This book re-evaluates the prevailing notion that Jews in medieval Christian Europe lived under an appalling regime of ecclesiastical limitation, governmental exploitation and expropriation, and unceasing popular violence. Robert Chazan argues that, while Jewish life in medieval Western Christendom was indeed beset with grave difficulties, it was nevertheless an environment rich in opportunities; the Jews of medieval Europe overcame obstacles, grew in number, explored innovative economic o...

This book examines the history of Jewish education from the Biblical period to the present. It traces how Jews have formally and informally transmitted their culture and worldview over the years, with particular attention to the shift from premodernity to modernity and to the unique opportunities and challenges of contemporary American Jewish education. Its authors combine historical background and insight with educational expertise to provide a robust portrait of the cultures and contexts...

From its earliest days, Christianity has viewed Judaism and Jews ambiguously. Given its roots within the Jewish community of first-century Palestine, there was much in Judaism that demanded Church admiration and praise; however, as Jews continued to resist Christian truth, there was also much that had to be condemned. Major Christian thinkers of antiquity - while disparaging their Jewish contemporaries for rejecting Christian truth - depicted the Jewish past and future in balanced terms, i...

Originally published in 1974. Focusing on a set of Jewish communities, Robert Chazan tells how, by the eleventh century, French Jews had created for themselves a role as local merchants and moneylenders in adapting to the political, economic, and social limits imposed on them. French society, striving to become more powerful and civilized, was willing to extend aid and protection to the Jews in return for general stimulation of trade and urban life and for the immediate profit realized fro...

A leading historian argues that historically Jews were more often voluntary migrants than involuntary refugees†‹For millennia, Jews and non-Jews alike have viewed forced population movement as a core aspect of the Jewish experience. This involuntary Jewish wandering has been explained as the result of divine punishment, or as a response to maltreatment of Jews by majority populations, or as the result of Jews’ acceptance of their minority status perpetuating the ma...

Volume 6 examines the history of Judaism during the second half of the Middle Ages. Through the first half of the Middle Ages, the Jewish communities of western Christendom lagged well behind those of eastern Christendom and the even more impressive Jewries of the Islamic world. As Western Christendom began its remarkable surge forward in the eleventh century, this progress had an impact on the Jewish minority as well. The older Jewries of southern Europe grew and became more productive in...

From the author of Jews, God, and History, this comprehensive history of the Jewish people is "an epic drama, searching and nobly conceived" ( Publishers Weekly).A compelling and readable account of the four thousand year history of a people that spans the globe and transcends the ages. From the ancient and simple faith of a small tribe to a global religion with adherents in every nation, the path of the Jews is traced through countless expulsi...

The "monumental" New York Times bestseller in which a Catholic explores the problem of anti-Semitism through Church history ( The Washington Post).A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable BookIn this "masterly history" ( Time), National Book Award-winning author James Carroll maps the profoundly troubling two-thousand-year course of the Church's battle against Judaism and faces the crisis of ...

A magisterial history, ranging from antiquity to the present, that reveals anti-Judaism to be a mode of thought deeply embedded in the Western tradition.There is a widespread tendency to regard anti-Judaism – whether expressed in a casual remark or implemented through pogrom or extermination campaign – as somehow exceptional: an unfortunate indicator of personal prejudice or the shocking outcome of an extremist ideology married to power.But, as David Nirenberg argues in thi...

At the beginning of the eighteenth century most European Jews lived in restricted settlements and urban ghettos, isolated from the surrounding dominant Christian cultures not only by law but also by language, custom, and dress. By the end of the century urban, upwardly mobile Jews had shaved their beards and abandoned Yiddish in favor of the languages of the countries in which they lived. They began to participate in secular culture and they embraced rationalism and non-Jewish education as...

Imprisoned and eventually executed for his opposition to Hitler's regime, the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer continues to fascinate and inspire Christians across the world. His life epitomizes authenticity, commitment, and sacrifice. Devine writes, “When a man willingly exposes himself to suffering and death for his faith and for others, we take notice and with good reason. While martyrdom neither proves nor produces a spiritual giant, the possibility does arise, and this piques a distinctive...

A compelling history of the early modern Jewish experienceEarly Modern Jewry boldly offers a new history of the early modern Jewish experience. From Krakow and Venice to Amsterdam and Smyrna, David Ruderman examines the historical and cultural factors unique to Jewish communities throughout Europe, and how these distinctions played out amidst the rest of society. Looking at how Jewish settlements in the early modern period were linked to one another in fas...