Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz. Elisheva Baumgarten

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      UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

      PHILADELPHIA

      Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from the Herbert D. Katz Publications Fund of the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.

      Copyright © 2014 University of Pennsylvania Press

      All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

      Published by

      University of Pennsylvania Press

      Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

       www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Baumgarten, Elisheva.

      Practicing piety in medieval Ashkenaz : men, women, and everyday religious observance / Elisheva Baumgarten. — First edition.

      pages cm. — (Jewish culture and contexts)

      ISBN 978-0-8122-4640-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)

      1. Judaism—Europe—History—To 1500. 2. Jewish way of life—History—To 1500. 3. Ashkenazim—History—To 1500. 4. Hasidism, Medieval. 5. Jews—Europe—Social life and customs—To 1500. 6. Jews—France—Social life and customs—History—To 1500. 7. Jews—Germany—Social life and customs—History—To 1500. 8. Judaism—Relations—Christianity—History—To 1500. 9. Christianity and other religions—Judaism—History—To 1500. I. Title.

      BM290.B38 2014

      296.7094'0902—dc23

      2014006034

      Dedicated to the memory of our grandmothers:

      Frances Feder Karp (1906–1970)

      Ella Fischer Deutsch Williams (1909–1994)

      Sabina Baumgarten Berkowitz (1909–2004)

      Margot Darmstädter Seeligmann (1916–2010)

      CONTENTS

       Introduction

       Chapter 1. Standing Before God: Purity and Impurity in the Synagogue

       Chapter 2. Jewish Fasting and Atonement in a Christian Context

       Chapter 3. Communal Charity: Evidence from Medieval Nürnberg

       Chapter 4. Positive Time-Bound Commandments: Class, Gender, and Transformation

       Chapter 5. Conspicuous in the City: Medieval Jews in Urban Centers

       Chapter 6. Feigning Piety: Tracing Two Tales of Pious Pretenders

       Chapter 7. Practicing Piety: Social and Comparative Perspectives

       Abbreviations

       Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

       Acknowledgments

Figure 1. A stork in her nest. From North French Miscellany. © The British Library Board. Ms Add. 11639, fol. 325v, detail. Northern France, late thirteenth century.

      Introduction

      R. Judah said: The hasidah is a white stork. And why is she called hasidah? Because she shows kindness (hasidut) to her companions.

      —BT Hullin 63a

      This is a white bird, cygonia,¹ and why is she called hasidah? Because she acts with kindness (hasidut) unto her friends with food.

      —Rashi, Leviticus 11:19, s.v. “hasidah”

      The talmudic passage above offers an etymological explanation of the Hebrew term for stork (hasidah) by connecting the stork’s behavior to the word hesed (kindness) and its derivative, hasidut (piety).² During the Middle Ages, the famous French commentator Rashi (Solomon b. Isaac of Troyes, d. 1105) understood the stork’s kindness through her custom of voluntarily distributing food to her friends, an act of sharing that was in no way obligatory (see СКАЧАТЬ