Abstract
In her introduction to this magisterial work of social history, Elisheva Baumgarten delimits the social, geographical and temporal boundaries of her study: the Jewish communities of northern France and Germany—the area known in Hebrew as Ashkenaz—during the high Middle Ages (12th to mid-14th centuries). Her primary thematic focus is piety which she understands ‘broadly, ranging from acts that were seen as unusually devout to practices that can be seen as dedicated fulfillment of one’s religious obligation’ (p. 1). The subtitle of Baumgarten’s book is even more illuminating in terms of the aims of her work, the focus of which is practice and observance rather than the beliefs and intellectual debates of the scholarly elite (more often the subject matter of studies of this period).
The major methodological tool in Baumgarten’s work is a gendered reading of the sources informed by feminist theories. This presents no small challenge given that most of the sources available to us are the product of an elite circle of male scholars and community leaders. However, Baumgarten is successful in this endeavour: indeed her work in this regard is exemplary—she shows how the history of non-elite and marginal groups can indeed be recovered through a thorough and creative reading of the sources such as they are. One should also point out that Baumgarten’s use of comparison is not simply confined to Jewish women and men: Practicing Piety also makes extensive comparisons between the religiosity of mediaeval Jews and Christians—not just in terms of how the two communities differentiated themselves, but also in terms of what they held in common. Her comfortable command of both Jewish and Christian sources is admirable.
Over the book’s seven chapters, Baumgarten focuses on a select number of topics where the religiosity of mediaeval Ashkenazic Jews can be reconstructed (and compared with that of the majority Christian communities in which they lived). Chapter one deals with the primary locus of Jewish religious practice—the synagogue—and examines how notions of corporeal purity (and impurity) impacted on synagogue attendance (or avoidance). Chapter two moves on to fasting as a form of atonement and repentance. Chapter three, one of the book’s most fascinating, looks at charitable giving using the Jewish community of Nürnberg as a case study and the community’s Memorbuch as its primary source of data. As Baumgarten notes, ‘prayer, fasting and charity,’ the topics covered by the first three chapters, constitute ‘[t]hree central attributes that have characterized many religions since ancient times’ (p. 17). Such a focus makes these chapters especially useful for those engaged in comparative study.
Chapter four shifts its attention to a more specifically Jewish phenomenon: the adoption by Jewish women of positive time-bound commandments ‘traditionally . . . seen as specifically male obligations’ (p. 138). Chapter five, entitled ‘Conspicuous in the City: Medieval Jews in Urban Centres,’ examines the visual distinctiveness of Jewish minorities in Christian-majority cities as expressed through clothing and hair. Chapter six takes an unusual (but fascinating) approach, looking as it does at the depiction of Jews ‘who mimicked or were alleged to have mimicked piety’ (p. 195). Chapter seven, the final in the book, draws together the material in the preceding chapters and offers a lucid synthesis and analysis.
The book ends by referring to the Volksetymologien of the Hebrew word for a pious person (ḥasîd) and the related terms ‘kindness’ and ‘piety’ (ḥesed and ḥasîdût)—the topic with which Baumgarten introduces the book (p. 1), which the sources relate to the exemplary, kind behaviour of the stork (Hebrew: ḥasîdāh).
Baumgarten’s book is a treasure trove for anybody interested in Judaism or the history of the Jewish people in a key period of development in their western European heartland of Ashkenaz. Indeed, this book will be of great interest and value to anybody interested in the social and religious history of mediaeval Europe. The book offers an excellent example of how the social history of a minority community (and indeed, of those often regarded as silent in the textual sources left by those communities) can be successfully and vividly reconstructed. Practicing Piety does, as Baumgarten states, ‘prescribe an antidote of sorts to the common inclination to flatten out past realities according to the texts that describe them’ (p. 221). Baumgarten’s work, which contains a good number of beautifully reproduced illustrations (in black and white) from the sources, is an absolute pleasure to read and makes a worthy addition to the Jewish Culture and Contexts series.