Hague. Like other autobiographies of the time, Breckling’s is clearly intended to establish his pedigree, with regard to his lineage and the clerical position of his predecessors. He records the births, baptisms, and deaths of relatives,149 as well his intellectual development and accomplishments, especially as demonstrated in his travels, readings, and publications,150 and also his personal struggles and disputes.151 Breckling begins his autobiography by briefly recounting his family history: “Genealogia. Our lineage is from Brecklum, since the Reformation the Brecklingers were preachers, pious in life and correct in teaching.”152 Breckling goes on to mention his uncle, respected by King Christian IV of Denmark, and his father, a preacher in Flensburg for more than 40 years. Breckling next breaks into a discussion of his siblings and other family members, with particular details about those who were or were related to preachers or pastors. His grandfather on his mother’s side, for example, preached for over 40 years in Flensburg.153 The entire opening of the autobiography, therefore, in a sense established Breckling’s bona fides and “orthodoxy.” Breckling’s autobiography is a chronological tour of his life and family, focusing on significant scholarly publications, political events, and like many of the chronicles of his day the weather patterns and catastrophes of the time that seemed to portend the End Times.154 He briefly mentions, for example, the Turkish siege of Vienna,155 significant earthquakes,156 plagues,157 comets,158 as well as various floods and severe winters.159 The severe flooding of 1671, for example, is seen as a sign and predecessor of the French war. A comet, large light star, and a red cross in the moon are portents for a plague that he writes killed half a million people in and around Constantinople in 1673.160 Breckling’s brief autobiographical writing includes a wide range of chronological accounting that presents very particular events to legitimate his 148 Friedrich Breckling, Autobiographie: Ein frühneuzeitliches Ego-Dokument im Spannungsfeld von Spiritualismus, radikalen Pietismus und Theosophie, ed. Johann Anselm Steoger (Tübingen, 2005). See his account on p. 15, for example. 149 Ibid., p. 35, for example. 150 Ibid., p. 23, for example. 151 See ibid., p. 34, for example. 152 Ibid., p. 1. 153 Ibid., p. 5. 154 Ibid., pp. 132–6. 155 Ibid., p. 55. 156 Ibid., pp. 71, 97. 157 Ibid., pp. 40, 48, 50. 158 Ibid., pp. 39, 45, 51, 52. 159 Ibid., p. 38, for example. 160 Ibid., p. 40.

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lineage and theology and that serves to record monumental events of recent history in something of an apocalyptic vein. The writing is certainly a constructed narrative and one that reveals his particular world-views and concerns. Another, albeit fictional autobiographical writing (destined to become one of the classics of early modern German literature) that sheds light on the social and cultural uses of the past and that provided sharp social criticism was authored by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen. The biography of Grimmelshausen though of great interest has itself been somewhat shrouded in mystery. Apparently born around 1621 Grimmelshausen was greatly affected by the events and plundering of the Thirty Years’ War. Eventually he became an official in service to the bishop of Strasbourg, in which role he carved out time to write entertaining, if brutal, works. His most famous production, The Adventurous Simplicissimus, which was fashioned in many ways as a memoir, seems to have reflected some of his own life experiences and it offers a useful comparative perspective as we consider early modern social developments within the context of memory. Throughout the work, Grimmelshausen161 took his readers on a wild ride that bridged fact and fancy, events and morals. In a certain real sense, the work can be seen as a history, or at the very least an important and sustained collection of (imagined?) memories, fashioned into a biting satire.162 Why did Grimmelshausen write Simplicissimus? According to the narrative, “the course of my history demands that I should leave to kind posterity an account of what manner of cruelties were now and again practiced in this our Germany: yea, and moreover testify by my own example that such evils must often have been sent to us by the goodness of Almighty God for our profit.”163 The importance of the message for posterity was stressed, but the morality to be deduced from the stories was of central concern. As Grimmelshausen noted later on, “Gentle reader, I tell this story not that thou mayest laugh thereat, but that my History may be complete, and my readers may take to heart what honourable fruits are to be expected from this dancing. For this I hold for certain, that in these dances many a bargain is struck up, whereof the whole company hath cause thereafter to be shamed.”164 But here, the act of writing the past events was related to honor and to the defense of an individual’s honor in particular. This was especially important to the central figure, Simplicissimus, who noted that human memory was very fleeting.165 Scattered through the text are various uses and 161 See The Adventurous Simplicissimus, pp. 387ff regarding Grimmelshausen’s life. 162 For a discussion of time in Simplicissimus, see R. P. T. Aylett, The Nature of Realism in Grimmelshausen’s Simplicissimus Cycle of Novels (Bern, 1982), pp. 141–53. 163 H. J. C. von Grimmelshausen, The Adventurous Simplicissimus, trans. A. T. S. Goodrick (Lincoln, NE, 1962), p. 8 (for the German version, see H. J. C. von Grimmelshausen, Der Abenteuerliche Simplicissimus, according to the first printing of “Simplicissimus Teutsch” and “ the “Continuatio” from 1669, ed. Alfred Kelletat (Munich, 1956). p. 15). 164 Ibid., p. 74 (German, p. 100). 165 “‘And all this I tell thee,’ said he further, ‘that thou mayest not hold it for an impossible thing that a man’s memory should be excellently strengthened and maintained, even as it is may, on the other hand, be in many ways weakened and even altogether destroyed. For man has no faculty so fleeting as that of memory: for by reason of sickness, terror, fear, or trouble and grief, it either vanisheth away or loseth a great part of its virtue” (ibid., p. 91 (German, p. 120)).


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understandings of both memory and history. History had the sense of an event,166 or at times the course of one’s life.167 Simplicissimus compared history with “good stories” and contrasted that with books of love and romances of chivalry.168 Throughout, Grimmelshausen reminded the reader of the role and impact of remembering. It seemed particularly related to establishing, maintaining, and regaining status,169 on the one hand, and to moral upbraiding on the other.170 In many instances, time in Simplicissimus was long and conflated. Simplicissimus discussed the sins in the churches over time, but notably within the context of something of a confession: “The churches themselves if they could speak would confess that what I do in them is naught in comparison with the sins that have aforetime been committed in them …”.171 Time, in many cases was not really about the ticking of the clock: expressions of time served to make moral points or narrate the sequence of events.172 Among the most central and frequently discussed issues was lineage (as well as the accompanying question of honor). Simplicissimus’s critique of contemporaries passing themselves off as noble was an early and oft-sounded refrain:

166 “and so to this day can be seen the fragments of the raft on the shore of the lake, with the arms of Würtemberg and other maters carved upon the wood for a memorial to this history” (ibid., p. 331 (German, p. 423)). 167 “But I, on the other part, told my story even as it had happened to me, yet was not believed, nor could the judge be sure whether he has a fool or a hard-bitten knave before him, so pat did question and answer fall and so strange was the whole history” (ibid., p. 142 (German, p. 182—In most cases cited here “history” in the English translation refers to Historia or Historien in the German text; here, however, the German word is “Handel,” so that the English translation of “history” really demarcates “matter”)). “And there he told me the whole history; but especially how the water-spirits had brought back those stones that I had cast into the lake” (ibid., p. 336 (German, p. 430—“allen Verlauf” for “whole history”). “From that they came to all manner of strange histories that happened there, and what wondrous appearances of earth- and water-spirits had there been seen and how they had talked with mankind” (ibid., p. 330 (German, pp. 422–3)). 168 “The incomparable ‘Arcadia,’ from which I sought to learn eloquence, was the first book that led me aside from good stories to books of love and from true history to romances of chivalry” (ibid., p. 215 (German, p. 274)). 169 For example: “yet this pleased not the officers, who bade me remember I was their prisoner” (ibid., p. 206 (German, p. 263)). 170 For example: “So now I first began to reflect, and to lament the noble opportunities which had aforetime been granted to me for the furthering of my fortunes, which yet I had so wantonly let go by” (ibid., p. 250 (German, p. 324)). “But in this respect my conscience gave me but cold comfort, bidding me remember that I had so wantonly rejected such gracious help a year or two before” (ibid., p. 258 (German, p. 334)). “… because I little by little forgot the terror that the Evil One had struck into me” (ibid., p. 308 (German, p. 395)). “And even while I reflected how much good money I in my lifetime had possessed and squandered away, and began to lament therefore” (ibid., p. 332 (German, p. 425)). “This caused me to reflect upon the past and demand of myself an account of the life I had led, for I had naught else to do” (ibid., p. 355 (German, p. 475)). 171 Ibid., p. 278 (German, p. 357). 172 Ibid., p. 39 (German, p. 53).

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Jewish Identity in Early Modern Germany there appeareth in these days of ours (of which many do believe that they be the last days) among the common folk, a certain disease which causeth those who do suffer from it (so soon as they have either scraped and higgled together so much that they can, besides a few pence in their pocket, wear a fool’s coat of the new fashion with a thousand bits of silk ribbon upon it, or by some trick of fortune have become known as men of parts) forthwith give themselves out gentlemen and nobles of ancient descent. Whereas it doth often happen that their ancestors were day-labourers, carters, and porters, their cousins donkey-drivers, their brothers turnkeys and catch-polls, their sisters harlots, their mothers bawds—yea, witches even: in a word, their whole pedigree of thirty-two quarterings as full of dirt and stain as ever the sugar-bakers’ guild of Prague. Yea, these new sprigs of nobility be often themselves as black as if they had been born and bred in Guinea.173

Indeed, much of the story was about Simplicissmus trying to find himself and ascertain and then prove his own nobility—in spite of himself. He wrote, late in the narrative, for example, that “So I find myself restored to mine ancient freedom …”174 The past dictated present social and cultural status, and was sought after to confirm one’s standing. The past, in this sense gave meaning to the present and to life more generally. Simplicissimus’s accounting of this process was extremely revealing. He wrote that: Not long after this I did take my godfather with me, and ride into the Spessart to get certain news and certificate of my descent and noble birth; which I gat without difficulty from the book of baptisms and my godfather’s witness: and presently thereafter visited the priest that had dwelt at Hanau and had taken care of me: which gave me writing to declare where my late father had died, and that I had abode with him to his death and thereafter for a long time with Master Ramsay, the commandant at Hanau, under the name of Simplicissimus: yea, I had an instrument containing my whole history drawn up by a notary out of the mouth of witnesses; for I thought, ‘Who knoweth when thou wilt have need of it?’175

As Simplicissimus made clear, one could certify status and descent through official records and testimonial. And, continuation of this status depended upon evidence, here written evidence, which recounted and demonstrated that pedigree. Narratives of the past engaging lineage and descent were certainly not limited to formally written form. In the case of visual representation on maps, for example, powerful messages could be indelibly printed on the readers’ and viewers’ minds. Geographical patterns could be developed around themes related to actual borders, as well as symbolic coats of arms. “Leo Belgicus,” by Jan van Doetecum, first printed in Amsterdam in 1598, and then reissued in 1650, was a map in the form of an animal. As Tony Campbell notes, “It was the happy discovery of an Austrian baron, Michael von Eitzing, that the Low Countries could readily be made to fit the shape of a lion rampant. The symbolism was apt, too, as most of the seventeen provinces that made up what is now Belgium and The Netherlands featured a lion prominently in their coat of arms.”176 Taking one step further, medallions depicting the Belgian 173 Ibid., p. 1 (German, p. 7). 174 Ibid., p. 329 (German, p. 421). 175 Ibid., p. 327 (German, p. 419). 176 Tony Campbell, Early Maps (New York, 1981), p. 95, plate 43.


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governors surround the map, adding a sense of authority, while establishing the legitimate rule of these men. In a similar vein, Joan (John) and Cornelis Blaeu’s map of Frankfurt and its environs, published in Amsterdam around 1638,177 was a topographical map of the city and its surrounding area for some 10 miles. While the map was likely intended for the mayors and councilmen, whose coats of arms were represented, the map may have had broader political goals as well, being headed by the terms Ivstitia, Consilivm, Concordia, and Pax. Campbell argues that the map “was primarily intended to flatter this powerful ruling group. A rebellion twenty-five years earlier had been specifically directed at the magistracy, but the duplication here of family names (discernible in the repeated coats of arms) shows how dismally it had failed to alter the oligarchic structure of the society.”178 Conclusions The concern with memory as a means of social and political legitimacy was not new to the seventeenth century. A well-known account by the knight Götz von Berlichingen in the sixteenth century, for example, also made many of the same points regarding the nature of honor and the rationale for writing—though the emphasis on nobility and lineage was less central than in the accounts of the late seventeenth century. Götz noted rather polemically in his charged political day that, “I cannot remember that I undertook my whole life anything against the Emperor or the House of Austria.”179 According to Götz: All these histories I have so copiously narrated, because for several years now many goodhearted, honest and upright people (who granted and still grant to me honor and kindness, and who in part perhaps have also known or heard how I passed the days of my life and have passed many adventures and dangers because of my enemies) have appealed and entreated me to write down all my deeds. I have not been able to refuse these requests; they hoped thereby that it would pass to me, to my heirs and to my descendants more to good than to harm, and everyone of high and low position would, therefore, take delight in it, especially those who are impartial; I did not ask after my begrudgers, who direct themselves against me in dishonest ways, secretly or publicly, without any basis, out of envy and hate, and again strive to slander honest people, which I have not deserved. All these histories, with which I want to close, and cite as my last, that is the pure truth, that there is no detail and no word written down here, about which I could not say that it is not correct, thorough truth. I will herewith plead my case to God, that my testimony should be here in this lamentation and on the Day of Judgment, that I, in my youth—as well as in my adult years—kept faithfully to every honest man—friend or enemy—my promise, whether large or small; that I from letter and seal, may refer it to my captivity or something other, I have not in the least deviated; that I have maintained myself as a pious, honest man born of nobility …180

177 Ibid., Plate 47. 178 Ibid., p. 103. 179 Götz von Berllichingen, Lebensbeschreibung des Ritters Götz von Berlichingen (Stuttgart, 1962), p. 50. 180 Ibid., pp. 98–9.

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For Götz, as for the autobiographers whom we have already met, recounting past life events served to describe and confirm his own good name, while clearly delineating his political affiliation, and demonstrating his social pedigree. Throughout the seventeenth century, in the context of courtly culture, and rapid political, social, and economic change, the documentation of social status, often through narration of the past, took on greater significance. Jews were very much a part of this process and Jewish memory was used both traditionally and transformatively, to support old and establish new social structures. In early modern Germany more generally, we find increased concerns with family lineage, as evident in the growing body of noble and burgher family chronicles and the heated legal discussion regarding the nature of inheritance.181 As the significance of honor was increasing in early modern Germany, narratives of the past became central exercises in isolating and defining social status and authority. Questions of lineage and descent, however, were about more than simply connecting past and present. They had real meaning for continuity with the future. And so, memories, whether of the living or dead, were a useful way to exercise control and bequeath to descendants power and authority for the future. The preponderance of memorials and autobiographical writing in early modern Germany, cutting across both Jewish and Christian society, reflected important developments in social order and cultural development. On the eve of a developing Jewish middle class, the growth of a significant Jewish underclass of poor and displaced people, and the dramatic growth of court Jewry, and with a much broader social order than was once assumed, early modern Jewish society in Germany was increasingly concerned with honor and status. In the same way that lineage and descent were important refrains in the battle with Christians assuming the identity of the ancient Israelites, discussions about social prestige—particularly as Jewish communities were coming to be defined across regions and through increasing contact with the external world—were becoming more important as well. The threads binding together the regional and chronological communities of the memorybooks with the social pedigree of the ruling families is well reflected in the writing of one recent scholar, who maintains that “consanguinity (‘blood’) is the functional equivalent of geographical proximity (‘place’) in the way we mentally construct ‘natural’ connectedness,”182 and that “As a ‘sacred thread linking past and present,’ genealogy is thus a particularly common system of organizing legitimacy.”183 Now that we have examined internal communal and social order, it is time to turn to Jewish use of narratives of the past to confront and mediate external conditions. Early modern Germany was complex, and the Jews, caught between different sources of authority and different levels of interaction with Christians, used the past as a means to locate themselves in that society and, to the extent possible, strengthen their position. 181 See for example, Judith J. Hurwich, “Bastards in the German Nobility in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries: Evidence from the Zimmerische Chronik,” Sixteenth Century Journal 34:3 (Fall 2003): 701–27. Hurwich notes an increasing disapproval of illegitimate sons by the middle of the sixteenth century; see p. 727. 182 Zerubavel, Time Maps, p. 56. 183 Ibid., p. 62.

Chapter 5

Politics, Polemics, and History: Assessing Jewish Identity Jews engaged the past for a variety of purposes. Such engagement could serve as a particularly powerful tool in efforts to contest the marginalization threatened by broader developments within German and Christian society, as the Reformation threw into relief serious questions about authority and tradition, and as Protestants and Catholics competed for access to and control over Scripture and identification as the new Israel. Religiously, Jews, or the old Israel, were in danger of being replaced by the new Israel. Practically, they were subject to expulsions and social and economic marginalization in the early sixteenth century. As the career and work of Josel of Rosheim will make clear, contesting such marginalization was important and quite possible. In the same way that Jews sought to restate their biblical lineage and identity, they might also play a significant role in the more general history of the world. Engaging non-Jewish history and sources, the eclectic chronicler and scientist David Gans, for example, maintained the centrality of Jewish history, elevating the presence and importance of Jews in universal history. This was a particularly important move at a time when universal histories and cosmographies were becoming more common and popular. Gans’s work staked important ground for Jewish claims to biblical antiquity, in the same way that Italian Renaissance Jews sought to place contemporary developments in music, theater, and even politics into a traditional Jewish chronology, making Jews the progenitors of the most significant historical and cultural developments.1 In what follows, I will discuss the use of memory and history in the Reformation, providing several examples of the relationship between memory, theology, and politics. Having raised the question of the interplay between Reformation theology and politics, the position of the Jews will be treated. In considering early modern Jewish efforts to contest marginalization, I introduce early modern Jewish attempts to reclaim the biblical and historical identity as God’s Chosen People. In particular, I consider the important chronicle of David Gans, which needs to be read in light of the growing body of universal chronicles of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 1 See Robert Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, trans. Anthony Oldcorn (Berkeley, 1994), pp. 164ff; Don Harran, “Jewish Musical Culture: Leon Modena,” in Robert C. Davis and Benjamin Ravid (eds), The Jews of Early Modern Venice (Baltimore, 2001), pp. 211–30, here at p. 212; David B. Ruderman, “The Impact of Science on Jewish Culture and Society in Venice (With Special Reference to Jewish Graduates of Padua’s Medical School),” reprinted in David B. Ruderman (ed.), Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy (New York, 1992), pp. 519–53, here at p. 534.

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After a review of two of the most important of these chronicles, I turn to an assessment of the impact of Gans’s chronicle in re-inserting Jews into world history. Territorialization and the Jews The general context for Jewish confrontation with external authority needs to be seen within the development of territorial authority and regional identity. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of early modern Germany more generally was the development of the territorial state. The solidifying territorial divisions reflected well the struggle for political authority in the Empire and led to a variety of social and governing complexities that affected Jews and Christians well into modernity. At the same time, territorialization created a certain degree of order and, at times, made available opportunities that would not have existed in more monolithic nation states, as were developing in England, France, and Spain. The imperial governing organs operated jointly by the Emperor and the Estates— such as the Reichstag (Imperial Diet) and the Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber Court)—provided a much-needed stabilizing force.2 Indeed, the Reichskreise (Imperial Circles) were significant for the supra-territorial cohesion they provided, binding geographically diverse subdivisions of the Empire, while maintaining the regional identity and influence of “state” functions.3 The early modern period also witnessed important improvements in formal governing structures, as reflected in the dramatic increase in the number of trained legal professionals. Territorial particularism, therefore, combined with continued linkage with a broader system of the Empire.4 Despite differences in detail, territories often possessed fundamentally similar administrative structures and bureaucratic organizations.5 And yet, while imperial legislation attempted to cast effective nets over behavior and legal rights, territorial ordinances could compete with, and often be more effective, than imperial ordinances. The “fatherland,” therefore, often referred to the territory or city, and not the Empire. Although even after the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the territories did not gain full sovereignty, they did achieve a far-reaching supremacy over their subjects.6 The use of both the theory and practice of Policey could strengthen territorial lordship and simultaneously suppress traditional intermediate powers.7 According to Olaf Mörke, the period witnessed the transition from an age of the urban burgher to that of a territorial burgher,8 who gave up identification with the town and its corporate structure and instead became part of a regional organization. Growing territorialization 2 Paul Münch, “The Growth of the Modern State,” in Scribner (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, pp. 196–232, here at pp. 201–2. 3 Ibid., p. 202. 4 Ibid., p 203. 5 Ibid., pp. 206, 208. 6 Ibid., p. 200. 7 Ibid., p. 209. 8 Olaf Mörke, “Social Structure,” in Ogilvie (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, pp. 134–63, here at p. 148.


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and absolutism, therefore, combined with emerging mercantilist policies related to population disbursement—in the seventeenth century, particularly in response to the abandonment of settlements and the loss of population, state initiatives were taken to assist and rebuild the areas hardest hit by the ravages of war in Württemburg, Franconia, the Palatinate, Thuringia, Saxony, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania9—and had significant implications, especially for the Jews in early modern Germany. Town and village administration reflected clearly the complex relationships between local, territorial, and imperial control, particularly when the Landgraves’ Herrschaft was administered locally through territorial or imperial agents such as the Amtmann and Rentmeister and enhanced by a generally recognized policy of non-interference in local administrative practices.10 Indeed, the ability to appeal to the Landgrave was an essential component of protection (Schutz und Schirm), which itself served as part of the legitimization of the Langrave’s rule.11 And yet, this existence of multiple strands of authority (Herrschaft) allowed “villages to adopt different strategies to circumvent the coercive force of the landgrave’s agents.”12 As John Theibault notes, the internal process of defining the village could be different from, but not always in conflict with, the process of external definition promoted by the administration itself.13 The responsa of Yair Hayyim Bacharach, which we will examine in Chapter 6, discuss Christians in various contexts, often related to legislation, depositions,14 tithing,15 testimony, sales,16 acquisitions,17 and agency. The role of Gentiles within business transactions involving two Jewish partners is also treated on occasion,18 as are the status of religious or ritual objects created by non-Jews—tsitsit [ritual fringes] made by Gentiles,19 or holy books printed by a Christian.20 Bacharach relied heavily, if not exclusively, on decisions rendered in the Talmud, codes, and responsa, with some adjustment for local conditions, and along the way he provides insights into the nature of Jewish and Christian relations and the political landscape of his own day.21 9 Münch, “The Growth of the Modern State,” p. 214. 10 John C. Theibault, German Villages in Crisis: Rural Life in Hesse-Kassel and the Thirty Years’ War, 1580–1720 (Boston, 1995), pp. 21–2. 11 Ibid., p. 27. 12 Ibid., p. 29. 13 Ibid., p. 45. 14 Yair Hayyim Bacharach, Havot Yair, 2 vols (Jerusalem, 1997), here at vol. 1, responsum 16, pp. 73ff. 15 Ibid., vol. 2, responsum 224, p. 632. 16 For example, ibid., responsum 148. 17 Ibid., responsum 150, p. 407. 18 See, for example, ibid., responsum 171, p. 475. 19 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 73. 20 Ibid., vol. 2, responsum 184, pp. 514–15. 21 Havot Yair also contained numerous responsa by other individuals. One such responsum, by Rabbi Meir Stern, made reference to Gentiles. In discussing birthing, he wrote that under certain circumstances when a Jewish midwife was not available a Gentile midwife could be used (vol. 1, responsum 66, p. 200). Citing the Tosafists, Stern also mentioned the

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Bacharach’s responsa also reflect the increasing ruralization and regionalization of early modern German Jewry. Many of Bacharach’s responsa that deal with nonJews are related to orlah;22 redemption and sale of first born animals23 and fruits; and the general sale of animals.24 If one were to offer a very general, impressionistic, observation, the issues involving non-Jews in Bacharach’s responsa were of a rather different nature than those of the later Middle Ages. The latter more frequently dealt with questions of Gentile testimony and business relations, particularly lending of money at interest and with collateral. In Bacharach’s responsa, by contrast, the majority of cases deal with what seem to have been more rural issues on the one hand, particularly related to the sale of animals, and interactions with ruling princes and armies, on the other. The clear suggestion is that early modern Jewry confronted a broader rural and regional identity—one forged by close relations with Christians on the land, and affected dramatically by the territorialization of the Empire, as well as the dynastic successions of the seventeenth century. As in legal matters, the fate of Jewish communities and individuals was frequently held in a precarious balance. Often sovereignty over Jews was shared between two or more authorities, and in many areas Jews lived under the constant threat of local or regional expulsion.25 In some cities, Jews were expelled or re-expelled in the seventeenth century, for example in Augsburg, Lübeck, Heilbronn, Schweinfurt, and Hamburg.26 Significant regional expulsions by the Margrave of Baden-Durlach and the Duke of Neuberg in the 1650s and 1660s intensified anti-Judaism throughout the Austrian lands, culminating in the 1670 Viennese expulsion.27 Numerous other regional expulsions peppered the early modern period, including those of the Jews throughout Brandenburg in 1510, the duchy of Burgau in 1617, and the Stift of Fulda in 1671,28 for example.

permissibility of selling cattle to Gentiles and lending to them with interest (ibid.). He wrote that there was a leniency to sell horses “in this day” (ibid.). He also noted going out with a Gentile coachman to protect minors (ibid.). 22 According to the Encyclopedia Judaica entry, Orlah (“uncircumcised”) is the “tenth tractate in the order Zera’im in the Mishnah, Tosefta [collection of rabbinic statements], and Jerusalem Talmud. It deals with the law prohibiting the fruit of trees during the first three years after their planting (Lev. 19:23–25). The subject matter of orlah being scanty, the tractate includes in its discussions the laws concerning the admixture of many other forbidden products” (Encyclopedia Judaica, “Orlah”). See Bacharach, Havot Yair, vol. 2, responsum 150, p. 405. 23 Bacharach, Havot Yair, vol. 2, responsum 148, p. 402. 24 For example, a milk cow that a Jew bought from a Gentile, and asked if it was pregnant (ibid., vol. 1, responsa 36–7, 39, 40, pp. 116ff); responsa 46 and 48 in this case in which hametz [agent of fermentation] was possessed during Passover, and the horse sold to a Gentile after the holiday. 25 See also Israel, European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550–1750, pp. 82–3. 26 Ibid., p. 120. 27 Ibid. 28 See Paul Horn and Naftali Herbert Sonn, Zur Geschichte der Juden in Fulda: Ein Gedenkbuch (Tel Aviv, 1969), who note that 2,000 Jews were expelled from the entire Stift (p. 41).


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Of course, expulsion could lead to settlement in new regions, including heavy movement in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to Poland-Lithuania and to some extent to Italy, and could be accompanied by drastic upheaval within the Jewish and “host” Christian communities. At times, when Jews were expelled, the expulsion might be reversed soon afterwards, or even several years later, further complicating Jews’ relations with their neighbors and upsetting Jewish communal institutions and social, political, economic, and religious structures. In the end, many threatened expulsions were in fact never carried through, due to challenges from other sources of authority or changing conditions in the region. The 1595 expulsion of the Jews from Hildesheim, for example, was reversed finally in 1601 after a complaint to the imperial court. And, in between periods of crisis, rising hostility and threatened expulsion, Jewish communities continued to exist and function. Although the important Jewish community of Fulda, for example, was plundered in 1591, the Jews maintained residence and were not officially expelled until 1671. As in most other facets of Jewish existence in Germany in the early modern period, however, Jewish fate seems to have been dictated largely by territorial complexity and the personal attitude of the individual territorial ruler or city council. There was generally no uniform Jewry policy, and Jews could face restrictive measures as well as positive opportunities. Complicating territorial Jewry policies was the position, and frequently protection, of the Jews in imperial legislation. Even numerous links between Jews and the Protestant armies during the Thirty Years’ War do not seem to have fundamentally altered the relation of the Jews to the emperor, who was, anyway, eager to utilize the Jews in his rebuilding program.29 We do find a transition from individual to general letters of protection at the end of seventeenth century, suggesting broader, though still limited, communal opportunities for Jews; nevertheless the situation could remain frequently changeable even amidst comprehensive repopulation policies. In that light, the treatment of the Jews varied greatly and must be viewed within the context of specific social and legal developments. Increasingly, during the second half of the seventeenth century, absolutist territorial princes sought to control more closely internal Jewish matters, and forbade Jewish litigants from appealing to rabbinic courts outside their municipalities.30 Uneasiness in Bohemia had been brewing for a long time, in an area where national aspirations and religious tensions tended to grow and to drive a significant wedge between the imperial governance and the local noble estates. The Thirty Years’ War reflected a tumultuous, deeply divisive, and tremendously significant epoch for European Christians and Jews. It revealed deep religious, cultural, and political divisions throughout Europe. While religious in nature in some ways, the war also demonstrated growing international politics and the struggle for the development of national states and sovereignty. The end of the Thirty Years’ War substantially reshaped European boundaries, alliances, and sensibilities. With real gaps in and challenges to authority, the effects of the war on Jews and Jewish communities were often negative and at times quite dramatic. During the Thirty Years’ War, for example, in 1621 the synagogue in the important Jewish 29 Israel, European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550–1750, p. 84. 30 Ibid., p. 157.

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community in Fürth was looted by soldiers. In 1634, much of the local community was destroyed and the homes of many Jews, as in Halberstadt, were plundered. The ravages of the Thirty Years’ War were particularly ruinous in certain areas, especially Bohemia and Moravia. A large number of Jews were displaced and sought refuge in the larger cities, such as Vienna and Prague. Of course, Jews suffered from the general tribulations of war that confronted their Christian neighbors, such as epidemics of infectious disease. But Jews also suffered because of their differences. There were attempts to expel Jews from numerous cities and regions, as in Hesse-Darmstadt in 1628. In many places the war was used as a pretext for traditional anti-Jewish sentiment, caricature, and policy. But the position of the Jews in some localities remained more favorable than for members of the general population. In some places, Jews suffered only minimal population decrease, compared to the at times very large (up to two-thirds according to some estimates) destruction of life in particular areas. In addition, Jews often functioned and thrived in the capacity of suppliers and middlemen. Jewish credit agents were frequently protected by imperial orders. Already, since the middle of the sixteenth century, some Jews were clearly playing important and renewed roles in the economy. In 1598, for example, Jewish traders were permitted at the Leipzig fair and in 1611 Emperor Matthias (1611–19) enumerated for the Jews of Prague and all Bohemia the goods in which they could deal as peddlers. Jews were not only peddlers and purveyors of small loans. They could also, even before the period of the court Jews, loan at rather large scales. As with demographic patterns, Jewish economic positions simultaneously faced challenges and opportunities.31 The Reformation, Confessionalization, and Social Discipline It was not only the political landscape that affected early modern German Jews. The remarkable religious changes of the Reformation and period of confessionalization also impacted the position of the Jews. Often in tandem with this transformation was the close interaction of religion and politics, so that a broad review of the Reformation is necessary in order to adequately contextualize the situation of the Jews in early modern Germany. One conclusion that seems inescapable and that has become very clear in recent historiography is that there was no “Reformation” in the sense of a conscious and one-directional movement. In noting the uncertainty whether Martin Luther ever posted the 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg, for example, Bob Scribner has argued that, “this myth is typical of a number of myths about the Reformation. It involves a teleological view of history, an arrangement from hindsight of the course of events into an inevitable pattern, in which no other outcome is envisaged than ‘the Reformation’ as later ages understood it.”32 Like other scholars, Scribner has called for a more contextual understanding of the Reformation, one that displaces Martin Luther from the center and that focuses instead upon the myriad of reformers,

31 Ibid., passim. 32 Bob Scribner, The German Reformation (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1986), p. 1.


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regional variations and social and political nuances of the “reformations.” This historiographical trend, with its strong emphasis on the communal significance of the Reformation and the reassessment of the relationships between theology, politics, and common mentality affects in important ways how we see the Reformation and the Jews. What is more, the vast regional divisions, territorial governance, and growing religious distinctions combined in dramatic and far-reaching ways in what many historians have come to call confessionalization.33 Confessionalization speaks not only to religious diversification, but also includes a variety of governing approaches and tools for social order, such as social discipline, that many historians have discussed at length.34 In the end, the position of individual reformers and more “traditional” theologians could vary drastically when it came to the Jews and Judaism. Individual rulers could, aside from any strictly religious or confessional leanings, also hold varying and rather changeable policies regarding the settlement and activities of Jews in their lands.35 Whatever we may think about using the historiographical construct of “early modern,” the sixteenth century did in fact usher in important changes of perspective and consideration. The Protestant Reformation, or the reformations (with a lowercase “r”) as scholars now prefer, and the fractionalization of politics and religion, forced greater tolerance in some ways upon Europeans, though not always for Jews and not always in ways that were positive for Jews. The historian Jonathan Israel has argued that the Reformation impacted Jewish life by theologically demystifying the Jews and increasing emphasis on Hebrew language and interest in Jewish rituals. At the same time, the Reformation could lead to a wide range of marginalization, from restrictions to expulsion attempts. This same scholar finds a late medieval and early modern transformation of German Jewry in two distinct phases: the first, one of progressive decline, contraction, and marginalization stretching from the Black Death to the 1570s; a second phase after 1570 was characterized by revival, expansion, and broadening Jewish activity.36 One could, of course, argue that the fractionalzation and infighting within Christianity made things difficult for the Jews. And yet, it is not even entirely clear to what extent the Reformation affected the position of the Jews within Christian 33 Heinz Schilling, Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of Early Modern Society: Essays in German and Dutch History (Leiden, 1992), pp. 192, 209, 289. See Michael Driedger, “The Intensification of Religious Commitment: Jews, Anabaptists, Radical Reform, and Confessionalization,” in Bell and Burnett (eds), Jews, Judaism, and the Reformation, pp. 269–99, here at pp. 275–78. 34 For a summary, see my “Confessionalization and Social Discipline in Early Modern Germany: A Jewish Perspective,” in Peter Wallace, Peter Starenko, Michael Printy, and Christopher Ocker (eds), Politics and Reformations: Studies in Honor of Thomas A. Brady, Jr. (Leiden, 2007). 35 Friedrichs, “German Social Structure, 1300–1600,” p. 230, and Kaspar Von Greyerz, “Confession as a Social and Economic Factor,” in Ogilvie (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, pp. 309–49, here at p. 312. 36 See Israel, European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism. See also his essay “Germany and Its Jews: A Changing Relationship (1300–1800),” in Hsia and Lehmann (eds), In and Out of the Ghetto, pp. 295–304.

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theology. As Achim Detmers has shown, teaching regarding the Jews and Judaism could vary within the life and work of individual reformers, be different between important reformers, and be largely in response to internal Christian debate rather than to any real interaction with Jews. In the Upper German and Swiss area, for example, the concept of continuity between the covenants of the Old and New Testaments was stressed and might make Judaism relevant for some reformers, without thereby necessarily making Jews any more tolerated or welcome.37 Given Luther’s position regarding history, and, as we will see below, his thoughts about the Jews, it is hardly surprising that the Reformation continued a medieval tradition that saw the Jews as a category or stock image, not necessarily as a people developing in time. Some scholars have, therefore, contended that throughout the Middle Ages and into the Reformation period, Jews were increasingly detemporalized.38 R. Po-chia Hsia, for example, argues that German Lutherans increasingly differentiated between the Jews of the Old Testament and contemporary Jews, essentially de-peopling the Old Testament and appropriating for themselves the idea of a New Israel.39 Yet, in many important respects the position of the Jews was not all that different in the early modern period than in the medieval period. Numerous restrictions, both economic and social, combined with periods of toleration and normalcy. German Christians throughout the Middle Ages had commented upon the “Old Testament,” and the re-identification of “true” Christians as the successors of God’s Chosen People, the true Israelites, removed contemporary Jews from the development of history. But, such identification certainly took on new meaning with the Protestant Reformation. The Hebrew Bible was mined by scholars and polemicists, and the very identity of the Israelites was frequently grafted onto Christians. The competition for the title of Jerusalem or Zion of the North by the residents of various cities such as Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Strasbourg40 is well known, as is Thomas Münzer’s appropriation of the title of “new Jerusalem” for his revolutionary Münster. While Luther seemed content to stress the Jews’ descent 37 See Achim Detmers, Reformation und Judentum: Israel-Lehren und Einstellungen zum Judentum von Luther bis zum frühen Calvin (Stuttgart, 2001). 38 As Kathleen Biddick asserts, “To rephrase Fabian, there is a ‘persistent and systematic tendency’ to place Jews in a time other than the present of Christendom.” See Kathleen Biddick, “The ABC of Ptolemy: Mapping the World with the Alphabet,” in Sylvia Tomasch and Sealy Gilles (eds), Text and Territory: Geographical Imagination in the European Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1998), pp. 268–93, here at p. 269. Biddick also writes that, “Fabian claims that early modern ethnography came to deny what he calls the ‘coevalness,’ or contemporaneity, of its encounter with the other. According to Fabian, such denial occurs when there is a ‘persistent and systematic tendency to place the referent(s) of anthropology in a Time other than the present of the producer of anthropological discourse’” (p. 31) and that, “I argue here that it is medieval Christians who denied coevalness to Jews just as social scientists rendered primitive their anthropological ‘referents’” (p. 270). 39 R. Po-chia Hsia, “The Usurious Jew: Economic Structure and Religious Representations in an Anti-Semitic Discourse,” in Hsia and Lehmann (eds), In and Out of the Ghetto, pp. 161–76, here at p. 171. 40 See, for example, Detmers, Reformation und Judentum, p. 83, n. 124, who notes that Melchior Hoffman wrote that “… dan Straßburg wurt zu dißer zeit Jerusalem im geyst seyn …”.


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from the ancient Israelites in his early, more missionary work, the later Luther was equally content to reject the Jews’ noble lineage, which he argued they shared with the descendants of Esau.41 Indeed, much of Luther’s discussion about Judaism and the Jews was informed by underlying concerns related to claims of lineage and descent. It is traditionally assumed that Luther held a favorable position toward the Jews in his early writings and then changed radically after he realized that the Jews would not convert. More recently it has been argued that Luther was much more consistent in his attitude toward the Jews.42 Yet even among Luther’s followers the position of the Jews was never entirely systematic or consistent. Among Protestant reformers Luther’s vigorous and hostile anti-Jewish rhetoric of his later years was often rebuffed and ignored. Andreas Osiander, the Lutheran minister from Nuremberg, apparently sent a written apology for Luther’s tirades to the Venetian Jewish scholar Elijah Levita. Osiander himself was famous for his arguments against the blood libel accusations. He counted twenty reasons why Jews could not be guilty of such a crime. Among his arguments, he noted that Mosaic Law forbids the shedding of innocent blood; the Jewish dietary laws forbid drinking blood or eating unclean flesh; Jews believe in eternal life and would shy away from infanticide as a means to gain salvation; and spilling human blood is against human nature.43 Luther’s close colleague Philip Melanchthon44 also sought to downplay Luther’s rhetoric (even if he did not reject it), and even the translator of Luther’s anti-Jewish works, Justas Jonas (1493–1555) had a profoundly different view of the Jews. Jonas saw the possibility of the fusion of Jews and Christians into one body in a way that Luther found unacceptable. The Lutheran reformer Urbanus Rhegius (1489–1541) argued strongly for Jewish toleration, with hopes of eventual conversion, during the 1539/40 attempts by the Lutheran clergy of Braunschweig to expel the Jews from that city.45 The Swiss reformer Heinrich Bullinger complained to another reformer, Martin Bucer, of Luther’s “lewd and houndish eloquence” and his “scurrility which is appropriate for no one and still less for an old theologian.” Bucer himself noted that Luther’s Schem Hamphoras was “piggish” and “mirky” and could not be defended even if written by a swineherd.46 Whatever effects the Reformation had regarding religious views and toleration of Jews, it did, however, reorient European politics and economy, at times allowing 41 Thanks to Stephen Burnett for pointing out to me the different approaches. 42 For an extensive review of the literature, see Thomas Kaufmann, “Luther and the Jews,” in Bell and Burnett (eds), Jews, Judaism, and the Reformation, pp. 69–104. 43 Now, see Joy Kammerling, “Andreas Osiander, the Jews, and Judaism,” in Bell and Burnett (eds), Jews, Judaism, and the Reformation, pp. 219–47. 44 On Melanchthon, see Timothy Wengert, “Philip Melanchthon and the Jews: A Reappraisal,” in Bell and Burnett (eds), Jews, Judaism, and the Reformation, pp. 105–35. 45 See Scott H. Hendrix, “Toleration of the Jews in the German Reformation: Urbanus Rhegius and Braunschweig (1535–1540),” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 81 (1990): 189–215. 46 See my article “Martin Luther and the Jews: The Reformation, Nazi Germany, and Today,” in Dean Phillip Bell (ed.), The Solomon Goldman Lectures, vol. VII (Chicago, 1999), pp. 155–87.

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Jews to play more significant financial roles within the individual German states and principalities as court Jews. Within both the political and religious context of the Reformation, the concept of the Jews and Judaism and the historical representation of each were extremely important. For most Christians of the later Middle Ages and early modern period, the concept of the Jews and Judaism was about a great deal more than contemporary Jewish people or practices. For the great humanistic scholar Erasmus, for example, Jonathan Israel argues that, “Judaism” meant “something wider and more far-reaching than actual Jews and Judaism. For Erasmus, ‘Jewish’ influence and ‘Judaism’ meant the prevalence of ceremony, ritual, and legalism, a subverting of true piety, and diversion from Christ, through outward show and adherence to form. Erasmus’s passionate polemic against ‘Judaism’ was not anti-Semitic in any conventional sense.”47 Martin Luther’s vision of the Jews was similarly and largely theological and rhetorical in nature. Jews formed part of a devilish group subverting the true church, or true Judaism, which also helped indicate the end of days. For Luther, Jews of ancient Israel were markedly different from contemporary Jews, who Luther argued were not really Jews in the sense that he conceived of them anyway. What is more, the concept of Jew was largely a foil for Luther’s attacks on his own society. Even in his later attacks against contemporary Jews, Luther used the Jews to strike out against those whom he believed misused their authority. His later and violent polemics were for sure not restricted to Jews;48 at the same time, his view of the Jews and the primary issues associated with the concept of the Jews remained remarkably salient and consistent throughout his career. For many of the Protestant reformers battling the traditions of the medieval Church and seeking a return to “authentic” religious traditions, the issue of lineage and descent was significant. In such an environment the Jews as well as the nature and meaning of the past were extremely important and much discussed. The Reformation, the Past, and the Jews History was not developed into a formal academic discipline until the end of the seventeenth century, but it nonetheless played an important role in the debates and discussions of early modern Germany. History could be meaningful and strategic, and as the German historian Susanne Rau maintains, the selection and presentation of particular events or personalities might reflect the early modern chroniclers’ perspectives and even broader civic identity.49 Here we explore the role of history and narratives of the past in the Reformation, before turning our findings to bear on early modern German Jewish uses of the past. 47 Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 45–6. 48 See Mark U. Edwards, Luther’s Last Battles: Politics and Polemics, 1531–1546 (Ithaca, 1983). 49 See Susanne Rau, Geschichte und Konfession: Städtische Geschichtsschreibung und Erinnerungskultur im Zeitalter von Reformation und Konfessionalisierung in Bremen, Breslau, Hamburg und Köln (Hamburg, 2002).


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Regardless of scholarly or confessional orientation it is clear that the Reformation, and the unfolding of the various reformations, was of central importance in early modern Germany. The Reformation affected not only religion and politics, but also the complete gamut of the human experience. What was the impact of the Reformation on the study of history and the understanding and engagement of the past? Despite the frequent confessional use and appropriation of history, it has generally been recognized that the father of the Reformation, Martin Luther, did little to forward the study of history per se. Even Luther’s important successor, Philip Melanchthon, though clearly more disposed to historical study, is not generally seen as a historian in the modern sense of the term. Nevertheless, a quick look at Luther’s conception of history allows us to understand more thoroughly Luther’s notion of Reformation and the nature and use of history in early modern Germany. In his first lecture at Wittenberg, on the Psalms, Luther espoused the traditional four senses of biblical interpretation. In his “Preface to the Glosses,” Luther argued that the three traditional spiritual senses (allegory, tropology, and anagogy) are elevated and hence better than the historical (literal). Yet at the same time, Luther wrote that, “in the Scriptures, therefore, no allegory, tropology, or anagogy is valid unless the same truth is expressly stated historically elsewhere. Otherwise Scripture would become mockery.”50 Yet, what Luther meant by “literal” was not simply historical. Like his late medieval counterparts, Luther never abandoned allegory. What is more, not only did allegory pervade much of his biblical commentary, but his “literal” sense was highly allegorical. Luther’s concern with tropology remained central even when he emphasized the sensus historicus. Luther therefore gave new depth and meaning to temporal events and persons precisely because he saw them as bearers of God’s activity.51 The ultimate purpose of recorded history was, for Luther, to bring man to knowledge of God through His works. For Luther the past was not a dead past, but an exemplarium to support a particular religious sensibility.52 Luther often approached his texts from a pastoral point of view and he was frequently influenced by historical and contemporary events.53 The problem of the Turks, who were besieging Vienna from 1528 to 1529, for example, greatly affected Luther’s exegesis. Luther believed that the Turks were a punishment against a sinning people, much the same as his Antichrist Pope was. Luther urged that the only “true” solution to the suffering was faith and prayer. The dispersal of the Turks in the summer of 1529 surely gladdened Luther and confirmed his conviction.54 Around this period Luther also began, with or without an eye to an eschatological view, to work on a larger history. By 1540 he had completed his Supputaro Annorum

50 Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis, 1955–86), 55 vols, here at vol. 10, p. 4. 51 John M. Headley, Luther’s View of Church History (New Haven, 1963), p. 269. 52 Ibid., pp. 42, 44, 47. 53 See David Steinmetz, Luther in Context (Bloomington, 1986). 54 See Harvey Buchanan, “Luther and the Turks, 1519–1529,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 47 (1956): 145–60.

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Mundi.55 While he saw secular history as consisting of four monarchies, the fourth being the Holy Roman Empire, he continued to think in terms of Melanchthon’s three-period, 2,000-year division of biblical history. What all of this demonstrates is that Luther’s views regarding eschatology and real-life political concerns joined with a strong leaning toward moral instruction in his highly tropological interpretation, particularly evident in his interpretation of the Song of Songs. Just as Luther’s interpretation of history was complex and related to a broader theology, the Reformation itself clearly offered the opportunity both to re-engage and to contest the past, particularly through the challenge to authority and the weighty conversation regarding the relation of the sacred and the secular. Indeed, throughout early modern Germany, particularly in the wake of the Reformation and confessionalization, the past could be appropriated—frequently from the Jews— for religious reasons. But, the past could also be an important point of contention between tradition and radical change in politics and the social order. The challenge of authority and the call for a return to tradition that was inherent in much Reformation writing was swept up in, and at times even co-opted for, political and social reform. Inspired by what appeared to be a dismissal of priestly mediation between man and God and a return to “tradition,” in a more narrowly political environment, both peasants and lords might co-opt the past, as many documents related to the Peasants’ War of the mid-1520s make clear.56 Throughout the peasant uprisings of the Reformation period there was a delicate balance between assertions of morality and political contestation. Given how pervasive these issues were and how intertwined they were with narration of the past, we now turn to examine the resonance of such developments in the early modern German Jewry steeped in the Reformation. The Reformation and the Jews: Political and Religious Implications There could be an intimate connection between Reformation theology and politics. At times, the tensions between or wedding of religious reform and politics affected perceptions and treatment of the Jews. Despite a long history of anti-Jewish instigation, the Reformation, and Luther’s later writings in particular, could provide additional fodder or excuses for the marginalization or expulsion of Jews, as happened, for example, in Hesse in the late 1530s and 1540s and in Braunschweig in the 1540s.57

55 Karl H. Dannenfeldt, “Some Observations of Luther on Ancient Pre-Greek History,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 42 (1951): 49–63, here at pp. 51–3. 56 See, for example, the documents in Tom Scott and Bob Scribner (eds and trans), The German Peasants’ War: A History in Documents (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1991), pp. 67, 68, 73, 75, 77, 86, 262–3. 57 See Rotraud Ries, “Zum Zusammenhang von Reformation und Judenvertreibung: Das Beispiel Braunschweig,” in Helmut Häger, Franz Peri, and Heinz Quirin (eds), Civtatium Communitas: Studien zum europäischen Städtwesen: Festschrift Heinz Stoob zum 65. Geburtstag, part 2 (Cologne, 1984), pp. 630–54. See also my article, “Jewish Settlement, Politics, and the Reformation.”


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Rather instructive is the case of Hesse, where in the 1530s the Landgrave, Philip, sought to clarify the position of the Jews living in his territory. Eminently practical in his economics and often his politics as well, Philip granted the Jews limited protection while turning to reforming theologians, especially Martin Bucer, for advice on what position to adopt on the Jewish question. Bucer stressed the important role that secular government played in establishing and maintaining proper religious, and so social, structures and behavior. As such, he advocated a position that did not tolerate the Jews and would thereby serve as “a good example to deter the people from godlessness …”.58 Bucer drew a distinction “in principle between the biblical Israel of the elect, the Israel according to the spirit to which the eschatological promises of salvation applied, and empirical Judaism, that is, corporeal Israel, the enemy of Christ and as such the sign of God’s punishment and of his own downfall.”59 Bucer also asserted that Natural Law dictated that “offensive and false religions,” among which he included rabbinic Judaism, should not be tolerated.60 He concluded by noting that there were many important historical examples of rulers expelling the Jews.61 If the Jews were to be allowed to remain in Hesse, he advocated a series of rather strict limitations and requirements. Jews must swear not to blaspheme Christianity; but they must also not follow the Talmud, build new synagogues, or dispute with common Christians. Jews should be forced to attend conversionary sermons and they should be limited in their business.62 Landgrave Philip was apparently not prepared to accept the full extent of Bucer’s advice. He asserted that Jews were “a noble race, from which even Christ, our savior, was born in the flesh; so are the apostles come from such a race, which race also is confident that God has saved it.” He also noted that Christians ought themselves to be humble and that the Jews might again reestablish their covenant with God. Even in the midst of this rhetorical response, Philip fashioned Christians as the ancient Israelites and contemporary Jews as the biblical strangers, who should be loved. Philip concluded that the Jews should be tolerated for one or two more years. At that point, their behavior should be evaluated and a final decision about their fate should be made. As part of this “toleration,” Philip issued an 11-article ordinance, incorporating some clerical advice—while rejecting other advice as too narrow and punitive—and an earlier ordinance.63 The legislation strengthened restrictions against the Jews, while maintaining their ability to participate in the financial wellbeing of the territory. The Jews were placed within an administrative infrastructure that was to approve their business dealings as well as enforce the ordinance itself. 58 Martin Bucer, Martin Bucers Deutsche Schriften, ed. Robert Stupperich, vol. VII (Gütersloh, 1964), p. 360. 59 Willem Nijenhuis, Ecclesia Reformata: Studies on the Reformation (Leiden, 1972), p. 47. And now, see R. Gerald Hobbs, “Bucer, the Jews, and Judaism,” in Bell and Burnett (eds), Jews, Judaism, and the Reformation, pp. 137–69. 60 Bucer, Deutsche Schriften, p. 345. 61 Ibid., pp. 345–6, and here at p. 350. 62 Ibid., pp. 351–3. 63 The ordinance is reprinted in Bucer, Deutsche Schriften, pp. 383–5. See also Quellen zur Geschichte der Juden im Hessischen Staatsarchiv Darmstadt: 1080–1650, prepared by Friedrich Battenberg (Wiesbaden, 1995), no. 1258 (1539), p. 337.

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How did Jews respond to such developments? On the one hand, Jews sought to contest external marginalization. The important shtadlan Josel (Joseph ben Gershon) (c.1478–1554) of Rosheim was involved in numerous debates and political lobbying at the imperial courts in an effort to mediate anti-Jewish writing and legislation. In addition to his political activities, Josel also responded to the writings of Bucer by means of a “letter of consolation” to his correligionists in Hesse.64 Josel noted the “burden and misery” caused by Bucer’s writings, agreeing that Bucer sought “to bring you to unfavorable status with your overlord [Oberkeit], with such bitter words … also against our belief and conscience … as if you [have] a doubt in your conscience regarding our belief of old, that we have had since the time of Abraham and have today …”.65 What is particularly striking here is that Josel sought to reclaim the connection between biblical Israel and contemporary Jewry. For Josel, Jews were the true Chosen People of God, no matter what the Christians might assert. In the midst of his consolation, however, Josel offered a number of other observations. Regarding attending Christian sermons, he stated that no Jew should be compelled to attend if such attendance might place a doubt in his belief; on the other hand, however, a pious Jew might want to hear such sermons. Josel mentioned that he himself had gone to hear the learned doctor Wolfgang Capito several times in Strasbourg and “when he preached the belief that I did not accept I cut off.”66 Josel also argued that Jews may charge interest on money loaned to Gentiles, provided that it is with the Gentile’s approval and good knowledge. He asserted that: we have approval from God, because we are oppressed so harshly under the people with tolls, safe-conduct [money] and yearly tributes as well as appraisals more than any other people living on the earth.67

However, Josel noted that there were many unlearned and misunderstanding people who were not satisfied with small measure and “now have more business than our law itself permits, therefore bringing against us all such disputation and writing …”.68 Josel commented that some Jews maintained arrogance and worldliness and did not even maintain peace among themselves.69 Indeed, in many of the texts with narratives of the past produced in early modern Germany there is a very interesting connection between internal admonition and the engagement of external relations. As the historian Jacob Lassner has asserted, in a different context, “the central focus of historical explanation among Jews was 64 See the “Trotschrift” in Joseph of Rosheim, Historical Writings, ed. Hava FraenkelGoldschmidt (Jerusalem, 1996), pp. 328–49; Selma Stern, Josel of Rosheim: Commander of Jewry in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, trans. Gertrude Hirschler (Philadelphia, 1965 (orig., 1959)), here at pp. 176ff; and Ludwig Feilchenfeld, Rabbi Josel von Rosheim: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland im Reformationszeitalter (Strasbourg, 1898). 65 Joseph of Rosheim, Historical Writings, “Trotschrift,” p. 329 [German]. 66 Ibid., p. 335. 67 Ibid., p. 339. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid., p. 342 [from the Hebrew].


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inevitably linked to the moral behavior of individuals and by extension the collective behavior of groups.”70 According to Lassner, “There is something extraordinary in this Jewish capacity for self-criticism. In any case, there is no parallel to it among Israel’s neighbors in the ancient Near East, nor among Muslims with whom Jews shared physical and sacred space in the Middle Ages.”71 But it was not simply criticism leveled at the sins of the Jews that Josel expressed. While Josel’s writings are replete with exhortations to his co-religionists, the historical narratives in his chronicle and Sefer ha-Miknah also helped to define community through both exclusion and projection. Although some of the material Josel included in his chronicle could have been based on some of his own experiences, the discussions of late medieval expulsions were based on handed-down oral traditions and histories. Josel wrote, for example, that, “surely the event was written in the sefer yashon, and also the elders that were in the region of Alsace heard it from their fathers, and they remembered what they [their fathers] told them, and we did not receive a lie from our fathers …”.72 In many cases of his historical accounting of past expulsions Josel described the machinations of apostates and informers, who together constituted for him a negative force against which the Jews had to fight. According to Josel’s most famous biographer, Selma Stern, Josel knew that stories of expulsions brought about by informers in some cities were not true. But, as Stern argues, “Whether Josel realized that his political statements and his views as expressed in the Sefer HaMikneh were contradictory is open to debate. But it is certain that his moral sense was at variance with his sense of history, and that the former generally won out.”73 As Stern notes, Josel’s sense of history was one “strongly colored by theological and metaphysical concepts.”74 The past for Josel served a variety of purposes. It was reconstructed through personal observation, written sources, and testimony. It sought more than affirmation of past events, however; it also attempted to bring the lessons of the past into immediate and relevant connection with the external and internal challenges facing early modern German Jewry. Although directly involved in many of the political situations recounted, Josel sought out patterns of history. Josel read the past as a moral guidebook and he saw the persecution of his people as divine punishment for their sins. God could and frequently did save the Jews, but such salvation required concerted and pious effort. In searching out cause and effect, “The past and the present merged before his eyes, and the indissoluble tie between

70 Lassner, “Time, Historiography, and Historical Consciousness: The Dialectic of Jewish-Muslim Relations,” p. 7. 71 Ibid., p. 9. 72 Joseph of Rosheim, Sefer ha-Miknah, ed. Hava Fraenkel-Goldschmidt (Jerusalem, 1970), p. 7. He wrote elsewhere that: “There were other great and wonderful things which were recorded by earlier generations, each in the manner in which they had been handed down to him. But I did not deem these worthy of being written down. It was only in the case of true and accurate documents that I did not hesitate: I copied them to preserve them for future generations.” Cited in Stern, Josel of Rosheim, pp. 309–10, n. 1. 73 Stern, Josel of Rosheim, p. 227. 74 Ibid., p. 222.

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consecutive generations, which now seemed bound together forever by a common link of tragic fate, came to him as a new revelation.”75 A similar representation of the harm brought to the Jewish community by apostates can be found in the anonymous Prague chronicle from the early seventeenth century. The chronicle details the events of Jewish informants, who conspired against, and whose actions led to the arrest of several community leaders: During that year [1602], due to our iniquities, slanderous talebearers from among our people, one Shimmel, a servant, and Moses Trantik, of accursed memory, informed the authorities that the heads of the community were responsible for the death of Eli[jah] Pollak, and [as a result] R. Israel Henlig [Henlisch], the head of the kehillah, and Primaz, and Abraham Schikler were arrested and bound, and brought to Bürglitz castle, each one separately. Subsequently, on the Sabbath, the 9th of Av [27 July], they arrested the renowned luminary, the learned rabbinical authority, our teacher Rabbi Loew, may God protect and preserve him, and Manisch Schck, head of the kehillah, and R. Hayyim Wahl, head of the kehillah, putting them under arrest in the Rathaus.

The chronicle next describes how the events narrated affected the Jewish community, and subsequent communal attempts—both spiritual and material—to remove the restrictions and release the leaders. On Monday, the 11th of Av [29 July], all the synagogues here in Prague were closed and sealed, and [the Jews] were unable to pray in any synagogue for more than four weeks. And others were arrested in order to testify regarding the aforementioned matter. [Days] of repentance and fasting were decreed in all the communities of Israel, and two days of Yom Kippur were observed here, until God, Blessed be He, had mercy on us. At greater expense, and after much intercession, the [prisoners] were released on bail for a large sum. Then these two informers of accursed memory told the authorities that R. Israel Henlisch had requested that they poison a non-Jew named Nikolas Preiss, and they arrested R. I[srael] on Shemini Azeret [7 October].76

The fairly traditional coincidence of the community’s problems and Tisha b’Av is obvious, as is the tension between the location of community suffering, external authority, and moralizing. The fate of the informants revealed the truth and salvation of the community and its leaders. The text concluded: “5363 [1602] – Three days later … During this time, Shimon Leib, of accursed memory, died in prison and was buried where dead dogs and other carcasses are thrown by the hangman. And Moses Trantik secured his 75 Ibid., p. 219. 76 David (ed.), A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague, c. 1615, pp. 54ff. The text begins: “The year 5362 [1602] was a time of trial and tribulation for the Jews here in Prague, for [they] were threatened with expulsion. The townspeople, who were the main [instigators], proposed to present the emperor, may he be exalted, with a yearly sum of several thousands [collected] from the merchants and the rest of the population. Several times [the Emperor] ordered that the writs of privilege be deposited in his chamber, and we were very fearful that perhaps, Heaven forbid, they would be rescinded. The emperor, may he be exalted, nearly acceded to [our enemies]; we repented greatly, for God, Blessed be He, had mercy on us, and turned from His wrath, and we were left unharmed.”


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release from jail by bribery and intercession, but he had to swear that he would never enter Prague, but stay seven parsangs from there, as recorded in the minutes book of the Prague [Jewish] community.” While the text stressed the sins of the Jews and their great repentance—to the extent of observing Yom Kippur for two days!—the subversive role of the slanderous talebearers and informants, a commonly represented group in Josel’s text as well, was central. Clearly the scope of what informing meant could be quite wide. As the synod of 1603 decreed, informing was equivalent to violating ordinances meant to secure the stability of Jewish life in Germany and should be punished by ostracism. According to the text produced by the synod: “It is well-known that many persons have by the power of their wealth sought to break down the organization of Jewish life in Germany, and have all but destroyed it completely. It is hoped that at some future time they will be brought to justice. However, anyone who will henceforth act in violation of the above ordinance shall be considered an informer and be ostracized as described above.”77 As with Josel’s narrative, however, it is important to notice that a community’s actions might be justified, their position strengthened, or their very existence assured, by displacing blame onto wayward Jews and then overcoming such opponents. In a very real sense, whether the culprits existed or not, or were as problematic as presented, they allowed the community to contest external authority over and treatment of the Jewish community in a remarkably powerful, but not particularly overt, manner. Elisheva Carlebach has noted, regarding Josel of Rosheim’s depiction of the expulsion of the Jews from Regensburg (in 1519), that “by his elevation of apostates to the status of primary hostile Other, Josel deflected the ultimate responsibility for oppression of Jews from the highest power in the land, where responsibility manifestly resided, to an internal malefactor.”78 Combined with the other forms of more direct political lobbying or religious debate, Jews could carve out and better control their own internal identity as well as their place in the broader society and the minds of their non-Jewish neighbors. In other narratives of the past, accounts of Jewish triumph over their non-Jewish enemies could have much the same effect. Especially when the enemies were criminals or rebels, the defeat of such opponents, could underscore the historical protection afforded the Jews and their ability to withstand political adversity. The return of the Jews to Frankfurt, and the miracles associated with the Jews’ survival at difficult times, as during the Thirty Years’ War, for example, were detailed in Sefer

77 Finkelstein, Jewish Self Government in the Middle Ages, p. 258. 78 Elisheva Carlebach, “Between History and Myth: The Regensburg Expulsion in Josel of Rosheim’s Sefer Ha-Miknah,” in Elisheva Carlebach, John M. Efron, and David N. Myers (eds), Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (Hanover, NH, 1998), pp. 40–53, here at p. 46. This is Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi’s notion of the “profound internalization and concomitant glorification of the myth of the royal alliance” amongst Jews noted by David Myers; see David N. Myers, “Of Marranos and Memory: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi and the Writing of Jewish History,” in Jewish History and Jewish Memory, pp. 1–21, here at p. 6.

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Yosef Ometz and in other accounts.79 With its return to the city after the Fettmilch uprising, the Jewish community commemorated the expulsion with a fast on 27 Elul—paralleling the fast of Esther—and a celebration of its return on 20 Adar.80 The ensuing “Vinz-Purim” celebrations included the “Vintz-Hanss Lied” as a centerpiece. The text of the song was written by Elchanan bar Abraham Helen; the music came from “Die Schlacht von Pavia,” a popular German melody of the sixteenth century.81 Indeed, appropriating Jewish historical types and reapplying them, the “VintzHanss” character declared that he was “your Haman in these times/and I am not afraid of a Mordechai,/For none of you are pious enough for that,”82 denigrating the infamous Vincent Fettmilch, while simultaneously brandishing a moral yardstick against which the community had to measure itself. According to Juspa Hahn: 20 Adar I was established then a feast and joy, and tahanun is not said at the morning prayers, only lamantzayach, and it is called among Jews Purim Vinzenz according to the name of the miraculous matters that occurred on the eve of the day; therefore it was appropriate, because our great fear, mentioned above, passed by, because, thank God, we laid down with confidence and no one to make us fear, and our sleep was pleasant. Therefore, we established the day after it for a feast and joy similar to the Purim days that were established after a day of war and (the) miracle. And the miracles that happened surely desired that the commissioner of the bishop of Mainz and the landgrave of Darmstadt, his exalted excellency, return us to our streets with great honor, in the presence of many people going with flags and signs with military arrangements, and with drums and with dancing; and at that exact hour we saw revenge for the suffering of the Jews. Vincenz, mentioned earlier, and his partners among the rebels, were embarrassed by the honor that was given to us, then they went to their reward … they were hung outside the city, and this was done to them with great hooks …83 [emphasis added]

Juspa ended the account with a reference to the quiet of the Jews’ enemies, paralleling the quiet of the dogs when the Jews left Egypt, and to the last Temple. The historical recounting that Juspa presented is indeed very much of the Purim genre, celebrating the salvation of the Jews, noting the simultaneous honoring of the Jews and the demise of the Jews’ enemies, but importantly adding contemporary context and meaning as well. Re-formulation and Convergence Throughout the early modern period a variety of more general cultural developments reveal the increasing concern over the past. There was an increase in the number of books published detailing the lives of ancient emperors and other famous

79 See Yosef Ometz, pp. 166–7 for miracles experienced during the Thirty Years’ War; see also “manifest miracles above” (ibid., p. 292). 80 Friedrichs, “Anti-Jewish Politics,” p. 198. 81 Ibid, p. 198, n. 22. 82 Ibid., p. 199. 83 See Hahn, Yosef Ometz, section 1109, pp. 242–3.


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individuals84 and the portraiture of kings to confirm the antiquity and continuity of ruling families.85 We also find growing political appropriation of historical exempla (particularly in Italy, but also to some extent in Germany as well), and new interest in preserving antiquities, evidenced by the Antiquarium at Duke Albrecht V’s Munich residence.86 While chronicles and polemics could provide important means for admonishing co-religionists and contesting or mediating external authority, there were other forms of early modern German Jewish expression that could accomplish much the same. While Jews could challenge detemporalization and external authority through polemic, they could also re-inscribe themselves in other ways as well. Historical chronicles were becoming more common and widely distributed in early modern Germany. Let us examine this general phenomenon, noting particularly the examples of two of the most important early modern universal chroniclers, those of Hartmann Schedel and Sebastian Münster, and in particular the latter’s portrayal of Jews and Judaism, before turning to Jewish attempts to utilize chronicles to re-inscribe both contemporary Jews and Jewish history within a broader historical tradition. History was becoming more significant in late medieval and early modern Germany. A variety of chronicles—local, regional, and even universal in scope— began to appear and exercise real impact in German culture. One of the most important of these chronicles was the 1493 Chronicle of the World by Hartmann Schedel.87 Schedel’s chronicle was not simply a reference tool, but a deeply penetrating discussion of late fifteenth-century urban culture.88 According to the Commendatio, the booksellers’ advertisement for the chronicle bound into Schedel’s own printed copy: The great good fortune of the Ages has dawned upon us, dear reader, whether we think of the universal peace of the world or the education of humankind. For nothing has hitherto appeared that can guarantee scholars and all men of learning greater and deeper pleasure than the New Book of Chronicles with its pictures of famous men and cities, which has just been printed at the expense of rich citizens of Nuremberg.

The advertisement stressed that the chronicle would be entertaining, allowing the reader to see the events of the past as they unfolded and must have appeared to contemporaries. Indeed, I venture to promise you, reader, so great a delight in reading it that you will think that you are not reading a series of stories, but looking at them with your own eyes. For you will see not only portraits of emperors, popes, philosophers, poets and other famous men, each shown in the proper dress of his time, but also views of the most famous cities 84 Francis Haskell, History and Its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past (New Haven, 1993), p. 14. 85 Ibid., p. 53. 86 Ibid., p. 38. 87 Hartmann Schedel, Hartmann Schedel Chronicle of the World 1493: The Complete and Annotated Nuremberg Chronicle, German Facsimile edition, Introduction and Appendix by Stephan Füssel (Cologne, 2001). 88 Ibid., p. 8.

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Jewish Identity in Early Modern Germany and places throughout Europe, as each one rose, prospered and continued. When you look upon all these histories, deeds, and wise sayings, you will think them all alive. Farewell, and do not let this book slip through your hands.89 [emphasis added]

Schedel had studied in Leipzig, earning a masters and doctorate in medicine and had kept company with humanists and studied their works. After practicing as a doctor in Nördlingen in 1470, he eventually made his way back to Nuremberg by 1484, where he was elected a member of the Great Council and maintained close relationships with various members of the city elite.90 Schedel was interested in both cosmography and geography, and he drew from a wide range of sources in compiling his chronicle. The chronicle involved numerous individuals from Nuremberg, so that some scholars have seen the chronicle as something of a community project.91 The total number of copies printed in Latin may have been around 1,400; in German around 700.92 The volume was reprinted in Augsburg in 1496.93 Throughout its pages, contemporary history was included in the chronicle, such as the story of the Piper of Niklashausen for 1476.94 The chronicle made passing references to Jews, as in the alleged gruesome murder of a Christian child in Trent.95 Host desecration accusations were also recounted in such places as Breslau, Passau, and Regensburg.96 In many of these passages, a stock image of the burning of the Jews was used to accompany the text.97 The chronicle expanded from the Holy Writings—“At the beginning of this work we have stated that the Holy Scriptures also instruct us that the world has an end”98— and related that God was both the “beginning and the end.”99 Temporal death and life were contrasted to eternal life.100 The chronicle concluded with a discussion of the end of days: “after which we have given a description of the histories and events that are in the sixth age of the world until the fourth year of the imperial reign of Friedrich III and in the seventh year of the Roman Empire, of his shining son King Maximilian; with assistance and power of godly grace I have brought this book to laudable perfect conclusion to report a little from the seventh and last age and end of this world.”101

89 Ibid., p. 9. 90 Ibid., p. 10. 91 Ibid., pp. 14–18. 92 Ibid., p. 32. 93 Ibid., p. 34. 94 Ibid., fol. cclv v. 95 Ibid., fol. ccliii v. The story is to be found in abridged form over 20 times in the Chronicle. 96 For host desecration episodes, see ibid., fol. cclvii v (Breslau, Passau, Regensburg, and so on). 97 Ibid., p. 27; woodcuts of the burning of Jews: fols cviii, cxvi, cxviii, cxxviii, cxxxiii, cxxxvi, clxxx, cxci, ccv, ccxvi, ccxxviii, cclvii, all in v. 98 Ibid., fol. cclix. 99 Ibid., fol. cclx. 100 Ibid., fol. cclxir. 101 Ibid., fol. cclix.


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The genre of world histories and cosmographies attracted increasing attention throughout the sixteenth century, both from Christians and Jews. For Christians, such histories forced reckoning with time and memory from the Hebrew Bible; for Jews, such histories seemed to demand engagement with a variety of non-Jewish sources. An important example of the engagement with Jews and Judaism, within the context of history, is the renowned and cosmopolitan Cosmographia of Sebastian Münster (1488–1552), which was first published in 1544 and then went through eight editions during the author’s lifetime and 35 more by 1628. Münster was eminently familiar with both Jewish exegesis and Jewish history, frequently borrowing from the works of Rashi, Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089–1164), Moses ben Nahman (Nahmandies, 1194–1270), Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides, Ralbag, 1288–1344), David Kimhi (Radak, c.1160–c.1235), and Abraham ben David ha-Levi Ibn Daud (c.1110–80). In fact, Johannes Eck disparagingly referred to Münster as “Rabbi Münster.”102 Given his great familiarity with Jewish thought and its use in his grammatical, theological, and geographical-historical works, it is worth considering Münster’s assessment of Jews and Judaism in his broader universal history.103 Sebastian Münster was one of the most important early figures in the study of the Hebrew language. Münster appears to have had personal academic relations with individual Jews, to whom he turned for Hebrew manuscripts and translations. His extensive correspondence with some Jews, most notably Elijah Levita, is well known and reveals a heavy influence of Judaism on his work.104 Münster’s relationship to Judaism, however, revolved around not only his scientific inquiry into linguistics and rabbinics; it seems to have had a rather more personal relationship as well. According to the scholar Heinz Burmeister, Münster had attended synagogue services frequently,105 was familiar with the practices of German Jews,106 and studied Jewish gravestone inscriptions in both Heidelberg and Basel.107 A reconstruction of Münster’s library reveals that he was acquainted with a significant amount of rabbinic literature.108 Yet Münster’s position toward Judaism was rather complex. His stance on conversion of the Jews, a central theme of many Christian Hebraists and official Church policies, was rather ambivalent. Münster frequently met attempts at expulsion of Jews with one side of the Augustinian argument that Christ had himself wanted the Jews to remain unbelievers until the end of the world as an example for true 102 See Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, “Sebastian Muenster’s Knowledge and Use of Jewish Exegesis,” in I. Epstein, E. Levine, and C. Roth (eds), Essays in Honor of the Very Rev. Dr. J. H. Hertz (London, 1943), pp. 351–69. 103 For a general overview of Münster’s relationship to Judaism and his use of specific sources, see Karl Heinz Burmeister, Sebastian Münster: Versuch eines biographischen Gesamtbildes (Basel, 1969), pp. 72–86. 104 Burmeister, Sebastian Münster, pp. 75–6. 105 Ibid., pp. 73ff. 106 Ibid., p. 74. 107 Ibid. 108 Ibid., p. 76; for a list of his extensive sources from antiquity, the Middle Ages, and contemporary writers, see pp. 152ff.

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(Christian) believers.109 Even in his remarks regarding the polemical Sefer Nizzahon, Münster’s comments were more polemical and apologetic than missionary.110 This reverence for Hebraica and certain aspects of rabbinic literature, as well as his personal relations with individual Jews and Jewish communities, intertwined with more contemporary and frequently less friendly views of Jews and Judaism. The Cosmographia, on which he worked between 1524 and its first printing in 1544, was perhaps Münster’s most magnificent work. It was a historical work, but not as one might traditionally conceive of history and not one that was strictly chronological. The work was rather encyclopedic, covering a variety of aspects of geography, history, botany, zoology, archaeology, and ethnography. It has often been viewed as more a geographical treatise than a historical work, or at least a geography historically oriented.111 The work in fact belied a notion of history that was grounded in geography and a belief that without geography an orderly history could not be written.112 In fact, Münster saw the relationship between geography and history as inseparable. In his preface to the Cosmographia he noted that his “task in this book is to describe the entire world, which requires a diffuse and healthy disposition … so that one might distinguish the true from the false, the certain from the uncertain.” For Münster, histories were nothing other than “examples of what one secures, how this or that matter developed, how human wit and providence is oftentimes uncertain, indeed blind, and [evidence] that everything depends upon the hand of God, who effects everything in everything. All of our advice is hindering where there is no measure of the design of God.”113 Everything, according to Münster, happens because of the order that God establishes in both the heavens and on earth, not ex fortuna vel causa.114 Given this emphasis, Münster’s presentation of the lands and customs of different peoples took on something of an ecumenical tone. Münster marshaled a host of biblical,115 ancient, medieval, and contemporary sources throughout the six books of the Cosmographia.116 He incorporated extensive genealogies of ruling (secular and ecclesiastical) European families.117 He also recounted major historical and political events, including the Christianization of 109 Ibid., p. 81. 110 Ibid., pp. 83–4. For Münster’s use of Sefer Nizahhon, see Stephen G. Burnett, “Dialogue of the Deaf: Hebrew Pedagogy and Anti-Jewish Polemic in Sebastian Münster’s Messiahs of the Christians and the Jews (1529/39),” Archive for Reformation History 91 (2000): 168–90. 111 Burmeister, Sebastian Münster, p. 163. 112 Sebastian Münster, Cosmographia (Basel, 1583), fol. iii v. 113 Ibid., fol. ii r. 114 Ibid., fol. ii v. 115 See, for example, his discussion of Jerusalem, fols mccxcviii–mccxcix. 116 The first book is a discourse about more formal elements of geography. The subsequent books treat geographical regions at the local, territorial, and national levels, beginning with known Europe (Ireland, England, Spain, France, and Italy) in book two, Germany in book three (which is the longest and most involved in the work), the remainder of Europe (including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Russia, Greece, and Turkey) in book four, Asia in book five, and Africa in book six. 117 Münster, Cosmographia, fol. ccccxiiii.


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Germany,118 and a litany of German urban histories throughout book three. These included customs and dialects of the various German people,119 as well as the host of maps and woodcuts of cities and personalities for which the work is famous. While much of Münster’s presentation seems rather objective (as for example his discussion of John Hus)120 and even somewhat critical (utilizing diverse sources), he frequently repeated the historical tales of other sources, and at times interwove them with handed-down fantasies and his own theological perspectives. Münster, for example, was not slow to take up rather fantastic descriptions—verbal and pictorial—in describing the marvels of Africa.121 Early on in the Cosmographia, Münster articulated his general understanding of the Jews as a people who rejected Jesus and who were consequently scattered and persecuted. He wrote that “the Jews and after them the pagans wanted to excise Christ and his holy teaching against the advice of God, but what has happened to them? The Jews have been run into the ground and the pagans took on their [own] error and false religion.” Münster concluded that, “In times of old the Holy Land flowed with milk and honey, but now it is a fuming, bitter, and uncouth ground.”122 Münster also criticized what he saw as the fantastic lie of the Jews regarding the location of Paradise in an earthy garden. Instead he countered with an interpretation that the empire of Christ, or Paradise, was not in this world.123 Like other Christian Hebraists of the sixteenth century, he clearly offered a theological stance that was willing to incorporate Hebraica while criticizing Judaism. At times Münster presented a rather even hand in his descriptions of persecutions of Jews; in these incidents he noted that cries arose against the Jews, but he did not give details or offer any credence to the accusations. This seems particularly true for the more recent cases he cited, for example in his discussion of the Jews in Lisbon in 1506,124 and to a somewhat lesser extent, in his representation of the ritual murder accusation of Simon of Trent.125 On the other hand, Münster frequently re-circulated traditional anti-Jewish accusations, as for example in the alleged secret murder of a Christian child by the Jews leading to their expulsion from France in 1182 at the hands of Philip,126 or in the accusations of well-poisoning in 1322 that were first directed against the lepers and then the Jews.127 Overall, then, Münster’s Cosmographia is an impressive work that combined incredible detail and flourishes of innovative methodology in selection and organization of material with very traditional historical accounts. The nature of 118 Ibid., fol. cccclxx. 119 Ibid., fol. cccclxxviii. 120 Ibid., fols mcxx–mcxxi. 121 Ibid., fol. mccccxiii 122 Ibid., fol. ii r. 123 Ibid., fol. xxxvii. 124 Ibid., fols lxxvi–lxxvii. 125 Ibid., fol. cccxlii. For a comparison of how Schedel and Münster, among other fifteenth- and sixteenth-century chroniclers portrayed Simon of Trent, see Wolfgang Treue, Die Trienter Judenprozess (Hannover, 1996), pp. 308–40, especially pp. 331–6. 126 Ibid., fol. cxci. 127 Ibid., fol. cxcii.

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the organization and the relation of customs and geography to historical incidence marked an important contribution to historical thinking in the sixteenth century. The Cosmographia appeared to be a more “scientific” study, and its emphasis on common development underlying regional variation and divergence represented an important sixteenth-century change. The emphasis on geography forced a somewhat universal and comparative perspective that downplayed religious difference, even if Münster set the parameters for fundamental difference in his preface. Münster, however, did not seem to have shared the rather more radical stance of Sebastian Franck (c.1499–1542), who, in his Weltbuch of 1534, criticized external ceremonies and customs, maintaining instead that true belief was internal.128 Indeed, Münster stressed the order of God as manifest both in heaven and in the world. The customs that Franck described to dismiss out of hand, Münster offered as central content in his work. Münster did have something like a fundamental historical philosophy that was basically theological: lands, even the Holy Land, and civilizations change over time, but God alone is unchangeable.129 This was a somewhat different orientation from that of Franck; the universalization for Münster was in God’s ordering not in man’s internal belief. Münster’s work did receive a good deal of criticism; yet it became a very popular work, as noted above, and seems eventually to have been appealing to a broader burgher audience almost as a Hausbuch. An interesting comparison of ways in which early modern Jews engaged nonJewish society and historical reckoning is possible with the chronicle of David Gans (1541–1613). Gans was simultaneously a chronicler, astronomer, and mathematician, who studied Talmud at Bonn and Frankfurt. A student of many of the leading rabbis of the age, familiar with a variety of both German and Czech chronicles, Gans was also in contact with leading non-Jewish intellectuals and the eclectic court of Rudolph II in Prague. Gans addressed the external world in a universal chronicle format, in some ways similar to that of Schedel and Münster. He combined Jewish and non-Jewish history and historical sources, though he was aware of the tensions in combining them, and he offered two parts to his book, one treating Jewish historical developments and the other profane history.130 His method was one of chronological and annalistic compilation, rather than critical historical interpretation, that served an apologetic attempt to establish the traditional Jewish position on the dating of the world since creation.131

128 See my Sacred Communities, pp. 235–7. 129 Burmeister, Sebastian Münster, p. 161. 130 Breuer, “Modernism and Traditionalism,” pp. 77–8; B.Z. Dageni, “The Structure of World History,” Zion 45:3 (1980): 173–200 [Hebrew], here at p. 173. See also Salo Baron, History and Jewish Historians: Essays and Addresses (Philadelphia, 1964), p. 192 for de Rossi’s argument regarding the use of sources of Gentile origin; and see Me’or ‘Einayim I, 75 (c. 89). For de Rossi’s rationalizations, and their inherent flaws, see Lester A. Segal, Historical Consciousness and Religious Tradition in Azariah de’ Rossi’s Me’or ‘Einayim (Philadelphia, 1989), pp. 55ff. 131 Breuer, “Modernism and Traditionalism,” p. 60.


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Gans’s work was more a universal or world chronicle than many of the works of his German colleagues, who tended to write much narrower territorial histories.132 Historical events for Gans provided examples of human behavior to be emulated or avoided. This was true even if Gans’s moralism seems to have possessed a markedly more secular133 than theological tone when compared with other Christian or Jewish writers of the time.134 His description of the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 82,135 for example, detailed the destruction of cities and the death of people and animals, without thereby attributing the causality to divine punishment for sins.136 Gans’s chronicle Zemah David was intended for a lay audience and the items that it reported may have reflected popular tastes of the period. He recorded natural disasters and portents, wars, rebellions and violence, technology, and the geography of distant lands, especially those newly discovered.137 Circulating in imperial courtly circles, Gans grafted a very mediated relationship between Jews and Christians, one that used historical events to chart common history, placing Jewish development firmly within more general developments. Like Sebastian Münster and his Jewish contemporary Azariah de Rossi, Gans displayed a deep-rooted interest in geography and science.138 Like Münster, he balanced traditional sources and outlooks with new ways of organizing and conceiving history and the world around him.139 Given his own nature and interests in astronomy—as well as his contacts with great non-Jewish thinkers of the time such as Tycho Brahe140—and the environment of Prague, with its rich Jewish intellectual tradition and personalities

132 Ibid., pp. 61–2. 133 See ibid., pp. 68ff for an assessment of Gans’s practical and secular attitude and his critique of the typical Ashkenazic rabbi of his time and the institution of ordination. 134 Ibid., pp. 65–7. 135 Gans, Zemah David, p. 218. 136 The import of celestial and earthly phenomena and their reflection of divine providence appear frequently throughout the work. For other natural disasters, see ibid., pp. 225, 226, 305, 308, 405ff. 137 It is after his brief description of the discovery of the new world (1533, Amerigo) that he mentions Münster and his Cosmographia (ibid., p. 391). Breuer, “Modernism and Traditionalism,” p. 65; Breuer, “Introduction,” in Gans, Zemah David, p. xiv. 138 See Baron, History and Jewish Historians, p. 181. 139 Indeed, the tensions in Gans’s project and his outlook in general have been well stated with regard to his relation to science. According to Andre Neher: “Three ways, then, opened up for David Gans: that of submission to the authority of the Gentiles and acceptance of the Ptolemaic system, whose chief Jewish representative was the great Moses Maimonides; that of the Maharal, who also recognized the scientific supremacy of Gentile astronomy, but placed above it a purely Jewish astronomy which, however, is not scientific and is the only one to possess the absolute truth. And, lastly, there was that of the Rema, with his very vague and generalized approach of a simultaneous respect for Jewish tradition and the Ptolemaic system, ended in a state of painful anxiety.” See Andre Neher, Jewish Thought and the Scientific Revolution of the Sixteenth Century: David Gans (1541–1613) and his Times, trans. David Maisel (Oxford, 1986), p. 214; on his conciliatory role between de Rossi and Maharal, see Breuer, “Modernism and Traditionalism,” p. 58, and Breuer, “Introduction,” p. vii. 140 Breuer, “Modernism and Traditionalism,” p. 57.

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and the resplendent and eclectic court of Rudolph II, Gans combined Jewish interest with European stimuli.141 Although well read in both Hebrew sources and German and Czech chronicles, Gans apparently knew little Latin.142 Still, the sources utilized by Gans were diverse, if not as broad as those used by de Rossi (who culled the ancient philosophers, a variety of early Church Fathers (such as Augustine, Justin Martyr and Origen) as well as medieval Christian authorities).143 Gans cited Jewish historians, and talmudic, biblical, as well as non-Jewish sources.144 Often, Gans noted his sources directly. At times he seemed to have weighed them with some rigor, while at other times he accepted the information they relayed as a matter of course.145 Jewish suffering and internal schism were retold in Zemah David. The description of the first crusade of 4856 (1096) was presented with details of the massacres of the Jews, and the decrees against the Jews were attributed to the sins of the Jews themselves,146 though there is little overt enmity toward Christians expressed directly in the passage: In the year 4856, Christians from Germany, Italy, France, Spain, and England, more than 600,000 warriors, assembled and agreed to descend upon Jerusalem, and they placed red cross[es] on their clothes as a sign, as we will explain in part two. And there was for the Jews much grief and trouble because the Christians rose up against them to avenge their savior, that is to say, they went [to] wipe out from the nations and no longer remember the name of Israel. And there were then in that year, because of our sins, decrees and persecution in all scattered communities in Germany, France, Spain, England, Italy, Bohemia, Hungary, decrees which were not heard the like of for evil. And they were slaughtered and murdered especially through kiddush Hashem. How many?: thousands and multitudes, and many killed themselves, men their brothers and neighbors, sons and daughters …”.147

An even briefer and more detached presentation is given for 4946 (1186) for the expulsion of the Jews from France and for the great expulsion from Spain in 5152 (1492).148 On the other hand, persecutions are mentioned throughout the end of the first book, in the period of the later Middle Ages—including reference to another expulsion from France in 5066 (1306)149 and even the martyrdom of individual

141 Ibid., pp. 50–53. 142 Ibid., p. 56. 143 Baron, History and Jewish Historians, pp. 178, 226–30. More recently, see Joanna Weinberg’s introduction in her translated and annotated edition of Azariah de’ Rossi, The Light of the Eyes (New Haven, 2001). 144 See, for example, Zemah David, p. 200. 145 Breuer, “Modernism and Traditionalism,” p. 62; Breuer, “Introduction,” pp. xxiii–xv, for Hebrew sources; and pp. xv–xxvi, for German sources. 146 The moral argument, therefore, was not absent in Gans. Among the sources that he cited for this section were various selihot. See Breuer, “Modernism and Traditionalism,” p. 65. 147 Zemah David, pp. 117–18. 148 Ibid., p. 136. 149 Ibid., p. 129.


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Jews—such as Mordechai bar Hillel, the student of Moshe ba’al haSemag in Nuremberg.150 Gans, rather unconventionally for a pre-modern Jew, gave attention to the history of Christian martyrology and internal schism among Christian sects. He discussed the murder of Christians at the hands of Nero in 64,151 and the murder of members of all the Christian sects by Trajan in 111.152 Gans’s discussion of kings and emperors frequently began by mentioning their skill, glory, wisdom, or power. According to Gans, “Emperor Julius,” for example, “was a powerful soldier and warrior, like none other since the day that God created Edom on the earth. And from the womb of his mother he grew to study every wisdom, all that God made prosperous in his hand, and he walked and grew from day to day until he became the ruler of Rome and he conquered all of France in great and terrible wars …”.153 Gans’s emphasis on Christian martyrdom and imperial rulers was in part due to his strong messianism,154 which focused on the motif of the Four Empires, each of which would pass in succession before the messianic era.155 A number of possible sources for his messianism have been suggested, including the messianism of contemporary German chronicles and Protestant historiography;156 the increasingly favorable position of the Jews in at least some Christian lands—as indicated in the economic usefulness of the Jews to the burgeoning State; and the renewed appreciation of Christians for Jewish culture as evidenced in the work of a growing body of Christian Hebraists.157 Throughout, Gans offered a portrait of Christianity that was seemingly “scientific” and detached. Regarding the birth of Jesus, Gans simply noted that “Yeshua the Nazarite was born in Beth Lehem … in the year 3761 of the creation, that is the forty-second year of the emperor Augustus, therefore this reckoning was according to their knowledge in the days of Rabbi Shimon ben Hillel and in the days of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakai, and from that time is the beginning of the sects of the Christians.”158 Gans followed this general statement with citations of other historical 150 Ibid. 151 Ibid., p. 215. 152 Ibid., p. 219. See also pp. 222ff (Antoninus), 233, 237, and 287 (the attacks of the Norsemen). 153 Ibid., p. 206. Other rulers were presented in the same rather formulaic way: Tiberius Nero, p. 209; Augustus, p. 211; Charlemagne, p. 282; Otto, p. 300; Maximilian, p. 385; see also, pp. 231, 236, 238. Of course, he also presented negative qualities as well, as in Tiberius, of whom it was noted, “they wrote that this emperor was a master of evil midot” (p. 211) and Wenzel, c.1400, was described as evil (p. 363). 154 See the discussion of Molkho and Reuveni, ibid., pp. 138–9; for a discussion of Solomon Luria, see p. 142. 155 See ibid., p. 163 (book 2). 156 Breuer, “Modernism and Traditionalism,” p. 74; See Dageni, “The Structure of World History,” particularly pp. 179ff. 157 Breuer, “Modernism and Traditionalism,” p. 78. See also Allison P. Coudert, The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century: The Life and Thought of Francis Mercury van Helmont (1614–1698) (Leiden, 1999). 158 Zemah David, p. 210.

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works, and he placed the events within a broader Jewish historical framework. A similarly detached presentation was given for the conversion of Constantine to Christianity.159 While Gans identified Emperor Henry IV as a wise man, who feared God and who was a warrior, he presented the conflict between Henry and the Pope very succinctly, with no attacks against either.160 John Hus was described as a great scholar among the Christians, but his conflict with the Church was described quickly and impartially.161 Gans characterized Bohemia, however, as a land full of violence in this period, with every faction seeking to consume its enemies.162 Gans described the anti-Jewish preaching of John of Capistrano, who was sent to Silesia by Pope Nicholas V. But he noted that despite John’s diatribes, “the inhabitants of Breslau did not want to listen to the voice of the preacher and they protected the soul of the Jews and sent them from the land [instead].”163 Luther was similarly mentioned quickly and uneventfully,164 and the Anabaptist experiment in Münster, which was called the “new faith,” was briefly recounted, focusing on its destruction.165 Of course Jewish history was also wrapped up in the presentations of book two as well, as for example in the construction of the bet ha-kaneset (synagogue) in Prague in 997,166 or, in the mention of Emperor Henry V who allowed Jews forcibly converted to Christianity to return to Judaism in 1090.167 The First Crusade description focused on the Christian rulers in Israel, and quickly referred to the attacks on the Jews, sending the reader back to the description in book one.168 The 1541 expulsion of the Jews from the kingdom of Bohemia was also recounted.169 Zemah David was somewhat different from the other major German Jewish chronicle of the sixteenth century, that of Josel of Rosheim. Gans presented events within a broad political context that examined the connections between various events. Josel, on the other hand, focused on the persecutions of Jews, presenting historical context that found the central and undermining role of converts and informers in the attacks on Jews and Jewish communities. For Josel, the moral state of the Jews, their own sins, and the problems within the communities were directly linked to their persecution. While the moral state of the Jews did appear in Zemah David, it played a more modest role in Gans’s understanding of historical development. The introduction to Zemah David noted that the work chronicled the time from Adam until contemporary times, “until the time of our lord Rudolph”170 or “from

159 Ibid., p. 239. 160 Ibid., p. 319. 161 Ibid., pp. 364–5. 162 Ibid., p. 366. 163 Ibid., p. 371. 164 Ibid., p. 390. 165 Ibid., p. 392. 166 Ibid., p. 303. 167 Ibid., p. 317. 168 Ibid., p. 318. 169 Ibid., p. 394. 170 Ibid., p. 1.


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the beginning of the creation until our time.”171 Gans was clearly writing with contemporary events and situations in mind, and a phrase that turned up time and again throughout the text was “up until this day”. Gans intended to cover “all of the periods of the four monarchies, viz., Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome, and all of the kings who ruled them from the time of Nimrod ben Kush … until the time of our lord, Emperor Rudolph (may his glory be exalted) and the many things that happened in their days …”.172 But Gans continued that, “however, I have set aside for them a section from this book in order to distinguish between the holy and the profane and not mix matters of the living God in matters of dried hay …”.173 Throughout, Gans was careful to note that any statements he made were “not against our holy Torah and not against the sayings of the sages.”174 Gans’s historiographical orientation was perhaps best revealed in the introduction to part two of Zemah David. He noted that “the words of this second part from the writings of the books of the Greeks and from other books of foreigners” were not meant to be equivalent to, or worse, uproot Jewish law and tradition.175 Gans saw clearly that he would be attacked for his use of non-Jewish sources: “I see in advance that many will speak out against me, condemn me, and consider me sinful because I have taken material from non-Jewish writers.”176 Gans, however, noted that other Jewish writers had utilized non-Jewish sources, and he asserted that Scripture itself “has allowed us to search in non-Jewish books for accounts of events which can be of some use to us.”177 In fact, Gans found many benefits to be derived from the accounts of this section,178 including evidence of Divine Providence; the admonition to be humble; warning that a person should be on his guard against a minor as well as a powerful enemy; advice not to oppose powerful rulers; knowledge that God’s justice punishes the wicked even in this world; introduction of moral maxims of the emperors, which leave a great impression on the masses;179 evidence for dates and sayings of our Sages; understanding the import of celestial signs; the ability to respond to those nations among whom we travel; and encouragement to pray to God “to restore our judges as of old and to bring about the messianic redemption,” when we see that we have neither king nor ruler while in exile. Frequently Gans presented both Hebrew and Christian dates, and he discussed the position in antiquity of the geographical areas that most interested him, particularly Bohemia and Germany. He gave details of Alexander of Macedon180 as well as of the Goths.181 Gans’s mixing of sources and his treatment of Jewish and Christian events strikes one as rather “objective” and “historical.” It is worth remembering that Gans 171 Ibid., p. 6. 172 Ibid. 173 Ibid. 174 Ibid., p. 15. 175 Ibid., p. 163. 176 Meyer, Ideas of Jewish History, p. 128 (Zemah David, p. 164). 177 Ibid., pp. 128–9 (Zemah David, p. 165). 178 Ibid., pp. 129–31 (Zemah David, pp. 165–7). 179 Zemah David, p. 212. 180 Ibid., pp. 194ff, in his discussion of the Four Monarchies. 181 Ibid., pp. 192ff.

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was still rather “traditional” in fundamental ways. For our purposes, I would like to return to one point made earlier. Among the important reasons for studying the past, Gans noted recognition of God, moral lessons, and the ability to respond to contemporary situations. For Gans, history allowed Jews both to be a part of broader society and to maintain their own place within that society. As such, Gans offered yet another means to contend with detemporalization and the threat of marginalization. One final example will clarify this point. In his discussion of voyages to the New World, Gans like Azariah de Rossi before him encouraged his Jewish readers to be familiar with important contemporary events and developments. It was not simply that Gans was exuberant about the scientific discoveries of his day, though he was that. Gans wanted his co-religionists to have knowledge of the discoveries, but he also wanted them to know that ancient Jews had known about and contributed a great deal to human knowledge. Like de Rossi, Gans maintained that the New World was to be equated with the biblical Ophir and was consequently first discovered by the Jews themselves.182 Jews, then, could take part in contemporary society while continuing to insist on their unique place in and contributions to history. General European concerns with dating had very real impact on the position of Jews within European, and for that matter, world history. In the late sixteenth century no less than 50 schemes for dating the history of the world were advanced, based primarily upon interpretations of and calculations from the “Old Testament.”183 By the middle of the following century, Protestants and Catholics alike could agree on a BC dating system that framed history within a Christian perspective.184 In either case, when universal dating schemes were competing or when a markedly Christian scheme received near universal acceptance, Jews had to be concerned not only to maintain internal dating and controls, but also to ensure that they did not lose their place in the narration of a more universal past. Conclusions In the engagement of the non-Jewish world through chronicles, which consciously drew from and described the non-Jewish world, Jews could again become a part of world history. Indeed, they might even become its defining center! But there were a variety of other ways of engaging, and contesting the external. In part, this could be effected through religious debate and polemic, as we saw in the case of Hesse, where Josel of Rosheim re-inscribed Jews as the true Israelites, the true Chosen People of God. But as the case of Josel demonstrates, through chronicles apparently intended for internal Jewish audiences Jews could also confront external authority and come out on top. Straw men, such as apostates and informers, who were seen to represent external authority or external and evil threats to the internal harmony and 182 See Noah J. Efron, “Knowledge of Newly Discovered Lands among Jewish Communities of Europe (From 1492 to the Thirty Years’ War),” in Paolo Bernardini and Norman Fiering (eds), The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the West 1450–1800 (New York, 2001), pp. 47–72, here at pp. 61, 64–5. 183 Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval and Modern, p. 177. 184 Ibid., p. 178.


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security of Jewish communities, could be set up and toppled. Their machinations against the Jews could offer an opportunity for moral upbraiding at the same time that they provided an excuse for the evil that befell the Jews. Yet, in many cases, such informers could be overcome and Jewish communities could be saved or returned to their former status or settlement. In all of these cases, narratives of past events— whether actual or perceived—allowed Jews to engage with the world outside and, at times, to defeat it, or at the very least to put it back in its place. There were other narratives of the past that allowed Jews to do much the same. These included legal decision-making and the narratives involving various myths and legends. It is to these sources that we now turn.


Chapter 6

From Law to Legend: Narrating Jewish and Christian Encounters In addition to polemical exchange—at times direct as in the political activity of Josel of Rosheim and at times less explicit as in the chronicling of David Gans— Jews had at their disposal various other means to re-inscribe themselves in the past, and consequently, in the power relations of the present. As masters of their own legal tradition, for example, they dictated the historical status of non-Jews in their own legal deliberations, while simultaneously demonstrating the long and involved interaction between Jews and Christians. Through various folkloric tales, Jews presented themselves and their communities as of ancient provenance, integral to the development of particular cities, regions, or nations. The writing down of origin stories in particular Jewish communities—whether they stressed the origins of the Jews in the city or merely made Jews familiar with the more general history of the city—served further to reinforce early modern Jewish identity. While Jews were thus inserted into the general lore of the city, they also etched out their own stockpile of events, which at times allowed them to contest external authority in indirect ways. The recounting of wonder stories and the power of Jewish mystics similarly afforded Jews the opportunity to defend themselves, even when such defenses may have been more imagined than real. In what follows I examine in more detail these various methods of re-inscription. Along the way, the complexity of Jewish and Christian relations in early modern Germany will become apparent. I begin with a look at the presentation of Christianity and memory in the legal writings of Yair Hayyim Bacharach, before turning to the role of memory in the wonder stories collected by Juspa, shammash of Worms, and narratives describing the origins of Jewish communities. Law and the Past: Yair Hayyim Bacharach and Jewish and Christian Relations In legal decisions and discussions of community customs, representations of the past could have important implications for both describing and contesting Christian and Jewish relations. A few examples can be found in the responsa and commentaries of Rabbi Yair Hayyim ben Moses Samson Bacharach, a descendant of the Maharal of Prague (Judah Loew) through his mother.1 Before we examine these cases it is helpful to provide a brief context for Bacharch. 1 David Kaufmann, R. Jaïr Chajjim Bacharach (1638–1702) (Trier, 1894), p. 3; See also Shulkhan Arukh Orakh Hayyim im Perush Mekor Hayyim (hereafter MH), vol. 1, p. 7.

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Bacharach was one of the profound intellectual giants of early modern Germany. He possessed a deep background in Jewish legal and kabbalistic sources, as well as broad knowledge in a variety of secular fields.2 Intimately connected with the scholarship of his predecessors and conversant with many of the scholars of his age throughout Germany,3 in addition to his own works Bacharach also published the responsa of his grandfather and father in 1679.4 Bacharach was born in Leipnik, Moravia in 1638.5 His father was head of the rabbinic court in Worms and author of Shemen ha-Meor.6 His grandfather, Rabbi Abraham Samuel Bacharach, himself a noted scholar, also served as head of the rabbinic court in Worms.7 Bacharach spent time with his father in Prague (1643)8 and Worms (1650?),9 before studying in Fulda for six years (1654), steeped in Talmud and Codes,10 and then at the yeshivah of Rabbi Mendel Bass in Frankfurt,11 where he was ordained.12 In Fulda he married Sarlan—the daughter of Rabbi Sussman Brilin, in whose house he studied and who was related to the Maharal and to the important Oppenheimer family.13 He then served briefly as rabbi and head of the bet din, or rabbinic court, of Koblenz from 1666 until 1669 (and then briefly in Mainz),14 leaving perhaps due to partisan intrigue within the community.15 In 1669 Bacharach resettled in Worms, where he succeeded his father as community rabbi briefly upon the latter’s death.16 But, in what came as a terrible blow, Bacharach was passed over as permanent communal rabbi in favor of Rabbi Aaron Teomim from 2 Kaufmann, R. Jaïr Chajjim Bacharach, pp. 1–2; Jacob Haberman, “Bacharach, Jair Hayyim ben Moses Samson,” in Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 4, cc. 46–8. 3 See Kaufmann, R. Jaïr Chajjim Bacharach, pp. 69ff. 4 MH, p. 8. 5 Additional general information can be found in Juspa Shammash of Worms, Minhagim, pp. 55–6. 6 See ibid., pp. 52–4. 7 MH, p. 7. 8 Kaufmann, R. Jaïr Chajjim Bacharach, p. 27. 9 Ibid., pp. 4, 27–8. 10 Ibid., p. 38. 11 MH, p. 7. 12 Kaufmann, R. Jaïr Chajjim Bacharach, p. 42; Haberman, “Bacharach, Jair Hayyim,” c. 47. 13 Kaufmann, R. Jaïr Chajjim Bacharach, p. 39; for information on his children, see pp. 44ff; for information on some of the Brilin family in Worms, see Yair Hayyim Bacharach (ed.), Wormser Minhagbuch des R. Jousep (Juspa) Schammes, prepared by Erich Zimmer, 2 vols (Jerusalem, 1988) (Hebrew), here at vol. 1, pp. 51–2. 14 MH, pp. 7, 15; Kaufmann, R. Jaïr Chajjim Bacharach, pp. 50–51. See responsum 115, regarding the city and its relationship to a nearby community, and responsum 135, regarding moving about at night in various communities, some of which were restricted behind a wall and locked at night as in Frankfurt, as opposed to Trier, Koblenz, Manheim, and Heidelberg, where Jews were accustomed to move around the entire city (Havot Yair, vol. 2, p. 367— Bacharach discussed whether the prohibition of movement referred to the entire city or only Jews, and what kind of movement between houses would be permissible). 15 Haberman, “Bacharach, Jair Hayyim,” c. 47. 16 Kaufmann, R. Jaïr Chajjim Bacharach, pp. 53–4.


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Prague.17 When Worms was occupied by the French and much of the Jewish quarter destroyed in 1689,18 Bacharach like many other members of the community fled to Metz,19 spending time soon after in Frankfurt, where he attempted to collect some debts, and then Heidelberg.20 With the reconstitution of the Worms community in 1699, Bacharach was finally appointed communal rabbi, but he lived only three more years, dying in 1702. Bacharach was a prolific writer, and his extensive responsa, known as Havot Yair, have been published several times since 1699.21 The conditions under which he published these responsa, namely the wandering forced upon him and other Jews after the expulsion from Worms, are discussed briefly in his introduction to the responsa.22 Bacharach may have written in excess of 40 volumes of material and notes, most of which remain unpublished or lost. The contents of some of these volumes23 have been discussed by David Kaufmann in the central, if now dated, study of Bacharach.24 These writings reflect a variety of interests ranging from halakhic compendia, customs (for example of Metz25), commentaries on a variety of works, including those of Isaiah Horowitz (c.1565–1630)26 and the works of members of his own family,27 brief chronicles28 and historical extracts (including those describing messianic movements,29 particularly the Sabbatian movement,30 and the history of the community in Worms31), as well as mathematics and natural science. Bacharach, therefore, was an important early modern figure who was broadly learned, embroiled in various communal matters, and familiar with the non-Jewish world around him. His narration of past events refracted his own experiences as well as familial and communal experiences and lore to lead the Jewish community and to navigate the non-Jewish environment in which that community was steeped. 17 Ibid., pp. 54–6. 18 Ibid., pp. 71ff. 19 Ibid., pp. 73–5. 20 Ibid., p. 78; Haberman, “Bacharach, Jair Hayyim,” c. 48. 21 Frankfurt; see Kaufmann, R. Jaïr Chajjim Bacharach, pp. 108–11; Bacharach himself outlines the history and order of some of his publications, including Havot Yair, Hut Shayni, and Mekor Hayyim—see his introduction in Havot Yair, vol. 1, p. 11. 22 See ibid., pp. 11ff. 23 Vols 1–9, 11, 14, 17–20, 22–4, 35, 37, 46. 24 See Kaufmann, R. Jaïr Chajjim Bacharach, pp. 121–4, for the foreword to the catalog. 25 Vol. 17. 26 Vol. 20. 27 Vols 22, 23, 46. 28 Vol. 17. 29 Vol. 7. 30 Vol. 35. Bacharach collected writings associated with the messianic pretensions of Shabbetai Zevi and recognized him for many years as a pseudo messiah (Haberman, “Bacharach, Jair Hayyim,” c. 47; see also Kaufmann, R. Jaïr Chajjim Bacharach, pp. 49–50). In one place, for example, Bacharach wrote “and still today nobody knows until when [he will come] and there was there the messiah, the aforementioned, our rabbi Shabbetai Zevi, in the community of Ismir …” (Bacharach (ed.), Wormser Minhagbuch, p. 56). 31 Vol. 24 (see also vol. 46).

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Bacharach’s commentary to Joseph Juspa Shammash of Worms’ customs for the community of Worms offered a good deal of historical information about some of the key events in the history of the Jewish community in Worms, both in internal social and political developments and in external events (a broad outline of these developments is presented below). While he mentioned the specific rulings of his father, the circumcisions, weddings, and deaths of prominent members of the community were also detailed.32 Distant events, such as the murder of Jews during the Black Death (5109, 1349) were also recorded because they became fast days for the Worms community.33 But contemporary history was of particular importance, as Bacharach assembled the customs and laws of the Jews. He noted, for example, a fast day imposed on the community on the eve of Rosh Hodesh Shevat (beginning of the Hebrew month of Shevat) in remembrance of the expulsion of the Jews from Worms in the year 1615,34 explaining that the next day could not be a fast day since it was Rosh Hodesh itself.35 Communally defined moments dictated much of the historical, and indeed liturgical, memory of Bacharach and the other Jews of Worms. In commenting on the particular liturgical order of a service, for example, Bacharach wrote that it was not followed in Worms. He went on to note that he “heard that [they said the blessings] before the expulsion that was in the year 5375 (1615) in Worms, but at that time there were many uncircumcised in the synagogue owing to our sins. This situation continued until the year 5380 (1620), and people were unable to gather for prayers and were forced to pray alone or in small groups.”36 Bacharach was quick to understand contemporary events and their impact upon the Jewish community. For the year 1664 (5424), for example, he noted the war between the Turks and the Habsburgs and the attacks on many towns in Hungary. He concluded that “and those uncircumcised enemies of Israel pronounced lies against the Children of Israel stating that we rejoiced in the success of the Turks and other things that we do not want to write …”.37 As noted at the end of Chapter 3, this resulted in “a prohibition being placed on the community, the parnasim and the household heads [ba’al habatim] not to light a bonfire on Simhat Torah as was customary each year,” so that there would not be an impression that the Jews were 32 See Bacharach (ed.), Worms Minhagbuch, p. 179, for example, which mentions the death in 1670/71 of Beila and also his father; p. 249 regarding memorial; for members of the Oppenheim family and the parnasim and their families, see vol. 2, pp. 104, 105. 33 See ibid., vol. 1, p. 253. The minhag book also elucidated Jewish and Christian relations in sections dealing with wine in Worms (vol. 2, pp. 127ff) and fruits and animals of Gentiles (vol. 2, pp. 130ff). 34 Ibid., pp. 27–8; See also Havot Yair, vol. 1, responsum 126. 35 The Worms minhag book itself discusses the two guests that saved the community; see Bacharach (ed.), Worms Minhagbuch, vol. 1, pp. 94–5 and vol. 2, pp. 247–8, that I have discussed elsewhere. See my “Worms and the Jews: Jews, Magic, and Community in Seventeenth-Century Worms,” in Kathryn A. Edwards (ed.), Werewolves, Witches, and Wandering Spirits: Folklore and Traditional Belief in Early Modern Europe (Kirksville, 2002), pp. 93–118. 36 Bacharach (ed.), Wormser Minhagbuch, vol. 1, p. 48. 37 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 231.


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celebrating the defeats of the Christians in battle.38 Similarly, when a war broke out between the Duke of the Palatinate and the ruler of Thuringia in 1669 (5429), the Jews in Worms also did not allow bonfires, though general celebratory actions, such as drinking wine and eating fruits, were permitted as customary.39 Early modern German politics were quite complex. In another responsum,40 Bacharach discussed Duke Karl Ludwig of blessed memory(!) and his shrewd political maneuvers. In this context, he mentioned a certain Rabbi Isaac who was av bet din and head of the Jews in the region (medinah) of the Palatinate. Previously Rabbi Isaac also headed the community in Hamelburg, when the Jews were expelled from there in the year 5431 (1671). Again, the responsum, which pointed out the territorial divisions and the political complexities of the period, suggested something of the significance of political division and the interconnection between disperse regional Jewish communities. While there was little in the way of discussion of Gentiles in his commentary Mekor Hayyim, Bacharach’s commentary to parts of Joseph Karo’s Shulhan Arukh, Bacharach did note one discussion (he referenced the Talmudic tractate Hullin 13b) regarding whether Gentiles “in this time” were considered idol worshippers. He also took up this issue in a number of places in his responsa, most extensively in responsum 1,41 where he concluded that worshippers of the stars and fortunes (as well as trees42) were not equivalent to “Gentiles in this day, who are not drawn toward the service of idolatry.”43 The distinction he relied upon was culled from the book of Isaiah, Sefer Yossipon, and the commentaries of Rashi, and was basically one between the Greeks and “modern” Gentiles.44 In commenting on the custom of making a wine-vat kosher that belonged to Gentiles,45 Bacharach cited a passage from the Tosafists (Avodah Zara 73a) to the effect that “at that time there were no Gentiles who were expert in the nature of idol worship and there are no prohibitions other than drinking [with them] … and if thus [the wine] is kosher [it is] permitted …”.46 This issue of whether Christians were idolaters, or indeed whether idolatry still existed in contemporary times, has been much discussed in the context of Christianity in both polemical and pragmatic discussions since the time of the famous medieval exegete Rashi and has been treated at length by the late historian Jacob Katz.47 The legal texts we have been examining are not in the least “historical” accounts. They do, however, reveal the rather obvious conclusion that legal reasoning could not be separated from previous precedent or past events and they further demonstrate that Jews in the early modern 38 Ibid., p. 232. 39 Ibid. 40 Bacharach, Havot Yair, vol. 1, responsum 136, pp. 369ff. 41 See also ibid., vol. 2, responsum 185, pp. 516–17. 42 Ibid., vol. 1, responsum 1, p. 16. 43 Ibid., p. 14. 44 Ibid., p. 16. 45 Ibid., responsum 116. 46 Ibid., p. 321. 47 See Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Studies in Jewish and Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times (New Jersey, 1983 (orig., 1961)).

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period were involved in a complex relationship with Christians; a relationship that forced Jews to consider their historical and religious understanding of Christians and themselves. The power of traditional ruling and authority combined with sensitivity to contemporary issues to inform Bacharach’s view of community and the relationship of that community with the Christian world in which it existed. As we have seen, halakhic literature allowed, even at times dictated, engagement with various temporal modalities, and in Bacharach’s writing the relationship between past and present is extremely significant for internal legal decision-making as well as for understanding the position of Jews and the Jewish community within the broader society. Mythic Time and Identity Other narratives, while detailing internal history and customs, also afforded the opportunity to engage external authority. In a rather different genre, historical narratives were wed with communal traditions and lore to create a rich memory of past events. The compiler of many such stories for the Jewish community of Worms was Joseph Juspa ben Nafthali Hirz Ha-Levi (1604–1678), or simply Juspa, who studied in Fulda and then Worms, where he married into a prominent family and became shammash, a position he held for 40 years. Juspa served as community scribe (he wrote divorce documents, transcribed cases before the rabbi, recorded important events in the community ledger, and signed documents as a witness to their legality), mohel, shohet, and principally, sexton (custodian of the synagogue property, rabbi’s secretary, and administrative assistant of the charity overseer). Juspa authored in 1670 the Ma’aseh Nissim, a volume that included a variety of stories culled from general Worms lore and internal Jewish traditions and history.48 Such stories narrated the past to explain contemporary practices and, along the way, gave Jews hope of divine assistance and eventual salvation. In story number three, which also appeared in the popular Worms custom book of Liwa Kirchheim, we find an elucidation for the reason why two candles were kindled in the synagogue in memory of two strangers who gave their lives to save the Jews of Worms. According to the story, shortly before Passover a Jew, unaware that a Christian procession was passing through the Jewish quarter, cast toilet water from his window and it landed upon the cross.49 “They [the Christians] immediately said that the Jews did this and provoked [them], and the Jews stood in great danger.”50 The Christian authorities demanded that the culprit confess or all of the local Jews would be killed. If the confession came before the seventh day of Passover the Jews would not be harmed. On the morning of the seventh day of Passover the Gentiles 48 See my “Worms and the Jews.” 49 Compare the apparently intentional, if not illegal, dripping of liquid manure by early modern Catholics, who distracted Kempen Protestant prayer services on Good Friday. See Thomas A. Brady, Jr., “Limits of Religious Violence in Early Modern Europe,” in Kaspar von Greyerz and Kim Siebenhüner et al. (eds), Religion und Gewalt: Konflikte, Rituale, Deutunge (1500–1800) (Göttingen, 2006), pp. 125–51, here at p. 140. 50 Eidelberg, R. Juspa, p. 61 in the Hebrew.


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assembled with arms to exact revenge on the Jews. “On the morning of the seventh day of Passover, the Shammash called everyone to prayer. When opening the gate of the Jewish section, two visitors were standing before him.”51 The shammash inquired who these visitors were and why they had come to Worms on the holiday. He informed them that “because of our sins, a decree has been issued against the community: [a decree] to murder all of us at the conclusion of the Festival.”52 The two visitors replied that they surely knew all this, and that they had come to nullify the evil decree by declaring in the town square that the Jews were guiltless—“no man from the street of the Jews emptied or poured toilet water upon the cross;”53 rather, both of them were present and it was they who committed the act. The burghers put these two visitors to death under extreme torture, the evil decree was annulled, and the Jews were not harmed. The story concluded: “From that time on, memorial prayers were established on the seventh day of Passover for the souls of the two visitors, but until this day it is not known who these two visitors were. Perhaps God sent two angels in the form of two humans to annul the evil decree.”54 It is worth noting that the timing of the events, that is, the seventh day of Passover, was of great significance for the Jews of Worms, as we will see below. It is also intriguing that the Christians did not act immediately against the Jews and that although the Jews were saved, they were never really vindicated in the end. That salvation had to come from outside the community went against the mold of more traditional Ashkenazic tales. Throughout the tale there were very clear categories of Christians described; while the authorities, for example, were presented in rather positive terms, the mob was portrayed differently. In the end, the memorialization of a particular and local event by a religious means created a sacralized center within the community, which absorbed the holy act of the visitors. It is of course common for Jewish communities to establish fast days in commemoration of suffering,55 or feast days in commemoration of salvation. As Moshe Idel has recently suggested, Jewish “historical” sources frequently combine a variety of visions and uses of time and history. In this case, the linear depiction of the events as they unfolded combined with a circular and ritual approach to memorialization, using the recurrent remembering of an event, or at least its

51 Ibid., p. 62. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. Compare a passage in the anonymous Prague chronicle: “Afterwards, they intended to harm the Jews as well—to massacre and exterminate [Esther 3:13] all the Jews, to rob and plunder all their money, Heaven forbid!—if it had not been for the mercy of the Lord of Hosts, who sent an angel into the midst of the crowd, and they heard a voice [proclaiming], ‘Do not raise your hands against the Jews, by order of our sovereign the emperor, may he be exalted.’ The lords, the leaders of the people, came to the aid of the Jews, for [the masses] had no right to harm the Jews” (David (ed.), A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague, p. 67). 55 In an interesting responsum, Yair Bacharach noted that it is permissible to desecrate the Sabbath by decreeing a fast on the congregation (tsibur) because of the sins of the community (kahal). See Yair Hayyim Bacharach, She’eilot u’teshuvot (Jerusalem, 1967), responsum no. 236.

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representation, in time to inform Jewish religion, culture, and in this case as well, community.56 In another tale, apparently based on one version of the event retold in Liwa Kirchheim’s “Book of Customs,” Juspa began historically by noting that in 5374 (1614) the burghers of Frankfurt expelled the Jews living in the city. The burghers in Worms, the tale continued, had plotted the same in 1614 after the Frankfurt example, and hordes of Gentiles assembled on the night of Tisha b’Av (5374) to plan the expulsion. “However, the Gentiles who lived in the vicinity of the street of the Jews cried out against the Gentiles assembled, and they said that the street of the Jews was full of armed men. And there was fear that the Jews would become the masters! A great fear then fell upon them, and they [the mob] dispersed.”57 But, the story continued, on that night there had not been a single man in the Jewish street; it was, rather “the Ba’alei Shemot [literally, masters of the divine names], and they said that the Ba’alei Shemot appeared to them [as armed warriors],”58 and the leader of these mystics was Rabbi Gedalia, a leading kabbalist of the generation. Still, the Christians continued to plot against the Jews, and finally expelled them on the morning of the seventh day of Passover 5375 (1615), while they prayed in the synagogue. The Jews were forced to leave their possessions and to cross over the Rhine, where they were abandoned. The story next went on to describe the fate of the Jews who found themselves in the Palatinate, imperial involvement, and the Fettmilch uprising in Frankfurt (discussed above in Chapter 3). Like the tale above, this one unfolded on the seventh day of Passover and ended with fasting and feasting. Like other tales, this one also utilized the magical skills of the mystical Ba’alei Shemot, and in particular the powers of a leading kabbalist, Rabbi Gedalia. The invocation of divine names was a common theme in Jewish tales both earlier and later, particularly amongst the Ashkenazic hasidim.59

56 See Moshe Idel, “Some Concepts of Time and History in Kabbalah,” in Carlebach, Efron, and Myers (eds), Jewish History and Jewish Memory, pp. 153–88. Idel notes that “In contradiction to Eliade’s assumption, I propose that in Judaism the ritual elements are not just ‘traces’ that ‘survive’ from ancient doctrine but an integral component of this religion, which, far from representing an attempt to escape the terror of history, was conceived as shaping the direction of the linear by means of the circular approach to time.” (p. 155). 57 Eidelberg, R. Juspa, p. 72. 58 Ibid., p. 72. See also Karl Grözinger, “Legenden aus dem Frankfurt des 18. Jahrhunderts: Umbrüche und Unruhen,” in Karl E. Grözinger (ed.), Jüdische Kultur in Frankfurt am Main von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart: ein internationales Symposium der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main und des Franz Rosenzweig Research Center for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History Jerusalem (Wiesbaden, 1997), pp. 179–205, who discusses the function of the baal shem, whom he terms a spontaneous and charismatic helper with a professionalized function, which appears to have developed with nothing to do with the function of the rabbis or the rabbinic educated intellectuals (p. 189). 59 Indeed, according to Joshua Trachtenberg “the primary principle of medieval Jewish magic was an implicit reliance upon the Powers of Good, which were invoked by calling upon their names, the holy Names of God and His Angels.” See Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion (Philadelphia, 1939), pp. 15–17.


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This tale related a series of somewhat interconnected events and associated the Fettmilch uprising against the Jews and the city council in Frankfurt with the eventual actions taken against the Jews in Worms. The historical presentation— dealing with the plotting and final execution of the plan to expel the Jews, the confiscation of Jewish property, the assistance of the nobility and emperor, and the final vindication of the Jews and the rebuilding of their synagogue—also provided important distinctions between various Christian groups (particularly commoners and councilmen) within the city, and the Jews’ relations with them. The magical tales reviewed here also reflected well the position of and relation to the Other in early modern German culture. The shifting position of the Jews in the early modern city, and in particular the seemingly favorable view of the city ruling classes and at times religious authorities was strikingly contrasted with the common multitudes and in particular the guilds that represented groups seeking to undermine traditional structures of authority and relations of power. Through magic, Jews could engage Christians—historical, and so also perhaps contemporary—without having to take a position of open confrontation. Both the Fettmilch uprising and the revolt in Worms have been seen within a broad political context, in which a variety of concerns and relations were played out. Both riots seem to have been more political and economic than religious in nature and both had a complex background. In Worms, the rioters, under the leadership of Dr. Chemnitz, argued for the reduction of the amount of interest that Jews could charge on money they loaned to 5 per cent. The council indeed discussed this proposal but then noted that the Jews should be allowed to charge a higher interest rate since they could not support themselves in other traditional ways.60 Chemnitz then demanded that the Jews be expelled, since the council held the political authority to do so through an earlier imperial grant. Indeed, Chemnitz was later granted permission to inspect the book of charters and discovered that Emperor Rudolph had, in 1582, confirmed the city’s control over the Jews. In the meantime, the Jews, who were accused of numerous crimes and of libeling the city (in 133 ways, according to the documents), appealed directly to the emperor. Combined with the emperor’s protective stance regarding the Jews, the failure of Fettmilch in Frankfurt forced the Worms council to distance itself from any overt mistreatment of the Jews. The event in Worms is rather complicated; and it demonstrated the intersection of numerous sources of authority and the conflagration of a myriad of issues. Local, regional, and imperial discussions about the Jews, their status, and their privileges, evolved throughout the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth. The dispute also continued after the events played out in Frankfurt and Worms, when, for example, the prince in Cologne demanded compensation from the Jews in 1619 and proceeded to enter into legal battles at the

60 Christopher R. Friedrichs, “Anti-Jewish Politics in Early Modern Germany,” Central European History 23:2–3 (1990): 91–152, here at pp. 110ff.

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imperial courts.61 The general contours of the event seem to have followed much like the Jewish accounts.62 It should be pointed out that the magic depicted by Juspa was of a protective nature, and what is perhaps more intriguing, it was not always successful, in the long run anyway. As in most uses of magic, we find combined the holy and the mundane; the combination of the divine names to create real or illusionary effects in this world. Often times the magic, in its use or limitations, seemed to hint at the concern with particular religious values (for example, the Hasidei Ashkenaz and their pious behavior) or particular moral meanings (for example, how to treat strangers). Magic, therefore, related to and explained communal customs at the same time that it fit into a life cycle of Jewish religion, the Jewish community, and individual Jewish experiences. The magic of the Ba’alei Shemot revealed the dependence of the community upon particularly learned men at the same time that it effectively delineated the relationship between Jews and non-Jews in the city. Magic and subsequent salvation, as evident in the assistance of angels and visitors, also revealed the reliance on external forces and the interdependency of Jewish communities, in a period when regional associations were taking on more significant roles in Jewish communal and constitutional history. Other similar tales of mythic proportions also circulated widely and could accomplish much of the same identity building. Tales of the Hasidei Ashkenaz, or German Pietists, were very popular and circulated widely throughout early modern Germany. The Hasidei Ashkenaz, were primary agents in the Ma’aseh Bukh63 published in Basel in 1602. An edition of the Sefer Hasidim was also published in 1581, as part of a growing body of ethical literature and exempla printed in Yiddish in the sixteenth century in Verona, Basel, and Prague (the Brandspiegel and the Zuchtspiegel, ascribed to Moses Henoch, for example, were printed in Prague in 1572).64 One manuscript, dating from the sixteenth century, contained 99 stories, 40 of which focused on Hasidei Ashkenaz figures, 22 on Judah the Pious, and seven on his father Samuel the Pious. A Frankfurt manuscript from the same period contained ten tales about Samuel, though none about Judah.65 The stories, it has been argued, functioned to strengthen religious values; they offered a means of confronting opposition; and they allowed the persecuted and suffering minority to “bask in the

61 See Volker Press, “Kaiser Rudolf II. und der Zusammenschluß der deutschen Judenheit: Die sogenannte Frankfurter Rabbinerverschwörung von 1603 und ihre Folgen,” in Alfred Haverkamp (ed.), Zur Geschichte der Juden im Deutschland des Späten Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit (Stuttgart, 1981), pp. 243–93. See pp. 279ff especially. 62 See Friedrichs, “Anti-Jewish Politics,” pp. 132ff. 63 Ma’aseh Book: Book of Jewish Tales and Legends, trans. Moses Gaster, 2 vols (Philadelphia, 1934). More recently, see Un beau livre d’histoires/Eyn shön Mayse bukh, Traduction du Yiddish, introduction et notes, 2 vols, ed. and trans. Astrid Starck (Basel, 2004). 64 Ma’aseh Book, pp. xxiv, xxvi and xxxiv. 65 Sara Zfatman, “The Mayse-Bukh: An Old Yiddish Literary Genre,” Hasifrut 28, VIII/2 (April, 1979): 126–52 (Hebrew; English summary, p. iv), here at p. 124.


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glory of their indomitable representative.”66 These tales served to bolster the group’s ethnic and national-religious identity.67 The Hasidei Ashkenaz enjoyed something of a renaissance of interest in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Although there are scattered references to the Hasidei Ashkenaz in a number of late medieval rabbinic responsa—such as those of the Maharil—it was with the Ma’aseh Bukh literature of the sixteenth century and the Sefer Yosef Ometz that we find significant accounts of the Hasidei Ashkenaz. According to now standard interpretations, Jewish scholars of the early modern period were not satisfied with the traditional occupation with the Talmud, but endeavored for wider and deeper spiritual spheres of Jewish belief and Jewish law. According to Jacob Katz, Jewish polemic against Christianity also nearly ceased in the sixteenth century.68 Katz asserted that Ashkenazic Jewry became a closed system with few or no comprehensive thinkers, or philosophers,69 but a plethora of moralizing and admonishing preachers.70 Indeed, many of the works examined here reflected something of a seventeenth-century renaissance of the Hasidei Ashkenaz, focused on moral qualities and the power of custom.71 The Hasidei Ashkenaz had appeared at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries in the Rhenish communities and in Regensburg, and thereafter spread throughout Germany and France.72 The most prominent early members of the hasidim were Samuel ben Kalonymos he-Hasid (fl. second half of the twelfth century), Samuel’s son Judah he-Hasid (d. 1217), and Judah’s relative and pupil Eleazer ben Judah Kalonymos of Worms (d. c.1230). The primary work of the Hasidei Ashkenaz, Sefer Hasidim, was a prime example of Jewish ethical literature that explores proper behavior and interpersonal relationships. The pietists often gathered around a leading figure, a pietist sage, and at times were pitted against the “traditional” leadership of the communities in which they lived. On the one hand, the Hasidei Ashkenaz sought positions of leadership and service within the Jewish communities; on the other hand, they at times secluded themselves from the community. Stories about the Hasidei Ashkenaz circulated orally in Yiddish throughout the period in which they operated. During the fifteenth century, these stories were fixed into a hagiographic cycle, translated into Hebrew and handed down in written form. But in the sixteenth century, they were again translated, this time back into a more

66 Ibid., p. 127. 67 Ibid., p. 136. 68 See Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance. 69 Fraenkel-Goldschmidt cites Twersky to this effect. See her “Jüdische Religion und Kultur in Frankfurt am Main im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,” p. 101. 70 Ibid., p. 136. 71 Along these lines, one must note the general interest in the Sefer Hasidim among scholars of the seventeenth century. Fraenkel-Goldschmidt refers to a renaissance of penance literature (ibid., p. 115). According to Fraenkel-Goldschmidt Juspa was a Hasid Ashkenaz of the sixteenth to seventeenth century (ibid., p. 113). 72 See the important study of Ivan Marcus on the Hasidei Ashkenaz, Piety and Society: The Jewish Pietists of Medieval Germany (Leiden, 1981).

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popular and accessible Yiddish version, and eventually collected and subsumed with other stories into the Ma’aseh Bukh.73 How did these tales present the past and account for time? The stories of the Ma’aseh Bukh certainly noted that the events recounted happened in a previous time, that of the Hasidei Ashkenaz.74 These stories had real meaning for contemporary times as well, however, and the compilers of the tales sought to apply the stories to their own times, noting the effects of past and mythic events on contemporary situations and inviting their readers to engage with the stories and the effects of the events narrated. In tale number 158 it was noted “May the Lord, blessed be He, grant that we benefit by their merits through all ages.”75 In tale number 183, the death of Rabbi Judah Hasid and the falling tower of Regensburg were equated: “If you do not believe this story go to Regensburg and you will see for yourself, and will hear why the gate cannot be rebuilt. It has been rebuilt many times, but no sooner was it erected than it fell down again and would not stand” [emphasis added]. While some tales may have borrowed from German folktales, even these tales could be given a very Jewish twist.76 Throughout, questions of temporality were ignored. In tale number 169, for example, Elijah, Moses, Abraham, and the rest of the forefathers, as well as the prophet Jeremiah, were all present together in a room engaged in prayer. In the same story, the protagonist learned 70 languages in an hour and was carried very far to Regensburg on a cloud in a short time.77 The Hasidei Ashkenaz masters were clearly not bound by time, or even death. In tale number 171, Judah saved the Jews of Regensburg from the accusation of murdering a Christian (who had been stealing from them with another culprit who killed him so as not to share the treasure), by making a dead man rise and point out his murderer. In tale number 172 the mighty duke in Regensburg, who was a friend to the Jews, entrusted the keys to his treasure to a Jew. While he was away, the treasure was stolen; however, the Jew used mystical names to see far out into the country and find the thieves—here we find a collapsing of time and space. The tale concluded, “the thieves were sentenced to be hanged on the gallows and the sentence was carried out. But the Jew was saved from death.”78 Their miraculous crossing of temporal boundaries indicated that Jews did not see time as a one-dimensional field, otherwise these events would not have been so remarkable. Time, in the Ma’aseh Bukh often had moralistic purposes. In tale number 177, a young man was detained from an impulse to be baptized. The tale concluded, “They kept me back this time, and now the evil hour has passed.”79 The narration of the

73 Zfatman, “The Mayse-Bukh.” 74 “I will now begin to write down the stories of Rabbi Samuel the Pious and of his son R. Judah the Pious of Regensburg and what happened in their times” (Ma’aseh Book, vol. 2, p. 317). 75 Ibid., p. 319. 76 Ibid., no. 169. 77 Ibid., pp. 350, 351. 78 Ibid., p. 362. 79 Ibid., p. 380.


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Hasidei Ashkenaz ability to protect, and to transgress the boundaries of temporality allowed Jews to imagine significant power over and against external foes. Two stories in Ma’aseh Nissim also discussed Rabbi Eleazer (Elazar), also known as the Rokeah because he authored Sefer ha-Rokeah. In story number 680 a brief note was given about Rabbi Eleazer, noting in particular that he lived in Worms, and that he was a great man, learned in Torah, “equaled by few others throughout the world.” Rabbi Eleazer’s oeuvre was discussed briefly, again positing that, “he composed much of the liturgical poetry recited exclusively in Worms on Festivals.” The story noted the location of Eleazer’s house, the time when his disciples would come to study, and then related a tragic event. According to the story: Once a band of murderous gentile students armed with bows and arrows jumped from the wall, broke into Rabbi Elazar’s house, and killed his wife and children. Hearing the screams, the Rabbi and his disciples hurried to investigate. However, when Rabbi Elazar and the young men with him attempted to mount the steps, one of the murderers armed with a bow and arrow blocked their path and attacked the Rabbi. Although the attempted murder failed, the Gentile succeeded in wounding Rabbi Elazar’s shoulder. The disciples managed to run outside and cry for help. Before reinforcements arrived, however, the gentile students escaped by way of the city wall. The men who came to the rescue found only the murdered wife and children of Rabbi Elazar, May God avenge their blood.81

Why was this story included in the collection of miracle stories? Rabbi Eleazar did escape, but not his wife and children, and the story made no mention of the students being brought to justice. Perhaps, the story pointed to the resilience of the Jewish community in the face of attack. Despite many and emotional losses, the Jews maintained their cohesion and were not in the end completely defeated. While not everyone was saved, clearly there was a sense that the mystical leadership had a power that protected it and that, ultimately, would save the Jews. Story number 7,82 played more overtly with the unique and unequalled knowledge of Rabbi Eleazar. In this case, while sleeping, the God-fearing man ascended to heaven and mingled with the angels. The story next introduced the famous scholar Ramban (Moses ben Nahman or Nahmanides, 1194–1270), living in thirteenthcentury Spain, who was trying to resolve certain difficulties in his studies, but who was not versed in kabbalah. A proclamation in Heaven asked who was willing to teach the Ramban kabbalah and at the same time kill the wicked governor of the Ramban’s province who was making the Jews suffer a great deal. The Rokeah agreed to undertake the task, provided he could use the Shemot, the holy names. After baking his matzot on the eve of Passover, he pronounced the holy name, causing a cloud to appear. That cloud transported the rabbi from Worms to Spain that very day. Invited to the Ramban’s home for the festival, Rokeah remained silent, appearing to be simple and an ignoramus. Rokeah did not participate in the seder with the other guests, however, because they were not versed in kabbalah—the narrator is quick to add that all he did was for the sake of Heaven. The Ramban 80 Eidelberg, R. Juspa, pp. 64–5. 81 Ibid. 82 Ibid., pp. 65ff.

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warned the Rokeah about walking alone the next morning to the synagogue. In the meantime, the Rokeah requested that he be given the opportunity to deliver a sermon in the synagogue. In the morning, Rokeah rose and went to the street forbidden to the Jews. He was arrested and sentenced to death, the evil governor thrilled at the prospect that he might burn the Jew in a place that would be visible to other Jews on their way to the synagogue. The Jews feared greatly and prayed. Rokeah, for his part “pronounced the name of the holy angel and changed the wicked governor’s facial features so that he resembled the Rokeah. The guards grabbed the governor and cast him into the fire, where he was consumed by the flames. Thus, the Rokeah fulfilled his heavenly mission to kill the governor by using holy names.”83 After this episode, the Rokeah was allowed to deliver a sermon, in which he solved the Ramban’s difficulties. “The Rokeah continued his sermon, expounding profound interpretations and commenting upon important matters that had never been heard before … All these deeds were performed through Kabbalah.”84 The story concluded, in a rather moralistic vein: “My dear readers, see how scholars and righteous men experienced miracles in days of yore. Because of our sins, our generation is undeserving [of such wonders]. In the merit [of our ancestors], may God consider us worthy of this. Amen.”85 Again, the Ashkenazic mystic was seen as extremely powerful—so powerful, in fact that he defeated the non-Jewish enemy looking to uproot the Spanish Jews. It is also interesting to note that the Ashkenazic self-esteem was here stroked, as the Ashkenazic rabbi taught a thing or two to the Sephardim, especially the great sage of the time. Time here was collapsed, and narratives of the past had real meaning for contemporary society. Origin Stories and Memory National as well as urban origins were much discussed throughout early modern Europe. This was particularly true in Germany, where one recent historian has noted that: As the political cohesion of Germany began visibly to weaken and as her neighbours, particularly France, began to overtake her, a psychology of decline set in. Some Germans sought to compensate by adopting a grossly romanticized view of their own past, with great emphasis on the innate superiority of the Germans. The idea arose that the Germans were the Urvolk, the original people of Europe who had retained their ‘pure’ blood and who spoke the original language of humanity, the Ursprache, as spoken by Adam and Eve. Much was made of the superior virtues of the Germans, their loyalty and honesty, which made them such an easy prey for foxy and devious Latins like the French. Such ideas fueled anti-foreign sentiment, always a strong element in German national feeling. In the absence of a real all-German monarch on whom to focus their emotions, the Germans tended to focus their hatred against someone outside. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Italians and the Spaniards became the targets for such feelings.86

83 84 85 86

Ibid., p. 69. Ibid., p. 70. Ibid. Michael Hughes, Early Modern Germany, 1477–1806 (Philadelphia, 1992), p. 20.


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In addition to the universal and national histories we have already seen, histories about individual cities were also being written with great vigor in the sixteenth century. Adam Tratziger’s sixteenth-century Chronica der Stadt Hamburg, for example, engaged a great variety of classical sources as well as more recent historical literature, to craft a broad history of the city that firmly situated Hamburg within its regional context. Tratziger claimed to be discerning in his selection of accounts and his use of historical materials.87 He offered a history that extended beyond the ninthcentury Carolingian founding that served most previous chronicles of the city88 and that worked far beyond the confines of the city, engaging the histories involving Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians, as well as other Hanseatic towns.89 At the same time, the chronicle was very much a history of the city, and frequently recorded the results of council elections90 or the local effects of floods or pestilence.91 Politics were certainly at play in the chronicle—witness the particular reforming events that were narrated, as well as the general quality of treatment that certain figures received. The king of Denmark, for example, was presented as a pious, good, and peace-loving prince and king; whereas Tratziger’s description of Emperor Maximilian was much briefer and direct.92 The Schmalkaldic League was presented as being crushed by its enemies not with human might but through miraculous means, likened to the downfall of the biblical Gideon.93 In a similar vein, the great historian of Renaissance Germany, Johannes Aventinus (1477–1534), patriotically traced the history of the Bavarian kings back to the biblical period, along the way demonstrating not only genealogy but also political sensitivity, which was careful to show “that Bavaria was a Kingdom in former times and that her borders used to extend much further than they do now.”94 Jews were also concerned with origins in the early modern period. Jewish interest in origin legends could have many motivations and take many forms. Some legends were meant to strengthen arguments for Jewish settlement and political rights. Others were directed at an internal audience for purposes of establishing traditions and customs, tracing individual family genealogy, as a means of moral upbraiding, or in response to certain difficult periods or events. Still other legends were directed at non-Jewish audiences, with some of the same foci, but often sharing joint stock images and stories. The concurrent and symbiotic relations between Jews and nonJews could, in fact, be demonstrated and forwarded by such stories.95 In some cases, 87 Tratziger’s Chronica der Stadt Hamburg, ed. J. M. Lappenberg (Hamburg, 1865), p. 11. 88 Ibid., pp. 1–2. 89 See, for example, ibid., pp. 249, 250, 256. 90 Ibid., p. 251, for example. 91 Ibid., pp. 256–7, 259, for example. 92 See ibid., p. 270. 93 Ibid., p. 290. 94 Cited in Gerald Strauss, Historian in an Age of Crisis: The Life and Works of Johannes Aventinus 1577–1534 (Cambridge, MA, 1963), p. 102. 95 Already during the Roman period, there was a popular story, repeated both in the Jerusalem Talmud in Avoda Zara 1.2.39c and Song of Songs Rabbah 1.6, that “the site of Rome was established by none other than the angel Michael, who stuck a stick in the sea, which grew into a large thicket of reeds and became the site of Rome” (Louis Feldman, Jew

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in fact, Jews wrote legends that had ostensibly little or nothing to do with Jews. Jews were often interested in non-Jewish history, though we typically think that it was not until modernity that they actually began a serious study of non-Jewish affairs. (Of course, non-Jews also co-opted Hebrew accounts to buttress their own positions and origins. This became particularly significant in the seventeenth century, as a means of identity building, and as a way to rationalize the discovery of peoples around the globe.) Writing or speaking about the past could create control over access to the past.96 Transmission, suppression, and re-creation, according to medievalist Patrick Geary, could unite the past and present and identify new continuity in periods of rupture.97 This was clearly the case for Jewish legends that focused on the origin of a particular community or settlement. Legends could consolidate group identity at the same time that they could justify political standing and glorify the community. According to Bernard Weinryb there were five central, at times interwoven, themes typical of these legends. One theme was related to proving the antiquity of Jewish settlement in a particular region or city. A second similarly stressed the invitation extended to the Jews to settle in the region, as well as the subsequent benefit that the Jews brought to the area. The third noted the positive influence and impact that the Jews had on the general welfare of the city or region. Fourth, in the distant past the Jews were given equal rights, which in many cases deteriorated only recently. Such narratives could document and attempt to redress the decline of Jewish rights. Finally, internal Jewish continuity and cohesion were stressed by noting that the earliest settlers brought established, and ongoing, traditions with them.98 The development and use of German Jewish “origin stories” may be profitably compared to others in the early modern period. At the end of his commentary to the Book of Kings, Isaac Abarbanel, for example, detailed the ancient and noble position of the Jews in Spain, in face of the recent Spanish expulsion and in an attempt to demonstrate the ancient settlement of the Jews in Spain. In the same way, even the etymology of Poland was given a twist to prove the antiquity of Jewish settlement. In the “Elegy on the Massacres in Polonia” by the seventeenth-century writer Jacob ben Moses Halevy, first printed in Venice in 1670–71, it was noted that, “The glory of the earth has now become/the shame of all towns, a disgrace among cities./A place of Torah learning—here God lodges [Hebrew: po lan Yah] ...”.99 According to Haya Bar-Itzhak:

and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian (Princeton, 1993), p. 104). 96 Patrick Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton, 1994). 97 Ibid., here quoting John Pocock, p. 8. 98 See Bernard D. Weinryb, “The Beginnings of East-European Jewry in Legend and Historiography,” in Meir Ben-Horin, Bernard D. Weinryb, and Solomon Zeitlin (eds), Studies and Essays in Honor of Abraham, A. Neuman (Philadelphia, 1962), pp. 445–502, here at pp. 449, 453ff, 458; and as cited in Haya Bar-Itzhak, Jewish Poland: Legends of Origin— Ethnopoetics and Legendary Chronicles (Detroit, 2001), p. 27. 99 Bar Itzhak, Jewish Poland, p. 31.


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In this respect legends of origin are similar to myth. The age of initial settlement occupies a central place in the mind of the community as a time that stands out from the normal course of the centuries and is perceived not quantitatively but qualitatively. It is a period that, as in myth, determines the nature of the days that follow. It is the age when the very identity of the society is molded and defined. The importance of legends of origin in every generation throughout the life of the community then follows. The primeval era is reshaped in order to mold the present and future while deriving legitimacy from the distant and hallowed past. A society is always molding its first days in a way that can be used to justify how it lives in the present—or alternately, if it wishes to change this life, that can justify change or even revolution. Tracing the legends of origin of Polish Jewry, as they crystallized and were told in various periods, allows us to expose the narrative of the Jewish community of Poland and the changing cultural awareness of the narrating society.100

Legends consolidated group identity, explained religious rites or social usages,101 or created or sanctioned their status.102 Such legends placed community origins within a much broader Jewish historical context, tracing them, in some cases for example, to just after the destruction of the First Temple.103 According to Weinryb, the wideranging use of such legends across geographical locations “indicates that the general trend to give origins the status of antiquity is motivated by minority situations faced by Jews in all these countries.”104 In some Christian locations, in fact, Jews pushed back the record of their settlement to pre-Christian times to counter assertions that Jews killed Jesus.105 Jews, who settled in Amsterdam also developed and circulated communityfounding stories, organized around the theme of restoration, and employing the imagery of rebirth. According to Daniel Levi de Barrios, a former New Christian who joined the community in 1662, Jewish observance and worship was first established in Amsterdam by an Ashkenazic rabbi from Emden, Uri Halevi, in 1580, and kept private until 1595. In that year, during the Yom Kippur Ne’eilah service, the Amsterdam police barged in, suspecting the group to be “idolatrous” papists. The police, however, realized that the assembled men were Jews, when they found no crucifixes or Eucharists, but only Hebrew texts. Upon this discovery, the sheriff asked the Jews to pray to the God of Israel on behalf of the government of Amsterdam. The Jews consented and were later granted permission to practice their religion openly. Another version offered a slightly different account. In 1603, Rabbi Uri Halevi and his sons were arrested and charged not with conducting Catholic rites, but with receiving stolen goods and circumcising adults. Halevi and his sons were released and allowed to continue their activity. Government sanction of the formal practice of Judaism, however, was not allowed until 1614. One final varying account reported that the sons of Uri Halevi responded when brought before the burgomasters: 100 Ibid., p. 16. 101 Weinryb, “The Beginnings of East-European Jewry,” p. 448. 102 Ibid., p. 449. 103 Ibid., pp. 449–50. 104 Ibid., p. 451. 105 Ibid., p. 452.

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Jewish Identity in Early Modern Germany It is true that we did what you said we did [circumcise people and practice Judaism], but it was done for the profit and benefit of this city Amsterdam so as to let it share in a large trade; we could very well have gone to another city, which wanted to give us complete freedom, but we did it here so that it might share in large maritime trade activities, for these Spaniards carried large sums of money and riches with them …106

Although not cast into antiquity, current reality and self-esteem were here grafted onto the early years of the community’s birth, and allowed the opportunity to serve as a means to mediate relations with the outside, while confirming internal pride and identity. In his Zemah David, Gans discusses Prague frequently. He characterizes it as a great city filled with many people. The land in which it is situated, Gans notes for its many blessings, including vast and valuable natural resources.107 Although wracked by many wars and tumult in his own day, Gans writes that, “Prague is a great city and the capital of the metropolis of the entire region of Bohemia. Even according to our tradition, this city was a great city to God in the days long before the destruction of the Second Temple.”108 Gans introduces the Jews into the history of Prague during his recounting of events that led to the construction of a synagogue at the very end of the tenth century—along the way the extremely valuable civic service and patriotism of the Jews is revealed. Gans details poor relations in the area between Christians and non-Christian Bohemian natives, who arose against the Christians who were in the land and who were attempting to convert them. He writes that, “And the Jews who were here in Prague at the time were clever in their tricks against the brigands and gave advice and assistance to the Christians, until they struck them a great blow, and their [the brigands’] officers and their respected people fled. And the Jews pursued after them and caught them in the cities and in the clefts of the rocks and they were killed. And because of this and for the glory of all the inhabitants of the land, at that time permission and help were given to the Jews to build a synagogue in the city …”.109 Among the many tales recounted in the Ma’aseh Nissim were some detailing events of the early history of the city. One such account (number 15) discussed the reason why the coat of arms for the city of Worms featured a key. The legend presented by Juspa had no discernible Jewish content; interestingly, it was culled from Worms lore and became a treasured account even within general Wormseian legend. Juspa began the account by describing the devastation of city by a fiery serpent: A likeness of this [serpent] was designed on the Mint in the Worms marketplace.110 In olden times, the following incident occurred in the great city of Worms: A fiery serpent [lint wurm] flew from the desert and nested at the entrance of the wall of the city, causing great damage. It destroyed many houses, swallowed up men and animals, and ruined everything it touched. The lint wurm was frightfully huge and had two legs from the rear. It resembled a snake-like worm. It was fat and large, its eyes were fiery and in its mouth were large teeth [so] that fear would envelope all who saw. 106 Daniel M. Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans: The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam (London, 2000), p. 168. 107 See Gans, Zemah David, p. 176. 108 Ibid., p. 270. 109 Ibid., pp. 303–4. 110 Eidelberg, R. Juspa, p. 83.


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Juspa continued by noting that arrows were ineffective and gunpowder had not yet been discovered; he added that, “the religion [in Worms] was still idolatry.” At the time, there was no king in Worms, only a widowed queen ruling over the entire land. To pacify the “Lint Wurm,” burghers would, by lottery, be cast over the wall. The burghers were reticent to continue the process until the queen offered to include her name and the names of her officials in the lottery. Three brothers, who were locksmiths and knife forgers, and who were mighty as giants lived in the city. When the lottery eventually fell on the queen, one of the brothers took pity on her and agreed to take her place, if she would agree to marry him upon his successful return. The giant was cast over the wall and swallowed, but cut his way free, destroying the Lint Wurm. The locksmith was married to the queen and proclaimed king. Juspa concluded: To commemorate the event, the king requested that the city be named ‘Worms.’ Previously, the city’s name had been ‘Germisa.’ The phrase ‘scholars of Germisa’ appears in ancient books. Hence the city is called Worms to this day. To preserve the fact that the king had been a locksmith, a key was imprinted on the city’s coat of arms. Until this very day, a picture of the three brothers standing beside the lint wurm appears on the City Hall, also called the Mint, in the marketplace. The queen, wearing a crown, is shown standing next to them. This picture remains as a permanent memorial.111

The legend had little direct impact on the settlement of the Jews or, seemingly on Jewish status. Why, then, was this tale included in the collection? What purpose did it serve? Of what interest was it to Juspa’s Jewish audience? The position of the Jewish community within Worms might offer some clues as to the meaning of this story’s inclusion. Throughout the sixteenth century the Jews were affected by the political and religious instability of the times, and numerous iterations of Jewish ordinances dictated the position of the Jews within the civic community. Though the Jewish ordinances did not differ from one another greatly, they did evince a marked trend toward increased restrictions against foreign Jews, particularly in 1584 and then again in 1594.112 Nonetheless, imperial legislation from 1544, extended a privilege to the Jews of the Empire to lend at interest and at higher rates than Christians, recognizing that Jews were forbidden from owning land and practicing most trades and that they often paid higher taxes.113 By mid-century attempts were again made to expel the Jewish community,114 which at that point numbered about 300 members. In the seventeenth century, the Jews lived on one street in the northern part of the city, separated from the rest of the city by two gates.115 By 1610 there were 103 house

111 Ibid., p. 84. 112 Leon Yagod, “Worms Jewry in the Seventeenth Century” (Yeshiva University, DHL diss., 1967), p. 36. 113 Friedrichs, “Anti-Jewish Politics,” p. 103. 114 In 1558 the city obtained from Ferdinand I a privilege to expel the Jews; the attempt was again thwarted, however, this time by the bishop and his powerful vassals, the Dalbergs— see ibid., p. 101. 115 Ibid., p. 96.

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lots—110 by 1620, with 90 houses of varying quality.116 Jews numbered around 650,117 constituting something like 10 per cent of the total city population. In Worms, then, could be found one of the four largest Jewish communities in the Empire, and one of the five central Jewish courts established by the synod of 1603 (the others being Frankfurt, Fulda, Friedberg, and Günzburg).118 Plagues in the early 1630s and late 1660s affected the Jews, as they did the other inhabitants of Worms; so too did the ravages of the Thirty Years’ War and the entrance of French troops toward the end of the seventeenth century. It is in this complex historical context, of at times volatile and at other times normal Jewish and Christian relations, that the tales related in the work of Juspa need to be considered. It may be that the value of the Lint Wurm story was to reflect the feeling of belonging in Worms that was echoed in many of the narratives examined here, particularly in a turbulent age in which there were frequent attempts to marginalize the Jews. It may also demonstrate a conscious attempt to familiarize Jews with the local urban culture and legend, in part to educate them about important local events and myths—as David Gans noted in his Zemah David, non-Jewish history was important for Jews for many reasons, including that they not seem uneducated—and in part to make the broader and, in this case especially, the distant past of the city part and parcel of the Jewish experience itself. In a sense, the inclusion of the tale counterbalanced any assertion that Jews were ignorant of, and perhaps by association not involved in, the central events of the founding and development of the preChristian city of Worms. Juspa’s tales about the early origins of the Jewish community in Worms were also quite telling.119 In one tale Juspa cited Rabbi Joshua Falk, who asserted that 116 Compare the dramatic growth in the number of Jewish houses in Frankfurt in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries (in Kracauer, Geschichte der Juden in Frankfurt am Main (1150–1824), vol. 1, pp. 311–12). 117 Fritz Reuter, Warmaisa, p. 96; Friedrichs claims 700, with houses including multiple generations, and inhabited by an average of seven people per household (see also Friedrichs, “Anti-Jewish Politics,” pp. 96–7). 118 Yagod, “Worms Jewry,” p. 37. 119 See also the account of David Oppenheim, who wrote, for example that: “During midday, they [the French] burned the greatly exalted city filled with erudite scholars, the crowned glory of all communities, Worms, and they also burned the main synagogue with all its treasures. They also destroyed the synagogue which was named after Rashi, may his memory be blessed. The fire was unquenchable. In a short time the entire city, including the Jewish community, which predated the destruction of the First Temple, was consumed. My father and master, Abraham Oppenheim, was the leader of the Jewish community. He lost many of his possessions in the fires, including six houses in the Jewish quarter and other houses within the city of Worms. In addition, he lost gardens and wine orchards … The enemy, the Frenchmen, may their names and memory be obliterated, wantonly desecrated this great homestead. The entire house of Israel will bemoan the conflagration. In the Jewish street there were 110 great and distinguished homes, filled with gardens, and now the street is transformed into a wilderness. I am mourning and my eyes weep for the destruction of the land of my birth and my father’s house. My sister Rechlin’s three beautiful houses were also burnt … My uncle Moshe was a parnas [in Heidelberg]. He possessed four houses. Due to our great sins, our family and exalted community have fallen from heaven to earth. God has cast them into


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the Jews came to Worms at the time of the destruction of the first Temple. With the return of the Jews to the Holy Land some 70 years later, the Jews of Worms continued to reside in Worms. This tale was very similar to other European Jewish assertions of communal longevity. Falk continued, however, that the Jews in this new diaspora were harshly punished because they did not return to Jerusalem, fashioning their new abode as a “lesser Jerusalem” and becoming important in the eyes of their Gentile neighbors.120 A second tale presented the long-standing relationship between the Jews of Worms and the important Worms family Dalbourg. According to Juspa, based on information he heard from Rabbi Elijah Ba’al Shem, a great kindness was shown by a Jew to a member of the Dalbourg house who was traveling to Jerusalem to learn languages. The young Dalbourg related to his father the great kindnesses extended to him by the Jew, noting that he would have died of starvation and the illnesses he had contracted without the Jew’s generosity. The tale continued: When the father died, his son succeeded him in his distinguished position. He recorded the events that had befallen him in the chronicles of the House of Dalbourg so that descendants would know the story. The nobleman also wrote that his descendants should treat the Jews well, for the Jerusalem Jew saved his life. This story remains in the archives of the House of Dalbourg until this very day.121

The tale revealed the ancient settlement of the Jews in Worms, but it also accomplished a great deal more. It presented familiar and friendly relations between leading nobles and the Jews—a friendship that the tale noted continued until the present—while simultaneously strengthening the connection between the Jews (and their actions) in Jerusalem and Worms. The origin story here gave expression to a Jewish sense of belonging, tradition, and at the same time offered evidence for such a sensibility. Conclusions As Michel de Certeau notes, “The ‘return to origins’ always states the contrary of what it believes, at least in the sense that it presupposes a distancing in respect to a past (that space which precisely defines history: through it is effected the mutation of lived tradition by which one makes a ‘past,’ the ‘ob-ject’ of study), and a will to recover what, in one fashion or another, seems lost in a received language. In this way the ‘return to origins’ is always a modernism as well.”122 Indeed, narratives of the past—“real” and “imagined”—could provide Jews very effective means for challenging contemporary external authority and reasserting Jewish settlement and rights in the present. Legal discussions that demonstrated knowledge of, and ability to mediate relations with, Christians not only served as an important framework for religious belief and practice; they also allowed Jews to think about their external

another land where they do not know the language” (Eidelberg, Medieval Ashkenazic History, pp. 169–70) [emphasis added]. 120 Eidelberg, R. Juspa, p. 53. 121 Ibid., pp. 54–5. 122 Michel de Certeau, The Writing of History, p. 136.

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relations in broader religious and historical terms. In the same way, narratives of the past that discussed Jewish magic and mystical figures demonstrated Jewish acumen and ability to survive in adverse situations. Other stories, whether about Jews specifically or not, could situate Jews within the ancient history of a city or region. They could bear witness to the historic, and therefore valid and ongoing, position of the Jews.

Conclusion The remarkably changeable, and at times unstable political, social, and religious environment in early modern Germany could be navigated by casting self and community in a civic, noble, or biblical past. In the case of the latter, Jews were particularly significant and they could serve as precursors to be replaced or whipping posts, against which Christian identity could be developed. But Jews did not necessarily quietly acquiesce to such replacement or marginalization. They could stand their own ground, as witnesses to history, reasserting their identity as true Israelites, and simultaneously employing lineage, descent, and notions of authentic tradition to establish both internal social and political structure, while carving out or maintaining their identity in opposition to their Christian neighbors. If lineage and tradition were highly symbolic and frequently contested in early modern Germany, Jews were an important point of discussion, and, at times, seem to have been willing participants in the strategies to find and maintain identity. As we have seen, Jewish concepts of time and narrations of past events could be typological and religious, at the same time that they could be more consciously directed toward social and political concerns. Although early modern German Jews did not often leave for us formal historiographical works, they did not simply succumb to their fate, passively accepting what they were handed. Early modern German Jews thought about and distinguished the past in more complex ways than historians have been willing to believe. They chose from remnants of the past, deciding which customs, rules, and community structures were relevant or obsolete. They engaged the past in their efforts to explain the present and to improve themselves. On the one hand, community discourse, as in community ledgers and minutes, engaged the past to enforce order, empower authority, or record the traditions of the community. In so doing, the narration of the past created community structure and projected that structure into the future. At the same time, the very act of narration, particularly when it described conflict between competing centers of authority, could point to significant changes within the community. Engaging the past might offer an invaluable means for Jews to educate and offer moral instruction to the Jewish community itself. Narrating the past, as in the memorialization of the dead, served to craft communal identity that was often regional, while less directly reinforcing communal hierarchy and values. Honor—a concept of increasing importance throughout early modern Germany—was recognized by Jews to be of great importance; and honor was accorded to individuals and families based on their efforts for the Jewish community, their accomplishments, and their connections with the past. On the other hand, Jews engaged the past as a means to contest the marginalization threatened by broader developments within Christianity, as the Reformation threw into relief serious questions about authority and tradition, and as Protestants and Catholics competed for access to and control over Scripture and identification as

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the new Israel and as Jews continued to suffer from anti-Jewish mentality and politics. As the career and work of Josel of Rosheim makes clear, contesting such marginalization was important and quite possible. In the same way that Jews sought to restate their biblical presence, they might also play a significant role in the more general history of the world. Engaging non-Jewish history and sources, David Gans, for example, maintained the centrality of Jewish history, elevating the presence and importance of Jews in universal history. This was a particularly important move at a time when universal histories and cosmographies were becoming more common and popular. Jews attempted to re-inscribe themselves in the past in a variety of ways. As masters of their own legal tradition, they dictated the historical status of non-Jews in their own legal deliberations, while simultaneously demonstrating the long and involved interaction between Jews and Christians. Through various folkloric tales, Jews presented themselves and their communities as of ancient provenance, integral to the development of particular cities, regions, or nations. The writing down of origin stories in particular Jewish communities—whether they stressed the origins of the Jews in the city or merely made Jews familiar with the more general history of the city—served further to reinforce early modern Jewish identity. While Jews were thus inserted into the general lore of the city, they also etched out their own stockpile of events, which at times allowed them to contest external authority in indirect ways. The power of Jewish mystics, for example, afforded Jews the opportunity to defend themselves, even when such defenses may have been more imagined than real. In the end, this book asserts that early modern German Jewish engagement with the past was neither as simple, traditional, nor lachrymose as scholars have maintained. Although paradigms were frequently utilized in narratives of the past, and although such narratives were generally not presented in strictly historiographical garb, it cannot be maintained that Jews in this period did not think historically or, more significantly, did not engage the past in a variety of ways and for many different purposes. Although early modern Germany was, for both Jews and Christians, at times highly charged and often changeable, it cannot be concluded that the period was one of continual crisis, in which only response to tragedy found its way into narratives of the past. The reality was much more complex, and Jews therefore grappled with and grafted the past onto different situations, both internal and external, to contest and mediate authority.1 As the early modern period more generally becomes studied and approached with more nuance, we can no longer be content to see early modern Jewry as simply stagnant and helpless, marching on through the Middle Ages and awaiting, in almost breathless anticipation, the birth pangs of modernity. It is no longer possible to see early modern German Jewry as bound only by the paradigms of the past, particularly in a society and under conditions that belie static complacency and unreflective engagement with the world. As the Italian historian Giovanni Levi has argued, in his interpretation of an exorcist’s activities as part of an attempt to 1 Jews might also assert their identity in an effort to keep from being subsumed by burgeoning Polish-Jewish culture. See Jay Berkovitz, “Jewish Law and Ritual in Early Modern Germany,” in Bell and Burnett (eds), Jews, Judaism, and the Reformation, pp. 481502, especially pp. 486, 502.

Conclusion

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secure political authority, “Normative systems, both long established and in process of formation, left gaps, interstices in which both groups and individuals brought into play consequential strategies of their own. Such strategies marked political reality with a lasting imprint. They could not prevent forms of domination, but they did condition and modify them.”2

2 Giovanni Levi, Inheriting Power: The Story of an Exorcist, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago, 1988), p. xv.


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Index

Aachen, 36, 68 Aaron Teomim, Rabbi, 132 Abraham, 112, 142 Abraham Ibn Daud, 19 Abraham Ibn Ezra, 119 Abraham Samuel Bacharach, 132 absolutist state, 70, 103 Adam, 126; Adam and Eve, 144 Africa, 121 agriculture, 37 Akiva Frankfurt(er), Rabbi, 43, 79 Akiva, Rabbi, 30 Albrecht V, Duke, 117 allegory (see also biblical interpretation), 109 Alsace, 36, 87, 113 Altona, 39, 89, 90, 92 Amsterdam, 25, 45, 56, 92, 93, 96, 97, 106, 147-8 Amtmann, 101 Anabaptists, 126 anagogy (see also biblical interpretation), 109 angels, 137 animals, sale of, 102 anti-Judaism, 104, 107, 108, 110, 112, 118, 121, 140, 154 Antiquarium, 117 Antiquity, 14 apocalypse (see also eschatology), 94 apostates, (see also converts), 75, 113-15, 128 Arndt, Johann, 93 art, 29 Asher Aron, Rabbi, 79 Asher Levy of Reichshofen, 87, 89 Ashkenaz, x, 31, 55 assessors, 43 assimilation, 7 astronomy, 123 Aub, 75

Augsburg, 37, 58, 67, 68, 76, 77, 78, 80, 102, 118 Augustine, 14, 124; Augustinian notion of witness, 119 Augustus, Duke Ernest, 71 Augustus, Emperor, 125 Auschwitz, 10 Austria, 80, 102 authority, 16, 31, 101, 153; crisis of, 17; locating, 17; of God, 16; political, 155; rabbinic, 62; regional, 48 autobiography, xi, 80, 82-5, 86ff, 93, 98 av bet din (head of the rabbinic court), 51, 61, 135 Aventinus, Johannes, 15, 145 Avraham Shaftel, 50 Azariah de’ Rossi, 27, 123, 124, 128 Ba’alei Shemot, 138, 140 Ba’alei Tosafot (Tosafists), 78 Babylonia, 127 Baiersdorf, 73, 75 Baker, Keith, 11, 12 Bamberg, 45, 46, 47, 70 Bar-Itzhak, Haya, 146 Basel, 119, 140 Bastress-Dukehart, Erica, 85 bathhouse, 58 Bavaria, x, 35, 36, 77, 145 behavior, proper, 17 Behrend(s) family, 70 Beila, daughter of Nathan Melrich of Altona, 89 Belgium, 96 Belgrade, 71 Berlichingen, Götz von, 97, 98 Berlin, 39, 70 bet din (“house of judgment,” Jewish court of law), 48, 54, 63, 132 biblical interpretation, 20, 109-10 Bietigheim on the Neckar, 37 Binswagen, 73, 75, 77

180


Black Death, 105; pogroms, 57, 73, 134 Black Forest, 35 Blaeu, Cornelis, 97 Blaeu, Joan (John), 97 blasphemy, 111 blood libel, 107 Bohemia (see also expulsion(s), Bohemia), 22n, 24, 103-04, 124, 126, 127, 148 Bonfil, Robert, 7-8 bonfire(s), 64, 134-5 Bonn, 122 books, 101 Brahe, Tycho, 123 Brandenburg, 68, 102 Braunschweig, 110 Breckling, Friedrich, 92-3 Bremen, 37 Breslau, 118 Breuer, Mordechai, 78 brit milah (see circumcision), 51, 59, 89 Bucer, Martin, 107, 111-12 Budapest, 71 Bullinger, Heinrich, 107 Burgau, 77, 77n, 78, 79, 102 Burmeister, Heinz, 119 Calixt, Georg, 93 Campbell, Tony, 96, 97 cantors, 43 Capistrano, John of, 126 Capito, Wolfgang, 112 Carlebach, Elisheva, 115 cattle, 102n cemetery(ies), 44, 58, 72, 78, 92 ceremony(ies), 73, 85, 108, 122 Cerf Levy (see Hirsch Levy), 87 chain of tradition literature, 5 charity, 43, 49, 79 charter(s), 70, 139 Chayim Hameln (see Hayyim son of Joseph ben Baruch Daniel Samuel haLevi ), 82 Chazan, Robert, 32 Chemnitz, Dr., 139 Chmielnicki massacres, 22 Chosen People, xi, 21, 99, 106, 112, 128 Christian Hebraists, 119, 121, 125 Christian IV, King of Denmark, 93 Christian sects, 125

chronicle(s), ix, 15, 19, 85-6, 93,98, 99-100, 108, 117, 122, 123, 124, 128, 133, 145; late medieval town, 15 chronology, 14n, 31, 99, 127, 128; of the world, 122 Church Fathers, 124 Church, true, 108 circumcision (see brit milah), 62, 134, 148 cities, 36 citizenship, 68 Cleves, 84 Cluny, 80 coat of arms, 96-7, 148-9 Cochlaeus, Johannes, x codes, legal (see also law), 30, 101, 132 Cohen, Gerson, 19 Colmar, 36, 68 Cologne, 36, 70, 73, 75, 139; CologneDeutz, 73 comets, 93 confessionalization, 104-05, 110 confraternities, 72 Conring, Hermann, 93 Constantine’s conversion, 126 converts (see also apostates), 126 cosmography(ies), 99, 118, 119 counterfeiting, 57 court, 41 court culture, 98; court life, 71 Court Jews (Hofjuden), 70-72, 85, 98; court factors/purveyors, 39 court(s), imperial, 77, 79, 140 courts, central Jewish, 58, 69, 77, 150 courts, foreign, 48 court(s), Jewish (see bet din), 103 covenant, 106 craft production, 37 creation, 127 Crusade(s), 73, 124; Crusade chronicles, 19, 32; First, 126 customs (see minhag(im)), ix, x, xi, 31, 40, 41, 42, 44, 48-9, 50, 51, 53, 55-6, 60-64, 69, 78, 120-22, 131, 133, 134, 136, 140, 145, 153; customs book(s), 29, 44, 48ff, 136; customs, Poland, 53 Dalbourg family, 151 dance hall, 58; dance houses, 44

Index Daniel Landshut, 51 Daniel Levi de Barrios, 147 Darmstadt, Landgrave of, 116 David and Goliath, 26 David Gans, 28, 28n, 30-31, 99, 100, 122-8, 131, 148, 150, 154 David Kimhi (Radak), 119 Davis, Natalie, 89-90 Day of Judgment, 97 De Certeau Michel, 16n, 84, 151 demography (see also settlement), xi, 35 Denmark, 47, 120n; Denmark, King of, 90, 145 Detmers, Achim, 106 diaries, 87 divine providence, 7, 120, 123n, 127 Du Boulay, F.R.H., 15 Düsseldorf, 45 earthquakes, 28, 28n, 63, 93 Eck, Johannes, 119 eclipses, 28 Edom (see also Esau), 125 education, Torah, 45; educators, 43 ego-documents (see also autobiography), 87 Egypt (see also Exodus from Egypt), 29 Ehingen, Georg von, 80 Ehingen, Rudolff von, 80 Eisenmenger, Johannes, 72 Eitzing, Michael von, 96 Elchanan bar Abraham Helen, 116 Eleazer ben Judah Kalonymos (Rokeah), 141, 143 elections, 45, 140 Eliade, Mircea, 1n Eliahu Öttingen, Rabbi, 80 Eliezer (Lazarus) Günzburg, 79 Eliezer ha-Levy, 87 Elijah, 142 Elijah Ba’al Shem, 151 Elijah Levita, 107, 119 Elijah Pollak, 114 Emden, 36, 68, 147 emperor(s), 57, 67, 77, 80, 85, 97, 100, 103, 114n, 127, 137n, 139; Roman, 80 empires, four world (see also four monarchies), 20 end of the world, 118; end of times, 93

181

England, 100, 120n, 124 environmental conditions, 88 epidemics, 28n, 35, 104 Erasmus of Rotterdam, 108 eruv, 68 Esau (see also Edom), 107 eschatology (see also apocalypse), 20, 109, 110, 111 estates, 70, 100, 103 Esther, 24-5, 82 ethnography, 120 Eucharist, 147 excommunication (see herem), 42, 46, 61 exemplarium, 109 exile, 5, 21, 48, 127 Exodus from Egypt, 26, 26n, 30, 116 expulsion(s), 21, 25, 30, 38, 57, 59, 60, 62, 63, 65, 75, 77, 79, 80, 91-2, 99, 10203, 104, 105, 110, 111, 113, 115, 116, 119, 124, 126, 133, 134, 135, 138, 149; Bohemia, 126; France, 30, 121, 124; Frankfurt, 51, 61, 62, 116; Prague, 114n; Spain, 6-7, 124, 146; Vienna, 71, 102; Worms, 62, 63, 133-4, 138 fairs, Frankfurt, 39, 56, 57 Fasolt, Constantin, 13 fast days, 6, 59, 63, 63n, 89, 116, 134, 137; Fast of Esther, 116; fasting, 21-2, 74, 114, 138 feast days, 116, 137; feasting, 138 feminists, 20n Fettmilch uprising, 21, 24, 59-61, 116, 138, 139; Fettmilch, Vincent, 58, 116 Fischach, 77 Flensburg, 93 folklore, 17, 131, 154 four monarchies (see also empires, four world), 110, 127 France (see also expulsion(s), France), 10, 31, 35, 100, 120n, 124, 125, 141, 144 Franck, Sebastian, 122 Franconia, 101 Frankfurt am Main (see also expulsion(s), Frankfurt), 9, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 31, 36, 39, 43, 48, 49, 51, 54, 56, 57-61,

182


67, 68, 69, 73, 75, 76, 79, 80, 84, 98, 115, 122, 132, 132n, 133, 138, 139, 140, 150 fraternities, brotherhoods, 43 French Revolution, 11 Friedberg, 46, 150 Friedrich III, King, 118 Friedrichs, Christopher, 69 Fulda, 39, 60, 73, 73n, 75, 102, 103, 132, 136, 150 Funkenstein, Amos, 8, 9, 28, 32 Fürth, 39, 73n, 77, 84, 104 gabbaim, 41, 42-3, 46, 60n galut (exile), 48 Geary, Patrick, 146 Gemeinschaft (community), 17 genealogy(ies), 93, 98, 120, 145 Gentiles, 58, 64n, 78, 101, 101n-02n, 112, 123n, 134n, 135-6, 138, 151 geography, 118, 120, 122, 123 Gershom ben Judah Me’or ha-Golah (see Rabbenu Gershom), 74 ghetto (see also quarter, Jewish), 39, 58, 59, 68, 132n Giessen, 93 Glückel of Hameln, 26, 71, 82-5, 87, 89-92 Glückstadt, 47 Graus, František, 17 gravestone(s), 81, 82; gravestone inscriptions, 119 Greece, 127; Greeks, 127 Greenblatt, Rachel, 81-2 Grimmelshausen, Hans Jakob Christoffel von, 92, 94-5 guilds, 43, 139 Günzburg, 77, 77n, 78, 79, 150 Habsburgs, 85, 134 Haggadah, 29 Hagiography, 141 halakhic flexibility, 32 halakhic literature (see also rabbinic literature), 136 Halberstadt, 37, 104 Halbwachs, Maurice, 1-2, 4, 9-12 Halle, 58 Haman, 25-6, 116

Hamburg, 9, 25, 36, 37, 39, 47, 78, 89, 90, 91-2, 102, 106, 145; Bank of, 91 Hamelburg, 135 Hameln, 89 Hanau, 73, 73n, 96 Handweitt bei Flensburg, 92 Hannover, 70, 72; Hannover-Neustadt, 72 Hanseatic cities, 37, 91, 145 harvests, bad, 35 hasid, 49, 53-5n, 141n Hasidei Ashkenaz (German Pietists), 51, 140-43 Hayyim Katz of Prague, 50, 51 Hayyim son of Joseph ben Baruch Daniel Samuel ha-Levi (Segal) (see Chayim Hameln), 89 Hayyim Wahl, 114 Hebrew, 19, 28, 45, 105, 119, 124, 141, 147; Hebrew Bible, 106, 119 Heidelberg, 39, 71, 119, 132n, 133, 150n Heidingsfeld, 75 Heilbronn, 102 Hendl, daughter of Evril Gronim, 81 Henry IV, Emperor, 126 Henry V, Emperor, 126 herem (excommunication), 42, 46, 61 Herrschaft (see also authority), 101 Hesse, 110-12, 128; Hesse-Darmstadt, 104; Hesse-Kassel, 36 hevra kadisha (burial society), 23, 43 Hildesheim, 60, 103 Hirsch Levy (see Cerf Levy), 83 Hirtz Treves of Frankfurt, Rabbi, 50, 54 historians, medieval, 16 histories, territorial, 123; histories, universal, 99, 154; histories, world, 119, 128, 154 historiography, Jewish, 4, 5, 7, 8, 27; Protestant, 125 history, acceleration of, 3 Hobsbawm, Eric, 13 Holy Land, 74, 78, 121, 122, 151 Holy Roman Empire, 36, 110 honor, xi, 46, 68, 71, 72, 78, 84-5, 91, 92, 95, 97, 98, 153 Hoshana Rabba, 64 host desecration accusations, 118 Hsia, R. Po-chia, 106 Huguenots, 36

Index humanists, 85, 118 Hungary, x, 124, 134 Hus, John, 121, 126 Hutton, Patrick, 12

183

Judah he-Hasid (Judah the Pious), 140, 141, 142 Judah Joseph Leib, 89 Judaizing, 91 Julius, Emperor, 125 Juspa Hahn (Joseph Juspa Hahn of Nördlingen), 31, 42, 43, 48-57, 59-62, 116, 131, 134, 136, 138, 140, 148-51 Justin Martyr, 124

Idel, Moshe, 137 idolatry, 135, 149 imperial commission, 57, 60 imperial feudal service, 77 informers, 113-14, 126, 128-9 Innsbruch, 79 Isaac Abarbanel, 146 Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi (Rif), 55 Isaac ben Samuel of Meiningen, 73 Isaac ben Solomon Luria (Ari), 50, 51, 76 Isaak aus Salzufeln, 92 Isaiah Horowitz, 133 Israel (see also Holy Land), 43, 124, 126; ancient, 5, 19, 108; biblical (elect), 111, 112; corporeal, 111; eternal, 19; modern, 7; new, 99, 106, 154 Israel Henlig (Henlisch), 114 Israel, Jonathan, 105, 108 Israelites, ancient, 98, 106, 107, 111; true, 128, 153 Italy, x, 103, 124; Italians, 144

kabbalah, 51, 143, 144; Lurianic kabbalah, 7; kabbalistic sources, 132; kabbalists, 54, 138 kahal (community), 46-7, 63n, 137n Katz, Jacob, 86, 135, 141 Kaufmann, David, 133 kehilla (pl. kehillot; community), 46, 48, 75, 114 kiddush Hashem (see martyrdom), 124 Kings, Book of, 146 knowledge, 16 Koblenz, 73, 73n, 75, 78, 132, 132n Königsberg, 93 Kracauer, Isidore, 59 Kriegshaber, 77 Kreuznach, 73, 73n

Jacob Bassevi von Treuenberg, 81 Jacob ben Meir Tam (see Rabbenu Tam), 74 Jacob ben Moses Halevy, 146 Jacob Molin (see Maharil) Jacob Schweinfurt, 51 Jacob Weil, 50 Jena, 93 Jeremiah, 142 Jerusalem, 20, 54, 79, 120n, 124, 151; Jerusalem of the North (see also Zion of the North), 106 Jesus Christ, 108, 111, 119, 121, 125, 147 Jewry policies, 77-8, 103, 104, 105, 111 Jewry, contemporary, 112 Jonas, Justas, 107 Josel of Rosheim (Joseph ben Gershon), 99, 112-13, 115, 126, 128, 131, 154 Joseph Karo, 135 Joshua Falk, Rabbi, 150-51 Jost Liebmann, 70-71 Judah Berlin, 84

LaCapra, Dominick, 10-11 lachrymose conception of Jewish history, 7, 154 Landesrabbiner, 72, 79 Landjudenschaften, 39, 40 Lassner, Jacob, 112-13 last days (see also end of the world), 96 Latin, 124 law, 16, 24n, 32, 45-50, 60-61, 64, 112; law codes, 132; law, Jewish, 127; legal compendia (halakhic), 133; legislation, communal, 23; dietary, 107; Mosaic, 107; Roman, 68 ledger(s), community (see pinkas(im)), ix, xi, 22, 23, 28, 44-8, 64, 136, 153 Leffmann Behrends, 70, 71, 72 legal decision-making, x, xi, 129, 136; legal deliberations, 131; legal discussions, 151; legal tradition, 154 Lehmann family, 70 Leipnik, 132

184


Leipzig, 93, 104, 118, 121 letters of protection (see Schutzbriefe), 90, 103 Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides, Ralbag), 119 Levi Micha, 50 Levi, Giovanni, 154 Lewis, Bernard, 4 library, 119 life cycle events, 89 Lisbon, 121 literal sense of Scripture, historical (see also biblical interpretation), 109 liturgy, 6, 20, 72, 134, 143 Liwa Kirchheim, 136, 138 London, 91 Louis XIV, 71 Lübeck, 37, 68, 102 Ludwig, Karl Duke, 135 Luther, Martin, 104, 106-10, 126 Lutherans, 92-3, 106 Ma’aseh Bukh, 140-42 Magdeburg, 37 magic, xi, 3, 50, 138-40, 152 Maharal (Judah Loew), 114, 123n, 131 Maharam (see Meir ben Barukh of Rothensburg), 74, 75, 76, 78 Maharil (Jacob Molin), 50, 61, 75, 76, 141 Maharshal (Solomon Luria), 31, 50 Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon), 76, 123n Mainz, 20, 37, 58, 70, 73, 75, 76, 78, 80, 132; bishop of, 116 Manheim, 132n map(s), 96-7, 121 mara d’atra (master of the place), 54 Marcus, Ivan, 8-9, 19 Marranos, 91 martyrdom (see also kiddush Hashem), 124; martyrology, 4; martyrology, Christian, 125 martyrs, 75, 80 Matthias, Emperor, 104 matzot, 143 Maximilian, Emperor, 145; Maximilian, King, 118 Mecklenburg, 35, 101 medinah (region), 75, 135

Meir ben Baruch of Rothenburg (see Maharam), 74 Meir ben Isaac Oettingen, Rabbi, 75 Meir ha-Levy, 50 Meir son of ha-Rav Maharam, 78 Meir Stern, Rabbi, 101n Melanchthon, Philip, 107, 109, 110 membership, communal, 40 Memmingen, 77 memoirs, 82-3, 87-92 memorialization of the dead, 72-3, 153; memorials, 98 memory, 10, 11, 16, 30; memory and history, xi, 1-4, 12; memory and history, Jewish, 4ff; memory and history, Middle Ages, 14; memory, collective, 1, 2, 9, 10; memory, Jewish, 19; memory, Jewish collective, 7 memorybook(s), ix, xi, 6, 44, 45, 73, 75-6, 78-85, 86, 98 Mendes Bass, Rabbi, 132 mercantilist policies, 101 messianism, 5, 20, 125 Metz, 45, 60, 74, 75, 87, 133 Middle Ages, 6, 14 middle class, Jewish, 85, 98 middot (characteristics), 49-50 midwife, 101n migration, 36 mikvaot (ritual bathhouses), 44 minhag(im) (see also custom(s)), xi, 42, 50, 55; Ashkenazic, 50, 61 minutes book (see also pinkas(im)), 115 missionizing, 120 mitzvot, 50, 80 modernity, 3, 4, 7, 11, 28, 100, 146, 154; modern historical thinking, 27 mohel, 136 moneylending, 70, 104; usury, 26, 70, 102, 102n, 112, 139, 149 moralism, 123; moralizing, 17, 22, 26, 114; morality tales, 91; moral instruction, 153; moral maxims, 127; moral upbraiding, 145 Moravia, 104, 132 Mordechai, 25, 82, 116 Mordechai bar Hillel, 125 Mörke, Olaf, 100 Moses, 142

Index Moses Abraham, Rabbi, 79 Moses ben Nahman (Nahmanides), 119 Moses Isserles, 79 Moses Löb Isaac Kann, 70 Moses Menachem, 51 Moshe ba’al haSemag, 125 Moshe Mendels, 61 Munich, 117 Münster, Sebastian, 70, 106, 117, 119-23, 126 Münzer, Thomas, 106 musar, 49 Muslims, 113 mystics, Jewish, 131, 138, 154 Naftali Hirtz, 80 names, holy (see also shemot and Ba’alei Shemot), 144; mystical, 142 natural disasters, 123, 145 Natural Law, 111 Nero, 125 Netherlands, 93, 96 Neuburg, 75, 79; Duke of, 102 Neusner, Jacob, 19 New World, 91, 128 Nicholas V, Pope, 126 Nimrod, 127 Nora, Pierre, 1, 3-4, 7, 9, 10 Nördlingen, 37, 48, 49, 67, 118 Nuremberg, 37, 39, 58, 73, 77, 107, 117, 118, 125 Oberbronn, 87 Oettingen, 75 Offenbach, 75, 76 oligarchy, 42, 72 Ophir, 128 Oppenheim, 58, 63, 75 Oppenheimer family, 62n, 70, 71, 132 ordinances (see also takkanot), 41, 44-8, 51, 54, 61, 68, 78, 115, 149; (ascamot), 47; Jewry ordinances, 56, 100; community, 51 Origen, 124 origin legends, stories, xi, 131, 144-7, 151, 154 orlah, 50, 102, 102n Osiander, Andreas, 107

185

oven, community, 44 pagans, 121 Palatinate, x, 39, 101, 135, 138; Duke of, 135 paradigms, typology, xi, 6, 19-24, 27, 32, 153, 154 Paradise, 121 Parnas(im), 41, 42, 45, 46, 62, 83, 90, 134 Passau, 118 Passover, 136-8, 143 Peace of Westphalia (1648), 100 Peasants’ War (1525), 110 peddlers, 104 penance, 20, 22 Pentateuch (see Torah), 78 Persecution (see also anti-Judaism), 6, 113, 121, 124, 126 Persia, 127 pestilence, 51, 145 Pfersee, 73-80 Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, 111 philosophy, 78 physicians, communal, 43 Pinchas Seligman of Nördlingen, Rabbi, 49, 54 pinkas(im) (see also community ledger(s) and minutes books), xi, 23, 28, 44-8 Piper of Niklashausen, 118 Pitom and Ramses, 29 plagues, 93, 150 pogroms (see also persecutions and antiJudaism), 57, 80 Poland, x, 41, 55, 92, 120n, 146, 147; Poland-Lithuania, 103 Polemic, 108, 117, 120, 128, 131, 141 Policey, policies, 60, 100 Pomerania, 101 poor Jews, 43, 74, 78, 98 portents, 93, 123 Portugal, 91 Portuguese Jews, 24, 39, 47, 91 Posen, 43, 45-8 postmodern history, 12 Prague (see also expulsion(s), Prague), x-xi, 9, 21-2n, 23, 24, 38, 39, 43, 45, 55, 70, 79, 81, 96, 104, 114-15, 122, 123, 126, 132, 133, 140, 148

186


prayer(s), 6, 22, 41, 44, 49, 59, 61-2, 74, 80, 89, 109, 116, 134, 136n, 137, 142 preachers, 93, 112, 126, 141; preaching, anti-Jewish, 126 privileges, 39, 47, 58, 77, 139 procession, Christian, 136 Psalms, 74, 109 Purim, 21, 52, 116; Purim story, 24, 25; second Purims, 6 quarter, Jewish (see also ghetto), 58, 59, 63, 68, 133, 136, 150n Rabbenu Gershom (see Gershom ben Judah Me’or ha-Golah), 75 Rabbenu Tam (see Jacob ben Meir Tam), 75, 78 Rabbi, 4, 5, 19, 23, 40, 41, 42, 45, 48, 50, 54, 56, 58, 60, 61-2, 70, 75, 76, 91, 92, 103, 122, 136; communal, 1323; rabbi’s house, 58 rabbinic literature, 119, 120 rabbinic period, 5-6 Ramban (see Moses ben Nahman), 143-4 Rankburg, 79 Rashi (see Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes), 76, 78, 119, 135, 150n; Rashi commentary, 78 redemption of captives, 79 reform, social, 110 Reformation, ix, xi, 93, 99, 104-10, 153 Regensburg, 58, 115, 118, 141, 142 Reichshofen, 87 Reichskammergericht (Imperial Chamber Court), 100 Reichskreise (Imperial Circles), 100 Reichstag (Imperial Diet), 100 religion, folk and elite, 78 Renaissance, 15, 27, 28, 99 Rentmeister, 101 repentance, 20, 22, 88, 114-15 response, ix, 29, 101-02, 131-3, 135, 141 revolts, 39, 68 Rhegius, Urbanus, 107 Rhine, 57, 138 Rindfleisch pogrom (1298), 73 rites, Catholic, 147; rites, religious, 147 ritual, 5, 16, 18, 41, 43, 59, 72, 86, 101, 105, 108, 137, 138n

Rohrbacher, Stefan, 69 Rokeah (see Eleazar ben Judah Kalonymos), 30n, 143-4 Rome, 31, 125, 127, 145n Rosh (Asher ben Yehiel), 31 Rosh ha-Shannah, 59 Rudolph II, Emperor, 122, 124, 126, 127, 129 rural Jewish communities, Jewry, 40, 76, 78, 102 Russia, 91, 120n Sabbath (see Shabbat), 63n, 68-9, 80; Sabbath meal, 60, 61 Sachs, Hans, 67 Safed, 79 Sallust, 15 Samson Wertheimer, 70 Samuel ben Kalonymos he-Hasid (Samuel the Pious), 141 Samuel Oppenheim(er), 70, 71, 75 Samuel the Pious (see Samuel he-Hasid), 140 Saxony, x, 36, 70, 101 Schedel, Hartmann, 117-18, 122 Schmalkaldic League, 145 Schnaittach, 45, 46 scholastics, 15 Schutz und Schirm (protection), 101 Schutzbrief (see letters of protection), 79 Schwäbisch Hall, 67 Schwarzfuchs, Simon, 74 Schweinfurt, 58, 102 science, 17, 123, 123n, 133; scientific revolution, 28 scribe, 45, 48, 73, 136; community, 41 Scribner, Bob, 104 Scripture(s), 4, 15, 99, 109, 118, 127, 153 Sefer Haredim, 50, 53 Sefer Hasidim, 50, 53, 140, 141 self-criticism, 113 selihot, 6, 59 sensus historicus (see also biblical interpretation), 109 Sephardic and Ashkenazic distinctions, relations, 8, 8n, 9, 39, 91-2, 144 sermon, 42, 144; sermons, forced or conversionary, 111, 112

Index settlement (see also demography), 35-7, 101; settlement(s), Jewish, 38-40, 58, 61, 62, 75, 103, 105, 129, 145, 146-7, 149, 151 Seventeenth of Tammuz, 21 sexton, 136 Shabbat (see Sabbath), 59, 62 Shabbetai Sevi, 91, 92, 133 shammash (beadle), 41, 61-2, 64n, 137 Shavuot, 80 Shemini Azeret, 114 shemot (see also names, holy and Ba’alei Shemot), 143 Shimon ben Hillel, Rabbi, 125 Shimon Günzburg, 79 Shimon son of Eliezer, Rabbi, 78 Shoah, 4 shohet(im) (ritual slaughterer), 43, 136 Shopkow, Leah, 17 shtadlan, 41, 71, 112 Shulhan Arukh, xn, 31, 50, 55, 135 sick, care for and burial of, 41, 43, 80 Silesia, 126 Simhat Torah, 64n, 80, 134 Simon of Trent, 118, 121 sin(s), 20-22, 23, 59, 63n, 82-3, 88, 95, 113, 115, 123, 124, 126, 134, 137, 137n, 144, 150n; economy of, 20-21; divine punishment for, 113 Slumiel of Prossnitz, 51 social discipline, 104-05 social orders, 36; society of orders, 67 social polarization, 69 Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes, Rabbi (see Rashi), 75 Solomon Israel, Rabbi, 75 Solomon Luria (see Maharshal) Spain (see also expulsion(s), Spain), 70, 87, 91, 100, 120n, 124, 143, 146; Spaniards, 144 Spessart, 96 Speyer, 20, 63, 73, 75, 76 stars (see also portents), 28, 135 state, centralized, 17 status, social, 68, 86, 95, 96, 98 Steppach, 77 Stern, Selma, 113 Stock, Brian, 17 Strasbourg, 93, 106, 112; bishop of, 94

187

study halls, 44 Stuttgart, 37 sumptuary laws, 44, 68 Sussman Brilin, Rabbi, 132 Swabia, 35, 77, 78, 79, 80; Swabian Jewry, 69 Switzerland, 36 synagogue(s), 6, 21, 42n, 44, 49, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64n, 69, 72, 74, 75, 80, 103, 111, 114, 119, 126, 134, 136, 138, 139, 144, 148, 150n; synagogue seats, 45; Sephardic, 92 synod of German Jews, x; (1542) 23, 48; (1603) 115, 150; synods, rabbinic, 58 takkanot (see ordinances), 44, 45, 47, 48, 68 Talmud, 30, 42, 54, 78, 101, 102n, 111, 122, 132, 135, 141 tashlikh, 59 Tauler, Johann, 93 tax(es), x, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 57, 58, 67-8, 78, 91, 149; tax lists 45; tax receipts 67 Temple, 26, 116; destruction of, 5, 6, 21, 27, 30, 80, 147, 148, 150n, 151 temporality, xi, 3, 20, 27-32, 95, 142-3 territorialization, 17, 62, 69, 100, 102, 135 testimony, 101; testimony, Gentile, 102 The Hague, 93 Thirty Years’ War, 37, 48, 57, 70, 88, 94, 103-04, 115, 150 Thuringia, 36, 101, 135 Tirol, 36 Tisha b’Av, 80, 114, 138 tithing, 101 toleration, 111 Torah (see Pentateuch), 64, 64n, 75, 127, 143; Torah learning, 79, 146 Tosafists (see Ba’alei Tosafot), 78, 101n, 135 towns, 36-7, 39, 79 trade, 36, 37, 58, 70, 85, 148 tradition(s), 1, 2, 4, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14n, 16, 17, 27, 31, 32, 44, 49, 62-5, 71-2, 99, 108, 110, 113, 131, 136, 146, 151, 153-4 Trajan, 125

188


Tratziger, Adam, 145 Trier, 73, 73n, 132n Tropology (see also biblical interpretation), 109, 110 tsitsit, 101 Tur, 50 Turks, 28, 64n, 71, 93, 109, 134 Ulm, 37, 77, 79 Ulma-Günzburg family, 79 Uri Halevy, 147 Uriel da Costa, 92 usury (see moneylending; usury) va’ad (council), 61 Veitschheim, 76 Venice, 146 Verona, 140 Vesuvius, Mount, 123 Vienna (see also expulsion(s), Vienna), 28, 39, 45, 70, 71, 84, 93, 104, 109 villages, 67, 69, 76, 77, 101 Vorarlberg, 36 Wandsbek, 39, 92 weather, 28, 93; severe, 35 wedding hall, 58 Weinryb, Bernard, 146-7 well-poisoning accusations, 121 Wertheimer family, 70, 71 Wesel, 36 Wettenhausen, 77

wine, 135 Wissenschaft des Judentums, 7 Wittenberg, 93, 104, 109 wonder stories, 29, 131 woodcuts, 121 Worms (see also expulsion(s), Worms), 21, 23, 39, 42, 43, 45, 56, 62-4, 68, 73, 73n, 75, 79, 131-9, 141, 143, 148-51 Württemberg, 35, 36, 37 Würzburg, 70 Yair Hayyim Bacharach, 21, 30, 62-3, 10102, 131-6 Yakov Lieberman, 50 Yavneh, 20 Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim, 1, 4-9, 59, 86 yeshivah, 42, 48, 61, 64n, 132 Yiddish, xn, 91, 140-42 Yishaya Segal, Rabbi, 54 Yohanan ben Zakai, Rabbi, 125 Yom Kippur, 55, 114-15, 147 Yom-Tov Lipman Heller, 22, 70 Zehner (Frankfurt Jewish board members), 60 Zimmern family, 86 Zion of the North (see also Jerusalem of the North), 106 Zionism, 7 Zohar, 50 Zurich, 58 Zwolle, 93

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