Picturing Yiddish: Gender, Identity, and Memory in the Illustrated Yiddish Books of Renaissance Italy (Brill's Series in Jewish Studies)

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rug opg. brill: 24.85mm; 16-4: 31mm

BSJS 36

DAVID S. KATZ (Tel Aviv) ADVISORY EDITORS:

STUART COHEN (Bar-Ilan) ANTHONY T. GRAFTON (Princeton) YOSEF KAPLAN ( Jerusalem) FERGUS MILLAR (Oxford) This is the first comprehensive study of the images in five profusely illustrated Yiddish books that were produced in sixteenth-century Italy: a manuscript of Jewish customs illustrated by its scribe, and two books of customs, a chivalric romance, and a book of fables, all printed at Christian presses in Venice and Verona. The long-neglected manuscript includes more than one hundred drawings, here reproduced for the first time, which are strikingly inventive and full of a joie de vivre that gives the lie to the lachrymose view of Jewish history. This volume, which explores how Yiddish imagery constructs women, Jewish memory, and Jewish identity, will interest art historians, feminist scholars, Jewish Studies specialists, and specialists in the history of the book.

PICTURING YIDDISH

GENERAL EDITOR:

WOLFTHAL

Brill’s Series in Jewish Studies

PICTURING YIDDISH Gender, Identity, and Memory in the Illustrated Yiddish Books of Renaissance Italy

Diane Wolfthal, Ph. D. (1983) in Art History, New York University, is Associate Professor at Arizona State University. She has authored books on images of rape and Netherlandish canvases, and published numerous articles on late medieval and early modern art.

A complete list of the publications in this series may be found at the back of this volume.

by

ISSN 0926-2261

DIANE WOLFTHAL

www.brill.nl

BRILL

BRILL

PICTURING YIDDISH

BRILL’S SERIES IN JEWISH STUDIES GENERAL EDITOR

DAVID S. KATZ (Tel Aviv) ADVISORY EDITORS STUART COHEN (Bar-Ilan) ANTHONY T. GRAFTON (Princeton) YOSEF KAPLAN (Jerusalem) FERGUS MILLAR (Oxford)

VOL. 36

PICTURING YIDDISH Gender, Identity, and Memory in the Illustrated Yiddish Books of Renaissance Italy

BY

DIANE WOLFTHAL

BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON 2004

Cover illustration: Anonymous, Dancing on Shabbat Nahamu, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol. 36v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Brill Academic Publishers has done its best to establish rights to use of the materials printed herein. Should any other party feel that its rights have been infringed we would be glad to take up contact with them.

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wolfthal, Diane. Picturing Yiddish : gender, identity, and memory in the illustrated Yiddish books of Renaissance Italy / by Diane Wolfthal. p. cm. — (Brill’s series in Jewish studies, ISSN 0926-2261 ; v. 36) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 90-04-13905-2 1. Illustration of books—Italy—16th century. 2. Yiddish imprints—Italy—History—16th century. 3. Illustrated books—Italy—History—16th century. 4. Bibliothèque nationale de France. Manuscript. Héb. 586—Illustrations. 5. Bibliothèque nationale de France. Manuscript. Héb. 586—Illustrations. 6. Manuscripts, Yiddish—France—Paris. 7. Jews in art. 8. Women in art. 9. Christianity and other religions—Judaism. 10. Judaism—Relations—Christianity. I. Title. II. Series. NC982.W65 2004 745.6’7’089924045—dc22 2004045721

ISSN 0926-2261 ISBN 90 04 13905 2 © Copyright 2004 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ........................................................................ List of Illustrations .................................................................... Introduction ................................................................................

vii ix xxv

PART ONE

AN ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT OF JEWISH CUSTOMS (PARIS BN MS. HÉB. 586) Chapter One Introduction to the Paris Book of Customs (Paris BN MS. Héb. 586) .................................................... Chapter Two The Beginnings of a New Pictorial Tradition ................................................................................ Chapter Three Representing Jewish Ritual and Identity in the Paris Book of Customs and its Christian Counterparts .......................................................................... Chapter Four Representing Diversity within the Community: The Absence of Rabbis and the Presence of Women ..............................................................................

3 26

44

63

PART TWO

THE PRINTED BOOKS OF CUSTOMS (VENICE, 1593 AND 1600) Chapter Five Introduction to the Printed Books of Customs .................................................................................. 87 Chapter Six Marriage and Memory: Images of Marriage Rituals in Yiddish Books of Customs .................................. 111 Chapter Seven Remembering Amalek and Nebuchadnezzar: Biblical Warfare and Symbolic Violence in Images in the Yiddish Books of Customs .................................................... 132

contents

vi

PART THREE

THE SECULAR YIDDISH BOOKS, PARIS UN VIENE AND THE KUH-BUKH (VERONA, 1594 AND 1595) Chapter Eight Cultural Exchange and Jewish Identity in Images in Secular Illustrated Yiddish Books ...................... 157 Chapter Nine Picturing Romantic Passion, Illicit Sexuality, and Women’s Agency in Secular Yiddish Books ................ 189 Conclusions ................................................................................ 203 Illustrations Appendix .................................................................................... 211 Works Cited ................................................................................ 251 Index .......................................................................................... 275

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study could not have been completed without the generous assistance of numerous individuals and foundations. I would like to thank Arizona State University for grants from the Women’s Studies Program in 1997 and 2000, the Herberger College of Fine Arts in 1997–2000 and 2002–2003, and the Jewish Studies Program in 2003. My research was also supported by grants from the Brandeis University Hadassah International Research Institute on Jewish Women (2000–2001), the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation (1999, 2002), and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture (2000–2001). I also greatly benefited from my stay at the idyllic Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Yarnton during the summers of 2002 and 2003. I am grateful as well for the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, which awarded me first a Summer Stipend in 2001 and then a Fellowship in 2002–2003. I also wish to acknowledge the many individuals who helped me. At the Jewish Theological Seminary, Evelyn Cohen, Sharon Liberman Mintz, Rabbi Jerry Schwarzbard, and especially Yevgeniya Dizenko and David Wachtel generously assisted me. I also wish to thank Doris Nicholson of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Michel Garrel of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and Benjamin Richler of the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem. I am also grateful to Judith Baskin, Elisheva Carlebach, Anne Derbes, Yael Even, Tiffany Fairall, Brad Sabin Hill, Paul Kaplan, Batya Kleinfeld, Susan KarantNunn, Deborah Losse, Racheli Leket-Mor, Griselda Pollack, Pamela Sheingorn, Ruth Stiftel, Tawney Sherrill, Neil Weiner, Aaron E. Wright, Piet van Boxel, and Juliann Vitullo. For their generous hospitality, I also thank Anne Derbes and Bob Schwab, Juliette FalikVadorin and Jean-Marie Vadorin, Nettie Lobsenz, Jan Goldberg and Michael Neuschatz, and Dr. Gene and Juliette Gould. For her expert editing job, I would like to thank Dr. Leslie S. B. MacCoull. I would also like to express my appreciation to Eva Frojmovic for her unfailing support and for many fruitful discussions, and to my fellow-laborers in the field of early Yiddish Studies, Jean Baumgarten, Jerold Frakes, and Scott-Martin Kosofsky. My colleagues at ASU, Allison Coudert and Joel Gereboff, generously reviewed earlier drafts of this study

viii

acknowledgments

and offered invaluable advice. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who read this manuscript and the articles from which it developed. Howard Adelman was especially kind to comment on a draft of this manuscript, since we have never met and share no institutional ties. His thoughtful observations helped me in innumerable ways and I am very grateful to him. Deepest thanks are owed my family—Judy, Leah, and Maurice—whose many sacrifices made this book possible. I dedicate this volume to them.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3a.

Fig. 3b.

Fig. 4.

Fig. 5.

Fig. 6.

Fig. 7.

Fig. 8a.

Fig. 8b.

Fig. 9a.

Anonymous, Rosh Óodesh Nisan, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 1r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Shabbat ha-Gadol, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 1v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Fetching water for Passover, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 2r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Searching and burning hamez before Passover, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 3r. Manuscript illumination, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Eruv tavshilin, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 3v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Kiddush at the Seder, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 4r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Mazzah, maror, blessing over the wine, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 5r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Dipping greens in ˙aroset, distributing afikomen, and filling the third cup, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 5v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Shefokh, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris,Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 6r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Lighting the Sabbath lamp, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 7r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Animals beneath a tree, Book of Customs (Sefer

x

list of illustrations

Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 7v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 9b. Anonymous, Torah reading, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 8r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 10a. Anonymous, Priestly blessing, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 8v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 10b. Anonymous, Creature surrounding text, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 9v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 11. Anonymous, Birds and a quadruped, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 10r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 12. Anonymous, A woman counting the days of Omer, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 10v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 13. Anonymous, Kiddush and landscape, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 11r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Figs. 14a–b. Anonymous, Baking mazzot, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol. 12v–13r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 15a. Anonymous, Landscape, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 14v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 15b. Anonymous, A man blessing a woman, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 16r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 16a. Anonymous, Standing woman with arms crossed, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 18r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France.


xi

Fig. 16b. Anonymous, Matnat Yad, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 18v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig 17. Anonymous, Balaam, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 21v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 18. Anonymous, Havdalah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 22r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 19. Anonymous, Fantastic creature, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 23v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 20. Anonymous, Lag be-Omer, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 24v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 21a. Anonymous, Shavuot, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 25v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 21b. Anonymous, Shavuot Landscape, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 28v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 22a. Anonymous, Raising the cup for Havdalah on Shavuot, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 31r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 22b. Anonymous, Lifting the Torah on the seventeenth of Tamuz, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 32r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 23. Anonymous, Tishah be-Av, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 34r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 24a. Anonymous, Dancing on Shabbat Na˙amu, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 36v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Fig. 24b. Anonymous, Blowing the shofar at the beginning of the month of Elul, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 37vr. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

xii Figs. 25–26.

Fig. 27a.

Fig. 27b.

Fig. 28.

Fig. 29.

Fig. 30.

Fig. 31a.

Fig. 31b.

Fig. 32a.

Fig. 32b.

list of illustrations Anonymous, Rosh Hashana, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 42v–43r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Blowing the shofar, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 44v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Prostrating oneself on Rosh Hashana, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 49r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Drinking on Rosh Hashana, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 50r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Rosh Hashana Kiddush, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 50v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Carrying the First Fruits for She-He˙eyanu, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 51r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Quadruped and plant, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 51v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Praying on Rosh Hashana, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 52r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, A pair of horses, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 52v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, The bath on Rosh Hashana, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 53v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

list of illustrations Fig. 33a.

Fig. 33b.

Fig. 34a.

Fig. 34b.

Fig. 35.

Fig. 36a.

Fig. 36b.

Fig. 37.

Fig. 38.

Fig. 39.

Fig. 40.

Fig. 41a.

xiii

Anonymous, Blowing the shofar, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 55r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Bird with a snake in its beak, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 56v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, The arrest of Gedaliah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 58r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Blessing over the eruv, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 59r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Kapparot and flagellation, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 59v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Reconciliation on Rosh Hashana, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 60r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, The recitation of the sanction before Kol Nidre, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 60v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Kedushah, opening the ark on Yom Kippur, and saying “from generation to generation,” Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 63r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Prostrating on Yom Kippur, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 66. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, The angel Michael and opening the Ark on Yom Kippur, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 68r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Three species and eating in the sukkah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 73r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, The four species, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 75r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

xiv Fig. 41b.

Fig. 42a.

Fig. 42b.

Fig. 43.

Fig. 44.

Fig. 45a.

Fig. 45b.

Fig. 46a.

Fig. 46b.

Fig. 47.

Fig. 48a.

Fig. 48b.

list of illustrations Anonymous, Visiting a sukkah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 77r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Evening Services on Sukkot, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 78v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Blessing the four species, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 79v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Hakkafot on Hoshana Rabba, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 82r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Hoshana Rabba, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 85v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, The table outside the sukkah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 89r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Beginning Genesis on Sim˙at Torah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 91v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Kol ha-Ne"arim, or the calling up of the youth, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 92v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Procession of Torahs, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 93r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Óatan Torah and Óatan Bereshit, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 93v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Dismantling the sukkah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 94r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Lighting the Óanukkah candles, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 95r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France.


Fig. 49b.

Fig. 50.

Fig. 51a.

Fig. 51b.

Fig. 52a.

Fig. 52b.

Fig. 53.

Fig. 54.

Fig. 55.

Fig. 56.

Fig. 57a.

xv

Anonymous, Lighting the menorah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 96v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Placing the Torah scroll in the ark, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 99v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Nebuchadnezzar, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 102r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Tu bi-Shevat, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 103r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Fool of Purim Katan, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 103v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, The scale for Shabbat Shekalim, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 104r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Cooking cholent on Shabbat Hafsakah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 105v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, A woman attacking Amalek on Shabbat Parshat Zakhor, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 106r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Queen Esther, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 107r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Reading the megillah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 109r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Drinking on Purim, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 109v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Shabbat Parshah Parah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 110r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

xvi Fig. 57b.

Fig. 58.

Fig. 59.

Fig. 60.

Fig. 61.

Fig. 62.

Fig. 63.

Fig. 64a.

Fig. 64b.

Fig. 65a.

Fig. 65b.

Fig. 66a.

Fig. 66b.

list of illustrations Anonymous, Shabbat ha-Óodesh, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 111r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Eating fish on Rosh Óodesh Nisan, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 112r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Bringing fish to sell for the holidays, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 113r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Betrothal, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 113v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Marriage, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 114r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Marriage Dance, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 15r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Circumcision, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 115v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Sun, moon, and stars, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 117r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, A Man praying a tkhine, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 117v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Passover, Shavuot, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 118r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Sukkot, Yom Kippur, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 119r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Tashlikh, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 121r. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Drawing by a later hand, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 121v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France.

list of illustrations Fig. 67.

Fig. 68a.

Fig. 68b.

Fig. 69a.

Fig. 69b.

Fig. 70.

Fig. 71.

Fig. 72a.

Fig. 72b. Fig. 73a.

Fig. 73b. Fig. 74a. Fig. 74b. Fig. 75a. Fig. 75b.

xvii

Anonymous, Purim party, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim), Paris, Bib. Nat. Héb. 586, fol 121v. North Italian, ca. 1503. Credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Anonymous, Tournament, Yiddish storybook (Germany, 1580). Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Codex Heb. 100, fol. 64r. Circle of Joel ben Simeon, Ornamental initial words and section heading Kedushah for the morning of Rosh Hashana, Rothschild Mahzor, (Florence, 1492), Mic. 8892, fol. 249r. Courtesy of The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York. Joel ben Simeon, Roasting meat for Passover, Washington Haggadah (Germany, 1478). Washington, D.C., Library of Congress, MS. Heb. 1., fol. 14v. Anonymous, Balaam, Kaufman Italian Pentateuch. Budapest, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, MS. A1, fol. 380. Johannes Pfefferkorn, Libellus de Judaica Confessione (Cologne, 1508), fol. 5a. Courtesy of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York. Johannes Pfefferkorn, Libellus de Judaica Confessione (Cologne, 1508), fol. 6a. Courtesy of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York. Francesco Rosselli, Bay of Naples after the Battle of Ischia, July 1465, early 1470s, Museo di S. Martino, Naples. Credit: Scala/Art Resource, New York. Ecclesia and Synagoga, Strasbourg cathedral, c. 1230. Strasbourg, Musée de l’Oeuvre Notre Dame de Strasbourg. Joel ben Simeon, The Egyptians pursuing the Israelites, London Mahzor. London, British Library, MS. Harley 5686, fol. 60v. Flag of Solomon Molcho, before 1532. Prague, Jewish Museum. Anonymous, Ecclesia and Synagoga (Catalonia, ca. 1400). London, British Library, Yates, Thomson 31, fol. 8. Banner of the Prague Jewish Community, eighteenth-century replica of fourteenth-century. Prague, Jewish Museum. Anonymous, Marriage, Rothschild Miscellany. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem MS. 180/51, fol. 12v. Anonymous, Circumcision, Rothschild Miscellany. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem MS. 180/51, fol. 118v.

xviii Fig. 76a.

Fig. 76b.

Fig. 77.

Fig. 78a.

Fig. 78b.

Fig. 79a.

Fig. 79b.

Fig. 80a.

Fig. 80b.

Fig. 81a.

Fig. 81b.

list of illustrations Anonymous, Mikveh, Siddur (German 1427–28). Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Hebr. 37, fol. 79v. Woman’s casket adorned with women’s commandments, northern Italy, second half of the fifteenth century. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Anonymous, Months, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 67v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Havdalah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 3v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Sabbath Blessing, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 8v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Blessing of the New Moon, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 15v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Search for the Leaven, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 19r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Sermon, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 17r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Baking Mazzot, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 21r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Cutting Hair on Lag be-Omer, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 36r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Jost Amman, Barber in Hans Sachs, Eygentliche Beschreibung


Fig. 82a.

Fig. 82b.

Fig. 83a.

Fig. 83b.

Fig. 84a.

Fig. 84b.

Fig. 85.

Fig. 86a.

Fig. 86b.

xix

aller Stände auff Erden (Ständebuch) (Frankfurt am Main, 1568). New Haven, Yale University, Beineke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Anonymous, Moses Receiving the Law, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 37r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Tishah be-Av, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 40v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Blowing the shofar, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 43v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Lighting the Óanukkah Menorah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 68r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Commander and Armed Troops, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 72r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Men in costume for Purim, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 73v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Marriage, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 75r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Circumcision, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1593). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1006, fol. 76v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Sabbath Blessing, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1600). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1004, fol. 63v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

xx Fig. 87.

Fig. 88a.

Fig. 88b.

Fig. 89.

Fig. 90.

Fig. 91a.

Fig. 91b.

Fig. 92a.

Fig. 92b.

Fig. 93.

list of illustrations Anonymous, Blessing over the Wine and Holiday Meal, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1600). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1004, fol. 27r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Sermon, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1600). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1004, fol. 19r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Hare Hunt, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1600). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1004, fol. 27v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Havdalah, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1600). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1004, fol. 39v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Moses Receiving the Law, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1600). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1004, fol. 43r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Tishah be-Av, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1600). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1004, fol. 48r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Blowing the Shofar, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1600). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1004, fol. 51r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Aaron and Hur supporting the hands of Moses, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1600). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1004, fol. 85r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Men in costume for Purim, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1600). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1004, fol. 87r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Marriage, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1600). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1004, fol. 89r. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.


Fig. 94b.

Fig. 95.

Fig. 96a.

Fig. 96b. Fig. 97a.

Fig. 97b. Fig. 98a.

Fig, 98b.

Fig. 99a.

Fig. 99b.

Fig. 100a. Fig. 100b. Fig. 101a.

xxi

Anonymous, Circumcision, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Venice: Giovanni di Gara, 1600). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1004, fol. 90v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Giovanni Verdizotti, Cento Favole Morali, De i piu illustri antichi &moderni, Grece & Latini (Venice: Giordano Ziletti, 1570). Titian, Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, 1534–38. Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia. Credit: Scala/ Art Resource, New York. Anonymous, Marriage, Miscellany (Italy, c. 1477) Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Scrin. 132, fol. 75v. Anonymous, Marriage, Jewish Encyclopedia, ed. Isidore Singer, 8:341. New York: KTAV, 1964. Anonymous, Marriage, Book of Customs (Sefer Minhagim) (Frankfurt, 1722/23). Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College, Klau Library. Anonymous, Marriage of Ferdinando de’ Medici and Cristina de Lorena, 1589, detail. Siena, Archivio di Stato di Siena. Anonymous, Aaron and Hur supporting the hands of Moses, Hebrew Miscellany (French, ca. 1280). Add. MS. 11639, fol. 525v. London, British Library. Anonymous, Aaron and Hur supporting the hands of Moses, Octateuch, TSM GI 8, fol. 207v. Istanbul, Topkapi Palace Museum. Anonymous, mid-sixteenth century copy of Moïse dal Castellazzo (Venice, 1521), Aaron and Hur supporting the hands of Moses, Pentateuch Codex 1164, fol. 123 (above). Warsaw, Jewish Historical Institute. Anonymous, mid-sixteenth century copy of Moïse dal Castellazzo (Venice, 1521), The battle with Amalek, Pentateuch Codex 1164, fol. 123 (below). Warsaw Jewish Historical Institute. Anonymous, title page, Paris un Viene (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1594). Anonymous, Garden of Love, Paris un Viene (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1594). Anonymous, Lovers Embracing, Paris un Viene (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1594).

xxii Fig. 101b. Fig. 102a.

Fig. 102b. Fig. 103a. Fig. 103b. Fig. 104a. Fig. 104b.

Fig. 105a.

Fig. 105b.

Fig. 106a. Fig. 106b. Fig. 107a. Fig. 107b.

Fig. 108a. Fig. 108b.

list of illustrations Anonymous, Tournament, Paris un Viene (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1594). Anonymous, Paris and the Mamelukes, Paris freeing Viene’s Father, Paris un Viene (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1594). Anonymous, Room with Armor, Paris un Viene (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1594). Anonymous, Cropped Cityscape, Paris un Viene (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1594). Anonymous, Stork and fox eating kreplakh, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, title page, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, title page, Francesco Pola, In Illustriss. Adolescentes Phillipum, et Albertum Furcheros Fratres Diversorum Carmina (Verona: Sebastiano dalle Donne, 1586). London, Victoria and Albert Museum. Anonymous, Widow hoisting her husband’s corpse onto gallows, Moshe Wallich, Sefer Meshalim (Frankfurt a. M., 1697) (top of page). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1112, fol. 23v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Whore outsmarting the whole town, Moshe Wallich, Sefer Meshalim (Frankfurt a. M., 1697) (bottom of page). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1112, fol. 23v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Dog gazing at reflection of meat, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, Donkey deriding a horse, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, Dog freeing cow, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donne, 1595). Anonymous, Dog and cow, Isaac ibn Sahula, Meshal haKadmoni (Venice, 1547). Leeds, University Library, Special Collections Roth 803. Anonymous, Fox, Bird, and Cheese, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, Fox, Bird, and Cheese, Hans Vintler, Buch der Tugend (Augsburg: Johann Blaubirer, 1486). Washington, D.C., Library of Congress.


Fig. 109b. Fig. 110a. Fig. 110b. Fig. 111a. Fig. 111b. Fig. 112a. Fig. 112b. Fig. 113a. Fig. 113b.

Fig. 114a. Fig. 114b.

Fig. 115. Fig. 116a. Fig. 116b. Fig. 117a. Fig. 117b. Fig. 118.

xxiii

Anonymous, Widow at grave, Moshe Wallich, Sefer Meshalim (Frankfurt a. M., 1697). Oxford, Bodleian Library, Opp. 4o 1112, fol. 22v. Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Anonymous, Widow at grave, Ulrich Boner, Der Edelstein (Bamberg: Albrecht Pfister, 1461). Anonymous, Man Sings, Girl Cries, Kuh-Bukh (Verona, 1595). Anonymous, Man Sings, Girl Cries, Ulrich Boner, Der Edelstein (Bamberg: Albrecht Pfister, 1461). Anonymous, Trial of a Sheep, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, Murder of the Jew, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, Murder of the Jew, Boner, Der Edelstein. Augsburg, Universitätsbibliothek Cod, 1.3 2o 3. Anonymous, Murder of the Jew, Boner, Der Edelstein (Bamberg: Albrecht Pfister, 1461). Anonymous, Execution of the Jew’s Murderer, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, Partridge reveals the identity of the murderer, Aesop, Fabulae (Parma: Franciscum Ugoletum, 1526). New York, New York Public Library, Astor, Lennox and Tilden Foundations, Spencer Coll. Ital. 1526. Anonymous, Paris Serenading Viene, Kuh-Bukh (Verona, 1595). Anonymous, Courtesan and Suitor, from Mors italiae, New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Anonymous, Lovers meet, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, Lovers in bed, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, Woman waits for husband, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, Woman serves husband food, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, Husband and wife before bed, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, Husband leaves for synagogue; Lovers kiss, KuhBukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595).

xxiv Fig. 119. Fig. 120a. Fig. 120b.

list of illustrations Anonymous, Husband and wife dine, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, Lovers on horseback, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595). Anonymous, The cuckhold laments, Kuh-Bukh (Verona: Francesco dalle Donna, 1595).

INTRODUCTION

To most scholars, the term “Jewish art” brings to mind ritual objects that were used in the home or synagogue. When illustrated books are discussed, they are usually the magnificently illuminated manuscripts commissioned by wealthy or learned men that were written in the holy language of Hebrew. But by the sixteenth century another group of illustrated books began to be produced, manuscripts and printed books for men and women from the middle ranks of Jewish society that were written in Yiddish, the vernacular language of Ashkenazic Jews. This study examines a subgroup of these books, the five surviving profusely illustrated volumes that were created in northern Italy during the sixteenth century: a manuscript of Jewish customs illustrated by its scribe in or shortly before 1503 (Paris BN MS. Héb. 586); two books of customs printed in Venice in 1593 and 1600; and two secular books, the chivalric romance Paris un Viene and a book of fables called the Kuh-Bukh, printed in Verona in 1594–1595.1 We should not be surprised that illustrated Yiddish books were produced in northern Italy. Beginning in the fourteenth century, large numbers of Ashkenazim, that is, Jews whose culture is rooted in northern Europe, emigrated from France, Germany, and other areas where they had been expelled or faced severe persecution. They settled primarily in the Veneto and northeast region of Italy, where, it has been estimated, several thousand Yiddish speakers lived in the fifteenth century. By the sixteenth century they constituted the largest group of Jews living in Italy.2 Yiddish, or as it was more usually called in the Early Modern period, taytsh, was for centuries the foremost language of popular 1

Only books whose sole or primary language is Yiddish will be considered, not bilingual texts in which Yiddish plays only a secondary role. 2 Jean Baumgarten, “Un poème épique en yidich ancien, le Bovo bukh (Isny, 1541) d’Elie Bahur Lévita,” Revue de la Bibliothèque Nationale 25 (1987): 16; Alessandro Guetta, “Les Juifs ashkénazes en Italie; une page d’histoire brève mais importante,” in Mille ans de cultures ashkénazes, ed. by Jean Baumgarten (Paris: Liana Levi, 1994), 70–75; and Moses A. Shulvass, The History of the Jewish People (Chicago: Regnery Press, 1985), 3, 111–15, who argues that Jews came to Italy not only because they were fleeing discrimination, but also for economic reasons.

PART ONE

AN ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT OF JEWISH CUSTOMS (Paris BN MS. HÉB. 586)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION TO THE PARIS BOOK OF CUSTOMS (PARIS BN MS. HÉB. 586)

Only a few scattered remnants survive of the illustrated manuscripts written in Yiddish, the vernacular language of Ashkenazic Jews.1 A scene of a cat holding a mouse in its mouth accompanies a version of the Passover song Óad Gadya, which was written in alternating stanzas of Aramaic and Yiddish in early sixteenth-century Italy.2 Decorative animals embellish a Yiddish translation of the Pentateuch and the Haftarot from sixteenth-century Germany.3 Disembodied human heads and pointing hands adorn the initial words of a Ma˙zor, which was completed with Yiddish instructions in Cracow in 1558– 1560.4 And scenes of entire human figures illustrate a collection of Yiddish stories, begun in Germany in 1580 (Fig. 68a).5 1

For more about Yiddish and Ashkenazic Jews, see the Introduction. I would like to thank Jerold Frakes for bringing this image and the London Ma˙zor to my attention. For Aramaic, an ancient Semitic language, see Eduard Yecheskel Kutscher, “Aramaic,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. by Cecil Roth ( Jerusalem and New York: Keter and Macmillan, 1971), 3:259. Óad Gadya is a popular Aramaic song that is sung at the Passover Seder, or ritual meal; see “Óad Gadya,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 7:1048. The Yiddish version of Óad Gadya appears on fols. 46v–47 of the Haggadah Sereni in the Museo Umberto Nahon di Arte Ebraica Italiana, Jerusalem, for which see Chone Shmeruk [here Szmeruk], “The Earliest Aramaic and Yiddish Version of the ‘Song of a Kid’ (Khad Gadye),” in The Field of Yiddish. Studies in Yiddish Language, Folklore, and Literature (New York: Linguistical Circle of New York, 1954), 214–18, illustration opposite 219. 3 The Pentateuch consists of the five books of Moses; the Haftarot are the portions of the prophetic books that are read in synagogue on the Sabbath. For Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, MS. Or quart 691, see Jutta Strauss, “Tora und Haftarot für Frauen, Jiddisch in hebräischer Schrift,” in Petra Werner, Jüdische Handschriften: Restaurieren, Bewahren, Präsentieren (Berlin: Staatsbibliothek, 2002), 50–51. I would like to thank Brad Sabin Hill for bringing this manuscript to my attention. 4 For London British Museum, MS. Add. 27071, the decorated Ma˙zor, see G. Margoliouth, Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1905), 2:329–30, cat. no. 684, and Leonard Prager and Brad Sabin Hill, “Yiddish Manuscripts in the British Library,” The British Library Journal 21 (1995): 84, 85, pl. III. 5 Munich. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. Hebr. 100, fol. 64r. See Monumenta Judaica. 2000 Jahre Geschichte und Kultur der Juden am Rhein. Katalog, ed. by Konrad Schilling (Cologne: Stadt Köln, 1964), 2:D107. For a reproduction of one illustration, see 2

4

part one ‒ chapter one

But the oldest surviving Yiddish manuscript that is illustrated with figural scenes is a Sefer Minhagim, or book of religious customs, Paris BN MS. Héb. 586.6 Profusely illustrated on ninety-four of its one hundred twenty-one folios, the manuscript is filled with extraordinary marginal drawings (Figs. 1–67). Most depict Jews celebrating holidays at home and in synagogue, but some show life-cycle events, landscapes, animals, fantastic creatures, and rarely illustrated scenes from Jewish history. The pictorial program includes the only surviving visualization of many subjects, among them a nude woman bathing for Rosh Hashana, the arrest of Gedaliah, a woman trampling and stoning Amalek, and a dance following Tishah be-Av.7 The cycle of drawings is also noteworthy for its joyous tone, its emphasis on women, and its original interpretation of even traditional subjects. Furthermore, the manuscript was made for someone from the middle ranks of Jewish society, an audience that scholars have too often ignored. For all these reasons, the Paris book of customs offers a rich, untapped source for understanding Jewish culture. But although the text has been the subject of study, the images have long been overlooked, except in the briefest of catalogue entries or by scholars with a limited knowledge of Yiddish.8 The field of Jakob Meitlis, Das Ma’assebuch: seine Entstehung und Quellengeschichte (Berlin: Rubin Mass, 1933), 53, Bild 2. I would like to thank Eva Frojmovic for bringing this manuscript to my attention. 6 Moritz Steinschneider, “Jüdisch-deutsche Litteratur und Jüdisch-Deutsch,” Serapeum 27(1866), 105–40, here 137, observes that one scribe of a Yiddish book of customs calls his book twghnym. Israel Zinberg adopts the same term: see The History of Literature in Yiddish (Buenos Aires: Old World Yiddish Culture-Congress, 1964–1970) (in Yiddish), 3:158 and 6:202. Sefer Minhagim means “book of customs.” 7 Figs. 24a, 32b, 34a, 53. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. Tishah be-Av is a day of mourning that laments the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Gedaliah was a sixth-century governor of Judah whose assassination is commemorated by a fast day. Amalek is the archenemy of Israel who will be discussed extensively in Chapter VII below. 8 Mordecai Kosover has studied the language; see “Gleanings From the Vocabulary of a 15th-Century Yiddish Manuscript Collection of Customs,” in For Max Weinreich on his Seventieth Birthday: Studies in Jewish Languages, Literature, and Society (The Hague: Mouton, 1964), 38–55 (in Yiddish). The manuscript is listed without comment in Aaron Freimann, Union Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts and their Locations (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1964), 2:215 cat. no. 5548. For further publications on the manuscript see the following notes and Jean Baumgarten, Introduction à la littérature Yiddish ancienne (Paris: Cerf, 1993), 308 n. 142. The only articles on the images that are not mentioned in this chapter are those by the present writer, which are now superceded by this book; D. Wolfthal, “Imaging the Self: Representations of Jewish Ritual in the Paris Sefer Minhagim,” in Imaging the Self, Imaging the Other: Visual Representation and Jewish-Christian Dynamics in the Middle Ages

introduction to the paris book of customs

5

Jewish Studies has traditionally privileged Hebrew manuscripts over Yiddish ones. But the primary reason for the neglect of these images is revealed by a theme that runs through most publications on the manuscript: because the illustrations are of poor quality, they are unworthy of attention. The first published reference to the book appeared in 1866 in a catalogue of the Imperial Library in Paris. There Hermann Zotenberg dismissed the images by tersely characterizing them as “coarse miniatures.”9 This denigratory phrase was repeated three years later by Moritz Steinschneider,10 and in 1929, Maks Erik concurred, terming them comical and shabby.11 Thirty years later, Zofia Ameisenova was the first to devote more than a sentence to the images, but her article criticized the drawings nonetheless as childish, naïve, and caricature-like. Furthermore, because she did not understand Yiddish, she misinterpreted many of the subjects.12 In 1964, Mordecai Kosover termed the illustrations “primitive,”13 and in 1994, Gabrielle Sed-Rajna and Sonia Fellous repeated the standard theme: the images were “devoid of all artistic worth,”14 and were therefore of interest only to ethnographers. They did compile a list of every drawing, but again, because their knowledge of Yiddish was limited, they misidentified several themes.15 As late as

and Early Modern Period, ed. by Eva Frojmovic (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002), 189–211; and eadem, “Remembering Amalek and Nebuchadnezzar: Jewish Culture and Symbolic Violence in an Italian Renaissance Yiddish Book of Customs,” in Artful Armies, Beautiful Battles: Art and Warfare in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Pia Cuneo (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2001), 181–211. The first essay was reprinted, in slightly altered form, as “Ritual and Representation in a Yiddish Book of Customs,” in Race-ing Art History: A Critical Anthology, ed. by Kymberly N. Pinder (London: Routledge, 2002), 21–36. 9 Hermann Zotenberg, Catalogue des manuscrits hébreux et samaritains de la Bibliothèque impériale (Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1866), 3:62, cat. no. 586: “miniatures grossières.” The word “grossières” recurs on one of the introductory pages in the manuscript, along with a statement that the rite is Hungarian, that is, it stems from the writings of Isaac Tyrnau. I would like to thank Brad Sabin Hill for clarifying the meaning of this inscription. 10 Moritz Steinschneider, “Jüdisch-deutsche Litteratur und Jüdisch-Deutsch,” Serapeum 30 (1869): 129–40, here 136. 11 Maks Erik, The History of Yiddish Literature from the Earliest Times to the Haskalah (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, 1979; first published in 1929), 37 (in Yiddish). 12 Zofia Ameisenowa, “An Illustrated Manual of Rituals from the Late Middle Ages,” Tarbiz 28 (1958): 197–200 (in Hebrew). 13 Kosover, “Gleanings From the Vocabulary,” 38. 14 Gabrielle Sed-Rajna and Sonia Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux enluminés des bibliothèques de France (Leuven and Paris: Peeters, 1994), 289. 15 Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 289, 307–10.

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1996, Erika Timm and Chava Turiansky still dismissed the drawings as “clumsy,” and added a new and mistaken note by also terming them “real,” as if they were mirrors of reality.16 They ignored the analysis of Jean Baumgarten, published in 1993, who saw the illustrations in a new light. Not only could Baumgarten understand the text, but he was also sympathetic to the circumstances of its production. Rather than denigrating the images because they did not conform to prevailing standards of taste, Baumgarten deemed them the most original aspect of the book.17 But since he discussed the illustrations only briefly, the present study represents the first comprehensive investigation of these remarkable images.

Provenance and Date Although the Paris book of customs does not contain a colophon and its text does not reveal the names of its scribe, artist, or patron, its images must have been produced in Italy.18 The architectural forms—the round towers rising over crenellated walls and hemispherical domes resting on fenestrated drums—are typical of images in Italian manuscripts.19 The ceramic jug adorned with a molded 16 Yiddish in Italia. Carte ritrovate. Manoscritte e antiche stampe Yiddish di area italiana, ed. by Erika Timm and Chava Turiansky (Milan: Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, 1996), 60. I translate the term veri as “real,” although the English translation of this catalogue uses the term “concrete.” 17 Jean Baumgarten, “Les Manuscrits Yidich de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris,” in The Field of Yiddish: Studies in Language, Folklore, and Literature. Fifth Collection, ed. by David Goldberg (Evanston and New York: Northwestern University Press, 1993), 121–51, here 127–31. 18 Erik proposed a Venetian provenance, but Kosover assigned the manuscript more broadly to northern Italy, and Baumgarten concurred. Sed-Rajna and Fellous suggested Northeast Italy or Carinthia, a province of Austria that borders on Italy. Only Ameisenowa, misinterpreting inscriptions on an introductory page and folio 1 (see note 9), assigned the work to Hungary. See Ameisenowa, “An Illustrated Manual,” 197; Baumgarten, “Les Manuscrits Yidich,” 131; Erik, History of Yiddish Literature, 37; Kosover, “Gleanings From the Vocabulary,” 38–55; and Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 289. For ways that scribes reveal their own name or a patron’s name within a prayer, see Israel Ta-Shema, “The Literary Content of the Manuscript,” in The Rothschild Miscellany: A Scholarly Commentary (London: Facsimile Editions, 1989), 1:39–88, here 44; Colette Sirat, Du scribe au livre (Paris: CNRS, 1994), 180; and Malachi Beit-Arié, The Making of the Medieval Hebrew Book: Studies in Paleography and Codicology ( Jerusalem: Hebrew University, Magnes Press, 1993), 13. Beit-Arié concludes that “avoidance of colophons was a highly common phenomenon in Ashkenaz”: see The Making of the Medieval Hebrew Book, 209. 19 Compare Figs. 49b and 66a with Thérèse and Mendel Metzger, Jewish Life in


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woman’s face is distinctively Italian as are the costumes.20 Men wear berretti, round close-fitting caps, and calze, or hose attached by means of laces (Figs. 34a, 51b, 58). The women’s hair is arranged loosely behind the ear, tucked into hairnets, or tied with a lenza, a ribbon wound round the forehead and adorned with a jewel (Figs. 18, 60).21 In particular, the soft, rounded, low-cut necklines of the women’s dresses are typical of north Italian garments and differ in this respect from those of Florence (Fig. 24a).22 Further supporting this provenance is the list of death dates inscribed in the back of the book. The entry for 1540 mentions Venice and that of 1562 refers to Alessandria, both north Italian sites.23 It is not surprising that the manuscript should have been completed in northern Italy, the home to large numbers of Ashkenazic Jews.24 But although the manuscript’s imagery is clearly Italianate, its language is not. A few of the words that the scribe employs had long before entered the Yiddish language from Latin, Arabic, or French.25 But the text—with one possible exception—does not include the Middle Ages: Illuminated Hebrew Manuscripts of the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries (Secaucus, N.J: Chartwell Books, 1982), 54, fig. 82, and 56, fig. 87; and Evelyn Cohen and Mena˙em Schmelzer, The Rothschild Mahzor Florence 1492 (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1983), fig. 9. Crenellations are of the type seen on the Castelvecchio in Verona, among other morth Italian structures. 20 For similar pottery, see Bernard Rackham, Catalogue of Italian Maiolica (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1940), 1:51 and 2: pl. 29, and Timothy Wilson, “Italian Maiolica Around 1500: Some Considerations on the Background to Antwerp Maiolica,” in Maiolica in the North: The Archaeology of Tin-Glazed Earthenware in NorthWest Europe c. 1500–1600. Proceedings of a Colloquium Hosted by the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities, British Museum Occasional Paper No. 17, ed. by David Gaimster (London: British Museum, 1999), 5–21, here 6–7, figs. 1.6–1.7. 21 For comparable costumes, see Jacqueline Herald, Renaissance Dress in Italy: 1400–1500 (London: Bell and Hyman, 1981), 210–11, 222. 22 See Herald, Renaissance Dress in Italy, 192–93. For a neckline and hairnet similar to many figures in the manuscript, see Titian’s La Sciavona, dated before 1510, in Filippo Pedrocco, Titian: The Complete Paintings (London: Thames and Hudson, 2001), 79. For hair arranged loosely before the ear, compare the woman shown on folio 22 with Venetian women in paintings from the first decade of the sixteenth century. See Stella Mary Newton, The Dress of the Venetians, 1495–1525, Pasold Studies in Textile History 7 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1988), figs. 13–15, but especially fig. 18, a drawing by Albrecht Dürer dated 1505. Unlike many Florentine dresses, the ones in the Paris manuscript do not show squared necklines that are decorated with contrasting colored guards. I wish to thank Tawney Sherrill, a costume historian, for her advice and bibliographical help. 23 Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 307. Alessandria is in Piedmont. 24 See the Introduction. 25 For example, see fçuwp O çu n“a' (“engaged,” from the Latin sponsa) and flç (“cholent,” from an old form of the French chaud lent or the Latin chalent) in the captions on

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contemporary Italian vocabulary, unlike the Rothschild Miscellany, a Hebrew manuscript produced in Italy in the 1470s, or the KuhBukh, a Yiddish fable book published in Verona in the 1590s.26 Whereas the Rothschild Miscellany cites a Lombard term for the green herb of Passover, the Paris book of customs prefers the German word ˚yfil' (“lettuce”).27 Furthermore, the scribe employs the word ˆk'[]x´ (“to gather together”) and the phrase´ fwOg r[´h (“Lord God”) instead of more traditional terms derived from Hebrew liturgy.28 The only word that may be a recent borrowing from Italian is fyp´Wq, that is, confiture or sweetened fruits. This word may stem from confetto, since the final vowel in Italian was often not enunciated, but it may also derive from the French confite.29 The vast majority of folios 105v and 113v. For fç]wOpuç]na', see Israel Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, trans. and ed. by Bernard Martin (Cleveland: Press of Case Western University, 1975), 7:80; for fl'ç' see Hayyim Schauss, Guide to Jewish Holy Days: History and Observance, trans. by Samuel Jaffe (New York: Schocken Books, 1938), 32–33; Kosover, “Gleanings From the Vocabulary,” 360–356; and Baumgarten, Le Yiddish, 59. For almemor, the desk on which the Torah is read, from the Arabic al-minbar, or platform, see “Bimah,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 4:1002. 26 For the Kuh-Bukh, see Chapters VIII and IX below. 27 This word appears on fol. 5v: “Then he takes lettuce and dunks it in the ˙aroset.” For the Lombard words in the Rothschild Miscellany, see Ta-Shema, “The Literary Content of the Manuscript,” 56–57: “in German LAUCH and in the tongue of Lombardy it is called PORA,” and “One should take the herb MAN, in German MEITICH and in the tongue of Lombardy it is called RABANT.” For the German word, see Wilhelm Müller, Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch mit Benutzung des Nachlasses von Wilhelm Müller (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1963), 1:941 (lettich); Matthias Lexers, Mittelhochdeutsches Taschenwörterbuch (Stuttgart: S. Hirzel, 1983), 123 (latech); Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1885), 6:282 (lattich); G. Pritzel and C. Jessen, Die deutschen Volksnamen der Pflanzen (Hannover: Philipp Cohen, 1882), 1: 199–200. For the Kuh-Bukh, see Chapter IX below. I thank Jean Baumgarten and Jerold Frakes for their bibliographic help. 28 For these expressions, see below Chapter II n. 15; fols. 60, 91v, 87v, 103; and Devra Kay, “Words for ‘God’ in Seventeenth Century Women’s Poetry in Yiddish,” 57–67 esp. 59, 60 in Dialects of the Yiddish Language, ed. by Dovid Katz. Winter Studies in Yiddish 2 (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1988). For the meaning of “zeche” in German, see Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch 15:422–28; and Lexers, Mittelhochdeutsches Taschenwörterbuch, 330. I would like to thank Jerold Frakes for this reference. 29 This word appears on fol. 93v in the text and caption. The word f[pnwq appears in another Italian cinquecento Yiddish book, but when it was later published in Frankfurt, the spelling was Germanized (fq[pnwq). See Book of Fables: The Yiddish Fable Collection of Reb Moshe Wallich. Frankfurt am Main, 1697, trans. and ed. by Eli Katz (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 266. For the food confetto, see Odile Redon, Françoise Saban, and Silvano Serventi, The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy, trans. by Edward Schneider (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998; first edition 1991), 19, 215, and Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony (New York: G. Braziller, 1976),


9

Yiddish words in the book, however, are Hebraic or Germanic in derivation. The lack of clearly identifiable contemporary Italian words suggests either that the scribe had not long resided in Italy, that he was closely copying a northern European text, that he saw his audience as Northern European, or that he wrote the text in the north and subsequently illustrated it in Italy.30 As Maks Erik was the first to observe, the Paris book of customs must have been completed in or shortly before the year 1503, the earliest death date inscribed in the back of the book.31 This date is consistent with the volume’s script and the style of its images.32 The costumes, pottery, and architecture, for example, belong to the period around the turn of the sixteenth century. For example, the plunging necklines and the tight hose worn without a tunic became fashionable only in the final years of the fifteenth century.33 Furthermore,

19, 215. For the Italian word, see Giorgio Colussi, Glossario degli antichi volgari italiani (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1987), 3.3:133–35. For the French version, see Frédéric Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX e au XV e siècles (Vaduz and New York: Scientific Periodicals and Kraus Reprint, 1961; first edition 1883), II, 234. I thank Juliann Vitullo for her help with medieval Italian. 30 For a case of an Ashkenazic prayer book, written in Hebrew and Yiddish, in which one part was completed in Ulm in 1450 and another in Treviso in 1453, see Biblioteca Palatina di Parma, Hebrew Manuscripts from the Palatine Library of Parma. Exhibition ( Jerusalem, Jewish National and University Library, 1985), 56. I would like to thank Eva Frojmovic for this reference. The first part of another Yiddish book was completed in Brescia in 1510; the same scribe finished the second part in Mantua the next year. See Yiddish in Italia, ed. by Timm and Turiansky, 18. 31 Zotenberg and Steinschneider dated the manuscript to the end of the fifteenth century, but Erik was the first to point to the initial entry, dated 1503, in the list of death dates in the back of the book. Kosover nonetheless dated the manuscript to the early fifteenth century. Baumgarten, Sed-Rajna and Fellous instead subscribe to an early sixteenth-century date. See Ameisenowa, “An Illustrated Manual,” 197; Baumgarten, “Les Manuscrits Yidich,” 131; Erik, History of Yiddish Literature, 37; Kosover, “Gleanings From the Vocabulary,” 368; Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 289; Steinschneider, “Jüdisch-Deutsche Litteratur” (1869), 136; and Zotenberg, Catalogue des manuscrits, 62. 32 The formation of the letters agrees most closely with handwritings of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, see Solomon A. Birnbaum, The Hebrew Scripts (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971), 1:307–8, nos. 357 and 358. See also idem, “Two Methods,” in Origins of the Yiddish Language, ed. by Dovid Katz, Winter Studies in Yiddish I, (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1987), 7–14. For the drawing style, see below. 33 Herald, Renaissance Dress in Italy, 192. For relevant comparisons, see Georg Müller, Die Moden der Italienischen Renaissance (Munich: Hanns Floerker, 1917), Taf. 114, and John Pope-Hennessy, The Portrait in the Renaissance Bollingen Series 35 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979, first ed. 1966,), 105, fig. 110; 113, fig. 121; 164, fig. 180. Also see notes 20–22 above, especially for dating the pottery.

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contemporary Jewish texts indicate that at least one of the customs depicted in the manuscript, the portable ˙uppah, or wedding canopy, was unknown before the sixteenth century.34

Text, Function, and Patronage The genre of books of customs arose in the Middle Ages among Ashkenazic Jews living in Northern Europe and has continued into modern times, but according to Jean Baumgarten these texts crystallized in sixteenth-century Italy, along with other types of early Yiddish books, such as chivalric romances and collections of fables.35 Rabbis initially wrote books of customs with the goal of stabilizing religious observances, while recognizing local variations.36 These books were repeatedly copied, and would have been especially useful as reference works for Jews who wanted to know the proper way to observe religious rituals, but lived in a small community without the benefit of a rabbi and did not have the time, knowledge, or interest to consult law codes and responsa.37 The Paris book of customs, which discusses both public ritual and home observance, is written in a clear and concise language, which 34 Solomon B. Freehoff, Reform Jewish Practice and its Rabbinic Background (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1944–52), 186–93; Solomon B. Freehof, “The Chuppah,” in In the Time of Harvest: Essays in Honor of Abba Hillel Silver on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (New York/London: Macmillan, 1963), 186–93; and Joseph Gutmann, Beauty in Holiness: Studies in Jewish Customs and Ceremonial Art (New York: KTAV, 1970), xxi, 317, and 324 n. 35. 35 Jean Baumgarten, “Un poème épique en yidich ancien,” 15. For chivalric romances and collections of fables, see Chapters VIII and IX below. 36 For Jewish books of customs, see Jean Baumgarten, Introduction à la littérature yiddish ancienne (Paris: Cerf, 1993), 303–11; idem, “Prières, rituals et pratiques dans la société juive ashkenaze: La tradition des livres et coutumes en langue Yiddish (XVIème siècle),” Revue de l’histoire des religions 218 (2001): 396–403; Morris Epstein, “Simon Levi Ginzburg’s Illustrated Custumal (Minhagim-Book) of Venice, 1593, and its Travels,” in Proceedings of the Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies ( Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1972), 197–210; Herman Pollack, “A Historical Explanation of the Origin and Development of Jewish Books of Customs (Sifre Minhagim), Jewish Social Studies 49 (1987): 195–216; and Israel Moses Ta-Shma and Cecil Roth, “Minhagim Books,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 12:26–31. 37 Responsa are rabbinical inquiries and responses that discuss halakhic, or legal, matters. Sometimes Jewish communities in Northern Italy were quite small. Anna Foa concludes, “several thousand people gave rise to hundreds of communities scattered throughout northern and central Italy. In actuality, this meant that in some places there was only one Jewish family, and that the average was not much greater than those four families living in Trent . . . in 1475.” See The Jews of Europe after the Black Death, trans. by Andrea Grover (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 111.


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is particularly suited to its educational function. The text, which consists largely of a listing of the proper prayers to recite on each occasion, also includes instructions for determining the correct day to celebrate each holiday, as well as the liturgical variations that depend on whether a holiday falls on the Sabbath or on a weekday. The text also specifies who should perform each part of the service (the rabbi, the cantor, those of priestly descent, or the entire congregation), and which gestures and postures (kneeling, standing, or sitting) they should adopt.38 At times it even indicates which tone of voice should be employed (loud or sweet).39 The manuscript is small in size, just over eight inches high,40 which indicates that it was meant to be read by one individual at a time, not simultaneously by a group of people. However, this person could have read it either privately or aloud to a group. For this reason, it could have served an individual, a family, or a congregation.41 The text does not reveal who commissioned the work, but evidence suggests that the scribe produced it for his own use. Based on an extensive study of colophons, Malachi Beit-Arié estimated that about half of all Hebrew manuscripts were copied by educated Jews for their own personal use. He attributed this practice, which differs strikingly from that of Christians, to the high rate of literacy among Jews and to their minority political status.42 Jean Baumgarten justly

38

The text uses the term “kneel”. (fynIq]) to indicate our word “prostrate.” For the word “loud,” see fols. 88v and 93 (˚wOh), and for “sweet,” see fols. 98 and 100 (ˆç]ywzU). 40 Sed-Rajna and Fellous cite the measurements of the book as 209 × 150 mm (150–160 × 90–95 mm); see Les manuscrits hébreux, 307. Baumgarten’s measurements differ slightly: “Les Manuscrits Yidich,” 130. 41 Evelyn M. Cohen has suggested these two possibilities for the Rothschild Ma˙zor: see “The Rothschild Mahzor: Its Background and its Art,” in The Rothschild Mahzor Florence, 1492 (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1983), 41. For evidence that later communities sometimes owned books conjointly, see Louisella MortaraOttolenghi, “The Illumination and the Artists,” in The Rothschild Miscellany, ed. by Iris Fishof (London: Facsimile Editions, 1989), 1:127–251, here 132. Other manuscripts were large enough to have been viewed simultaneously by a group of people, for example, the Leipzig Ma˙zor, for which see Machsor Lipsiae, ed. by Elias Katz (Hannover: Verlag Werner Dausien, 1964). 42 Malachi Beit-Arié, Hebrew Manuscripts of East and West: Towards a Comparative Codicology, The Panizzi Lectures (London: British Library, 1992), 81–2. See also idem, “The codicological data-base of the Hebrew paleography project: a tool for localising and dating Hebrew medieval manuscripts,” in Hebrew Studies: Papers presented at a colloquium on resources for Hebraica in Europe, ed. by Diana Rowland Smith and Peter Shmuel Salinger (London: British Library, 1991), 165–97, here 167–69. I would like to thank Sharon Liberman Mintz for calling this source to my attention. 39

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observed that the scribe wrote the first entry in the list of death dates in the back of the Paris book of customs.43 Since he would not have recorded his father’s death in a volume commissioned by someone else, he must have made the manuscript for himself. The list of death dates, which is written in Hebrew, suggests not only that the book was made for the scribe, but also that until 1562, the date of the last entry, it belonged to a family, rather than an entire congregation. Only eleven entries are inscribed over a period of almost sixty years. Furthermore, at least one name (Hirtz) repeats, which suggests the Ashkenazic custom of naming sons after their deceased grandfathers. Finally, the personal tone of the death entries implies that only family members were meant to read them. They speak openly of their grief, although generally in formulaic phrases, such as, “My eyes fill with tears because of the death of my daughter Peselin” or “I sigh deeply.”44 Furthermore, they refer to “my father,” “my mother,” “my wife Hana,” “my brother Hirtz,” and “my husband Eliezer,” but never further identify either the deceased or the scribe. Evidence confirms that the manuscript was not simply stored on a shelf, but rather that its text was actually read and its images carefully viewed. A sixteenth-century hand that is not the scribe’s added numerous marginal notations, and several drawings were also inserted.45 Furthermore, the list of deaths at the back of the book was maintained in different hands from 1503 to 1562. Thus the manuscript was woven into the fabric of Jewish life, serving as a tool in the preservation of memory. Not only Jews read the manuscript carefully, but also at least one Christian did so. Giovanni Dominico Carretto, a convert to Christianity who became one of the most active Church censors, signed the book of customs in 1618, without apparently discovering any offending passages.46 Sometime thereafter

43

Baumgarten, “Les Manuscrits Yidich,” 127. These inscriptions are written in Hebrew on fols. 123v–125; see Baumgarten, “Les Manuscrits Yidich,” 127; and Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 307. 45 See note 72. 46 See fol. 124v. I would like to thank Piet van Boxel for a fruitful discussion concerning Church censors. For Carretto, see William Popper, The Censorship of Hebrew Books (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1899), 142; Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 118; and Joshua Bloch, “Venetian Painters of Hebrew Books,” in Hebrew Printing and Bibliography, ed. by Charles Berlin (New York: New York Public Library and KTAV, 1976), 65–88, here 83. Baumgarten reads the date as 1628, see “Les Manuscrits Yidich,” 127 and 148; Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 307, as 1618. 44


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Cardinal Richelieu gained possession of the manuscript, perhaps through his librarian Jacques Gafferel, who had been sent to Italy to obtain Jewish books.47 The book of customs was preserved at the Sorbonne before entering the Imperial Library, which was renamed the Bibliothèque Nationale after the Revolution.48 Today the volume is generally in good condition, although water damage mars the pages, especially at the top; a corner of one folio is missing (fol. 2); and all the pages have been cropped on the top, bottom, and side.49 Furthermore, in the seventeenth century the volume was tightly bound, making it difficult to view the drawings in the inner margin. Jean Baumgarten concluded that the text of the Paris book of customs depends directly on the Minhagim compiled by Isaac Tyrnau, a fourteenth-century Austrian rabbi, which suggests that the manuscript was designed to perpetuate Ashkenazic customs in Italy.50 Indeed Rabbi Yehuda Minz, the spiritual leader of the Ashkenazic Jews in Northern Italy, who died in 1508, reminded the Jews of Treviso that they were Germans who should follow Ashkenazic rituals, rather than Italian, Levantine, or Sephardic ones.51 Furthermore, in Mantua at the end of the sixteenth century Ashkenazim owned the vast majority of Jewish books of customs. Of ninety-five families, 17% of Ashkenazim owned such texts, compared to only 2.5% of native Italian Jews.52 Indeed the liturgy of the Paris book of customs 47 For Gafferel, see Howard Adelman, “Rabbi Leon Modena and the Christian Kabbalists,” in Renaissance Rereadings, ed. by Maryane Cline Horowitz, Anne J. Cruz, and Wendy A. Furman (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 271–86, here 278. Interestingly, it was Gafferel who published Leon Modena’s book of customs in Paris in the 1630s. See Howard Adelman, “Success and Failure in the EighteenthCentury Ghetto of Venice: The Life and Thought of Leon Modena” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1985), 757. 48 Baumgarten, “Les Manuscrits Yidich,” 122, and Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 307. 49 This may explain why there are no catchwords. Many Jewish manuscripts, such as Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Can. Or 12, another Italian Renaissance Yiddish book of customs, show catchwords close to the edge at the bottom of the folios. For this manuscript, see Adolf Neubauer, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1886), 429–31, cat. no. 1217. 50 Jean Baumgarten, “A Yiddish manuscript (Bibliothèque nationale de Paris— Héb. 586): The Sefer Minhagim (Italy-Beginning XVIth century) and the Tradition of Book of Customs in Ashkenazic Culture” (unpublished paper). I would like to thank the author for sharing this paper with me. 51 Erik, History of Yiddish Literature, 13, and Elliott Horowitz, “Families and their Fortunes: The Jews of Early Modern Italy,” in Cultures of the Jews, ed. by David Biale (New York: Schocken, 2002), 573–636, here 573. 52 Shifra Baruchson-Arbib, La culture livresque des juifs d’Italie à la fin de la Renaissance, trans. by Gabriel Roth (Paris: CNRS, 2001), 94.

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is Ashkenazic, as are the rituals depicted in the images.53 The scribe must have been Ashkenazic as well, to judge by his script and the primary language of the text.54 Although the instructions are written in the vernacular language of Yiddish, the prayers, pizmonim (or songs) and piyyutim (or liturgical poems) are rendered in the learned, holy languages of Hebrew and Aramaic.55 Furthermore, the scribe often cites only the beginning of a Hebrew passage and then its last few words, which shows that he assumed that readers—whether himself, his relatives, or members of his community—would either know the full text from memory or would be able to find and read it in another volume. Similarly, he frequently abbreviates the common formula for blessings by citing only the initial letter of the first six words of the phrase “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe” (hma yab), a common practice in Jewish manuscripts, which assumes that readers would know the formulaic beginning of so many Hebrew benedictions.56 This suggests, as Baumgarten observes, that the book was designed not for the most ignorant Jews, but rather for those who were able to read or at least recognize some written Hebrew and Aramaic. On the other hand, as stated above, the nature of the text implies that it was meant for someone who could not or would not read law codes and responsa. For this reason, this manuscript opens a window through which we may examine the patronage of the middle ranks of Jewish society, since traditionally those who study Jewish art have focused on only one type of patron: the wealthy elite who commissioned luxury man53 For example, the poem Etan hikir, which is mentioned on fol. 68, is included only in the Ashkenazic liturgy: see Abraham Zebi Idelsohn, Jewish Liturgy and Its Development (New York: Dover, 1995, first ed. 1932), 246. Shalom Sabar, “The Beginnings of Ketubbah Decorations in Italy: Venice in the Late Sixteenth to the Early Seventeenth Centuries,” Jewish Art, 12/13 (1986/87): 96–110, here 99, quotes David de Pomis (1525–93) as saying that the portable wedding canopy, portrayed in the image of a wedding (Fig. 61), is an Ashkenazic (“hebrei tedeschi”) custom. Rabbi Leon Modena, a seventeenth-century Venetian rabbi, notes that the custom Kapparah was not practiced by Jews who follow the Italian rite or by Levantine Jews. Presumably, then, Ashkenazic Jews did observe this ritual. See The History of the Present Jews throughout the World (London: W. Bray, 1711), 141, part 3, ch. 6, paragraph 2I. 54 The text is written in a vocalized script. See Birnbaum, “Two Methods,” 7. 55 For such bilingual texts, see Baumgarten, Introduction à la literature Yiddish ancienne. 56 See, for example, fol. 31: μl;wO[h; ˚]l,m, wnyh´ l,a] y:y“ hT;a' ˚]wrb;. For this practice, see Colette Sirat, Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages, ed. and trans. by Nicholas de Lange (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 230. For one example, see London, British Library, MS. Add. 26957, fol. 38v.


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uscripts written in Hebrew. Such works, however, express the viewpoint of only a small group of Jews. In addition to textual evidence, technical and stylistic aspects confirm that the manuscript was meant for someone from an intermediate sector of the Jewish community. Rather than writing neatly in a fine hand on costly parchment or vellum, the scribe wrote on less expensive paper in a careless fashion, crossing out words and not bothering to maintain a straight left margin.57 Similarly, the images in the manuscript were not produced by the finest professional illuminator of the time. Rather they were drawn by an amateur, who avoided expensive materials, such as gold leaf, and instead produced naïve line drawings, composed in ink, which are occasionally sloppily filled in with pale red, pink, blue, and green washes.58 In short, this book was not a luxury item.59 As is typical of Jewish books of customs, the first and largest section of the text is devoted to the annual cycle of holidays. For each holiday, most of the text consists of a list of the elements that comprise the synagogue liturgy for that day. The weekly rituals that are celebrated at home, such as lighting the Sabbath candles and celebrating Havdalah, the ceremony that marks the end of the Sabbath, are only briefly mentioned. These do not receive their own section, but rather are integrated, when relevant, into the discussion of the annual cycle of holidays. The text also includes occasional digressions, such as the story of Óanukkah. The manuscript opens with the celebration of Rosh Óodesh Nisan, that is, the first day of the month of Nisan, since, according to Mishnah Rosh Hashana 1:1, 57 Malachi Beit-Arié notes that “regular books were written on paper, a cheaper and more vulnerable material”: see “Codicological Description and Analysis of the Washington Haggadah,” in The Washington Haggadah: A Facsimile Edition of an Illuminated Fifteenth-Century Hebrew Manuscript at the Library of Congress, ed. by Myron M. Weinstein (Washington: Library of Congress, 1991), 103–35, here 109. The scribe of BN MS. Héb. 586 also sometimes began to write within an ornamental frame only to realize that he lacked room to complete the last word on a line. His solution was to write up to the edge of the frame, even though only a fragment of the last word would fit. He then wrote the complete word on the next line, repeating the letters that appear on the line above. See, for example, fol. 117. Malachi Beit-Arié describes this common scribal practice in “A Paleographical and Codicological Study of the Manuscript,” in The Rothschild Miscellany, I: 109. Colette Sirat estimates that a particularly fast scribe could have completed seventeen to twenty-four folios a day. The Yiddish scribe therefore could have finished the text of the book of customs in a minimum of six days. See Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages, 223. 58 The ink has now turned brown. For a similar occurrence, see Mark C. Cohen, The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena’s “Life of Judah” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 287. 59 Of course, manuscripts were generally more expensive than printed books.

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Nisan is the first of the months for holidays.60 This designation may have arisen because this month is associated with two key events, one past and one future: the freedom of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and the coming of the Messiah.61 The text of the Paris manuscript focuses on major holidays (the high holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, and the three major festivals of Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot),62 but also discusses numerous less important holidays, from Purim and Óanukkah to the Fasts of Esther and Gedaliah. Towards the end of the book, a second section, which is only a few pages long, explores the life-cycle events of marriage and circumcision. This is followed by a third section, which briefly examines how to pray when there is no minyan, that is, the minimum permissible quorum of ten adult male Jews needed for a full religious service. The manuscript concludes with a short list of the special liturgical insertions for each major holiday. The text is written in a single column, with each folio consisting of eighteen to twenty lines.63 It runs continuously, and for this reason section headings, which generally mark the beginning of the discussion for a particular holiday or a particular service (morning, afternoon, or evening), often appear in the middle of the page. The scribe draws the reader’s attention to these markers by writing them in a larger, darker script, and sometimes enclosing them within an ornamental border.64 Unlike other contemporary Yiddish books of customs, he distinguishes prefaces that introduce a set of liturgical variations through indentation, lighter handwriting, or placement within a decorative frame, and signals long quotations in Hebrew or Aramaic through smaller script.65 Such refinements suggest that the scribe was emulating manuscripts of higher status, an idea that is confirmed by his inclusion of a generous cycle of images. 60 Mishnah Tractate Rosh Hashanah, commentary by Rabbi Ovadiah Mi Bartinura, trans. by Jeffrey R. Cohen (Brooklyn: Tanna v’Rav, 1981), 2–3: “On the first of Nisan, it is the new year for kings and for festivals.” 61 Abraham Chill, The Minhagim: The Customs and Ceremonies of Judaism, Their Origins and Rationale (New York: Sepher-Hermon, 1979), 131. 62 Shavuot is the Feast of Weeks, a harvest festival that also commemorates Moses receiving the Law; Sukkot is a harvest holiday that commemorates the temporary structures in which Jews lived while wandering through the Sinai. 63 Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 307. 64 Figs. 1–2, 5, 12, 19–20, 30, 35, 44, 50, 56, 58, 60, 67. The bold script of the subject headings is either square or Mashait, as opposed to the cursive letters in the main body of the text. For Jewish scripts, see Birnbaum, The Hebrew Scripts. 65 See, for example, fol. 78v.


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Imagery and Artist Three systems of interpretation construct the rituals: the text, the captions, and the images. Whereas the caption and image closely correspond, they at times show a looser connection to the text. For example, the first folio shows in the lower margin a drawing of two men playing cards; its caption confirms, “They play cards on Rosh Hodesh,” but this aspect of the celebration of the new month is not mentioned in the text (Fig. 1).66 However loose the connection, the image always relates in some way to the text and often appears close to the word or words that sparked the idea for the drawing. For example, an image of a man dipping lettuce into ˙aroset for Passover appears in the side margin, close to the text that describes this custom, whereas scenes of pouring wine and distributing afikoman occupy the lower border, just below the text that discusses them (Fig. 7).67 Because so many images in the manuscript stand outside traditional Jewish iconography, their captions are critical for identifying their subjects. In fact, the most problematic images are generally those few that lack captions, such as a woman standing alone with crossed arms or scenes of landscapes or animals.68 As a rule, the text occupies the center of the folio, with the imagery relegated to the margins. Generally, one or more scenes appear on a single page, but in two cases a single representation spreads over two adjacent folios: the synagogue service for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and the baking of mazzot, the unleavened bread of Passover (Figs. 14a–b, 25–26). Whereas these drawings are emphasized by their large size, others, such as the Siege of Nebuchadnezzar and Balaam approaching an Encampment, are distinguished by their extensive display of colored washes (Figs. 17, 50).69 The drawings in this manuscript may not have been planned from the start, since extra space was not 66 For the custom of card playing on Rosh Óodesh, see the appendix, Chapter IV, and Leo Landman, “Jewish Attitudes Toward Gambling (II),” Jewish Quarterly Review 58 (1967–68): 42–43. 67 Óaroset, a paste made with nuts, apples, and wine, and afikoman, the dessert mazzah, are ritual foods for Passover. 68 See Figs. 9a, 10b, 11, 13, 15a, 19, 21b, 31a, 32a, 64a. 69 For Balaam, see Chapter II; for Nebuchadnezzar, see Chapter VII. Color is used at times to clarify or emphasize forms. The ark is often intricately ornamented in pen and ink with added wash; the four species of Sukkot and the closed and covered Torah scrolls are also often painted. Only fourteen scenes, which show a wide range of subjects, are both colored with washes and occupy an entire margin.

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reserved for them; the margins with images are just as wide as those without.70 The last scene in the book is the largest simply because the text ended near the top of the page, leaving more than half the folio free for a representation of a joyous party on Purim, the festival that celebrates the deliverance of the Jews from Haman’s plot to kill them (Fig. 67). The drawings often seem to have been designed around a preexisting text. For example, in the scene of Havdalah, the hats and candle fill the empty spaces surrounding the last line of words (Fig. 18). Furthermore, the visual program was not conceived as a discrete, coherent unit that would make sense on its own without the text. The images do not follow a strict chronological order and repeat some subjects while omitting others. For example, whereas three separate scenes show the blowing of the shofar, the ritual ram’s horn, the manuscript includes only one of the three required rituals for women (Figs. 8b, 24b, 25, 27a).71 Except for a few figures that were added at a later date,72 a single person drew all the images in the manuscript. Although the gender of the scribe cannot be established with certainty,73 his or her religion can. Every indication supports the conclusion that the artist was Jewish.74 First, the visual narrative consistently proceeds from right to left, paralleling the direction of the Yiddish text. For example, on folio 12v the dough for mazzah is rolled and shaped, then it is decorated, and finally, on folio 13, it is baked (Figs. 14a–b). Second,

70 By contrast, the figural pen drawings in another Yiddish manuscript occupy spaces that the scribe set aside within the body of the text. For this manuscript, see n. 5 and Fig. 68a. 71 The shofar ushers in the penitential month of Elul and is also blown on the High Holy Days. The required rituals for women that are lacking are niddah, the purification following menstruation, and ˙allah, the burning or setting aside of a piece of the Sabbath dough as a symbolic donation to the Temple. 72 The lower fisherman on fol. 113; the figure below the sun, moon, and stars on fol. 117; and all the figures on fol. 125v were added later. Lighter forms were added to the right of the seated man on fol. 6 and above the pennant on fol. 21v. 73 For a consideration of whether the scribe is female, see Chapter IV. 74 For criteria for judging whether an artist is Jewish, see Joseph Gutmann, “The Illuminated Medieval Passover Haggadah: Investigations and Research Problems,” Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 7 (1965): 3–25, here 6; Cecil Roth, “Foreword,” in Bezalel Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts ( Jerusalem and New York: Keter and Macmillan, 1969), n.p; Ellen S. Saltman, “The ‘Forbidden Image’ in Jewish Art” 8 (1981): 42–53, here 45–47, 49, 51–53; and Robert Suckale, “Über den Anteil christlicher Maler an der Ausmalung hebräischer Handschriften der Gotik in Bayern,” in Geschichte und Kultur der Juden in Bayern: Aufsätze, ed. by Manfred Treml and Josef Kirmeier (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1988), 123–34.


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the images reveal an intimate knowledge of Jewish life. For instance, one drawing properly represents the complex gesture of the Birkat Kohanim, or priestly blessing, with hands at shoulder level, fingers pointing downwards, right hand higher than the left, and the two hands brought together to form five openings (Fig. 10a).75 Furthermore, the inscriptions within the miniatures are written correctly in Hebrew letters. For example, one figure displays an open book that is inscribed with the word maror, which identifies the bitter vegetable that he holds in his right hand (Fig. 6). By contrast, in the Rothschild Miscellany, which was illuminated by Christian painters,76 images of books lack Hebrew letters. Finally, in the Paris book of customs the inscriptions within the images show the same handwriting and were produced in the same ink as the captions and text, which confirms Jean Baumgarten’s thesis that the scribe was the illustrator.77 The religion of illuminators of Jewish manuscripts generally cannot be determined and is often presumed to be Christian,78 but in this case, since the scribe was the artist, this manuscript offers a rare opportunity to explore how a Jew represented his own rituals.

The Scribe as Amateur Artist Although it is unusual for one person to serve as both scribe and illuminator, it is far from unique. Some Jewish and Christian scribes produced images of high quality and functioned as professional illuminators.79 But from Byzantium to England, in both medieval and 75 The same gesture appears on the opening page of a Pentateuch published in 1518, a Genesis published in 1530, and an Exodus of the same year, among other volumes; see Charles Wengrov, Haggadah and Woodcut (New York: Shulsinger Brothers, 1967), figs. 5, 7, and 8. By contrast, for a very vague depiction of the gesture in a Hebrew manuscript produced in Italy c.1400, see Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 268, fig. 384. 76 See Mortara-Ottolenghi, “The Illumination and the Artists,” 244. 77 Baumgarten, “Les Manuscrits Yidich,” 130. 78 Evelyn M. Cohen, “The Decoration of Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts,” in A Sign and a Witness: 2,000 Years of Hebrew Books and Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. by Leonard Singer Gold (New York and Oxford: New York Public Library and Oxford University Press, 1988), 47–60, here 47; Grace Cohen Grossman, Jewish Art (New York: Hugh Lauter Levin, 1995), 40; and Sirat, Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages, 170. 79 For Joel ben Simeon, the most famous Jewish scribe who was a professional illuminator, see below. For his Christian counterparts, see Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992), 6, 9, 10, 16, 90, 107, 109, 112, 121, 153 n. 67, and idem, “Scribes

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early modern times, other scribes became amateur artists when they took the pen and ink with which they formed their letters and drew images in the blank margins of their manuscripts.80 The naïve drawings of these untrained artists reveal their lack of professional training. In the Renaissance, for example, their work often shows faulty perspective, a poor grasp of anatomy, and a lack of those techniques, such as shading or hatching, that professional artists used to produce the illusion of three dimensions. Even a quick glance at the images in the Yiddish manuscript reveals that an amateur produced them. The perspective is poor and the rendering of hands is particularly weak. The limbs are floppy, especially the arms, which are generally awkwardly attached to the body. It is often difficult to determine whether the figures are male or female.81 Furthermore, just as the text sometimes reveals a lack of planning, so do the drawings. In an image of marriage, the scribe drew the second boy from the right so that he overlapped the initial sketch of the pole behind him (Fig. 61). The scribe then adjusted the composition by bending the pole further to the right and reinforcing the correction with darker ink. He also sometimes left forms incomplete. For example, one drawing shows the top of a table, but

as artists: the arabesque initial in twelfth-century English manuscripts,” in Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries: Essays presented to N. R. Ker, ed. by M. B. Parkes and Andrew G. Watson (London: Scolar Press, 1978), 87–116. 80 For Jewish scribes who were amateur artists see, among others, Evelyn M. Cohen, “The Illustrations in Abraham Farissol’s Haggadah of 1515,” Jewish Art 12/13 (1986/87): 89–95, here 94–95; Michel Garel, Paris. Bibliothèque National. D’un main forte: Manuscrits hébreux des collections françaises (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1992), no. 123; Sirat, Du scribe au livre, 138, figs. 108–109; eadem, Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages, 145, figs. 87–88, 221 fig. 151; and Suckale, “Über den Anteil christlicher Maler,” 123–25, 131. For Christian amateur artists, among others, see A History of Private Life. II. Revelations of the Medieval World, ed. by Georges Duby, trans. by Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1988), 31, 75, and 426; Derek Brewer and Arthur Ernest Bion Owen, The Thornton Manuscript (Lincoln Cathedral MS. 91) (London: Scolar Press, 1975); Stephen H. Goddard, “Some Sixteenth-Century Doodles on the Theme of Folly Attributed to the Antwerp Humanist Pieter Gillis and His Colleagues,” Renaissance Quarterly 14 (1988): 242–67; Deborah Howard, Venice and the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture 1100–1500 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), 39, fig. 36; 44, fig. 39; 83, fig. 80; N. R. Ker, “For All that I may clamp: Louvain Students and Lecture-Rooms in the Fifteenth Century,” Medium Aevum 39 (1970): 32–33; and Pamela Robinson, MS Bodley 638: A Facsimile. Bodleian Library, Oxford University (Norman: Pilgrim Books and Suffolk: Boydell-Brewer, 1982). I would like to thank Tiffany Fairall for bringing the Thornton manuscript and MS. Bodley 638 to my attention. 81 For determining the gender of the figures, see chapter IV below.


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not its legs (Fig. 3b). He also sloppily applied washes so that they protrude beyond their outline. Art historians have traditionally overlooked the work of amateur artists, but rather than lamenting the poor quality of the scribe’s images, we might more profitably ask what they can teach us. First, not all amateur artists show the same style, and this scribe’s drawings are distinctive. His figures tend to have jutting chins and the women’s dresses lack waistbands. Moreover, the images are not spontaneous doodles, but rather are often precise and detailed. They show, for example, the intricacy of Amalek’s chain mail; the nails in tables, chairs, and the wedding canopy; and the fringes at the corners of the tallit, or ritual prayer shawl (Figs. 22a, 49b, 53, 61). Only rarely do the drawings reveal attempts to imitate more sophisticated techniques, but a water vessel is rendered with lines that are meant to suggest highlights and shadows (Fig. 3a). The Yiddish scribe’s delightful representations captivate the attentive viewer through their inventiveness, charming detail, lively movement, and vividly communicated sense of joie de vivre. Unfortunately, no other works by the scribe have been identified. Robert Suckale argues that one reason why Jewish scribes decorated manuscripts themselves was that in times of vigorous antisemitism Jews had insufficient funds to hire professional Christian illuminators.82 He suggests, for example, that in the fourteenth century German Jews were able to afford such artists, but as persecution intensified, Jews became too impoverished and turned instead to Jewish scribes. Indeed, Jews may have illustrated their own books when the cultural borders between Jews and Christians were closed. But another reason—and this is more likely the case here—is that the patron was too poor to hire a professional illuminator. In short, the amateur status of the illustrator of the Paris manuscript reveals something about the book’s patronage. That the book is adorned with images produced by an untrained artist may be directly related to the fact that it was made for someone from the middle ranks of Jewish society. In Renaissance Italy, Joel ben Simeon, a scribe who was an excellent artist, produced numerous lavish Hebrew manuscripts, but another scribe, Abraham Farissol of Ferrara, abandoned his attempt at illustration mid-way. Instead, his drawing was covered over with a parchment patch on

82

Suckale, “Über den Anteil christlicher Maler,” 126–31.

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which was painted a similar scene, this time executed by a professional artist.83 Farissol’s Haggadah was a luxury manuscript written in Hebrew on parchment, but for the less expensive Yiddish book an unsophisticated style was deemed perfectly acceptable. But Suckale raises another issue. He laments the fact that Jewish patrons could not afford Christian artists, but there were clear advantages to Jewish ones. First, the vast majority of professional illuminators were Christians who could not read Hebrew, and who were, in fact, poorly educated.84 Although they could adorn Jewish manuscripts with images of great beauty and could follow general instructions from their patrons, they could not on their own invent depictions that were informed by the meaning of the text. By contrast, Jewish scribes were intimately familiar with their texts, and their images often express this understanding. For example, one scribe working in Ancona in 1473–74 ornamented the Hebrew word for woman with an image of a woman.85 In 1478, another drew a pun on the Hebrew word af. In the text af is used as an adverb to mean “also,” but as a noun it signifies “nose.” For this reason, the scribe visualized a man pointing to his nose.86 Similarly, in the Paris book of customs, the scribe illustrated Shabbat ha-Gadol (the great Sabbath or the Sabbath immediately preceding Passover), with a play on words; since gadol means large, he depicted a huge man, much taller than any other in the manuscript, standing in the side margin (Fig. 2). In addition, amateur artists, whether Jewish or Christian, often feel free to step outside the restrictions imposed by traditional modes of representation. Very little has been written about untrained artists in medieval and early modern times, but Otto Pächt justly observed that iconographic originality does not necessarily accompany aes-

83

Cohen, “The Illustrations in Abraham Farissol’s Haggadah of 1515,” 94–95. Most Christian illuminators had limited book learning. See Sandra L. Hindman, “The Roles of Author and Artist in the Procedure of Late Medieval Texts,” in Texts and Images. Acta, ed. by David W. Burchmore (Binghamton: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York – Binghamton, 1986), 27–62, here 41. 85 Garel, D’un main forte, no. 123. 86 Annabelle and Walter Cahn, “An Illuminated Haggadah of the Fifteenth Century,” The Yale University Library Gazette 41 (1967): 166–82, here 172; and Narkiss, “The Art of the Washington Haggadah,” 62. For a dissenting interpretation, see Judah Goldin, “Some Minor Supplementary Notes on the Murphy Haggadah,” The Yale University Library Gazette 43 (1968): 39–43. 84


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thetic accomplishment.87 Because amateur artists were not trained to copy earlier depictions as professional artists were, they were able more easily to express their own vision rather than simply follow a conventional one.88 For this reason, their images are sometimes strikingly original. This is true for the Yiddish scribe, both in his choice of subjects and in the way they are rendered.89

The Function of the Imagery More than three-quarters of the folios in the Paris book of customs are decorated with drawings. What function did these images serve? They could not have been designed to play an instructional role, since they sometimes lack clarity. For example, it is difficult to identify the objects on the Seder plate (Fig. 5). Furthermore, they could not have been planned primarily as visual cues since the drawings do not introduce new sections of the text and at times refer to words on another page or visualize a custom that is not mentioned in the text at all.90 But since, as we shall see, many of the images emulate forms created by Joel ben Simeon and other producers of expensive Hebrew books, they may have served to recall luxury manuscripts.91 They must have at least in part fulfilled an aesthetic function, satisfying the reader’s desire to look at images. They should also be placed, however, within a larger cultural context, the intense interest of sixteenth-century Europeans in encyclopedic cataloguing.92 Just 87 I would like to thank Griselda Pollack, who first suggested that I consider the positive aspects of the scribe’s amateur status. See Otto Pächt, “Kunstlerische Originalität und ikonographische Erneuerung,” in Methodisches zur kunsthistorischen Praxis: Ausgewählte Schriften (Munich: Prestel, 1977), 153–64. For a discussion of some criteria for determining whether an artist is an amateur, see Cohen, “The Illustrations in Abraham Farissol’s Haggadah,” 89–95; Sonia Fellous, “Cultural Hybridity, Cultural Subversion: Text and Image in the Alba Bible, 1422–33,” Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies 12 (2000): 205–29, here 221; and Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). 88 Hindman terms the typical professional illuminator “little more than a rote copyist”: see “The Roles of Author and Artist,” 50. 89 See Chapter II. 90 See below and Chapter II. 91 See Chapter II. 92 Margaret T. Hodgen, Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1964).

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as Cesare Vecellio aimed to render every costume, just as Desiderius Erasmus collected every proverb, and just as Pieter Bruegel visualized every children’s game, so the scribe produced the largest surviving collection of early modern images of Jewish customs.93 But perhaps the best way to understand these drawings is as a gloss on the text. Traditionally in Ashkenazic manuscripts the center of the folio was reserved for the main text and the side areas for commentary.94 Similarly, the marginal images should be understood as interpretation. Sometimes they visualize a subject that is not mentioned in the text at all. The card game on Rosh Óodesh, the dance after Tishah be-Av, and the baking of mazzot on Passover are among the scenes that fall into this category (Figs. 1, 14a–b, 24a). Conversely, many topics that are discussed in the text are not illustrated, such as the recitation of numerous prayers, the eating of honey on Rosh Hashana, and the story of the miracle of Óanukkah. But even when the drawings do represent the subject of the accompanying text, they always interpret it. They visualize, for example, how one danced and feasted on Purim, how one decorated one’s home with plants on Shavuot, how Nebuchadnezzar’s army marched into Jerusalem, and how the ark95 and bimah looked in synagogue. Whereas the text is concise and abbreviated, the images are filled with details that flesh out the scribe’s vision of these rituals. But even though the drawings include numerous realistic elements, they should not be viewed as mirrors of reality. They envision Jewish customs from the scribe’s viewpoint and construct an idyllic vision of Jewish society. No one loses his self-control, no child is ever unruly, and no Jew is poverty-stricken in these idealized images of Jewish life. In addition to the five illustrated early Yiddish manuscripts mentioned in this chapter, there must have been others that have not survived. As with Christian books, this loss is due in part to the greater value placed on manuscripts written in the sacred language.96 Undoubtedly much damage also resulted from the normal wear and

93 See Cesare Vecellio, Vecellio’s Renaissance Costume Book (New York: Dover, 1977); Desiderius Erasmus, Adagiorum chiliades quatuor (Basel: J. Frobenius, 1520); ed. by R. A. B. Myuors, trans. by M. M. Phillips, Collected Works of Erasmus 32–23 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982–92); and Walter S. Gibson, Bruegel (New York and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1977), 86, fig. 54 (dated 1560). 94 Ta-Shema, “The Literary Content of the Manuscript,” 49. 95 The ark is the cabinet that stores the Torah, or five books of Moses. 96 Prager and Hill, “Yiddish Manuscripts in the British Library,” 82.


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tear that occurs when any book is repeatedly used.97 But substantial losses must be attributed as well to the purposeful destruction that Christians inflicted on Jewish books. For these reasons, the Paris book of customs sadly remains one of only two surviving early Yiddish manuscripts with figural scenes, a type of visual culture that was otherwise totally erased.

97 The Paris book of customs may well have been preserved because sometime in the seventeenth century it became the possession of Christians who had little interest in its contents, and who must rarely, if ever, have opened it.

CHAPTER TWO

THE BEGINNINGS OF A NEW PICTORIAL TRADITION

Once the decision was made to illustrate the margins of the manuscript, the scribe was faced with a daunting task. Although earlier Ma˙zorim, that is, festival prayer books, and contemporary Haggadot, the liturgical books for the home service of Passover, had established pictorial traditions,1 no such tradition existed for books of customs. Yet the scribe was confronted with decorating a manuscript of more than one hundred twenty folios. One strategy that he devised was to turn for inspiration to other types of illustrated books. But for most of the images he adopted another approach; he drew on his imagination, his everyday experience as a Jew, and his knowledge of Jewish texts to construct his vision of Jewish rituals and history. The Paris manuscript was produced at the beginning stage in the development of a tradition for ornamenting books of customs. For this reason, it affords, to quote Lucy Sandler’s words concerning an early encyclopedia, “an opportunity to understand the generation of images at a stage before they were transformed by repetition into pictorial ‘tradition’.”2

The Scribe’s Visual Sources Although not a professional artist, the scribe must have been familiar with at least a few illuminated manuscripts, which he would have come across in his role as scribe or from personal use. No earlier illustrated book of customs has survived; of the twelve extant contemporary Yiddish manuscripts of Jewish customs only the Paris version is illustrated. But considering the huge number of Jewish books that 1 For thirteenth and fourteenth-century Ma˙zorim, see Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, Le ma˙zor enluminé: les voies de formation d’un programme iconographique (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983). For Haggadot, see Mendel Metzger, La haggada enluminée (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973). 2 See Lucy Sandler, “Omne Bonum”: A Fourteenth-Century Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge (British Library MSS Royal 6 E VI–6 E VII) (London: Harvey Miller, 1996), 1: 132.

the beginnings of a new pictorial tradition

27

are lost, it is quite possible that similar examples once existed. Cecil Roth suggested that the woodcuts in Johannes Pfefferkorn’s Libellus de Judaica Confessione, which was published in 1508, were modeled on images in Jewish books,3 but these prints are unrelated to those in the manuscript in Paris (Figs. 1–67, 70–71). In fact, its drawings show every sign of being invented rather than copied.4 Its costumes and rituals are up-to-date, and the vast majority of its illustrations bear no relationship to any earlier surviving image. 3 Cecil Roth cites as the earliest illustrated Yiddish edition that printed in Venice, 1593. See “Illustrations in Minhagim Books,” in Encyclopedia Judaica, 12:30. 4 Other contemporary Yiddish books of customs, are those in (1–2) Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Or. 4o 694, which includes two codices in one volume. The first was made in the first half of the sixteenth century, was in Italy in 1609, and was at one time owned by Chana bat Josef Katz. The second was acquired in 1550 in Venice by Fraydlina bat Jekutiel. [See Steinschneider, “Jüdisch-deutsche Litteratur und Jüdisch-Deutsch” (1866): 137; Moritz Steinschneider, “Mittheilungen aus dem Antiquariat von Julius Benzian,” Hebraeische Bibliographie 9 (1869): 117; idem, Die Handschriften-verzeichnisse der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin: A. Asher, 1897), 16 no. 166; Yiddish in Italia, ed. by Timm and Turiansky, 63; (3) Hamburg, Staatsund Universitätsbibliothek Cod. Hebr. MS. 207 [see Moritz Steinschneider, Catalog der Hebräischen Handschriften in der Stadbibliothek zu Hamburg (Hamburg: Otto Meisner, 1878), 82]; (4) Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Cod. Hebr. MS 208, sixteenth-seventeenth century [see Steinschneider, Catalog der Hebräischen Handschriften, 82; idem, “Jüdisch-deutsche Litteratur und Jüdisch-Deutsch” (1864): 61, E]; (5) Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Cod. Hebr. MS. 209, completed in 1573 in Saxony by Abraham ben Moshe. It includes some decorated letters and non-figural decoration. [See Steinschneider, Catalog der Hebräischen Handschriften in der Stadtbibliothek zu Hamburg, 83–85; idem, “Jüdisch-deutsche Literatur und JüdischDeutsch” (1864): 61, D]; (6) Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Opp. 656, written by Moshe ben M’nachem in 1524 [see Adolf Neubauer, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886), 429]; (7) Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Can. Or. 12, first part before 1553, second part 1561, commissioned by Menachem Katz for his daughter Serlina, aged 21 [see Neubauer, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts, 429–31; Shtif, “A written Yiddish library in a Jewish house in Venice in the middle of the sixteenth century,” Journal of Jewish History, Demographics, Economics, Literature, Language, and Ethnography 1 (1926): 141–50; 2–3 (1928): 525–43 (in Yiddish); Yiddish in Italia, ed. by Timm and Turiansky, 35]; (8) Paris, Alliance israélite universelle, H 9a, an Italian compilation of several texts, dated 1557; fols. 1–83 comprise the book of customs [see Baumgarten, “Prières, rituals et pratiques dans la société juive ashkenaze,” 396–403]. I would like to thank Avraham Malthête for showing me this manuscript and his catalogue entry, as yet unpublished, on it; (9) Paris BN MS. Héb. 587, written by Shimshon ben Menachem in Cividale in 1533 (according to Baumgarten) or in Soncino in 1553 (according to Timm and Turiansky), which shows a pointing hand on fol. 92v and several crowns on fols. 29v and 93 [see Baumgarten, “Les Manuscrits Yidich,” 131–32; idem, Introduction à la literature Yiddish ancienne, 308 n. 142; and Yiddish in Italia, ed. by Timm and Turiansky, 61]; (10) Paris BN MS. Héb. 588, written by Uri ben Jekutiel in Casal Maggiore, Italy, sixteenth century, [see Baumgarten, “Les Manuscrits Yidich,” 133–34; idem, Introduction à la litterature Yiddish ancienne, 308 n. 142; and Yiddish in

28

part one ‒ chapter two

Although the drawings in the Paris codex do not seem to be based on earlier books of customs, a few could stem from Ma˙zorim and Siddurim, festival and daily prayer books, which like the Paris manuscript include a wide range of images of Jewish rituals. For example, the scribe shows the typical red heifer for Shabbat Parah and set of scales for Shabbat Shekalim (Figs. 52a, 57a),5 but such associations were not only widespread in Jewish manuscripts, they were also well known in the larger Jewish culture. In short, no definite link can be established between the images in the Paris manuscript and any earlier illustration in either a book of customs or a prayer book. What is certain, however, is that the scribe drew on two other types of visual sources: the manuscripts of Joel ben Simeon and Haggadot. 1. Joel ben Simeon Joel ben Simeon, the most prolific Jewish artist-scribe of his generation, produced at least eleven surviving manuscripts with the help of assistants.6 An Ashkenazic Jew, whose known activity spans both Germany and Italy from 1449 to 1485, Joel adorned manuscripts in a style that remained popular among Jewish illuminators in Italy for several generations. The scribe of the Paris book of customs was especially interested in three aspects of the manuscripts produced by Joel and his Italia, ed. by Timm and Turiansky, 62]; (10) Turin, Biblioteca nazionale, MS. 229, probably destroyed in a fire that gutted the library in 1904. The scribe is Moshe ben Tobia ben Ahron (?) Isserlein [see Steinschneider, “Jüdisch-Deutsche Litteratur und Jüdisch-Deutsch” 25 (1864): 61B; Bernardino Peyron, Codices hebraici manu exarati Regiae bibliothecae quae in Taurinensi Athenaeo asservantur (Turin: Fratres Bocca, 1880), 244–45]. See also Aaron Freimann, Union Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts and their Locations (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1964), 2:215, for these manuscripts. I would like to thank Rabbi Jerry Schwarzbard for his assistance in identifying the present location of the manuscripts in Berlin and Benjamin Richler for his help in obtaining microfilms of the German manuscripts. 5 See, for example, Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 257; 258, fig. 375; and 261, fig. 376. 6 For Joel ben Simeon, see David Goldstein, The Ashkenazi Haggadah (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1992, first printed in 1985); Malachi Beit-Arié, “Joel ben Simeon’s Manuscripts: A Codicologer’s View,” Journal of Jewish Art 3/4 (1977): 25–39; Sheila Edmunds, “The Place of the London Haggadah in the Work of Joel ben Simeon,” Journal of Jewish Art 7 (1980): 25–34; Evelyn M. Cohen, “Joel ben Simeon Revisited: Reflections of the Scribe’s Artistic Repertoire in a Cinquecento Haggadah,” in A Crown for a King: Studies in Jewish Art, History, and Archaeology in Memory of Stephen S. Kayser, ed. by Shalom Sabar, Steven Fine, and William M. Kramer (Berkeley and Jerusalem: Judah Magnes Museum and Gefen Publishing House, 2000), 59–71; and The Washington Haggadah: A Facsimile.


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shop: their technique, their decorative elements, and their iconography. The scribe’s technique, line drawings filled in with colored washes and set against the blank background of the undecorated page, resembles that of Joel and his followers.7 The scribe adopts specific decorative motifs as well. The caption on folio 22 is enclosed in a scroll-like form, somewhat like those by Joel and his followers, but less convincing in its illusionism (Fig. 18).8 But although such scrolls are not unique to the manuscripts produced by Joel and his followers, other decorative elements are, and these reveal a direct connection between Joel’s books and the Yiddish scribe. Since Hebrew letters are not capitalized, Jewish artists generally highlighted an entire word or group of words rather than only the first letter as Christian illuminators did.9 Out of the initial word panel on two folios of the Paris book of customs emerges a bearded profile head that faces to the right, opens his mouth, and extends a curvilinear tongue in a design that is remarkably similar to those in several manuscripts by Joel and his followers (Figs. 58, 60, 68b).10 But the scribe does not restrict himself to Joel’s repertoire of motifs. One of his ornamental frames ends in a face that playfully pecks its long nose into the knee of a man standing in the margin (Fig. 2). Others sport a fool’s head or show such imaginative hybrid forms as a creature with an animal’s body, an elongated neck, and a human face (Figs. 5, 19). The most elaborate example, the one for Rosh Óodesh Nisan, shows at the top right a profile head of a fool, whose neck is transformed into a serpent that slithers down the side margin to zap its long fang into the back of a card player sitting in the lower margin (Fig. 1). In this way the scribe visualizes a condemnation of this practice, the only such criticism in the manuscript.11 Some of the scribe’s compositions are also strikingly similar to Joel’s. For example, one is particularly close to a scene of the roasting of the Paschal lamb in the Washington Haggadah, which was 7 See, for example, workshop B in Evelyn M. Cohen, “The Rothschild Ma˙zor: Its Background and its Art,” in The Rothschild Ma˙zor Florence, 1492, 43–56. 8 See, for example, Cohen, “The Rothschild Ma˙zor,” pls. 8, 9; pls. V, VII, X–XII; figs. 11, 12d. 9 Cohen, “The Decoration of Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts,” 52. 10 For these images, see Cohen, “The Rothschild Ma˙zor,” pl. 8, fol. 249r; The Washington Haggadah, I, fols. 1, 7v, 18r; and the Maraviglia Tefillah, London, British Library, MS. Add 26957, fols. 39, 39v, 57. 11 For Jewish attitudes towards card playing, see Landman, “Jewish Attitudes Toward Gambling,” Chapter IV, and the Appendix below.

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completed in Germany in 1478 (Figs. 20, 69a).12 Both share such details as the seated male cook who faces to the left and raises a glass with his right hand while he roasts a slab of ribbed meat on a three-hooked spit. Like his use of Joel’s decorative elements, however, the scribe did not slavishly copy this composition.13 Rather he adapted it, eliminating the female cooks and employing the scene to illustrate a different holiday, Lag be-Omer, a day that offers a brief respite during a period that is otherwise characterized by strict mourning customs.14 The accompanying text mentions that on Lag be-Omer “young men are used to gathering together for a feast (ˆk'[]x)' ”; the caption reiterates, “They want to get together to banquet (ˆk'[]x)´ on Lag be-Omer.”15 The image shows above, two men, one of whom holds a slab of meat, and below, the roasting of the meat. These comparisons reveal that the scribe of the Paris book of customs was aware of the work of Joel and his followers and tried to some extent to emulate it. He may have done so because he wanted his manuscript to resemble the dominant style in Jewish luxury books.16 Or, faced with the task of decorating an entire book, he may have decided to take a shortcut and borrow a few elements from earlier manuscripts. 2. Haggadot Not only the Haggadot by Joel ben Simeon, but also those illustrated by other artists, provided the scribe with his second visual source. Long the most popular type of illustrated Jewish book, the profusely illustrated Haggadah offered a rich storehouse of images. The scribe’s numerous scenes of Passover are among the most traditional in the 12

See Malachi Beit-Arié, “Codocological Description and Analysis of the Washington Haggadah,” in The Washington Haggadah, 125–26, and Metzger, La haggada enluminée, pl. VII, fig. 35. 13 For positive aspects of copying see Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work, 82. 14 The period of mourning, Omer, consists of the seven weeks between the second day of Passover and the first of Shavuot. 15 For “zechen,” see Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, 15:422–27; Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Taschenwörtenbuch, 330. This word is a complex one that can mean “to arrange,” or “to gather together with others” to share a banquet or some other group event, such as a religious feast. I wish to thank Jerold Frakes and Jean Baumgarten for their help in determining the meaning of this word. 16 Supporting this idea is the fact that his layout seems to emulate high-status manuscripts; see above.


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Paris book of customs.17 The subjects for the preparation of the holiday are conventional: drawing ritual water from the well and storing it away from sunlight; the search for ˙amez, or leaven; the burning of the leaven; Eruv Tavshilin, or the mingling of dishes necessary for cooking when a holiday falls on the Sabbath or when the Sabbath follows a holiday; and the formation, perforation, decoration, and baking of round mazzot.18 Similarly, the subjects for the Seder, or home service for Passover, are traditional: kiddush, or the sanctification of the wine; the washing of the hands; displaying the mazzah and maror ; dipping greens in the ˙aroset; eating the afikoman; and drinking wine when one says Psalm 79:6, which is known by its first Hebrew word, shefokh.19 The scribe also follows established iconography for several compositions. For example, folio 3 shows a man sweeping ˙amez with a feather onto a plate by candlelight, which duplicates the standard formula (Fig. 3b).20 Even the two parallel lines that so often form the groundline in the Paris book of customs appear in earlier Haggadot.21 By adopting themes and compositional elements from images in Haggadot to adorn a different text, a book of customs, the scribe creates a kind of collage, with scenes removed from their original context and reorganized to create a new form. This causes some disjuncture between the original compositions and the text to which they are now attached, and at times the rough edges produced by this process are still visible.22 For example, although the text of the book of customs is primarily a list of prayers, its images of Passover, like their models, generally represent figures in action. In this respect the drawings parallel the captions, which usually begin with a subject and verb, for example, “They draw mitzvah water,” “They make mazzot,” “They make Havdalah.” Similarly, the order of the scenes differs,

17

Metzger, La haggada enluminée. For traditional imagery, see Figs. 3a–4, 14a–b. 19 Figs. 5–8a. See below for shefokh. 20 See also Metzger, La haggada enluminée, figs. 13–14 and 20. 21 See, for example, the second Darmstadt Haggadah (Darmstadt, Hessische Landesund Hochschulbibliothek, Cod. Or. 28), fol. 4v in Kurt and Ursula Schubert, Jüdische Buchkunst (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlaganstalt, 1983), 1:114, Abb. 29. 22 See Pamela Sheingorn, “Constructing the Patriarchal Parent: Fragments of the Biography of Joseph the Carpenter,” in Framing the Family: Narrative and Representation in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods, ed. by Rosalynn Voaden and Diane Wolfthal (Tempe: MRTS, forthcoming). I would like to thank Pamela Sheingorn for suggesting the relevance of this theory to Yiddish illustrated books. 18

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since the text is not a Haggadah but a book of customs, and the images are tied, however loosely, to that text. The baking of mazzot, for example, occurs not at the beginning of the series of Passover images, but near its end, after the scenes that show the mazzah being displayed and the afikoman eaten (Figs. 6–7, 14a–b).23 As in the case of the manuscripts of Joel ben Simeon and his followers, the scribe does not slavishly copy scenes from Haggadot, but rather shows considerable independence. The scribe’s drawings of Passover are rich in detail and show some unusual elements. For example, in an image of kiddush a lamp hangs behind the six figures who stand as the head of the household raises his cup (Fig. 5).24 On the Seder table lie a spoon, open book, fringed tablecloth, striped runner, wine carafes, glasses, bowls, and a large Seder plate that displays ritual objects, including an egg. But perhaps the most striking feature of this image is the way the scribe distinguishes the three mazzot on the Seder plate. Following the text, they are marked with one, two, or three dots to indicate their position at the top, bottom, or middle, a critical difference from the point of view of Jewish ritual, since the middle mazzah is used for the afikoman, as the scribe indicates in the lower right of the drawing on folio 5v (Fig. 7).25 Other unusual aspects of the Passover cycle of images are more significant. Although the text of the manuscript repeatedly mentions YaKeNHaZ, a Hebrew acronym for the series of rituals that enable a Seder to take place at the end of the Sabbath, it is not accompanied by the customary illustration, even though one such image appears in a Haggadot by Joel ben Simeon.26 Generally, YaKeNHaZ was visualized by an image of its Yiddish homonym, “yag den Has,” which means “hunt the hare.” Scholars have long interpreted these depictions of dogs pursuing hares as symbolic representations of Christians persecuting Jews.27 But this theme is totally lacking in the 23

See, for a different order of images, for example, Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, Cod. De Rossi 1107–Ms, Parma 2411, fig. 5v (baking) and 28 (displaying mazzah) in Metzger, La haggada enluminée, Pl. III, fig. 9 and Pl. XXXIX, fig. 216. 24 Metzger, La haggada enluminée, 84–85. 25 For other ways of differentiating the three mazzot, see The Passover Anthology, ed. by Philip Goodman (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973), 88. 26 See London, British Library, MS. Add. 14762, fol. 4, in Epstein, Dreams of Subversion, 18, fig. 3. 27 See Epstein, Dreams of Subversion, 16–38; rev. D. Wolfthal, Studies in Iconology 21 (2001): 304–7; and Yosef Óayim Yerushalmi, Haggadah and History: A Panorama of Five Centuries of the Printed Haggadah (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1997, first edition 1975), pls. 15–16.


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Yiddish manuscript, even though the phrase YaKeNHaZ appears several times.28 In fact, few images in the book of customs refer to the oppression of Jews.29 Furthermore, during the fifteenth century, when Ashkenazic Jews pronounced the psalm shefokh hamatkha during their Seder (“Pour out your wrath upon the nations that know you not”), they customarily opened the door of their home in the hope that the Messiah would come to bring immediate relief from the troubles of this world. Joseph Gutmann demonstrated that shefokh hamatkha was often illustrated in fifteenth-century German and north Italian Haggadot with images of the Messiah or Elijah approaching a house with an open door.30 The manuscripts of Joel ben Simeon include such illuminations,31 but the drawing of shefokh in the Paris book of customs is quite different. It shows a man holding a glass seated at a table on which lies an open book, presumably the Haggadah (Fig. 8a). Before him stands a house, but neither the Messiah nor Elijah is visible. Although the belief in the imminent coming of the Messiah was widespread among Italian Jews due to the prophecies in 1502 of the Ashkenazic Jew Ascher Lamlein, there is, in fact, no visual reference to the Messiah in the entire book of customs.32 Similarly, the nuclear family is sometimes depicted in Haggadot sitting around the Seder table,33 but the Yiddish book of customs does not follow this tradition either. Nor does the scribe portray an isolated nuclear family in any of the drawings in the manuscript. Finally, a very popular subject for Haggadot illustrations, the Rabbis of BeneBerak,34 is also lacking, and no figure in the entire manuscript can be identified as a rabbi, even though the text mentions past and present rabbis several times.35

28

See, for example, folios 7, 11, and 51v. For antisemitism, see especially Chapter III below. 30 Joseph Gutmann, “When the Kingdom Comes: Messianic Themes in Mediaeval Jewish Art,” Art Journal, XXVII, 1967, 168–74, especially pages 173–74. Elijah is believed to announce the Messiah’s coming. 31 See Metzger, La haggada enluminée, pl. LVI, fig. 320; and The Washington Haggadah, I, fol. 19v. 32 See Stephen Sharot, Messianism, Mysticism, and Magic: A Sociological Analysis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 63. 33 Metzger, La haggada enluminée, fig. 62; Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, Jewish Art, trans. by Sara Friedman and Mira Reich (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997, first edition 1995), fig. 150. 34 Metzger, La haggada enluminée, figs. 121–6. 35 For a fuller discussion of the rabbi, see Chapter IV below. 29

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Perhaps the scribe excluded such themes as Jews awaiting the Messiah or Christians oppressing Jews as prudent self-censorship.36 Other Jewish manuscripts produced in Italy both before and after the Yiddish book of customs show that Jews at times avoided themes that were known to antagonize the Church; in this way they hoped to avoid the censorship and incineration of Jewish books.37 But it is also possible that the scribe’s thematic choices reflect his interest in joy rather than suffering, in this world, not the next, and in community rather than family and social hierarchy.

The Invention of New Images Since one person functioned as scribe, artist, and patron, these drawings, more than most contemporary illuminations, are the product of a single individual. To a great extent,38 these images represent his version of Jewish experience, his vision of Jewish life, what he felt was meaningful from the past, still significant in the present, and important to remember in the future. The value that the scribe placed on his drawings is conveyed not only through their quantity, but also through their inventiveness. Nor is this originality surprising, since not only was he an amateur artist who had not been trained to copy models, but he was also active during a period of great innovation for Jewish illustrated books. Contemporary images in Ma˙zorim, unlike those produced in an earlier period, do not conform to a set iconography.39 Nor were artists confined to those books that had traditionally been illuminated; many new types of texts were illustrated for the first time.40 The scribe who illustrated the Paris

36 The former theme, a clear repudiation of Christianity, was one of the ideas that the Inquisition specifically banned from discussion. See Adelman,” Success and Failure in the Eighteenth-Century Ghetto of Venice,” 759. 37 See, for example, Popper, The Censorship of Hebrew Books, 21, 28, 29, 33, 38, 44, and 50; Mortara-Ottolenghi, “The Illumination and the Artists,” 250; and Petrus Wilhelmus van Boxel, Rabbijnenbijbel en Contrareformatie (Hilversum: Gooie en Sticht, 1983), 138. 38 But see above for his possible fear of interference from the Church. 39 For the iconographical originality of the Rothschild Miscellany, for example, see Mortara-Ottolenghi, “The Illumination and the Artists,” 133. For earlier Ma˙zorim illustrations, see Sed-Rajna, Le ma˙zor enluminé. 40 Joseph Gutmann, Hebrew Manuscript Painting (New York: George Braziller, 1978), 27.


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book of customs, active at a time that supported innovation in the production of Jewish books, produced a cycle of drawings that is among the most original of their time. 1. Expansion of Traditional Subjects One element that distinguishes this cycle is that the scribe greatly expands some traditional subjects into elaborate compositions. For example, according to Louisella Mortara-Ottolenghi, “Illustrations of the blowing of the shofar are common in fifteenth-century Ma˙zorim, but normally only the musician is seen.”41 This is the case in two images in the Yiddish manuscript, but the scribe develops a third into a complex double-page composition, which shows not only the shofar blower, but also an ark, bimah, Torah, bench, table, and chairs, as well as fifteen men, women, and children, many of whom hold prayer books (Figs. 25–26). Similarly, whereas a late-fifteenth century Italian Ma˙zor shows Tishah be-Av through a solitary figure, the book of customs depicts a group of five men seated beside an ark (Fig. 23).42 Likewise, Mendel and Thérèse Metzger conclude that in Italy and Germany images of the reading of the megillah, or scroll of Esther, usually show only the reader, but here a group of nine men and women attend the Purim service (Fig. 55).43 The Metzgers similarly found only partial representations of Havdalah, which at most involved three figures, the candle, and a cup of wine.44 By contrast, the book of customs shows seven figures, including a woman, a girl, and a boy, as well as all three ritual elements, the long braided candle, a cup of wine (in fact, two cups), and a spice box (Fig. 18). 41 Mortara-Ottolenghi, “The Illumination and the Artists,” 187. The Rothschild Miscellany includes an exception to the rule: an image of a group of congregants listening to the shofar. However, this image makes little sense from the point of view of Jewish ritual. For another exception, see Mendel Metzger, “Un ma˙zor italien enluminé du XVe siècle,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz 20 (1976): 176, fig. 12. The composition in the Yiddish book of customs is, however, unrelated to these images and by far the most complex. 42 Cohen, “The Rothschild Ma˙zor,” 43, fig. 4. A miniature in the Hamburg Miscellany, a fifteenth-century German manuscript, shows what appears to be three men and an angel, but no ark. See Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 352. 43 Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 256. 44 Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 241–42, cite only one or two figures, but Metzger, La Haggada enluminée, fig. 77 includes three figures.

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The elaboration of subjects into complex compositions is especially common in scenes that take place in synagogue. Of the twenty-eight drawings that are set in the sanctuary, twelve, or forty-two percent, show images of group prayer.45 To cite one final example, an image in the fifteenth-century Italian Kaufmann Pentateuch shows Balaam as an isolated figure riding a donkey without any indication of the surrounding environment (Fig. 69b).46 An illumination of Balaam in the early-fourteenth century German Schocken Bible adds an angel and a wavy ground line, but otherwise also lacks any suggestion of setting.47 By contrast, the drawing of Balaam in the Paris book of customs shows a complex composition (Fig. 17). The theme was sparked by a passage in the accompanying text, which mentions that part of the liturgy for Passover that involves the reading of the sidrah of Pin˙as (Numbers 25:10–30:1), which relates the story of Balaam, who was commanded to curse Israel, but could only praise it.48 Balaam’s donkey was unable to move because an angel blocked its way. Initially Balaam could not see the celestial being, but when he spoke, Balaam could only repeat the words of God (Numbers 22:1–24:25). The accompanying image, which spreads across the entire lower margin, shows at the left and center the encampment of the Israelites, shown as a contemporary fortress. A domed building topped by a pennant decorated with a six-pointed star stands beside a shorter, broader structure with two turrets, one topped by a weathervane, the other by a tiny pennant.49 The structure is completed by an entry tower, which houses a cannon that is visible through its open door. A second cannon rests on the roof, while a guard armed with a spear stands behind it. Before a large tree, an open drawbridge welcomes Balaam, a large figure who approaches riding a donkey. Again, the scribe has greatly elaborated a composition that appears in earlier Jewish manuscripts only in abbreviated form. 45

The implications of this will be discussed in Chapter IV below. Index of Jewish Art. Iconographical Index of Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. by Bezalel Narkiss and Gabrielle Sed-Rajna ( Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences, 1988), 4, Kaufmann Italian Pentateuch, Budapest, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Ms A1, fol. 380. 47 Gutmann, Hebrew Manuscript Painting, 74–75, pl. 18. 48 For this sidrah, or weekly portion of the Torah that is read in synagogue on the Sabbath, see Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1988), 252. Balaam blessed Israel three times: see Numbers 23:1–24:25. 49 For the significance of this star, see Chapter III below. 46


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2. Independence from the Text The scribe is also innovative because his imagery retains its autonomy from its text. He repeatedly ignores the thrust of the text, which focuses on synagogue worship, and instead illustrates scenes of landscapes, animals, hybrid creatures, or Jews celebrating holidays outdoors or at home. Sometimes he does this by ignoring a long passage that describes synagogue liturgy and focusing instead on the one phrase or section that will enable him to produce an image of a custom that was observed at home. For example, most of folio 103 discusses the synagogue liturgy for the tenth of Tevet. Beginning on the sixth line from the bottom, however, the text turns to Tu biShevat, the fifteenth of Shevat, which is termed the “New Year of the Trees.”50 This phrase, and most likely the scribe’s memories of celebrating this holiday, sparked a landscape scene, which fills the entire lower border (Fig. 51a). Rather than depicting the heart of the text, that is, the prayers that are recited in synagogue, the scribe instead portrays a spring landscape, a grove of eight trees situated between two buildings. At the right, a woman stands in a doorway, gazing towards two men dressed in close-fitting calze, the revealing hose worn by Italian Renaissance men when they were engaged in strenuous activity.51 One of the men climbs a tree filled with bright red fruit; his companion stands on the flower-strewn grass, leaning against another tree. No caption explains this idyllic landscape, which is reminiscent of those in contemporary luxury Hebrew manuscripts.52 Similarly, folio 50r describes the synagogue services for Rosh Hashana. It begins with the priestly blessing, then lists what the cantor says, and finally concludes with a line that reads, “And then one goes home and eats and drinks well and is happy” (Fig. 28).53 Seizing 50 ˆm'[]b´ ˆ[d, ˆWp hn:ç;h' ça;r; fç]yyh´ zd ' See Mishnah Tractate Rosh Hashanah, commentary by Rabbi Ovadiah Mi Bartinura, trans. by Jeffrey R. Cohen (Brooklyn: Tanna v’Rav, 1981), 2–3: “On the first of Shevat is the new year for the tree.” 51 She stands in a liminal position between public and private space, a site that was associated in Jewish and Christian culture with sexual promiscuity. See Roni Weinstein, “ ‘Thus Will Giovanni Do.’ Jewish Youth Sub-Culture in Early Modern Italy,” in The Premodern Teenager: Youth in Society, 1150–1650 (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2000), ed. by Konrad Eisenbichler, 51–74, here 54, and my discussion of the woman in the window in Chapter IX below. For men’s hose, see Elizabeth Birbari, Dress in Italian Painting (London: John Murray, 1975), 43. 52 See, for example, Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 18, fig. 7; 45, fig. 62; 47, fig. 66; 56, fig. 87; 274, fig. 392; and Rothschild Miscellany, II, fol. 1v. 53

˚yliywrww“ zyai ˆWa la;ww: fqn“yrif] ˆWa fç]yai ˆWa μyyh´ ˆm' fyg´ ˚a;n: rd" ˆWa

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this single line and ignoring the rest, the scribe develops a scene of drinking. He shows two men, one holding a huge jug and glass, and another whose banderole is inscribed, “Good wine makes one happy.”54 Likewise, the verso describes in detail the morning and evening services for Rosh Hashana, and concludes by stating that after synagogue one “goes home to eat and makes kiddush.”55 The accompanying image, which spreads across the entire lower border, does not show the focus of the text, that is, praying in synagogue, but rather eating and drinking at home (Fig. 29). Two women and a man sit before a table filled with rolls, carafes of wine, platters of fish, and bowls of fruit, while at the left a servant brings more food, and at the right a man raises his glass to recite kiddush. The scribe emphasizes their act of drinking through his caption, “He makes kiddush on Rosh Hashana and drinks.”56 To cite one final example, most of the text on folio 31 lists the proper liturgy to recite in synagogue on Shavuot. The fifth line from the bottom describes the ritual of Havdalah, and the last lines reads, “And drink, quite well, quite satisfied.”57 Again, the scribe ignores the description of worship in the sanctuary and instead depicts a man raising his cup to recite kiddush before a table set with a jug and cup (Fig. 22a). At times the scribe goes so far as to disregard the entire text on a page and chooses instead to illustrate a line from another folio. A scene of a Shavuot meal does not depict its accompanying text, which lists the proper liturgy to recite in synagogue on the holiday, but rather visualizes a line on the following page, which reads, “and go home to eat”58 (Fig. 21a). This sentence sparked an elaborate scene, stretching across the length of the lower margin and richly painted with multicolored washes. Three men and a woman eat at a table set with pies, rolls, bowls of fruit, and carafes and cups of wine. On the left, a servant carries a large vessel, and before her a dog seems eagerly to await some scraps. At the right, another small figure probably represents a second servant. Above is a ledge filled with flowering plants, as noted by the caption, which reads, “They sit under bushes that are inserted on Shavuot.”59 Similarly, when the scribe drew an 54 55 56 57 58 59

˚ylyyrww fkam ˆyyww rfwg çWdyqi fk]a'm' ˆWa ˆç'[, myyh´ fyg´ f]qn“yrIf ˆWa hn:ç;h' ça;r: . . . çWdyqi fk]a'm' r[´ fz" rg" la;ww: rg" fqn“yrIf] ˆWa ˆç'[, μyyh´ fyg´ ˆWa twO[wbç; μa' fq[]fiç]g" ˆyya´ ˆlm][´b' ˆ[´d´ rfn“wa ˆx'yIzI . . .


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image of two men raising their cups of wine in a sukkah—presumably to say kiddush—he ignored the accompanying text, which discussed other rituals for that holiday. Instead, he took as his cue a line on a following page that reads, one “goes home to eat in the sukkah and makes kiddush” (Fig. 40).60 Although his caption emphasizes eating, “He eats in the sukkah,” the image shows only the preliminary benediction over the wine. Furthermore, two images show figures drinking on Purim, although neither is accompanied by a text that mentions this custom, which is, however, cited—and illustrated—on folio 121v (Figs. 51b, 56, 67). The text of folio 103v discusses when to say a tkhine, but its drawing shows a fool drinking on Purim Katan (Fig. 51b). And the words on folio 109v describe how to pray in synagogue on Purim, but the accompanying image shows only five carousing figures (Fig. 56). In some cases, however, the custom that is illustrated is not cited in the text at all. There is no mention of playing cards on Rosh Óodesh Nisan, baking mazzot on Passover, enjoying the countryside on Shavuot, bathing on Rosh Hashana, dancing on the Sabbath following Tishah be-Av, dancing at a wedding, eating fish on Rosh Óodesh, and putting cholent on the fire to keep it warm on the Sabbath, when Jews are not allowed to cook.61 By adding these images the scribe heightens the impression of Jews joyously celebrating the holidays outdoors or at home. 3. Unprecedented Subjects It is not surprising then, considering the scribe’s independence from both his text and earlier Jewish imagery, that more than half his drawings are totally without precedent, to judge by surviving manuscripts. These include numerous customs that are observed outside the synagogue, among them playing cards on Rosh Óodesh Nisan; a woman counting the days of Omer; bathing on Rosh Hashana; carrying the new fruits for the She-He˙eyanu on the second day of Rosh Hashana; dancing on the Sabbath following Tisha be-Av; bringing fish to sell for the holidays; celebrating the symbolic wedding feasts of Sim˙at Torah; enjoying the Purim banquet; lighting the Sabbath lamp; a man blessing a woman; a man and woman praying together; and 60 61

(fol. 74) çWdqi fk]a'm' ˆWa hk;Ws r[´d´ ˆyai ˆç[, μyyh´ fyg ´ See Figs. 1, 14a–b, 21b, 24b, and 62.

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putting cholent on the fire to keep it warm for the Sabbath.62 I know of no precedents for two themes involving figures from the Jewish past: the arrest of Gedaliah and the stoning and trampling of Amalek.63 Nor do I know of a similar interpretation of Shabbat ha-Gadol as a huge man.64 Furthermore, many drawings of synagogue rituals represent the earliest surviving image of their subject: the Matnat yad; the reconciliation on Rosh Hashana; the evening services on Sukkot; beating the willows on Hoshana Rabba;65 the hakkafot with Torah scrolls on Sim˙at Torah; lifting the Torah out of the ark on the seventeenth of Tamuz; reciting a tkhine, and a series of recitations in synagogue, including the areshet on Rosh Hashana, the sanction before Kol Nidre on Yom Kippur, the sidrah Bo on Passover, Michael miyamin on Yom Kippur, and the beginning of Genesis on Sim˙at Torah.66 For this reason, the manuscript in Paris is a rich untapped source for historians of Jewish customs and liturgy. Here I shall explore only a few of these unprecedented images in order to gain an understanding of the scribe’s approach. The book of customs relates that before one recites Michael miyamin, a refrain composed by the early medieval liturgical poet Eleazar Kallir,67 the door of the ark should be opened; the caption for the accompanying image repeats this instruction. In line with this, folio 68 shows in the middle of the left margin an angel in the form of a winged man, the only celestial being in the manuscript, whom the caption identifies as Michael (Fig. 39). In keeping with the generally 62 See Figs. 1, 8b, 12, 15b, 24a, 30, 32b, 47, 52b, 59, and 67. The She-He˙eyanu is the blessing appropriate to new things. Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 240 and 256, unaware of the Paris manuscript, conclude that “There are no pictures of women lighting the ritual shabat lamps” and “There is no trace of the [Purim] banquet.” For the symbolic wedding feasts of Sim˙at Torah, see Chapter VI below. 63 Figs. 34a and 53. For Amalek, see Chapter VII below. 64 Fig. 2 and see above. 65 Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 254. 66 See Figs. 9b, 16b, 22b, 27a, 36a–b, 39, 42a, 44, 45b, 46b, and 64b. For an explanation of these customs, see the appendix and below. For the sidra Bo, see The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1955), 1:146. The Second Nuremberg Haggadah, which was produced in Germany in the fifteenth century, includes a scene of Isaac and Rebecca praying for children, but the image in the Paris book of customs is not biblical and is unrelated iconographically. See Index of Jewish Art, ed. by Narkiss and Sed-Rajna, 2.2, Jerusalem, Schocken MS. 24087, fol. 32v. 67 For Kallir, a prolific writer of piyyutim who was probably active in sixth-century Erez Israel, see Itzhak Alfassi, “Eleazar Kallir,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 10:713–16.


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light-hearted mood of the drawings in the Paris book of customs, Michael is not portrayed as a judge as in some other Jewish manuscripts.68 Rather he appears in conjunction with a synagogue ritual. Below is a scene of this world, a congregant opening the door of an ark. Another unprecedented image shows the reconciliation on Rosh Hashana (Fig. 36a). Here the central figure reads a book while two pairs of men to either side face each other, holding hands in a peacemaking gesture.69 The caption reads, “They ask each other’s forgiveness.” Another theme that is apparently depicted for the first time shows Matnat yad (Fig. 16b). This refers to the recitation of a passage in the Torah, “they shall not appear before the Lord emptyhanded, but each with his own gift” (Deuteronomy 16:16–17).70 The text notes that the rabbi or a prominent member of the congregation begins this ritual by holding the Torah scroll or the Óummash, the five books of Moses in printed form.71 Then the cantor does the same, and finally the rest of the congregation. The accompanying image shows a row of men stretched across the lower margin, standing before a long bench. A man at the left holds the Torah, while another, on the right, seems to offer the Óummash to the figure standing beside him. The line of congregants suggests that each will recite the passage from Deuteronomy while holding either the scroll or the codex, and then pass it on to his neighbor who will do the same. The most unusual image of synagogue ritual shows a celebration of Sukkot (Fig. 42). At the far right, two men turn and raise their arms towards the moon, stars, and clouds that fill the sky. At the center, another man crosses his arms, while to the left a congregant with arms outstretched and back to the viewer lifts his right leg in a dance-like movement. A domed ark with closed doors is depicted at the far left. Beside it stands the cantor’s desk, on which rest an open book and three burning candles.72 A man wearing a tallit stands before the desk, facing the ark and holding another burning candle. 68 For scenes of Michael as judge, see Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 246. 69 Although the scribe had considerable difficulty representing hands, the men’s gestures are similar to those adopted by dancing couples in the manuscript (Fig. 62). For the handshake as a gesture of reconciliation, see Diane Wolfthal, “Introduction,” in Peace and Negotiation: Strategies for Coexistence in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. by eadem (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), xxiv–xxv. 70 JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999), 411. 71 See Editorial Staff, “Óummash,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 8:1073. 72 For this type of desk, see Chapter IV.

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The partially cut-off caption reads, “. . . is night. One may well pray . . . stars are in the sky.”73 As usual, the walls and roof of the synagogue are not depicted, so it is difficult to determine where the building ends and the outdoors begin. The accompanying text lists the liturgy for Sukkot when it falls during the week. It first describes the afternoon service, and then, beginning at the third line from the bottom, just above the image, mentions the evening service. This inventive image, then, shows Ma’ariv, the evening service, which begins when at least three stars are visible.74 It is here coupled with Sukkot, which is indicated in part through the circular moon, since this holiday begins on the fifteenth of Tishri, when the moon is full. The sky is, in fact, quite striking on this festival since it occurs in autumn when there is a harvest moon. The joyful harvest festival of Sukkot, one of the three major festivals, is referred to in liturgy as the “season of rejoicing,” and is a holiday on which Jews thank God for the bounty of nature. The scribe indicates this blissful aspect of the holiday through his richly colored composition and the dance-like movement of one of the congregants. This image is one of the most complex in the manuscript, combining indoors and outdoors in a single scene. Furthermore, although the vast majority of drawings show only one moment, this image includes two episodes. Since the narrative direction in the manuscript is from right to left,75 the scribe represents the congregants first observing that the stars have appeared and then attending Ma"ariv services. The central figure is pivotal, linking the two episodes by pointing to both. Although most images in the Paris book of customs show scenes of rituals, and a few depict figures from the Jewish past, the most complex from a conceptual point of view combines the two. The image of Amalek, which will be a focus of Chapter VII, conflates 73 74

lm'yhi μa' ˆyyz< ˆr"[]f´ç] ˆrwIa laww gm' ˆm' fk]an" zyai . . .

Idelsohn, Jewish Liturgy and Its Development, xviii. The scene cannot represent the blessing of the moon, which should take place before the fifteenth of the month and never on holidays. Nor can it depict Sim˙at Bet ha-Shoevah, a water festival that is celebrated on the first eve of the intermediate days of Sukkot. Nor can it show the custom of observing one’s shadow in the moonlight in order to predict one’s future, which occurs on the seventh night of Sukkot and is illustrated on fol. 85v (Fig. 44). See Philip Goodman, “A Glossary of Sukkot and Sim˙at Torah Terms,” in The Sukkot and Sim˙at Torah Anthology, 455–57, here 457; Hayim Schauss, “Sukkot in Eastern Europe,” in The Sukkot and Sim˙at Torah Anthology, 182, ed. by idem (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973) and Meir Ydit, “Moon, Blessing of the,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 12:291–93. 75 See Chapter I.


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biblical time with contemporary time, and history with ritual through a rich layering of meanings (Fig. 53).76 Since a single person functioned as scribe, patron, and artist, and since he stood at the beginning of the development of a new pictorial tradition, to a great extent he alone chose what to represent and how to represent it.77 Since his text is conventional, it is mainly through his images that he reveals his remarkable independence and inventiveness, and demonstrates his ability to suggest the complexity and richness of Jewish ritual.

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Chapter VII below will explore this image in greater depth. Although he did not have to consider a patron or the art market, he did have to take into account the restrictions of the Church. 77

CHAPTER THREE

REPRESENTING JEWISH RITUAL AND IDENTITY IN THE PARIS BOOK OF CUSTOMS AND ITS CHRISTIAN COUNTERPARTS1

How are we to interpret images of Jewish ritual? Recently, Richard Cohen tried to understand Jewish attitudes towards their own customs by studying illustrations in Christian books.2 But such images, made by Christians for Christians, reveal primarily something about Christian attitudes towards Jews; indeed, Cohen overlooked several instances in which these representations denigrate Jews. Another problem arises when scholars assume that images of Jewish ritual are mirrors of reality. For example, Chone Shmeruk asserted that such woodcuts have a “documentary value,” and Richard Cohen argued that they “document the rite faithfully.”3 But recent scholarship has shown that all representations are cultural constructions that have a point of view. For this reason, before asking what these images can tell us about the real practices of past Jews, it is necessary to understand their ideological stance. Marc Michael Epstein recently raised yet another issue, by questioning the traditional focus on the artist.4 He persuasively argued that the patron must be understood as a key determinant of the meaning in Jewish books. But traditionally art historians have focused on only one type of patron: wealthy men who commissioned luxury manuscripts written in Hebrew.5 This chapter, 1

This chapter is based on papers that I presented in 1999 at a symposium at Leeds University and at the annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies; I wish to thank the organizers of those sessions, Eva Frojmovic and Judith Baskin. For preliminary versions of this material, see Wolfthal, “Imaging the Self: Representations of Jewish Ritual in the Paris Sefer Minhagim,” and eadem, “Ritual and Representation in a Yiddish Book of Customs.” 2 Cohen, Jewish Icons. See rev. D. Wolfthal, Association for Jewish Studies Review 26 (2002): 378–81, and the discussion below. 3 Shmeruk, The Illustrations in Yiddish Books, 81 (in Hebrew); and Cohen, Jewish Icons, 60. 4 Epstein, Dreams of Subversion. 5 For the oligarchic structure of Jewish communities in medieval and Renaissance Italy, see Ariel Toaff, Love, Work, Death: Jewish Life in Medieval Umbria, trans. by Judith Lansley (London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1998), 95, and Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 37.

representing jewish ritual and identity

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by contrast, will compare the non-elite images of Jewish rituals in the Yiddish manuscript to contemporary Christian illustrations of Jewish customs, especially those in Johannes Pfefferkorn’s Libellus de Judaica Confessione of 1508, which have recently been interpreted as accurate reflections of Jewish ritual practice.6 This approach will clarify the viewpoint of both the Yiddish scribe and his Christian counterparts.

Visualizing Jewish Customs The Yiddish scribe includes numerous realistic details in his images: the complex gesture of the priestly blessing, the way the megillah falls in rolls on the floor as it is being read, and the forms of the Sabbath lamp, the spice box for Havdalah, and the noisemakers—both groggers and hammers—that are used on Purim to deride Haman’s name (Figs. 8b, 10a, 18, 55). But realistic details do not constitute an objective record of the totality of Jewish life. For example, the artist shows a range of Jews—young and old, men and women, those with beards who wear ritual garments and read the Torah and those in revealing tight pants who party on Purim (Figs. 9b, 51b). But no destitute Jews or badly behaved Jews are included in this idealized picture.7 6 See Cohen, Jewish Icons; 17, 19; also Alfred Rubens, A Jewish Iconography: Supplementary Volume (London: Nonpareil, 1982), 30, for a later version of the prints, which was published in Das Ganz Glaub, 1530. Although Pfefferkorn’s book was published in Germany and the Paris book of customs is Italian, they form a useful comparison. No Italian books of Jewish rituals made by and for Christians survive, and Pfefferkorn’s volume was published within a decade of the Yiddish manuscript’s completion. Furthermore, since Pfefferkorn’s book was published in Latin as well as German, it could have been purchased and read by some Italians. Italian imagery shows similar antisemitic strategies to those employed by Pfefferkorn’s illustrator: see Kathleen Biddick, “Paper Jews: Inscription/Ethnicity/Ethnography,” Art Bulletin 78 (1996): 594–99; Heinz Schreckenberg, The Jews in Christian Art: An Illustrated History, trans. by John Bowden, (New York: SCM Press, 1996), 280, fig. 6j; Ruth Mellinkoff, Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), II, figs. II. 37, II, 39, VI. 72, IX.2, IX, 20, XI. 13, XI.15; Hugh Brigstocke and John Somerville, Italian Paintings from Burghley House (Alexandria, VA: Art Services International, 1995), 52–53; Anne Derbes, Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Dana E. Katz, “Painting and the Politics of Persecution: Representing the Jew in Fifteenth-Century Mantua,” Art History 23 (2000): 475–95. 7 Negative behavior, such as rape, adultery, and prostitution, are documented within the Jewish community; see Toaff, Love, Work, Death, 11–13. Howard Adelman notes that children were disruptive in synagogue; see his “Women, Children, and Megillah Reading,” part of a forthcoming book. I would like to thank Prof. Adelman for generously providing me with his unpublished manuscript. Haggadot include negative portrayals of Jews in their depictions of the four sons, especially the wicked

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part one ‒ chapter three

Similarly, Christian images of Jewish ritual are far from neutral. Stephen G. Burnett has demonstrated that Pfefferkorn and other “polemical ethnographers” (to use Yaacov Deutsch’s term): . . . criticized the very foundation of Jewish life by attacking halakhic observance of the 613 commandments (mitzvoth) together with other religious and social customs followed by their Jewish contemporaries. Mocking the hopes, beliefs, and religious practices of ordinary German Jews was a new and menacing development in polemical writing.8

Imagery played a critical role in this Jewish/Christian polemic. First, Christian representations contain innumerable inaccuracies. Although Pfefferkorn knew Jewish rituals because he had been raised Jewish, following the usual practice of the time he seems to have given only general instructions to the artists who produced the illustrations for his treatise. As a result, judging by surviving Jewish images, a woodcut in Pfefferkorn’s treatise incorrectly renders the priestly blessing and misinterprets the fringes on the tallit, or prayer shawl, by showing them as a single large tassel (Fig. 70).9 It was not important for the illustrator of the Christian book to get the details right, since Pfefferkorn was denigrating Judaism. But the Yiddish scribe not only had an intimate knowledge of these rituals, but also wished to idealize their proper performance. For these reasons, he renders Jewish customs with greater fidelity. More importantly, Christian prints of Jewish ritual often denigrate one; see Metzger, La haggada enluminée, 1: 149–56, pls. XXIX–XXX. Only one image in the Paris manuscript can be interpreted as critical of a Jewish custom, that showing card playing on Rosh Óodesh, but the tone of this drawing is quite light-hearted (Fig. 1). For this image, see Chapters II, IV, and the Appendix. 8 Stephen G. Burnett, “Distorted Mirrors: Antonius Margaritha, Johann Buxtorf and Christian Ethnographies of the Jews,” Sixteenth Century Journal 25 (1994): 275–87, here 257, and Yaakov Deutsch, “Polemical ethnographies of Jews—Yom Kippur in the writings of Christian Hebraicists and converts in early modern Europe,” in Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraicists, Jews, and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Allison Coudert and Jeffrey Shoulson (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming). See also Hans-Martin Kirn, Das Bild vom Juden in Deutschland des frühen 16. Jahrhunderts: dargestellt an den Schriften Johannes Pfefferkorns, Texts and Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Judaism 3 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1989); Ronnie Po-Chai Hsia, “Christian Ethnographies of Jews in Early Modern Germany,” in The Expulsion of the Jews: 1492 and After, ed. by Raymond B. Waddington and Arthur H. Williamson (New York: Garland, 1994), 223–35; Ellen Martin, Die deutschen Schriften des Johannes Pfefferkorn: Zum Problem des Judenhasses und der Intoleranz in der Zeit der Vorreformation (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1994); and “Pfefferkorn, Johannes,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 12:355. 9 See Chapter I, note 74.


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Jews. Some, such as Thomas Murner’s frontispiece of 1512, do this by showing Jews wearing the compulsory Jewish badge.10 Others depict Jews with disparaging physical features.11 The woodcuts in Pfefferkorn’s volume reduce Jews to stereotypes. All Jewish men are clean-shaven and wear identical garments, illustrating a truism of racism, that to outsiders members of a group all look alike.12 By contrast, the images in the Yiddish manuscript exclude the denigratory badge, avoid all negative stereotypes, and instead show a range of Jews. Similarly, illustrations in Pfefferkorn’s treatise consistently show Jews blindfolded in order to indicate that they do not see the truths of Christianity (Figs. 70–71). But since one goal of the Yiddish book of customs was to model proper behavior, eyes do see in the drawings in this manuscript: they look intently at the Torah scrolls, read from the megillah, and focus, totally absorbed, on prayer books (Figs. 22b, 23, 55). In a scene of Sim˙at Torah, a joyous celebration of the Torah, a man, eager for a small boy to see the open scroll, lifts him high to gain a clearer view (Fig. 46a). Christian prints also denigrate Jewish women by showing them talking during services. A woodcut in Pfefferkorn’s book shows two women turned towards each other; one raises her hand in a speaking gesture (Fig. 70, lower left). Documents reveal that talking during services did occur, but was severely criticized by Christian and Jew alike, and therefore would have been interpreted negatively.13 10 For Murner’s illustrations, see Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Haggadah and History (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973), pls. 6–8. For Italian images of the badge, see David Ruderman, “At the Intersection of Cultures: The Historical Legacy of Italian Jewry,” in Gardens and Ghettos: The Art of Jewish Life in Italy, ed. by Vivian Mann (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 12–13, figs. 9–10. For further information on the badge, see Cohen, Jewish Icons, 264, n. 13. 11 For Jewish stereotypes in Christian art, see especially Mellinkoff, Outcasts. 12 For the difficulty in recognizing members of a race other than one’s own, see Roy Malpass and Jerome Kravitz, “Recognition for Faces of Own and Other Race,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 13 (1969): 330–4, and John C. Brigham, Anne Maass, Larry D. Snyder, and Kenneth Spaulding, “Accuracy of Eyewitness Identifications in a Field Setting,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 42 (1982): 673–81. 13 Diane Wolfthal, “Women’s Voice and Women’s Community in Erhard Schön’s ‘How Seven Women Complain about their Worthless Husbands’,” in Attending to Women in the Early Modern Period, ed. by Adele Seefe and Susan Amussen (Cranbury, N.J. and London: Associated University Press, 1998), 117–54; Howard Adelman, “Italian Jewish Women,” in Jewish Women in Historical Perspective, ed. by Judith Baskin (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991), 133–57, here 139 (about cursing, disruptive women); idem, “Finding Women’s Voices in Italian Jewish Literature,” in Women of the Word: Jewish Women and Jewish Writing, ed. by Judith Baskin (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1994), 50–69, here 53, 56; idem, “Servants and Sexuality:

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By contrast, images in the Yiddish book of customs idealize women by showing them paying close attention to the religious services. On Rosh Hashana they gaze intently at the blowing of the shofar ; on Purim they focus on the bimah, the lectern where the megillah is read (Figs. 25–26, 55). In neither image do the women speak or turn to each other. The captions confirm their attentiveness. One reads, “Here sit the women and hear the shofar;” the other explains, “These are the women listening to the megillah.” No one, not even children, misbehaves in synagogue in this manuscript. Another striking contrast is revealed by the way Jewish and Christian books of customs depict Jewish bodies. For example, in a woodcut in Pfefferkorn’s book that shows a mikveh, or ritual bath, for Rosh Hashana, women place their hands over their genitals (Fig. 71). This gesture may have been included for reasons of modesty, but in the end serves to call attention to that area of the body, marking it as shameful, and sexualizing the women by depicting their self-consciousness, which implies that they are being observed. By contrast, the image in the Yiddish manuscript reveals only the breasts and hair of the woman, and she makes no attempt to cover herself (Fig. 32b). Similarly, at the lower right of another print in Pfefferkorn’s book is a depiction of a penitential ritual in which two Jews are being flagellated (Fig. 70). They bend over, dropping their pants and exposing their undergarments. By contrast, when this ritual is depicted in the Yiddish manuscript, the penitent is completely dressed and his rear end is not turned to the viewer (Fig. 35). Furthermore, the whip is directed higher up on his body. The print in Pfefferkorn’s book also exposes the nude bottom of an infant, but in the Yiddish manuscript all the children are decorously dressed.14 Seduction, Surrogacy, and Rape: Some Observations Concerning Class, Gender, and Race in Early Modern Italian Jewish Families,” in Gender and Judaism: The Transformation of a Tradition, ed. by T. M. Rudavsky (New York and London: New York University Press, 1995), 81–97, here 82; Marc Saperstein, “Christians and Jews—Some Positive Images,” Harvard Theological Review 79 (1986): 236–46, here 242; and Chava Weissler, “The Traditional Piety of Ashkenazic Women,” in Jewish Spirituality from the Bible through the Middle Ages, ed. by Arthur Green (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987), 247–75, here 255–56. 14 Concerning the flagellation scene, Richard I. Cohen inexplicably concludes, “Pfefferkorn concocted this entire ritual, farcically relating how the Jew falls to his knees, rolls up his pants, and is subsequently whipped thirty-nine times with a belt by his neighbor. . . . Though the flagellation was merely a figment of his imagination, the other elements of this print and remaining prints were an ‘authentic’ replica of Jewish observance”: see Jewish Icons, 20. For the exposed buttocks as a sign of denigration, see Mellinkoff, Outcasts 1: 204–8.


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Another distinction between Christian and Jewish books of Jewish ritual is that they place a different amount of emphasis on certain customs. Only four pages of Pfefferkorn’s book show woodcuts, considerably less than the ninety-four illustrated folios in the Yiddish manuscript. Yet almost half of one print shows the women in the mikveh, which offers an opportunity to sexualize Jewish women (Fig. 71). By contrast, the corresponding image in the Yiddish book is quite small, occupying only a corner of a folio (Fig. 32b). Furthermore, Pfefferkorn’s prints focus on two customs that he belittles in his text, and that Jews themselves sometimes criticized as superstitious or deemed peripheral to their religion: Tashlikh and Kapparot.15 An entire woodcut is devoted to Tashlikh, a custom that involves symbolically freeing oneself of one’s sins by tossing crumbs into a flowing body of water. More than half of another print is dedicated to Kapparot, an act of atonement that involves swinging a chicken over the head of a repentant Jew (Fig. 71, top). By contrast, although these customs are illustrated in the Yiddish manuscript, they receive little attention; they appear as small vignettes in the side margin (Figs. 35, 66a). Similarly, Pfefferkorn’s treatise omits scenes of marriage, since its goal was to denigrate Jews, not strengthen their families. Although Pfefferkorn’s treatise does not include a representation of the circumcision, this theme was common in Christian art, where it is often constructed as a bloody ordeal that was a sorrowful event for mother and child alike. One nun, Margaretha Ebner, reported a typical vision in which the Christ Child told her, “Joseph held me [at the circumcision] because my mother was not able to do it on account of the pain she felt. She cried bitterly, and I cried and endured much blood.”16 Christian images depict the subject in a similar manner, often including rivers of blood and focusing on the knife held by the Jewish mohel, or circumciser.17 By contrast, in the Yiddish manuscript, the circumcision is celebrated joyously (Fig. 63). Since the actual act is not depicted, no knife is shown. Rather, the only image for the berit milah shows the custom of lying-in. The mother 15 For these customs, see Jacob Zallel Lauterbach, “Tashlik: A Study in Jewish Ceremonies,” Hebrew Union College Annual 11 (1936): 207–340. 16 “Josep huob mich, wan ez min muoter nit getuon macht vor sere, des siu enphant, siu wainet auch bitterlichen, and ich wainet auch und enphieng grossen smerzen und vergosse auch vil bluotes.” See Kirsten M. Christensen, “The Conciliatory Rhetoric of Mysticism in the Correspondence of Heinrich von Nördlingen and Margaretha Ebner,” in Peace and Negotiation, ed. by Wolfthal, 125–43, here 138. 17 See Schreckenberg, Jews in Christian Art, 144–46.

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rests in bed beside her swaddled son, attended to by another woman, while, to the left, food is served and the wine for the benediction is displayed. Unlike numerous Christian images of the ritual, no hint of pain, sorrow, or blood is introduced.18

Visualizing the Holy Ark The depictions of the Aron ha-Kodesh, the holy ark that houses the Torah, which appears in two prints in Pfefferkorn’s book and thirteen drawings in the Yiddish manuscript, also reveal striking differences.19 At first glance, the images in both volumes seem to reflect common Ashkenazic practice. Judging by contemporary texts and images, the Aron ha-Kodesh is supposed to face Jerusalem and for this reason is placed on the eastern wall in Ashkenazic synagogues. In accordance with this custom, the ark is depicted in both books at one end of the sanctuary.20 Since congregants should be able to see the Torah when the ark was opened during services, it was often elevated on steps,21 and this feature also appears in both books. But in other ways the Christian images of the ark deviate strikingly from the drawings in the Yiddish manuscript. First, in Pfefferkorn’s print, the ark seems tucked away in the back of the room, but in the Yiddish manuscript, it takes center stage, serving as the focus for many of the scenes of synagogue ritual. Similarly, the core function of the ark—to house the Torah—is totally ignored in Pfefferkorn’s book, since the Torah is never depicted.22 By contrast, the Torah 18 Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 310, claim that the vial on the far left contains blood. I know of no scene of berit milah that contains such a motif. Instead, it probably holds wine. Two scenes in the Picture Bible by the Ashkenazic artist Moïse dal Castellazzo (Venice, 1521) also represent a mother in bed with her infant served by another woman. See Kurt Schubert, Bilder-Pentateuch: Codex 1164 aus dem Jüdischen Historischen Institut Warschau von Moses dal Castellazo, Venedig 1521 (Vienna: Verlag Bernthaler und Windischgraetz, 1986), fols. 24 and 35. 19 Arks are depicted in Figs. 22b, 23, 25, 27a–b, 36b–39, 42a, 43, 49b, 64b, and 70. 20 Figs. 22b, 23, 36b, 38, and 43. 21 Roberta Curiel and Bernard Dov Cooperman, The Venetian Ghetto (New York: Rizzoli, 1990), 49 and 63, and Grace Cohen Grossman, Jewish Art (New York: Hugh Lauter Levin, 1995), 80. 22 Unless it is the odd tube-like form held by the seated figure in the print of Rosh Hashana. See Cohen, Jewish Icons, 17, fig. 3. The omission of the Torah scroll may be an attempt to suggest that the true Bible is not found in synagogue. The Torah is depicted, however, by the Jewish artist Moïse dal Castellazzo in his Picture Bible (Venice, 1521). See Schubert, Bilder-Pentateuch, fol. 120.


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scroll repeatedly appears in the Yiddish manuscript.23 Furthermore, in Pfefferkorn’s book, the ark looks like a simple cupboard, much like surviving examples and images in Hebrew manuscripts,24 but the Yiddish scribe constructs the ark much more magnificently. No surviving ark corresponds precisely to those portrayed in the Yiddish manuscript, and the scribe may well have given free rein to his imagination, visualizing a series of ideal arks. Whereas he shows little interest in the congregants’ clothes or physiognomies, he pays great attention to their arks. Most are richly decorated, and although all are of the freestanding tower type, no two look alike. One is capped by a small simple cupola; another by a huge, ribbed hemispherical dome that rests on a crenellated and fenestrated drum (Figs. 39, 49b). Two show a plain flat cornice (Figs. 22b, 36b), others a row of battlements (Figs. 25, 64b), and several are elaborately ornamented with rows of horizontal moldings that are enriched by arabesques, diagonal lines, and Corinthian dentils (Figs. 27b, 37, 39). The external walls of two arks are bare (Figs. 22b, 36b), but another is covered over its entire surface with a dogtooth repeat pattern that is enhanced by washes of color (Fig. 27a). Most, but not all, have arched doors, and, like the arks in Pfefferkorn’s prints, many have metal hinges and latches, and three have a fringed paro˙et, or curtain, suspended from a rod attached to the front of the ark (Figs. 27b, 38, 49b).25 23

The Torah appears in ten images: Figs. 9b, 16b, 22b, 26, 27b, 43, 45b–46b, and 49b. 24 Until now, an understanding of Italian Renaissance arks has rested on only eight surviving examples and a dozen manuscript illuminations. The surviving arks are from: (1) Modena (1460–70), see Grossman, Jewish Art, 88–89; (2) Urbino (ca.1500), see Vivian B. Mann, “The Recovery of a Known Work,” Jewish Art 12/13 (1986–87): 269–78; (3) Sabbioneta (first half of the sixteenth century), see Umberto Nahon, Holy Arks and Ritual Appurtenances from Italy in Israel (Tel Aviv: Devir, 1970), 65 (in Hebrew); (4) Rome (1523), see Annette Weber, “Ark and Curtain: Monuments for a Jewish Nation in Exile,” Jewish Art, 23/24 (1997–98): 95, fig. 9; (5) MantuaSermida (1543), see Nahon, Holy Arks, 50; (6) Leghorn, see Nahon, Holy Arks, 124; (7) Siena (sixteenth century), see Nahon, Holy Arks, 121; and (8) Pisa (fifteenth century), see Nahon, Holy Arks, 109. For representations of arks in Italian Renaissance manuscripts, see Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 64, fig. 92; 284–85, n. 19, 20, 22, and 25; Metzger, “Un mahzor italien enluminé,” 175, fig. 11; 176, fig. 12; and 183, fig. 14; Rachel Wischnitzer, “Ark,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 3:455–56, fig. 12; and The Rothschild Miscellany, 2: fols. 79v, 107v, and 143. The Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme in Paris recently acquired an unpublished French ark, dated 1445, from Saint-Paul-Trois-Châtreaux. Only occasionally does the scribe clearly identify the materials with which the arks were constructed, but one clearly shows wooden slats and another a tiled roof (Figs. 25, 39). 25 The curtains are unadorned pieces of cloth, unlike luxurious curtains from the

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The richness and diversity of the arks reveal their importance for the Yiddish scribe, who, unlike the illustrator of Pfefferkorn’s book, makes clear that they are meant to commemorate the lost Ark of the Covenant, which had been kept within the inner sanctum of the Temple of Jerusalem.26 The early seventeenth-century Italian rabbi Leon Modena noted that the Aron ha-Kodesh was “an ark, or chest, that is called ‘aron,’ in imitation of the Ark of the Covenant that was in the Temple,” and inscriptions on two surviving Italian fifteenthcentury arks refer to the lost Ark.27 In a similar fashion, the paro˙et was meant to recall the veil of the Holy of Holies in the Temple, and the domes that crown some arks, rather than simply representing an aesthetic choice, were designed to evoke the sacred buildings in Jerusalem, particularly the Temple itself.28 Arks were also associated with the impenetrability of the Holy of Holies and at times express through their design such textual sources as Proverbs 18:10, “The name of the Lord is a tower of strength.”29 As Victor Klagsbald period. See Franz Landsberger, “Old-Time Torah Curtains: Apropos a New Acquisition of the Jewish Museum in New York,” in Beauty in Holiness, ed. by Gutmann, 135, fig. 4; 142, and 144. For the curtain in Pfefferkorn’s print, see Cohen, Jewish Icons, 17, fig. 3. 26 Lewis N. Dembitz, Jewish Services in Synagogue and Home (New York: Arno Press, 1975), 65; Weber, “Ark and Curtain,” 89. 27 Leon da Modena, Historia de’ riti hebraici, vita, ed osservanza de gl’Hebrei di questi tempi (Venice: Prodotti, 1669), 16: “un’Arca, o armario, che chiamano ‘Aron,’ ad imitatione dell’Arca del testamento ch’era nel Tempio” (my translation); Victor Klagsbald, Catalogue raisonné de la collection juive du musée de Cluny (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1981), 123; and Weber, “Ark and Curtain,” 94 (dated ca. 1500). For the process by which the imagery of the Temple in Jerusalem was applied to synagogues in a later period in order to endow them with sanctity, see Steven Fine, On the Sanctity of the Synagogue during the Greco-Roman Period (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997). 28 Domes are found both on surviving arks and in representations of them in contemporary manuscripts. In Jewish art, an entry tower and a dome were sufficient to suggest the Temple of Jerusalem and the idea of Jerusalem. See, for example, chapter VII; Shalom Sabar, “Messianic Aspirations and Renaissance Urban Ideals: The Image of Jerusalem in the Venice Haggadah, 1609,” in The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art: Studies in Honor of Bezalel Narkiss on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, ed. by Bianca Kühnel ( Jerusalem: Center of Jewish Art of the Hebrew University, 1998), 295–312, here 299, fig. 4; Iris Fishof, “ ‘Jerusalem Above My Chief Joy’: Depictions of Jerusalem in Italian Ketubot,” Journal of Jewish Art 9 (1982): 61–75; and Carole Herselle Krinsky, “Representations of the Temple of Jerusalem before 1500,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 33 (1970): 1–19. For the idea that arks imitate architecture in the Holy Land, see Carol Herselle Krinsky, Synagogues of Europe: Architecture, History, Meaning (Mineola, N.Y: Dover, 1985), 25. 29 JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, 1629. For the veil of the Holy of Holies, see SedRajna, Jewish Art, 280.


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has demonstrated, Italian Renaissance arks often refer to the idea of the migdal, or tower, through their inscriptions and tower-like form.30 Except for the curtain that appears in one print, none of these features are visualized in Pfefferkorn’s book, but all are depicted in the Yiddish book of customs. There the images of arks not only show curtains and domes, but also embody the idea of migdal through their tower-like form, crenellations, and sturdy strength. Although the ark in Pfefferkorn’s book, and even Italian Renaissance arks as they are known from surviving examples and images in other manuscripts, often look like ordinary cupboards,31 those depicted in the Yiddish book of customs are massive and mural, in short, more fortress-like.

Visualizing Jewish Flags Small, swallow-tailed pennants—one decorated with a six-pointed star— fly from three of the arks in the book of customs, which not only enrich the complex meaning of these structures, but also serve to distinguish them from the Christian towers and churches that they resemble (Figs. 39, 49b, 64b).32 Although none of Pfefferkorn’s prints includes a flag, ten images in the Yiddish manuscript, ranging from the berit milah to the baking of mazzot, show swallow-tailed pennants. They fly from a mother’s bed, an oven, a staff held by a fool, country houses, a building in Jerusalem, a Jewish encampment, and three holy arks.33 At this time flags, whether displayed on town halls, castles, or churches, served a distinct purpose: to stake out territory, marking a site as belonging to a particular state or religion, and announcing the presence of those willing to defend the prevailing power. Evelyn Welch has concluded that “coats of arms and crests . . . were designed to indicate ownership, ensuring that there was no doubt over who had control of, or was responsible for, buildings, objects, people, or

30 Klagsbald, Catalogue raisonné, 94, 96. See also Grossman, Jewish Art, 88, and Krinsky, Synagogues, 25. 31 Grossman, Jewish Art, 83. 32 Swallow-tailed pennants are those missing a triangular section of the tail. For a church that resembles an ark in this manuscript, compare Fig. 49b to Donato Bramante’s Tempietto, S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome, 1502–11 in Horst W. and Anthony F. Janson, History of Art, 6th ed. (London: Thames and Hudson, 2001), 435, fig. 13–7. 33 Fols. 4, 13, 14v, 21, 68, 99v, 102, 103, 115v, and 117v.

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ceremonies.”34 For example, in Simone Martini’s fresco in the Town Hall of Siena the Sienese military leader Guidoriccio da Fogliano strides through a landscape marked by a series of flags decorated with the black and white colors of his commune.35 Similarly, flags displaying the shield of the king of Naples fly over castles, gates, and ships in a panel painted in the early 1470s (Fig. 72a).36 Most medieval and early modern flags included a Christian motif, whether a cross or an image of a saint.37 For example, the Venetians employed an image of St. Mark as both a religious symbol and a military amulet that they believed would bring, as Edward Muir observed, “divine protection and victory.”38 For that reason, when the scribe chose to represent undecorated pennants, he may have been purposefully refusing to mark his structures as owing allegiance to either the Church or the state. After all, Jews defined themselves not only as members of a religion, but also of a nation, and the scribe may have wished to express this concept visually. Furthermore, since swallow-tailed flags were often employed during wartime and consequently associated with martial strength,39 they were especially suited to visualize the concept of the ark as migdal. But flags were also employed as part of Christian culture in another context. Images contrasting Ecclesia and Synagoga were enormously popular, and since many were displayed on the portals of churches, that is, in public space, Jews may well have been familiar with their iconography (Fig. 72b).40 Typically, whereas Christian works show Ecclesia’s banner waving high in triumph, they depict Synagoga’s staff broken in defeat, and her vanquished flag is often turned upside down or dragged on the ground. For this reason, when the Yiddish scribe shows flags waving proudly and triumphantly, this may well 34

Evelyn Welch, Art and Society in Italy, 1350–1500 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 215. 35 William M. Bowsky, A Medieval Italian Commune: Siena under the Nine, 1287–1355 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 287. I would like to thank Anne Derbes for this reference. 36 See Welch, Art and Society, 304, and Whitney Smith, Flags through the Ages and across the World (New York: McGraw Hill, 1975), 142. For flags flown from towers, see especially Smith, Flags, 92. 37 Smith, Flags, 90, 92, 100. 38 Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 116–18, 284. 39 See Smith, Flags, 26, and for swallow-tailed war flags, 46, 54, 66, 98. 40 See Schreckenberg, The Jews in Christian Art, 31–74. For those on church exteriors, see 47 no. 22, 49 no. 25, 50 no. 28, and 54 no. 1.


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be an assertion of Jewish strength. Furthermore, since Synagoga’s flag is sometimes adorned with either an image of a vile scorpion or the pointed hat that Jews were obliged to wear,41 when the Yiddish scribe shows a blank flag he may well be choosing to obliterate the denigratory emblems that Christians assigned to Jews. Italian Renaissance Jews understood this system of signs and employed it in their art. An image in an Emilian Ma˙zor, illuminated in 1465 by Joel ben Simeon, depicts Egyptian soldiers carrying three flags decorated with the word “Pharaoh” (h[rp, Fig. 73a). Similarly, the Picture Bible of Moïse dal Castellazzo, dated 1521, visualizes a swallow-tailed flag, decorated with a relevant plant or animal, for four of the tribes of Israel.42 But Italian Jews did not confine their conceptualization of the flag solely to the realm of the imagination. Digo Pires, born into a Portuguese family that had been forced to convert to Christianity, renounced his converso status by circumcising himself, adopting the Jewish name Solomon Molcho, and fleeing Portugal. He traveled to Salonika and Italy, declared himself to be the Messiah, and won many Jewish followers. A surviving swallow-tailed pennant, which is covered with Hebrew inscriptions, has been identified as the one that Molcho carried on his mission to Emperor Charles V at Regensburg in 1532 (Fig. 73b). The flag’s inscriptions express a militant Jewish identity, exhorting God to punish the enemies of the Jews. One quotation reads, “Pour out your wrath against the nations that know you not” (Psalm 79:6); another pleads, “Deal with them as you did with Midian, with Sisera, with Jabin, at the brook Kishon—who were destroyed at En-dor, who became dung for the field” (Psalm 83:10–11).43

41 For those showing a scorpion, see Schreckenberg, The Jews in Christian Art, 53, no. 33; 65, no. 3; 182, no. 13; and 185, no. 19. For flags with a Jew’s hat, see 62, no. 17 and 183, no. 14. 42 In Joel ben Simeon’s miniature, the castle is identified in Hebrew as Egyptian. For the Picture Bible, see Schubert, Bilder-Pentateuch, fols. 103 and 105. For a depiction of other flags of the tribes of Israel, see the Duke of Sussex Pentateuch, (German, ca. 1300), in Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts, 104–5. 43 I wish to thank Brad Sabin Hill for calling my attention to this flag, for which, see Alfred Grotte, “Die ‘Reliquien’ des Salomo Molcho,” Monatschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 67:167–70, and Hillel J. Kieval, “Autonomy and Independence: The Historical Legacy of Czech Jewry,” in The Precious Legacy: Judaic Treasures from the Czechoslovak State Collections, ed. by David Altshuler (New York: Summit Books,1983), 47–109, here 66–67. The first quotation plays a prominent role in the Passover Seder; see Chapter II.

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The flag that Molcho carried may have been made for his companion on the mission to Regensburg, David Reubeni, another pseudoMessiah, who described himself as the military commander for his brother, a Jewish king from Habur. Reubeni and Molcho together sought to enlist Christian rulers in a war against the Turks to recapture Jerusalem. Molcho praised Reubeni as “the mighty warrior,” and their flag served to affirm their Judaism, their millennial hopes, and their military zeal. In fact Molcho so closely identified with the flag that he incorporated a swallow-tailed pennant into his signature. He further communicated his martial spirit by carrying not only a flag, but also a sword and shield to meetings with Christians. This caused one Christian to complain, “I do not like it that this infidel should bring his Jewish symbols into a place where we must bring the cross.”44 The flag clearly played a role in asserting a strong Jewish presence in a world dominated by Christian power.45 Nor is this the only known Jewish flag. Two other examples, which were made in Prague, will be discussed below. Not only are there eight undecorated swallow-tailed pennants in the Yiddish manuscript, but there are also two that are adorned with the six-pointed star, which is today known as the Magen David, or Shield of David, and understood as a symbol of the Jewish people. One is attached to an ark, the other to a building that represents part of a Jewish encampment (Figs. 17, 64b). In the Middle Ages the hexagram was often employed as a decorative motif by Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike. But at certain times and in certain places it became associated with two fundamental ideas. On the one hand, it was believed to have adorned the shield that the heroic King David carried into battle, and so was understood as a potent magical sign that afforded divine protection against enemies.46 For this reason, the Magen David would be especially fitting for a flag flying triumphantly over a Jewish encampment, or from the Aron haKodesh, which was traditionally associated with the idea of a fortress. But the hexagram was also at times considered a sign of the Jewish 44 Harris Lenowitz, The Jewish Messiahs (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 122. 45 For Molcho and Reubeni, see Lenowitz, The Jewish Messiahs, esp. 103, 106, and 122. 46 Joneath Spicer, “The Star of David and Jewish Culture in Prague around 1600, Reflected in Drawings of Roelandt Savery and Paulus van Vianen,” Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 54 (1996): 203–24, here 210.


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people. In particular, it occasionally adorned flags or banners that were associated with Jews. Joneath Spicer explains that Jews came to believe that David’s shield could “offer its protection (and therefore rallying power) to the people though the flag.”47 This idea seems to have arisen independently in two separate regions of Europe, Spain and Bohemia, beginning in the fourteenth century. Pointing to the many medieval Spanish Haggadot that display the six-pointed star, Rachel Wischnitzer proposed that Spanish Jews adopted the hexagram as a Jewish symbol and then spread this concept throughout Europe.48 The early-fourteenth century Spaniard David ben Judah he-Óasid, the grandson of Na˙manides, mentioned this shape as a Jewish symbol, and it appears as such on Synagoga’s flag in an illumination in a Christian manuscript from Catalonia, dated ca. 1400 (Fig. 74a).49 Concurrently the hexagram appeared in Prague as a symbol of the Jewish people. In 1357, when King Charles granted the Jewish community there the privilege of having their own flag, it was adorned with a six-pointed star. Evidence suggests, moreover, that the flag had a swallow-tailed shape, like the pennants in the Yiddish book of customs.50 The fourteenth-century flag has been lost, but an eighteenth-century replacement survives (Fig. 74b). In 1598, Mordecai Meysl, a Jewish merchant in Prague, designed and displayed in the synagogue that he had built a new “flag of David,” which was also adorned with the hexagram.51 Because the fourteenth-century ensign had been publicly displayed in the old synagogue, there may well have been a continuous tradition in Prague of associating Jews with a flag adorned with the six-pointed star.52 Since the scribe of the Yiddish book of customs was an Ashkenazic Jew, who, judging by 47

Spicer, “The Star of David,” 222 n. 53. Rachel Wischnitzer [spelled Vischnitzer], “Illuminated Haggadahs,” The Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 13 (1922–23): 193–218, here 212–13. 49 See Norman Roth, “Jewish Art,” in Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia, ed. by idem (New York and London: Routledge, 2003), 50, and Gershom Sholem, “Magen David,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica 11:695. 50 For the corrected date of this document, see Spicer, “The Star of David,” 223 n. 63. For the form of the flag, see 223 n. 66. 51 Spicer, “The Star of David,” 211. 52 Gershom Sholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism (New York: Schocken, 1971), 276. The star also appears at times on sacred Jewish structures elsewhere. A window of a medieval synagogue in Hamelin and a wall of a fourteenth-century Jewish sanctuary in Budweis both displayed the star of David. Furthermore, a surviving ark from Northern France, dated 1445, is adorned with a six-pointed star, although not a hexagram (see n. 24 above). 48

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the language of his text, may well have recently arrived in Italy from northern Europe,53 he may have learned of the association between flags, hexagrams, and Jewish identity through Prague. Alternatively, Sephardic Jews in Italy may have introduced the idea to him. Certainly in sixteenth-century Prague, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, the hexagram assumed, to quote Joseph Gutmann, “a semi-official, politico-religious function as a distinct Jewish symbol.”54 By the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, it adorned finials on the metal grill of the bimah in the Altneushul. In 1512 it was featured on the title page of the first Hebrew-language book printed in Central Europe. And by 1604 it was adopted as the shape for the mandatory Jewish badge.55 But if scholars generally accept its meaning as a sign of Jewish identity in sixteenth-century Prague, some doubt it for other regions and earlier times. Yet in 1480 Jews in Verona are reported to have been forced to wear a red star, albeit of unknown shape,56 and in the 1550s at Sabbionetta the Foa family twice employed the Magen David as a printer’s sign.57 The images in the Yiddish manuscript suggest that the Ashkenazic scribe understood the six-pointed star as a sign of Jewish identity. In fact, Jewish illuminators had long employed images of architecture as a way to resist the dominant culture and assert their own distinctiveness. Mendel and Thérèse Metzger have noted, “It is remarkable that in no illustration from a Jewish manuscript of our period can any cross be seen on the steeples, towers or tops of buildings, even when their silhouette makes their function plain. . . . it was a kind of revenge.”58 It seems more than coincidence, then, that the hexagram adorns not only a depiction of a Jewish encampment, but also an ark, the most important structure in the synagogue, and one that was associated with the Temple of Jerusalem and a time when Jews had a homeland. Furthermore, a later reader of the book added 53

See Chapter I. Joseph Gutmann, The Jewish Sanctuary (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983), 22. 55 See Spicer, “The Star of David,” esp. figs. 3 and 16. Spicer’s article, an excellent analysis of the significance of the Magen David in medieval and early modern Europe, contains much new evidence that results in a persuasive partial revision of Sholem’s thesis. For the printed title page, see Sholem, “Magen David,” 691, fig. 6. 56 Alfred Rubens, A History of Jewish Costume (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1967, rev. ed. 1971), 114. 57 W. Gunther Plaut, The Magen David: How the six-pointed star became an emblem for the Jewish people (Washington, D.C.: Bnai Brith, 1991), 13, and Joshua Bloch, “Venetian Printers of Hebrew Books,” in Hebrew Printing and Bibliography, ed. by Charles Berlin (New York: New York Public Library and KTAV, 1976), 65–88, here 71, fig. 6. 58 Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 59. 54


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a third, large hexagram just above the original one flying over the encampment, which indicates a continuing interest in this symbol (Fig. 17). It is not surprising that Pfefferkorn had no desire to express Jewish identity as a strong and positive force, since he had converted from Judaism to Christianity, but the Yiddish scribe through his images of arks and flags wished to assert precisely that.

Visualizing Christians Another difference between Jewish and Christian images of Jewish ritual is the way they represent Christians. In Christian books, Christians appear as witnesses or framing figures.59 For example, at the left edge of Pfefferkorn’s print is a man who is identifiable as Christian by his dress, glance, and action (Fig. 70). He is the only figure to wear a doublet and hose, and the only one who is not blindfolded and who does not avert his eyes from the priestly blessing. Since he lights a candle during services, he may be identified as a Shabbes goy, a Christian who works for Jews on their Sabbath, when they are forbidden to work.60 But this man, with whom Christian viewers would have identified, is not a neutral figure. He holds in his right hand three objects, rendered as small circles inscribed with a cross. Some scholars describe these forms as ordinary pieces of bread, and suggest that they were meant to ridicule the Jewish fast of Yom Kippur.61 It is also possible, but not likely, that the objects are coins, referring to the fact that Jews paid Christians for working on the Sabbath. In this case, the motif would have reinforced the association of Jews and money. Another possibility is that the circular forms represent hosts, which were often depicted in this manner.62 In this scenario, the Christian extends his hand towards the center of the sanctuary to offer hosts to the Jews. But since the 59 For other framing figures, see the first chapter of Cohen, Jewish Icons; rev. Wolfthal, 378–81; Wolfthal, “Women’s Voice,” 117–54; and eadem, Images of Rape: The “Heroic” Tradition and its Alternatives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 189–97. 60 For the Shabbes goy, see Jacob Katz, The “Shabbes Goy”: A Study in Halakhic Flexibility (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), and Cohen, Jewish Icons, 20, 267 n. 33. The word goy (ywg) means literally “nation,” but has come to mean “Gentile,” sometimes with a derogatory connotation. 61 For similar depictions of hosts, see Schreckenberg, Jews in Christian Art, 266–68, 271. 62 Later versions of the print modify the form of these objects; see Rubens, A Jewish Iconography: Supplementary Volume, 30, cat. no. 232.

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Christian print constructs Jews as blind, they are unable to accept the offering. By contrast, in the Yiddish manuscript, Christians never appear in scenes of worship and ritual.63 But Christians are an implied presence in another group of images in the Yiddish book, depictions of the oppression of Jews, a theme that is absent from Christian books of Jewish ritual. But by necessity the Yiddish scribe mutes his message since Jews knew well the dangers of openly expressing negative feelings towards Christians.64 A critical element of many Jewish holidays, including Purim, Passover, and Óanukkah, is the remembrance of past persecutions, their association with present tribulations, and the expression of the belief that as in the past, so in the future, Jews will be delivered from their enemies. For example, Passover commemorates Jews gaining their freedom from the ancient Egyptians, but medieval and early modern Haggadot often include scenes of dogs, which symbolically represent Christians, pursuing hares, which symbolically represent Jews.65 Similarly, the Hamburg Miscellany, a German manuscript of 1427–28, shows on the same folio as the liturgy for Tishah be-Av, the day of mourning and fasting that commemorates the destruction of the Temple in ancient times, a scene of the expulsion of the Jews from medieval Germany.66 The Yiddish manuscript recalls past tribulations in a series of images: Nebuchadnezzar lays siege to Jerusalem; Amalek, the archetypical persecutor of the Jews, wears an enormous sword; Gedaliah, the governor of Judah, whom Jews had hoped would rebuild Jerusalem and its Temple, is threatened by assassins; and on Tishah be-Av men mourn the destruction of the Temple by sitting on the ground barefoot and reading the Book of Lamentations.67 63 At least no figure is clearly differentiated as Christian. Similarly, in the Yiddish autobiography of Glikl bas Judah Leib, Jews are central, Christians marginal. See Natalie Zemon Davis, Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 38. 64 For Jewish self-censorship as an attempt to prevent the Church’s destruction or censorship of Jewish books, see Louisella Mortara-Ottolenghi, “The Illumination and the Artists,” 177 fig. 250, and van Boxel, Rabbijnenbijbel, 138. For this phenomenon in earlier art, see Isaiah Sonne, “The Zodiac in Ancient Synagogues and in Hebrew Printed Books,” Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 1 (1953–54): 3–13, here 9. 65 See Epstein, Dreams of Subversion, 16–38; rev. Wolfthal, 304–8; and Chapter II. 66 Eva Grabherr, “Siddur mit Kinot und Minhagim,” in Mappot. . . . Blessed Be He Who Comes: The Band of Jewish Tradition, ed. by Annette Weber, Evelyn Friedländer, and Fritz Armbruster (Osnabruck: Secolo Verlag, 1997), 194–95. 67 For the images of Nebuchadnezzar and Amalek, see Chapter VII below. For Gedaliah and the fast instituted in his honor, see Abraham Millgram, Jewish Worship (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1971), 284; H. Graetz, History of the Jews


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Such scenes would not only have recalled past trauma, but would also have brought to mind present persecutions through their contemporary dress, furnishings, and weapons. As Brigitte Buettner has demonstrated, “images played a key role in establishing connections between the present and the past.”68

Visualizing the Joy of Jewish Rituals Recent scholars, most notably Marc Michael Epstein, have demonstrated how Jews, through their visual culture, negotiated the antisemitism that was rampant in the dominant society,69 and perhaps there is some sense of that in these scenes of remembrance in the Paris book of customs. But Mark Saperstein, following Salo W. Baron, challenges the “lachrymose view of Jewish history” by cautioning that “there was more to Jewish history than a progression of uninterrupted persecution and suffering,”70 and the images in the Yiddish manuscript demonstrate the truth of this assertion. Scenes of the oppression of Jews are present, but kept to a minimum. Of the ninety-four images, only three show such subjects. The final difference between Jewish and Christian books of customs is that the Yiddish manuscript is filled with images of the joyous celebration of Jewish holidays, scenes of eating, dancing, and drinking, even though these practices are cited only briefly in the text. Although only a small part of one of Pfefferkorn’s prints depicts eating, six such scenes appear in the Jewish manuscript: dining on Rosh Hashana, Sukkot, and Shavuot; eating fish for Rosh Óodesh; and enjoying the symbolic wedding feasts of Sim˙at Torah (Figs. 21a, 29, 40, 47, 58, and 71 middle right). In an image of Sukkot, the caption refers only to eating, “He eats in the sukkah,” or tabernacle (Fig. 40). Other drawings, unparalleled in Pfefferkorn’s book, show men and women dancing together at a wedding and on the Sabbath following (London: Myers, 1904) 1: 329–35; and Jacob Liver “Gedaliah,” in Encyclopedia Judaica 7:352. 68 Brigitte Buettner, “Profane Illuminations, Secular Illusions: Manuscripts in Late Medieval Courtly Society,” Art Bulletin 74 (1992): 72–79, here 78–79. The standard book on medieval memory is Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). See also Wolfthal, Images of Rape, 74–75. 69 Epstein, Dreams of Subversion. 70 Saperstein, “Christians and Jews,” 246; Salo W. Baron, “Ghetto and Emancipation,” Menorah Journal 14 (1928): 515–526.

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Tishah be-Av (Figs. 24a, 62). Furthermore, a man lifts his leg in a joyful dance-like movement on Sukkot (Fig. 42). Several images show drinking. One, for Purim, includes four separate drinking vignettes (Fig. 56). Another depicts at the right, a man holding a wine glass, standing near a large wine vessel, while, at the left, a companion observes: “Good wine makes one happy” (Fig. 28). Similarly, the inscription for the Purim fool, who holds a wine glass and huge jug, reads, “The fool is happy on little Purim” (Fig. 51b).71 The manuscript ends with its largest drawing, which covers more than half the page, a scene of eating, dancing, and drinking on Purim (Fig. 67). At the upper left, a musician plays a lute, while at the upper right, a man, seated at a table laden with food and wine, lifts a cup towards the woman seated at his side. At the lower left, a couple dance, while at the far right a man with an open mouth, who may be singing, seems to snap his fingers as a dog jumps in to join the fun. The caption reads: “They make Purim and eat and drink and dance.”72 In short, unlike Christian images of Jewish customs, the drawings in the Yiddish manuscript idealize Jewish life, show a range of Jews, represent Judaism as a strong and positive force, remember past persecutions, visualize scenes of joyous celebration, and deem Christians irrelevant to scenes of Jewish worship. Neither the images in the Yiddish manuscript nor those in Christian books are neutral. And how could this be otherwise at a time when Christians routinely denigrated Jews and viewed them as members of a despised minority? Viewed against this background, it was inevitable that Jewish and Christian images would present radically different views of Jewish life and customs.

71 In a leap year Purim is celebrated in the second month of Adar, and Purim Katan (Little Purim or Minor Purim) on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the first month of Adar. Purim Katan involves few of the ritual practices of Purim; the megillah is not read and food is not distributed to the poor. Rather, it is simply an occasion for rejoicing; see “Purim Katan,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica 13:1395. 72 For the original Yiddish, see the appendix.

CHAPTER FOUR

REPRESENTING DIVERSITY WITHIN THE COMMUNITY: THE ABSENCE OF RABBIS AND THE PRESENCE OF WOMEN

The Jews in Renaissance Italy were a disparate group. They included native Italians, Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Levantines. Age, gender, economic class, level of educational attainment, and degree of religious observance further diversified the community. The previous chapter demonstrated that the Yiddish scribe, unlike his Christian counterparts, depicted a broad range of Jews. This chapter will take a closer look at this aspect of his imagery by focusing on several issues. Who is represented in synagogue? How is public and private prayer depicted? How does the scribe, a member of the middle ranks of Jewish society, visualize the leaders of the congregation, such as the rabbis? And finally, what does a gendered analysis of these images of Jewish ritual reveal about the scribe’s attitude towards the spiritual roles of men and women? The answers to these questions will result in a partial revision of Robert Bonfil’s thesis that rabbis were central and women peripheral to Jewish society in Renaissance Italy.1

Visualizing the Performers of Synagogue Ritual Stereotyped images of Jewish congregants appear not only in Christian books, but also in Jewish ones that were illustrated by Christians. For example, the Rothschild Miscellany, a luxury Hebrew manuscript illuminated in Italy in the 1470s by Christian artists, shows only distinguished old men with long white beards in the presence of the ark.2 By contrast, the Jewish scribe who illustrated the Yiddish book of customs depicts a wide range of congregants in the sanctuary: old and young, men and women, bearded and clean-shaven, those wearing a long robe and tallit and those in the latest Italian fashion. One 1 2

For a fuller discussion of Bonfil’s ideas, see below. See The Rothschild Miscellany, ed. by Fishof.

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part one ‒ chapter four

drawing shows two kohanim, that is, men of priestly descent, blessing the congregation (Fig. 10a). Others depict the cantor. In most images that show the lectern that abuts the ark, a man wearing a prayer shawl is situated before it, presumably leading the service. This figure may have been understood as the cantor, since, as Samuel Archivolti of Padua observed, “only the cantor stands opposite” the ark.3 Only two captions, however, specifically identify him (Figs. 27a, 37). In the first, the cantor says the areshet, a brief prayer that is sung after the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashana. In the second, he recites l’dor vdor (“from generation to generation,” a part of the amidah) on Yom Kippur. Although Mendel and Thérèse Metzger have concluded that Jewish manuscripts generally show the cantor with a beard, in both cases in which a caption identifies him in the Yiddish book of customs he is clean-shaven.4 In one, the image of the cantor saying l’dor vdor, he is the only figure with an open mouth, but the only physical feature that differentiates him in both images from the other congregants is his greater girth. Seven drawings visualize a man worshipping alone in synagogue. Two depict a figure blowing a shofar, another two portray a man holding the four species, and two others show a congregant reading alone at a desk on the Shabbat ha-Óodesh and on Yom Kippur.5 Most of these subjects imply the presence of others, but one may represent a man praying alone. It shows a congregant reciting a tkhine, an individual petition expressed as a private, devotional prayer (Fig. 64b).6 Through this ritual, the congregant confesses his sins, voices his repentance, and asks for mercy.7 When the Temple still stood, Jews would prostrate themselves during this solitary ritual, but this practice was subsequently abandoned, and over time rather than speaking spontaneously, Jews adopted a set text. The words at the

3 Jewish Texts on the Visual Arts, ed. by Vivian B. Mann, rabbinic texts trans. by Eliezer Diamond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 85–86. 4 Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 148. 5 Shabbat ha-Óodesh is the last of four special Sabbaths. It either precedes or falls on the first day of Nisan. Figs. 24b, 33a, 41a, 42b, 57b, and 65b. 6 A tkhine may be composed in either Yiddish or Hebrew. Some of those written in Hebrew have entered the canonical synagogue liturgy. See Metzger, “Un mahzor italien enluminé,” 175 n. 34; and especially Devra Kay, “Words for ‘God’ in Seventeenth Century Women’s Poetry in Yiddish,” in Dialects of the Yiddish Language, ed. by Dovid Katz, Winter Studies in Yiddish, 2 (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1988, 57–67, here 59, 60. I would like to thank Jerold Frakes for informing me about this article. 7 Idelsohn, Jewish Liturgy and Its Development, 110–113.

representing diversity within the community

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top of fol. 117v describe this custom, noting that one no longer “falls on one’s face.”8 Adjacent to this passage is a drawing of a man before an ark whose doors are closed, because, according to the text, there is no minyan. The petitioner bends forward, lifting his hands to his head, employing a pose and gesture of supplication that to my knowledge is not duplicated in any other image.9 But if the scribe depicts the kohanim, the cantor, and solitary congregants as adult men, he also includes women and children in his representations of synagogue. Women are shown attending services on Rosh Hashana and Purim, and children are present on Rosh Hashana and Sim˙at Torah (Figs. 26, 46a, 55). But diversity is also shown in the way congregants pray. Although some scenes show a solitary figure in prayer, others depict communal worship.

Visualizing Communal Worship Because the scribe often expands traditional subjects into elaborate compositions,10 eleven images of synagogue ritual show group worship: participating in Matnat Yad; observing the Torah being lifted out of the ark; hearing the cantor recite l’dor vdor; reading from the book of Lamentations on Tishah be-Av; witnessing the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashana; reconciling on Rosh Hashana; attending evening services on Sukkot; performing the hakkafot with lulavim on Sukkot; performing the hakkafot with Torah scrolls on Sim˙at Torah; gathering the youth before the bimah on Sim˙at Torah; and listening to the reading of the megillah on Purim.11 Because these compositions include many more figures than most contemporary illuminations,12 they more clearly suggest communal worship in synagogue, a common aspect of Jewish ritual. As David I. Kertzer observed, “It is by uttering the same cry, pronouncing the same word, or performing the same gesture . . . that they [the worshippers] become and feel

8 9

μynIp; zd' πywao fynI fl]a'ww: ˆm' ˆwa

For postures for prayers, see Eric Zimmer, “Poses and Postures during Prayer,” Sidra 5 (1989): 89–130 (in Hebrew); and Uri Ehrlich, The Non-Verbal Language of Jewish Prayer ( Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press, 1999) (in Hebrew). 10 See chapter III. 11 Figs. 16b, 22b, 23, 25–26, 36a, 37, 42a, 46a–b. 12 See chapter II.

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themselves to be in unison.”13 Edward Muir agreed that one function of ritual “is not to get people to agree to things, but to create the experience of solidarity in the absence of consensus.”14 The scribe visualizes this idea of social cohesion and collective identity through his scenes of group worship, which constitute almost half the images of synagogue ritual.

The Absence of the Rabbi Robert Bonfil has asserted that the Italian Renaissance rabbinate was so central to Jewish society that “this institution’s history faithfully reflects the entire history of those Jews.”15 But if the Yiddish scribe suggests that communal prayer is central to Jewish ritual, he fails to visualize the rabbi at all. Bonfil asserts that at this time rabbis regularly officiated at marriages, and that “during this entire period, we do not find a single case in which a layman sought the right to perform marriages and divorces.”16 Indeed, most images of weddings in fifteenthcentury Italian Hebrew manuscripts show an officiant, presumably a rabbi, marrying the couple (Fig. 75a).17 But no rabbi appears in the image of marriage in the Yiddish book of customs (Fig. 61).18

13 David I. Kertzer, Ritual, Politics, and Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 62. 14 Edward Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 4. Note also Catherine Bell’s characterization of Victor Turner’s concept of the “affirmation of communal unity,” in Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 20, and cf. Victor W. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine, 1966). 15 Robert Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy, trans. by Jonathan Chipman (London and Washington: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1993), v. Although the original Hebrew version of this book was published in 1979, the preface, from which this quote is taken, was written for the edition of 1993. An opposing model has been proposed for understanding the relationship between Italian Renaissance rabbis and other Jews: several scholars have suggested that rabbis tried to impose their authority on other Jews, but were often rebuffed. See, among others, two papers in Judaism in Practice: From the Middle Ages through the Early Modern Period, ed. by Lawrence Fine (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001): Howard Tzvi Adelman, “Italian Jewish Women At Prayer,” 52–60 and Lawrence A. Hoffman, “The Role of Women at Rituals of their Infant Children,” 99–114. See also note 25 below, and Judith R. Baskin, “From Separation to Displacement: The Problem of Women in Sefer Hasidim,” AJS Review 19 (1994), 1–18, here 11. 16 Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities, 66–67. 17 For images of marriage, see Chapter VI below. 18 See Chapter VI below.


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Another chief function of rabbis was to deliver sermons, especially on such holidays as Shabbat ha-Gadol and Shabat Shuva,19 but the Paris manuscript does not visualize that role either. Bonfil suggests yet another way to identify the rabbi: “Generally speaking, the place of honour in synagogue and in other social and religious gatherings was reserved for the ordained rabbis.”20 He specifies that at least some Italian Renaissance rabbis sat on a chair to the right of the ark during services,21 but no such chair is situated next to the ark in any image in the manuscript. Furthermore, the row of men seated before the ark on Rosh Hashana includes a diverse group, some bearded and others clean-shaven, one seated and holding the Torah, another standing and reading a book (Fig. 25). But none stands out from the crowd either through his appearance, location, or action. Furthermore, the captions in the manuscript never mention the rabbi, and when the text does, four out of five times there is no accompanying image.22 In the fifth instance, there is a drawing, but it is unclear whether the rabbi is depicted (Fig. 16b). The text states that either the rav or an honored member of the congregation should begin the ritual of matnat yad by holding either the Torah scroll or the Óummash. Since the relevant image shows one man with a scroll and another with a book, and the scribe does not plainly distinguish one man from the other, it is unclear whether either of these figures, who are both clean-shaven, should be identified as a rabbi. In addition, although the text mentions rabbis from the past, no image depicts them. Furthermore, a popular subject for Haggadot illustrations, the Rabbis of Bene-Berak, is lacking, even though the scribe adopts 19 See Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities, 298–316; Marc Saperstein, “Your Voice Like a Ram’s Horn”: Themes and Texts in Traditional Jewish Preaching (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1996), 89–105; idem, Jewish Preaching 1200–1800, An Anthology (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989); and Preachers of the Italian Ghetto, ed. by David B. Ruderman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). For public preaching as a chief responsibility of the rabbi, see Sharon Liberman Mintz and Elka Deitsch, Kehillat Ha-Kodesh: Creating the Sacred Community: The Roles of the rabbi, cantor, mohel and shohet in Jewish Communal Life (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1997), 13. 20 Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities, 76. 21 Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities, 169. 22 The rabbi is mentioned either in the context of making a liturgical ruling or participating in synagogue ritual; see fols. 18v (Matnat Yad ), 20v (the rabbi of the city should make certain liturgical decisions), 29 (Matnat Yad ), 88v (“The rabbi stands up or an honored member of the congregation and takes a ˙ummash in his hand and says several mishaberach”), and 85v (“The rabbis have ordained that we should light a candle for eight days and be happy”). The word used for rabbi is rb.

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so many subjects from Haggadot and this theme appears in the work of the artist who most influenced the scribe, Joel ben Simeon.23 The absence of the rabbi is particularly striking since the scribe depicts so many new subjects, many not mentioned in the text, and thus could easily have included an image of the rabbi had he wanted to do so. But even more revealing is the scribe’s decision to represent images that oppose the teachings of some Italian rabbis. For example, some rabbis opposed men and women dancing together, particularly when they lacked decorous attire, yet a drawing in the Yiddish manuscript, which will be discussed at length in Chapter VI, shows both these features (Fig. 62). Italian rabbis also at times severely criticized the evils of card playing, especially if played for profit.24 Yet the scribe shows precisely that, with only a light-hearted attempt at criticism (Fig. 1). It may be that the scribe lived in a small community without benefit of a rabbi, but whatever his reason, it is clear that his omission of an image of a rabbi, and his depiction of practices that were opposed by some rabbis, suggest that for at least this one Jew rabbis were not central to his image of Jewish society.25

The Presence of Women Although the rabbi is absent in the images in this book of customs, women appear in as many as one third of the figural scenes. One problem in discussing this issue is determining the gender of the figures represented in the manuscript. Because the artist’s style is 23

See Chapter II. See Abraham P. Bloch, The Rabbinical and Historical Background of Jewish Customs and Ceremonies (New York: KTAV, 1980), 278, and Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 218. Sometimes gambling was permitted on Rosh Óodesh: see Landman, “Jewish Attitudes Towards Gambling,” 42–43. On the other hand, Leon Modena ascribed his own gambling compulsion to Satan, and the image of the serpent may well represent this idea. See the Appendix. 25 Nor was this Jew alone. Howard Adelman has recently concluded that, “Rabbinical authority in Venice was under siege during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both from within (by wealthy Jewish lay leaders, former Iberian Crypto-Jews, and internecine communal strife) and from without (by city magistrates and inquisitorial tribunals, both on the Iberian peninsula and in Venice). At the level of the individual and the family, Jews of both sexes often made decisions without the intervention of rabbis . . .” See “Jewish Women and Family Life, Inside and Outside the Ghetto,” in The Jews of Early Modern Venice, ed. by Robert C. Davis and Benjamin Ravid (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 143–65, here 164. See also note 15. 24


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naive and untrained,26 this is no easy task, but gender can be determined through costume and inscription. Women wear a short headcloth or roll their hair into a net; men cover their heads with a flat-topped hat, a close-fitting cap, or a tallit. Figures with beards and pants are indisputably male, and only women’s clothes show a scooped neckline just above the breasts. Finally, the caption for many images confirms the gender of the figures. The Yiddish words “r[” or “r[d” indicate a man, and “ayd” may refer to a woman or group of people. The difficulty in determining gender is best exemplified by the figure who performs Tashlikh on the High Holy Days (Fig. 66a). Although some scholars state otherwise,27 the person who enacts this ritual is marked as female. Her gender is made clear by her short headcloth, the curved neckline above her breasts, and the inscription, “She (aydI) does Tashlikh.” Only rarely is the body helpful in determining gender, but the clearly defined breasts of a figure bathing for Rosh Hashana indisputably reveal that she is a woman (Fig. 32b). The images in the Paris book of customs construct an ideal, and part of this ideal is that women are secondary to men. First, men are depicted much more frequently. Whereas a solid majority of folios (fifty-five) show only men, a tiny minority (six) depict only women.28 Second, men occupy the more privileged spaces. Not only do they appear more often in synagogue, but even when women are represented there, they are never permitted near the ark, bimah, and Torah; these locations are reserved for men. Only men parade with Torah scrolls on Sim˙at Torah, and only men stand at the bimah on Purim (Figs. 46b, 55). At Rosh Hashana, men are seated before the ark and hold the Torah, but women are far from these, relegated to a separate page (Figs. 25–26). Although the men face the figure who blows the shofar, the women see only his back. Furthermore, in this manuscript, men are often constructed as active, women as passive. For example, at Rosh Hashana, a man blows the shofar while women listen, and at Purim, only men hold hammers and groggers; the women’s hands are empty (Figs. 25–26, 55). Similarly, for the Havdalah only men hold the ritual objects and the women are pushed to one side (Fig. 18). In this manuscript, a man 26

See Chapter I. Ameisenowa, “An Illustrated Manual of Rituals,” and Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux 310. 28 The folios that show only women are Figs. 8b, 12, 16a, 52b, 54, and 66a. 27

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blesses a woman, but not the reverse, and a man lights the menorah, or Óanukkah candelabra, while a woman observes (Figs. 15b, 49a). On Passover, only the men are deemed worthy to collect and destroy the leavened bread (Fig. 3b).29 Furthermore, the captions reinforce the visual message that in synagogue women listen, whereas men speak and act. In a drawing of Purim, the caption states that the women hear the reading of the megillah; in a scene of Rosh Hashana, it relates that they listen to the sound of the shofar (Figs. 26, 55). Yet although the scribe generally depicts women in this manuscript as secondary to men, more passive, and restricted to less privileged spaces, he nonetheless constructs a complex, positive, and active spiritual role for women. First, whereas Christian images, and even some Jewish ones, denigrate Jewish women, the Yiddish manuscript never does. For example, several fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Hebrewlanguage Haggadot include an image of the husband pointing to his wife to indicate that she is bitter, like maror.30 But no such motif occurs in the book of customs. Nor does the scribe limit Jewish women to the three commandments that they were traditionally obliged to fulfill, and that were repeatedly stressed in rabbinic literature: hadlakat ha-ner, or the lighting of the Sabbath candles; niddah, or the purification following menstruation; and ˙allah, the burning or setting aside of a piece of the Sabbath dough as a symbolic donation to the Temple. In fact, only the first of these rituals is depicted, and it appears as a minor illustration in the corner of one folio (Fig. 8b). Rather, the scribe shows women performing a wide range of ritual roles, and many of these are positive mitzvot, that is, commandments that require the performance of a particular act. The scribe also depicts women fulfilling commandments that were considered time-bound, and were for that reason often thought obligatory only for men. For example, in the early seventeenth century, the North Italian rabbi Leon Modena wrote in his section on women in his treatise on Jewish ritual:

29 Several contemporary texts argue that women, due to their laziness, are incapable of performing this task properly; see Howard E. Adelman, “Rabbis and Reality: Public Activities of Jewish Women in Italy During the Renaissance and the Catholic Restoration,” Jewish History 5 (1991): 27–39, here 34. Traditionally men were shown performing this task; see Metzger, La haggada enluminée, pls. IV–VI. 30 See Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts, pl. 14, fig. 22, and Metzger, La haggada enluminée, 206–7, figs. 267–268.


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all those [precepts] that are time-bound the women are not obliged to do, because of their fragility and their weakness, and because of the obedience that they owe their husbands, and the obligation to employ themselves in serving them. Only three precepts in particular are assigned to them and recommended.

He then describes niddah, hallah, and lighting the Sabbath candles.31 As Howard Adelman has shown, however, the rabbinic discourse was pluralistic, with some authorities believing that certain positive, time-bound rituals were appropriate, or even obligatory, for women.32 Lawrence A. Hoffman has recently demonstrated that medieval women sometimes performed a role in circumcisions, but that later Jewish authorities sought to exclude such participation.33 Although most images in Hebrew manuscripts focus on the mohel and the male relative who holds the child during the act of circumcision (Fig. 75b), Eva Frojmovic has discovered a few medieval exceptions that visualize women as active participants.34 Drawing on Renaissance rabbinical sources, Robert Bonfil concluded that circumcision “was essentially masculine in nature: performed upon the male member, in the presence of men only, gathered around the father, while the mother was far from the scene, surrounded by other women.”35 But in the Yiddish manuscript, the berit milah is conceived as a custom that includes women. Three women appear in the only image of this ritual in the manuscript, and all are major characters (Fig. 63). The mother lies in her bed beside her son; a second woman attends to 31 The original Italian reads: “che tutti quelli che hanno tempo preffisso, le donne non sono tenuti a farli, assegnandone la causa alla imbellicità, e debolezza loro, per l’obedianza, che devono a mariti, e d’impiegarsi in servirli. Tre soli precetti sono in particolar ad essi assignati, e raccomandati.” See Leon Modena, Historia de’ riti hebraici, vita, ed osservanza de gl’Hebrei di questi tempi. Venice: Giovanni de Paoli, 1714), 109–10. 32 See Emily Taitz, “Women’s Voices, Women’s Prayers: Women in the European Synagogues of the Middle Ages,” in Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue, ed. by Susan Grossman and Rivka Haut (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1992), 59–71, and Howard Adelman, “Women and Mitzvot,” (unpublished). I would like to thank Prof. Adelman for generously allowing me to read his unpublished manuscript, which has greatly influenced my conceptualization of this chapter. 33 Hoffman, “The Role of Women at Rituals of Their Infant Children.” 34 See Eva Frojmovic, “Reframing Gender in Medieval Jewish Images of Circumcision,” in Framing the Family, ed. by Voaden and Wolfthal (forthcoming), and MortaraOttolenghi, “The Illumination and the Artists,” 177, fig. 20; Rothschild Miscellany, fol. 118v; Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 225–26; and Index of Jewish Art, ed. by Narkiss and Sed-Rajna, IV, Kaufmann Pesaro Siddur (Italian, 1481), fol. 227v. 35 Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 253.

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her, while a third serves food. Neither the mohel nor the male relative who holds the child during the act of circumcision is indicated at all. If we envision each ritual as a series of moments rather than one peak instant, then the drawing shows, not the circumcision proper, but the post-partum lying-in of the mother and child at home.36 Another strikingly unusual image shows men and women on the same floor of the synagogue for Rosh Hashana (Figs. 25–26). On the one hand, the women are placed in a less important space than the men. The scribe depicts them seated one behind the other along the north wall, turned sideways and facing towards the east. By contrast, the men are represented sitting frontally, one next to the other, along the privileged east wall, with their backs to the ark. A contemporary synagogue in Verona assigned women seats along the side wall, and in Venetian synagogues, according to Leon Modena, there was “a separate space above or to one side . . . for the women.” For this reason, the women’s location in the Yiddish drawing may reflect—and reinforce—contemporary practice. But another aspect of this image is quite remarkable. Leon Modena goes on to describe the “wooden screens for the women, who can pray and see what is going on, but cannot be seen by the men or mix with them, so as not to turn the mind aside from its prayers towards some sinful thought.”37 But in the image in the Yiddish manuscript the scribe has indicated no divider separating the sexes; no curtain, screen, or wall hides the women.38 Furthermore, they are as large as the men, they occupy 36 For related images showing the newborn in bed with his mother, who is served food by another woman, see Moïse dal Castellazzo’s Picture Bible (Venice, 1521). One depiction shows the birth of Isaac, and is accompanied by a scene of his circumcision. Another shows Jacob and Esau, but their circumcision is not depicted (fols. 24, 35). Möise, an Ashkenazic Jew, produced a book with captions in Italian and Hebrew. The book is lost, but copies survive. See Schubert, Bilder-Pentateuch. 37 Leon Modena, Historia de’riti Hebraici, 18: “Vi è un luogo appartato di sopra, ò appresso con gelosie di legno, per le donne, che stiano là ad orare, & veggano ciò che si sà, ma non possano esser figurate da gl’huomini, ne si mescolano con essi, per non deuiar la mente dale orationi a qualche pensiero di peccato.” Translation is from Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 217. 38 Bonfil reports that in a synagogue in Verona the rabbi’s wife occupied the easternmost seat, but the woman in the front of the line in Fig. 25 is not singled out visually at all: Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities, 170. Pfefferkorn’s print shows such a divider, but Sephardic images do not. See Fig. 70 and Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 68, fig. 95. Nor was it a new idea to omit the screen. Lee I. Levine concludes, “there can be no doubt that throughout late antiquity, Jews gathered in the synagogue without making any distinctions in seating arrangements for males and females.” See The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), 477.


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the foreground space, each has an open prayer book, suggesting literacy, and the only child that is depicted is a girl. Some rabbis felt that women were permitted to hear the blowing of the shofar; others felt they were obliged to hear it.39 The scribe shows both the women and a girl fulfilling this positive, time-bound commandment. Similarly, some rabbis argued that women should read the megillah in synagogue on Purim, but others felt that they should only hear it.40 The scribe shows the latter interpretation, a group of women fulfilling the commandment by listening to the megillah (Fig. 55), another positive, time-bound commandment. Another issue that was often debated in rabbinic literature is whether women could be counted for the minyan needed for the reading of the megillah.41 Four men and four women sit on benches, and two more congregants stand at the bimah. Is it simply coincidence that ten figures are shown, or is it possible that the scribe has counted the women as part of the minyan for Purim? What is certain is that in the drawing of Purim the women are no longer isolated on a separate page (as they are in the scene of Rosh Hashana), but rather are included on the same folio and in the same space as the men. Another striking feature of this manuscript is that the scribe shows a great number of rituals practiced only by women. Some are traditional customs performed in the home: a woman lights the Sabbath lamp and another puts cholent on the fire, and a third, holding a round mazzah, embodies Passover in a list of holidays at the end of the manuscript (Figs. 8b, 52b, 65a).42 But others are far from traditional and could just as well have been performed by men. Only a woman counts the days of Omer, only a woman assaults Amalek, only a woman performs Tashlikh, and only a woman bathes for Rosh Hashana (Figs. 12, 32b, 53, 66a).43 Again all of these are both positive and time-bound rituals. 39 Howard Adelman, “Women, Children, and Shofar,” part of his unpublished book on women’s religious practice that he has kindly allowed me to read. 40 See Howard Adelman, “Women, Children, and Megillah Reading,” part of his unpublished book. See also Avraham Weiss, Women at Prayer: A Halakhic Analysis of Women’s Prayer Groups (Hoboken, N.J.: KTAV, 2001, 1st edition 1990), 48–50, 125, 137, 140–41. 41 Adelman, “Women, Children, and Megillah Reading,” and Weiss, Women at Prayer, 50–51, 137–39. 42 She can be identified as a female by her low neckline, short headcloth, and the caption [“She (ayd) has a mazzah”]. 43 For these images, see the appendix below. For the image of Amalek, see Chapter VII. One other image shows a woman alone: fol. 18.

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The image of the bath for Rosh Hashana is especially unusual (Fig. 32b). The figure is marked as a woman by her long hair, down to the middle of her back, and her rounded, pendulous breasts. The bather is immersed in water (indicated by hatched lines), which fills a tub constructed of wooden slats. To the left, a man approaches carrying a small vessel of water. Very few images depict a mikveh.44 Unrelated in form to the tub in the Yiddish manuscript is a mikveh that is used to purify vessels, which appears in a Spanish codex of c. 1320–30.45 The best-known image of a ritual bath is an illumination in the Hamburg Miscellany, produced in Germany in 1427–28, which shows a woman purifying herself following menstruation (Fig. 76a).46 There the partially immersed, nude woman holds her forearms and lower legs away from the rest of her body, so that they will be thoroughly cleansed by the flowing waters. Situated below a scene of the husband awaiting his wife in bed, the mikveh seems to be subterranean and its form suggests that it was built of stone, much like surviving German examples. None of these elements appears in the image of the ritual bath in the Yiddish manuscript (Fig. 32b). Rather, the woman’s more vertical pose and the form of the tub closely resemble those in other Italian images of the bath, especially that on a coffer made in Northern Italy shortly before the manuscript, around 1460–80 (Fig. 76b).47 This scene, which shows the purification following menstru-

44 For the mikveh, see Judith Baskin, “Women and Ritual Immersion in Medieval Ashkenaz: The Sexual Politics of Piety,” in Judaism in Practice, ed. by Fine, 131–42; Shaye J. D. Cohen, “Menstruants and the Sacred in Judaism and Christianity,” in Women’s History and Ancient History, ed. by Sarah B. Pomeroy (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 273–99, and idem, “Purity, Piety, and Polemic: Medieval Rabbinic Denunciations of ‘Incorrect’ Purification Practices,” in Women and Water: Menstruation in Jewish Life and law, ed. by Rachel R. Wasserfall (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England and Brandeis University Press, 1999), 82–100. I would like to thank Judith Baskin for these references. 45 Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 75, fig. 111. 46 For this image, see Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts, 118; Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 75, fig. 106, and The Hebrew Book: An Historical Survey, ed. by Raphael Posner and Israel Ta-Shema ( Jerusalem: Keter, 1975), pl. 12. 47 For the coffer, see Mordechai Narkiss, “An Italian Niello Casket of the Fifteenth Century,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 21 (1958): 288–95; Grossman, Jewish Art, 173; and Shalom Sabar, “Bride, Heroine, and Courtesan: Images of the Jewish Woman in Hebrew Manuscripts of Renaissance Italy,” in Proceedings of the Tenth Congress of Jewish Studies. Division D ( Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1990) 2:63–70, here 67. For images of Jewish medicinal baths, see Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 87.


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ation, is clearly labeled niddah, and appears along with the two other duties that were obligatory for women. In short, although a few Jewish illuminations show scenes of the mikveh, to my knowledge the image in the Yiddish manuscript is the only representation of the bath for Rosh Hashana that appears in a book produced for a Jewish audience.48 Although both men and women may perform this ritual, the Yiddish scribe shows only a woman executing the essential task, that is, bathing, whereas a man, who approaches carrying a small vessel of water, serves a secondary, supporting role. In addition to those drawings that highlight women, others show women performing rituals on an equal basis with men. Together men and women bake mazzah and fetch water for Passover; they become engaged and marry (Figs. 3a, 14a–b, 60–61). They share meals on Rosh Hashana, Shavuot, and Purim, and dance together on Purim, at weddings, and on the Sabbath following Tishah be-Av (Figs. 21a, 24a, 29, 62, 67). They observe Havdalah and Óanukkah, enjoy the outdoors on Tu bi-Shevat, and celebrate the berit milah (Figs. 18, 49a, 51a, 63). Furthermore, Queen Esther is included, along with Moses and Gedaliah, among the representations of positive figures from the Jewish past (Fig. 54). Men and women listen to the megillah and the blowing of the shofar, and an image of prayer is particularly striking in its similar treatment of the man and woman who stand to either side of a lectern, which displays an open book (Figs. 25–26, 31b, 55).49 The caption reads simply, “they pray.” Nor is this the only drawing to suggest the idea of female literacy. A woman counts the days of Omer, which are written in Hebrew, and on Rosh Hashana women hold open books (Figs. 12, 26). Another way in which women are shown like men in this manuscript is that they enjoy themselves. As we have seen, they are repeatedly shown eating, drinking, and dancing. Similarly, men as well as women are shown attending to children and preparing food.50 Whereas a woman warms the cholent, men ready the fish for Rosh Óodesh (Figs. 52b, 58). 48 However, see Chapter III for the image of the mikveh for Rosh Hashana in Pfefferkorn’s book. 49 For a similar image of a couple praying together (albeit a biblical scene of Isaac and Rebecca), see the Picture Bible of 1521 in Schubert, Bilder-Pentateuch, fol. 33. 50 A mother lies next to her son at the Berit Milah, but it is a man who lifts a small child so he may gain a clearer view of the open Torah on Sim˙at Torah (Figs. 46a, 63). This may reflect the notion that men are responsible for children’s spiritual training. See Hoffman, “The Role of Women at Rituals of Their Infant Children,” 103.

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These images, in short, construct a broad range of possibilities for the spiritual life of Jewish women, which is to some extent in conflict with the dominant one that emerges from rabbinic literature. For example, Lawrence A. Hoffman concluded that “to a very great extent, medieval rabbis were able to define a system in which women were simply absent from synagogue life.”51 The Yiddish scribe, however, depicts them as present. Similarly, Judith Baskin has shown that the German Pietists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in such books as the Sefer Hasidim, constructed women as objects of desire.52 The Yiddish scribe, by contrast, shows women as having agency, as active subjects who participate in Jewish rituals. Robert Bonfil assumed, as we shall explore at greater length at the end of this chapter, that Jewish women in Renaissance Italy were “powerless, silent underlings.”53 But, as Howard Adelman has justly observed, we must “question the usual positivistic notion that rabbinic literature serves as a factual record of Jewish behavior.” Rather, we must view Jewish tradition as “pluralistic and flexible.”54 Although some rabbis might have preferred a more restrictive vision, the Yiddish scribe, through his images, imagined a rich spiritual life for women.

Why are Women Highlighted in these Images? Why does this manuscript show so many images that grant women agency in their spiritual lives? First, the Yiddish book of customs may represent an early stage of a phenomenon that Chava Weissler demonstrated existed later on, namely, that the less elite a Jewish author was, the higher his view of women.55 The image of womanhood constructed in this manuscript would not have been every Jew’s ideal, but it was that of the Yiddish scribe, who came from the middle ranks of society. 51

Hoffman, “The Role of Women at Rituals of Their Infant Children,” 102. Baskin, “From Separation to Displacement: The Problem of Women in Sefer Hasidim,” 1–18. 53 See note 88 below. 54 For a discussion of Italian Renaissance rabbinical literature’s ambivalent view of Jewish women, see “Finding Woman’s Voices in Italian Jewish Literature,” in Women of the Word: Jewish Women and Jewish Writing, ed. by Judith Baskin (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1990), 50–69, and idem, Howard Adelman, “Women and Mitzvot: An Introduction,” part of his unpublished book on women’s religious practice. 55 Weissler, Voices of the Matriarchs, 58. 52


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Second, Joan Kelly suggested that women experienced a loss of rights and freedoms over the course of the Renaissance, and evidence has been mounting ever since to support her thesis.56 Women’s legal and economic rights were abridged; women were increasingly portrayed in a negative light; and conduct books sought more and more to restrict women’s behavior.57 These changes did not apply only to Christian women. Agnes Romer Segal has demonstrated that Yiddish treatises on women’s commandments were more relaxed at the beginning of the sixteenth century than at the end.58 Similarly, the images in the Yiddish manuscript, completed around 1503, construct a broad, active, and positive role for women. In addition, the manuscript’s Italian provenance may be a contributory factor since Jewish women in Renaissance Italy participated in a wide range of social and religious roles.59 As Howard Adelman has observed, some women used tefillin, the phylacteries traditionally worn by men, some functioned as ritual slaughterers, and some became authors.60 Furthermore, at Mantua in 1478 and 1480 Rabbi Abraham Farisol copied two prayer books in Hebrew that contain a version of the morning prayer that was rewritten for a woman. One reads, “Blessed are you Lord, King of the Universe, who made

56 Joan Kelly-Gadol, “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” in Becoming Visible: Women in European History, ed. by Renate Bridenthal, Claudia Koonz, and Susan Mosher Stuard (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), 174–201 (the paper was first published in 1976). David Herlihy cites one exception, charismatic female saints; see “Did Women Have a Renaissance: A Reconsideration,” Medievalia et Humanistica, n.s. 13 (1985): 1–22. 57 For a summary of this research, see Wolfthal, Images of Rape, 180–81. 58 Alice Romer Segal, “Yiddish Works on Women’s Commandments in the Sixteenth Century,” in Studies in Yiddish Literature and Folklore, ed. by Chave Turiansky ( Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1986), 37–59, here 47. 59 Adelman, “Images of Women in Italian Jewish Literature in the Late Middle Ages,” and Sabar, “Bride.” 60 Some scholars argue that women became ritual slaughterers out of necessity, because they lived in isolated communities with husbands who often traveled. However, if this practice had been abhorrent to Italian Renaissance Jewish society, another solution would have evolved. Furthermore, even if the cause for this occasional practice was not a desire to expand women’s ritual roles, the result was precisely that. For this, the use of tefillin, and women authors, see Adelman, “Italian Jewish Women,” 139–41, and especially the revised edition of 1998 (150–68); idem, “Rabbis and Reality,” 32–34; idem, “The Educational and Literary Activities of Jewish Women in Italy during the Renaissance and Catholic Restoration,” in Shlomo Simonsohn Jubilee Volume, ed. by Daniel Carpi et al. (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1993), 9–23, here 13–14; idem, “Italian Jewish Women at Prayer,” 53–54, 57; Foa, The Jews of Europe after the Black Death, 112; and Sabar, “Bride,” 67.

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me a woman;” the other adds the words “and not a man.”61 In addition, Shalom Sabar argues that Italian Renaissance images depict women in a more positive fashion than do contemporary Sephardic and northern European ones.62 Rather than denigrating women and showing them in a submissive manner, Sabar cites instances when Italian art elevated women.63 Robert Bonfil, however, differs from Adelman and Sabar, and instead asserts that the vast majority of Jewish women in Renaissance Italy were confined to the kitchen, restricted to traditional female work, and, if they were young, spent their time waiting for marriage.64 The Yiddish manuscript, however, envisions women performing a wide range of ritual roles, from praying in synagogue on Rosh Hashana, to counting the days of Omer, to trampling and stoning Amalek, to guzzling wine on Purim. This supports the more positive picture painted in the publications of Shalom Sabar and Howard Adelman. Bonfil himself cites sample letters that Rabbi Samuel Archivolti composed in his youth. One envisions a young lady asking a rabbi whether she may study those sections of the Talmud that are expressly forbidden to women. In the sample response, the rabbi grants her permission to do so.65 This confirms the thesis that at least some Jews in Renaissance Italy—including some rabbis—were able to imagine a range of possibilities for women beyond service to their husbands and the three obligatory women’s commandments. A final possible explanation for the positive portrayal of women in the Paris book of customs is that the scribe was a woman. Based on surviving correspondence between mothers and sons, and men and their fiancées, Howard Adelman has concluded that in early modern Italy more Jewish women could read and write in both 61

Sabar, “Bride,” 68–69; Treasures Revealed, ed. by Rafael Weiser and Rivka Plesser ( Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 2000), 99; and Yoel Howard Kahn, “The Three Morning Blessings. ‘. . . Who Did Not Make Me . . .’ A Historical Study of a Jewish Liturgical Text” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, 1999), 207. This may well have been a wording found more often in the region of Southern France and Northern Italy, since it is repeated in a JudeoProvençal manuscript of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, which was written by a brother for his sister. See George Jochnowitz, “. . . Who Made Me a Woman,” Commentary 71 (1981), 63–64. 62 Sabar, “Bride,” 63–70. 63 Sabar, “Bride,” 67–68. 64 Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 133. 65 Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 133.


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Hebrew and the vernacular than has traditionally been thought.66 Furthermore, a few female scribes are documented. In late thirteenthand early fourteenth-century Italy, Paola bat Avraham, the daughter of a scribe, copied six Hebrew texts; in 1386 Hannan bat Mechachem served as a scribe; and in 1454 Frommet bat Yisakhar transcribed a rabbinic compendium of rules (Kizzur Mordechai ) for her husband.67 Michael Riegler has concluded that Paola was a scholar who was much sought after as a scribe, and that Frommet must have been an educated woman, since she hoped to study the book that she had produced.68 Women were also active in the production of printed books. The colophon of the Hebrew book Behinat Olam, published in Mantua in 1477, states, “I, Estellina, the wife of my worthy husband Abraham Conat, wrote this book.” In 1484, the colophons of two books printed in Augsburg cite the name of the widow Anna Rugerin. In addition, Devorah, widow of Jacob ben Asher, printed the fourth volume of his Arba’ah Turim, a Jewish law book, in Piove di Sacco, near Padua, to which she added a poem describing her family’s tragedies. In fact, as early as 1350, Giustina Levi-Perotti composed a sonnet, and in the sixteenth century several Jewish women were active in Italy as writers and publishers.69 Jewish women also participated in the production of illustrated books. In the early sixteenth century, the daughters of Moïse dal Castellazzo assisted him in creating a Picture Bible.70 In fact, like their Christian 66 Adelman, “The Educational and Literary Activities of Jewish Women in Italy,” 13–14. 67 Michael Riegler, “Colophons of Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts as Historical Sources” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Hebrew University, 1995), 194–96; Colette Sirat, Du scribe au livre (Paris: CNRS, 1994), 180–81; eadem, Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages, 134, 213–14; and eadem, “10 June 1386 Hannan bat Mechachem Zion Finished Her Copy of the Sefer Mitzwot Katan,” in Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana. Treasures of Jewish Booklore, ed. by Adri K. Offenburg, Emile G. J. Scrijver, and F. J. Hoogewoud, with the collaboration of Lies Kruiher-Poesiat (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1994), 6–7, here 7; and Binyamin Richler, Hebrew Manuscripts: A Treasured Legacy (Cleveland/Jerusalem: Ofeg Institute, 1990), 57. 68 Riegler, “Colophons of Medieval Habrew Manuscripts as Historical Sources,” 194–96. 69 Conat was a publisher of Hebrew texts in Mantua and Ferrara. For his wife and other women active in the book trade, see Adelman, “The Educational and Literary Activities of Jewish Women,” 16–22; Jennifer Breger, “The Role of Jewish Women in Hebrew Printing,” AB Bookman’s Weekly 91.13 (March 29, 1993): 1320–29; and Schubert, Jüdische Buchkunst, 29. 70 Schubert, Bilder-Pentateuch.

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counterparts,71 most Jewish women who worked in the book trade were daughters or wives of professionals in the field. Undoubtedly other undocumented women, working anonymously, assisted their male relatives in creating books. Thus it is conceivable that a woman could have copied the text and drawn the images in the Paris book of customs. But would this sort of book have appealed to a woman? Sporadic evidence reveals the type of books that were made for Jewish women. One document records that Reginette, a daughter of a Jewish doctor in Avignon, borrowed money, using as a pledge two prayer books for women written in Provençal in Hebrew letters.72 More often, scholars have deduced from visual and textual evidence that surviving books were made specifically for women. For example, the colophon of a Siddur from northeast Italy, completed in 1469, indicates that it was made for Menachem ben Samuel and his daughter Maraviglia, but some scholars have argued that it was intended primarily for Maraviglia, since its images feature women performing rituals.73 A fifteenth-century prayer book from Provence includes not only such exclusively male prayers as the blessing over the zizit, but also an inscription, written in large gold letters on the frontispiece, which cites the blessing to Rebecca (Genesis 24:60), “Our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of ten thousands.” Since this text is traditionally recited when a bride is veiled, the manuscript probably served as a wedding gift to a bride.74 As mentioned above, two north Italian prayer books, dated 1478 and 1480, were also commissioned for women, as indicated by the re-wording of the morning prayer.75

71 For a summary of the literature on Christian women artists, see Diane Wolfthal, “Agnes van den Bossche, Early Netherlandish Painter,” Woman’s Art Journal 6 (1985): 8–11, and eadem, “Writing the History of Women Artists: The Case of Margaret van Eyck,” in Essays on Women Artists “The Most Excellent”, ed. by Liana Cheney (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003), 1:19–40. 72 Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews (New York and Philadelphia: Columbia University Press and Jewish Publication Society, 1967) 11:106, and A. Neubauer, review of Gustave Bayle, Les Médecins d’Avignon au moyen-âge, Revue des études juives 5 (1882): 306–7: “matutinas pro muliere ebrayca scriptas sive romancio.” 73 Bezalel Narkiss, “The Art of the Washington Haggadah,” in The Washington Haggadah, 36 and 46. The images showing only women appear on fols. 31, 55, 55v, and 74v of London, British Library, MS. Add. 26957. 74 Eva Frojmovic, Hebraica and Judaica from the Cecil Roth Collection (Leeds: Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, 1997), 54 cat. no. 21. See also George Jochnowitz, “. . . Who Made Me a Woman.” 75 Treasures Revealed, ed. by Weiser and Plesser, 99.


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Besides imagery that focuses on women and gender-specific prayers or content, another criterion for determining whether books were made for women is their language. Since few Jewish women were well versed in Hebrew, most relied on vernacular texts.76 Agnes Romer Segal has demonstrated that among the hundreds of book lists that the Jews of Mantua were forced to submit to Church censors in 1595, compilations of women’s commandments, which were presumably geared for a female audience, “were the most popular among the Yiddish manuscripts owned and the third most popular among the printed Yiddish books. A further indication of the importance of these works is that in the first one hundred years of Yiddish printing, there were at least ten printings of books of women’s commandments.”77 In the collection of Jewish manuscripts in Parma, only four codices, all Siddurim, are known to have been made for women, and all are written in the vernacular. The first was completed in 1499 at Cento by David ben Menachem of Arles, who wrote it in Judeo-Italian for his sister Bona, wife of Bonaventura ben Solomon Hazak. The second was also written in Judeo-Italian in the late fifteenth century. Shemariah ben Abraham Je˙iel finished it in 1484 for Gentile, the daughter of the Italian banker Isaac ben Immanuel di San Miniato.78 The third, completed in early fifteenth-century Germany, has Yiddish instructions that are specifically geared for women and includes for the morning benediction only the traditional blessing that is recited by women.79 The last vernacular manuscript in Parma is an Italian fifteenth-century book; its instructions are also composed in Yiddish and its blessings again include those specifically written for women.80 76

Adelman notes the “generally poor state of Hebrew knowledge among Italian Jewish women” in specific, but also among Italian Jews in general; see “The Educational and Literary Activities of Jewish Women,” 9–23, here 23); idem, “Rabbis and Reality,” 30–31. Baskin concludes that Jewish women generally knew the vernacular, not Hebrew: see “Some Parallels in the Education of Medieval Jewish and Christian Women,” Jewish History 5 (1991): 41–51, here 42. Baruchson-Arbib, La culture livresque des juifs d’Italie à la fin de la Renaissance (Paris: CNRS, 2001) 21, concludes that the majority of Jewish men knew Hebrew or at least could decipher it, but a minority of women could read and write it. 77 Romer Segal, “Yiddish Works on Women’s Commandments,” 40. 78 Hebrew Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma. Catalogue, ed. by Benjamin Richler with Malachi Beit-Arié ( Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 2001), 298, MSS. Parm. 2147 and Parm. 1989, cat. nos. 1132–1133. A fifth manuscript, a Hebrewlanguage Pentateuch and Haftorot, was made for a married couple in early-fifteenth century Italy by relatives of the bride. 79 Hebrew Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Palatina, 263, MS. Parm. 2575, cat. no. 1049. 80 Hebrew Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Palatina, 260, MS. arm. 1743, cat. no. 1039.

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Other Yiddish books made for women include a translation of the psalms and proverbs, which was completed in 1532 for Pesslin, a rabbi’s daughter who lived in Prague. Among north Italian books, a woman commissioned a Yiddish anthology by Anshl Levi, which was produced in 1579; an early sixteenth-century Shmuel Bukh was written for Friedlin; and Manachem Katz commissioned for his daughter Serlina, then aged 21, a Miscellany the first part of which was completed in Venice in the mid-sixteenth century.81 Furthermore, prefaces and title pages of some Yiddish printed books cite women as their exclusive audience. But only a small minority—thirteen percent—of such title pages cite women, and statements that Yiddish books were intended for women should not be taken at face value, since, as Jerold Frakes has justly observed, they represent a literary topos, not a historical fact.82 It is impossible to determine the percentage of Yiddish books that were produced for women or the percentage of Jewish women who read Yiddish books. As Chava Weissler observes, “most men did not acquire enough knowledge to take part in rabbinic culture in any but the most perfunctory ways.” She concludes that some Yiddish books were geared for women, others for men, and still others for a mixed audience.83 Erika Timm and Chava Turiansky echo this sentiment, concluding that although “a great deal of Old Yiddish literature” was written for women, this “by no means signifies that the male members of the family—particularly those who were not fluent in reading Hebrew literature—did not belong to the habitual readership.”84 For this reason, it is necessary to study each book individually to determine its intended and actual audience. The books made for women discussed above suggest another criterion, since so many are liturgical in nature. In particular, all four

81 Meyer Waxman, A History of Jewish Literature (New York and London: Thomas Yoseloff, 1960; first edition 1933) 2:619; Yiddish in Italia, ed. by Timm and Turiansky, 14, 16, 35. 82 I wish to thank Jerold Frakes for our many fruitful discussions. This statement is found in a personal communication of Feb. 1999. For the percentage of title pages mentioning women, see Israel Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, trans. and ed. by Bernard Martin (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University, 1975), 7:124. For the older literature that falsely represents Yiddish books as “women’s literature” for ideological reasons, see Jerold C. Frakes, The Politics of Interpretation: Alterity and Ideology in Old Yiddish Studies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), esp. 16. 83 Weissler, “The Religion of Traditional Ashkenazic Women,” 78–79. 84 Yiddish in Italia, ed. by Timm and Turiansky, 16.


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books from Parma, as well as five others, are prayer books. Certainly many vernacular prayer books were made for men, but the Yiddish manuscript shows other characteristics that suggest a female audience. Although it has no colophon and its prayers do not betray that they were intended for a particular gender, the Paris book of customs shares similarities with manuscripts that were made for women. Not only is its language vernacular and its text liturgical, but its images also highlight women performing rituals. Furthermore, the only known owners of Yiddish books of customs are women, and they include two women from sixteenth-century Venice, Fraydlina and Serlina.85 But although the manuscript may have been written and illustrated by a woman for her own use, evidence remains inconclusive on this point.

Conclusions Robert Bonfil writes that in his approach he will adopt “the point of view of the minority,”86 that is, Jews, as opposed to Christians. But this phrase implies that all Jews shared an identical outlook. In fact, as Joanna Weinberg observes, in Bonfil’s work, “The voice of the Jew in the street is mostly absent . . .; the acceptance of rabbinic and communal control by each and every Italian Jew cannot be taken for granted.” She further concludes that “Bonfil’s stress on the centrality of the rabbinate for Italian Jewish life is an ideological one.”87 David Ruderman, too, has criticized Bonfil for seeing Jews as an undifferentiated mass, rather than as a group of individuals, who, for example, exhibited varying levels of engagement with Christian ideas.88 In fact, the images in the Yiddish manuscript do not support Bonfil’s view of Jews as a uniform body whose central figure is the rabbi. Nor do they support his view of women, as evidenced by such remarks as “the figure of the Jew (the male Jew, of course),” “this is how the female also takes shape, as a powerless 85 Moritz Steinschneider, “Judisch-deutsche Litteratur und Jüdisch-Deutsch” (1866): 137; see above, Chapter II, n. 4 (for Fraydlina, Serlina, and Chana). 86 Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, xi. 87 Joanna Weinberg, review of Bonfil’s Rabbis and Jewish Communities, in Journal of Semitic Studies 37 (1992): 329. 88 David Ruderman, review of Bonfil’s Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, in Renaissance Quarterly 49 (1996): 852.

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silent underling,” and “Jewish women, doomed to inferiority by their gender.”89 For the Yiddish scribe women are major figures who sometimes possess great strength (Fig. 53). Furthermore, Bonfil observes that “a firm guiding hand had to be kept on [ Jewish] society by exercising control over literature, which was always seen as a potential threat to social equilibrium.”90 But who controlled the Yiddish scribe who drew images of men and women dancing together to the raucous music of the bagpipe, and a naked woman’s uncovered hair and breasts (Figs. 32b, 62)? Rather than expressing an essential, universal Jewish point of view, in this manuscript Jewish identity is multi-layered and specific: the class is non-elite, the costumes are Italian, the culture is Ashkenazic, and the mood is joyous.

89 Bonfil, “Reading in the Jewish Communities of Western Europe in the Middle Ages,” 153; idem, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 257; and idem, “Changing Mentalities of Italian Jews,” Italia 11 (1994); 63–79, here 73. 90 Bonfil, “Reading in the Jewish Communities,” 153–54.

PART TWO

THE PRINTED BOOKS OF CUSTOMS (VENICE, 1593 AND 1600)

CHAPTER FIVE

INTRODUCTION TO THE PRINTED BOOKS OF CUSTOMS

Jews participated in the printing revolution, the “shift from script to print” that swept across Europe over the course of the fifteenth century.1 As early as 1446, a Jew from Avignon, Davin de Caderousse, commissioned a set of iron Hebrew letters, including final characters, from a goldsmith, but what he printed with them remains unknown.2 The earliest dated book printed in Hebrew was published in Rome in 1469, some fifteen years after Gutenberg’s Bible.3 Soon the numbers of Jewish printed books swelled, and the brisk trade in such texts became international in scope. Presses from Prague to Mantua and from Basel to Cracow produced Jewish books, which were then sold to Jews (and sometimes to Christian Hebraicists) throughout Europe and sometimes as far away as Syria.4 One Italian Renaissance publisher alone printed 273 Hebrew titles, and Paul F. Grendler has estimated that the average print run was 800–1000 copies for less popular titles, and 2000–3000 for those in high demand.5 1 For the printing revolution, see Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 13. 2 Ittai Joseph Tamari, “Notes on the Printing in Hebrew Typefaces from the 15th to 19th Centuries,” in Middle Eastern Languages and the Print Revolution: A CrossCultural Encounter, ed. by Eva Hanebutt-Benz, Dagmar Glass, and Geoffrey Roper (Westhoven: WVA Verlag Skulima, 2002), 33–52, here 52. 3 Yeshayahu Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book ( Jerusalem: The Institute for Computerized Bibliography in Hebrew, 1993) 2:659, Rome no. 1. For Gutenberg’s Bible, dated 1452–55, see Elisabeth Geck, Johannes Gutenberg: From Lead Letter to the Computer (Bad Godesberg: Inter Nationes, 1968), 34. 4 Books were sold, in part, by itinerant booksellers: see Cecil Roth and Abraham M. Habermann, “Book Trade,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 4:1238. Moshe N. Rosenfeld, “The Origins of Yiddish Printing,” in Origins of the Yiddish Language. Oxford Winter Symposium in Yiddish Language and Literature, ed. by Dovid Katz (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1987), 121–26, lists books published before 1558; see Chone Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing Presses in Italy,” Italia 3:1982, 112–75 (in Hebrew) for Italian sites. For sales to Syria, see Paul F. Grendler, “The Destruction of Hebrew Books in Venice, 1568,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 45 (1978): 103–130, here 128. For sales to Africa, India, Egypt, and the Near East, see Zipora Baruchson, “Money and Culture: Financing Sources and Methods in the Hebrew printing Shops in Cinquecento Italy,” La Bibliofilia, I, 1990, 27, 32. 5 Jean Baumgarten, “Giovanni di Gara, imprimeur de livres Yiddish à Venise

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part two ‒ chapter five

Northern Italy soon became the center for Jewish publishing, with presses operating in Brescia, Cremona, Mantua, Sabbioneta, and Verona. But Venice was the leading producer of Jewish books, especially over the years 1520–1609.6 Because Jews were generally prohibited from publishing books in Venice, Christians controlled the industry. In the first half of the sixteenth century, the Fleming Daniel Bomberg was the foremost publisher of Jewish books in Venice. From 1564–1609 another Christian, the Venetian Giovanni di Gara, took the lead.7 But Christian publishers needed Jews to edit, typeset, and proofread Hebrew and Yiddish texts, and to advise them of the sensibilities of a Jewish audience. Cornelius Adelkind, for example, served both Bomberg and di Gara in this role. In short, from the beginning, Jewish book publishing in Italy was a collaborative venture between Jews and Christians. Although most Jewish books were published in Hebrew, some appeared in vernacular languages. The first printed Yiddish text was a song in a Hebrew-language Haggadah that was published in Prague in 1526. The first entire printed book geared for Yiddish readers, a Hebrew-Yiddish lexicon of the Bible, was published in Cracow in the early 1530s.8 But Venice soon became the center for Yiddish book production. Of the thirty-five Yiddish texts printed in Italy between 1545 and 1609, twenty-three have a Venetian provenance.9 The earliest Yiddish book produced in Italy was Elijah Ba˙ur’s translation of the book of Psalms, which was published by Cornelius Adelkind in Venice in 1545.10 Di Gara’s first attempt at Yiddish (milieu du XVe—début du XVIe siècle) et la culture juive de la renaissance,” Revue des études juives 159 (2000): 587–98, here 587; Abraham H. Habermann and Yizhak Yudlov, Giovanni di Gara. Printer, Venice 1564–1610. List of Books printed at his Press ( Jerusalem: Habermann Institute for Literary Research, 1982; and Grendler, “The Destruction of Hebrew Books,” 105, 112–16; idem, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540–1605 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 9–11; and Elliott Horowitz, “Families and their Fortunes: The Jews of Early Modern Italy,” in Cultures of the Jews, ed. by David Biale (New York: Schocken, 2002), 573–636, here 601. 6 Feuchtwanger-Sarig, “How Italian are the Venice Minhagim of 1593?,” 178. 7 Feuchtwanger-Sarig, “How Italian are the Venice Minhagim of 1593?,” 178, 180, and Habermann and Yudlov, Giovanni di Gara. For a recent biography of this printer, see Giulio Busi, “Di Gara, Giovanni,” in Dizionario dei tipografi e degli editori italiani. Il Cinquecento, ed. by Marco Menato, Ennio Sandal, and Giuseppina Zappella (Milan: Editrice Bibliografico, 1997) 1:378–79. 8 Rosenfeld, “The Origins of Yiddish Printing,” 111. 9 Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 125. 10 Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 135–36, no. 1. Elijah Ba˙ur’s Christian name was Elijah Levita.

introduction to the printed books of customs

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publishing was a Mizvat ha-Nashim, or book of women’s commandments, dated 1588.11 But Yiddish books constituted a small percentage of the entire Jewish book production in Italy, and because they were less valued than texts in the holy language, they survive in fewer numbers.12 Of the thirty-five Yiddish books published in sixteenth-century Italy that Chone Shmeruk catalogues, thirteen are completely lost and many survive in only one copy.13 The earliest surviving printed example of an illustrated Jewish text may well be an early fifteenth-century woodcut, found in the Cairo Genizah, which shows a Hebrew blessing (Deuteronomy 28:6) accompanied by seven black and brown pomegranates. This single-leaf print, which reads, “Blessed are you in your coming in, blessed are you in your going out,” was probably intended to hang above a doorway.14 The first printed Jewish book with illustrations appeared thirty years after the first Christian one. A Hebrew-language edition of Isaac ibn Sahula’s Meshal ha-Kadmoni was published in Brescia in 1491 with over eighty woodcuts.15 It is not surprising that this book of fables was illustrated, since its manuscript versions had traditionally been illuminated. Fifty-five years later, the first Yiddish text was adorned with woodcuts. In 1546, the Christian humanist Christoph Froschauer published in Zurich a profusely illustrated edition of Yosipon, a book of biblical history from Adam and Eve to the destruction of the Second Temple, which is based loosely on Josephus. Soon other illustrated Yiddish texts were published.16 This chapter will first examine the illustrations in the two printed Yiddish books of customs, focusing on their style, subjects, and organization, and situating them within the context of both Jewish and Christian book 11 Feuchtwanger-Sarig, “How Italian are the Venice Minhagim of 1593?,” 184, and Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 148–49, no. 17. 12 Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 120; Prager and Hill, “Yiddish Manuscripts in the British Library,” 82. 13 Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 112. 14 Tamari, “Notes on the Printing in Hebrew Typeface,” 37, 453, and Stefan C. Reif, A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo (Richmond: Curzon, 2000), 198. I date this print later than these two sources. 15 Abraham H. Habermann, “The Jewish Art of the Printed Book,” in Jewish Art: An Illustrated History, ed. by Cecil Roth, revised by Bezalel Narkiss (London: Valentine, Mitchell, 1971, first edition 1961), 169. Some illustrated European broadsheets may date earlier, if they were indeed intended for a Jewish audience: see 170–71. 16 Chone Shmeruk, The Illustrations in Yiddish Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: The Texts, the Pictures, and their Audience ( Jerusalem: Akademon, 1986), 38–39 (in Hebrew).

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illustration. It will then compare these images to those in the Paris manuscript, exploring the reasons for the striking differences in both their general mood and their representation of gender and identity. Rather than asking whether the printed books are the products of a “pure” Jewish or Italian culture, as earlier publications have done, this chapter will accept as given that they were multicultural, and explore the implications of this circumstance.17

The First Illustrated Printed Book of Customs Books of customs were a popular genre among Jewish readers. Versions by several rabbis were produced in both manuscript and printed form and in Hebrew as well as Yiddish.18 Giovanni di Gara alone published three Yiddish editions in Venice. In 1589, the year after his initial venture into Yiddish publishing, he printed his first Yiddish book of customs, Simon Levi Gunzburg’s translation of the Minhagim of Isaac Tyrnau, a fourteenth-century Austrian rabbi.19 Gunzburg, who came from Swabia, collaborated with di Gara on several projects. Only three years later di Gara published a second Yiddish edition, and this time it was illustrated.20 Demand for such books must 17 See the last section of this chapter, “The Printed Books as Multicultural Phenomena.” 18 For the editions of the Minhagim by Isaac Tyrnau, including the first Hebrew printed version of 1566 and the eight subsequent sixteenth-century editions, see Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 126, and Baumgarten, “Prières, rituals et pratiques dans la société juive ashkénaze,” 390. For the printed Yiddish versions of Gunzburg, see also Baruchson-Arbib, La culture livesque des juifs d’Italie, 86. For the Minhagim of the Maharil, Rabbi Jacob ben Moshe ha-Levi Moelln, see Baumgarten, “Prières,” 389, and Sidney Steiman, Custom and Survival: A Study of the Life and Work of Rabbi Jacob Molin (Moelln) known as the Maharil (c. 1360–1427) (New York: Bloch, 1963). For the Minhagim of Rabbi Abraham Klausner, see Baruchson-Arbib, La culture livesque des juifs d’Italie, 85, and Baumgarten, “Prières,” 389. For manuscript versions of the Minhagim, see Freimann, Union Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts and their Locations, 2:214–15; Chapter I, n. 36; and Chapter II, note 4. 19 For this edition, see Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 149–53, no. 18; Baumgarten, “Prières,” 369–403; and Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book, 2:258 no. 746 (in Hebrew). 20 For this edition, see Morris Epstein, “Simon Levi Ginzburg’s Illustrated Custumal (Minhagim-Book) of Venice, 1593, and its Travels,” Proceedings of the Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 3–11 Aug. 1969. World Union of Jewish Studies ( Jerusalem:World Union of Jewish Studies, 1972), 197–210; Feuchtwanger-Sarig, “How Italian are the Venice Minhagim of 1593?,” 180; Moses Marx, Annalen des Hebraeisch Buchdrucken in Italian 1501–1600, unpublished typescript manuscript, Cincinnati, 1927–31, n.p; Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 153–55, no. 19; idem, Illustrations


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have been great, since in 1600 he published a third book of customs, which was again illustrated. In fact, di Gara’s interest was not an isolated one. Soon other Italians began producing vernacular books in order to educate Jews about their religion. In 1602 a Ladino edition of the Shul˙an Arukh was prepared, and twelve years later Leon Modena wrote an Italian book on Jewish customs, partially for Jews who could not read Hebrew.21 Di Gara’s second edition, that of 1593, shows on its title page an angel holding an escutcheon decorated with an ewer, Gunzburg’s emblem, which refers to his status as a Levi.22 Zipora BaruchsonArbib has justly termed di Gara a “printing contractor,” who offered his printing services to a range of “Jewish scholars, rabbis, merchants, [and] local and Eastern Jews.” In this way, following a common practice in the Italian Renaissance publishing industry, he raised funds to finance his own books.23 Naomi Feuchtwanger-Sarig concurs with this assessment of Gunzburg’s role. She points to the title page of a book that di Gara issued in 1597, which informs the reader that Gunzburg initiated its publication after finding its text in manuscript form.24 The interior of the book of customs is adorned with two sets of figural illustrations. One consists of twelve small prints, which are each divided into two sections. The narrower left side shows a zodiac sign beneath a burning sun, while the wider right side depicts a labor of the month (Fig. 77). These woodcuts accompany the section headings that announce the first day of each month, which is usually printed in large, bold letters. In this way, both word and image serve to help readers locate the text for a particular holiday, since, except for the rituals for the Sabbath and the first of the month, holidays are in Yiddish Books, 42–46, 50–53, 70–72; Steinschneider, Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, 1: 599, no. 3820; Johann Christoff Wolf, Bibliotheca Hebraea (Hamburg and Leipzig: Christiani Liebezeit, 1721), 2:1354, no. 373; and Vinograd, Thesaurus, 2:259 no. 784. Copies of this book are preserved in Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York; the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem; and the Gross Family Collection, Tel Aviv. For the latter, see Iris Fischof, Written in the Stars: Art and Symbolism of the Zodiac ( Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 2001), fig. 5. 21 Adelman, “Success and Failure in the Eighteenth-Century Ghetto of Venice: The Life and Thought of Leon Modena,” 454, 458. The Shul˙an Arukh is Joseph Caro’s halakhic overview of his earlier commentary on Jacob ben Asher’s Arba’ah Turim. 22 Feuchtwanger-Sarig, “How Italian are the Venice Minhagim of 1593?,” 192, 195. 23 Baruchson, “Money and Culture,” 33. 24 Feuchtwanger-Sarig, “How Italian are the Venice Minhagim of 1593?,” 195.

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discussed in chronological order, beginning with the month of Nisan and continuing through the annual cycle. Following a common costsaving practice among printers, di Gara reused the zodiac prints he had on hand, rather than commissioning new ones.25 As FeuchtwangerSarig has shown, the zodiac series had appeared earlier in a Haggadah printed by Joseph Shalit ben Jacob Ashkenazi at Mantua in 1568, that is, some twenty-five years earlier.26 For this reason, these prints do not necessarily reflect contemporary practices. The book also includes twenty-six larger woodcuts that show scenes of religious rituals. Here di Gara adopted another widespread costsaving practice. Rather than paying an artist to design a large number of prints, he chose to reproduce several woodcuts more than once, so that the same scene serves to illustrate more than one custom.27 For example, an image of a woman blessing the light cast by a burning candelabra is used to represent both Friday evening and erev Yom Kippur, or the evening that begins the Day of Atonement (Fig. 78b). Similarly, a scene of men standing below the moon is reproduced for the blessing over the new moon and Shabbat ha-Óodesh (Fig. 79a). At times images seem misplaced. A standard composition of the family searching for leaven is printed next to the text for this custom, but then is oddly reprinted beside a description of how to draw mitzvah, or ritual, water from the well and store it away from sunlight (Fig. 79b). The twenty-six woodcuts that show rituals are situated in the body of the text and parallel its contents. The book begins by discussing how to celebrate the Sabbath and Rosh Óodesh, and the accompanying prints show Havdalah, the blessing of the Sabbath light, and the blessing of the new moon (Figs. 78a–79a). The latter two images appear beside the text that should be recited when performing these acts. The next section, the longest in the book, is a discussion of the 25 For this practice, see Mira Friedman, “Transplanted Illustrations in Jewish Printed Books,” Jewish Art 14 (1988): 44–55. 26 Feuchtwanger-Sarig, “How Italian are the Venice Minhagim of 1593?,” For the prints in the Mantua Haggadah, see Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Haggadah and History: A Panorama in Facsimile of Five Centuries of the Printed Haggadah (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1997, first edition 1975), pl. 30. Here five prints are aligned vertically to form a border on one page, while seven appear on the next page. Since these images bear no relation to the text and are awkwardly turned on their side so they are hard to read, they were almost certainly not designed for this book, as Yerushalmi justly notes. 27 For this practice, see Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution, 58–61.


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annual cycle of holidays. The first woodcut represents Shabbat haGadol through an image of a man delivering a sermon (Fig. 80a). Then Passover is visualized through four scenes: bringing wheat to be ground at the mill, koshering kitchen vessels, searching for leaven,28 and baking mazzot (Figs. 79v, 80b). Next Lag be-Omer is depicted by a print of a barber cutting a man’s hair, since on this holiday the mourning customs, which are in effect during the rest of Omer, are suspended (Fig. 81a).29 For Shavuot, a woodcut shows Moses receiving the Law (Fig. 82a). For Tishah be-Av, men sit on the ground, weeping and reading from the book of Lamentations before a vision of the burning Temple (Fig. 82b). For Rosh Óodesh Elul, a man blows the shofar to usher in the penitential season, a print that is repeated for Rosh Hashana (Fig. 83a). The image for Shabbat Shuva repeats the woodcut of a man delivering a sermon, since on this Sabbath between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, known as the Sabbath of Repentance, the rabbi traditionally delivered a sermon (Fig. 80a).30 Next Yom Kippur is represented through three woodcuts: Kapparot, a woman blessing the light, and Moses receiving the Law (Figs. 78b, 82a).31 For Sukkot, one print shows a sukkah, and the other shows two men, one with a basket of lulavim on his back, and both holding the ritual plants for this holiday. To illustrate Hoshana Rabba, which Jews believe is the final day before one’s fate is sealed for the coming year, two figures, one darkened and headless, represent the belief that if on this night one’s shadow lacks one’s head, then one will die during the next year. Then a couple distributes sweets to children on Sim˙at Torah. For Óanukkah a man lights a menorah, and for Tu bi-Shevat a table is covered with fruits (Fig. 83b). Next follows a series of images of the special Sabbaths that precede Passover. For the first, Shabbat Shekalim, a man weighs coins, because the weekly Torah reading for this Sabbath is Exodus 30:11–16, which includes the obligation to donate a shekel towards the maintenance of the Temple. For Shabbat Zakhor, the Sabbath of Remembrance, on which Jews are enjoined to remember—and destroy—Amalek, 28 This scene appears twice in a row, once mistakenly to accompany the text that exaplains how to prepare mitzvah water. See above. 29 For Lag be-Omer and this image, see below. 30 Cyrus Adler and Wolf Willner, “Shabbat Shubah,” in Jewish Encyclopedia, ed. by Isidore Singer (New York: KTAV, 1964), 11:216. 31 This theme may be represented because the accompanying text speaks of the heavens opening and the Torah being given.

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the treacherous biblical enemy of the Jews, an army stands ready for the battle between Amalek and the Israelites (Fig. 84a).32 For Shabbat Parah, the third special Sabbath, a heifer is burned, since the weekly Torah reading (Numbers 19:1–22) mentions the purification, through the ashes of a red heifer, of those who had come in contact with a corpse. For Shabbat ha-Óodesh, the last of the four special Sabbaths, the scene of the men standing below the moon is repeated (Figs. 79a).33 The annual cycle of holidays concludes with an image of Purim, two men and a boy wearing fools’ caps and carrying musical instruments and a wine jug (Fig. 84b).34 The final woodcuts accompany a section devoted to life-cycle events: a wedding, a circumcision, and a funeral (Figs. 85–86a). These woodcuts are German in style. Their costumes and furnishings are German, and the prints are close to those in Jost Amman’s Ständebuch, an extensive series of woodcuts that represent contemporary trades (Fig. 81b).35 The Ständebuch was well known in German publishing circles, since it was originally printed in both Latin and German editions in Frankfurt in 1568, and then reissued in a second German edition six years later. Amman, the leading woodcut designer in Nuremberg and a specialist in book illustration, produced woodcuts that show a great interest in aspects of everyday life. Benjamin A. Rifkin aptly describes his style in the Ständebuch: Setting and embellishment are reduced to a minimum which presents the primary significant actions of a craftsman and details of his tools and goods with maximum clarity . . . In these, and related works . . ., a method of woodcut design was achieved that closely conformed to the technical limitations of the block cutter. Amorphous modeling resulted from the precedence of line over plane; hatching patterns were evenly parallel to distinguish segments of form in a legible image rather 32

For an extensive discussion of this image, see Chapter VII below. For the image of Shabbat Shekalim, see Rachel Wischnitzer, “The Moneychanger with the Balance: A Topic of Jewish Iconography,” in eadem, From Dura to Rembrandt. Studies in the History of Art (Milwaukee: Aldrich, 1990), 120–24. Her observation that the balance “was not felt to be an indispensable accessory of the trade of the moneychanger,” but rather is invoked as a reference to the word shekel (“weight’), is confirmed by images of tax collectors in Sienese archives. See Ubaldo Morandi, Le Biccherne Sienesi: La Tavolette della biccherna della gabella e di altre magistrature dell’antico stato senese (Siena: Monte dei Pasci, 1964). 34 For the later reproduction of this image, see Chone Shmeruk, “The Itinerary of an Illustration since 1593,” Journal of Jewish Art 8 (1981): 54–59. 35 The Book of Trades [Ständebuch], Jost Amman and Hans Sachs, intro. by Benjamin A. Rifkin (New York: Dover, 1973). 33


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than create atmospheric effects; features were often abbreviated to a few notations of eyebrow and nose and mouth; and a few suggestive strokes sufficed for the texture of beards, draperies and masonry.36

These aspects agree with the woodcuts in the first illustrated printed book of customs. But it is not only the style, but also at times the composition that is remarkably similar, as can be seen by comparing Amman’s Barber with the print for Lag be-Omer (Figs. 81a–b).37 Both show three large round mirrors hanging on the wall, and, in the center foreground, a barber trimming a man’s hair. In both, the customer, who is draped with a cloth, sits in a chair, stretching one leg out while bending the other back. Both prints show him resting his arm on an armrest, below which is depicted a herringbone pattern, which is identifiable in Amman’s print as a cushion. Other images share additional similarities. For example, Amman’s glass windows often show a round central pane and a diagonal crack, much like those in several woodcuts in the book of customs, for example, the scene of the Sabbath blessing (Fig. 78b).38 Such comparisons suggest that Amman’s prints or derivations of them were one source for the artist who designed the woodcuts of Jewish ritual. These prints are so thoroughly German in style that their woodblocks may even have been produced in Germany, and then brought to Italy.39 It should not be surprising that these images are German, since Italian publishers printed illustrations from a broad geographical range, including Germany.40 However, despite their dependence on Amman’s work, the illustrations were adjusted for a Jewish audience. For example, in the scenes of Moses receiving the Law and the Weighing of the Shekalim, God’s full body is not represented, as it is in Christian imagery, but rather at most his arm and hand (Fig. 82a).41 But although the prints were adapted for their Jewish viewers, a Christian most likely designed them.42 First, unlike the drawings in the 36

Rifkin, Book of Trades, xxxi. Rifkin, Book of Trades, 59. 38 See, for example, the tapestry weaver in Rifkin, Book of Trades, 118. 39 Epstein, “Simon Levi Ginzburg’s Illustrated Custumal (Minhagim-Book),” 203. 40 Lorenzo Carpàne and Marco Menato, Annali della Tipografia Veronese del Cinquencento (Baden-Baden: Valentin Koerner, 1992), 2:672–73. 41 See, for example, Hans Holbein, Images from the Old Testament : Historiarum Veteris Testamenti Icones by Hans Holbein (London: Paddington Press, 1976), illustrations for Exodus: 19, 34. 42 This was first observed by Epstein, “Simon Levi Gunzburg’s Illustrated Custumal 37

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Paris manuscript, writing in the woodcuts is suggested through scribbles, rather than proper Hebrew letters (Fig. 82a–83a). Second, unlike the images in the manuscript, these prints rely on Christian models, on the one hand, and show no knowledge of images in Jewish books, on the other. Moreover, unlike the drawings in the manuscript, the woodcuts do not reveal an intimate knowledge of Jewish customs. For example, the foot of the shofar blower is not raised as it traditionally is in Jewish illuminations,43 no ark or Torah scroll is depicted, and the four species of Sukkot are represented so imprecisely that they are difficult to identify. Another difference between the images in the manuscript and those in the printed book is the direction of the narrative. In the latter, the story line in individual prints proceeds from left to right, paralleling the direction of Christian writing in Europe. For example, the mazzah dough is first prepared on the left and then baked on the right (Fig. 80b). Finally, as Morris Epstein justly observed, the print designer made a serious error in depicting the Óanukkah menorah with seven branches (Fig. 83b). This type of candelabra was found only in the Temple in Jerusalem, and even a Jew with a minimal knowledge of Jewish customs would have known that Óanukkah lasts eight days and so needs eight lights. In fact, the mistake was corrected in later editions.44

The Second Illustrated Printed Book of Customs In 1600, di Gara published a third Yiddish book of customs, his second edition with illustrations.45 Although the text and size are virtually the same as the earlier illustrated edition, the images have been (Minhagim-Book),” 203, 208. Shmeruk agreed in Illustrations in Yiddish Books, 33 and 81 n. 4, but Feuchtwanger-Sarig dissented: “How Italian are the Venice Minhagim of 1593?,” 189, n. 45; 204, especially n. 85. 43 See fol. 44v. in the Appendix. 44 See Epstein, “Simon Levi Ginzburg’s Illustrated Customal (Minhagim-Book) of Venice,” 208. Feuchtwanger-Sarig does not support Ginzburg’s conclusion: see “How Italian are the Venice ‘Minhagim’ of 1593?,” 189 and 204. She twice asserts that Epstein’s statement “is not supported in any way,” but I find his evidence convincing. 45 Marx, Annalen des Hebraeisch Buchdrucken in Italian, n.p; Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 166–67, no. 27; idem, Illustrations in Yiddish Books, 43–47, 53–55; Steinschneider, Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, 1: 599, no. 3821; Vinograd, Thesaurus, 2:259 no. 784; Wolf, Bibliotheca Hebraea, 2:1354, no. 373. Copies are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford and the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem. The size of the 1593 edition as measured in the Bodleian edition is 189 × 138 cm; the 1600 edition there measures 185 × 138 cm.


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modified. Most of the earlier zodiac woodcuts are again reproduced, printed next to the words that announce the first of the month (Fig. 77).46 But two other sets of prints have been added. One tall and narrow series includes five woodcuts. Two, which show a man raising a wine vessel, were used to signal the passage for the blessing over the wine. The first, a standing figure, twice accompanies the text for the Havdalah ceremony at the close of the Sabbath. The second, a seated king, appears repeatedly beside the text for the blessing at the beginning of the Sabbath, except once, when it signals the Passover kiddush (Fig. 87). Another print from the series depicts the search for the leaven. The three last woodcuts in the series are printed in a row, side-by-side, next to a passage for Passover. Each shows a man performing a ritual gesture: pointing to the mazzah, indicating the maror, and preparing to drop a spot of wine for each plague. These woodcuts are arranged so that the first ritual mentioned in the text appears on the right and the last one on the left, paralleling the direction in which Yiddish is written and suggesting that the typesetter or his adviser may have been Jewish. This set of five prints most likely originated with a Haggadah. In fact, di Gara had published all the woodcuts, except the standing figure raising a wine vessel, in an earlier Haggadah, dated 1599, which was ordered by a rabbi and his son.47 But these prints may be variants of an even older set of woodcuts. As Mira Friedman and Chone Shmeruk have observed, the compositions of two of these prints are quite close to those in a Haggadah published in Mantua in 1560.48 The last and most extensive set of woodcuts in the Yiddish book of customs published in 1600 consists of eighteen scenes of Jewish ritual, fifteen of which repeat subjects depicted in the earlier edition. They include a woman blessing the light, men observing the moon, a man delivering a sermon, the preparation and baking of matzot, Havdalah,49 46 The first month, Nisan, shows a different style. It is more modern in style, with a greater sense of depth, and renders only the labor of the month, not the zodiac sign. No woodcut appears for the month of Adar. 47 Friedman states this for the seated king: see “Transplanted Illustrations,” 52, fig. 9. This print is reproduced again in a Haggadah published in Venice in 1606. 48 Friedman, “Transplanted Illustrations,” 46, and Shmeruk. Illustrations in Yiddish Books, 46–47. For this Haggadah, see Yerushalmi, Haggadah and History, pls. 34–37. 49 For this print, see Franz Landsberger, “Origin of Ritual Implements for the Sabbath,” in Beauty in Holiness, ed. by Gutmann, 167–203, here 184–85. For the gesture of looking at one’s fingernails, see Sol Finesinger, “The Custom of Looking at the Fingernails at the Outgoing of the Sabbath,” in Beauty in Holiness, ed. by Gutmann, 62–80.

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cutting hair on Lag be-Omer, Moses receiving the Law, men mourning on Tishah be-Av, blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashana, weighing coins for Shabbat Shekalim, the battle with Amalek for Shabbat Zakhor,50 burning a heifer for Shabbat Parah, men dressed in costume for Purim, a wedding, and a circumcision (Figs. 86b–94a). The themes that are not repeated are grinding flour at the mill, koshering vessels for Passover, Kapparot, a sukkah, lulav and etrog, Hoshana Rabba, Sim˙at Torah, Tu bi-Shevat, and a funeral. The search for leaven appears in a smaller format only.51 The two new subjects that have been added are the holiday dinner and the hare hunt. Although Naomi FeuchtwangerSarig terms them engravings, these prints are woodcuts, and di Gara adopts the typical practices used for this less expensive type of illustration.52 Not only has he cut costs by again reusing the zodiac prints, but he has also repeated several scenes of Jewish customs, so that they signify more than one holiday. For example, a scene of a man standing in a pulpit, presumably a rabbi delivering a sermon, is reproduced for both Shabbat Shuva and Shabbat ha-Gadol (Fig. 88a). But if di Gara was generally satisfied with the subjects of the earlier woodcuts and with the practice of repeating individual prints, he was less pleased with other aspects of the first edition and instituted a series of changes to improve the quality of the second edition. For example, the page design of the later book shows greater clarity (Fig. 87, 90). Section headings are now not only printed in large bold letters, but also sometimes set off by floral frames that, like the woodcuts showing ritual, often span the entire width of the page. Similarly, unlike the earlier edition, now no mistakes have been made in relating image and text. For example, the hare hunt appears four times—for Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashana, and Sukkot—and in each instance is used to signal the text of the ritual YaKeNHaZ (Fig. 88b). Furthermore, the prints are larger and for this reason their compositions are more complex and include more figures. For example, rather than one woman pronouncing the Sabbath blessing, in the later edition two women and two girls are in attendance (Figs. 78b, 86b). In some ways, these later prints also show a greater level of skill. The figures are endowed with a sense of graceful and fluid movement that contrasts with the stiffness of their earlier counter50 51 52

For the woodcuts of Amalek, see Chapter VII below. See above. Feuchtwanger-Sarig, “How Italian are the Venice Minhagim of 1593?,” 202.


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parts. They are also better able to suggest the emotional life of their characters. The later woodcuts convincingly portray the exhaustion of Moses, and the excitement among congregants who react to a stirring sermon by gesticulating eloquently and turning towards one another (Figs. 88a, 92a). Another print effectively communicates the emotions of a man who is so deeply moved upon hearing the shofar that he touches his hand to his heart (Fig. 91b).53 But perhaps the most striking difference is that whereas the earlier prints are German in style, the later ones are Italian. They show Italian furnishings, architecture, and garments. For example, the men celebrating Purim now wear the masks of the Commedia dell’Arte (Figs. 84b, 92b).54 Similarly, the inclusion of a fork on the dinner table reminds us that Venetians, to quote Paul H. D. Kaplan, were “precocious in their adoption of that implement” (Fig. 87).55 Moreover, the print designer for the edition of 1600 ascribes to the ideals of the High Renaissance, with his graceful, dignified, and idealized figures who move through a fully realized space. Unlike the flatness of the earlier scenes, the more finely cut later prints successfully convey a sense of three-dimensionality, due to their artist’s expert knowledge of perspective, anatomy, and foreshortening. Although Chone Shmeruk suggests that the compositions of some of the prints may ultimately derive from those by Hans Holbein, they are clearly Venetian in style, and this was probably a key reason why the Italian publisher substituted new images: he judged them more fashionable than the German prints in the earlier edition. In particular, the woodcuts are similar to the book illustrations of

53 Another difference is the more upper-class ambience of the later prints. The dinner scene includes two servants, and the women baking mazzah are dressed in elegant gowns (Fig. 87). 54 Although the costumes of the Commedia dell’Arte were fluid during the sixteenth century, this print does not seem to portray the characters of that improvisatory theatre. For example, Harlequin is generally shown with a black half-mask, just like the figure on the far right, but that character as a rule wore a garment with varicolored patches, quite different from the solid-colored costume shown in the print. See Pierre Louis Duchartre, The Italian Comedy, trans. by Randolph T. Weaver (New York: Dover, 1966), 124, 134–35. The two figures to his right, who are playing musical instruments dressed in leaf garlands and animal skins, are quite close to those in the Commedia, however. See Donato Sartori and Bruno Lanata, Arte della maschera nella Commedia dell’Arte (Florence: Casa Usher, 1983), 36, no. 34. I would like to thank Scott-Martin Kosofky for a fruitful discussion on this issue. 55 Paul H. D. Kaplan, “Images of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe,” in Multicultural Europe (Tempe: MRTS, forthcoming).

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Giovanni Verdizotti (1525–1600), a Venetian printmaker, draughtsman, and author, who was Titian’s friend and probably also his secretary.56 His Cente Favole Morali, which was published in Venice in 1570, is particularly close in style to the images in the Yiddish book of customs published thirty years later.57 His woodcut of the Peasant, Son, and Donkey shows the same rolling hills modeled with curving hatched lines as the print of the Hare Hunt, and the treatment of the sky with straight striations that model curvilinear cloud formations is close to those in the image of Moses praying for victory (Figs. 88b, 92a, 94b). Furthermore, the muscular legs of the workers and narrow eyes and full beards of the old men recur in the prints in the Yiddish book. The composition of Tishah be-Av especially makes clear the Venetian style of the illustrations in the later book of customs, since it shows numerous similarities to Titian’s Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, which was painted in 1534–38 for the entrance wall of the Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Carità (Figs. 91a, 95).58 Both show at the right, a row of stairs leading up to a building that occupies at least half the width of the composition and is situated in the middle ground, parallel to the picture plane, and blocking a view into the background. By contrast, in both a deep space opens up on the left and a group of figures congregates before it. The striking similarities between the compositions of these two works may stem in part from iconographical considerations, since the same monument, the Temple in Jerusalem, is depicted in both. Through prints such as these, Titian’s style was brought into the homes of Jews throughout Europe. But another aspect of Venetian art entered Jewish homes as well, a feature that often appears in Christian images, but rarely in Jewish ones: haloes (Fig. 92a).59 56 For Verdizotti, see Ugo Ruggeri, “Verdizotti, Giovanni,” in Grove Encyclopedias of European Art. Encyclopedia of Italian Renaissance and Mannerist Art, ed. by Jane Turner (London: Macmillan, 2000), 2:1724–25. 57 For this book, see Wolfgang Metzner and Paul Raabe, Das illustrierte Fabelbuch (Hamburg and Frankfurt am Main: Maximilian-Gesellschaft and W. Metzner, 1998), I. Regine Timm, Spiegel kultureller Wandlungen, 86; II. Ulrike Bodemann with Birgitta vom Lehn and Maria Platte, Katalog illustrierte Fabelausgaben 1461–1990, 24–25. 58 For this painting, see David Rosand, Painting in Sixteenth-century Venice: Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 62–106. I would like to thank Paul Kaplan for this suggestion. 59 Moses was a saint in Venetian culture. Haloes also surround the heads of priests in the prints for Shabbat Shekalim and Shabbat Parah. In the paintings reproduced by Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages haloes are found only on angels.


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But the woodcuts were adapted for a Jewish audience. The print of Tishah be-Av, for example, unlike Titian’s painting on which it may be based, omits all negative references to the Jewish religion (Fig. 91a). Furthermore, like the woodcuts in the edition of 1593, those in the later edition never represent God in full bodily form. For example, in Moses receiving the Law, only God’s hands and parts of his forearms are depicted (Fig. 90). The illustrations show another common strategy as well. The spires in the architectural landscapes lack crosses, a practice long employed by Jews as a way to resist the dominant culture and assert their own distinct beliefs (Figs. 88b, 90, 91a, 94a).60 Unlike the edition of 1593, there are no egregious errors here, so the religion of the illustrator cannot be established with certainty, especially since a family of Jewish printmakers is known to have been active in sixteenth-century Venice.61 Yet evidence strongly suggests that the designer of the prints showing Jewish ritual may have been Christian.62 The inclusion of haloes is unusual in Jewish art, the writing in the woodcuts is represented by a series of dots or straight lines rather than by Hebrew letters (Figs. 90–91b), and the prints reveal no particular intimacy with Jewish customs. For example, no Torah scroll is shown, and the man blowing the shofar fails to raise his foot (Fig. 91b).63

From Manuscript to Printed Books The growing acceptance of printed books among Jews led to fundamental changes in Jewish culture. Not only could a wider audience of Jews now afford books, not only did Christians have greater access to Jewish ideas, but the printing revolution also necessitated a greater degree of collaboration between Jews and Christians.64 The design of Jewish books also changed. Their typeface and page layout became more standardized, and illustrations were transformed from their manuscripts to their printed editions. This is certainly the case in the images in the printed books of customs, which differ 60

See Chapter III above. See Schubert, Bilder-Pentateuch, 2 vols., and Schubert and Schubert, Jüdische Buchkunst, 2:28–33. Moïse dal Castellazzo lived from 1466 to 1526. 62 Shmeruk, Illustrations in Yiddish Books, 33, suggests this. 63 See fol. 44v. n. 35 in the Appendix. 64 Tamari, “Notes on the Printing in Hebrew Typeface,” 35. 61

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strikingly from those in the manuscript. The following chapters will explore this in greater depth, by focusing first on depictions of marriage rituals and then on representations of war that appear in all three versions. By contrast, the remainder of this chapter will present a general overview of the relationship among the three illustrated Yiddish books of customs. Chone Shmeruk suggested that the woodcuts showing Jewish ritual in the books of customs printed in Venice must have been invented for a Jewish audience.65 This may be true, especially for those that show specific references to Jewish customs. But the print of soldiers in the edition of 1593 does not show features specific to Jewish culture (Fig. 84a), and, as we have seen, Christian readers were also interested in images of Jewish ritual.66 Even if we could establish that the compositions were created with a Jewish audience in mind, the question would still remain: what sparked the idea for these images? Abraham M. Habermann wondered whether the woodcuts in the printed books of customs might be derived from singleleaf prints that were sometimes issued to celebrate individual Jewish holidays.67 Alternatively, Giovanni di Gara or his Jewish associates may have looked for ideas in the text itself. It is also possible that they knew a Christian book like Pfefferkorn’s illustrated treatise on Jewish rituals, or that they relied at least in part on illuminations in Jewish prayer books.68 But what has never been suggested, because the Paris book of customs was largely unknown, is that images in a manuscript of Jewish rituals could have served as a source for the woodcuts or at least influenced the selection of subjects. What is striking, however, is the lack of similarity between the visual program of the manuscript and those of the printed books. For example, the way the page is organized is radically different. The images of ritual are situated in the body of the text in the printed books, but in the margins of the manuscript. Furthermore, the later books include representations of the zodiac signs and labors of the months unlike the earlier manuscript. In addition, the woodcuts in the printed books generally lack the captions that accompany the drawings in the manuscript. But what is most significant is that 65 66 67 68

See Shmeruk, Illustrations in Yiddish Books, 33. See Chapter III above. Habermann, “The Jewish Art of the Printed Book,” 170–71. For these, see Chapters II–III above.


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a comparison of images showing the same subject reveals few similarities between the printed editions and the manuscript version. Usually a different aspect of the holiday has been selected for illustration. For example, the printed edition of 1593 includes a woodcut showing wheat being brought to the mill, a subject that is not visualized in the manuscript, and the manuscript shows the bath for Rosh Hashana, a theme that is lacking in the printed books (Fig. 32b). But even when the same element of the holiday is depicted, such as the blessing of the Sabbath light, then the compositions are quite different (Figs. 8b, 78b, 86b). For these reasons, no direct link can be established between the first surviving illustrated book of customs and the later versions. This makes it unlikely that the manuscript in Paris served as a model for the printed editions. But it is possible that another manuscript served as their source. The book lists that Jews were forced to submit to Church censors in Mantua in 1595 include four manuscripts of Jewish customs, and some may have been illustrated.69 Furthermore, the page layout is similar to that of some surviving Yiddish manuscripts. For example, rectangular scenes are placed within the body of the text in the German collection of stories, dated 1580 (Fig. 68a), and the Saxon book of customs, dated 1573, like the Paris manuscript, emphasizes important initial words by rendering them in dark letters.70 But whatever the precise sources for the woodcuts in the printed versions, it is clear that there was no fixed cycle of images for sixteenth-century books of customs. Instead, both Jewish and Christian books experimented with a range of disparate solutions. Some differences among the images in the three illustrated Yiddish books of customs are due to the transformation from manuscript to printed book. Unlike the scribe, who probably produced his book for his own enjoyment and edification, the publisher’s goal was to maximize profits while minimizing costs. For this reason, the number of illustrations in the printed editions was sharply reduced, from 94 to 26 and then to 17. This discrepancy is not due to differences in the length of the texts. Rather, the elimination of images was a cost-saving device, designed to keep the books moderately priced. Moreover, Giovanni di Gara reused woodcuts, which meant that some of the illustrations were not created for his books of customs 69 70

Baruchson-Arbib, La culture livesque des juifs d’Italie, 86. For the former, see chapter I; for the latter, see Chapter II, note 4, no. 5.

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or even contemporary with them. By contrast, the scribe invented all the drawings specifically for his manuscript. Furthermore, several woodcuts were reproduced more than once in the printed books and so served to illustrate more than one holiday. But the scribe created entirely new drawings and no two are alike. In addition, he had a particular holiday in mind for each. For this reason the image of the Seder in the manuscript shows ritual dishes and foods specific to Passover, whereas the woodcut of a festive dinner in the edition of 1600 is generic, so that it might serve as an illustration for every holiday meal (Figs. 5, 87). Moreover, because the publisher relied on professional printmakers, certainly one and probably both were Christian. This meant that they lacked an intimate knowledge of Jewish customs. But the illustrator of the Paris manuscript was its scribe, an educated Jew, thoroughly familiar with his culture and his text. Although the printmakers were professionals, whose skills were superior to the scribe’s, they were not the finest artists of their time. Rather they were valued in part for being able to produce work rapidly in order to increase the publisher’s profits on these inexpensive books. Trained as they were to rely on models, their work is not terribly imaginative. But since the scribe was an amateur artist who lacked that training, his drawings are strikingly inventive. Although some differences in the illustrations are attributable to the disparate circumstances in the production of the books, others are rooted in the difference in date, since the manuscript was created almost a century before the printed books. For example, the later books are characterized by a very different tone from that of the manuscript. The joyous mood of the Paris book of customs is quite different from the more somber tone of the later printed books. Unlike the more restrained drawing of Tishah be-Av in the manuscript, the woodcuts in the later printed books show men weeping, head in hand, and the Temple engulfed in flames (Figs. 23, 82b, 91a). Similarly, although the edition of 1600 repeatedly includes a woodcut showing dogs hunting hares, which symbolizes Christians persecuting Jews,71 no such scene appears in the earlier Yiddish manuscript (Fig. 88b). To cite one final example, although the edition of 1593 includes a funeral scene, this dark theme is avoided in the earlier manuscript. One possible explanation for the more joyous 71

See above for this motif.


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mood in the earlier version is the personality or individual situation of the Yiddish scribe. Another is that Italian Jews at the turn of the sixteenth century felt relatively carefree, far from the more severe persecutions of Spain and Germany, and still years before the institution of the ghetto.72 But it is also clear that the shift in mood between the earlier and later versions parallels that of Christians in post-Tridentine Italy, where both Church and civil authorities increasingly limited high-spirited popular celebrations.73

The Representation of Gender Another difference between the illustrations in the Paris codex and those in the later printed books can be attributed to both the change in the method of production and the later date: the manuscript shows women participating more fully in rituals than the printed books. For example, as we have seen, in an image of Rosh Hashana in the manuscript, the women are on the same floor as the men, and not hidden by a screen (Figs. 25–26). Furthermore, they are as large as the men, they occupy the foreground space, each has an open prayer book, and the only child that is depicted is a girl. By contrast, in the edition of 1593, if women are present, they are barely visible.74 In the edition of 1600 women peer down through the upper-storey windows, distanced from the shofar, the bimah, the ark, and the holy books that are central to the Jewish service (Fig. 91b). Whereas nine men are depicted in the foreground, several in full figure, only three

72 Although Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaisance Italy, 217, sees the ghetto as offering advantages to Jews, others recognize its negative effects. David B. Ruderman, for example, observes, “No doubt Jews confined from the rest of the city, except for entrances bolted at night, were subjected to considerably more misery, impoverishment, and humiliation than before”: see “Introduction,” in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, ed. by idem (New York and London: New York University Press, 1992), 25. See also Alessandro Guetta, “Les Juifs ashkénazes en Italie: une page d’histoire brève mais importante,” in Mille ans de cultures ashkénazes, ed. by Jean Baumgarten (Paris: Liana Levi, 1994), 70–75, and Moses A. Shulvass, The History of the Jewish People (Chicago: Regnery Press, 1985), vol. 3. 73 Elliott Horowitz, “The Eve of the Circumcision: A Chapter in the History of Jewish Nightlife,” in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, ed. by Ruderman, 554–88, here 556. 74 A barely visible face, situated in the center of the second row, may represent a woman listening to the sermon (Fig. 80a). Similarly, a partially visible face at the left edge in the back of the crowd listening to the shofar may that of woman (Fig. 83a).

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women are included, all cut off at bust length and relegated to the background. Only one child is shown, a son. Similarly, for Purim, the earlier manuscript includes images of women drinking, feasting, dancing, and listening to the reading of the megillah in synagogue (Figs. 55, 56, 67). In addition, they are not isolated on a separate page, but rather included on the same folio and in the same space as the men. By contrast, the later printed books do not include any depictions of women for Purim, but only a group of men in costume (Figs. 84b, 92b). Furthermore, in the earlier manuscript, three women appear at the berit milah, and all are major characters (Fig. 63). The mother lies in her bed beside her son; a second woman attends to her, while a third serves food. Neither the mohel nor the male relative who holds the child during the act of circumcision is clearly indicated at all. By contrast, in the edition of 1593 only men appear in the circumcision scene (Fig. 86a). In that of 1600, a woman is introduced, but she must stand in the doorway, off to the side, a partial figure, cut off by the frame (Fig. 94a). Moreover, the manuscript, which includes many more illustrations than the printed books, shows a greater number of rituals performed only by women, and some are positive and time-bound. By contrast, in the later printed books the only image of a rite performed solely by women is one of the three traditional women’s commandments, the Sabbath blessing. Possible reasons for the more restricted role of women in the printed books are their patronage and late sixteenth-century date.75 As we discussed in the previous chapter, considerable evidence suggests that women experienced a loss of rights and freedoms over the course of the sixteenth century, and the representation of gender in the three books of customs reflects and reinforces this development. But the difference in the portrayal of women may also stem from the divergent goals of the producers of the books. The scribe made his book for his own enjoyment. He could represent Jews as he saw fit, without worrying about any outside authority. By contrast, the printed books were made for the market and so were designed to appeal to a broader audience. Wanting to reach the widest possible number of readers, di Gara and his Jewish associates may have purposefully avoided aspects that might offend the more conservative segment of

75

See Chapter IV above.


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the Jewish population. The image of a nude woman bathing for Rosh Hashana and scenes of men and women dancing together, for example, were omitted in the printed books (Figs. 24a, 32b, 62).

The Reception of the Printed Books of Customs If scholars have judged the illustrations in the manuscript as clumsy, primitive, and coarse, they have considered those in the printed books more aesthetically pleasing.76 In particular, they have deemed those in Giovanni di Gara’s second illustrated edition the most beautiful of all. For example, Chone Shmeruk terms them “certainly nicer,” and Jean Baumgarten praises them as “magnificent.”77 But how did early modern publishers and their Jewish readers judge these prints? Sixteenth-century publishers often used the title page to proclaim the selling points of popular books in order to attract buyers, and di Gara is no exception to this rule. The frontispiece of the unillustrated edition of 1589 announces in Yiddish that the book is “very pretty and fine.”78 The next edition, the first with woodcuts, is termed “much prettier than the first.”79 And the title page of the last edition advises readers that it is “much, much prettier” than the earlier two, and that it has been “well provided with many beautiful pictures that did not appear in the former editions.”80 Clearly, di Gara believed that illustrations were an important selling point to Jewish readers. In fact, he almost certainly commissioned the prints for the edition of 1600. The raised and flaring collar on the woman who blesses the Sabbath light and the woman standing at the dinner table can be dated to around the year 1600 (Figs. 86b, 87).81 The masks and leaf garlands worn by the Purim revelers and the

76 77 78 79

See Chapter I for past aesthetic judgments about this manuscript. Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 127; Baumgarten, “Prières,” 391.

ˆyyw òˆwa çpywh rg μyghnym .ˆfçr[ ayd ˆ[d rçpywh lyw μyghnym For a slightly different translation, see Yiddish

in Italia, ed. by Timm and Turiansky, 64. 80 çkl[ww /.ˆs[myg laww çflywmyg ynywç lyw fym . . . ˆfçr[ ayd ˆ[d rçpywh lyw lyw μyghnym .ˆdnfçyg zya fyn ˆfçr[ ayd ˆya 81 See Lynne Lawner, Harlequin on the Moon: Commedia dell’Arte and the Visual Arts (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998), 33 (early seventeenth-century print); Sartori and Lanata, Arte della maschera nella Commedia dell’Arte, 36, no. 33; and 38, no. 43 (1643); and The Illustrated Bartsch, ed. by Sebastian Bufta (New York: Abaris Books, 1984), XXXVII, 175, 211 (around 1600).

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shape of their lute are also datable to around the same time (Fig. 92b).82 The publisher may have commissioned the woodcuts because the earlier set was worn out, because its image of the menorah was incorrect, because he hoped to encourage “repeat buyers” with a different set of illustrations, because he believed that an up-to-date Italian series would be more attractive to readers, or for all the above reasons. Judging by the praise on the title page, it appears that di Gara—or his Jewish advisers—agreed with modern critics that the woodcuts in the edition of 1600 were superior to the earlier ones. Yet the later woodcuts were never used again. Rather, it was the images of 1593 that were repeatedly reproduced in early modern Europe. Shmeruk attributed this to “luck,” but other explanations are possible.83 Despite the strong cultural ties between Venice and such later printing centers as Amsterdam, perhaps later publishers did not have access to the edition of 1600 or its woodblocks, and so were unable to reproduce its illustrations.84 But it is important to note that the earlier prints are northern European in style, whereas the later ones are Italianate. Later books of customs were generally printed in the north, in such cities as Amsterdam and Frankfurt. Could those responsible for these publications have thought that their readership would feel more at home with the earlier woodcuts? Could the Italian prints, despite their greater concordance with both Italian Renaissance and twentieth-century taste, have felt foreign to people who wanted to capture the authentic rituals of their ancestors? Or could northern European Jews have preferred a northern style? Certainly this was generally true for many of their Christian counterparts in northern Europe.85

82 Lawner, Harlequin, 78 (1610), 114, 158 (early seventeenth century), and Sartori and Lanata, Arte della maschera nella Commedia dell’Arte, 36, no. 34. 83 Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 127. For the fate of the 1593 prints see Falk Wiesemann, “Das ‘Volk des Buches’ und die Bilder zur Bibel vom 16. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert,” in “kommet heraus und shaut”—Jüdische und christliche Illustrationen zur Bibel in alter Zeit, ed. by idem (Essen: Klartext, 2002), 9–34, here 12. 84 Jonathan I. Israel, “The Jews of Venice and their Links with Holland and with Dutch Jewry (1600–1700),” in Gli Ebrei e Venezia secoli XIV–XVIII, ed. by Gaetano Cozzi (Milan: Edizioni Comunità, 1987), 95–116. 85 See, among others, Svetlana Alpers, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art of the Seventeenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), xvii–xxvii; Walter S. Melion, Shaping the Netherlandish Canon: Karel van Mander’s Schilder-Boeck (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); and I Bamboccianti, ed. by David A. Levine and Ekkehard Mai (Milan: Electa, 1991).


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The Printed Books as Multicultural Phenomena Naomi Feuchtwanger-Sarig asks, “How Italian are the Venice Minhagim of 1593?” She concludes that the first illustrated printed edition is not Italian at all.86 Indeed, as we have seen, the text was written by an Austrian and translated by a Swabian before a Venetian published it with German illustrations. A similar issue is raised by Chone Shmeruk, who spends several pages wondering whether the illustrations in the printed books of customs are Jewish or not. He mistakenly concludes that they document Jewish religious practices faithfully.87 But although the illustrations in the printed books have been claimed by Jewish Studies (almost all publications on them appear in volumes devoted to Jewish themes), they were never the product of a “pure” Jewish culture. Indeed, the art of Europe, whether Jewish or Christian, was never the result of a single culture working in isolation. Rather it was enriched by the production of diverse native groups, religious sects, immigrants, colonial subjects, and trading partners. African artists copied French compositions for Portuguese patrons, and Armenians printed their holy books with Dutch woodcuts.88 Similarly, there were numerous positive exchanges between Christians and Jews during the sixteenth century. Jewish preachers learned from their Christian counterparts, Christians studied Hebrew and the Kabbalah, and Jewish music and drama were influenced by Christian culture.89 Although Christians outlawed almost all Jewish presses and censored certain Jewish ideas, in the end some Jewish texts, such as the printed 86

Feuchtwanger-Sarig, “How Italian are the Venice Minhagim of 1593?” Shmeruk, “Illustrations in Yiddish Books,” 81. For some of the mistakes see Chapters VI and VII below, and the above discussion concerning the Óanukkah menorah. 88 Taylor, Book Arts of Isfahan, and Bassani and Fagg, Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory. On the multicultural nature of early modern art in general, see Claire Farago, Reframing the Renaissance: Visual Culture in Europe and Latin America, 1450–1650 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). 89 David Ruderman, “At the Intersection of Cultures: The Historical Legacy of Italian Jews,” in Gardens and Ghettos, ed. by Mann, 1–23, here 15, 19; and Marc Saperstein, “Italian Jewish Preaching: An Overview,” in Essential Papers, ed. by Ruderman, 85–104, here 89–90. For music, see Don Harrán, Salamone Rossi: Jewish Musician in Late Renaissance Mantua (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). For poetry, see Robert Bonfil, “Change in the Cultural Patterns of a Jewish Society in Crisis: Italian Jewry at the Close of the Sixteenth Century.” Jewish History 3 (1988): 4–11. For Kabbalah, see Allison P. Coudert, The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century: The Life and Thought of Francis Mercury van Helmont (Leiden: Brill, 1999). 87

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books of customs, were enriched by the contribution of Christians. Rather than trying to categorize these books as a “pure” reflection of a particular nationality or religion, it is important to recognize that they belong to both Jewish Studies and the history of the larger European culture. The printed books of customs were written by a Jew in a Jewish language for a Jewish audience, but published by a Christian and illustrated by at least one Christian. Furthermore, both Italians and northern Europeans contributed to the production of these books. In short, the printed Yiddish books of custom were multicultural from the start. As Gabriele Strauch has noted about the medieval Jewish epic Dukus Horant, these Yiddish books and their illustrations are border dwellers that possess their “own life, [their] own history, and [their] own message about difference.”90

90 Gabriele L. Strauch, “Text and Context in the Reading of Medieval Literature— a Case in Point: Dukus Horant,” Exemplaria 3 (1991): 62–94, here 69.

CHAPTER SIX

MARRIAGE AND MEMORY: IMAGES OF MARRIAGE RITUALS IN YIDDISH BOOKS OF CUSTOMS

Collective memory is “transmitted and sustained through the conscious efforts and institutions of the group,” as Yosef Óayim Yerushalmi justly observed.1 Each group chooses certain aspects of its past to preserve and transmit through such cultural forms as rituals, texts, and images, which must be repeatedly produced for memory to be sustained. For this reason, memory is inherently unstable and easily reinvented. As David N. Myers reminds us, people have often “refashioned their past to suit contemporary sensibilities.”2 For example, in times of greater complexity and uncertainty, groups often long for an imagined golden age in the distant past, when life was simpler and more secure.3 David Roskies raises yet another issue by noting that memory is not universal, but rather is “divided along ideological lines and each ideology has carved out a different piece of the past.”4 This chapter will explore one aspect of the collective memory of the Jewish family: how marriage rituals are remembered in the three illustrated books of customs. Whereas the manuscript in Paris, dated ca. 1503, has long been neglected, and none of its depictions of marriage customs has ever been published, the books printed by Giovanni di Gara in 1593 and 1600 are much better known. These woodcuts, 1 Yosef Óayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1982), xv. I would like to thank Eva Frojmovic and Pamela Sheingorn for their extremely helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. Jean Baumgarten, Marc Michael Epstein, and Joel Gereboff also generously shared their ideas with me. Another version of the material in this chapter is forthcoming in Framing the Family, ed. by Voaden and Wolfthal. 2 David N. Myers, “Of Marranos and Memory: Yosef Óayim Yerushalmi and the Writing of Jewish History,” in Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Essays in Honor of Yosef Óayim Yerushalmi, ed. by Elisheva Carlebach, John M. Efron, and David N. Myers (Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press, 1998), 1–21, here 7. 3 Justin D. Cammy, review of David G. Roskies, The Jewish Search for a Usable Past, Midstream 45 (1999): 41–43. 4 David G. Roskies, The Jewish Search for a Usable Past (Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999), 14.

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part two ‒ chapter six

and their later variants, have been repeatedly reproduced in Jewish encyclopedias, books of Jewish history and culture, and pamphlets advertising Jewish Studies conferences.5 By examining the images of marriage rituals in the Yiddish books of customs, this chapter will shed new light on the complex and often conflicting ways in which Ashkenazic Jews living in northern Italy during the sixteenth century represented marriage rituals and in this way contributed to the formation of European Jewry’s collective memory of them.

Images of Marriage in Paris BN MS. Héb. 586 The profusely illustrated Yiddish manuscript includes four images of marriage. Three, which follow each other in sequence, show a betrothal, a marriage, and a wedding dance, and belong to a small section of the manuscript that is devoted to life-cycle events (Figs. 60–62). This chapter will first discuss these images, and then examine the marriage scenes in the printed books of customs. Finally, it will explore a fourth image of marriage ritual in the Paris book of customs, a depiction of the symbolic wedding feasts that occur on Sim˙at Torah, which is part of the main body of the manuscript, the section that discusses the yearly cycle of Jewish holidays (Fig 47). The first of the three drawings, that in the lower margin of folio 113v, shows a betrothal (Fig. 60). Several elements were essential to a Jewish betrothal: the groom needed to give an object of value— generally at this time a ring—to the bride in the presence of two witnesses.6 Then two benedictions, one over the wine, the other over the betrothal itself, were recited.7 The caption for this image reads 5 They have been reproduced in Israel Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia and Jerusalem: The Jewish Publication Society, 1993, first edition 1896), cover; Chill, The Minhagim, 275; M. Grunwald, “Marriage Ceremonies,” in The Jewish Encyclopedia, 8:41; Maurice Lamm, The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980), cover; Preachers of the Italian Ghetto, ed. by David B. Ruderman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), cover; Alfred Rubens, A Jewish Iconography (London: Nonpareil, 1981), 26; Yerushalmi, Zakhor, frontispiece; pamphlet for conference, “Hebrew and Its Culture,” Harvard Summer School, 1998, among many others. 6 Rabbi Yehuda Minz, however, forbade betrothals unless there were ten witnesses, two from the fiancé’s family. See Roni Weinstein, “Rituel du mariage et culture des jeunes dans la société Judéo-Italienne 16e–17e siècles,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 53 (1998): 455–79, here 470. 7 For Jewish betrothal, see Bernard Drachman, “Betrothal,” in The Jewish Encyclopedia

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hl;k' â' ˆm' fç]wOpçn“a' a[d] (“Here one betroths the bride”).8 A woman

wearing a hair net and low-cut dress extends the index finger of her right hand to receive a ring, shown as a large circle with an extension, perhaps a pearl, stone, or symbolic representation of the Temple in Jerusalem.9 Although the iconography for medieval and early modern images of Jewish marriage was fluid, the most popular scene, judging by surviving examples, was the ring ceremony.10 Her fiancé

3:125–28; Zeev W. Falk, Marriage and Divorce: Reforms in the Family Law of GermanFrench Jewry ( Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1961) (in Hebrew); Raphael Posner, “Marriage Ceremony,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica 11:1032; and Ben-Zion Schereschewsky, “Betrothal,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica 4:753–757. 8 For the meaning of the word “antshpoizen,” which is probably derived from the Latin word for engagement, see Israel Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, trans. and ed. by Bernard Martin (Cleveland: Press of Case Western University, 1975) 7:80. 9 The index finger of the right hand traditionally receives the ring, see Posner, “Marriage Ceremony,” 1042. Israel Abrahams and Mendel and Thérèse Metzger claim that marriage rings were plain golden bands, perhaps because Jewish wedding rings were not supposed to have precious stones, but both images and texts suggest that they did. See Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 183 (but see n. 1); Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 228 (but see fig. 342). See also Joseph Gutmann, “Wedding Customs and Ceremonies in Art,” in Beauty in Holiness, ed. by idem, 313–39, here 315. For rings adorned with the Temple of Jerusalem, see Grossman, Jewish Art, 147. 10 Gutmann, “Wedding Customs and Ceremonies in Art,” 315; Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 227. Besides those in the Yiddish cinquecento books, nineteen Italian Renaissance images of Jewish weddings survive. Those that are starred clearly indicate the officiant: • *(1) Arba’ah Turim, Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, MS. Rossiano 555, fol. 220r [Mantua, Italian script, 1435–8]. Double image of a wedding dance and a ring ceremony with officiant. See Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 224, fig. 335. • * (2) Arba’ah Turim, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Can. Or. 79, fol. 2v [Lombardy or the Veneto (?), Italian script, 1438]. Couple facing officiant under the ˙uppah, many guests, men on one side, women on other. See Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 133, fig. 183. • (3) Prayerbook, London, Jews College, Montefiore Library, MS. 249, fol. 11v [Italy, Italian script, ca. 1450–52] Ring ceremony, no officiant. See Cecil Roth, “The Jewish Museum,” in The Connoisseur 92 (1933): 155, pl. V. • (4) Ma˙zor of Italian Rite, Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, MS. Parma 1756—De Rossi 236, fol. 175 [Northern Italy, Italian script, 1450–60]. Ring ceremony, no officiant; bride holds tallit, typical wedding gift. See Mortara-Ottolenghi, “The Illumination and the Artists,” 178, fig. 29. • *(5) Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, MS. Parma 3596, fol. 275 [Northern Italy, Emilia or Romagna, Italian script, 1455–65]. Ring ceremony with officiant who holds couple’s arms. See Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 135, fig.187. • (6–7) Ma˙zor of Italian Rite, London, British Library, MS. Harley 5686 [Reggio, Emilia, Italian script ca. 1465, illuminations 1465–75]. Fol. 27v: Nuptial calvalcade

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is clean-shaven, and wears a flat-topped, brimmed hat and a cloak over a long garment. Behind him stands a man whose beard may denote mature age or a greater level of devoutness.11 He raises a tall wine vessel, which was used in the betrothal blessing. Contemporary texts imply that its narrow neck referred to the bride’s virginity, since such bottles were used only for first-time brides, whereas wide-necked

(See Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 229, fig. 343). Fol. 28r: Procession of fiancée under ˙uppah (See Metzger, “Un mahzor italien illuminée,” 183, fig. 14). • (8) Halakhah Miscellany, Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, MS. Cod. Scrin. 132 (Heb. 337), fol. 75v [Italy, Ashkenazi script, ca.1477] (Fig. 10). Ring ceremony in landscape, no officiant. See Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 144, fig. 199 (fragment); Cologne, Kölnisches Stadtmuseum, Monumenta Judaica (Cologne: Joseph Melzer, 1964), Kat. Nr. D77, fig. 19; and Joseph Hoffman, “Piero della Francesco’s ‘Flagellation’: A Reading from Jewish History,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 40 (1981): 347. • *(9–11) Miscellany, Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS. 180/51, (Rothschild Miscellany 24) [Northern Italian, Ashkenazi script, a. 1450–80]. Fol. 246v: Wedding Dance (Mortara-Ottolenghi, “The Illumination and the Artist,” 127). Fol. 121v: Feast (Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 223, fig. 334). Fol. 140v: Ring ceremony with officiant. [See David Sperber, “The Wedding Canopy in Halakhic and Art Sources,” in Minhage Yisrael ( Jewish Customs) ( Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kuk, 1989), I, fig. 5 (in Hebrew)]. • *(12–16) Book of customs, Princeton, University Library, MS. Garrett 26 [Rimini, Italian script, text late fifteenth century, illuminations 1480–1500]. Fol. 13r: Engagement, ring ceremony with officiant Fol. 14v: Two boys and five girls set out to meet the groom. (See Erwin Panofsky, “Giotto and Maimonides in Avignon: The Story of an Illustrated Hebrew Manuscript,” Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 4 (1941): 29, fig. 10). Fol. 15v: Five boys as candlebearers and groom. Fol. 17v: Seated couple under ˙uppah, officiant approaches with wine. Fol. 20v: Five candlebearers. (See Panofsky, “Giotto and Maimonides,” 32, fig. 14). • *(17–18) Ma˙zor of Italian Rite, Budapest, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, MS. A 360/I-II [Central Italy, Pesaro, Italian script, 1481]. Fol. 230r: Ring ceremony with officiant joining hands. [See Joseph Gutmann, “Jewish Medieval Marriage Customs in Art,” in The Jewish Family: Metaphor and Memory, ed. by David Kraemer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 54, fig. 4]. Fol. 231v: Presentation of ketubah. (See Gutmann, “Jewish Medieval Marriage,” 56, fig. 5.) • (19) Arba’ah Turim, Vercelli, Seminario Vescovile. [Mantua, second half of the fifteenth century, Italian script, borders Florentine, illuminators North Italian, perhaps from Ferrara] Wedding dance with musicians. [See Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts, 150–51, pl. 55.] For German and earlier wedding imagery, see Sed-Rajna, Le Ma˙zor enluminé, 58–59 (Sabbath before Passover) and Pl. VII–VIII; Naomi Feuchtwanger [-Sarig], “The Coronation of the Virgin and of the Bride,” Jewish Art 12/13 (1986/87): 213 fig. 1; 214, fig. 3; 221, figs. 12–13; 222, fig. 14; and Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 225, fig. 336; 230, figs. 344–45. 11 For Jewish beards, see Elliott Horowitz, “Visages du judaisme: De la barbe en monde juif et de l’élaboration de ses significations,” Annales HSS 49 (1994): 1065–1090.

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ones were substituted for widows.12 Behind the bride two women wearing headcloths occupy the place usually reserved for the mothers of the betrothed couple.13 One holds a flower and wears a lenza, a ribbon tied around the forehead and adorned with a jewel.14 Behind them a second bearded man raises a wine vessel.15 A fourth man, who is clean-shaven and wears a berretta, holds another flower. The facing folio, 114r, shows in the lower and side margins a representation of marriage that focuses on the ritual of the seven benedictions, which were recited over wine (Fig. 61).16 The caption reads, hp'ywj] r[´d´ rf'n“Wa h;lk' ˆWa ˆt'j, zyai ad; (“Here are the bride and groom under the ˙uppah”). The couple stands beneath the earliest surviving image of a portable wedding canopy, which written documents suggest was an Ashkenazic custom that was unknown before the sixteenth century.17 Its corners are attached to poles, which are held 12 Esther Cohen and Elliott Horowitz, “In Search of the Sacred: Jews, Christians, and Rituals of Marriage in the later Middle Ages,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 20 (1990): 225–49, here 247; Gutmann, “Wedding Customs and Ceremonies in Art,” 318 and 325 n. 39; Sperber, “The Wedding Canopy in Halakhic and Art Sources;” and Solomon R. Freehof, Reform Jewish Practice and its Rabbinic Background (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1944–52), 173. 13 Cohen and Horowitz, “In Search of the Sacred,” 230 n. 18. 14 For the lenza, see Herald, Renaissance Dress in Italy, 222. For flowers at weddings, see Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 263. See also the image of Esther in BN MS. Héb. 586 (Fig. 54). 15 Óayyim Schauss, The Lifetime of a Jew throughout the Ages of Jewish History (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congegations, 1950) 173, reports that “two wine glasses are held in readiness, one for the betrothal benediction and the other for the wedding benediction.” See also Sperber, “The Wedding Canopy in Halakhic and Art Sources.” 16 For Jewish marriage, see notes 10 and 12; Posner, “Marriage Ceremony,” 1032; Weinstein, “Rituel du mariage et culture des jeunes dans la société JudéoItalienne, 16e–17e siècles,” 455–79; Naomi Feuchtwanger [-Sarig], “Interrelations between the Jewish and Christian Wedding in Medieval Ashkenaz,” in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies ( Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies Congress, 1986), 2:31–36; Joseph Gutmann, “Christian Influences on Jewish Customs,” in Spirituality and Prayer: Jewish and Christian Understandings, ed. by Leo Klenicki and Gabe Huck (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), 128–38; and Kenneth Stow, “Marriages are Made in Heaven: Marriage and the Individual in the Roman Jewish Ghetto,” Renaissance Quarterly 48 (1995): 445–91. 17 Freehof, Reform Jewish Practice, 186–93. See also Joseph Gutmann, “ Introduction,” in Beauty in Holiness, ed. by idem, xxi; idem, “Wedding Customs and Ceremonies in Art,” 317 and 324 n. 35; Solomon B. Freehof, “The Chuppah,” in In the Time of Harvest: Essays in Honor of Abba Hillel Silver on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (New York and London: Macmillan, 1963), 186–93. Shalom Sabar, “The Beginnings of Ketubbah Decorations in Italy: Venice in the Late Sixteenth to the Early Seventeenth Centuries,” Jewish Art 12/13 (1986/87): 96–110, here 99 (quotation, which is from David de Pomis, 1525–93).

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aloft by boys.18 Although the setting is not shown, texts make clear that portable ˙uppahs were erected outdoors in the courtyard of the synagogue.19 Again the bride extends her index finger to receive the ring, while another woman, presumably her mother, stands behind her. In the center foreground, two boys stand between two men, who raise narrow-necked wine vessels. These men, who may be the two required witnesses, are probably not rabbis or cantors, since their location within the composition does not grant them any special authority, and they are not positioned between the couple where the officiant would stand. The final image of this series, in the lower margin of folio 115r, shows a wedding dance, one of three dances depicted in the manuscript (Fig. 62).20 The partially cut-off caption at the bottom probably reads, fplwrb wx ˆxnf ayd (“They dance at the wedding”). Two couples and a threesome dance to the music of a bagpipe that is partly visible in the inner margin. The pair at the left each raises a foot, those at the center hold their partners’ hands, and all the men and women face each other. At this time dancing between men and women was common, especially at Purim and weddings.21 Because the Yiddish scribe was an amateur artist who was not trained to rely on models, he chose to visualize marriage rituals in

18

For the sloppy way he drew this composition, see Chapter I. Freehof, “Chuppah,” 188 and 192. 20 I would like to thank Angene Feves and especially Barbara Sparti for their help in understanding the images of dance in the manuscript. The other dances in this manuscript are the ones on the Sabbath after Tishah be-Av and on Purim, both of which are accompanied by lute music (Figs. 24a, 67). For the mitzvah dance, see Barbara Sparti, “Dancing couples behind the scenes: recently discovered Italian illustrations, 1470–1550,” Imago Musicae: Yearbook of Musical Iconography 13 (1996): 9–37; eadem, “Jewish Dancing-Masters and Jewish Dance in Renaissance Italy (Guglielmo Ebreo and Beyond),” Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review 20 (2000): 11–23; Book of Fables: The Yiddish Fable Collection of Reb Moshe Wallich, Frankfurt am Main, 1697, trans. and ed. by Eli Katz (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), 212, fable XXX. I would like to thank Barbara Sparti for showing me an advance copy of her article. 21 Moses A. Shulvass, The Jews in the World of the Renaissance, trans. by Elvin I. Rose (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 242; Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 219. For Jewish dancing and Jewish dancing masters see Guglielmo Ebreo of Pesaro, De Practica seu arte tripudii. On the Art of Dancing, ed., trans., and intro. by Barbara Sparti (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); Zvi Friedhaber and Giora Manor, “The Jewish Dancing Master in the Renaissance in Italy in the Jewish and Gentile communities and at the ducal courts,” in Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro e la danza nella corti italiane del XV secolo, ed. by Maurizio Padovan (Pisa: Pacini, 1990), 11–25; and Shulvass, The Jews of the World of the Renaissance, 245–46. 19

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new ways. Although scenes of Jewish weddings in Hebrew manuscripts sometimes follow set compositional types, the drawings in the Paris book of customs are remarkably independent. For instance, they are the first to show a portable wedding canopy, as we have seen, and the only image of its time—Jewish or Christian—to include men and women dancing face-to-face and holding both hands.22 Moreover, the Yiddish scribe was able to depict an insider’s view of Jewish ritual. For example, a more aesthetically sophisticated and often-reproduced illumination by a Christian artist inaccurately shows the wedding ceremony without the witnesses and wine that were essential to the Jewish wedding (Fig. 96).23 By contrast, the drawings in the Yiddish manuscript reveal a profound knowledge of Jewish traditions: they include wine, witnesses, dancing, music, the ring, and the portable ˙uppah held aloft by boys. Furthermore, the scribe at times deviates from the rabbinic viewpoint. For example, as early as the eleventh century, a rabbinic ruling declared, “it is forbidden for men and women to intermingle [at a wedding] whether at the meal, at the dancing, or at any part [of the celebration] . . . for at a happy occasion, especially the sensual passions are aroused.”24 This attempt to regulate dancing because of its association with promiscuity occurred again and again, which suggests that at least some people ignored it. In his ethical will of 1357, El’azar ben Samuel of Mainz cautioned his children to avoid “mixed dancing.”25 And in 1507, roughly contemporary with the Yiddish manuscript, a north Italian rabbinical council prohibited men from dancing with other men’s wives, and permitted them to dance with single women only if they wore “an outer garment . . . in such a way as to cover at least the loins.”26 In fact, this ordinance was repeated 22 For the next such image, see the Contentezza d’Amour of 1581, in Georgina Masson, Courtesans of the Italian Renaissance (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1975), following page 88. For a northern European example of a couple dancing face-toface and holding one hand, see Walter Salmen, “ ‘Alla Tedesca’ oder ‘Welsch’ tanzen,” in Italia-Austria alla ricerca di un passato comune, ed. by Paolo Chiarini and Herbert Zeman (Rome: Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici, 1995), Tav. 4. 23 Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Scrin. 132, fol. 75v (detail). For this image, see note 10, no. 8. This image includes denigratory elements such as the Jewish badge and a dog. 24 Judith Baskin, “From Separation to Displacement: The Problem of Women in Sefer Hasidim,” AJS Review 19 (1994): 1–18, here 12. 25 Baskin, “Women,” in Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Roth, 660. 26 Friedhaber and Manor, “The Jewish Dancing Master in the Renaissance,” 17–18, and Robert Bonfil, “Aspects of the Social and Spiritual Life of Jews in

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so many times that both Israhel Abrahams and Judith Baskin concluded that “mixed dancing . . . was deeply established in Ashkenazic culture.”27 Perhaps for this reason, the Yiddish scribe shows not only men and women dancing intimately together, but also one man wearing revealing clothing, in opposition to both the rabbinical viewpoint and images in Hebrew manuscripts. Not only are these drawings an outgrowth of their Yiddish context, they are also part of Italian Renaissance culture. They wear Italian clothes, but, more importantly, depictions of Jewish men and women dancing together are found only in Renaissance Italy, not in northern Europe.28 In particular, a similar threesome is depicted in a dance manual written by Guglielmo Ebreo of Pesaro, an Italian Jew.29 Furthermore, whereas northern European Jewish communities combined betrothal and marriage, Italian ones celebrated them on Venetian Territories at the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century,” Zion 41 (1976): 68–96, here 71, 84–86 (in Hebrew). Guglielmo Ebreo of Pesaro, a Jewish dancing master, lamented that “depraved minds turn it [dance] from a liberal art and virtuous science into a vile adulterous affair”: 18. Herman Pollack reports, “As far back as Geonic times there was concern about the reckless conduct among young people during wedding celebrations”: “An Explanation of the Origin and Development of Jewish Books of Customs (Sifre Minhagim): 1100–1300,” Jewish Social Studies 49 (1987): 195–216, here 202. 27 Baskin, “From Separation to Displacement,” 12, who cites Abrahams. 28 Although the women’s heads are covered, this does not necesssarily indicate that they are married. See Sabar, “Bride, Heroine, and Courtesan,” 66–67. Three earlier images of Jewish wedding dances exist, all illuminations in fifteenth-century Italian luxury manuscripts. The first, which shows shows several couples dancing to a lute, appears in the Rothschild Miscellany, dated 1480, as an illustration to a nuptial poem that does not mention dancing. The second, which shows a couple dancing to the music of a group of wind instruments on a balcony, illustrates a book of matrimonial laws, the Arba’ah Turim, produced in Mantua around 1435–38. The third appears in a different edition of the same text; see above n. 10, nos. 1, 11, 19. For the bagpiper accompanying dancers, see Sparti, “Dancing couples behind the scenes,” 18, and Kate Lowe, “Secular brides and convent brides: Wedding ceremonies in Italy during the Renaissance and Counter-Reformation,” in Marriage in Italy, 1300–1600, ed. by Trevor Dean and eadem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 41–65, here 46. A dance for Purim in an Italian Renaissance version of Maimonides’ Mishne Torah shows two couples dancing to bagpipes. This manuscript is written in an Ashkenazic script, and Barbara Sparti wonders if the bagpipe was more common in Ashkenazic culture: see “Dancing couples behind the scenes,” 24 and n. 33. Lowe considers the bagpipe a rustic intrument: see “Secular brides and convent brides,” 46. 29 Guglielmo Ebreo of Pesaro, De Practica seu arte tripudii, 8 fig. 3 (Paris BN MS. fonds ital. 476, fol. 21v, dated 1463), and Mabel Dolmetsch, Dances of Spain and Italy from 1400 to 1600 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954), 12, 21. The parallel lines that appear on the garments of the four dancers on the right in the Yiddish drawing may be meant to suggest movement.

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separate occasions, considering each an independent custom.30 This practice may well be reflected in the separate images of betrothal and marriage. The Yiddish manuscript, in short, grows out of a very specific moment: it was produced by and for a literate Ashkenazic scribe, who came from the middle ranks of Jewish society, lived in northern Italy, and had an intimate knowledge of Jewish ritual but no formal training as an artist.

Images of Marriage in Yiddish Printed Books of Customs Much better known are the woodcuts that appear in the Yiddish books of customs that were published by the Christian Giovanni di Gara almost a century later (Figs. 85, 93).31 These prints and subsequent versions of them have been reproduced so often that they have become almost synonymous with Jewish marriage (Figs. 96b, 97a).32 But they form a striking contrast to those in the manuscript. First, the transformation from manuscript to printed book involved a sharp reduction in the number of images, as we have seen.33 Whereas the Yiddish manuscript devotes three drawings to the betrothal and wedding, the printed books telescope these rituals into one woodcut, and in fact, one critical moment: the marriage under the ˙uppah. This discrepancy is not due to differences in the length of the texts. The descriptions of marriage in the printed books continue for several pages and, unlike those in the manuscript, refer not only to prayers but also to numerous other rituals, such as placing ashes on the groom’s head and throwing corn at the bride and groom while crying, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Rather, the inclusion of only one image of marriage was a cost-saving device, designed to keep the books moderately priced. Not only are Jews visually stereotyped in the printed books, unlike their individualized portrayal in the manuscript,34 but the woodcut of 1600 omits one element that was essential for a Jewish wedding (Fig. 93). It shows a couple under the ˙uppah, with the rabbi at the

30 31 32 33 34

Weinstein, “Jewish Youth Sub-Culture in Early Modern Italy,” 55. For these books, see Chapter V. See n. 5. See Chapter V. See Chapter III.

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center, holding a wine vessel in his right hand. But the groom does not give the bride a ring; rather the rabbi pushes the bride’s arm towards the groom and the couple holds hands. The combination of these three motifs—the centralized officiant, his pushing gesture, and the substitution of a handclasp for the presentation of the ring— appears in no other scene of Jewish marriage produced in Renaissance Italy, but does recur in numerous Christian images.35 Nor is the portable ˙uppah an exclusively Jewish feature. A very similar canopy appears in a painting of the marriage of Ferdinando de’ Medici and Cristina di Lorena, dated 1589 (Fig. 97b).36 Similarly, the woodcut in the book of customs published in 1593 omits two key elements, the ring and the wine, and although Jewish texts and other images indicate that boys should hold the ˙uppah, it substitutes grown men, like the Christian painting of four years earlier (Figs. 85, 97b).37 In addition, unlike both the manuscript and the print of 1600, this image lacks clarity. The gestures of all three figures under the ˙uppah and the gender of the central one are ambiguous, which suggests that the printmaker may have misinterpreted his model. Who is the central figure? Although the hat suggests a man, the ruff around the neck and the long garment, which covers the ankles, suggest a woman. But earlier images and texts indicate that only the officiant ever stood between the couple.38 Perhaps the model on which the printmaker based his woodcut showed the groom on the left and the rabbi at the center. The man on the left wears a tallit, traditionally given to the groom at his wedding, and the unidentifiable shape at the center of the composition may have originally been his raised forearm, offering the ring to the bride. Alternatively, the central figure may have originally been the groom and the man on the left the rabbi holding a wine vessel; other images in the book distinguish the rabbi by his tallit (Fig. 80a). That this image troubled

35

See Gutmann, “Christian Influence,” 52, and the numerous images in Linda Seidel, Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait: Stories of an Icon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). For Jewish images, see note 10. The handclasp did occur in Jewish betrothals and weddings in France and Germany: see Falk, Marriage and Divorce, 65. 36 Ubaldo Morandi, Le Biccherne Senesi (Siena: Monte dei Paschi di Asiena, 1964), 182–83. 37 See, for example, Alan Corré, “Synagogue Judaica,” http://www.uwm.edu/People/ corre/buxdorf: Johannes Buxtorf, Synagogue Judaica, chapter 28. 38 See n. 10.

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viewers is shown by a variant published in seventeenth-century Amsterdam and further streamlined for the Jewish Encyclopedia, which eliminates the questionable gestures, and by a mirror-image version published at Frankfurt in the early eighteenth century, which transforms the central figure into a groom (Figs. 96b–97a).39 In short, the woodcuts, especially the earlier one, inaccurately communicate essential features of the Jewish wedding. One reason for this may be that the printmaker was a Christian, unfamiliar with Jewish customs.40 Just as he mistakenly showed the Óanukkah menorah with seven branches, so he depicts marriage without the essential elements of the Jewish ritual. Similarly, in the version of 1600 the substitution of the joining of the couple’s hands for the ring ceremony is not a traditional feature in images of Jewish marriages, but is widespread in scenes of Christian weddings (Fig. 93).41 Another element of this print, the two left arms of the bride, probably stems from a misinterpretation of the model on which this composition is based.42 Since the Yiddish scribe was a Jew who intimately knew his own culture and an amateur artist who did not rely on earlier visual sources, he avoided such mistakes. Another difference between the image of marriage in the manuscript and that in the edition of 1600 is that in the former no rabbi is discernible in any image, but in the latter he has become the focus of the marriage scene (Fig. 93). Situated at the center of the composition, he is the largest figure, and the only one facing frontally. Although in Renaissance Italy rabbis were not required to be present at weddings,43 Ashkenazic viewers would have interpreted this figure as a rabbi. Jacob Moellin, the Rabbi of Mainz (d. 1427), describes the critical role of the rabbi in marriages in his community: he leads 39 For the Amsterdam print, see Grunwald, “Marriage Ceremonies,” 341, which may be incorrectly dated since this image seems identical to that in the book of customs published in 1662, and no book of customs was published in 1695, the date cited by Grunwald. See Naomi Feuchtwanger-Sarig, “An Illustrated Minhagim book printed in Amsterdam,” web article, July 31, 2002 at http://cf.uba.uva.nl/nl/publicities. For the Frankfurt print, see Epstein, “Simon Levi Ginzburg’s Illustrated Custumal (Minhagim-Book) of Venice,” 209 and 217. 40 See Chapter V. 41 See note 35. 42 The lower arm’s forearm and hand are visible to the left of the other arm, just below its elbow. This second arm may be a misinterpretation of a strand of the veil in the printmaker’s model. The fact that this mistake was not corrected makes clear the inexpensive nature of these books. 43 Weinstein, “Jewish Youth Sub-Culture in Early Modern Italy,” 55.

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the bride and groom to their proper positions, recites the blessings, and offers them the cup of wine that they drink.44 Antonius Margarita and Johannes Buxtorf, writing at the beginning of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth respectively, confirm that the Ashkenazic rabbi regularly served as the facilitator during weddings.45 Esther Cohen and Elliott Horowitz, after reviewing the relevant sources, identify the figure who stands between the bride and groom in so many wedding images as the rabbi. Furthermore, in the text of the printed Yiddish books of customs the rabbi leads the groom away, receives the ring from him, and asks witnesses whether they know if the ring is worth a perutah, a particular coin.46 Although the manuscript makes no reference to the rabbi, in the text and imagery of the printed books the rabbi plays a major role. This substantiates the findings of Cohen and Horowitz, who concluded that, paralleling changes initiated by the Counter-Reformation, as the century progressed rabbis played an increasingly important role in Jewish wedding ceremonies.47 Nor is this the only example in the printed books of customs of a greater emphasis on the rabbi; both show him delivering sermons, a theme lacking in the earlier manuscript even though it has many more scenes (Figs. 80a, 88a).48 Also paralleling Christian practice, whereas the drawings in the manuscript show men and women standing together, in the woodcut of 1600 the sexes are segregated (Fig. 93).49 Similarly, only the manuscript shows men and women dancing together (Fig. 62). As Barbara Sparti has demonstrated, in the early sixteenth century, following the lead of the church, rabbis prohibited mixed dancing and then, by the end of the century, forbade dancing altogether.50 The 44 Sidney Steiman, Custom and Survival: A Study of the Life and Work of Rabbi Jacob Molin (Moelln), known as the Maharil (c. 1360–1427) and his Influence in Establishing the Ashkenazic Minhag (Customs of German Jewry) (New York: Bloch, 1963), 45–54, and Cohen and Horowitz, “In search of the sacred,” 230. 45 Margarita, Der Gantze Jüdisch Glaub, 98–100; and Corre, “Synagogue Judaica.” 46 See Aryeh Kaplan, Made in Heaven: A Jewish Wedding Guide (New York: Moznaim, 1983), 175. 47 Weinstein, “Jewish Youth Sub-Culture in Early Modern Italy,” 55; Cohen and Horowitz, “In search of the sacred,” 229–230; and Steiman, Custom and Survival, 48. 48 See Chapter IV above. 49 For the segregation of the sexes in Christian marriage scenes, such as Raphael’s Marriage of the Virgin (1504) and works deriving from it, including a print of Matrimonium, see Sara F. Matthews Grieco, “Matrimonio e vita coniugale nell’arte dell’Italia moderna,” in Storia del matrimonio, ed. by Michela De Giorgio and Christiane KlapischZuber (Bari: Laterza, 1996), 251–82, here fig. 6. 50 Sparti, “Jewish Dancing-Masters and Jewish Dance in Renaissance Italy,” 11–23.

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text of the printed books permits dancing, so long as the sexes are separated: “In several communities they dance the mitzvah dance. The men with the groom and the women with the bride.”51 But although their texts mention sex-segregated dancing, neither printed book includes an image visualizing it. This conforms not only to the more joyous nature of the manuscript, but also to its greater independence from rabbinic rules.52 Despite their differences, the three books of customs were designed to instruct Jews in the proper way to perform rituals and so present an idealized vision of marriage. No one misbehaves and although the ideals vary, all the images show the rituals as they should be performed, not necessarily as they actually were.53 Moreover, they emphasize the importance of marriage, since it is one of only two or three lifecycle events depicted in the books. Furthermore, in all three books, a scene of circumcision follows the marriage imagery, which emphasizes that for Jews a major purpose of marriage was to produce children (Figs. 63, 86a, 94a). This differs from such Christian books as Pfefferkorn’s Libellus de Judaica Confessione, which omit scenes of marriage, since their goal was to denigrate Jews, not strengthen their families.54

Symbolic Marriage and Sim˙at Torah Another image of a wedding ritual appears in the Yiddish manuscript (Fig. 47). Although Zofia Ameisenowa described the drawing as showing a family meal,55 it actually depicts the symbolic marriage feasts 51 fym âywrw yd ˆwa ˆt;j' fym ˆnam ayd .≈naf hw'x]mi ˆ[d ˚a ˆm fznf twlhiq] ˆkÉylf[ ˆya .hl;k' r[d 52 For the more joyous aspect of the manuscript, see Chapter V. 53 There may be an additional ideological underpinning. Only two life-cycle events are illustrated in the manuscript: marriage and circumcision. The image of circumcision appears on folio 115v, immediately following the drawing of the wedding dance (Fig. 63). This may have served to reinforce the idea that sexuality should be relegated to its proper place, that is, within marriage, where it was associated with the biblical injunction to “be fruitful and multiply,” a belief also expressed through marriage rituals. For a parallel conception in Christian society, see Guido Ruggiero, “Marriage, love, sex, and Renaissance: Civic Morality,” in Sexuality and Gender in Early Modern Europe: Institutions, Texts, Images, ed. by James Grantham Turner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 10–30, here 13. For an unidealized view of actual Jewish marriages, see Howard Tzvi Adelman, “Law and Love: The Jewish Family in Early Mdern Italy,” Continuity and Change 16 (2001): 283–303. 54 See Chapter V above. 55 Ameisenowa, “An Illustrated Manual of Rituals,” 198 (in Hebrew). For a brief discussion of this image, see also Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 309.

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that occur on Sim˙at Torah, the day on which Jews joyously celebrate the Torah, their holy book. On this holiday, one reader, known as the Óatan Torah, or Bridegroom of the Law, reads in synagogue the final portion of the Torah. Then another, called the Óatan Bereshit, or Bridegroom of Genesis, begins the Torah anew with the first chapter of Genesis.56 After services each groom hosts a banquet at his home, where, according to the text of the Yiddish manuscript, they serve ˆyywIwI ˆç'ywz“ ˆWa fyp´Wq (“sweetmeats and sweet wine”). This ritual is depicted in the manuscript as the final image in a sequence of drawings for Sim˙at Torah. The series opens on folio 91v with an image of the reading of Genesis (Fig. 45b).57 The next drawing shows the calling up of the youth (fol. 92v), which is followed by a depiction of the procession of the Torahs (fols. 92v–93r, Figs. 46a-b). The last image in the series, on folio 93v, shows the symbolic wedding banquet of the Óatan Torah in the upper right margin, and that of the Óatan Bereshit just below it (Fig. 47). The upper caption of this drawing reads, hr;w tO ˆt'j, fç]yai ad; htWrb]j, rn"yyz´ fym' fyp´Wq (“Here the Bridegroom of the Law eats sweetmeats with his company”). A bearded man, whose importance is indicated by his central position and large size, sits at a table and reaches towards a bowl filled with small, rounded forms, presumably the sweetmeats mentioned in the text and caption. Two cleanshaven men sit to either side; one reaches for the sweets, the other for a glass. A second glass rests on the table and a small figure, probably a servant, stands at the left.58 The lower caption reads, tyçia]rib] ˆt´j, fç]yai ad; (“Here the Bridegroom of the Creation eats”). Four clean-shaven men sit at a table filled with a large bowl of sweetmeats, a carafe of wine, and a glass. The symbolic groom must

56 Bernard Drachman, “Bridegroom of the Law,” in The Jewish Encyclopedia, 3:382; Cecil Roth, “Bridegrooms of the Law,”in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 4: 1370–72; Judah David Eisenstein, Digest of Jewish Laws and Customs (Tel Aviv: no publ.,1968), 146 (in Hebrew); and Abraham Yaari, History of Simhat Torah ( Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1964), 63–87, 104–59, 231–36 (in Hebrew). 57 Here the man standing before the bimah is probably the reader since he seems to hold a yad, or pointer, in his hand. He is clean-shaven and wears a berretta, as opposed to the two other figures in this image who wear a tallit, clearly identifiable by the obligatory fringes on its corners. 58 For similar servants, see Cohen, “The Illustrations in Abraham Farissol’s Haggadah of 1515,” 89–90, 93–94, figs. 1 and 7, and Narkiss and Sed-Rajna, Index of Jewish Art, Rothschild Miscellany, Jerusalem, Israel Museum, MS 180/51, fols. 157 and 161v.

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be the man on the left, who again is the largest figure.59 The Óatan Bereshit hands a sweet to the man seated beside him, while to the right, another man holds a sweet. By the twelfth century the chief readers on Sim˙at Torah were viewed as the symbolic grooms of the Torah.60 The Óatam Torah, that is, the one who seals or concludes the Torah, became known as the Óatan Torah, that is, the Bridegroom of the Torah. Since Biblical times Jews have gendered the Torah female and referred to their holy book as the “betrothed of Israel,” that is, of the Jewish people. At times the homosocial atmosphere of rabbinic culture even expressed erotic feelings for the Torah.61 Through the symbolic marriages between the chief readers and the Torah that take place on Sim˙at Torah Jews express their great love for their holy book on a holiday that has always been characterized by “intense spiritual joy.”62 The adoption of the metaphor of marriage for this critically important relationship demonstrates the significance of this institution for medieval Jewry. This is confirmed by images of another symbolic wedding, that between God and Israel. Thirteenth and fourteenth-century Ma˙zorim, or festival prayer books, include the piyyut, or Hebrew liturgical poem, “Come with me from Lebanon, my Bride” (Song of Songs 4:8). This allegorical song, which refers to God’s love for the Jewish people, was written in the eleventh century by Benjamin ben Zerah, and is recited on the Sabbath before Passover. The piyyut is visualized in four Ma˙zorim through an image of a human couple. Their married status is indicated in a variety of ways: through a ring, huppah, bridal crown, and the blessing over the wine.63 59 He somewhat resembles the Óatan Bereshit in the drawing of the reading of Genesis in that he wears a berretta and is clean-shaven. The scribe originally gave him short hair like the earlier Genesis reader, but later lengthened it. At the far right, the scribe seems to have had trouble indicating the relationship between the guest’s glass and the carafe. 60 Roth, “Bridegrooms of the Law,” 1371, and Yaari, History of Simhat Torah, 67. 61 Elliot R. Wolfson, Along the Path: Studies in Kabbalistic Myth, Symbolism and Hermeneutics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 92–93, 104, 141 n. 182; idem, “Circle in the Square”: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 1–28; Roth, “Bridegrooms of the Law,” 1371; Drachman, “Bridegroom of the Law,” 382; and Daniel Boyarin, Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 134–96. 62 Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 254. 63 See Sed-Rajna, Le ma˙zor enluminé, 21, figs. 13–16, and Feuchtwanger [-Sarig], “Coronation,” 213–24.

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Similarly, Jews adopted a range of marital customs to indicate the symbolic marriage of the Torah and Israel. Throughout the year, Torahs were adorned with crowns, which resembled, and even at times substituted for, those that brides and grooms wore at their wedding.64 On Sim˙at Torah additional marriage customs were incorporated into the ritual. A tallit was often spread like a ˙uppah over the Óatan Torah and Óatan Bereshit, a marriage custom that is visualized in images of the wedding of Zipporah and Moses.65 Similarly, male congregants danced with the Torah in synagogue, and, when the two symbolic grooms left the synagogue, they were accompanied by a procession that included lit torches and musicians, practices that commonly occurred at real weddings.66 These elements of marriage ritual are not included in the image in the Yiddish manuscript, but the scribe did choose to represent other wedding customs (Fig. 47). First, each groom wears a flower on the top of his head, which is meant to suggest the crown or wreath that some bridegrooms wore at their weddings.67 Second, the image of the ritual meals was intended to bring to mind marriage feasts. It is not surprising that the scribe chose to visualize this aspect, since the manuscript includes so many representations of ritual meals. Only one contemporary scene of a Jewish wedding meal is known, that in the Rothschild Miscellany, a luxury Hebrew manuscript pro64 Feuchtwanger [-Sarig], “Coronation,” 223, and Arthur Green, The Crown of God in Jewish Mysticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 83. For the history of the bridal crown, see Green, The Crown of God in Jewish Mysticism, 82–84. 65 Isaac Klein, A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1979), 173. For the images of Zipporah and Moses, see Feuchtwanger, “Coronation,” 221, figs. 12–13. 66 Numerous wedding images show musicians, and marriage processions with lit torches are represented in a manuscript in Princeton, for which see Panofsky, “Giotto and Maimonides,” figs. 9–10. See also Eisenstein, A Digest of Jewish Laws and Customs, 146, and Reuben Kashani and Raphael Posner, “Various Customs,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 11:1042. For torches, music, and the tallit as the ˙uppah in seventeenthcentury Italy, see also Leon Modena, Historia de’ riti Hebraici: “sotto un baldachino con suoni, & alcuni viano con certi fanciulli appresso co torcie accesi in mano che chantano. Concorsa la gente d’interno, si mette uno di quelli manti quadrati con pendacoli detto Taled, che cuopre il capo dello sposo e sposa insieme.” For an English translation, see The History of the Rites, Customes, and Manner of Life, of the Present Jews throughout the World, trans. by Edmund Chilmead (London: J. Martin and J. Ridley, 1650), 176. 67 Emil G. Hirsch, “Bridal Crowns,” in The Jewish Encyclopedia, 4:372, and Feuchtwanger [-Sarig], “Coronation,” 213–24. Green, The Crown of God in Jewish Mysticism, 82–84, makes clear that some Jewish marital crowns during the Middle Ages were made of roses, myrtle, and olive branches adorned with silver leaves and silken threads.

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duced in Italy in the 1470s.68 Here, the bride and groom sit on either side of an older bearded man who raises a cup to recite the seven wedding benedictions. The table is covered with a white cloth and set with knives, bread, plates, wine carafes, and a saucer for the golden wine goblet. By contrast, the table in the Yiddish codex is more simply set, in keeping with its more humble patronage. Also typical of this manuscript is the unusual iconography: this is the only known scene of the banquets of Sim˙at Torah.69 The scribe, because he had not been taught to depend on earlier visual models, felt freer to experiment, and so his imagery is often strikingly original.70 Like Jews, Christians celebrated symbolic marriages by integrating aspects of contemporary weddings into their rituals. When the bishop of Florence symbolically married the Florentine church, when the Doge of Venice symbolically married the sea, when nuns symbolically married Christ, they incorporated marriage customs into the ritual, such as the banquet and the ring ceremony. As Trevor Dean, Kate Lowe, and Edward Muir observe, they also assumed that in these symbolic marriages the husband would dominate the wife.71 The reverse is true for the symbolic marriages of Sim˙at Torah. For Jews, the bride, that is, the Torah, should always govern the groom, that is, the Jewish people. But this is not to suggest that the symbolic marriage rituals of Sim˙at Torah were any less patriarchal. In this manuscript, as in traditional Jewish society, men occupy the most privileged religious spaces. And so, unlike actual wedding ceremonies, no woman attends the feasts of Sim˙at Torah. Nor does the scribe depict what the women did while the men banqueted; he deemed this unimportant. One other element of the rituals surrounding the symbolic marriages of Sim˙at Torah is only suggested in the Yiddish manuscript. This holiday was often a time of disorderly behavior. The object that loops around the neck and arm of the Óatan Bereshit is probably a belt, in reference to the traditional wedding gift given to both 68 Mortara-Ottolenghi, “The Illumination and the Artists,” 1:181; 2: fols. 322v and 121v; and Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 223. 69 For other types of Sim˙at Torah imagery, see Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 254–55, and Joseph Gutmann, “Sukkot and Sim˙at Torah in Art,” in The Sukkot and Sim˙at Torah Anthology, ed. by Goodman, 123–28. 70 See Chapter II above. 71 Trevor Dean and Kate Lowe, “Introduction,” in Marriage in Italy, 1300–1600, 4–5, and Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, 235–37.

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men and women.72 However, its position here, thrown around the neck, may be intended to suggest unruly activity. Furthermore, Deuteronomy 22:5 forbids men from wearing women’s clothing, but cross-dressing did occur, “in moments of exalted joy or pressing danger.”73 Elliott Horowitz concludes that from the thirteenth through the seventeenth century, and from the Mediterranean basin to Amsterdam, men sometimes appeared in synagogue on Sim˙at Torah dressed in women’s clothing and jewelry—a custom that was severely condemned by numerous rabbis.74 The two grooms in the Yiddish drawing are not clearly shown wearing women’s clothes. But the low-cut neckline of the upper groom is similar to that of women’s dresses in the manuscript.75 The scribe may here have chosen to only hint at the cross-dressing, in line with his goal of imparting the proper way to celebrate Jewish holidays. Even more than the images of real marriage, the scenes for Sim˙at Torah are radically transformed in the printed Yiddish books of customs. Again when a complex ritual is translated from manuscript to printed form it is reduced to a single print and a single moment, but now the subjects are quite different. Neither printed book illustrates the symbolic marriage feasts. The earlier one shows a man and woman showering sweetmeats on children who eagerly gather them up, a theme not depicted in the manuscript,76 and the later printed book includes only a woodcut that is reproduced many times in the volume to mark the text for the blessing over the wine, an image of a man raising a wine glass (Fig. 87). One element is shared by all the Yiddish images of marriage, both 72 For the wedding belt, see Ernst H. Kantorowicz, “On the Golden Marriage Belt and the Marriage Rings of the Dumbarton Oaks Collection,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 14 (1960): 3–16; Gary Vikan, “Art and marriage in Early Byzantium,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44 (1990): 145–63, here 161–62 and fig. 31; Gutmann, “Wedding Customs and Ceremonies in Art,” 317; Corré, “Synagogue Judaica,” chap. 28; Kashani and Posner, “Various Customs,” 1043, fig. 11 (for German seventeenth-century belts). By the thirteenth century, the belt became a symbol of virginity in Christian culture; see Wolfthal, Images of Rape, 53, 108–9. The “ungirding of the lions,” or removal of the belt, may well have had a similar connotation in Jewish culture. 73 Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 274–75. 74 Elliott Horowitz, “Religious Practices among the Jews in the late Fifteenth Century—according to the Letters of R. Obadia of Bertinoro,” Pe’amim 37 (1988): 31–40 (in Hebrew). See also Franz Landsberger, “The Origin of European Torah Decorations,” Hebrew Union College Annual 24 (1952/53): 95–96. 75 For criteria for determining gender in this manuscript, see Chapter IV above. 76 For this custom, see Schulim Ochser, “Sim˙at Torah,” in The Jewish Encyclopedia, 11: 365, and Cecil Roth, “Simhat Torah,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 14:1571–74.

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real and symbolic: they make no reference to sadness, a feature of Jewish marriage that is expressed in such customs as the placing of ashes on the groom’s head and the breaking of a glass, acts designed to recall the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem.77 The text of the manuscript does not mention these customs, and its images highlight joyful aspects of rituals such as dancing, drinking, and eating. Although the custom involving ashes is cited in the texts of the printed books, the accompanying woodcuts fail to visualize it or any other sorrowful custom.

Conclusions These images of real and symbolic Jewish marriages contribute to our understanding of how the collective memory of European Jewry was formed. On one level, they reveal what one Jew, in the case of the Yiddish manuscript, or a group of Jews working together with Christians, in the case of the printed books, believed were the salient features of each ritual. But on another level, these images helped shape the way Jews thought about rituals well beyond the life of their creators. One family owned the manuscript in the sixteenth century. By contrast, the printed books, published in hundreds, if not thousands, of copies, were from the beginning seen by a wider audience. Although the images in the manuscript and the printed edition of 1600 were soon forgotten, those published in 1593 were repeatedly reprinted with very little variation well into the twentieth century (Figs. 96b–97a). These prints became the canonical images for Jewish rituals through their reproduction in a wide range of publications. In the last thirty years, the prints in the edition of 1600 have also been reproduced, although not as frequently as those in the edition of 1593 and its variants. In short, over the years generations of Jews have come to view the images in the printed books as representations of the authentic way in which their ancestors celebrated rituals.78 Yet since these images were published by a Christian and at least one set was designed by a Christian, they were never 77 Gutmann, Beauty in Holiness, xxii; Buxtorf, Synagoga Judaica: “in remembrance of the destroyed Temple at Jerusalem;” 4; and Margaritha, Die Gantze Jüdisch Glaub (ca. 1500), 100. 78 See, for example, Shmeruk, Illustrations in Yiddish Books, 81.

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a simple reflection of a “pure” Jewish culture. In fact, as we have seen, they fail to correspond in essential ways to traditional Jewish ritual, as it is repeatedly described in Jewish texts and images. Tracing images of marriage from manuscript to printed form confirm that collective memory does not consist of a single, seamless master narrative, but rather is multi-voiced, revised, and contested. The complex richness of the Yiddish manuscript and its renderings of potentially unruly customs, such as dancing and wearing belts around the neck, were recorded in a manuscript made for the scribe’s personal use. These images were distilled and condensed in the more famous printed versions, which were designed to appeal to a mainstream audience. These printed images, repeated again and again through the centuries, created the false impression that Jewish rituals were unchanging; they helped inculcate the idea among Jews that certain parts of their social past were eternal. For this reason, Jews may well have viewed such woodcuts as comforting signs of stability, particularly in times of crisis. These images of marriage rituals also demonstrate that memory is not always formed by an elite who imposes its version of the truth on the unwitting masses. Rather, in this case, the images that became the most influential were produced by and for the middle ranks of society. Finally, we must explore not only what was remembered, but also what was forgotten. The Yiddish scribe left no trace of what Jewish women did while their husbands shared the Sim˙at Torah feast, and he glossed over such boisterous observances of the past as cross-dressing. The images of ritual in these books offer us a window through which to view how a specific subset of Europeans, that is, Ashkenazic Jews living in Northern Italy during the sixteenth century, visualized the richness and complexity of Jewish life, including their marriage rituals. Collective memory is often viewed as an invention of the nationstates that emerged in early modern times. It was in the interest of rulers, who wished to consolidate their newly-won power, to have their citizens associate themselves with a larger group, to develop an identity as a member of a nation. This identity was strengthened through a collective memory, which was brought into being largely through cultural production. And so in our case we must imagine the images in the early Yiddish books of customs being viewed by hundreds, perhaps even thousands of Jews, who, although they did not share a collective geography, nevertheless considered themselves

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members of a single nation. The printed versions and their later variants suggest that reading the same books and viewing the same images eventually contributed to the development of a collective memory among spatially dispersed Jews throughout Europe, a memory that, however flawed, is still with us today.79

79

For Jewish collective memory, see especially Cultural Memory and the Construction of Identity, ed. by Dan ben-Amos and Liliane Weissberg (Detroit: Wayne State Press, 1999).

CHAPTER SEVEN

REMEMBERING AMALEK AND NEBUCHADNEZZAR: BIBLICAL WARFARE AND SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE IN IMAGES IN THE YIDDISH BOOKS OF CUSTOMS

Early modern Europe glorified war in numerous works enshrined in the art historical canon: the series of heroic Davids ever ready to fight a powerful foe, the spectacular battle scenes that portray war as a grand adventure, and the numerous equestrian monuments that glorify the memory of so many commanding warriors.1 Such images, produced in a wide range of media, styles, and sizes, were often displayed at the seat of power: in town squares, city halls, and the palaces of the elite. Not only artists, but also writers, expressed the dominant viewpoint. Niccolò Machiavelli, for example, advised that “A prince must have no other objective, no other thought, nor take up any profession but that of war, its methods, and its discipline, for that is the only art expected of a ruler.”2 Those in control wanted

1 See, for example, Randolph Starn, “Reinventing Heroes in Renaissance Italy,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17 (1986): 67–84, and J. R. Hale, Artists and Warfare in the Renaissance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). By contrast, for irenic aspects of European culture, see Peace and Negotiation: Strategies for Co-Existence in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. by Wolfthal. An earlier version of this chapter was published in Artful Armies, Beautiful Battles: Art and Warfare in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Cuneo. I wish to thank Pia Cuneo and Ken Plax for their editorial suggestions on that essay, Yael Zirlin of the Centre de Recherche sur les Manuscrits Enluminées, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, for sharing with me the iconographical index that she is preparing, and Michel Garel of the Bibliothèque Nationale for his kind help. I would also like to thank Joel Gereboff for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. 2 Marvin Lunenfeld, “Most Brutal Madness: Warfare in the Works of Machiavelli and Leonardo,” in Politics, Religion, and Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of Dr. Lamar Jensen, ed. by Malcolm R. Thorp and Arthur J. Slavin (Kirksville: Sixteenth Century Studies, 1994), 19–32, here 29. For a slightly different translation, see Niccolò Machiavelli, The Chief Works and Others, trans. Allan Gilbert, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1965), 1, 55. For the original Italian, see Niccolò Machiavelli, Il Principe, ed. Luigi Russo (Florence: S. G. Sansoni, 1946), 125: “Debbe adunque uno principe non avere altro obietto né altro pensiero, né prendere cosa alcuna per sua arte, fuora della guerra e ordini e disciplina di essa; perché quella è sola arte che si espetta a chi comanda.”

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to see their authority visualized in order to revel in their own power and convince others of their indomitable strength. But what about those who lacked the economic and political resources to wage war? Gypsies, Jews, and peasants, among others, were no strangers to armed conflict. Rather, they were often victims of the brutal aggression that was instigated by those in power. One question that has rarely, if ever, been investigated is how these groups reacted to the glorification of war. Another—and this is the focus of this chapter—is how minority cultures visualized armed conflict. In particular, this chapter will examine images of war that appear in the three Yiddish books of customs produced in sixteenth-century northern Italy.

The Siege of Nebuchadnezzar One of the most complex images in the Paris manuscript is the drawing on folio 102 (Fig. 50). Although most illustrations in the manuscript are simple line drawings, this one is enlivened with a wide range of colored washes. For example, the crowned equestrian figure at the center is depicted with pink face, brown hair, black cloak, green hose, and brown spurs; his red saddle rests on a white horse. This drawing is also larger than most in the manuscript. It occupies not only the entire lower margin but also about half the side margin as well. Its composition is also one of the most complex, comprising nine figures, elaborate architecture, weapons, and a horse. Nonetheless, typical of this modest manuscript, the washes have been carelessly applied. For example, the artist neglected to paint in the hands of the soldiers at the lower right, and the face of the middle soldier in this group is only partially filled in. The captions identify the subject. Just above the scene in the left margin a two-line inscription reads: “These are the soldiers/who march into Jerusalem.”3 Above the head of the crowned equestrian figure is written the name “Nebuchadnezzar.”4 The drawing, therefore, corresponds to the caption. It shows Nebuchadnezzar, king of

3 .μyIl'ç;Wry“ πyÔa ˆh'yxe ad:/aydI rn"l]wzO aydI ˆyyzE zd" Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 309, translate this as “enter.” 4 [r]x'nE< dk'wbn“.

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Babylon, and his army approaching Jerusalem.5 Visual evidence confirms this identification. The figure below the name Nebuchadnezzar is crowned, that is, he is a king. Furthermore, he is a commander, leading his troops on horseback. His straight-backed posture confirms his high social standing. As Georges Vigarello has shown, beginning in the sixteenth century, texts advised aristocrats to control their bodily movements; a rigid spine was especially valued.6 The king is shown holding the reins of his horse with an inclined but straight back, the proper equestrian carriage for the courtier class, as shown in an image in a later riding manual.7 The drawing depicts a siege.8 Nebuchadnezzar has arrived at Jerusalem followed by five soldiers; the last is only partially visible because the manuscript is so tightly bound. The infantrymen, dressed in leggings, shirts, and caps, hold their pikes erect; swords hang from their waists.9 At the lower right a cannon rests on a wooden carriage. Red smoke issues from its muzzle, indicating that it has just been fired. At the upper left, another group of soldiers marches on a grassy patch. Firearms rest on their shoulders, and the first and last in this group are each also armed with a sword and dagger. Each firearm, or arquebus, is painted with a red tip, suggesting that it, too, has just been fired.10 The cannon and firearms make clear that Nebuchadnezzar and his troops have begun to assault the city, an idea not specifically mentioned in the inscriptions.

5 Only two works have treated this image and both were quite brief. Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 309, write: “(dessin rehaussé): Une armée conduite par un roi coronné, monté sur un cheval, s’approche d’une ville (à droite), légende rendue en partie illisible par la peinture: “Nabuchodonosor . . .?’” [“(retouched drawing): An army led by a crowned king, mounted on a horse, who approaches a town (at the right), caption rendered in part illegible by the painting; ‘Nebuchadnezzar . . .?’”]. In contrast, Ameisonowa, “An Illustrated Manual of Rituals,” 198 (in Hebrew), suggests that the “king may be returning to his city from a hunting trip.” 6 Georges Vigarello, “The Upward Training of the Body from the Age of Chivalry to Courtly Civility,” in Fragments for a History of the Human Body, ed. by Michel Feher with Ramona Naddaff and Nadia Tazi (New York: Zone, 1990), pt. 2, 148–96. 7 Vigarello, “Upward Training.” 148. 8 For the siege, see François Garnier, La guerre au Moyen Age, XIe–XVe siècle: L’histoire par les documents iconographiques (Poitiers: Académie de Poitiers, 1976): 36–43. 9 For a diagram identifying the weapons, see Garnier, La guerre, 23. The first and third wear feathered caps; the second and fourth are bearded. Their faces are pink, their clothes green, and the position of their feet suggest that they are marching. 10 For the arquebus, see Hale, Artists and Warfare, 102, fig. 155.


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The caption identifies their target as Jerusalem, a city that is central to Judaism. Jews in exile longed for their homeland, which they believed would be restored to them when the Messiah came.11 Although Jerusalem was often depicted in Jewish art, it had no fixed iconography.12 The image in the Paris manuscript shows the city as four attached buildings or sections of a building: an entry tower with drawbridge and three four-story crenellated structures, one of which is domed. In Jewish art, an entry tower and dome, suggesting the Temple of Jerusalem, were sufficient to evoke the idea of Jerusalem.13 Small, swallow-tailed flags fly from the tower and dome, and the moon is visible to the right of the castle, depicted as a circular reddish form.14 Although only one Jew is depicted within Jerusalem, visible within the open window of the tower, several motifs suggest that the Jews are defending their city. Nebuchadnezzar is prevented from entering Jerusalem because it is surrounded by water and its drawbridge is raised. In contrast, another drawing in the manuscript shows Balaam, who blessed Israel, freely able to enter a Jewish encampment because its drawbridge has been lowered (Fig. 17).15 Further 11 For Jerusalem, see The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art, ed. by Kühnel. 12 Sabar, “Messianic Aspirations and Renaissance Urban Ideals,” 295. 13 See, for example, Sabar, “Messianic Aspirations,” 299, fig. 4. For a similar Christian example, see Cathleen A. Fleck, “Linking Jerusalem and Rome in the Fourteenth Century: The Italian Bible of Anti-Pope Clement VII,” in Real and Ideal Jerusalem, ed. by Kühnel, 430–52, here 444, fig. 12. For the iconography of the Temple of Jerusalem, see Carol Herselle Krinsky, “Representations of the Temple of Jerusalem before 1500,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 33 (1970): 1–19, and Fishof, “‘Jerusalem above my chief joy’: Depictions of Jerusalem in Italian Ketubot.” 14 For the use of flags in this manuscript, see Chapter III. Since the folio has been slightly cut down at the left, there may originally have been a sun portrayed to the left of the city. The moon may be meant to suggest the eighteen-month passage of time between the beginning of the siege on the tenth of Tevet and the breaching of the walls on the seventeenth of Tammuz. For a similar example, involving the sun and a star, see Fig. 64a. Alternatively, if a sun was present, the celestial bodies may have been meant to suggest messianic time, recalling a passage in Isaiah when the sun and moon shone at the same time: see Sabar, “Messianic Aspirations,” 310. For similar images of the moon, see Schubert, Jüdische Buchkunst, 1: pl. 3 and Machsor Lipsiae, ed. by Elias Katz (Hannover: Verlag Werner Dausien, 1964), pl. 12, 1: fol. 59r. For similar moons in the Yiddish manuscript, see Figs. 42a, 44, 64a. 15 See fol. 21v (Fig. 17). For Balaam, see William Foxwell Albright, Yehoshua M. Grintz, and Haim Z’ev Hirschberg, “Balaam,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 4:120–25, and Chapter II above.

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suggesting the Jews’ defense against Nebuchadnezzar is a cannon, which rests on the roof to the right of the dome and is pointed in the general direction of the king. A section heading in the accompanying text, written in large letters on the fifth line from the bottom, makes clear why Nebuchadnezzar is the subject of the drawing. It reads “the tenth of Tevet,”16 which is the annual fast day that commemorates the first stage in the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, that is, Nebuchadnezzar’s laying siege to the city. This siege, which modern scholarship dates to the year 586 B.C.E., is described in several terse references in the Torah.17 This subject was infrequently depicted in the visual arts. Only one Jewish image, in a German manuscript of 1238, shows this theme and there is little likelihood of a direct connection between the two.18 Other Jewish manuscripts, such as the fifteenth-century Italian Rothschild Ma˙zor, show decorative borders rather than a narrative scene for the tenth of Tevet.19 Christian culture generally preferred to illustrate other incidents from Nebuchadnezzar’s life, especially his two dreams,20 but at least twenty-nine Christian images of the siege survive.21 They date from the tenth century on, and were produced 16

tbefeb] h;rç;[] Tevet is a month of the Jewish year. See John R. Kohlenberger III and James A. Swanson, Hebrew-English Concordance to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 1051–52. For one biblical reference, see 2 Kings 24:10–11: “At that time, the troops of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon marched against Jerusalem, and the city came under siege. King Nebuchadnezar of Babylon advanced against the city while his troops were besieging it.” The reference in the book of Daniel 1:1 is even shorter: “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it.” See Judah J. Slotki, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah (London: Soncino Press, 1951), 1. For Nebuchadnezzar, see Bustenay Oded, Haim Z’ev Hirschberg, and Cecil Roth, “Nebuchadnezzar,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 12:912–18. 18 See Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, The Hebrew Bible in Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts, trans. by Josephine Bacon (New York: Rizzoli, 1987), 164. I know of only one other surviving Jewish image of Nebuchadnezzar and that shows a different episode: a miniature in the Leipzig Ma˙zor, a fourteenth-century south German manuscript, shows the king in majesty, riding a lion after his seven-year exile. See Machsor Lipsiae, ed. Katz, pl. 44, II, fol. 67r and Oded, Hirschberg, and Roth, “Nebuchadnezzar,” 916. 19 Evelyn M. Cohen, “The Rothschild Ma˙zor: Its Background and its Art,” in The Rothschild Ma˙zor Florence, 1492, 31, fig. 3, fol. 57v. 20 J. Paul and W. Busch, “Nabuchodonosor,” in Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, ed. by Engelbert Kirschbaum (Rome: Herder, 1971), 3:303–7, and Louis Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1956) 2.1:406–8. 21 The Princeton Christian Art Index lists twenty-eight. Also see Guy N. Deutsch, Iconographie de l’illustration de Flavius Josèphe au temps de Jean Fouquet (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 17


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in a wide range of geographical regions, generally in the medium of manuscript illumination. Although many show typical features of a siege scene—a city gate, assaulting army, defending forces—they do not follow a set iconography, and none is so close in composition to the drawing in the Yiddish manuscript that we might conclude that it served as its model. Although some scenes in the manuscript—such as those for Passover—followed an established iconography, many others are so unusual as to suggest that they did not derive from a visual model. Although much medieval and early modern art is lost, especially Jewish painting, the idea for the image of the siege of Nebuchadnezzar may well have been sparked by non-visual sources. The scribe may simply have depicted ideas that were common in the general culture: a king shown as a crowned equestrian leading his army into battle, a city under siege indicated by a gate with a drawbridge, and the Temple in Jerusalem pictured as a domed structure. Furthermore, since the illustrator was not a trained artist but rather a scribe, he might, on the one hand, have felt freer to experiment visually22 and, on the other hand, have been more keyed to the text. The accompanying text offers instruction on how to observe the tenth of Tevet. It begins with the directive, “one fasts on the tenth of Tevet, the whole world.”23 The next few lines briefly relate that Nebuchadnezzar, “the evil one,”24 laid siege to Jerusalem on this day, and that on the seventeenth of Tamuz in “another year” the walls of the city were breached.25 It concludes with a detailed account, running more than a page, that lists the proper liturgy for the tenth of Tevet, which was to be observed through public worship in the synagogue. The usual liturgy was enriched with special readings that were recited on fast days, such as the anenu (Answer us), which is a plea for God’s help; a haftarah, or portion of the prophetic books, which calls for repentance; and selikhot, which are penitential poems, generally medieval in origin, and sometimes commemorating contemporary persecutions. Yosef Óayim Yerushalmi has observed that is 1986), 130–34. For a recent discussion of one of these, see Fleck, “Linking Jerusalem and Rome,” 431–52, fig. 12. 22 See the discussion in the conclusions below. 23 24 25

fbefeb] h;rç;[] ma' fç]a'ww" ˆm' [ç'r:h;ø r:a;y dr"n“a' Nebuchadnezzar is referred to as “the wicked one” in the Aggadah:

see Oded and Hirschberg, “Nebuchadnezzar,” 914.

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was “through such prayers [that] the poet gave vent to the deepest emotions of the community, expressed its contrition in face of divine wrath or its questions concerning divine justice, [and] prayed for an end to suffering or vengeance against the oppressor.”26 To Christians, Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem was a minor episode. But to Jews it was a central event, closely linked in their minds to the catastrophic destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in the year 70 C.E., that is, five hundred years later, and to their loss of their homeland and the persecutions that they suffered in exile. A key element of the fast of the tenth of Tevet was to remember this event, not to visualize it in historic terms as something that had occurred in the distant past, but to comprehend it as an incident that was paradigmatic for Jews in all times.27 Yerushalmi’s book is critical for understanding this concept of Jewish history and memory.28 The Bible includes 169 passages that enjoin Jews to remember; many Jewish holidays focus on the importance of memory, which is a crucial component of the collective identity of Jews. For example, on Passover, the Haggadah includes the passage, “In each and every generation let each person regard himself as though he had emerged from Egypt.”29 Similarly, on the tenth of Tevet, Jews were exhorted to remember the siege of Jerusalem. Yerushalmi argues convincingly that in the Middle Ages, ritual and liturgy were the primary vehicles for Jewish memory; that events from the distant past, that is, from the time before the Fall of the Second Temple, were what mattered; that they were viewed as paradigmatic for all of Jewish history, including contemporary events; and that fasts such as the tenth of Tevet helped form a collective memory. Yerushalmi’s characterization illuminates the image in the Yiddish book of customs. In the Jewish culture of the Middle Ages, the

26

Yerushalmi, Zachor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, 45. Although the vast majority of images in the manuscript represent Jews performing religious rituals at home and in synagogue throughout the year, seven show biblical narratives or figures. It is striking that three of these—almost half—accompany the text for a fast. The others fasts are the Third of Tishri, the Fast of Gedaliah, and the thirteenth of Adar, the fast of Esther (which is illustrated by a scene of the queen and two ladies-in-waiting) (Figs. 34a, 53, 54). This manuscript is generally joyous and lively in tone and the artist may have been hesitant to show a scene of fasting, although he does show the mourning rituals of Tisha be-Av, the most important fast day. 28 Yerushalmi, Zachor. 29 For Haggadot, see Yerushalmi, Haggadah and History. 27


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destruction of the first Temple was merged with that of the second, and Babylonians were not distinguished from Romans. Similarly the text of the Paris manuscript, like the biblical passage on which it is ultimately based, does not cite the year of the event. It mentions only the day and month of the siege, which were important in order to know when to hold the annual commemoration of the event. Although the text recognizes that time elapsed between the siege of Jerusalem and its fall, it was not important how long and which date. Rather the text simply indicates that the fall occurred in “another year.”30 The aim of the image, too, is not to depict a historic moment in antiquity, but rather to represent an exemplary event, which revealed God’s presence and for that reason is imperative to understand. As David N. Myers observes, memory marks “the subjective use of the past to sustain a vision of individual or collective identity.”31 The act of remembering, so critical for Jewish identity, was performed on the tenth of Tevet through recitations of the anenu and the selikhot, through practices such as fasts, and by viewing imagery, such as the one in the Paris manuscript that visualizes the disastrous siege of Nebuchadnezzar. The drawing works in tandem with the words to help the worshipper remember. In fact, the image may have been more successful in this respect than the text, since readers might more easily remember a picture than the many words that accompany it.32 The drawing must also have served as a visual cue so that readers looking for the proper prayers to recite on the tenth of Tevet could more easily find the right page. But the image is not simply an illustration of the text. Rather, the drawing enriches the text by providing an image of an aspect of the tenth of Tevet that the text skims over. It also departs from the accompanying words in another critical way. Whereas the text focuses on the liturgy and devotes only a few lines to the historical narrative, the image represents only the siege, and, unlike most illustrations in the manuscript, does not show the appropriate rituals. In short, the drawing fails to visualize the purpose of remembrance: to repent.

30

.r:a;y rd"n“a' Myers, “Preface,” in Jewish History and Jewish Memory, ed. by Carlebach, Efron, and Myers, xiii. 32 See, for example, Wolfthal, Images of Rape, 130. 31

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But the image functions in an additional way. A critical element of many Jewish holidays is not only the remembrance of the past, but also its association with present events. For example, Purim commemorates an incident that occurred in ancient Persia, but medieval and early modern Jews celebrated a series of special Purims when a contemporary event seemed to parallel the Jews’ miraculous escape from extermination in the time of Esther.33 The Yiddish manuscript remembers the loss of Jerusalem in four images. One shows Amalek, the archetypal persecutor of the Jews, wearing an enormous sword (Fig. 53). Another depicts assassins threatening Gedaliah, the governor of Judah, on whom many Jews had pinned their hopes for the reconstruction of Jerusalem and the Temple (Fig. 34a). A third visualizes Tishah be-Av through men sitting on the ground barefoot, mourning the destruction of the Temple by reading the book of Lamentations (Fig. 23). And the last represents the tenth of Tevet, through Nebuchadnezzar laying siege to Jerusalem (Fig. 50). Such scenes recall not only past trauma but also present ones through their contemporary dress, furnishings, and weapons. In the drawing of the siege of Jerusalem, the up-to-date cannons, firearms, and costumes, and the equestrian posture of the king would have brought to mind the position of contemporary Jews. In particular, Nebuchadnezzar’s threat to the Jews and their attempted defense would have, in an understated way, spoken to their contemporary persecutions.34 Thus Christians are an implied presence in the group of images that depicts the Jews’ oppressors in a contemporary guise.

Remembering Amalek Folio 106 shows another image of a soldier (Fig. 53). Its subject has mistakenly been identified as either a woman throwing dice, or Mars and Venus.35 In fact, its caption makes clear its theme: “Step on

33

Other examples have been discussed in Chapter III above. For the burning and censorship of Jewish books, and the forced conversions and expulsions of Jews in fifteenth-century Italy, see Mortara-Ottolenghi, “The Illumination and the Artists,” 131–32, and Shlomo Simonsohn, “Historical Background to the Manuscript,” in The Rothschild Miscellany, 2:17–36. See also Dana E. Katz, “Painting and the Politics of Persecution: Representing the Jew in Fifteenth-Century Mantua,” Art History 23 (2000): 475–95. 35 Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 309, describe the images as “Une 34


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Amalek’s head/and throw stones at him.”36 Thus the drawing depicts the archetypal enemy of Israel, Amalek. This image is much smaller than that of Nebuchadnezzar, occupying only the lower half of the left border. It is also much simpler. A line drawing with no added washes, it shows two figures in profile, one standing above the other.37 At the top, a woman bends her right leg and raises her right foot. She holds objects in her hands, which resemble the two flat rectangles that lie at her feet. Beneath her stands a man, presumably Amalek, who wears a helmet and coat of mail, and is armed with a linstock and an extremely long sword that spills into the lower border.38 On the eighth line of the text, written in bold letters, is the relevant section heading: “Shabbat Parshat Zakhor,” the Sabbath of Remembrance, on which Jews are enjoined to remember—and destroy—Amalek. Unlike the text in the Paris manuscript for the tenth of Tevet, that for Shabbat Zakhor does not include any description of the biblical episodes that are commemorated on that day. Rather, the passage consists solely of a listing of the proper prayers, poems, and Torah and haftarah portions that were to be recited on this special Sabbath. The maftir, or concluding section of the Torah reading, which is specifically added in addition to the weekly reading based on an annual cycle, is Deuteronomy 25:17–19, the critical passage for understanding this holiday. Referring to Amalek’s initial attack on the Jews, when he unfairly assaulted hungry and tired stragglers, it begins: Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt, how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore, when the Lord your God grants you safety

femme jetant des dés (?)” and mistranslates the caption as follows: “on tourne le . . . et on le jette.” Ameisenowa, “An Illustrated Manual,” 199, believes it shows Mars and Venus. 36 .ˆyyfeç] fymi ˆyai fpÉr“[ewIwI ˆWa/pwOq ˆ[edE πywOa qlem'[] f[]ref] For Amalek, see Samuel Abramsky and Elimelech Epstein Hallevy, “Amalekites,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 12:787–91, and Avi Sagi, “The Punishment of Amalek in Jewish Tradition: Coping with the Moral Problem,” Harvard Theological Review 87 (1994): 323–46. 37 Note that the figures’ costumes are patterned, which is unusual for this manuscript. Could these be Purim costumes? See discussion below for the connection between Purim and Shabbat Zakhor. 38 Hart Picture Archives: Weapons and Armor, ed. by Robert Sietsma (New York: Hart Publishing Co., 1978), 75.

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part two ‒ chapter seven from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget.39

This commandment to remember what Amalek did and to annihilate him is reinforced by other parts of the liturgy. The yozer, or hymn for the day, which takes its title from the first words of Deuteronomy 25:17 (“Remember what he did”), catalogues Amalek’s transgressions.40 The special haftarah reading is 1 Samuel 15:1–34, which describes a later encounter between the Jews and the Amalekites. It relates how Saul disobeyed God’s order to destroy all the Amalekites and their possessions. Saul spared King Agag’s life and was severely punished, but Samuel rectified this by killing the king.41 Verse three of this haftarah reading reiterates God’s commandment: “Now go, attack Amalek, and proscribe all that belongs to him. Spare no one . . .”42 Besides remembering Amalek’s assault and God’s order to exterminate him and his followers, another aspect of the liturgy for the Shabbat Zakhor is its intimate connection with Purim. Not only is the Shabbat Zakhor commemorated on the Sabbath preceding Purim, but its hymns and poems describe the wickedness of both Amalek and Haman, the villain of Purim who sought to destroy the Jews of Persia and was believed to be a descendent of the Amalekites.43 Similarly, on Purim the Torah reading is Exodus 17:8–16, the most extensive description of the Jews’ initial encounter with Amalek:44 Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. Moses said to Joshua, “Pick some men for us, and go out and do battle with Amalek. Tomorrow I will station myself on the top of the hill, with the rod of God in my hand.” Joshua did as Moses told him and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

39 Deuternomy 25:17–19. See Tanakh: A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985), 313. 40 A yozer is a poem inserted into the benedictions that precedes or follows the declaration of the shema. The manuscript identifies the yozer as “Za˙or et asher asah,” which is probably the poem of that title by Eleazar Kallir. 41 For the liturgy for this day, besides the accompanying text, see Idelsohn, Jewish Liturgy and Its Development, 321–22, and The Purim Anthology, ed. by Philip Goodman, 423–24. 42 Tanakh, 440–42. 43 Philip Goodman, “Purim in the Synagogue. Shabbat Zakhor,” in The Purim Anthology, ed. by idem, 424. 44 Goodman, “Shabbat Zakhor,” 423.


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Then, whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed. But Moses’ hands grew heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur, one on each side, supported his hands; thus his hands remained steady until the sun set. And Joshua overwhelmed the people of Amalek with the sword. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Inscribe this in a document as a reminder, and read it aloud to Joshua: I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven!” And Moses built an altar and named it Adonai-nissi. He said, “It means, ‘Hand upon the throne of the Lord!’ The Lord will be at war with Amalek throughout the ages.45

Unlike the terse biblical references to Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem, the descriptions of Amalek’s actions are extensive and detailed. The account in Exodus describes how Joshua led the Jews in a fierce battle, while Moses prayed for victory, assisted by Aaron and Hur. The Jews won, but God warned them to remember Amalek, who is declared his eternal enemy. Amalek became a figure of central importance to Jews, who saw in him their archetypal enemy. His attack at Rephidim is commemorated on the Sabbath before Purim and its description in Exodus is read on Purim itself, because Jews believed that Haman was a descendant of the Amalekites. If the text of the Shabbat Zakhor is standard, its accompanying drawing is totally unrelated to earlier images, whether Jewish or Christian. Several earlier Jewish representations of Amalek’s attack at Rephidim survive. The Hebrew Miscellany, a picture bible with Hebrew inscriptions produced in France ca. 1280, interprets the passage in Exodus by showing an image of Moses praying to God, his arms supported by Aaron and Hur (Fig. 98a). The illuminations in this manuscript are often close iconographically to contemporary Christian images, and this miniature is no exception.46 Although Amalek was an insignificant figure to Christianity, he appears more often in Christian art than in Jewish imagery, but as a rule is portrayed as a minor figure, generally indistinguishable from the soldiers in his army. Christian images of Exodus 17 generally show a two-tiered composition (Fig. 98b). The Amalekites battle the Jews 45

Tanakh, 112. For this manuscript, see Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, “The Paintings of the London Miscellany, British Library Add. MS. 11639,” Journal of Jewish Art 9 (1982): 18–30; eadem, The Hebrew Bible, 109, 116 (fol. 525v); Mendel Metzger, “Les illustrations bibliques d’un manuscrit hébreu du Nord de la France (1278–1340 environ),” in Mélanges offerts à René Crozet à l’occasion de son soixante-dixième anniversaire, ed. by Pierre Gallais and Yves-Jean Riou (Poitiers: Société d’Etudes Médiévales, 1966), 2:1237–53. 46

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below, while above Moses appeals to God. Often Aaron and Hur sustain Moses’s arms “in forma crucis,” so that Moses becomes a prefiguration of the triumphant Christ on the cross.47 Some Christian examples also depict God in the sky above Moses.48 The image in the Hebrew Miscellany, although close to Christian representations, deviates from them in critical ways (Figs. 98a-b). Adjusting the iconography for a Jewish audience, the artist excludes such specifically Christian features as the christological pose of Moses and the bodily depiction of God. Furthermore, the context for this miniature is specifically Jewish. It does not form part of a chronological sequence, but rather is joined with three other images, two from the story of Esther and the third showing Samuel killing Agag. Mendel Metzger justly observes that they show “the three principal moments in the Bible of the history of the struggle between Israel and Amalek.”49 Other Jewish depictions of Amalek’s initial attack portray armed struggle. In several thirteenth- and fourteenth-century German Ma˙zorim, the commandment to remember Amalek is illustrated with an image of men fighting; one shows a seated figure with raised sword.50 In addition, a two-part miniature in the Kennicott Bible, a Hebrew manuscript produced in southwest Spain in 1476, marks the beginning of a new portion of the Torah, but in fact depicts the last two episodes from the previous parashah. The lower section of this illumination shows the battle at Rephidim. Modeled on a playing card, it depicts a single nude, who pulls the string of a crossbow; below are two confronting animals with threatening open mouths and protruding tongues, which may refer to the evil nature of Amalek.51 47 See H. Schlosser, “Moses,” in Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, 3:282–97, and Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, 2.1:202–3. For images of David and the Amalekites, see Deutsch, Iconographie, 40, figs. 53–54, 56–57. 48 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Département des manuscrits, Psautier Illustré (XIII e siècle) (Paris: Berthaud Frères, 1908), pl. 76: BN MS. lat. 8846, fol. 114r. 49 Metzger, “Les illustrations,” 1252: “les trois moments principaux, dans le texte biblique, de l’histoire de la lutte entre Israël et Amalec.” 50 Sed-Rajna, Le ma˙zor enluminé, 22, 59, figs. 19–20; Bezalel Narkiss, “Description and Iconographical Study,” in The Worms Ma˙zor. MS Jewish National and University Library Heb. 40 781/1 (Vaduz and Jerusalem: Cyclar Establishment and Jewish National and University Library, 1985), 77–89, here 82; for the Tripartite Ma˙zor, south German, ca. 1320, vol. I, fol. 49, see Index of Jewish Art, ed. by Narkiss and Sed-Rajna, IV. 51 Bezalel Narkiss and Aliza Cohen, The Kennicott Bible (London: Facsimile Editions, 1985), 1:58.


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These images suggest that Jewish illuminations did not follow a set iconography for the depiction of the initial encounter with Amalek. Similarly, there seems to have been no fixed way to illustrate the Shabbat Zakhor. The early fourteenth-century south German Leipzig Ma˙zor illustrates this Sabbath with four small Jewish heads in medallions that surround the word Zakhor, or “Remembrance,” which is written in huge gold letters. Whereas the images in the Hebrew Miscellany and the Kennicott Bible focus on narrative elements of the battle (Fig. 98a), the miniature in the Leipzig Ma˙zor emphasizes the importance for Jews of remembering Amalek.52 The drawing on folio 106 of the Yiddish manuscript is unrelated to earlier imagery, to judge by surviving examples (Fig. 53). Christian depictions and that in the Hebrew Miscellany, which is close to them, focus on Moses, at times omitting Amalek altogether (Fig. 98a). For Jews, however, the critical point of Shabbat Zakhor is to remember Amalek, and so the depiction in the book of customs focuses on him and omits Moses. Rather than following a visual or textual source, the Yiddish scribe invented an image that is partly a reference to the biblical Amalek and partly an allusion to the ritual for Shabbat Zakhor. Three elements suggest this conclusion. First, the woman shown on folio 106 is stamping on Amalek. A comparison of the position of her feet with those of Amalek reveals that she is in the act of stepping on him; the caption confirms this. Although no record survives of a similar sixteenth-century Ashkenazic ritual, modern Jews stomp when Amalek’s name is read aloud on the Shabbat Zakhor.53 Similarly, on Purim, when the megillah, or scroll of Esther is read, congregants sometimes stamp their feet when the name of Haman is spoken. A possible meaning for this action is suggested by yet another ritual practice. On Purim, some Sephardic congregants write Haman’s name on the soles of their shoes and pound the floor until his name is erased.54 Deuternomy 25:19 commands Jews to blot out Amalek’s name. Since Haman is a descendant of the Amalekites, and the Shabbat Zakhor is intimately linked to 52 Elias Katz suggests that these four figures represent the four kingdoms that persecute Jews: see “Theological-Historical Commentary of the Ma˙zor Lipsiae,” in Machsor Lipsiae, ed. by idem, 65–84, here 74. 53 Herbert C. Dobrinsky, A Treasury of Sephardic Laws and Customs (Hoboken: KTAV, 1986), 381. 54 Dobrinsky, Sephardic Laws, 194, and A. W. Binder, “Purim in Music,” in The Purim Anthology, ed. by Goodman, 211.

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Purim, this suggests that the meaning of the Sephardic ritual of stamping one’s feet on this Sabbath is to symbolically destroy Amalek, as God commanded. The most likely explanation for the woman’s pose in the Yiddish drawing is that sixteenth-century Ashkenazic Jews either practiced this ritual or understood its symbolism. A second element that is critical for understanding the meaning of this image is the proper identification of the objects that the woman holds in her hands and that lie at her feet. The caption terms them “stones,” although at first glance they may not be recognizable as such. Abraham Chill notes, however, that, “there used to be flat stones . . . on which the word ‘Haman’ was inscribed. By pounding them together the word would be erased in a short time. The source of this custom is again the Biblical verse: ‘I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the Heavens’ (Exodus 17:14).”55 This practice is also mentioned in the book of customs that was published in Venice in 1593.56 The flat rectangular shapes in the drawing, therefore, represent stones that were once used to symbolically obliterate Amalek and his descendants. Evidence suggests, then, that the woman depicted in the Paris manuscript is throwing stones at Amalek to express the Jews’ desire to destroy those who would annihilate them. Besides the stamping pose and the stones, the third key element of the drawing is the figure of Amalek. Thus, like the representation of the siege of Nebuchadnezzar, this image is one of only a handful of scenes in the manuscript that depict a distant biblical past rather than focusing solely on a contemporary ritual. On the one hand, the drawing must have served as a cue for readers searching for the text for the Shabbat Zakhor; on the other hand, it also must have functioned to reinforce the commandment to remember Amalek. But the figure of Amalek recalled not only the biblical enemy, but also the eternal foe. Although Chone Shmeruk belittled as anachronistic representations of Amalek that show contemporary weapons and armor, this strategy served to remind Jews of those who oppressed them in their own time as well.57 Through a rich layering of meanings, this image, therefore, conflates biblical time with contemporary time, and history with ritual. 55 56 57

Chill, The Minhagim, 263. See Baumgarten, “Prières, rituels, et pratiques dans la société juive ashkénaze.” Shmeruk, The Illustrations in Yiddish Books, 73.


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In his drawings, the scribe tends to avoid drama, and so the siege of Nebuchadnezzar and the woman stoning Amalek do not read like grand tragedies. Indeed, the siege with its colorful washes and miniature figures recalls the chivalric romances that were enjoyed by generations of Yiddish readers.58 Similarly, the woman attacking Amalek seems to have done him no great harm. The scribe’s style is better suited to the many joyous scenes of dancing, feasting, and drinking that fill the manuscript. But this lighthearted style does not negate the fundamental meaning of these images of Nebuchadnezzar and Amalek, which visualize men whose aggressive military assaults caused great harm to the Jewish people. There can be no doubt that the scribe wants those viewing the image to remember these calamitous deeds and at least on a symbolic level to destroy Amalek and his descendants. This image is also yet another example of the scribe constructing women in a positive light and often as the sole practitioners of rituals that could just as well be performed by men.59 Just as a woman is shown bathing for Rosh Hashana, casting crumbs into a river for Tashlikh, counting the days of Omer, and displaying mazzah to indicate Passover, so a woman assaults Amalek in conformance with the scribe’s desire to portray women as the sole performer of a wide range of Jewish rituals (Figs. 12, 32b, 65a center, 66a). But by showing a woman trampling Amalek, the scribe also shows the enemy of his people suffering a particularly humiliating defeat.

The Shabbat Zakhor in the Printed Books of Customs The printed books of customs show a greatly reduced number of illustrations compared to the Yiddish manuscript, and so it is not surprising that no image for the tenth of Tevet is provided.60 But a woodcut is included in each edition for the Shabbat Zakhor, and it is the only image in either volume that shows soldiers. The woodcut of Amalek in the earlier printed version appears in the body of the text alongside the heading “Parshat Zakhor” and the accompanying 58 See, for example, Strauch, “Dukus Horant,” and Baumgarten, “Un Chanson de geste en Yidich ancien.” For the romance Paris un Viene, see Chapters VIII–IX below. 59 See Chapter V. 60 For these books, see Chapter V.

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list of prayers to recite on this day (Fig. 84a). Although the wording of this list is strikingly similar to that in the manuscript version, the illustration departs from the drawing in the manuscript. No women are shown, and, unlike almost all the woodcuts in the 1593 edition, it lacks any specific characteristics that derive from its subject. Rather it is a generalized portrayal of a commander and his troops that could, and, in fact did, serve to illustrate a number of similar themes. As Shmeruk observes, the same composition was later used to depict both Nimrod and Abraham.61 The woodcut shows a large standing figure, isolated in the foreground, brandishing a huge hand-held firearm, which is silhouetted against the white sky. Armed with a sword and halberd, he wears a suit of armor and visored helmet. A large group of soldiers, including a standard-bearer and numerous infantrymen with pikes, gathers in the left background behind an enormous cannon. The focus is the chief officer, whose identity is not made clear. He is shown as a powerful contemporary commander, and no opposition army is visualized. The image for Shabbat Zakhor in the second printed Yiddish book of customs is again quite different. A large woodcut, it occupies the entire width of the page (Fig. 92a). Above is a quote that combines parts of two separate biblical verses (Exodus 12: 8, 12). “Amalek came and fought with Israel, and Aaron and Hur supported his hands.” Separating these verses is the section heading Parshat Zakhor, which is printed in large, bold letters. The liturgical instructions, which are almost identical in wording to those in the earlier books of customs, follow below. This image, executed in a much more sophisticated style and showing Italian costumes and furnishings, shows Moses praying on a hill in the foreground, assisted by Aaron and Hur. A battle rages in the valley behind. Led by a few cavalrymen, a large group of infantrymen carrying shields and pikes advances to the right. Two standardbearers wave large flags that swirl dramatically below the darkened sky. They battle the opposing side, represented by a few soldiers who face them at the right edge of the composition. Since Aaron’s hands are raised, presumably the larger army consists of Jews.62 A 61

Shmeruk, Illustrations in Yiddish Books, 70–72. See Exodus 17:8–16, cited above. In Christian images of the battle, Jews are generally shown on the left, see Deutsch, Iconographie, 85. 62


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few horses and men have already fallen. Amalek, if present, is not distinguished at all. Unlike the corresponding images in the two earlier books of customs, this one focuses, like most Christian representations of the subject, on Moses praying to God. It is also close iconographically to two Jewish images, that in the thirteenth-century Hebrew Miscellany, and a dramatic woodcut in a Picture Bible that was produced in Venice in 1521 by the Ashkenazic artist Moïse dal Castellazzo and his children (Figs. 98a, 99a–b). The original print formed part of a block book, now lost, but a mid-sixteenth century pen-and-ink copy survives.63 Moïse was the son of the director of a rabbinical school, and so presumably a learned Jew, but he was also a professional artist who worked for the Este, Gonzaga, and Sforza courts of northern Italy. His image of Amalek is the only one in the book that is double in size. At the top, Moses sits on the rock mentioned in Exodus and raises his staff, while Aaron and Hur, who kneel to either side, support his arms. A ferocious battle rages below. Bodies and parts of bodies are strewn in the foreground, and one soldier tumbles headlong off his horse. Captions in Hebrew and Italian identify the scene as the battle with Amalek. At first glance these images resemble Christian renderings, especially the woodcut in the book of customs published in 1600, which shows Moses’ head surrounded by a halo (Fig. 92a). A closer examination, however, reveals the artists’ assertion of Jewish sensibilities. Both Moïse dal Castellazzo and the woodcut designer for the later printed book of customs avoid showing Moses’ arms extended in a christological position, and avoid depicting God in human form.64 The woodcuts of Amalek in the printed Yiddish books of customs differ from each other in style, size, placement on the page, and iconography (Figs. 84a, 92a). They also differ from the illustration in the earlier manuscript in their exclusion of women (Fig. 53). Like the earlier drawing, however, they function as a visual cue for the accompanying text, to reinforce the memory of Amalek, to construct a Jewish resistance through memory and prayer, and to identify Amalek with the contemporary enemies of the Jews. The edition of 1600 also served to bring to mind, at least in the realm of the 63

For this manuscript, see Schubert, Bilder-Pentateuch. For a similar position of the arms and hands in the Sefer Minhagim woodcut, see Cohen, “The Illustrations in Abraham Farissol’s Haggadah,” 90, fig. 2. 64

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imagination, a powerful Jewish military resistance against those who would oppress them.

Conclusions The study of images of war in the Yiddish books of customs illuminates the ingenuity of the scribe. Most professional artists who illustrated Jewish books were Christians with little education.65 Although art historians have focused on such images, the intellectual contribution of their artists must have been minimal. As Sandra Hindman has concluded, however beautiful such illustrations are, their artists were merely “technician[s], plying a craft.”66 In contrast, the scribe who produced the drawings in the Yiddish manuscript was not only educated, but also understood the text that he was illustrating. Moreover, he was a Jew who had firsthand knowledge of the culture of those who would view his imagery. Furthermore, as an amateur artist who was not trained to follow models, he felt freer to experiment. In his images of war, although he draws on the popular idea of the equestrian commander, he depicts an unusual theme, the siege of Nebuchadnezzar, and his drawing of Amalek imaginatively integrates ritual and history, while granting to Jewish women a positive and powerful ritual role. The scribe portrays a woman as the sole agent of aggression against Amalek, as opposed to all other images of the subject, including those in the two later Yiddish books of customs, which cleanse their imagery of any female presence. For the woman reader, the Yiddish manuscript made clear that they, too, had the obligation—and the ability—to destroy Amalek. Several scholars have commented on Jews’ attitudes toward war in medieval and early modern times. Mendel Metzger, after studying representations of the evil son in Haggadot of the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries, concluded, “In fact, the use of arms was practically foreign to Jews in the Middle Ages, who never defended themselves with weapons and scarcely knew them except when they were used against them, when massacres annihilated their communities. Moreover Jews could not carry arms for hunting, because their religion forbade 65

See Chapter II above. Hindman, “The Roles of Author and Artist in the Procedure of Illustrating Late Medieval Texts,” 57. 66


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it.”67 Robert Bonfil concurs that feats of arms had no place in Jewish history.68 Indeed, the Jewish calendar does not celebrate military victories such as David’s conquests, but only tragedies or divine triumphs, such as the exodus from Egypt. But evidence that Jews did carry arms and fight in battles has been growing in recent years. Jews killed hundreds of assailants during the First Crusade,69 and in the thirteenth century German law codes required Jews to supply weapons to the city militia, serve in the militia, or enlist a substitute for their services. Furthermore, armed Jews defended the city of Worms with the permission of their rabbi, and English Jews fought in their army, especially as crossbowmen. In Spain, during the Christian reconquest, Jews fought on both sides of the conflict.70 In the sixteenth century, many Jews followed the pseudo-Messiahs Solomon Molcho and David Reubeni, who displayed a military zeal in their call for an invasion against the Turks who occupied Jerusalem.71 Leon Modena, the seventeenth-century Venetian rabbi, described how his son seized a weapon from a Christian and engaged in an armed struggle with other Jews, which eventually led to his death. “He was brave in battle,” he notes approvingly.72 At least one other North Italian Jew is documented as bearing arms. Duke Massimiliano Sforza granted Moïse dal Castellazzo the right to carry weapons.73 Gabriele Strauch cites sporadic instances when Jews fought in wars and participated in tournaments, but she also notes the Jewish taste for chivalric romances in her discussion of the late fourteenth-century Dukus Horant, a heroic epic written in Yiddish.74 Similarly, Israel 67

Metzger, La Haggada enluminée, 149. For a study of the iconography of the four sons, see Mira Friedman, “The Four Sons of the Haggadah and the Ages of Man,” Journal of Jewish Art 11 (1985): 16–40. 68 Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 155. 69 Salo W. Baron, “The Ancient and Medieval Periods: Review of the History,” in Violence and Defense in the Jewish Experience, ed. by idem and George S. Wise (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society), 17–35, here 32. 70 Norman Roth, “Armies, Jews and,” in Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia, ed. by idem, 36–37. 71 See Chapter III above. 72 This incident occurred in 1622: see Leon Modena, The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi, trans. by Cohen, 3, 121. 73 Simonsohn, “Historical Background,” 32, 35. 74 Strauch, “Dukas Horant,” 67–94; eadem, Dukus Horant: Wanderer zwischen zwei Welten (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1990), 54. Jews also fought back when Christians attacked them during the First Crusade. See Baron, “The Ancient and Medieval Periods: Review of the History,” 32.

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Zinberg observes a case of inversion: in the text of Yosipon, Romans fear Jews—just the opposite of the sixteenth-century reality.75 Likewise, Jean Baumgarten has noted that the Yiddish epic the Shmuel Bukh, which was very popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, exalted the military exploits of Jews and served as a national epic that challenged the Christian world.76 And in the seventeenth century, Leon Modena translated some of the chivalrous episodes of Lodovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, and a similar tone characterizes his translation of Fiore di Virtù.77 These scholars, taken together, suggest the complexity of Jewish attitudes towards war, and this is certainly true of Renaissance Italy. In the sixteenth century, north Italian Jews produced both Haggadot containing the evil son as soldier and the heroic Shmuel-Bukh.78 The Yiddish version of the chivalric romance Paris un Viene, published in Verona in 1594, includes woodcuts of gallant knights jousting and riding horseback. Furthermore, the prints show most men carrying swords and wearing armor, and weapons and armor hang on the wall in several scenes (Figs. 100a, 101b–103a).79 But the tragic results of violence are suggested by an image of a murdered Jew in a Yiddish fable book published in Verona in 1595 (Fig. 111b). The images in the Yiddish books of customs reveal a similar complexity. In the manuscript version, Jews are shown as the victims of a conquering army in the scene of the siege of Nebuchadnezzar (Fig. 50). And in the later books, woodcuts show the indomitable strength of Amalek’s forces or the ferocity of his assault (Figs. 84a, 92a). But the images in these books also show Jews bearing arms. For example, a sword and dagger hang from the waist of a reveler at a Purim party (Fig. 67). The representations of Amalek and Nebuchadnezzar open the door for a range of reactions. Those showing Amalek could permit viewers to imagine the destruction of their oppressors, while 75

Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, 2:140. See Chapter V for this text. Baumgarten, “Une chanson de geste en Yidich ancien,” 24–38. 77 Adelman, “Success and Failure in the Eighteenth-Century Ghetto of Venice: The Life and Thought of Leon Modena,” 222–24. 78 The Shmuel-Bukh was published in Mantua in 1563: see Baumgarten, “Un chanson de geste en Yidich ancien,” 34. For an Italian Renaissance example of the evil son as soldier, see Cohen, “The Illustrations in Abraham Farissol’s Haggadah,” 91–92, fig. 3. For the evil son, see also Metzger, La Haggada enluminée, I, 149–56, and Friedman, “The Four Sons.” 79 These woodcuts are repeated to illustrate different episodes in the story; see Chapters VIII–IX below. 76


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that of the siege of Nebuchadnezzar, with its bright colors, miniature figures, and avoidance of the destructive results of war, could invite an enjoyment of the romantic aspects of chivalric epics. By the seventeenth century, the iconography for books of customs became fixed, generally following the 1593 version. But in the sixteenth century, illustrations show a state of flux. Each of the three Yiddish books of customs constructs a different aspect of the Shabbat Zakhor. The manuscript drawing of Amalek combines history and ritual and focuses on a female congregant; the first printed version emphasizes Amalek and excludes any Jewish participation; the second printed edition balances a view of Moses appealing to God with a dramatic scene of the battle between Jews and Amalekites. All served to help the reader remember, functioned as visual cues for locating the accompanying text, and encouraged Jews to think about their contemporary oppression. But, despite their variation, the Jewish images collectively share certain features that distinguish them from representations of war made for Christians. First, unlike images made for those in power, such as the pope, cardinals, or the Medici, the illustrations in Yiddish books of customs never depict the moment of Jewish victory. Either they show Nebuchadnezzar laying siege to Jerusalem (Fig. 50), or an army’s indomitable strength (Fig. 84a), or Jewish resistance that does not fully achieve its goal (Fig. 92a). Jewish resistance and subversion could only be suggested in an understated, veiled way. Amalek is not overtly identified as Christian, nor are his enemies marked as Jews; for example, the flags flying above Jerusalem in this image are blank. In this way, these images may well have served as a vehicle for expressing Jews’ anger toward contemporary Christian oppression in a way that would not have been easily apparent to those in power.80 In addition, these Yiddish images from Renaissance Italy never overtly portray contemporary, or even recent, events. Although cinquecento Christians commissioned images of such biblical heroes as David and Judith, they also ordered scenes of recent battles and equestrian monuments of contemporary princes or mercenaries. In contrast, scenes in Yiddish books of customs show images of wars that had taken place in distant biblical times. Furthermore, whereas

80

For this oppression, see note 34 above.

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Christians produced three-dimensional statues and large-scale frescoes, surviving examples made for Ashkenazic Jews living in Italy are small in scale and two-dimensional.81 Finally, although some Christian images were designed to function in a public, political space, those made for Ashkenazic Jews were meant for private viewing and set in a liturgical context. Their purpose was not to glorify an individual or a family, as some Christian images did, but rather they shared with some Christian representations other goals: to show a past battle that refers typologically to a contemporary event, and in this way to forge a collective identity. The war imagery in the three Yiddish books of customs suggests that Ashkenazic Jews living in Renaissance Italy, like their Christian counterparts, held complex and varied attitudes toward war, but unlike those in power, were hesitant to visualize their own victory in battle, or publicly display images of a strong Jewish military presence. Nor is this self-censorship surprising considering the thousands of Jewish books that were confiscated and burned over the course of the sixteenth century. Jews learned well how to represent their resistance in a veiled manner, and imagine their own power in a way that would not offend Christian authorities. Images of biblical figures like Nebuchadnezzar and Amalek, which were buried among images of Jewish ritual, offered an opportunity for Jews to do precisely that.

81 Jews generally did not commission large three-dimensional statues, which they believed violated the second commandment.

PART THREE

THE SECULAR YIDDISH BOOKS, PARIS UN VIENE AND THE KUH-BUKH (VERONA, 1594 AND 1595)

CHAPTER EIGHT

CULTURAL EXCHANGE AND JEWISH IDENTITY IN IMAGES IN SECULAR ILLUSTRATED YIDDISH BOOKS

Verona, a north Italian town under Venetian control, was the home to a small and cohesive community of two to four hundred Ashkenazic Jews. Constituting a tiny minority, perhaps one percent of the total population, they had to deal with the usual problems faced by Jews: in the 1580s a few were charged with possessing “evil” books; in the early seventeenth century a blood accusation arose; and at the turn of the seventeenth century the entire community was herded into a ghetto.1 But the Jews of Verona had their own leaders, their own communal rabbi, and, for a brief period, a Jewish-language press.2 In Verona during the years 1594–95, the Christian Francesco dalle Donne published five books with Hebrew characters, two in Hebrew and three in Yiddish.3 The youngest son of a family of publishers, dalle Donne made his own mark soon after inheriting the family

1 For the Jews of Verona, see Giorgio Borelli, “Momenti della presenza ebraica a Verona tra Cinquecento e Settecento,” in Gli Ebrei e Venezia: secoli XIV–XVIII, ed. by Gaetano Cozzi (Milan: Edizioni Comunità, 1987), 281–97; Giovanni Castellani, “Gli Ebrei e Verona,” Studi storici veronesi 6/7 (1955/56): 62–82; Pier Cesare Ioly Zorattini, “Gli ebrei a Venezia, Padova, e Verona,” in Storia della cultura Veneta, ed. by Girolamo Arnaldi and Manlio Pastore Stocchi (Vicenzo: Neri Pozza, 1980), 537–76; Marvin J. Heller, “A Little-Known Chapter in Hebrew Printing: Francesco dalle Donne and the beginning of Hebrew Printing in Verona in the Sixteenth Century,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 96 (2000): 334; and Brian S. Pullan, The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice, 1550–1670 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), 86, 130–31, 155. Bonfil cites the date of the institution of the ghetto as 1602 in Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 71, but as 1600 in “Change in the Cultural Patterns of a Jewish Society in Crises: Italian Jewry at the Close of the Sixteenth Century,” 407. 2 Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 56, 77, 188, 202. 3 For Francesco dalle Donne, see Carpàne and Menato, Annali della Tipografia Veronese del Cinquencento, 1:29–36; 2:479–80, 485–87, 399–607, 614; Heller, “A LittleKnown Chapter in Hebrew Printing,” 333–46, and Giuliano Tamani, “Dalle Donne, Francesco,” in Dizionario dei tipografi e degli editori italiani. Il Cinquecento, ed. by Menato et al., 1:350–60.

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business in 1593. He became a “niche” publisher, specializing in the printing of chronicles, notices about the war against the Turks, and texts by authors from Verona. He also resumed the publication of music books, which his older brother had suspended, and initiated the publication of Jewish-language books. His production differed dramatically, however, from that of his contemporary Giovanni di Gara, who published books in Hebrew characters in Venice.4 Whereas di Gara published 273 Jewish editions, dalle Donne published only five.5 Whereas di Gara’s activity in Jewish publishing spanned several decades, dalle Donne’s lasted only three years. And whereas di Gara was the major Italian publisher of Jewish books in the second half of the sixteenth century, dalle Donne was primarily a publisher of Italian texts. For dalle Donne, Jewish publishing was a sideline, which he may have found attractive because, as Ziporah Baruchson has observed, that market was “more limited and not so wildly competitive as the Italian book sector.”6 Yet Francesco dalle Donne was unusual among Italian publishers of Jewish books, including Giovanni di Gara, because he issued more volumes in Yiddish than in Hebrew.7 Among these were two profusely illustrated books, both of which were secular in nature: Paris un Viene, a chivalric romance published in 1594, and the Kuh-Bukh, a collection of fables printed the following year. Publishers in cinquecento Verona paid little attention to book illustration.8 Unlike other centers, the city had no native industry in this field, so publishers often reused woodblocks or copied woodcuts that were produced elsewhere. For this reason, book illustrations in Verona had a long life and archaic compositions were common. Woodcuts there were generally derivative in nature. Unimaginatively copied, ineptly cut, or reprinted from worn blocks, they were generally poor in quality. Furthermore, since publishers in

4

For Giovanni di Gara, see Chapter V above. For an authoritative evaluation of the number of Jewish titles published by Francesco, see Heller, “A Little-Known Chapter in Hebrew Printing,” 337 n. 11. 6 Baruchson, “Money and Culture,” 25. 7 Only a small percentage of di Gara’s books were printed in Yiddish (.05%), whereas more than half of dalle Donne’s were. See Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy.” 8 For cinquecento Veronese book illustration, see Daniela Brunelli, “L’illustrazione tipografica a Verona nel Cinquecento,” in Carpàne and Menato, Annali della Tipografia Veronese del Cinquecento, 1:97–109. For quattrocento book illustration, see Sergio Samek Ludovico, Arte del libro: Tre secoli di storia del libro illustrato dal Quattrocento al Seicento (Milan: Edizioni Ares, 1974), 75–81. 5

cultural exchange and jewish identity in images

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Verona adopted models from a broad geographical range—even as far away as Germany—their illustrations often show a great diversity of styles. In all these ways, the woodcuts in Paris un Viene and the Kuh-Bukh are typical of book production in Verona. But in another way they are exceptional. Only 35 out of the 764 volumes published in cinquecento Verona have illustrated frontispieces, and only three are fully illustrated.9 Of these one is a Latin treatise on the ancient architecture of Verona, and the other two are dalle Donne’s secular Yiddish books. But although, as we shall see in the concluding chapter, Yiddish books were associated with imagery, it was not primarily the language of these books that caused them to be illustrated. Rather, it was the nature of their texts: both types of volumes—collections of fables and the romance of Paris and Vienna— already had a long and established tradition of being illustrated. In his fundamental study of Yiddish book illustrations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Chone Shmeruk maintained that the only images that held intrinisic Jewish value were those designed for books of religious customs. Secular woodcuts, such as those in Paris un Viene and the Kuh-Bukh, he argued, should be excluded from discussions of Jewish art.10 But certainly their Jewish language and audience mark these books as relevant to Jewish culture. And so does the critical participation of a Jew in their production. Like dalle Donne, Abraham ben Mattathias belonged to a family that had long been active in the publishing business.11 His Ashkenazic father was living in Verona when he was recruited to establish a Jewish press in Salonika, where he published some forty volumes. His son Abraham visited Italy only briefly to raise money for an edition of the Talmud to be published in Salonika, but during his short stay there he was instrumental in producing several Jewish-language books, including Paris un Viene and the Kuh-Bukh. That these books should be understood within the context of both Jewish and Christian culture is undeniable, and this chapter will do precisely that; the next will focus

9 Brunelli, “L’illustrazione tipografica a Verona nel Cinquecento,” 98–99. I have added the Kuh-Bukh to Brunelli’s count. 10 Shmeruk, The Illustrations in Yiddish Books, 80–81. 11 For Abraham ben Mattathias, see Carpàne and Menato, Annali Tipografia Veronese del Cinquencento, 1:34; Moshe N. Rosenfeld, The Book of Cows: A Facsimile Edition of the Famed Kuh-Bukh (London: Hebraica Books, 1984); Baumgarten, Introduction à la littérature yiddish ancienne, 395; Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 120; and Heller, “A Little-Known Chapter in Hebrew Printing,” 335–36.

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on one group of images, those that visualize passionate love and illicit sexuality.

Paris un Viene The chivalric romance Paris and Vienna was extremely popular. Probably first composed in Provençal, it was translated around 1364 into French by Pierre de la Cypède. It was soon transcribed in a broad range of languages, not only English, French, German, Latin, and Spanish, but also Armenian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, and Yiddish.12 But it was especially beloved in Italy, where forty editions were published, mostly in Venice, between 1482 and 1698.13 Paris and Vienna relates a complex tale in which Vienna, a princess, and Paris, whose status is below hers, fall in love and, despite numerous difficulties, eventually marry. The Yiddish edition, Paris un Viene, which is usually attributed to Elia Ba˙ur Levita and dated to his stay in Venice during the years 1509–14, is derived from an Italian source, or, as the author terms it, one in a Christian language (˚yrpç ˆfsyrq).14 Indeed, it includes numerous Italian names and places, is similar in its sequence of episodes to Italian versions, and is composed in the Italian poetry form ottava rima.15 12 Anna Maria Babbi, Paris e Vienna: romanzo cavalleresco (Venice: Marsilio, 1991), and Gérard E. Weil, Élia Lévita, humaniste et massorète (1469–1549) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1963), 184–85. 13 Carpàne and Menato, Annali della Tipografia Veronese del Cinquecento, 1:106. There are also seven manuscript versions: see Baumgarten, Introduction à la littérature yiddish ancienne, 232 n. 56. For one illumination, see Babbi, Paris e Vienna, cover illustration. 14 Jean Baumgarten, “Introduction,” in Elia Ba˙ur Levita, Paris un Viene, Francesco Dalle Donne Verona 1594 (Sala Bolognese nel Luglio: Arnoldo Forni, 1988), 5; Weil, Élia Lévita, 188 (1509–14); Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, 7:78 n. 48 (1509–13); Babbi, Paris e Vienna, 141 (1509–14); Erik, History of Yiddish Literature, 180 (1514). Shmeruk believes that the Yiddish version was written by a student of Elia Ba˙ur in 1549–1555/56: see Paris un Viena, ed. by Chone Shmeruk and Erika Timm ( Jerusalem: Publications of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Section of Humanities), vi–vii, 32–38, 41, 29–30. 15 Baumgarten, “Introduction,” 23. Paris un Viene has been the subject of three recent monographs: those by Shmeruk and Timm, and a facsimile edited by Baumgarten, both cited in n. 14, and Paris un Wiene: Ein jiddischer Stanzenroman des 16. Jahrhunderts von (oder aus dem Umkreis von) Elia Levita, ed. by Erika Timm with Gustav Adolf Beckmann (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1996). Three fragments survive of Paris un Viene: those in the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati; Trinity College, Cambridge; and Biblioteca Braidense, Milan (Ebr. 1080). For the Cambridge version, see Herbert Loewe, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Hebrew Character collected


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It is no mere translation, however. Adapted for its Jewish audience through the inclusion of numerous references to Jewish customs and culture, Paris un Viene is an extraordinary and original reworking, which critics have uniformly praised. Israel Zinberg judged it “incomparably superior” to other contemporary Yiddish romances, singling out its “delicate maxims” and flesh-and-blood characters.16 Erika Timm and Chone Shmeruk lauded it as “one of the most important, refined, and enjoyable” early Yiddish texts.17 And Jean Baumgarten termed it revolutionary, noting its emotional power and its emancipation, sparked by Italian Renaissance culture, from the traditional dependence of Yiddish literature on German texts.18 But if the text of Paris un Viene has been judged to be of high quality, its makeshift group of twenty-nine illustrations has not. Yet the images, which adorn about one-third of the pages, are nonetheless a critical component of the book. The frontispiece advertises that the volume is fully illustrated (≈lywmyg ynyyz la), which suggests that the publisher believed that the woodcuts would attract potential customers (Fig. 100a). Even though they are not of the highest quality and were probably not designed for this edition, the woodcuts, along with the text and captions, are instrumental in constructing meaning for their Jewish audience. The illustrations form two distinct groups. Nine lack captions, show disparate shapes, sizes, and styles, and were probably printed from woodblocks that the publisher had on hand. Three mark the beginning and end of the book: they decorate the frontispiece, its verso, and the last page of the volume (Fig. 100a). The other six function as fillers so that each of the ten parts of the text can begin at the top of a fresh page (Fig. 100b). To accomplish this, when the text of one part ended mid-page, the empty space below was filled with a print. Because these spaces vary in size and shape, so do the woodcuts selected to fill them. and bequeathed to Trinity College Library by the late William Aldis Wright (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926), 144, cat. no. 158. The only complete version belongs to the Library of the Seminario Vescovile in Verona. The book measures 173 × 134 cm. I would like to thank Don Angelo Orlandi and Daniela Brunelli for showing me the copy of the book in Verona, and for their warm hospitality. I am also grateful to Anne Rita Zanobi for her generous help in locating the Milanese copy. 16 Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, 7:76. 17 Paris un Viena, ed. by Shmeruk and Timm, v. 18 Baumgarten, “Introduction,” in Paris un Viene, 12–13.

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Since the primary criteria in choosing these prints were their size and shape, some of these illustrations, such as the one showing a large profile face of a man, which precedes the third part of the book, seem to have no direct connection to the text. Two woodcuts, which show small vases and precede the second and tenth parts, may be associated with the idea of love, but one of these also adorned the frontispiece of a Hebrew-language commentary on the Torah, Min˙ah belulah, which Francesco dalle Donne published the same year.19 Two other prints represent publishers’ marks. The smaller one, which precedes the ninth part and shows a man on horseback, was first used by Sebastiano dalle Donne in the 1480s and 90s, and then continued by his brother Francesco.20 The larger one, which adorns the final page of the book and depicts a crowned rampant lion back to back with half a crowned eagle, belonged to his Jewish associate, Abraham ben Mattathias. But several woodcuts were clearly selected because they suited the amorous and heroic nature of the text. These characteristics are immediately evoked, for example, by the illustrated frontispiece, which shows a young woman, who faces and reaches towards a young man who wears armor and a sword (Fig. 100a). Her rich brocade gown and female companion suggest her elevated social position. Other images, such as those showing a garden of love, a couple riding a horse, and a fashionably dressed and coiffed woman, must have been included because they seemed relevant to a love story (Fig. 100b). Another group of twenty woodcuts was most likely produced as a set since they share the same style and size, and are each accompanied by a caption, which is printed at a ninety-degree angle on either side of the illustration (Figs. 101a–103a). These images, several of which are duplicated multiple times,21 show narrative scenes, such as figures conversing, embracing, and jousting. The designer of this series, who was particularly interested in architectural perspectives, focuses on distant views of cityscapes and the patterns formed by windowpanes, brick walls, and the paving stones of interior floors and piazzi. Compositions are generally divided into two distinct parts,

19 Carpàne and Menato, Annali della Tipografia Veronese del Cinquecento, 2:485–86, 1594–95. 20 Carpàne and Menato, Annali della Tipografia Veronese del Cinquecento, 2:649. 21 Ten are reproduced twice, two thrice, and one four times. See Heller, “A Little-Known Chapter in Hebrew Printing,” 344.


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each with its own setting, a common strategy for illustrations of narrative texts, including an earlier Italian edition of Paris e Vienna.22 A few of the woodcuts in this second group correspond to the text. One passage relates how Paris, in the course of his adventures, finds himself at the court of the Sultan. When Viene’s father is taken prisoner there, Paris proceeds to free him. He gets the Muslim guards drunk, in the hope that they will fall asleep, but Paris is prepared to use violence if this strategy fails. The relevant caption reads, “Here Paris stood with his naked sword/over the Mamelukes in case they did not fall asleep.”23 The accompanying image shows a man just left of center who wears a turban, presumably Paris disguised as a Muslim. He grasps his sword as he stands above two recumbent figures. To the right, the seated man may represent Viene’s father (Fig. 102a). But many woodcuts show no evidence of having been designed for this particular romance. Some are generic in type, such as those depicting a tournament, a ship sailing on the sea, or women sharing an intimate and animated conversation (Fig. 101b).24 Furthermore, the captions often refer to only one of the two episodes depicted in the illustrations, as we see in the case of Paris and the Mamelukes (Fig. 102a). But especially revealing are those woodcuts that seem unrelated to either the accompanying text or caption. For example, when one caption reads, “Paris moved away just like a mourner/He now came into the beautiful city Cairo,” its image fails to portray any of these ideas (Fig. 102b).25 Some scholars believe that these woodcuts were previously published.26 Indeed numerous printed editions of Paris and Vienna were illustrated, including twenty-one from Italy alone.27 Supporting the theory that they were reprinted is the fact that one illustration has been cut down, as indicated by its missing left border and the presence of a crudely bisected figure who lacks an arm and leg (Fig. 103a). 22 For similar compositions, see Carlo Enrico Rava, Supplement à Max Sander Le livre à figures italien de la Renaissance (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1969), 116 and fig. 58 [Paris and Vienna (Venice, 1533)], and Max Sander, Le livre à figures italien depuis 1467 jusqu’à 1530 (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1964), V, nos. 180, 196 ( Jerome’s Lives of the Holy Fathers and Boccaccio’s Decameron). 23 .ˆym ˆpwls ˆflaww ayz ˆ[ww ˆgn[rb wx μwa ˆyqwlmm ayd/ˆyfç jlb ˆyyz fym zyrp zaww ad 24 For the latter, see Diane Wolfthal, “Women’s Voice and Women’s Community.” 25 lbb ffç r[d ˆya ˆmwq ˆwn raww r[/lba ˆyya za ˆhwxyg q[wwa ˆwn zaww zyrp. 26 Paris un Viena, ed. by Shmeruk and Timm, vii. 27 Babbi, Paris e Vienna, 23 n. 1.

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This suggests that the print was originally designed for a larger space. Since the frontispiece of Paris un Viene states that it is not the first edition, it is possible that there was an earlier illustrated Yiddish version of the romance.28 Lists of books that Jews owned, which were produced for Church censors in Mantua in 1595, record a Jewish edition of Paris un Viene that had been published at Sabbioneta in northern Italy. Chone Shmeruk proposes that Cornelis Adelkind, who was an associate of Elia Ba˙ur Levita and active at Sabbioneta in the 1550s, issued this edition.29 But as we shall see, visual evidence suggests that the images published in the Yiddish edition of 1594 may have been invented for a Christian audience. The words of the Verona edition make clear the performative aspect of the text by noting that the narrator needs to wet his throat or that he has sung long and hard,30 but the woodcuts, whatever their origin, enhance the visual aspect of the book, by inviting the audience to look rather than listen. In other ways, however, the images reinforce the words. Just as the text is Italian in style, so are the woodcuts’ architecture, costumes, furnishings, spacious piazzi, and luminous Venetian landscapes. Similarly, just as the text refers to monks, priests, and a bishop, and identifies the main characters as Christian, so the woodcuts construct a Christian ambience. The prints show monks and a bishop, and one woodcut displays in the left foreground an oval shield that is adorned with a cross (Fig. 101b). The inclusion of this most Christian symbol is very unusual among Jewish books,31 and strongly suggests that the woodcuts were originally designed for a book made for a Christian audience. Francesco dalle Donne clearly felt, however, that the illustrations were suitable for both Jews and Christians, since he printed them not only in a Yiddish version of Paris un Viene, but also in an Italian-language edition of 1603.32 The Yiddish book, in short, should be conceptualized as a collage, with the images adopted, following the usual practice, from a 28

The title page reveals that the text was “printed for a second [or another] time” (fqywrdyg ˆdraww flym yrdna ˆya). See Baumgarten, “Introduction,” in Paris un Viene, 230; and Paris un Viena, ed. by Shmeruk and Timm, 30–31. 29 Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 156, 173–74, and idem, The Illustrations in Yiddish Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 11–12. 30 Max Weinreich offers additional evidence for the oral aspect of the text: see Studies in the History of Yiddish Literature (Vilna: Tomor, 1928), 189–90. 31 See Chapters III and V above. 32 Erik, History of Yiddish Literature, 437.


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range of unrelated sources, and the disparate parts not fully fused into a coherent whole. But like their Christian counterparts, Jewish readers were able through both text and images to enjoy swashbuckling knights and beautiful ladies, glimpse the interior of a king’s palace and a Sultan’s court, and eavesdrop on women sharing secrets and lovers passionately embracing. Much like romance novels today, Paris un Viene offered its audience an enjoyable pastime, an escape into a fantasy world. Chivalric romances had long appealed to Yiddish readers, and a sixteenth-century collection of stories, like Paris un Viene, is illustrated by scenes of jousting and lovers on horseback (Fig. 68a).33 The participation of Abraham ben Mattathias and the choice of the Yiddish language make clear that this volume grew out of Ashkenazic culture and that at least some Jews yearned to make the world of chivalric romance their own.

The Kuh-Bukh A craze for fable books swept across early modern Europe. In the last three decades of the sixteenth century, Aesop’s Fables were printed more often than the Bible.34 Close to 690 such books were published between 1470 and 1600, and, like the editions of Paris and Vienna, these often included images. In fact, over a third of all printed fable books were illustrated.35 Nor was Aesop’s the only type of printed fable book; numerous others, including Le Roman de Renart, Kalilah and Dimnah, and emblem books, captured the popular imagination.36

33

See Chapter I for this manuscript and below for earlier romances. A. Hyatt Mayor, Prints & People: A Social History of Printed Pictures (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1971), 94. 35 Christian L. Küster, “Die gedruckte Fabelillustration im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert,” in Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Fabula docet: illustrierte Fabelbücher aus sechs Jahrhunderten: Ausstellung aus Beständen der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel und der Sammlung Dr. Ulrich von Kritter (Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 1983), 34–35. For the history of illustrated printed fable books, see also Das illustrierte Fabelbuch, ed. by Metzner and Raabe; Edward Hodnett, Aesop in England. The Transmission of Motifs in Seventeenth-century Illustrations of “Aesop’s Fables” (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1979); Barbara Quinnam, Fables from Incunabula to Modern Picture Books (Washington: Library of Congress, 1966); and Charles Ludwug Küster, “Illustrierte Aesop-Ausgaben des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts,” 2 vols., unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hamburg, 1970. 36 See Quinnam, Fables from Incunabula to Modern Picture Books; Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts, ed. by Arthur Henkel and Albrecht 34

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But the earliest illustrated printed fable book, and in fact the first dated and illustrated typographic book of any sort, was a collection of Aesopian fables, Ulrich Boner’s Der Edelstein, which was published in 1461 by Albrecht Pfister of Bamberg with 103 bold and expressive woodcuts (Figs. 109b, 110b, 112b).37 If the Germans began the trend, then the Italians soon followed suit.38 In 1461 at Mondovi, in northern Italy, a collection of Aesop’s fables was published with sixtyfive small, smudgy prints.39 By the sixteenth century northern Italy had become the largest producer of such books. Whereas the German editions established the compositional elements for the illustrations, the Italian ones transformed their style.40 Edward Hodnett justly concludes that “all over Europe a body of similar illustrations evolved as artists and unoriginal craftsmen copied, rearranged, and recreated these prototypes to fit the fables chosen for reprinting.”41 Most fable books were chapbooks produced by publishers who pushed to keep costs low.42 For this reason, printmakers had little concern for the creative aspects of their job and freely pirated designs from earlier editions. Furthermore, publishers rushing to meet the enormous demand for fable books employed haphazard production methods, such as adopting the text from one source, and the images from another. In such cases text and image often fail to correspond, but such books nonetheless found a ready market.43 Many factors contributed to the popularity of printed fable books.44 The invention of movable type made possible the rapid production

Schöne (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlersche, 1967); and Kenneth Varty, The Roman de Renart: A Guide to Scholarly Work (Lanham, MD and London: Scarecrow Press, 1998). 37 Mayor, Prints & People, 29; Doris Fouquet, Der Edelstein. Faksimile der ersten Druckausgabe Bamberg 1461, 16. I Eth. 20 der Herzog-August-Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Muller and Schindler, 1972). 38 For the Italian development, see Küster, “Die gedruckte Fabelillustration,” 29–42, 45–47. 39 Mayor, Prints & People, 95. 40 By the mid-sixteenth century, fable books illustrated by northern artists, such as Bernard Salomon (Lyons, 1546) and Virgil Solis (Frankfort, 1566), show a deeper sense of space, a more elaborate setting, and such Italianate elements as balanced compositions and graceful movement. 41 Hodnett, Aesop in England, 19–20. 42 For chapbooks, which are printed materials that peddlers sold, see Harry B. Weiss, A Book about Chapbooks (Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associated, 1969; orig. publ. 1942). 43 Even Leonardo da Vinci owned three editions. See The Medici Aesop, Spencer MS 50, trans. by Vernard McTigue, intro. by Everett Fahy (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989), 9. 44 I would like to thank Deborah Losse for her thoughts on this issue.


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of inexpensive mass-produced volumes. In addition, with the rise of the Reformation, the Church began encouraging literacy, and didactic tales with moralizing endings seemed an appealing means to that end. On the other hand, since some fables are ribald, misogynist, and anticlerical, some readers were probably drawn more to their earthy content than to their high-minded epimyths. The striking woodcuts found in so many volumes would have invited a wider audience, and some consumers may have wished to emulate the elite by purchasing inexpensive versions of such luxury books as the Medici Aesop.45 Humanists and others interested in classical studies would have been attracted by the ancient provenance of so many fables, but certainly for many, reading fable books was primarily a pleasurable way to relax.46 Fable books are part of a broad category of popular literature: collections of stories, such as nouvelles, which are distinguished by their brevity, concern with everyday affairs, and emphasis on narrative rather than on the psychological development of their characters.47 Part of the appeal of fable books may have been that their short narratives invited readers to recite them aloud, a performative practice that grew out of such medieval cultural forms as exempla and fabliaux. Michel Jeanneret, among others, has demonstrated the strong links connecting food, wine, and storytelling in sixteenth-century Europe.48 But another reason for the popularity of fables is that from the beginning they served as a vehicle for protest, an outlet for political statements that had to remain implied so as to stay beyond the censor’s grasp.49 As the Latin fabulist Phaedrus noted in the first century C.E., “Now I will explain briefly why the type of thing called fable was invented. The slave, being liable to punishment for any offence, since he dared not say outright what he wished to say, projected his personal sentiments into fables and eluded censure under 45

See The Medici Aesop Spencer MS 50. Baumgarten, Introduction à la littérature yiddish ancienne, 393. 47 Janet M. Ferrier, Forerunners of the French Novel: An Essay on the Development of the Nouvelle in the late Middle Ages (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1954); and Narrative Worlds: Essays on the Nouvelle in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century France, ed. D. LaGuardia (Tempe: MRTS, forthcoming). 48 Michel Jeanneret, A Feast of Words: Banquets and Table-Talk in the Renaissance, trans. by Jeremy Whiteley and Emma Hughes (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1971, orig. puibl. 1987). For the idea that the Kuh-Bukh would have been read aloud, see Baumgarten, Introduction à la littérature yiddish ancienne, 396. 49 Dov Noy, “Animal Tales,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 3:19. 46

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the guise of jesting with made-up stories.”50 This approach to fables continued into modern times.51 Just as Jews participated in the European enthusiasm for chivalric romances, so they took part in the craze for printed fable books. Such volumes appeared not only in Greek and Latin, but also in Hebrew, as well as in a broad range of vernacular languages, from English to Yiddish.52 The profusely illustrated Yiddish edition called the Kuh-Bukh, or Book of Cows, was like so many other fable books a multicultural production.53 The text, which consists of thirty-five tales, is derived in large part from two Hebrew sources, both written in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century: Berachiah haNakdam’s Mishlei Shu’alim, a collection of Aesopian tales, and Isaac ibn Sahula’s Meshal ha-Kadmoni, which stems from the Arabic maqama tradition. In addition, the Kuh-Bukh draws heavily on Ulrich Boner’s Der Edelstein, a fourteenth-century collection of Aesopian stories written in Middle High German.54 In fact, the sixteen stories in the KuhBukh that are found in both the Mishlei Shu’alim and Der Edelstein are closer to the latter. Eli Katz concluded that the compiler of the KuhBukh “drew upon Boner for linguistic, stylistic, and rhetorical mod50 Babrius and Phaedrus, ed. by Ben Edwin Perry, Loeb Classical Library (London and Cambridge, MA: W. Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1965), 253–54 (Book III, Prologue 33–37): “Nunc, fabularum cur sit inventum genus,/brevi docebo. servitus obnoxia,/quia quae volebat non audebat dicere,/affectus proprios in fabellas transtulit,/calumniamque fictis elusit iocis.” 51 See, for example, George Orwell’s Animal Farm (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1936). 52 The first recorded Yiddish fable is dated 1382. See Hans Peter Althaus, Die Cambridger Löwenfabel vom 1382 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1971). Images of interacting animals are visible in the Yiddish version of Óad Gadya, which appears in the sixteenth-century Italian Haggadah Sereni, for which see Chapter I. 53 For a facsimile of the Kuh-Bukh, which measures 185 × 137 mm., see Rosenfeld, The Book of Cows. For a translation, see Eli Katz, Book of Fables: The Yiddish Fable Collection of Reb Moshe Wallich Frankfurt am Main, 1697 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), especially the footnotes. Other references to the book include Erik, History of Yiddish Literature, 220, 357, 363–72; L. Fuks, “The Kuh-Bukh,” Di goldene keit 118 (1985): 181–83 (in Yiddish); Shmeruk, The Illustrations in Yiddish Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 12, 29, 33, 56–60; idem, “Yiddish Printing in Italy,” 121, 174–75; Steinschneider, Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana 1:701, cat. no. 4270; Erika Timm, “Zur Jiddischen Yeshayahu Fabelliteratur des 16. Jahrhunderts,” in Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies ( Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies Congress, 1982), 159–64; and Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book, 1:130; 2:290, Verona no. 9. The present location of the sole surviving copy of the Kuh-Bukh is unknown. 54 Katz, Book of Fables, 10, 12, 16–17; Timm, “Zur Jiddischen Fabelliteratur,” 159–64.


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els . . . [and] did not hesitate even to borrow entire lines and couplets,” and Erika Timm independently confirmed these findings.55 Not only did the text of the Kuh-Bukh derive from Jewish and Christian sources, which in turn depend on Greek and Arabic ones, but, like Paris un Viene, its production rests on the combined efforts of the bicultural team, Abraham ben Mattathias and Francesco dalle Donne. Scholars assume that the former composed the text and perhaps supplied the Hebrew letters, while the latter provided the presses and technical expertise.56 Although recently Moshe Rosenfeld published a facsimile of the Kuh-Bukh and Eli Katz translated it, thoroughly analyzed it linguistically, and traced its textual sources, its eighty-six woodcuts, like those in Paris un Viene, have been largely ignored.57 Occasionally scholars mention in passing the quality of the prints. Whereas Rosenberg praised their “extraordinary clarity and originality,” Chone Shmeruk condemned them as “primitive” and “popular.”58 But only Shmeruk has discussed the content of the woodcuts, maintaining that those in secular books, including the Kuh-Bukh, should be excluded from discussions of Jewish art.59 Indeed its title page perfectly demonstrates Shmeruk’s point (Fig. 104a). Chapbooks were often illustrated with prints from woodblocks that the publisher had on hand. As Rosenfeld has shown, the title page of the Kuh-Bukh, which depicts young women weaving and embroidering, reproduces a print that had originally been used for the frontispiece of an embroidery manual, which was published in Venice by Nicolaus Zoppini in 1531.60 More than fifty years later, the same print was reused for the title page of a collection of Latin verses that was published in Verona by Sebastiano dalle Donne

55 Katz, Book of Fables, 17; and Timm, “Zur Jiddischen Fabelliteratur,” 159–64. The Kuh-Bukh book does not privilege the tales with Jewish sources, but rather assigns all the fables equal weight 56 Carpàne and Menato, Annali Tipografia Veronese del Cinquencento, 1:34. Rosenfeld, The Book of Cows, n.p., terms Abraham ben Mattathias an editor; Baumgarten, Introduction à la littérature yiddish ancienne, 395, considers him an author or copyist; and Shmeruk, “Yiddish Printing in Italy.” 120, views him as a printer. For Francesco dalle Donne, see n. 3 above. 57 Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, and Katz, Book of Fables. 58 Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, n.p.; and Shmeruk, The Illustrations in Yiddish, 60. 59 Shmeruk, The Illustrations in Yiddish, 80–81. 60 Rosenfeld, Book of Cows. The print is reproduced in Sander, Le livre à figures italien, 3–4: 1125, cat. no. 6468.

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(Fig. 104b).61 Nine years later, his brother Francesco resurrected it for the Kuh-Bukh. In fact, unlike images in cinquecento Yiddish books of religious customs, there is little that is specifically Jewish about the illustrations in this book. Most of the images show animals, and those that involve humans do not visually identify them as Jews either by their clothes or their actions. Yet Shmeruk is wrong to dismiss these images from the field of Jewish Studies. Francesco dalle Donne often reprinted woodcuts. For example, a page filler consisting of a vase with flowers framed by two monstrous beings appears in both Paris un Viene and the KuhBukh.62 In fact, reusing prints was standard practice for publishers, not only for Jewish books, like Paris un Viene and the Kuh-Bukh, but also for Christian ones. Some images appear in Catholic, Lutheran, and Jewish books as publishers reused the woodcuts that they had on hand in order to increase profits.63 More importantly, the images in the Kuh-Bukh are relevant to Jewish culture because they appear in a book compiled by a Jew, written in a Jewish language, and intended for a Jewish audience. Moreover, the Kuh-Bukh was clearly popular among Jews. Evidence suggests that, like Paris un Viene, an earlier edition, now lost, was published at Sabbioneta in the mid-1550s.64 The preface of the KuhBukh, published forty years later, reminds readers that the first edition has sold out: “let one go and search year and week, and wear out his shoes,” and one still won’t be able to find the earlier edition.65 The second printing must also have been a success, since a third edition was published in Frankfurt in 1697.66 Furthermore, pub-

61 The print is reproduced in Carpàne and Menato, Annali Tipografia Veronese del Cinquencento, 1:288–89, cat. no. 224. 62 Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, 5, and Levita, Paris un Viene, s. 63 Milly Heyd, “Illustrations in Early Editions of the Tsene-U’rene: Jewish Adaptations of Christian Sources,” Journal of Jewish Art 10 (1984): 64–86, here 67. 64 Concerning a possible earlier edition, see Shabbatai Bass, Sefer sifte yeshenim (Lips of the Sleepers) (Zolkva: Mordechai Rubin Stein, 1806; orig. publ. 1680; in Hebrew), 66, no. 13; Baumgarten, Introduction à la littérature yiddish ancienne, 394; Katz, Book of Fables, 10, 11, 13; Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, n.p.; Steinschneider, Catalogus, 702, cat. no. 4270; Erika Timm, “Die ‘Fabel vom Alten Lowen’ in Jiddistischer und komparatischer Sicht,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 100 (1981): 109–69, here 156–58; and Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, 7:262–63. 65 Katz, Book of Fables, 36; Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, 5: 'nwa ray ˚wz 'nwa rnyya ayg .ˆçyyr wx wx ˚yç ayd 'nwa ˚waww 66 For the Frankfurt version, see Katz, Book of Fables. Copies are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the Bibliotheka Rosenthaliana, Amsterdam. A third copy,


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lishers must have thought that readers would enjoy the illustrations. The preface of the Kuh-Bukh cites them several times as a selling point,67 and the same woodcuts were reproduced in at least two and perhaps three Yiddish editions. Artists plan woodcuts knowing that the design will be reversed when it is printed. For this reason, initial drawings often depict left-handed figures so that the printed versions will show right-handed ones.68 The figures in the Kuh-Bukh, however, generally wave, point, and hold objects with their left hand. One wields a sword in his left hand and a dagger in his right, the reverse of the usual contemporary practice (Fig. 111b).69 In short, the images in the Kuh-Bukh support the theory that they are copies. They, in turn, were duplicated in a third edition, whose illustrations are so close that they must have been reproduced by a mechanical means, such as tracing or pouncing.70 Illustrations in chapbooks generally derive from earlier prints, and the Kuh-Bukh is no exception. Some of its woodcuts stem from Hebrew versions of the Meshal ha-Kadmoni, which was first published in Brescia around 1491, and then, with a different set of prints, in Venice in 1547.71 For example, the later edition shows a dog first gnawing on which was in the Stadtbibliothek, Hamburg, was destroyed in the Second World War; see Die Fabeln des Kuhbuches in Übertragung, intro. by Aron Freimann, trans. by R. Beatus (Berlin: Soncino Gesellschaft, 1926), viii. 67 Katz, Book of Fables, 32 and 36, and Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, 3 and 5: “I made this book of mine with pictures (r[dlyb) in it,” “Beautifully decorated (ryx çpywh),” “For the time will come when the dumb will speak/That means the illustrations (rdlyb) that are within.” 68 For fine prints see, for example, Linda C. Hults, The Print in the Western World: An Introductory History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), figs. 2.3.26, 2.31. For fable book illustrations, see Das illustrierte Fabelbuch, I, figs. 66, 179, 156–157, where copies show left/right reversed. 69 Eduard Wagner, Tracht, Wehr, and Waffen im Dreissigjahrigen Krieg (Hannover: Dausien, 1980), 125. 70 Katz, Book of Fables, 13, suggests that the prints were reproduced by mechanical means. Esther Bienenfeld discovered that the woodcuts in a copy of the first printed edition of the Meshal ha-Kadmoni had been pounced. See “Meshal Ha-Kadmoni by Isaac b. Solomon ibn Sahula [Brescia: Gershon Soncino, ca. 1491]: The Book and its Illustrations,” unpublished M.A. thesis, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1991, x. Pouncing is a method of reproducing a composition that involves placing a design over the page or wall on which it is to be reproduced. Then the design is first pricked and then dusted with powder. When it is removed, the desired composition will appear as a dotted line on the surface on which it has been transferred. 71 The Meshal ha-Kadmoni was consistently illustrated, a tradition that may have been initiated by its author. See Abraham M. Habermann, “The Jewish Art of the Printed Book,” in Jewish Art: An Illustrated History, ed. by Cecil Roth (Tel Aviv: P.E.C. Press, 1961), 476. For the five illuminated versions dating 1450–83, see

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a rope to free a cow, and then jumping on her back to drown her (Fig. 107b).72 The corresponding prints in the Yiddish edition produced half a century later are strikingly similar in composition (Fig. 107a).73 Other images derive from collections of fables that were written for a Christian audience. This is true not only for the fables that are drawn from Der Edelstein, but also for the seventeen stories that stem from the Mishlei Shu’alim. Since the latter text was never illustrated, the woodcuts for these fables are derived from images in books made for Christians. For example, a print in Hans Vintler’s Buch der Tugend, published in Augsburg in 1486, shows a fox seated on the ground below a solid black raven, who is perched on a tree, holding a piece of cheese in its beak (Fig. 108b).74 All these features recur in the corresponding illustration in the Yiddish book (Fig. 108a).75 But as Hodnett observes, “the hundreds of illustrated editions of Aesopic fables printed before 1700 . . . make the search for borrowing hazardous and dogmatic attributions reckless.”76 Indeed, I was unable to find a specific prototype for most of the images in the Kuh-Bukh. Whatever their inspiration, the images are clearly an important aspect of the Kuh-Bukh. The volume is generously illustrated with large woodcuts, each occupying about one-third of the folio, and sometimes printed two per page (Fig. 105a–b, 118). Especially revealing is a statement in the later Frankfurt edition: “the illustrations that are within/Each will speak and interpret a fine parable.”77 This suggests that the images should be viewed as an independent system of interpretation, distinct from the words. Indeed, like those in Paris un Viene, the woodcuts in the Kuh-Bukh do not slavishly follow either Louisella Mortara-Ottolenghi, “The Illumination and the Artists,” 221, 236. For the first illustrated printed edition, see Isaac ibn Sahula, Meshal Ha-Kadmoni ( Jerusalem: Kedem, 1977). For the third edition of 1547, see Bienenfeld, “Meshal Ha-Kadmoni” and Isaac ben Solomon Sahula, Meshal Ha-Kadmoni (Woodmere, N.Y.: Pardes Rimonim Press, 1987). 72 Isaac ibn Sahula, Meshal Ha-Kadmoni (1977) n.p.; and Isaac ibn Sahula, Meshal Ha-Kadmoni (1987), n.p. 73 Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, 81, 83. 74 The Illustrated Bartsch, ed. by Walter L. Strauss and Carol Schuler (New York: Abaris Books, 1983) 85:199, 1386/48. For a manuscript illumination with a similar composition, see Kenneth McKenzie and William A. Oldfather, Ysopet-Avionnet: The Latin and French Texts (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1919), pl. II, no. 15. 75 Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, 16. 76 Hodnett, Aesop in England, 34. 77 Katz, Book of Fables, 36.


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their captions or the accompanying text. All add information, elaborating such aspects as pose, gesture, expression, costume, and setting. Furthermore, all reduce the number of narrative elements, generally focusing on only one or two. Finally, some woodcuts contradict the accompanying text, representing, for example, two men or two cows, when the words cite only one. This happens so frequently as to suggest that the text and imagery derive from different sources.78 For example, one passage relates that a stork served food to a fox in a cruse that had a “long narrow neck.”79 Such a vessel is critical for the plot of the fable, and this shape is generally clearly indicated in most accompanying images.80 But the serving dish shown in the Kuh-Bukh fails to conform to either its text or the dominant visual tradition (Fig. 103b). Such gaps between text and image make clear that the method of production, like that of Paris un Viene, involved a kind of collage. In the case of the Kuh-Bukh the text was torn from at least four sources, and the images, judging by their style, were drawn from a range of models.81 For example, the woodcut of a dog gazing greedily at the reflection of the meat in his mouth shows at the left a tree with twisting roots and branches, and at the center a massive

78 One caption states that the woman sits (fxyz), but the accompanying image shows her standing [Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, 97]; another states that a man stands (fyfç), but the image shows him sitting (84); a third mentions a dove (bwf ˆyya), but the image shows four birds (35); another relates that the fox runs away quickly, but the image shows him sitting (17); and another mentions one cow (awq 'nywç ˆyya), but the image shows two (79). In addition, one caption states that there is a dog on the man’s lap, but the dog, which is clearly visible in earlier versions on his lap, has disappeared in a mass of shapeless lines in the Kuh-Bukh (62). See The Illustrated Bartsch, ed. by Strauss 81:199, no. 1476/912; 83:134, no. 1481/748; and J. Bastin, Les subtiles fables d’Esope (Lyon: Claude Dalbanne, 1926), pl. IIIa and IV. Similarly, the form of a coffin, once a rectangular solid, has become unintelligible in the 1595 version (53, Fig. 105a). 79 Katz, Book of Fables, 42–43; Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, 14: (zlah ˆgn[ ˆgnl ˆyya). 80 See, among others, Bastin, Les subtiles fables d’Esope, frontispiece and pl. IIIb; Hodnett, Aesop in England, fig. 13; Küster, Illustrierte Aesop-Ausgaben, 2: figs. 166, 173; Ernst Philip Goldschmidt, The Printed Book of the Renaissance (Amsterdam: Gérard Th. Van Heusden, 1966), pl. VI; The Illustrated Bartsch, ed. by Strauss 81: 202 1476/928; The Illustrated Bartsch, ed. by idem and Carol Schuler 83:137, 1481/764; Brigitte Derendorff, Der Magdeburger Prosa-Äsop. Eine mittelniederdeutsche Bearbeitung von Heinrich Steinhöwel’s ‘Esopus’ und Niklas von Wyles (Cologne: Böhlau, 1996), Abb. 63; and Das illustrierte Fabelbuch, 1: fig. 63. 81 Katz, Book of Fables, 10, 16, 280 lists four sources for the text: Meshal haKadmoni, Mishlei Shu’alim, Der Edelstein, and a third Hebrew source for one fable, perhaps a version of Kalilah and Dimnah.

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hound who pauses above a tumultuous river filled with turbulent waves (Fig. 106a). The print is packed with large forms composed of pulsating, curving lines.82 By contrast, smaller, quieter forms, much empty space, and straight modeling lines characterize a scene of a donkey deriding a horse (Fig. 106b).83 What Pamela Sheingorn has written about another book applies equally well to the Yiddish books published in Verona: their production involved “the juxtaposition of pre-existing fragments,” which still “maintain the rough and uneven edges of fragments.”84 But the textual and visual elements that form this patchwork serve different functions. In the Kuh-Bukh, a woodcut introduces each fable, and for this reason must have shaped the reader’s initial interpretation of that story. This is confirmed by the preface to another Yiddish book, Tsene-urene, which was published in Sulzbach in 1692. Its title page asserts that its images will calm the reader, because they signal, along with their caption, the contents of the text. The reader, according to this preface, “will recognize and understand that which is printed on the entire page, even before reading the book.”85 Certainly many readers would also more easily remember the large striking image than the many words that accompany it; their memory would be shaped by those elements that the artist chose to depict. But although the Kuh-Bukh’s compiler was Jewish, and its visual models were in part Jewish, its prints show no evidence of an intimate knowledge of Jewish culture. When the text of one fable states that a stork invited a fox to his house to eat “kreplach . . . and all sorts of Purim delicacies,” the accompanying woodcut shows food that is unidentifiable (Fig. 103b).86 When another reports that a man, pretending to be “pious, wore his tallit and tefillin all day,” the image fails to represent these common ritual garments.87 However, those who produced the Kuh-Bukh did not passively reproduce their sources, but rather reinterpreted them. The texts of the For a similar style, see Das illustrierte Fabelbuch, 1: figs. 112 and 280. For a very similar style, see Das illustrierte Fabelbuch, 1: fig. 5. Note especially the treatment of the tree. 84 Pamela Sheingorn, “Constructing the Patriarchal Parent.” 85 Heyd, “Illustrations in Early Editions of the Tsene-U’rene,” 65. 86 For the translation, see Katz, Book of Fables, 42, and Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, 14. Kreplach (˚ylpywrq) are dumplings. Baumgarten notes the much earlier medieval derivation of this word from the French crèpes: see Le Yiddish, 59. 87 Katz, Book of Fables, 174; Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, 84: ˆya r[ 'nyg gaf ≈ng ˆ[d ˆylypti 'nwa tylf. 82 83


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fables were adjusted for a Jewish audience: the Kuh-Bukh includes numerous references to Jewish expressions, foods, prayers, and customs, and minimizes allusions to Christian culture.88 Similarly, the images were adjusted, unlike those in Paris un Viene. In one print in a fable book made for Christian viewers, a coffin is adorned with a huge cross,89 but in the version of the same fable in the Kuh-Bukh, the cross is eliminated (Fig. 109a–b).90 Similarly, like the architectural depictions in other Jewish books, steeple-like structures in the Kuh-Bukh never bear crosses.91 Furthermore, whereas one fable is illustrated in a Christian book with an image of a tonsured priest in clerical vestments standing before an altar on which a pyx lies, the corresponding woodcut in the Yiddish book omits all visual references to Christian practice (Figs. 110a–b.).92 But it is not simply the elimination of references to Christianity that differentiates the Kuh-Bukh from its Christian counterparts, it is also its representation of Jewish-Christian relations. Throughout their history, fables were viewed as a “central medium of political commentary.”93 For Jews, part of that commentary concerned their relationship to the larger society. Eli Katz has demonstrated, for example, that the text of a fable concerning a fox who falsely brings a charge of theft against a sheep has been modified for a Jewish audience.94 In Christian versions, including Der Edelstein, the sheep is coerced to confess, but then repudiates her testimony and escapes punishment.

88 Katz, Book of Fables, 15–18, 21–22, 263–64. The later Sefer Meshalim tones down the Jewish presence. 89 For the Christian image, see The Illustrated Bartsch, ed. by Strauss 80: 23, 1461/58. 90 These pages of the Kuh-Bukh are missing, but can be reconstructed from the Sefer Meshalim. See Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, 51, 53, and Katz, Book of Fables, 115, 119. 91 See Chapter III above. 92 For the Christian image, see Fouquet, Der Edelstein (1972), 1: 63, no. 69; 2: 135. The fable in the Kuh-Bukh explicitly involves Christians, a priest (πapp) who sings the Christian evening prayer, compline (yf[yypmwq), to a woman with a nonJewish name, Malgreta (hlyyrglm). The priest is not clearly identified visually as a priest, since he does not wear priestly garments or a cross. See Katz, Book of Fables, 56–57, 263–64, and 278–79; and Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, 18–19. 93 Epstein, Dreams of Subversion, 9 (quote); Haim Schwarzbaum, The Mishle Shu’alim (Fox Fables) of Rabbi Berechiah ha-Nakdan: A Study in Comparative Folklore and Fable Lore (Kiron: Institute for Jewish and Arab Folklore Research, 1979), xxxviii; and Noy, “Animal Tales.” 94 Katz, Book of Fables, 286. For this fable, see also Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, 7:265–66, and Schwarzbaum, The Mishle Shu"alim, 47–51.

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But the Yiddish version has no happy ending. Rather the sheep dies, and the focus of the moral is on the injustice of the trial.95 This may well reflect a sense among Jews that they would not receive justice within the Christian judicial system. Two elements support this conclusion. First, Jews were at times compared to sheep. When Glikl bat Judah Leib, the seventeenth century Yiddish writer, notes that Jews complied with an unjust Christian edict, she terms them “timid sheep.”96 But the image itself would have brought to mind a Christian courtroom (Fig. 111a). An enthroned magistrate holding a scepter was a sign of a royal or imperial tribunal.97 Jewish courts, by contrast, usually consisted of three judges, not one, and they were neither enthroned nor held scepters.98

The Fable of the Murdered Jew Another fable further demonstrates how texts and images were modified for a Jewish audience. Its broad outlines may be traced back to an ancient myth about the poet Ibycus, who lived in the sixth century B.C.E.99 Robbers assaulted him fatally, but before dying, he implored a flock of cranes who had witnessed the attack to avenge his death. They followed the murderer to a stadium, where they hovered overhead until he confessed his crime. He was then seized, tried, and sentenced to death. Among the many modifications of this fable that evolved during the Middle Ages was the transformation of Ibycus into a Jew. The first written version to incorporate this change was the late twelfth-century collection of Aesopian fables attributed to the anonymous Neveletti, who is sometimes identified as Walter of England.100

95

See Katz, Book of Fables, 110–13, 286–87, and Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, 49–50. The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln, trans. by Marvin Lowenthal (New York: Schocken Books, 1977), 9. For the original Yiddish (πaç ˆyrfkyç zad), see Die Memoiren von Glückel von Hameln, 1645–1719, ed. by David Kaufmann (Frankfurt am Main: J. Kaufmann, 1896), 26 (German and Yiddish). 97 Criminal Justice Through the Ages, ed. by Christoph Hinckeldey, trans. by John Fosberry (Rothenburg: Mediaeval Crime Museum, 1981), especially 311. 98 Stuart Cohen, Germany (New York: L. Amiel, 1974), 86. 99 Edith Hamilton, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (New York: Mentor Books, 1963, orig. publ. 1942), 293, and Katz, Book of Fables, 289. 100 For a later version, see Aaron E. Wright, The Fables of ‘Walter of England’ (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1997), 151–55, no. 59. For an 96


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This author drew the vast majority of his tales from a fifth- or sixthcentury text attributed to Romulus, but this source does not include the story of the murdered Jew.101 Apparently some time during the Middle Ages, the tale of Ibycus was updated. Searching for a pretext for the robbery that precipitated the murder, a medieval author seized upon the idea of a Jewish victim, because he associated Jews with wealth. As John David Martin observes, medieval fables that involve human actors rely on stereotypes, whether the knight, the farmer, the housewife, or the Jew.102 Although Thomas Edward Wheatley concludes that the fable of the murdered Jew is “notable for its avoidance of anti-semitism,”103 it reinforces a negative stereotype about Jews. The fable book of the Anonymous Neveletti was the most influential source for Aesopian tales in the late Middle Ages, and among the numerous texts that depend on it is Boner’s Der Edelstein. In Boner’s version, a lord commands his cupbearer to protect a Jew who is traveling through a dangerous forest. Instead the guard robs and kills the Jew, who before dying predicts that a partridge who had witnessed the crime would denounce the murderer. When the cupbearer later sees the bird being prepared for the lord’s dinner, he laughs uncontrollably. The lord demands an explanation for this outburst, whereupon the murderer confesses, and as a result is executed.104 The fable of the murdered Jew must be viewed as part of an extensive discourse that explored the relationship between Jews and Christians in late medieval and early modern Europe. The narratives of this type that have recently attracted the most attention involve Jews who desecrate hosts or kill innocent Christian boys and

English summary of the plot, see Thomas Edward Wheatley, “The “Fabulae” of Walter of England, the Medieval Scholastic Tradition, and the British Vernacular Fable” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 1991), 47. 101 Robert-Henri Blaser, Ulrich Boner, un fabuliste Suisse du XIV e siècle (Mulhouse: Bahy, 1949), 25. Thomas Edward Wheatley concludes that it is “original to Walter;” see The “Fabulae” of Walter of England, 47. 102 John David Martin, “Representations of Jews in Late Medieval German Literature” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002), 238. I would like to thank Aaron E. Wright for bringing this study to my attention. 103 Wheatley, The “Fabulae” of Walter of England, 56. 104 Ulrich Boner, Der Edelstein, ed. by Franz Pfeiffer (Leipzig: G. J. Göschen, 1844), 106–8, story LXI. For a partial translation, see Martin, Representations of Jews, 266–67, nn. 60–61.

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then are severely punished.105 But unlike those stories, this one portrays the Jew as the innocent victim and the Christian as the treacherous murderer. In this way, it reverses the better-known narratives, such as Chaucer’s “The Prioress’s Tale,” and opens up space for readers to recognize injustices committed against Jews. As Aaron E. Wright justly observes, the focus of the fable is on the cupbearer’s treachery, not the Jew’s riches. He further notes that unlike the moralized section in other myths, this one contains no antisemitic references and in fact interprets the Jew in a positive light as a Christian soul.106 John David Martin also notes the positive treatment of the Jew, who is constructed as a devout man who twice calls out to God.107 But Wright goes too far when he concludes that the Jew’s religious identity is “purely incidental and neutrally described.”108 On the contrary, this tale serves to reinforce the negative association between Jews and wealth. Jews who traveled alone were especially vulnerable to assaults on the road. For this reason, in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century northern Italy, some Jews were exempted from wearing the obligatory Jewish dress or badge when they traveled.109 It is revealing that when Glikl describes the murder of her employee Mordechai as he traveled between Hannover and Hildesheim, she presumes that the assailant was a Christian who attacked the victim because he was Jewish. She imagines the murderer calling Mordechai “you Jewish carcass” before robbing and killing him. The identity of the murderer was in fact never discovered.110 Glikl further notes, “our poor

105

Miri Rubin, Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), and Sheila Delany, “Chaucer’s Prioress, the Jews and the Muslims,” in Chaucer and the Jews: Sources, Contexts, Meanings, ed. by eadem (New York and London: Routledge, 2002), 43–57. See also Carleton Brown, “The Prioress’s Tale,” in Sources and Analogues of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, ed. by William Frank Bryan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941), 447–60. I would like to thank Roger Dahood for informing me of this publication. 106 Wright, The Fables of ‘Walter of England’, 48 (Latin), 206 (translation). 107 Martin, Representations of Jews, 267. 108 Wright, The Fables of ‘Walter of England’, 48. 109 Rubens, A History of Jewish Costume, 94; Pullan, Jews of Europe, 155; and Harrán, Salamone Rossi, 16, 18, 25, 246. Jews were also excused from wearing their badges when they traveled in Languedoc. See Norman Roth, “Badge, Jewish,” in Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia, ed. by idem, 68. 110 Lowenthal translates this as “stinking Jew”: see Memoirs of Glückel, 42; Natalie Zemon Davis translates it more literally as “You Jewish carcass,” in Women on the Margins, 36; Kaufmann, Die Memoiren, 77.


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folks often took their life in their hands because of the hatred for the Jews . . . The good wife, sitting home, often thanked God when her husband turned up safe and sound.”111 In fact, wives recited Yiddish prayers for the safe return of their traveling husbands.112 It is not surprising, then, that although the fable of the murdered Jew in the Kuh-Bukh is derived from Boner, it differs from it and other Christian versions in several key ways.113 First, Christian texts make clear the Jew’s wealth. The Anonymous Neveletti, for example, writes that the Jew was carrying gold (aurum). Three fourteenthcentury French manuscripts derived from this text refer to the Jew’s money (argent) and twice to his goods (l’avoir) and great riches (richesses).114 Boner, too, asserts that the Jew carried much gold,115 and Burchard Waldis, in his Esopis of 1548, mentions that the Jew had a treasure, that he was rich, and then twice states that he carried gold and silver.116 But those responsible for producing the Kuh-Bukh—which contains the earliest surviving Jewish version of the tale—wished to avoid this association and so omit all textual references to the Jew’s wealth. A comparison of the illustrations is also revealing. The Kuh-Bukh includes four woodcuts for this fable. The first is quite close to that in the earliest printed version of Der Edelstein, which was published in Bamberg in 1461 (Figs. 111b, 112b).117 Both show a scene of the murderer standing between two trees, holding the weapon with which he has stabbed the Jew, who lies before him on the ground. It is striking that although the Yiddish text states emphatically that the Jew was beaten with a staff, its illustration shows him being stabbed. This further links the Kuh-Bukh to Christian fable books. The text of Der Edelstein mentions a sword, and its illustrations depict this method of murder as do a group of woodcuts in Italian fifteenth and sixteenthcentury fable books (Fig. 112a, 113b).118 In short, the first print of 111

Memoirs of Glückel, 7, and Kaufmann, Die Memoiren, 25. Weissler, “The Traditional Piety of Ashkenazic Women,” 251. 113 Katz, Book of Fables, 53–57, 289; Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, 60, 62–66. The first woodcut for this fable is printed on the wrong page. 114 McKenzie and Oldfather, Ysopet-Avionnet, 176–79. 115 Boner, Der Edelstein, 106, story LXI, lines 14–15, 21. 116 Burchard Waldis, Esopus, ed. by Julius Tittmann, Deutsche Dichter des 16. Jahrhunderts 16–17 (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1882), 175, lines 1, 4, 27–28, 39: (“schatz,” “reichen jüden,” “Leg ab/Dein silber, golt, und all dein hab!” and “silber and güldne pfand”). 117 Fouquet, Der Edelstein, 2:102–3. 118 Boner, Der Edelstein (1844), 106, line 33 (“swert”). For an illumination showing the cupbearer stabbing the Jew to death with his sword, see McKenzie and 112

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the Yiddish cycle, in its general composition and choice of weapon, is closer to its Christian source than to its own text. The second woodcut in the Yiddish cycle shows the servant standing before the lord. The gesture of the servant indicates that he is speaking and the caption notes that he is recounting his false version of the events. This subject is depicted in a similar way in several Italian fable books.119 The third print in the Yiddish cycle, which shows the murderer serving the partridge, is also close in composition to illustrations in both Italian fable books and German versions of Der Edelstein.120 But it is the last Yiddish print that is the most revealing. The cycle ends with a scene of the execution of the murderer (Fig. 113a). Although an illumination in a fifteenth-century German manuscript of Der Edelstein shows the preparation before the execution,121 only a small group of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian fable books include the execution itself, but they combine it with scenes of the murder and the servant before the lord (Figs. 113b).122 Whereas the latter is shown as a large scene in the center foreground, the tiny image of the punishment of the murderer is placed off to the side and in the background. By contrast, in the Yiddish book the execution scene has become the focus of the entire print. Oldfather, Ysopet-Avionnet, pl. V, no. 58. The Italian books that show stabbing include (1) Aesopus, Aesopus moralisatus (Verona: Johannes and Albertus Alvisius), 1479), (2)Aesopus, Vita et fabulae (Naples: Francesco del Tuppo, 1485), (3) Aesopus, Fabulae (Brescia: Jacobus de Britannicus, 1487), (4)Aesopus, Aesopus moralisatus (Venice: Manfredis de Conellis de Monteferrato, 1493, (5)Aesopus, Esopus costructus moralizat (Turin: B. Sylva, 1534), and (6) Aesopus, Aesopus moralisatus (Parma: Franciscum Ugoletum, 1526). The last is in the Spencer Collection of the New York Public Library (Fig. 113b). The rest are in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. 119 These Italian fable books include those published in Naples, Brescia, and Verona. See note 118, nos. 1–3, which are dated in the 1470s and 80s. 120 In an early fifteenth-century German manuscript of Der Edelstein, a single illumination shows the thief attacking the Jew and serving the partridge to the king. See Ulrich Boner, Der Edelstein (Öffentliche Bibliothek der Universität Basel, Handschrift AN III 17), ed. by Klaus Grusmüller and Ulrike Bodemann (Munich: Helga Lengenfelder, 1987), fol. 28v. The first printed edition of Der Edelstein adopts the same themes but shows them in separate woodcuts. For this, see n. 117. See also note 118, nos. 4–6, which are dated from the 1490s to the 1530s, and Aesopus, Aesopi Fabulae (Brescia: Apud Loduicum Britannicum, 1537), which is in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. 121 In a German fifteenth-century manuscript of Der Edelstein, the first miniature shows the thief stabbing the Jew in the back; the second depicts him being readied for hanging. See Ulrich Boner, Der Edelstein (Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg. Cod. 1. 3. 2o3), ed. by Ulrike Bodemann (Munich: Helga Lengenfelder, 1987), fols. 63v and 64r. 122 Aesopus, ed. by Bodemann, fols. 63v and 64r, and note 119, nos. 2–5.


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Besides placing greater emphasis on the punishment of the murderer, the Yiddish book also modifies the method of execution. In the German illumination of Der Edelstein, in all the images in the printed Italian books, and in Boner’s text, the murderer is hung, but in the text and image of the Kuh-Bukh he is broken on the wheel (Figs. 113a–b). This was a particularly brutal and degrading punishment, reserved only for men convicted of murder. The executioner first broke all the bones of the criminal, and then threaded his limbs through the spokes of the wheel, before finally raising the wheel high to display the prisoner, who usually died a slow death.123 Some Christians who murdered Jews actually suffered this punishment. In 1614 four leaders of a pogrom in Frankfurt were hanged and broken on the wheel,124 and Glikl bat Judah Leib relates how another murderer suffered the same fate.125 But it is not simply the method of execution and the addition of a separate print devoted to it that distinguishes the Yiddish cycle; it is also the presence of a huge crowd who witness the event. Glikl believed that the execution of the murderer of a Jew would serve as a negative example for Christians, but none of the prints made for a Christian audience show anyone paying attention to the hanging (Fig. 113b). By contrast, the representation of a large circle of witnesses in the Yiddish print reinforces the idea that the punishment will serve as a warning to Christians. But the figures in the crowd also serve as surrogates for the Jewish viewer, who would have taken a special satisfaction from this vision of a just punishment. Glikl concluded her tale of the murdered Jew with the words, “May God avenge his blood along with the rest of the holy and pious martyrs.”126 Whereas Christian authorities often ignored assaults on Jews, as the fable of the sheep would have brought to mind, the image of the execution of the Jew’s murderer visualized an ending for which many Jews would have longed.

123

Criminal Justice through the Ages, 100, 102, and 139. Ruth Gay, The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992), 64. 125 Dorothy Bilik, “Women Role Models in The Memoirs of Glückel of Hamlen: Merchants, Matriarchs, and Mothers,” in Di froyen. Conference Proceedings: Women and Yiddish, Tribute to the Past, Directions for the Future (New York: National Council of Jewish Women, New York Section, Jewish Women’s Resource Center, 1997), 8–11, here 10. 126 Davis, Women on the Margins, 37; Memoirs, 42–43: “May God revenge the blood of the stricken lad.” 124

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A broad range of cultural practices reveals the anger Jews felt at the way Christians treated them and their hope that one day justice would triumph. Brian Pullan describes an Italian ritual that symbolically expressed the Jews’ resentment. In 1571, when Christians entered the Venetian ghetto to bring bread at the end of Passover, Jewish children pelted them with rocks, mud, and filthy brushes as part of an established annual custom.127 Similarly, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a final verse was added to Maoz Zur, a song that is still sung today at Óanukkah. The verse reads in part, “Bare your Holy Arm/. . . Avenge the blood of your servants, take revenge upon the evil nation,/. . . Repel the Red One in the deepest shadows.”128 More peaceful in its outcome is one of Glikl’s tales, which Natalie Zemon Davis terms a “fantasy of inversion.” Glikl imagines not only that Christians are converted to Judaism, but also that they are ruled by a Talmudist duke.129 In a similar vein, numerous images of the hare hunt, including several scenes in Yiddish books produced in Renaissance Italy, express the idea that Christians persecute Jews, but that ultimately Jews will prevail (Fig. 88b). The hares, who symbolize Jews, are never caught by the dogs, who symbolize Christians, and occasionally the hares even escape through the netting that has been erected to catch them. Yosef Óayim Yerushalmi has concluded that such images express not only the idea that Christians mercilessly “hound” Jews, but also the belief that Christians cannot kill the spirit of Israel.130 Besides expressing a longing for justice, the illustrations in the KuhBukh differ from their Christian counterparts in the way they depict Jews. Although illustrations in Christian books, including Der Edelstein, sometimes differentiate Jews by showing them with the obligatory Jewish badge or hat, the woodcuts in the Kuh-Bukh fail to do this (Fig. 112a).131 Jews knew well that these visual markers not only were denigratory, but also made them easier targets of Christian aggression.132 By ignoring these signs of infamy, Jews were able to resist—

127

Pullan, Jews of Europe, 163. Epstein, Dreams of Subversion, 115. 129 Davis, Women on the Margins, 41. 130 Yerushalmi, Haggadah and History, pls. 15–16. 131 See Boner, Der Edelstein (August. Cod. 1. 3. 2o3), fols. 63v; Boner, Der Edelstein (Basel AN III 17), fol. 28v; Aesop, Esopi appologi siue mythologi (Basel: Jacob Wolf, 1501). The Sefer Meshalim shows a Jewish badge: see Katz, Book of Fables, 76. 132 See, for example, Harrán, Salamone Rossi, 16, 18, 25, 246. 128


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at least in the imaginary realm of the fable book—this aspect of the dominant Christian culture.

Conceptualizing Paris un Viene and the Kuh-Bukh On some level, publishing a Jewish book was in itself an act of resistance. The Talmud was burned in 1553 in Venice and Rome. In 1568, Venetians incinerated at least 7000 Hebrew books. In 1593, the pope declared that Jews could not keep the Talmud or any other book that contained words that were forbidden to Christians.133 Furthermore, all Jewish books had to be approved by a Church censor who inspected each text line by line for anti-Christian sentiment.134 Another obstacle was that Jewish activity in book publishing was severely curtailed. In most Italian towns, civil authorities prohibited Jews from acting as publishers; those suspected of having committed this offense, such as the grandson of Leon Modena, were fined or arrested.135 But although Jews could not openly express their attitudes towards Christians, they were able through a handful of images in the Kuh-Bukh, to communicate their outrage at the injustice of the Christian courts, their wish that the murderers of Jews would be punished, and their opposition to obligatory Jewish dress. Scholars have debated how to conceptualize the bicultural aspects of the Kuh-Bukh’s text. Erika Timm, noting its Hebrew and Christian sources, states that they were “fused together” in this volume.136 This is an inadequate characterization since the fragments often remain discrete rather than merged. For example, one story is separated from its epilogue by two other fables, and another has a totally irrelevant ending, which appears to be a relic from an earlier source.137 By contrast, Eli Katz sees the Yiddish compiler as performing “cultural brokerage, sometimes to combine and merge [the Jewish and

133

Pullan, Jews of Europe, 74, 82, and Grendler, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 142. 134 Pullan, Jews of Europe, 82. 135 Leon Modena, The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi, ed. by Cohen, 141, and Paul F. Grendler, “The Destruction of Hebrew Books in Venice, 1568,” in idem, Culture and Censorship in Late Renaissance Italy and France (London: Variorum, 1981), XII, 103–30, here 112. 136 Timm, “Die ‘Fabel vom Alten Löwen’,” 110. 137 Katz, Book of Fables, 11.

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Christian sources], more often to adapt features of style and substance from one to the other.”138 Here Katz recognizes that the Jewish compiler has adjusted the text for a Jewish audience, and, as we have seen, the images were adapted in a similar manner. David Ruderman has concluded that during the Renaissance, Jews were influenced by the larger Christian society, “Their synagogues became cathedral-like, their wedding feasts, iconography, entertainment, music, notions of time and space, confraternal piety and political tastes— all came to reflect the patterns of the Christian majority.”139 But Robert Bonfil has argued instead that such cultural practices were an inconsequential outcome of both groups living in close proximity.140 Ruderman’s model more accurately explains Paris un Viene and the Kuh-Bukh. Although at times Hebrew fable books were translated into Latin,141 Paris un Viene and the Kuh-Bukh derive in large part from Christian sources. Jews were clearly open to new cultural trends originating from the larger Christian society, but generally adapted them in such a way that they not only harmonized with Jewish values and traditions, but also fulfilled certain critical functions within the Jewish community.142 For example, as Sandra Debenedetti Stow has shown, a sixteenthcentury Judeo-Italian version of Ceccio d’Ascoli’s poem Acerba preserved Jewish identity by using Hebrew characters and reinterpreting christological verses so that they took on an anti-Christian meaning.143

138

Katz, Book of Fables, 15. David Ruderman, review of Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, Renaissance Quarterly 49 (1996): 852. 140 Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 114. 141 Quinnam, Fables, 17. 142 For Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 116, assimilation means forsaking the Jewish religion, but for Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia, Jewish identity can also be cultural, involving language, customs, physical appearance, and history. See “Preface,” in In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany, ed. by Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia and Hartmut Lehman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), xv. Betsy Perry has similarly demonstrated that the Inquisition monitored conversos not only for their religious practices, but also for such cultural phenomena as speaking Arabic and eating, singing, dancing, and even sitting in a traditional manner. See “Behind the Veil: Moriscas and the Politics of Resistance and Survival,” in Spanish Women in the Golden Ages: Images and Realities, ed. Magdalena S. Sanchez and Alain Saint-Saëns (London: Greenwood Press, 1996), 37–53. In line with Hsia, Gabriele L. Strauch has noted, “the choice of a different alphabet is clear evidence of difference.” See Strauch, “Dukus Horant,” 72. 143 Sandra Debenedetti Stow, “A Judeo-Italian Version of Selected Passages from Cecco d’Ascoli’s Acerba,” in Communication in the Jewish Diaspora, ed. by Sophia Menache (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 283–311, here 301–2. 139


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In fact, several authors have demonstrated that because the Christian culture dominated the Jewish one, cases of apparent similarity often reveal Jewish resistance and subversion through only a few small changes.144 This is certainly the case in the Kuh-Bukh’s Aesopian fables of the accused sheep and the murderer of the Jew. But a cultural practice such as publishing illustrated Yiddish chivalric romances and fable books may also be viewed as a strategy by which more assimilated Jews could be brought back into the fold. As Millie Heyd observed for the Tsene U’rene, “paradoxically the Christian element may have played a role in the preservation of tradition in a changing Jewish society.”145 In fact, the adoption of Christian prints and tales may be viewed as an act of resistance, whereby Jews claim the dominant culture as their own. As Shalom Sabar suggested for Ketubot, by incorporating motifs from the larger culture, Jews could assert that this world belonged to them as well.146 Another element is critical for understanding the part these books played in relations between Jews and Christians. Just as the preservation of the illustrated manuscript of Jewish customs is due in large part to its presence in a Christian library, that of Cardinal Richelieu, so is the survival of the only complete version of Paris un Viene. Bishop Giuseppe Venturi (1766–1841), a polyglot who specialized in Middle Eastern languages, including Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew, left his notable collection of some two hundred books, including Paris un Viene, in his will to the library of the Seminario Vescovile of Verona.147 It is unclear why the bishop owned a secular Yiddish volume, but the book owes its continued existence to its preservation in a Christian library where it was rarely, if ever, read.

Diversity and the Market Economy Jews were a diverse group with multiple identities, and Paris un Viene and the Kuh-Bukh reflect and reinforce this. For example, their texts 144 Sonne, “The Zodiac Theme in Ancient Synagogues and In Hebrew Printed Books,” and Epstein, Dreams of Subversion. 145 Heyd, “Illustrations in Early Editions of the Tsene-U’rene,” 86. 146 Shalom Sabar, “The Use and Meaning of Christian Motifs in Illustrations of Jewish Marriage Contracts,” Journal of Jewish Art 10 (1984): 47–63. 147 I would like to thank Don Angelo Orlandi for sharing this information with me. See Angelo Orlandi, Note per la storia del Seminario Vescovile di Verona (Verona: Archivio Storico Curia Diocesana, 2002), 123.

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and images mark them as Italian. Although the places where the tales are set range from Austria to the Middle East, the books were published in Verona and are permeated with numerous Italian words. For example, the Kuh-Bukh includes the terms macaroni (ynwrqam), bellezze (yx[l[b, that is, beautiful things), and febbre continova (hrbyp hwwnyfnwq, a phrase that probably refers to malaria).148 The images in the two books are also marked as Italian. Not only did the title page of the Kuh-Bukh appear in two earlier Italian volumes, but also the architecture of both Yiddish books is thoroughly Italian Renaissance in style, with its arched windows, tunnels, piazzi, and aqueducts; Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns; domed roofs and rusticated stones. But although Paris un Viene and the Kuh-Bukh were published in northern Italy, where there were thriving Ashkenazic communities, Yiddish-speaking Jews throughout Europe purchased them. Eli Katz notes that in the later edition of the Kuh-Bukh, which was published in Frankfurt in 1697, the number of Italian words was drastically reduced, probably because northern European readers could not understand them. This assumption is confirmed by Elia Ba˙ur Levita’s Bovo d’Antona, which was published in 1541 at Isny, in Bavaria, with a glossary of words that derive from Italian.149 But it was not only the words that would have seemed foreign to northern European Jews. Although for Italians, the images in these Yiddish books would generally have looked like home, for Jews living elsewhere the illustrations would have given the impression that they were set in a distant, exotic land, much like so many romances today.150 Paris un Viene and the Kuh-Bukh were published because someone, perhaps Francesco dalle Donne, recognized that Jews would buy them. The list of books that Jews were forced to submit to Christian censors in nearby Mantua in the very year in which the Kuh-Bukh was published makes this clear. A printed edition of Elia Ba˙ur Levita’s Paris un Viene was owned by four families out of 430, but the most popular type of book within the category of belles lettres were rhymed fable books with morals written in a Jewish language—

148

Katz, Book of Fables, 265–69. Erik, History of Yiddish Literature, 180. Even when the Kuh-Bukh was reprinted in Frankfurt, the images retained their Italian markers. 150 In particular Germany has a tradition of expressing longing for Italy. See, for example, the writings of Albrecht Dürer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Thomas Mann. 149


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precisely the sort of volume the Kuh- Bukh is.151 The lists reveal that forty-three Jewish families owned such fable books and, in fact, some owned more than one copy. Moreover, the lists cite a variety of these books; both the Meshal ha-Kadmoni and the Mishlei Shu-alim appeared in Hebrew and Yiddish, and in manuscript and printed form.152 Therefore, a Yiddish book that drew on both Hebrew fable books would have had great market appeal. Especially striking for our discussion are the additional families who owned such literature written in a non-Jewish language, perhaps Italian. Paris and Vienna was the third most popular book in a non-Jewish language; eight families owned fourteen such copies of the romance. Another four listed fable books in a non-Jewish language, and three of these are identified as Aesop’s fables.153 It is striking that over half of all Ashkenazic families owned such works, as compared to only 37.2 percent of other Jews. It is not surprising, then, that Ashkenazim favored chivalric romances and fable books. Not only did they buy more Yiddish editions, but they also owned more Hebrew versions of the Mishlei Shu-alim than other Jews. In short, by publishing a chivalric romance and a fable book in Yiddish, the publishers were acknowledging market forces. In particular, the Kuh-Bukh represented the favored literary form in a language with the greatest appeal to the group that represented the strongest market for this type of book. By combining stories from the two Hebrew fable books as well as some from Aesop’s collection, the publishers aimed to appeal to the broadest possible portion of the market for Jewish fable books. Because, like the printed books of customs, Paris un Viene and the Kuh-Bukh belong to both the Jewish world and the larger European culture, they are in a sense “border dwellers,”154 but unlike the images in the books of customs, those in the secular Yiddish books are largely dependent on Christian models. Perhaps the best way to conceptualize these volumes is to recognize that early modern Europe was multicultural, and, as discussed above, forms of “hybrid” art were common.155 Yiddish books printed in Verona represent yet

151 152 153 154 155

Baruchson-Arbib, La culture livresque des juifs d’Italie, 130, 133, 164, 168. Baruchson-Arbib, La culture livresque, 130–31. Baruchson-Arbib, La culture livresque, 168–70. See Chapter V above for this term. See Chapter V.

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another example of a fruitful exchange between Christians and Jews. Although Chone Shmeruk concluded that illustrations in secular Yiddish books should be excluded from Jewish Studies, we have much to learn from these images. If we seek only a “pure” Jewish culture untainted by “contamination” from Christians, then we face an impossible task. If we focus only on images of religious customs, then we gain an incomplete and limited picture of early modern Ashkenazic society.

CHAPTER NINE

PICTURING ROMANTIC PASSION, ILLICIT SEXUALITY, AND WOMEN’S AGENCY IN SECULAR YIDDISH BOOKS

The images in the books of customs that were published in Venice in 1593 and 1600 have become canonical within Jewish Studies.1 By contrast, those in Paris un Viene and the Kuh-Bukh have been ignored because their secular content did not support the prevailing view of Jewish life in the past.2 Yet these books are important precisely because they give the lie to the popular notion that in the “good old days” Jewish life was simpler and purer than today. As we have seen, the books of customs present an idealized vision of Jewish life in which no one misbehaves, and emphasis is placed on the importance of marriage and its connection to childrearing. But Jewish family life did not always match the ideal pictured in these books. Rabbi Obadiah of Bertinoro in 1488 wrote that among Jews in Palermo, “most brides enter the marriage canopy already pregnant.”3 And another rabbi, Azariah Figo (1579–1647), lamented that adultery was more common than idolatry and murder, and noted that “Jews have violated the rules . . . in various ways, engaging in all kinds of destructive behavior publicly, out in the open, without any shame or embarrassment.”4 Howard Adelman justly concluded that adultery among Jews was far from unusual.5 In line with this, and in contrast to contemporary books of customs, some illustrations in secular Yiddish books focus on passion and adultery, and none idealize marriage. This chapter will examine these images, and explore how the Jewish community reacted to them.

1

See chapter V above. For these books, see Chapter VIII above. 3 Horowitz, “Families and their Fortunes,” 577. 4 Saperstein, “Italian Jewish Preaching,” 94, and Chayyim Reuven Rabinowitz, “Figo (Picho) Azariah,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 6:1274. 5 Adelman, “Italian Jewish Women,” 148, and idem, “Servants and Sexuality,” 81–97; Horowitz, “Families and their Fortunes,” 597. 2

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part three ‒ chapter nine Paris un Viene

The chivalric romance Paris un Viene rests on the assumption that, as Israel Zinberg puts it, “true love . . . overcomes everything.”6 Jean Baumgarten has described the mood of the text as “suffused with emotions and tenderness in the evocation of amorous passion,”7 and the accompanying images express this ideal. The frontispiece shows a young woman leaning towards a young man and touching his hand (Fig. 100a). Another print shows a couple sitting close together as they ride a horse. 8 A third image, which is repeated three times, shows lovers in a passionate embrace (Fig. 101a).9 And a fourth depicts a couple in a Garden of Love, filled with the trees, birds, and musical instruments so typical of this iconography (Fig. 100b).10 The couple draws close, he puts his arm around her shoulder, and her hand reaches toward his. Yet another woodcut shows Paris serenading Viene, who displays herself in an open upstairs window (Fig. 114a). Paris plays a lute, an instrument that was commonly associated with lovemaking. Dressed much like the seductive young men in Caravaggio’s contemporary paintings, with a sword at his hip and a feather in his cap, Paris woos Viene with his music.11 Similar illustrations are found in contemporary Italian-language books.12 In early modern Italy “proper” women, whether Christian or Jewish, were as a rule segregated from men.13 Architecture functioned to separate men from women through gendered spatial zones. Men sat in one area of the church or syn-

6

Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, 7:78. Baumgarten, “Introduction,” in Paris un Viene, 13. 8 For these prints, see Paris un’ Viena, ed. by Shmeruk and Timm, 44 and 135. 9 The illustration is printed after stanza 674; its caption reads in translation: “Here Viene and Isabella recognize Paris/And she takes him strong around.” The same illustration is repeated after stanzas 331 and 669. See Paris un Wiene, ed. by Timm and Beckmann, 205–6. 10 See, for example, Raimond van Marle, Iconographie de l’art profane au moyen-âge et à la renaissance, et la décoration des demeures (La Haye: M. Nijhoff, 1931), 2:426–32. 11 For Caravaggio and lute playing, see Catherine Puglisi, Caravaggio (London: Phaidon, 1998), 73–99. 12 See, for example, Sander, Le livre à figures italien, VI no. 843 [Leonardo Justiniano, Sonetti (Palermo: Jo. Anontion, 1515)]. 13 See D. Wolfthal, “The Woman in the Window: Gender, Spatial Topography, and the Culture of Display in Images of Prostitutes Produced in Early Modern Italy,” in Il Rinascimento della pornografia: Sessualità e modernità in Italia nel Cinque e Seicento, ed. by Francesco Erspamer (Rome: Bulzoni, forthcoming). 7

picturing romantic passion, illicit sexuality

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agogue, women in another. Similarly, the prevalent view held that women’s place was in the private sphere of the home, whereas men were free to explore the public domain. In addition, space was linked to women’s sexual behavior. A woman’s house was supposed to protect her from sexual contact with strangers and in this way insure her husband’s honor and genealogical claims.14 The humanist Leon Battista Alberti, in his influential treatises on architecture and the family, viewed the domestic dwelling as a primary means for controlling women’s sexuality. He advised women to occupy the most private part of the home, and girls were kept away from windows, except when it was time to attract a husband.15 Viewers would have associated the image of the serenade, which is reproduced twice in Paris un Viene, with romantic passion, since the window was a focus for the courtship ritual of both Christians and Jews (Fig. 114a). This motif is perhaps best known from the story of Romeo and Juliet, but the phenomenon of wooing one’s lover beneath her window was widespread in European culture. Roni Weinstein relates the story of a Jewish woman from Ferrara, who was reported to have “acted against the Jewish religion,” a Talmudic phrase that means that she “behaved immodestly.” Documents record that “Some persons have come to the rabbi complaining that she winks with her eyes and hints with her lips to bachelors around her window. And the rabbi saw her playing with them from one window to the other, especially playing love-games.”16 Ignoring their elders’ warnings, Jewish youth in Renaissance Italy adopted the liminal space of the window as the major site of their courtship ritual, as Weinstein conclusively demonstrates. Images such as the one of Paris serenading Viene would have reinforced such behavior. But this image does not simply visualize a contemporary courtship practice. The group of woodcuts in Paris un Viene that depict romantic love participate in an important contemporary debate: whether 14

Wolfthal, Images of Rape, 103–4. Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, trans. by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavernor (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), Book V, 149; Alberti, Opere Volgari, ed. by Cecil Grayson (Bari: Giuseppe Laterza, 1960), 1:216–17; Alberti, The Family in Renaissance Florence, trans. by Renée Neu Watkins (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1969), Book III, 207–8. For an excellent analysis of Alberti’s ideas, see Mark Wigley, “Untitled: The Housing of Gender,” in Sexuality and Space, ed. by Beatriz Colomina, Princeton Papers in Architecture 1 (Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1992), 327–89, here 332–38. 16 Roni Weinstein, “Jewish Youth Sub-Culture in Early Modern Italy,” 54. 15

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young women could reject the groom chosen by their family. Howard Adelman notes that in Renaissance Italy Jewish women on occasion “refused the matches made for them,” and Kenneth Stow concludes that parents were increasingly inclined to allow their daughters a say in whom they would marry.17 Furthermore, one legitimate reason for divorce was that the “marriage was not made in heaven,” that is, the couple was incompatible.18 Although Robert Bonfil recently concluded that among Renaissance Jews “nobody married for love,”19 a large body of Jewish texts and images encouraged the idea of romantic love, not familial duty. Such disparate Italian Renaissance texts as Paris un Viene, Leone de’ Sommi Ebreo’s A Comedy of Betrothal, the love poetry of Immanuel of Rome and Jacob Frances, and interpretations of the Song of Songs explore the possibility of erotic intimacy and romantic love, even in the face of parental or social opposition.20 But the visual culture—including the images in Paris un Viene of couples embracing, meeting, riding a horse together, sitting in a garden of love, or flirting under a window—also played a critical role in promoting the idea of romantic love (Figs. 100a–101a, 114a). Nor was erotic passion unknown to “proper” Jewish women. Leon Modena relates that his fiancée Esther, “on the day she died, . . . summoned me and embraced me and kissed me. She said, ‘I know that this is bold behavior, but God knows that during the one year of our engagement we did not touch each other even with our little fingers. Now, at the time of death, the rights of the dying are mine.’”21 Similarly Glikl bat Judah Leib wrote that she regretted that she was unable to touch her husband as he lay dying because she had been menstruating: “‘My heart, may I take hold of you? For I have been unclean?’ And he said to me, ‘God forbid, my child. It will not be long until you go to your bath.’ But, alas, he did not live till then.”22

17 Adelman, “Italian Jewish Women,” 145, and Kenneth Stow, “Marriages are Made in Heaven: Marriage and the Individual in the Roman Ghetto,” Renaissance Quarterly 48 (1995): 445–91, here 466. 18 Israel Abrahams, “Marriages are Made in Heaven,” Jewish Quarterly Review 2 (1890): 172–77, and Stow, “Marriages are Made in Heaven,” 467–61. 19 Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 259. 20 Leone de’ Sommi Ebreo, A Comedy of Betrothal (Tshahoth B’dihutha D’Kiddushin), trans. and ed. by Alfred S. Golding (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1988); Dan Pagis, Hebrew Poetry in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 58–62; Dvora Bregman, The Golden Way (Tempe: MRTS, forthcoming); and Weinstein, “Jewish Youth Sub-Culture in Early Modern Italy,” 59. 21 Leon Modena, The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi, 91. 22 See Davis, Women on the Margins, 60.


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But it was not only when faced with their own death or that of a loved one that Jewish women thought about sexual intimacy. Married women had long been granted the right to conjugal cohabitation; it was the husband’s duty, according to Jewish law, to fulfill that obligation.23

The Kuh-Bukh The Kuh-Bukh includes one image that is strikingly similar to that of Paris serenading Viene. It shows a man singing below the window of a young woman who displays herself in an upper story window (Fig. 110a).24 But the profusely illustrated Kuh-Bukh goes even further than Paris un Viene by including not simply a tale of romance than ends in marriage, but rather more illicit situations. In one fable, a whore outsmarts the whole town, in another a widow desecrates her husband’s body in order to help her paramour, and in a third a wife runs off with her lover, taking all her husband’s goods.25 Furthermore, these fables construct women as major figures, who act autonomously, assertively, and effectively in the pursuit of their own happiness. The Whore in the Window One fable concerns a whore who is tired of the whole town gossiping about her. She flays a donkey and drives him through the marketplace, forcing him to carry his own skin. As a result, her astonished neighbors talk only of the donkey, and forget about her. Both the caption and the first line of the text specify that she is a whore (rwh),26 and the text elaborates on what this means: “She was available to everyone and had little honor.”27 But the woman’s iden-

23

Judith Romney Wegner, Chattel or Person (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 70, 78–79. 24 Katz, Book of Fables, 56–57. 25 Katz, Book of Fables, 114–18, fable no. XIX; 118–22, fable no. XX; and 194–217, fable no. XXX. 26 The caption begins, “A whore (rwh) sits in a tower.” The first line of the fable similarly terms her a whore: “They tell of a whore (rwh). She lived in a tower” (my translation); see Book of Fables, ed. by Katz, 119. This fable is derived from Boner 53; see Katz, Book of Fables, 118–19, 287–88; Rosenfeld, The Book of Cows, 53–54. 27 Katz, Book of Fables, 120: (ˆyylq rkyz raww rh[ rya .ˆyyayg ˆmradrya ad raww ayz).

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tity is communicated not only through words, but also through the accompanying image, which shows a woman displaying herself in an upper storey window (Fig. 105b). As mentioned above, space was gendered in early modern Italy. For this reason, a woman displaying herself in a window had one of two associations. On the one hand, the window was a focus for courtship ritual (Fig. 114a). On the other hand, prostitutes were differentiated from “proper” women by their placement in windows and doorways, that is, at the borders of the gendered spatial zones. In Italian Renaissance visual culture, an image of a woman displaying herself in an upper-storey window was often a sign for the prostitute. This is evident in Giacomo Franco’s depiction of men throwing eggs at a series of sex workers who exhibit themselves in upstairs windows; in prints in the book Vita del lascivo, which portray prostitutes at open windows, either sitting calmly or reaching down to accept gifts from men; and in a sixteenth-century Venetian watercolor of a man gesturing towards a courtesan who leans out an upper-storey window (Fig. 114b).28 What Cynthia M. Baker writes about Jewish Middle Eastern culture in the third century C.E., is just as valid for early modern Europe: “the woman’s precarious position, . . .—neither inside nor outside, but at a boundary between the two—mirrors topographically the implicit uncertainty of her moral footing.”29 Not only were windows associated generally with the dangers of the outside world, and specifically with female sexuality, but they were also tied to privacy, which was of growing concern at this time. Those who could afford them bought stained glass windows and shutters to shield themselves from the probing eyes of passers-by, and Jews who lived on the borders of the ghettos were forced to seal their windows in order to protect the privacy of Christians.30 An open window became associated with the public space of the street. For this reason, prostitutes who displayed themselves in windows for any man to see transgressed the boundary between women’s 28 See Lawner, Lives of the Courtesans, 22, 69, 190–91, and eadem, Harlequin on the Moon, 159. 29 Cynthia M. Baker, “Bodies, Boundaries, and Domestic Politics in a Late Ancient Marketplace,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 26 (1996): 402. 30 Benjamin Ravid, “Curfew Time in the Ghetto,” in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, ed. by Ellen E. Kittell and Thomas F. Madden (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 237–75, here 257.


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space and men’s, and suggested, to paraphrase Elisabeth S. Cohen, that not only was the house penetrable, but also the women belonging to it.31 The window also had powerful economic associations. In early capitalist Europe, consumers were encouraged to gaze into shop windows that were filled with commodities that were for sale. Ruth E. Iskin dates the “culture of display,” designed to solicit the eyes of passers-by, to the modern era, but it began much earlier.32 A glance at merchants’ stalls in Lorenzetti’s fourteenth-century fresco makes clear that shopkeepers shaped consumers’ habits of looking so that they became accustomed to associating the window with objects that were for sale.33 Similarly, images of prostitutes make clear that they were displayed in windows to attract the eye of potential customers (Fig. 105b, 114b). Jews took part in the Renaissance discourse concerning gendered spatial topography. Roni Weinstein has amassed letters, sermons, and moral treatises that debate whether Jewish women’s chastity and family honor were endangered if they were not kept indoors.34 But Jews knew that it was not only marriageable young women who sat in windows, but also prostitutes. Some Jews gained this knowledge by passing brothels in the street, but others, particularly young men, entered these establishments and had sexual relations with the women who worked there.35 For that reason, the Jewish viewer, like his Christian neighbor, would have suspected that the illustration in the Kuh-Bukh portrayed a prostitute; the text of the fable would have confirmed the reader’s supposition. But although this tale, like several others in the KuhBukh, focuses on a woman whose sexuality is illicit, its text is restrained in its criticism of her, and its triumphant ending makes clear that she has successfully manipulated the whole town through her own cleverness. The image also visualizes her assertiveness (Fig. 105b). 31 Elisabeth S. Cohen, “Honor and Gender in the Streets of Early Modern Rome,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 22 (1992): 597–625, here 617, 621–22. 32 Ruth E. Iskin, “Selling, Seduction, and Soliciting the Eye: Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère,” Art Bulletin 77 (1995): 25–44. 33 For Lorenzetti’s fresco, see Frederick Hartt, History of Italian Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, revised by David G. Wilkins, 9th ed. (Englewood Cliffs and New York: Prentice Hall and Harry N. Abrams, 1994), 118, pl. 32. 34 Weinstein, “Jewish Youth Sub-Culture in Early Modern Italy,” 56–57. 35 Weinstein, “Jewish Youth Sub-Culture in Early Modern Italy,” 62; Horowitz, “Families and their Fortunes,” 580–81, 593. For Jewish prostitutes, see 599.

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She leans out the window, and turns and gestures towards the figure below. Although the text states that the woman drove the donkey to town herself, the print shows her ordering a man to do so. He raises his whip to indicate to the viewer that he will obey her wishes. The whore is not only clever, autonomous, and effective in achieving her goals, she also has power over men. The Dishonorable Widow The fable of the whore who outsmarts the whole town is not the only one in the Kuh-Bukh to show women acting in their own interest, rather than that of men. One woman informs a man that his singing is dreadful (Fig. 110a),36 and two cycles involve women who choose their own sexual partner. The first cycle, a very popular fable known today as the Widow of Ephesus, is missing from the only surviving copy of the Kuh-Bukh, but can be reconstructed from the corresponding folios in its later version, the Sefer Meshalim (Figs. 105a, 109a).37 The text relates that one day, while a pretty widow was mourning at her husband’s grave, a young man guarded the corpse of a thief who had been hanged on a gallows nearby. He made her acquaintance and they became lovers that same day. But while he was neglecting his duties, the corpse was stolen. To cover up his negligence, the couple exhumed the husband’s body and substituted it for the criminal’s. Like the fable of the whore and the donkey, this one emphasizes the widow’s uncontrollable sexuality, or, to cite the book’s language, it “concerns faithless women whose behinds are always itching.”38 Similarly, like the whore, the widow is characterized as manipulative; such women “make themselves out to be quite miserable in order to fool and trick people.”39 In the first illustration for this fable, the guard speaks to the grieving widow, a subject that was often

36

Katz, Book of Fables, 56–57. Katz, Book of Fables, 114–19, fable no. XIX; 287; Rosenfeld, Book of Cows, n. p. For this fable in Jewish culture, see also Dov Neuman (Noy), “Motif-Index of Talmudic-Midrashic Literature” (unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Indiana University at Bloomington, June 1954), 582, K2213.1. 38 Katz, Book of Fables, 119: .ˆywrp ˆçlap ayd πywa f[ryg ˆwn zya lypç ayyb zad .âywrq ˆ[fç ˆrfnyh μya ˚yz ayd 39 Katz, Book of Fables, 119: mlw[ ˆ[d ayz zad .ˆl[fç ˚yz ayz ˆn[q ˚ylrm[y rag .ˆyl[nç ˆwa ˆykyyl ˆgpa 37


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depicted in contemporary German and Italian-language fable books (Figs. 109a–b). In the second print, she desecrates her husband’s body by hanging it on the gallows, a scene that appears in German books (Fig. 105b). Although the text is filled with misogynist statements, neither the words nor the images include any negative consequences for the widow’s actions. The woodcuts, moreover, depict the widow as the largest and therefore the most important figure and, in the latter print, show her as the most active, as she energetically hoists her husband’s body up on the gallows. The Adulterous Wife Another fable relates that a pretty young woman is married to a pious Jew who prays in synagogue all day.40 Attracted to a handsome youth, she seduces him. Eventually the lovers abscond, taking with them the husband’s goods. The print cycle of ten woodcuts is the largest in the Kuh-Bukh: the lovers hold hands, lie in bed, the husband returns home, the wife serves him a meal, they go to bed, the husband leaves for synagogue, the lovers embrace, the married couple eat, the lovers flee, and the husband discovers that he has been cuckolded (Figs. 115–120b). Like the dishonorable widow, the adulterous wife suffers no negative consequences for her behavior; in fact her husband is blamed for her actions. For example, one page shows at the top the husband rushing off to synagogue, and below, situated so that the viewer would read the two images together, the wife eagerly kissing her lover (Fig. 118). This reinforces the idea, expressed in the moral of the text, that the wife took a lover because her husband spent too much time in synagogue. This implies that the husband was ultimately responsible for the affair. Moreover, although the moral condemns both the husband and wife, the body of the narrative subverts the latter criticism. The husband suffers the consequences of his foolishness by losing his wife and his goods, but the adulterous wife is not punished at all. The text, moreover, portrays adultery enticingly and explicitly. The wife “embraced him [her lover] with her white arms and kissed his red lips” and the text relates, “They lay together all night. A

40

Katz, Book of Fables, 194–217.

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little longer and they would have made a little bastard.” One caption reads, “Here they both lie. He without his truss and she without clothes. They had great joy.”41 The images, too, construct adultery as appealing and emphasize the sexual aspect even more than the words since several depict only the small part of the text that concerns sexual activity.42 Whereas one passage relates a series of diverse narrative elements, the accompanying woodcut visualizes only one: the couple in bed (Fig. 116a). The curtains are drawn aside to grant the viewer a closer look. The woman’s bare arm embraces her lover; their faces touch. The deep shadows and coarse cutting strokes serve to enhance the tumultuous mood of an illicit sexual encounter. A comparison of these woodcuts with those in earlier Hebrew versions is revealing.43 Two previous editions of Meshal ha-Kadmoni include four woodcuts for the story: the lovers embrace, the married couple eats together, the lovers escape on horseback, and the husband either mourns his loss or bids the lovers farewell. Although the Kuh-Bukh adopts these subjects, it adds six more, including two bedroom scenes and an image of the lovers embracing (Figs. 116b, 117b, 118). In doing so, it emphasizes the sexual aspect of the narrative.44 But it is not simply that the Yiddish images focus on sexual activity. They also make clear that the wife is expressing her illicit sexual preference. When one caption reads, “A lad gives his hand to his lover. And she too turns to him in a friendly way,” its image shows the wife holding her lover’s hand and reaching out to touch his chest (Fig. 115).45 Like the woman depicted on the frontispiece of Paris un Viene (Fig. 100a), the adulteress is shown not only touching her lover, but also moving fervently towards him. (Note the folds of her skirt.) Similarly, images of the couple embracing and lying in bed indicate her eagerness (Figs. 116a, 118). In contrast, in the bedroom scene with her husband, although she touches his hand, she does not turn to look at him and her legs seem glued to the floor (Fig. 117b). 41

Katz, Book of Fables, 196–97 and 295. As Israel Zinberg relates, “The Kuh-Bukh refuses to acknowledge any veil, any bashful allusions; what is not stated explicitly is revealed by the illustration of the amorous couple:” see A History of Jewish Literature, 7:264. 43 For the Hebrew versions, see Chapter VIII, n. 71. 44 Book illustrations for Christians also included erotic images. See, for example, Sander, Le livre à figures italien, II, no. 264, V, no. 196, and VI, no. 788. 45 Katz, Book of Fables, 195: rag ˚a ˚yz ayz 'nwa .anah ayd ybyl rnyyz fbyg banq ˆyya .fnaww μya ˚ylfnyyrp 42


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These images, like those of the dishonorable widow, construct the woman as more important than the men. She is the star of the cycle, appearing in eight out of ten prints, more times than either of the men, and she is often shown as the largest figure, or the one who occupies the central position. In the first and eighth woodcuts she occupies the central space, with the man relegated to the side (Figs. 115, 119). In the third and fourth images, she is the largest figure and is placed more in the foreground (Figs. 116b, 117a). By contrast, in the contemporary Yiddish printed books of customs, men generally occupy the center, women the margins (Figs. 89, 91b, 94a).46

Contradictory Models Like their Christian counterparts, Jews read illustrated religious and recreational books in the vernacular, and these offered contradictory models. For women, they presented the virginal bride at her wedding, the passionate young woman who in the end marries her true love, and the mature wife who betrays her husband in order to take a lover. Elizabeth Eisenstein observes that printing offered a wider group of readers the possibility of consulting several volumes at once. As a result, she concludes, “contradictions became visible, divergent traditions more difficult to reconcile.”47 But just as religious and secular books construct women differently, so women readers must have had a range of responses. More conservative women may well have been scandalized by images that show lovers embracing in bed. But others may have vicariously enjoyed the portrayal of women’s freedom and importance in Paris un Viene and the Kuh-Bukh. Some members of Jewish society condemned profane texts. Rabbi Judah ben Isaac of Paris (1166–1224) opposed this type of vernacular literature, and his contemporary Judah the Pietist warned his fellow Jews that they “should not ever cover a holy Jewish book with parchment that has such tales written on it.” In this passage, Judah uses the French term “romance,” spelled out in Hebrew characters.”48

46

See Chapter V above. Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, 43. 48 Ivan G. Marcus, “A Jewish-Christian Symbiosis: The Culture of Early Ashkenaz,” in Cultures of the Jews, ed. by David Biale (New York: Schocken, 2002), 449–516, here 486. 47

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In 1553 Rabbi Emmanuel de Benevento complained that Jews waste their time with storybooks and chronicles about kings and kingdoms.49 The author of the Ma’aseh Bukh, published in Basel in 1602, attacked the Kuh-Bukh, in part to reduce his competition. But he also must have been expressing the opinion held by some Jews when he asserted that the Kuh-Bukh fostered immorality: Therefore, dear men and women . . . [do] not read from the book of cows [Kuh-Bukh]. And by Dietrich von Bern and Meister Hildebrant you shall also not let yourselves be entertained, for they are truly nothing but dirt. They give you neither warmth nor heat. Also they are not godly. You well require that God forgive you. Our sacred books write that it is a sin as big as a house to read from them on the holy Sabbath day.50

The language of the Kuh-Bukh may have contributed to this judgment, not only the use of such words as “bastard,” but also the choice of the vernacular, which was associated with the profane. In fact, earlier Hebrew literature had included many of the same ribald stories. The tale of the “widow of Ephesus” had appeared in Joseph ibn Zabara’s twelfth-century Book of Delight, and that of the adulterous wife became part of Isaac ibn Sahula’s thirteenth-century Meshal ha-Kadmoni. Moreover, Judith Dishon has shown that medieval Hebrew literature often constructed women, especially wives, as evil seductresses, who were unfaithful, treacherous, and uncaring. Yet typically, as in the Yiddish books, the women escape punishment and gain the reader’s sympathy.51 A critical issue may have been that the Hebrew texts were available only to the educated, that is, to the elite. But once these erotic and transgressive stories became available to a more popular audience, they were viewed as a greater threat to the social order.52 But part of what made the Yiddish secular books especially irreverent were their illustrations. Just as some Christians were icono-

49

Baumgarten, Introduction à la littérature yiddish ancienne, 235–36, n. 59. Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, 7:185. 51 Judith Dishon, “Images of Women in Medieval Hebrew Literature,” in Women of the World: Jewish Women and Jewish Writing (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1994), 35–49. 52 For a similar case in contemporary Christian society, see Carlo Ginzburg, Clues, Myths and the Historical Method, trans. by John and Anne C. Tedeschi (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1989), 79. 50


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clasts, so some Jews found images problematic. For example, in 1697, when the rabbinical council of Frankfurt condemned a title page of a Hebrew book that showed pagan and Christian elements, the frontispiece was soon reissued without the offending imagery.53 Similarly, Isaac Lampronti, chief rabbi of Ferrara, declared that images of a bride, groom, and constellation, which decorated a Ketubah, or marriage contract, violated the second commandment. According to Lampronti, “The matter appears unseemly and should not be done.”54 But the images in the secular Yiddish books would have been especially troubling to some, since they showed couples engaged in sexual activity. Just as one reader blotted out the image of a naked couple in bed in Boner’s Der Edelstein, so others may have felt uncomfortable when viewing similar scenes in the Kuh-Bukh.55 The illustrations in the secular Yiddish books call into question several conclusions made by Robert Bonfil in his influential studies of Renaissance Jewry. We have already cast doubt on his notion that “nobody married for love,” since some Jews were writing or reading texts that idealized romantic love and erotic passion, and viewing images that would have encouraged such feelings. Furthermore, although Bonfil stressed the respect that Jews felt towards rabbis, the Kuh-Bukh depicts pious Jews in a negative light. Not only does one fable construct a cuckolded husband as devout, but another relates how an apparently observant man is only pretending to be religious in order to steal large sums of money from traveling merchants.56 Bonfil also termed Jewish wives in Renaissance Italy “silent powerless underlings,” but this is an oversimplification.57 As Howard Adelman shows, this conclusion is disputed by actual historic events, such as women interrupting services to complain about their husbands.58 Similarly, images in secular Yiddish books construct women as major, powerful characters. Jewish Studies specialists have traditionally focused on the cultural production of the elite, and when they turned to

53

Gay, Jews of Germany, 69. Lampronti lived from 1697 to 1756, but was here relying on the judgment of a sixteenth-century rabbi. See Sabar, “The Use and Meaning of Christian Motifs in Illustrations of Jewish Marriage Contracts in Italy,” 47. 55 See Ulrich Boner, Der Edelstein (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1908), pl. iii. 56 Katz, Book of Fables, 174–94, fable no. XXIX. 57 Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, 257. See also the conclusions to Chapter IV above. 58 Adelman, “Rabbis and Reality,” 31. 54

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illustrations in Yiddish books, they concentrated on those in the printed books of biblical stories or religious customs.59 But this skewed their conclusions, since images in secular books present a very different picture, one infused with passion and eroticism, rather than piety and morality.

59 For biblical imagery, see Heyd, “Illustrations in Early Editions of the TseneU’rene,” and Wiesemann, “Das ‘Volk des Buches’ und die Bilder zur Bibel.”

CONCLUSIONS

This study has sought to question a series of assumptions: that images of ritual in early Yiddish books are mirrors of reality; that their Christian counterparts are neutral and objective; that illustrations in secular Yiddish books are irrelevant to an understanding of Jewish history; that art history should focus on beautiful images; and that Jews in the past formed a uniform group, who shared the view that rabbis were central and women peripheral to their society. By examining the images in five profusely illustrated Yiddish texts produced in sixteenth-century Italy, this book has demonstrated the danger of accepting these assumptions. One further assumption needs to be examined: the idea, voiced by Falk Wiesemann, that “the language of the text opens a space for the possibility of pictorial representation. As far as illustrations in printed texts show, they are almost exclusively to be attributed to Yiddish language books.”1 Wiesemann here expands the findings of Chone Shmeruk, who concluded that “adding illustrations to a Yiddish book that was translated from a Hebrew one without illustrations did not pave the way for the addition of illustrations in future publications of the Hebrew original.” Shmeruk’s case, however, rests on only three texts: the book of customs, and two popular editions of biblical stories, Yosipon, whose first illustrated edition was published at Zurich in 1546, and the Sefer Tam ha-Yashar, first published with woodcuts at Frankfurt a. M. in 1674.2 Although Shmeruk’s conclusion may be valid for other texts, it is not true for books of customs. The earliest printed edition, which was published in Venice in 1566, was an unillustrated volume in Hebrew. The next, Giovanni di Gara’s Yiddish edition of 1589, again lacked imagery. Two years later, di Gara issued a Hebrew version, which like the previous printed editions in Yiddish and Hebrew, was not illustrated. Then, in 1593 and 1600, he published two Yiddish versions, both with woodcuts. The first illustrated Hebrew edition

1 2

Wiesemann, “Das ‘Volk des Buches’ und die Bilder,” 23. Shmeruk, The Illustrations in Yiddish Books, vii and 39.

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was published in Amsterdam in 1685, and other illustrated Hebrew books of customs followed in 1708, 1768, and 1774.3 Thus evidence does not support the conclusion that books of customs were illustrated in their Yiddish versions only. This thesis does not even hold for the two centuries on which Shmeruk focuses, the sixteenth and the seventeenth. For sixteenth-century Italy, there is no evidence that publishers used images to differentiate Yiddish books from Hebrew ones. No illustrated text, other than the book of customs, was printed in both Yiddish and Hebrew there, although some stories from the Kuh-Bukh had appeared earlier in illustrated Hebrew editions of the Meshal haKadmoni. In fact, prayer books, law codes, Haggadot, and Leon Modena’s translation of the Fiore di Virtù are among the many illustrated Hebrew manuscripts and printed books produced in early modern Italy. In fact, the latter volume was reproduced with woodcuts that had previously been printed in Giovanni di Gara’s Italian-language version of 1588, but the rabbi added another five illustrations.4 Clearly he did not feel that his Hebrew text should be free of imagery. Nor were Yiddish books illustrated more often than Hebrew ones; the vast majority contains no imagery. In short, no clear pattern emerges in Renaissance Italy of a connection between the language of a Jewish book and the presence or absence of illustrations. Why, then, were Yiddish books illustrated? Several theories have been advanced. Shmeruk pointed to the preface of Yosipon, which justifies its woodcuts by stating that they were inserted to add a historic note: “since . . . this book . . . tells about many happenings in which these kings and emperors lived, it seems fitting to publish their figures and portraits as they are found on the coins that they issued . . .”5 Heyd suggested that Tsene-U’rene, a collection of biblical stories published in Sulzbach in 1692, was illustrated because its tone is folkloric as opposed to the more solemn tenor of its Hebrew model.6 Images could also have served a pragmatic function, as cues for the reader searching for a particular passage of the text. Some woodcuts may also have fulfilled an educational role. Heyd, and fol-

3

Feuchtwanger-Sarig, “An Illustrated Minhagim Book Printed in Amsterdam.” Joanna Weinberg, “Leon Modena and the Fiore di Virtù,” in The Lion Shall Roar: Leon Modena and His World, ed. by David Malkiel ( Jerusalem: Magness Press, 2003), 137–57, here 143–47. 5 Shmeruk, The Illustrations in Yiddish Books, 34–35. 6 Heyd, “Illustrations in Early Editions of the Tsene-U’rene,” 64. 4

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lowing her Wiesemann, assert that woodcuts served a didactic function, making biblical stories easier for the reader to follow by signaling the contents of the words.7 Taking this reasonable idea one step further, Shmeruk argued that images in Yiddish books, even those in secular ones, were designed to teach children.8 This function may have been true for certain texts, such as biblical stories or Haggadot, but neither books of customs with their long lists of liturgy, nor secular books with their stories of erotic pleasure, were the type of text that most parents were likely to read to their children.9 One type of illustration, the frontispiece, sometimes signaled the nature of the book or its intended audience. The woodcut on the title page of Paris un Viene makes clear that it is a tale of romance, and the frontispiece of the Kuh-Bukh shows women embroidering and weaving, an irrelevant subject unless it was chosen to indicate that the book was appropriate for female readers. Such an image would certainly also make clear the secular content of the book. Indeed, for Jews, the presence or absence of imagery in a book or a building signaled to some extent its level of holiness. For example, Rabbi Samuel Archivolti of Padua (ca. 1530–1611) concluded that “it is prohibited to have images in the synagogue.” His decision rested on two arguments. First, he associated wall paintings with worldly places: “Why should our synagogues be like the inns, where guests drink goblets of wine in rooms with painted walls? How can we allow the walls of our synagogues to be like the walls of the commedia dell’arte?” He also wanted to avoid any suggestion of idolatry: “why should non-Jews say that we worship the grass of the field and the fruits of the earth and the other images—which would defame us.”10 Italian Renaissance pictorial representations in synagogues were rare,11 whereas they were common in Jewish homes, where figural 7 Heyd, “Illustrations in Early Editions,” 65, and Wiesemann, “Das ‘Volk des Buches’ und die Bilder zur Bibel,” 23. 8 Shmeruk, The Illustrations in Yiddish Books, 39–60. 9 For the distinctive features of contemporary Christian children’s books, see Roger S. Wieck, “Special Children’s Books of Hours in the Walters Art Museum,” in Als ich can: liber amicorum in memory of Professor Dr. Maurits Smeyers, ed. by Bert Cardon, Jan Van der Stock, Dominique Vanwijnsberghe Corpus van Verluchte Handschriften, 11–12 (Leuven and Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2002), 1629–39. 10 Vivian Mann, Jewish Texts in the Visual Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 86; Shalom Sabar, “Leon Modena’s Attitude Towards Visual Art,” in The Lion Shall Roar: Leon Modena and His World, ed. by Malkiel, (in Hebrew), 163–82, here 169. 11 See Il Ghetto di Venezia. Le Sinagoghe e il Museo, ed. by Giovannina Reinisch Sullam (Rome: Carucci, 1985), 34, 43–44.

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decoration adorned such household objects as menorahs and ketubot. Even Rabbi Archivolti wrote a poem that praised a portrait by Francesco Apollodoro, and Rabbi Leon Modena accepted the gift of one portrait and commissioned another, his self-portrait.12 Similarly, neither Torah scrolls, printed Bibles, nor Esther scrolls that were read in synagogue were illustrated, whereas popular printed biblical stories and Esther scrolls that were read in the home were. In short, in sixteenth-century Italy the nature of a text and the place it would be read were critical factors in determining whether it would be illustrated. Popular books, especially secular ones, were often illustrated, whether the language of their text was Hebrew, Latin, Yiddish, or another European vernacular. But Yiddish books were not only illustrated for educational and practical reasons, or to signal to the reader the content of a book, its intended audience, or its level of holiness. Images were also added because some adult Jews enjoyed looking at them, and satisfied this appetite through the purchase of illustrated books. Part of Giovanni di Gara’s marketing strategy was to appeal to Jewish readers’ aesthetic taste. For his second illustrated book of customs, dated 1600, he improved the page layout and commissioned a new set of large and attractive prints, which brought Titian’s style into Jewish homes. Similarly, as Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi observed, di Gara’s Haggadah, which was published nine years later in three editions, each with a Hebrew text and a commentary in a different vernacular language, “marked a striking new departure in the evolution of the illustrated Haggadah.”13 Printed with a new bold Italian type and innovative woodcuts, it was designed with a clear and attractive layout that separated each of its component parts: the Hebrew text, the vernacular commentary, and the visual imagery. Publishers explicitly appealed to the aesthetic sense of Jewish readers in the prefaces to Yiddish books, which single out the illustrations for praise. Perhaps the most revealing of these was written by Rabbi Leon Modena, who noted that illustrations will “entice the bodily eyes,”14 a frank acknowledgement of the visual pleasure that some Jews felt when looking at woodcuts.

12 13 14

Sabar, “Leon Modena’s Attitude Towards Visual Art,” 169, 175. Yosef Óayim Yerushalmi, Haggadah and History, 40. Yerushalmi, Haggadah and History, text facing Pl. 49.

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For most of the seventeenth century, and continuing into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the compositions in the Venetian Haggadah of 1609 were repeatedly reprinted, as were those from the book of customs of 1593. Jewish taste in the decoration of these texts was conservative. But the situation in sixteenth-century Italy was just the reverse. Innovation and creativity were the rule in both manuscripts and printed books. Traditions were not yet set, and publishers, editors, and artists played with a range of exciting new solutions to aesthetic and literary problems. These images in Yiddish books were neither mere backdrops for the text nor mirrors of contemporary reality. Rather they were important interpretations in their own right. For this reason, they are critical for our understanding of sixteenth-century Jewry. The manuscript’s amateurish drawings offer a strikingly original view of both biblical events and Jewish holidays, a view that is radically different from the picture that is presented in either contemporary Christian images or the prints in the later books of customs. A joyful mood, intimate knowledge of Jewish culture, complex and innovative interpretations of Jewish holidays, and construction of a strong Jewish identity characterize the long-neglected drawings in the manuscript. Furthermore, these representations make clear that the memory of Jewish rituals was contested and revised over the course of the sixteenth century. These images also at times deviate from the dominant voice expressed in rabbinic literature. Not only does this manuscript made for the middle ranks of Jewish society include depictions of Jewish women performing a wide range of rituals, including many positive, timebound ones, but it is also striking in the complete absence of any image of a rabbi. Furthermore, it includes the visualization of some customs, such as gambling for money, that rabbis criticized. The manuscript also suggests, through its images of a nude woman bathing and men and women dancing intimately together, that, as David Biale concluded, “the Jewish population as a whole was attracted to a very different erotic code from the one that the rabbinic authorities wished to enforce.”15 Although a Jewish scribe created the manuscript for his own use, the printed books are hybrid works, made by Christians and Jews

15 David Biale, Eros and the Jews: From Biblical Israel to Contemporary America (New York: Basic, 1992), 69.

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working together. But they, too, are critical for understanding the Jewish past, since they reached hundreds of Yiddish-speaking homes, and in this way helped shape how Jews visualized romance and ritual, conceptualized Jewish identity, and formed a collective Jewish memory. The well-known books of customs differ strikingly from the earlier manuscript version in their reduced number of images, more restrictive view of women and sexuality, focus on the rabbi, and their less knowledgeable view of Jewish ritual. A last focus of my study has been the two secular Yiddish texts published in Verona in 1594–95, the chivalric romance Paris un Viene and the collection of fables called the Kuh-Bukh. Their imagery, like that of the early manuscript, has long been ignored. Yet, to cite just one example, the Kuh-Bukh presents an insider’s view of JewishChristian relations in its interpretation of the fable of the murdered Jew, which differs strikingly from Christian depictions of the same story. Furthermore, these Yiddish books, like the manuscript of Jewish customs, suggest a view of Jewish society that is quite different from the dominant one expressed by the rabbinic elite. These texts and their images show women as major characters who go after what they want—whether it is a lover or a better reputation—and achieve their goal without any negative consequences. They also glorify romantic passion, sympathetically portray illicit sexuality, poke fun at the devout, and fail to visualize any rabbi at all. These Yiddish books are part of the broader European culture. The books of customs fulfill a major interest of the sixteenth century, encyclopedic cataloguing, and fable books and romances were popular throughout Europe. Moreover, the artists of the printed books—followers of Amman and Titian—belong to the mainstream of European printmakers. Although the production of profusely illustrated Yiddish texts began in Zurich, with the publication in 1546 of Yosipon, it took root in northern Italy, where all other such books were published in the sixteenth century. Several factors suggest why this occurred. Northern Italy in general and Venice in particular were at the center of European publishing. This area, especially Venice, was also home to a large and vibrant Jewish community. During this period, both Hebrew and Yiddish literature flourished and several literary forms crystallized.16 Sixteenth-century Italy was 16 See Chapter II, notes 40–41; Chapter II, notes 38–39 ; and Baumgarten, “Un poème épique en yidich ancien,” 15.

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also a time of great creativity among Christian writers, artists, and publishers, and it is the confluence of Jewish and Christian cultural developments that produced these striking books. But this “golden age” of Yiddish publishing in Italy was brief. During the seventeenth century Amsterdam became the center for Jewish publishing, and all noteworthy illustrated Yiddish books were printed in northern Europe. Later generations of publishers favored the illustrations in the book of customs of 1593, and the manuscript and secular books were largely forgotten. But one goal of this study has been to bring attention to the wealth of visual imagery contained in these books, which have been neglected for far too long. Too many scholars have based their view of early modern Jewry on Christian images or on those in the later Yiddish books of customs. Within Jewish Studies the latter prints have become canonical, and are too often mistakenly accepted as the true picture of how authentic Jews in the “old country” used to celebrate their rituals. Modern scholars have been hesitant to embrace the secular woodcuts, with their frank scenes of erotic passion and their similarity to Christian imagery—but these books are part of Jewish culture as well. We must follow Rabbi Modena and allow them to entice us—not just our eyes, as he recommended, but also our minds. For the images in the five small, inexpensive Yiddish books, produced for Ashkenazic readers from the middle rank of Jewish society, present a diverse and fascinating picture, which changes over the course of the century and varies with the nature of the text. Only by exploring the full range of Jewish representations, including those that that are secular and those that show cultural exchange between Christians and Jews, can we understand the full richness and complexity of the Jewish—and European—past.

APPENDIX

CATALOGUE OF IMAGES IN PARIS BN MS. HÉB. 586

This appendix is not designed as a comprehensive catalogue of each image. Rather, for each illustrated folio this appendix gives the figure number, and includes a short description of the subject, a transcription and translation of its caption, and a list of earlier references to the image in this book.

Nisan Fig. 1. Fol. 1r.: Rosh Óodesh Nisan From a section heading at the upper right emerges a fool’s head whose neck is transformed into a serpent that winds down the right margin. The serpent’s fang zaps one of two card players in the lower margin, in a light-hearted criticism. One man holds a card with six dots, the other with five. Additional cards lie on the table beside groups of circles, which probably represent piles of coins. The closefitting cap that these open-mouthed figures wear recurs in a drawing of an Italian sixteenth-century Jew.1 Much of the upper part of the folio is water-stained. Particularly relevant to this image are comments by Leon Modena that suggests that the serpent represents Satan: “During Óanukkah of the year 5355 [7–14 Dec. 1594] Satan fooled me into playing games of chance, causing me no small amount of damage for I lost about one hundred ducats.” Four years later, he reports, “Satan duped me into playing games of chance.”2 Caption: çd:je ça;r: μa' ˆf'rq “ ' ˆl'ypiç] ayd“ (They play cards on Rosh Óodesh.) Pages: 4, 6n, 15–17, 24, 27, 29, 39n, 40n, 46n, 68

1 See Louisella Mortara-Ottolenghi, Hebraica Ambrosiana. Part II. Description of Decorated and Illuminated Manuscripts in the Ambrosiana Library (Milan: Polifilio, 1972), 142, no. XXII and pl. 39. 2 See Leon Modena, The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi, trans. by Cohen, 97, 100.

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Fig. 2. Fol. 1v: Shabbat ha-Gadol The huge size of the man standing in the right margin suggests a visual play on the word gadol (big), which was written above the figure (perhaps by a later hand) and in the second line from the bottom. Since the man’s robe is short, and a tiny head with an open mouth and long pointed nose pecks at the large man’s knee, it is doubtful that this figure represents the rabbi, who often delivered one of two annual sermons on Shabbat ha-Gadol.3 Nor does he seem to represent the Messiah, who was believed to make his appearance in the month of Nisan.4 Much of the upper part of the folio is waterstained. Caption (possibly cut-off and added later): lwdg (Big) Pages: 4, 16n, 22, 27, 29, 40n

Passover Fig. 3a. Fol. 2r: Fetching water for Passover In the lower right margin a man fetches water from a well. At the center, a woman holds a vessel, and at the left, a man carries off a covered vessel that hangs from a pole that he balances on his shoulder. Mitzvah, or ritual, water is collected at Passover to incorporate into mazzah dough. The water must stand overnight for at least twelve hours after it has been drawn, and is then kept covered because it cannot be exposed to sunlight. The reason for these precautions is to keep the water cool so as to prevent fermentation.5 The upper left corner of the folio is missing. Caption: rç'ww" hw:x]mi ˆh'yxi aydI (They draw mitzvah water.) Pages: 4, 13, 21, 27, 31n, 75

3

Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 258. Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 258. 5 For mitzvah water, see Eliyahu Kitov, The Book of Our Heritage: The Jewish Year and Its Days of Significance, trans. by Nathan Bulman and Ruth Royde ( Jerusalem: Feldman Publishers, 1973, originally published in 1968), 2:189. 4

catalogue of images in paris bn ms. héb. 586

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Fig. 3b. Fol. 3r: Searching and burning hamez before Passover In the lower right margin a man sweeps hamez with a feather onto a plate. To the left, a man blows bellows to feed the roaring fire on which the hamez burns. The scribe indicates the ground through his usual double horizontal line. Caption on the right: ≈m,j] fk]ywzU r[e[d] (He looks for hamez.) Caption on the left: ≈meje fn“[er"b] rw"w" r['dE (He burns hamez.) Pages: 4, 21, 27, 31, 70, 217–18, 225 Fig. 4. Fol. 3v: Eruv tavshilin In the upper right margin two men exchange an egg and a mazzah in a custom designed to permit cooking for a Sabbath that immediately follows a festival.6 One began cooking on the evening before the holiday and by reciting a prayer could continue to cook on the holiday itself for the Sabbath that followed. The word “eruv” means “mixture,” which in this case consists of a baked food and a cooked food.7 The ground is indicated, as so often in this manuscript, by two parallel lines topped by short grass-like strokes (see fol. 3r). The man on the right stands on a step; the one on the left wears a belt from which hangs a purse and belt. Caption: ˆylyçbt bry[i (Eruv tavshilin.) Pages: 4, 27, 31, 53n, 231 Fig. 5. Fol. 4r: Kiddush at the Seder In the upper right margin, emerging from a section heading, is a hybrid creature with an animal body and a human head who wears a fool’s cap and holds a pennant. In the lower right margin a man raises a wine cup as he pronounces the kiddush. At the opposite end of the trestle table stand five men. On the richly set table are a fringed runner, two wine carafes, two glasses, an open book, a spoon, and two bowls, one of which holds leafy vegetables. An elaborate Seder plate, which holds an egg and three round mazzot, each marked to indicate its position, is prominently displayed. A Judenstern, or star-shaped

6 7

For eruv tavshilin, see Zvi Kaplan, “Eruv,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 6:849–50. Kitov, The Book of Our Heritage, 1:58.

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lamp, hangs from a hook at the left.8 The stripes of the fringed tablecloth show through the mazzot. Caption: rdEse ˆb'[]gE ayd" (They give a Seder.) Pages: 4, 16n, 23, 27, 29, 31n, 32, 53n, 104 Fig. 6. Fol. 5r: Mazzah, maror, blessing over the wine In the lower right margin, a man displays a round mazzah. In the center, another man raises a leafy vegetable in one hand, and with the other holds a book (presumably a Haggadah) inscribed with the word maror. To the left, a seated man whose head leans against a tasseled pillow raises a cup to his open mouth with one hand, while holding a wine carafe with the other. On a three-legged round table before him rest a wine glass and carafe, a knife, and a spoon in a bowl. Caption on the right: hz< hx'm' (This is mazzah.) Caption in the center: hz< r/rm; (This is maror.) Caption on the left: hk'rb : ] fk]a'm' r[[d] (He makes a blessing.) Pages: 4, 19, 27, 31n, 32 Fig. 7. Fol. 5v: Dipping greens in ˙aroset, distributing afikomen, and filling the third cup In the right margin, next to a description of the ritual, a man dips lettuce (˚yfl) into a bowl of ˙aroset. The bowl rests on a low table; a spotted dog lies at the man’s feet. In the lower right margin, one man gives another man, who is standing beside a stool, a piece of round mazzah. Presumably he is distributing the afikomen mentioned in the caption and the text. In the center of the lower margin, a man reaches towards a vessel that stands next to a rounded form on a table. The text, which continues onto the next folio, describes filling the third cup of wine and so the bowl-like form may actually represent a goblet. Caption at the top: ts,/rj ˆyai ˚yfil' fq]nUWf r[[d] (He dips lettuce in ˙aroset.)

8 For a similar lamp, see Abraham Kanof, Jewish Ceremonial Art and Religious Observance (New York: Abrams, 1970), 104 (Cologne, fourteenth century), and Isaiah Shachar, The Jewish Year (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 24, pl. VIIa.


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Caption at the lower right: ˆm'/qypia' fç]yai r[e[d] (He eats Afikomen.) Caption at the left: ˆyyae fq]n“[eçe r[edE (He pours.) Pages: 4, 8n, 17, 27, 31n, 32 Fig. 8a. Fol. 6r: Shefokh In the lower margin, a man holding a cup sits in an armchair before a table on which lie a wine carafe, a glass, and a book on which is inscribed the word “Shefokh.” Before him is a building with two turrets, perhaps his house. At the Seder, when the fourth cup of wine is raised to pronounce the “Shefokh,” the door of the home is opened in anticipation of the Messiah. This image is cut off at the bottom, but unlike some other images of the subject, there is no indication of either the Messiah or the open door.9 To the right are lightly sketched doodles. Caption: ˚/pç] fg“z" r[edE (He says Shefokh.) Pages: 4, 18n, 27, 31, 33 Fig. 8b. Fol. 7r: Lighting the Sabbath lamp In the lower right margin a woman holds a wick in her left hand to light the Judenstern lamp. Leon Modena wrote that women are obliged to light an oil lamp that has four to six lights; this one has six.10 Caption: fnyw“xuna' a' . . . [She] lights (the Sabbath lamp.) Pages: 4, 18, 27, 33n, 40n, 45, 69n, 70, 73, 103 Fig. 9a. Fol. 7v: Animals beneath a tree In the right margin two quadrupeds face each other below a flowering tree with pruned branches. One animal, partially hidden, wears a collar; the other is spotted. No caption illuminates the meaning of this image.11 The accompanying text describes the proper liturgy for the first day of Passover when it falls during the week. Pages: 4, 17n, 27 9 Gutmann, Hebrew Manuscript Painting, 98 pl. 30; Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 260; Metzger, La Haggada enluminée, 319–21. 10 Leon Modena, Historia de’ riti Hebraici, 59. 11 Such animal themes may well have meaning, however, as Epstein demonstrates in Dreams of Subversion.

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Fig. 9b. Fol. 8r: Torah reading In the lower margin, two men stand to either side of the bimah on which is placed a Torah scroll, which is inscribed with the name of the sidrah that is mentioned in the accompanying text, la ab (Bo el ). Burning candles are affixed to the top of the lectern. One man is bearded and both wear a tallit, marked by fringes at the corners and the atarah, the decorated area introduced in the sixteenth century to distinguish the strip that should be placed at the forehead.12 Caption: hr:/t rpese r[edE ˆyai â'yyle aydI (They read in the Torah.) Pages: 4, 27, 34, 40n, 51n Fig. 10a. Fol. 8v: Priestly blessing In the lower right margin, two men, one bearded and wearing a tallit, perform the priestly blessing, which was recited only on the High Holidays and three pilgrim festivals.13 The figure on the left is clearly barefoot, as kohanim should be when the blessing is pronounced. The duchan mentioned in the caption is the platform on which priests perform this ritual.14 Caption: ˆk'wd ywx fygE (. . . goes to the duchan) Pages: 4, 19, 27, 37, 45, 63–65 Fig. 10b. Fol. 9v: Creature surrounding text A unicorn quadruped with human face frames the text. Since there is no caption, its meaning is unclear. Pages: 4, 17n, 27

12

Abraham P. Bloch, The Biblical and Historical Background of Jewish Customs and Ceremonies (New York: KTAV, 1980), 82. 13 See Editorial staff and Herbert Chanan Brichto, “Priestly Blessing,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 13:1060–63, and Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 266 and 268, fig. 384. Elliott Horowitz observes that there was considerable variety in the gestures used: see “Onan Illuminated Manuscript of Mishneh Torah,” Kiryat Sefer 41 (1986/87): 583–86 (in Hebrew). 14 Idelsohn, Jewish Liturgy, 192–93. In Yiddish duchan also means to pronounce the blessing; see Bloch, The Biblical and Historical Background, 262–63.


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Fig. 11. Fol. 10r: Birds and a quadruped Surrounding the word “min˙a” in the text is the image of a bird. In the lower margin is a quadruped and another bird-like creature. Since there is no caption, their meaning is unclear. The text on this folio discusses the afternoon and evening liturgy for Passover. Pages: 4, 17n, 27

Omer Fig. 12. Fol. 10v: A Woman counting the days of Omer In the upper right margin, a woman, clearly designated as such by her headcloth, stands on a ground line (see fol. 3r) and displays an object on which are written the words that are pronounced when beginning to count the forty-nine days of Omer, from the sixteenth of Nisan to Shavuot: ynç dja μwy (Day one, two . . .). Behind is a tablet labeled rmw[ (Omer), which served as a counting aid.15 Although women are exempt from performing this commandment, the caption indicates that this woman is performing this mitzvah.16 Below is a hybrid creature, composed of a human face and neck that is transformed into plant tendrils. It functions to set off the prayers that should be recited at Min˙a, the afternoon service. Caption rme/[ fç]n“[ebe ([She] blesses Omer.) Pages: 4, 16n, 27, 40n, 69n, 73, 75, 147

Passover Fig. 13. Fol. 11r: Kiddush and landscape In the left margin are two men with open mouths, who stand on a ground line (see 3r) and touch a book that is inscribed with the words hta ˚wrb (Blessed art thou . . .). The accompanying texts states

15 For other Omer counters, see Editorial staff and David M. Feldman, “Omer,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 12:1382–86. All surviving examples date later. See also Max Seligsohn, “Omer,” in Jewish Encyclopedia, 9:398–399. 16 Kitov, The Book of Our Heritage, 2:359.

218

appendix

that after services, one goes home and sits at the table and makes kiddush, and this is probably the blessing depicted. Across the lower margin, the scribe has drawn an idyllic spring landscape. A crenellated wall, punctuated by crenellated towers, surrounds a garden filled with eight blooming trees of various sizes and shapes. A bird with some food in its beak flies towards three chicks waiting in a nest. Below a man bends his head back to gaze at the bird; he raises his hand, which may contain some food for the bird. Another bird rests on his companion’s hand. Because this scene lacks a caption, it is difficult to determine its meaning. Caption: fn"ygIb' aydI (They begin [to pray].) Pages: 4, 17n, 27, 32, 33n, 224 Figs. 14a–b. Fol. 12v–13r: Baking mazzot Although the text does not refer to this activity, the images across the lower margins of two facing folios show the baking of mazzah, a common theme in Haggadot. At the far right, a woman holds a rolling pin. At the opposite end of the table, another woman perforates a mazzah.17 On their table lie several utensils and half a flattened ball of dough. At the next table, a man holding an implement for marking mazzot stands before a table filled with mazzot that have been decorated with multiple circles, crossing diagonals, or star shapes. A ground line is indicated below (see 3r). On the facing folio, two women carry ornately decorated mazzot to the oven, where a man with a spoon in his hat holds a baker’s paddle against the open door of the oven. His right leg is lifted and a tasseled pillow rests below him. The oven’s turret is adorned with a pennant. Caption on fol. 12v: ˆp'ywfç] ˆWa t/xm ˆk'm' a [yd] (They prepare mazzot and decorate [them].)18 Caption on fol. 13r: t/xm' fk]a'b' r[ed/ E ˆp/ai μWx t/xm ˆg"r"f] aydI (They carry mazzot to the oven. He bakes mazzot.). Pages: 4, 17–18, 24, 27, 31n, 32, 39, 53n, 75

17 For such implements, see J. D. Eisenstein, “Mazzah,” in Jewish Encyclopedia, 8:396. 18 The word ˆpywfç is difficult to translate, but may be related to the English word “stipple.” The image suggests that it means to mark through forceful movements. Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch 10:1202 cite the word “stäupen,” which means “to beat with a bundle of rods (flog, lash).”


219

Fig. 15a. Fol. 14v: Landscape Stretching across the lower margin is a spring landscape. At the far right stand four trees, with two birds perched on them. Two quadrupeds run through the grass below. A man wearing a feathered cap and armed with a sword holds a spear. Behind him are two buildings, one crenellated, the other topped with a turret from which flies a pennant. The image has no caption; the accompanying text refers to the liturgy for the morning service on the Sabbath during Passover. Pages: 4, 17n, 27, 53n Fig. 15b. Fol. 16r: Man blessing a woman A woman bends forward to receive the hand of a man who blesses her. This scene may be related to the reading of the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs, “A woman of valor,” whose reading was introduced by Kabbalists in the sixteenth century. This passage was interpreted as men’s tribute to their wives.19 Caption: fçn“[b e e r[edE (He blesses.) Pages: 4, 27, 40n, 69–70 Fig. 16a. Fol. 18r: Standing woman with arms crossed A woman in the lower left margin, who is fashionably dressed in a hairnet and low-cut neckline, stands frontally facing the viewer. The accompanying text refers to the liturgy for the first night and day of Passover when it falls during the week. Although she is not accompanied by a caption that would clearly explain her presence, her crossed arms may offer a clue to her meaning. This gesture is extremely common in contemporary Christian betrothal and marriage portraits.20 Perhaps this image shows a waiting bride and refers to the fact that no marriage ceremonies take place during the days of Omer.21 Alternatively, it may refer to the Song of Songs, which 19

Bloch, The Biblical and Historical Background, 132. Jahreszeiten der Gefühle: Liebespaar und die Minne im Spätmittelalter, ed. by Allmuth Schuttwolf (Ostfildern-Ruit: Gerd Hatje, 1998), 128, fig. 17; 155–56, fig. 79; 156–57, fig. 81. For Italian examples, see David Alan Brown, Leonardo da Vinci: Origins of a Genius (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 106, fig. 92; 108, fig. 104, and 109. 21 Editorial staff and Feldman, “Omer,” 1386; Julius H. Greenstone, “Omer, Lag Be,” in Jewish Encyclopedia, 9:400. 20

appendix

220

is read at night during Passover, and refers to the love between God and the people of Israel. A water stain is visible at the top of this folio. Pages: 4, 27, 69n, 73n Fig. 16b. Fol. 18v: Matnat Yad In the lower margin stand a row of men before a long bench. Each wears a tallit, which indicates that they are in synagogue. The one at the far left turns to face his neighbor, who holds a Torah scroll. At the far right a man holding a book turns to face the congregant next to him. The accompanying text, which concerns the two last days of Passover, explains this scene, which is discussed extensively above. The ritual of Matnat Yad, which literally means “helping hand,” traditionally involved pledging donations to the synagogue, but there is no suggestion of that in this image. The ritual arose because the Haftarah reading for the last day of Passover was Deuteronomy 16:16–17, which refers to donations to the sanctuary.22 A water stain is visible at the top of this folio. Caption: dyI tn"t]m' fk]am ' ' ([He] makes matnat yad.) Pages: 4, 27, 40n, 41, 51n, 65n, 67 Fig 17. Fol. 21v: Balaam Across the lower margin the scribe has drawn a scene of a Jewish encampment, which is indicated by the domed building topped by a pennant adorned with a hexagram. The complex architectural design of the city encampment includes several other structures, one with two turrets topped by a weathervane and a pennant. To the right is an entry tower with an arched doorway through which is visible part of the barrel of a cannon. Another cannon rests on the roof of this building and a man holding a spear stands behind it. The drawbridge is open, and beside a tree a large figure approaches riding a donkey and raising his right hand. The accompanying text tells of Balaam who tried to curse Israel, but could only praise it. The inscriptions just above the drawing are not contemporary with

22

See Idelsohn, Jewish Liturgy, 200.


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it, but rather show a later hand. This image is discussed extensively above. A lower section of the page is missing. Pages: 4, 17, 18n, 27, 36, 53n, 56, 59, 135 Fig. 18. Fol. 22r: Havdalah This image shows the ritual of Havdalah, which marks the end of holidays and the Sabbath, and praises God for separating the sacred from the secular.23 Two men raise their wine cups, another displays a spice box, and a fourth holds a burning twisted candle.24 A boy stands near the center of the ceremony, while a woman and girl who holds her skirt stand off to the side. A hint of ground line is still visible. The text just above this image includes the relevant prayer for Havdalah. This scene is part of the series of images that concern Passover. Caption: hl;d:b]h' ˆk'm' aydI (They make Havdalah.) Pages: 4, 7, 17–18, 27, 29, 31, 35–36, 45, 59, 69, 75, 223

Iyyar Fig. 19. Fol. 23v: Fantastic creature A section heading in the seventh line ends in a profile face. At the bottom right, a creature with a human face and an animal tail, body, and legs fills the lower right margin. Since no caption accompanies this, it is difficult to determine its meaning. The adjacent text concerns Rosh Óodesh Iyyar. Pages: 4, 16n, 17n, 27, 29 Fig. 20. Fol. 24v: Lag be-Omer Lag be-Omer, the thirty-third day of the counting of Omer, is a minor holiday. During the days of Omer, mourning customs are observed, except on Lag be-Omer, when they are relaxed. Leon Modena states 23

Kitov, The Book of Our Heritage, 2: 355. For spice boxes, see Michael E. Keen, Jewish Ritual Art in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London: HMSO, 1991), 68–73, and Mordechai Narkiss, “Origins of the Spice Box,” Journal of Jewish Art 8 (1981): 28–41. 24

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that on this day people are happy.25 This folio shows two vignettes. Above, two men stand on a ground line facing each other. One holds an object that represents a slab of meat, since the same shape is shown below roasting on a spit. The caption indicates that they will gather together with others on this holiday. The word ˆk[x is also mentioned in the adjacent text, a short paragraph that discusses the holiday. The scribe writes that on Lag be-Omer, μyrIwjb' aydI ˆk'[]x' Wx ˆg"ylip] (the youth are in the habit of feasting). During Omer, Jews often refrain from wine and meat, but on Lag be-Omer such practices are suspended. Another activity that was suspended during Omer and resumed on Lag be-Omer is shaving. The rough strokes on the faces of the men above may be meant to suggest the growth of a beard that took place in the days preceding Lag be-Omer. The lower image shows a man, seated on a chair before a spit, roasting a slab of meat and raising a glass. A pitcher stands beside the roaring fire, which is painted red. The lower image has no caption. Caption: rm'/[b gl' ma' ˆk'[ix' ˆl'[]wIwI ay [d] (They want to feast together on Lag be-Omer.) Pages: 4, 16n, 27, 29–30 Fig. 21a. Fol. 25v: Shavuot In this brightly colored scene, three men and a woman sit at a table set with a wine carafe, two glasses, two bowls of food, two pies, and two other objects, which may be rolls.26 The reddish color of the carafe and glasses suggests that they hold wine. One man cuts a pie with a knife. Below the fringed tablecloth the feet of the figures are visible. A dog sits to the left, near a woman who carries a vessel. To the far right is a small figure, perhaps a child or servant. Above is a row of flowering plants. On Shavuot homes are decorated with flowers and foliage. 27 Leon Modena observes, “They used to honor . . . their own houses with roses, flowers, and garlands and a great many festoons.”28 25

Modena, Historia de’ Riti Hebraici, 70 (“letizia e festa”). This is suggested by their size and shape as well as by comparison with the rolls placed on so many tables in illuminations in the Rothschild Miscellany. See The Rothschild Miscellany 2: fols. 121v, 122v, 312v, 322v and 334. 27 Chill, The Minhagim, 159. 28 Modena, Historia de’ Riti Hebraici, 71 (“. . . usano d’onorar . . . le proprie case; con rose, fiori, e ghirlande e festoni assai”). 26


223

Caption: tw[wbç; μa' fq[]fç i g" ˆyyae ˚l'm[] be e ˆ[edE r[fn“wa ˆx'yzE ay [d] . . . ([They] sit under the bushes stuck in on Shavuot.) Pages: 4, 17, 38–39, 61, 75, 228, 241, 245

Sivan Fig. 21b. Fol. 28v: Shavuot Landscape Accompanying a text that describes the liturgy for the morning services on Shavuot is a scene across the lower border showing a beautiful spring landscape. No caption explains this image. However, the figures seem to be picking fruit from the pruned trees and picking or putting flowers in a large vase, perhaps because during the harvest holiday of Shavuot, which is known as the judgment day of the fruit trees, both home and synagogue are decorated with flowers and shrubbery.29 Birds fly through the sky or sit on the tops of trees. Two quadrupeds, perhaps a horse and a dog, run through the grass. At the far right a figure has climbed a ladder to reach the top of a tree. This image is more richly colored than most in this manuscript. Pages: 4, 17n, 27, 39n Fig. 22a. Fol. 31r: Raising the cup for Havdalah on Shavuot This image appears in the lower margin just below the text that discusses saying Havdalah on Shavuot. The prayer is written in Hebrew and then the reader is instructed in Yiddish to drink “quite well, quite satisfied.” A man at the right raises his wine cup for the blessing over the wine. A burning candle, a pitcher, and a second glass rest on the table. See folio 22r for another image of Havdalah. Caption: Two lines, both cut off. Pages: 4, 14n, 21a, 27, 38

29

See Goodman, “Laws and Customs of Shavuot,” 86.

224

appendix Tamuz

Fig. 22b. Fol. 32r: Lifting the Torah on the Seventeenth of Tamuz The text discusses the liturgy for the seventeenth of Tamuz, a fast day. Towards the bottom of the page, it mentions that hk;n“mi Wx çy/a hr:/t rp,s, âe ˆm' fb]yhe (at Minha, one takes the Torah out) and the same language is repeated in the caption. The image, which stretches across the lower margin, shows a group of six men, one clearly wearing a tallit, who faces a man who wears a tallit and holds the Torah. One man stretches his arm out to point to the scroll. At the far left is the ark. Caption: çywao ˆm' fb]yhe ad: (Here one lifts out [the Torah].) Pages: 4, 27, 40n, 47, 50n, 51, 65n

Av Fig. 23. Fol. 34r: Tishah be-Av Because Tishah be-Av is a holiday of mourning, Jews sit on the floor, as they do when they mourn. This custom is mentioned in the first line of the text on this folio, “then everyone sits on the earth.”30 In the lower margin, five men are shown in synagogue, sitting on the floor, reading a book, presumably the book of Lamentations. At the left stands the ark, from which hangs a solitary lamp, typically used on this holiday.31 The congregants wear short transparent garments, similar to those of the men saying kiddush on fol. 11r. Almost the exact wording of the caption appears at the top of the page. Caption: ba'b] h[;çt ] i [μa'] ˆm'rd“ y' ae [erE . . . ayzI ˆx'yz (Sit everyone [on] Tisha be-Av.) Pages: 4, 27, 35, 40n, 47, 50n, 60, 65n, 104, 140

30 31

Kitov, The Book of Our Heritage, 3:218, 220. Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 265 and 264, fig. 381.


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Fig. 24a. Fol. 36v: Dancing on Shabbat Na˙amu Shabbat Na˙amu, the Sabbath after Tishah be-Av, is a joyous holiday on which weddings traditionally took place.32 In this richly colored drawing, two couples, who face each other and hold hands, dance to the music of a lute, played by a musician seated at the left. The breasts of the woman at the center, who wears a headcloth and a lenza, are popping out of her dress. Caption: ˆm'j]n" tb;ç' μa' ˆx'n“f' ay[d] (They dance on Shabbat Na˙amu.) Pages: 4, 7, 24, 27, 39n, 40n, 61–62, 75, 107, 116

Elul Fig. 24b. Fol. 37v: Blowing the shofar at the beginning of the month of Elul The central paragraph of this folio discusses Rosh Óodesh Elul, noting that at evening services when one has prayed, one begins to toot, and one toots all day in the morning and in the evening. Right next to this passage is an image of a man blowing the shofar who stands on the double line that the scribe commonly employs to indicate the ground (see fol. 3r). The short, rounded shofar is typical of Italian models.33 The short lines that issue from the horn of the shofar indicate its sound; the same motif is employed in earlier imagery.34 The blowing of the shofar on Rosh Óodesh Elul signals that the time for atonement is near. Caption: r[, fx]ywf ad" (Here he toots [the shofar].) Pages: 4, 18, 27, 64n

32 Hayyim Schauss, Guide to Jewish Holy Days: History and Observance (New York: Schocken, 1968; first published 1938), 107. 33 Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 246 and 275, fig. 395. 34 See Narkiss and Sed-Rajna, Iconographical Index of Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts, IV, card 15, First Kaufmann Ma˙zor, south Germany, ca. 1270–90, fol. 163v.

226

appendix Tishrei

Rosh Hashana Figs. 25–26. Fol. 42v–43r: Rosh Hashana One of only two scenes that span two adjacent folios, this drawing shows the celebration of Rosh Hashana in synagogue. At the right, along the east wall, four men sit on a bench before a closed ark, which originally had a shorter, narrower roof. The one at the left holds the Torah. Two are bearded and two clean-shaven. At the right, a man wearing a tallit faces them holding an open book. A larger figure, also wearing a tallit, blows a shofar. Its noise is indicated by three short strokes that issue from the horn. He stands at a lectern on which are affixed two candles. Behind him sits a bearded man wearing a tallit who holds an open book on which is inscribed the sound blown by the shofar, Tikiah. Just above this drawing the text records the obligatory sounds of the shofar. The text also states that then all the world comes into the shul to hear the tooting. This may refer to the presence in synagogue of the entire congregation, including women, who are depicted on the facing folio. The women sit along the north wall with their open prayer books, except for two standing figures whose smaller size may indicate that they are girls. No screen separates the men and women. Caption on fol. 42v: ˆx'y/f ˆry/h ˆ[wa] ˆn"m' aydI ˆx'yzI [ad] (Here sit the men and hear the tooting [of the shofar].) Caption on fol. 43r: ˆx'y/f ˆry/h ˆwa âr"ww“ aydI ˆx'yzI ad: (Here sit the women and hear the tooting [of the shofar].) Pages: 4, 17–18, 27, 35, 37, 48, 50n, 51, 65, 67, 69–70, 72–73, 78, 105 Fig. 27a. Fol. 44v: Blowing the shofar To the left a man blows the shofar. He stands in the traditional posture, with one foot raised on a little stool.35 Here the shofar is less 35 See, for example, Sed-Rajna and Fellous, Les manuscrits hébreux, 211, fol. 74v; Metzger and Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, 246 fig. 362; Narkiss and SedRajna, Iconographical Index of Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts, IV, card 15, First Kaufmann


227

distinctly Italian in style. To the right are several steps leading up a richly decorated ark with open doors. At the center, the hazzan, also wearing a tallit, stands before a lectern on which is placed an open book on which two words are inscribed. Only one is legible, “areshet,” the same word that recurs in the caption. Areshet Sfateynu, which is traditionally sung after the blowing of the shofar, is a plea for God to accept the Jews’ shofar with its profound meaning. Caption: tç,r

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