search has flourished only during the past seven or eight years: Yael Azmon (ed.), A View into the
Lives of Women in Jewish Societies(Jerusalem, 1995), [in Hebrew]; Reneé Levine-Melammed,
ed., “Lift up Your Voice”:Women’s Voices and Feminist Interpretation in Jewish Studies(Tel Aviv,
2001) [in Hebrew]; Israel Bartal and Isaiah Gafni, eds., Sexuality and the Family in History: Col-
lected Essays(Jerusalem, 1999) [in Hebrew]; and most recently Grossman, Pious and Rebellious.
In addition see a number of articles: Ivan G. Marcus, “Mothers, Martyrs and Moneymakers: Some
Jewish Women in Medieval Europe”; Conservative Judaism38(1986): 34–45; Judith R. Baskin,
“From Separation to Displacement: The Problem of Women in Sefer H·asidim”; AJS Review 19
(1994):1–18; Eadem, “Silent Partners: Women As Wives in Rabbinic Literature,” in Active Voices:
Women in Jewish Culture, ed. Maurie Sacks (Urbana and Chicago, 1995), 19–37. On childhood:
Simh·a Goldin, “Jewish Children and Christian Missionizing,” Sexuality and the Family in His-
tory. Collected Essays, ed. Israel Bartal and Isiah Gafni (Jerusalem, 1999), 97–118 [in Hebrew];
Idem, “Die Beziehung der jüdischen Familie im Mittelalter zu Kind und Kindheit,” Jahrbuch der
Kindheit6(1989): 211–56; Ephraim Kanarfogel, “Attitudes toward Childhood and Children in
Medieval Jewish Society”; Approaches to Judaism in Medieval Times2(1985): 1–35; idem, Jewish
Education and Society in the High Middle Ages(Detroit, 1992), 33–41; Israel Ta-Shma, “Chil-
dren in Medieval Germanic Jewry: A Perspective on Ariès from Jewish Sources”; Studies in Me-
dieval and Renaissance History12(1991): 263–81; William C. Jordan, “A travers le regard des en-
fants,” Provence Historique37(1987): 531–43.
- In general, as Judith M. Bennett (“Medievalism and Feminism,” in Studying Medieval
Women. Sex, Gender and Feminism, ed. Nancy Partner (Cambridge, Mass., 1991, 7–29) has ar-
gued, gender studies reached the area of medieval studies rather late. In the case of medieval Jew-
ish studies, gender perspectives were made part of research even later. - Ephraim E. Urbach, The Tosaphists: Their History, Writings and Methods; (Jerusalem,
19804 [in Hebrew]; Grossman, Sages of Ashkenaz; Idem, Sages of France; Robert Bonfil, Rabbis
and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy; trans. Jonathan Chipman (London-Washington,
1993); Yedidya Alter Dinari, The Rabbis of Germany and Austria at the Close of the Middle Ages:
Their Conceptions and Halacha-Writings(Jerusalem, 1984) [in Hebrew]; Israel Jacob Yuval, Schol-
ars in Their Time: The Religious Leadership of German Jewry in the Late Middle Ages(Jerusalem,
- [in Hebrew].
55.One of the early and most important studies was that of Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tol-
erance: Studies in Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times(London, 1961); and
more recently: Gavin I. Langmuir, History, Religion and Antisemitism(Berkeley, 1990).
- This assumption stands out in much of the literature that examines the lives of the Rabbis.
For example: Grossman, Sages of Ashkenaz, 23: “The sources for the history of the early Ashke-
nazic sages are mainly internal.” Urbach, The Tosaphists, 20, notes the contacts between Torah
scholars and local Christian scholars but warns his readers: “One should not forget the intimate
connection of the Tosafists to the world of Talmud and halakha.” In contrast, others have pointed
to the necessity of examining Ashkenazic Jewry in its broader cultural context: Marcus, Rituals of
Childhood; Jeremy Cohen, “Be Fertile and Increase: Fill the Earth and Master It”: The Ancient and
Medieval Career of a Biblical Text(Ithaca and London, 1989); Eleazar Tuitto, “Shitato haParshanit
shel Rashbam al Reka haMez·ut haHistorit shel Zemano,” in Studies in Rabbinic Literature, Bible
and Jewish History, ed. Yiz·h·ak D. Gilat, Chaim Levine and Z·vi Meir Rabinowitz (Ramat Gan,
1982), 48–74 [in Hebrew]. - For example: Yom Tov Assis, The Golden Age of Aragonese Jewry(London-Portland Or.,
1997), in his introduction, begins with the “profound impact that Gentile society made on the
Jews,” 1; David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages
(Princeton, 1996), 8–9. - For example: Grossman, Sages of Ashkenaz, by index; Urbach, The Tosaphists, by index.
- The contrast of these two approaches can be seen in the works of Yuval, Two Nations, and
Elh·anan Reiner, “From Joshua to Jesus: The Transformation of a Biblical Story to a Local Myth: