But a gentile nurses the son of Israel while others are standing by her. And R.
Barukh wrote that it seems that even if there is no Jew at home, it is allowed if the
Jews in the city come and go; but if all the Jews left the city and the wet nurse re-
mained, it is prohibited.^116R. Moses’ quote of R. Barukh is again unclear as to whose house is being su-
pervised. A possible explanation can be found in the comments of a third ha-
lakhic figure, R. Jacob H·azan of London. He explains that R. Barukh said that
“even if there is no Jew in the house, if there is a Jewish home in the city or
someone coming in and checking, it is allowed. If all the Jews have left the city,
then it is prohibited.”^117 It seems he is saying that as long as there was another
Jewish household in the city, the child would be considered adequately su-
pervised in the Christian home.
On the basis of these texts, I would suggest that there were parents who left
their children in Christian homes to be cared for during the day and, at times,
even overnight. Some objected quite fiercely to this practice, and called for
more stringent behavior. Among the reasons they gave for their objection was
their fear that the Christian women might kill the children while working in
the house, and their fear that the children themselves might be influenced by
the Christian family with whom they were living.^118 The sources examined
above, however, reflect mainly the practice of the Jews living in Paris and
northern France. They demonstrate that, in spite of their fears, Jews sent their
children to Christian wet nurses’ homes.^119
R. Barukh’s opinion featured prominently in much of the literature of the
subsequent generations.^120 Yet one caveat is in order. While R. Barukh’s rul-
ing was accepted in France, it is not often quoted in the German sources and
seems to meet with objections on the part of German rabbis. While northern
France and Germany shared a common heritage, as we have seen previously,
this would seem to be one of the issues on which they differed. Some twelfth-
century German authorities state clearly that Christian wet nurses worked only
in Jewish households.^121 One thirteenth-century source, however, discusses
this issue in a vein similar to R. Barukh’s ruling, and declares that during the
day children could be left in the home of the Christian wet nurse.^122 This
source is R. Eleazar b. Judah (Rokeah·l’s Sefer Rokeah·l. As this is perhaps a later
addition to the Rokeah·, we cannot be sure to what extent this quotation reflects
the reality in R. Eleazar b. Judah’s place and time. His opinion is definitely not
the only one in thirteenth-century Germany, and other sources fiercely object
to the practice. For example, R. Isaac b. Moses, the author of the Or Zaru’are-
peats Rashi’s assertion that Christian wet nurses are to be feared, and states
specifically that even if a Jew comes in and out to supervise the infant’s care,
this must take place in the home of the Jew and that children cannot be left in
Christian homes.^123
This long discussion of the legal texts points to a dimension of Jewish-Chris-