Association for Jewish studies 2002-26(1)

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Front Matter Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002) Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131554 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

VOLUME26, NUMBERI

REV

THE

IE

W

JOURNAL

OF

THE

ASSOCIATION

FOR

JEWISH

STUDIES

Review

AJS

THE JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATIONFOR JEWISH STUDIES

APRIL 2002

VOLUME26, NUMBER 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ARTICLES

Arthur Green Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs ........................

1

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Marian and Ram6n F. Sarraga SephardicEpitaphsin Hamburg'sOldest Cemetery: Poetry,Riddles, and EccentricTexts..........................................

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53

REVIEW ESSAY

Norbert M. Samuelson MaimonideanScholarshipat the End of the Century ..................................

93

BOOKREVIEWS

BIBLE Paul Heger. The ThreeBiblical Altar Laws ........................ ............. LISBETH S. FRIED

...............

Steven L. McKenzie. King David: A Biography Marti J. Steussy. David: Biblical Portraitsof Power Baruch Halpern. David's Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer,Traitor,King ................. ................. ADELEBERLIN ........................................ Uriel Simon. TheJPS Bible Commentary:Jonah AN ESS. ACKERM JAM .....................................................................

........

111

................ 117

Benjamin Uffenheimer. Early Prophecy in Israel BENJAMIN D. SOMMER

120

....................................................

Eugene Ulrich. TheDead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible GREENSPOON LEONARD .......................................

109

................

121

M. P.Weitzman. TheSyriac Versionof the Old Testament:An Introduction 123 JOHNDAVIDBROLLEY ....................................... ................. ANCIENT HISTORY, RABBINICS, JEWISH LAW

Shaye J. D. Cohen. TheBeginnings ofJewishness: Boundaries, Varieties,Uncertainties GARYG . PORTON .........................

....

...................... ......................

Mare (Menahem) Hirshman. Torahfor the Entire World MARTIN S. JAFFEE

......................................................

.......................

125

127

Jeffrey Rubenstein. TalmudicStories Shulamit Valler. Womenand Womenhoodin the Talmud ....................... 129 MOSHESIMON ................................................................................... Menachem Elon, Bernard Auerbach, Daniel D. Chazin, and Melvin Sykes. Jewish Law (Mishpat Ivri): Cases and Materials 131 ...................... ANDANGELA RICCETTI MICHAEL J. BROYDE .......................... MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN HISTORY

Jeremy Cohen. Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity 133 M. RESNICK IRVEN ............................................................................. ....................... S. D. Goitein. A MediterraneanSociety: An Abridgementin One Volume A. STILLMAN NORMAN ................................. .............

........... 137

Abraham David. To Come to the Land: Immigrationand Settlement in 16th-CenturyEretz-Israel Abraham David. In Zion and Jerusalem. TheItineraryof Rabbi Moses Basola (1521-1523) ELISHEVA CARLEBACH

.................................................

141

MEDIEVAL THOUGHT

Moshe Hallamish. An Introductionto the Kabbalah DAVID S. ARIEL

140

.................................................

Sarah Stroumsa. TheBeginnings of the MaimonideanControversyin the East: Yoseflbn Shim'on'sSilencing Epistle Concerningthe Resurrectionof the Dead 141 ........................ ALBERT D. FRIEDBERG ................................. ....................... MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN CULTURE

Y. Tzvi Langermann. TheJews and the Sciences in the MiddleAges Y.Tzvi Langermann and Snait Gissis, eds. Science in Context,Special Issue Steven Harvey, ed. TheMedieval Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy (2000) TAMAR ...................................... ........................ RUDAVSKY

143

RENEE LEVINE MELAMMED.Hereticsor Daughtersof Israel:

The Crypto-JewishWomenof Castile JUDITH R. BASKIN YITZHAK (ERIc)

............................................................................. ZIMMER.

TheFieryEmbersof theScholars

JOSEPH DAVIS ...........................................

.......................

....... ................

148

151

EARLY MODERN CULTURE

Don Harra'n.Salamone Rossi: Jewish Musician in Late Renaissance Mantua JOSHUA R. JACOBSON ...............................................................

152

MODERN HISTORY

Keith H. Pickus. ConstructingModernIdentities:Jewish UniversityStudies in Germany,1815-1914 SHULAMIT MAGNUS ................................................ Henry Abramson. A Prayerfor the Government:Ukrainiansand Jews in RevolutionaryTimes,1917-1920 ........................157 OLGALITVAK ........................................

155

Vicky Caron. UneasyAsylum:France and the Jewish Refugee Crisis, 1933-1942 SANFORD GUTMAN..................................................................................

.. .......................

159

Eli Faber.Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade:Setting the Record Straight HAROLD BRACKMAN

..............................................

.................

162

Arthur Goren. ThePolitics and Public CultureofAmerican Jews ALAN MITTLEMAN .........................................................

164

Eliezer Bashan. TheAnglican Mission and MoroccanJewry in the NineteenthCentury MICHAEL M. LASKIER ...............................................................

165

MODERN LITERATURE

Moshe Pelli. Kinds of Genre in Haskalah Literature:Typesand Topics LEVHAKAK......................................... ............................ . ....... ........................ 168 Hayyim Nahman Bialik. RandomHarvest: TheNovellas ofBialik JAMES B. ROSENBERG ........................................

............................

170

Ruth Kartun-Blum. Profane Scriptures:Reflections on the Dialogue with the Bible in ModernHebrewPoetry M ARC B ERNSTEIN ...................................................................................

.................

172

Stephen Katz. The CentrifugalNovel: S. Y Agnon 'sPoetics of Composition WILLIAM .... ... ......................175 CUTTER......................................................................... S. Lillian Kremer. Women'sHolocaust Writing:Memoryand Imagination RACHEL FELDHAY BRENNER .............................. .......................

178

Kadya Molodowsky. Paper Bridges: Selected Poems LEAHZAZULYER........................................................................................ ...................... 180 David Patterson. Along the Edge ofAnnihilation: The Collapse and Recovery of Life in the Holocaust Diary LINDARAPHAEL ................................................................

183

Nahma Sandrow, ed. God, Man, and Devil: YiddishPlays in Translation Robert Skloot, ed. The Theaterof the Holocaust MICHAEL ..................... TAUB................................................................. ...................... 185 Daniel Schwarz. Imagining the Holocaust YONASHAPIRA ................................................................................... .......................

188

MODERN THOUGHT

Allison P. Coudert. TheImpactof the Kabbalah in the SeventeenthCentury: TheLife and Thoughtof Francis Mercuryvan Helmont (1614-98) DAVIDB. RUDERMAN ........................................ ....... ...... .................

194

Norman Lamm. TheReligious ThoughtofHasidism MORRIS FAIERSTEIN ........................................

196

Eugene Borowitz and Frances Weinman Schwartz. TheJewish Moral Virtues Aaron Levine. Case Studies in Jewish Business Ethics Byron Sherwin. Jewish Ethicsfor the Twenty-FirstCentury ELLIOT DORFF

..................................................................

198

David R. Blumenthal. TheBanality of Good and Evil SAMUEL P OLINER

202

.............................................................

Elliot N. Dorff and Louis E. Newman, eds. ContemporaryJewish Theology: A Reader MASSIMO GUILIANI

204

................................................................

Norbert Samuelson. A User 's Guide to FranzRosenzweig'sStar Ernest Rubenstein. An Episode ofJewish Romanticism:FranzRosenzweig'sStar ROBERT GIBBS............. .......... ......................................................... ............................ 206 MODERN CULTURE

Alvin Goldfarb and Rebecca Rovit, eds. TheatricalPerformanceduring the Holocaust ROBERT SKLOOT.......... ......................... .......................209 ........................ Vivian Mann. Jewish Textson the VisualArts Catherine Soussloff. Jewish Identityin ModernArt History JACOB NEUSNER .................................................................................

Steven J. Zipperstein. ImaginingRussian Jewry David G. Roskies. TheJewish Searchfor a Usable Past

...............

211

MICHAEL STEINLAUF ...................................................................

213

COLLECTED STUDIES ...................................................

219

BOOKSRECEIVED ..................................... ............. ......................... ........................ 233

Shekhinah, the Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs: Reflections on a Kabbalistic Symbol in Its Historical Context Author(s): Arthur Green Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 1-52 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131555 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review 26:1 (2002), 1-52

SHEKHINAH,THE VIRGIN MARY, AND THE SONG OF SONGS: Reflections on a Kabbalistic Symbol in Its Historical Context

by Arthur Green In a book published several years ago entitled Keter: The Crownof God in Jewish Early Mysticism,1I tried to make a modest contributionto the ongoing discussion of Kabbalisticsymbols and their origins. There I tracedthe evolution of a single but key symbol from its place in rabbinicaggadahand early Jewish esotericism to its fixed role in the Kabbalisticsymbol system of the High Middle Ages. Here I would like to repeatthatprocess with regardto anothermajorsymbolic element of Kabbalah,consideringbroadlythe role of the female within the godhead, particularlyunderthe twin rubricsof shekhinah,the indwelling Presence, and kenesset yisra 'el, the hypostatized"Communityof Israel."The positing of a female aspect withinthe divine self has to be seen againstthe backgroundof the entiretradition of Jewish imaging of God, going back to the Bible and the early rabbis. Specifically, however,I plan to show that the unequivocalfeminization of shekhinah in the Kabbalahof the thirteenthcenturyis a Jewishresponseto and adaptation of the revivalof devotionto Mary in the twelfth centuryWesternchurch. Any positing of genderand eros in relationto God must be viewed especially in connection with the tradition'sprime source for all discussion of sacred eros, the Song of Songs, and the evolving ways in which that text was being read in the High Middle Ages among both Christiansand Jews. Vital to this paper is the understandingthat interpretationof the Song of Songs is not some arcaneexegetical exercise, but one of the chief ways in which individuals and generations in both traditionsspoke of their relationshipwith the loving God. For all its "taming"in the mantleof historicaland collectivist allegory,the tremendouspassion contained within this book's verses remainedavailableto those who sought to express such intense love in the context of religious devotion over the ages. The Canticle itself, we might say, became the "locked garden"of which it speaks, opening itself to those whose heartslonged to dwell by its streamsandto be intoxicatedby the strong The authorwishes to thankAnn Matterand Michael Fishbanefor varioussuggestions and challenges to his thinking that are hopefully reflected in this article. I am also grateful to the anonymous readersfor AJS Review for several helpful suggestions. 1. Keter:The Crownof God in EarlyJewish Mysticism.(Henceforth:Keter) Princeton:Princeton UniversityPress, 1997.

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Arthur Green spices of sacred eros that wafted from its perfumedgardens. Ultimatelythe Song of Songs comes to representnot only a text but a wide-rangingnetworkof religioerotic metaphors.The influence of the Canticle on the religious lives of medieval Jews and Christiansis not limited to specific commentarieson that work or the numberof quotationsfrom it in a particularbody of poems, treatises,or sermons. It extends into the entiremetaphorof sacredcourtshipand marriageas used to describe the relationshipbetween God and the holy communityof His faithful,be it Israelor the ecclesia. Once the key religious narrativesof both traditionshavebeen "washedover"in the eroticizing bath of association with the Song of Songs, those narrativesthemselves become ample "evidence"of the eternalKing's love for His chosen maiden, whoever she may be. Let us begin by tracing some of the parallel developmentsin the two traditions' understandingsof this sharedtext. While many of the facts presentedin this first section are well-known to scholars of one traditionor the other, theirjuxtaposition is new and essential to our purpose.The Song of Songs, whateverits origins,2 was one of the last books whose canonicity was a matterof doubt, the discussions continuingas late as the rabbisof the early second centuryC.E.3Tradition attributesits acceptanceto RabbiAkiva, who by otherevidence as well was an advocate of love as the centralreligious metaphorand the basis of Judaism'sethic.4 As recordedin the Mishnah,Akiva insisted that "the entireworld is not as worthy 2. By this short phrase I mean the following: whetherits origins are "secular,"a series of richly erotic poems about the love of men and women, or whetherthe Canticle bears a faded memory of cultic celebrationof love involving diety or dieties, either in Israelor in the preceding/surroundingculture.The formerview was first articulatedin moderntimes by J.G. von Herderin 1778, a landmarkevent in the history of Song of Songs scholarship,markingthe end of allegoricalreadingspassing forpeshat or "plain"meaning. This "secular"view of the Canticle is held by several modern Bible scholars,including RobertGordis,TheSong of Songs: A Study,ModernTranslation,and Commentary.New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1954, and Yair Zakovitch, Shir ha-Shirim. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1992. Others are more open to seeing cultic and mythic undertonesin the Canticles text. See Marvin Pope's Song of Songs in the Anchor Bible series, Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1977 (see p. 145ff. and especially p. 191) andT. J. Meek in the Interpreter'sBible, v. 5. New York:AbingdonPress, 1956. Meek was among those who found and published,as earlyas the 1920's, Sumeriantexts thatbear parallelsto the imageryof the Song of Songs. While the prominentSumerologistSamuelNoah Kramer disagreed with some of Meek's specific readings, he too was a strong supporterof the cultic reading of the Canticle. See "The SacredMarriageand Solomon's Song of Songs" in his TheSacredMarriage Rite:Aspects of Faith, Myth, and Ritual in AncientSumer.(Bloomington IN: IndianaUniversityPress, 1969.) 3. Sid Z. Leiman,TheCanonizationof HebrewScripture:TheTalmudicand MidrashicEvidence, Transactionsof the ConnecticutAcademy of Arts and Sciences, v. 47, February,1976 (HamdenCT: Archon Books, 1976), tries to make a fine distinction between canonicity and inspiration.He claims thatthe canonicity (meaning authoritativestatus)of all Biblical books was resolved perhapsas early as the second century B.C.E., and that the discussions about which books "defile the hands,"continuing as late atYavneh(= Jamnia),c. 90 C.E. were about which books were "inspired."I find the distinction a forced one. In orderto be part of Scripture,the work needed to be considered inspiredby the Holy Spirit.The authorityof other, including halakhic,works seems secondaryto this question. 4. y. Nedarim 9:4. See JudahGoldin, "Towarda Profile of the Tanna,Aqiba ben Joseph"in his Studies in Midrash and Related Literature.(Philadelphia:Jewish PublicationSociety, 1988) pp. 299324.

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Shekhinah, The Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs as the day the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the Scripturesare holy but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies."5ElsewhereAkiva is associated with the view that the Song of Songs was first spoken-a living dialogic event that took place among God, the angels, and the community of Israel-at Sinai.6 I think it does not go too far to say thatAkiva, and the Akivan school in his name, viewed the Canticle as the heart of revelation,the secret love-gift that God gave to Israel along with the more public Torahof history,law, and covenant.7 Of course this devotion to the Song of Songs assumes its allegorical readThe Canticle is the most sublime expression of the love between God and Ising.8 His beloved from among all the "maidens"of the human race. King chosen rael, Solomon has writtenthis work as a hymn to divine love, giving final poetic form to the dialogue of love between Israeland its God, whereverit was first "spoken." In a rabbinictraditionwhere election was a key value, especially in a period when the continuedelection of Israelwas disputedby the early Church,it is no surprise thatthis became the single and indeed the only permittedway of readingthe Song of Songs among Jews for quite some centuries.This claim of the unique, ongoing love of God for Israelwas the Jewish response to the emerging Christiandoctrine of supersessionism,the belief that God's election of the "old" Israel had been superceded by the advent of Christ and the emergence of the "new" Israel in the Church.9 Varied interpretations of individual verses abound throughout the Midrashicliterature,showingthatthe Canticle was a well-knownbook and a highly quotableone. Withinthe overarchingallegorical rubricof "Love-Song between God and Israel"variousentire approacheswere constructed.One of these, a stage-by-stage historicreading,characterizedthe Targum,in this case an extendedAramaicparaphraseof the text, tracingJewish history from Egyptianbondage to the messianic redemptionyet to come. Fragmentsof this approach are found throughoutthe 5. m. Yadayim3:5. 6. Mekhiltade-RabbiSimeon ben Yohai,ed. Horwitz-Melamed(Jerusalem:Mekize Nirdamim, 1955) p. 143. See S. Lieberman,Mishnat Shir ha-Shirim,published as Appendix D to G. Scholem's Jewish Gnosticism,MerkabahMysticism,and TalmudicTradition.(New York:JewishTheological Seminaryof America, 1960), pp. 118-126. This view that the Song of Songs was "spoken"earlieris not a denialof the Solomonic superscription.The "event"of God and Israelproclaimingtheir love to one another at the Sea, at Sinai, or in the Tent of Meeting was described in poetic form, these rabbis would probablyhave said, by Solomon. Daniel Boyarinin "The Song of Songs, Lock or Key: The Holy Song as a Mashal,"in his Intertextualityand the Reading of Midrash (Bloomington IN: IndianaUniversity Press, 1990), pp. 105-116, temptsone to wantto readthe replyshir ha-shirimbe-X ne 'emerahto mean "The Song of Songs is speaking of X" ratherthan "was spoken at X." The phrasing of the preceding question,however(hekhanne 'emerah)does not lend itself easily to such a reading.Regardingthe rabbinic use of the Canticle, however, I am in general agreement with Boyarin, as will be clear below, n. 34 and 92. 7. See my previous discussion of "The Song of Songs in Early Jewish Mysticism" in Orim: A Jewish Journal at Yale2:2 (1987). 8. The singing of the Canticle in a profane context was strictly forbidden.Tosefta Sanhedrin 12:10; b. Sanhedrin101a. I retainthe term "allegory"herepace Boyarin. 9. A powerful statementof this ongoing polemic is found in Shir ha-ShirimRabbah 1:41 (ed. Dunsky p. 36). This passage is discussed by E. Urbach in Tarbiz32 (1961) 159f.

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Arthur Green Midrashic literature,alongside less historicizing characterizationsof God's eternal love for Israel,their faithfulnessto Torah,consolationsregardingthe exile, and references to Israel'smartyrdomand suffering for love of God. The ongoing historical narrativeis secondaryto this reading, in which Israel are God's designated and beloved children since Creation,the ones "for whose sake the world was created."There may also have been an esoteric reading of the Song associated with the Shi'ur Qomahtradition,althoughthis claim is now disputed.10While individual verses of the Canticle were occasionally applied to individuals (to show their great love of God)11 or to situations outside the frameworkof allegory,12these were very much the exception. The rabbinicallegory was both disputedand adaptedby Origen (185-254), whose partialCommentaryand Homilies on the Song of Songs form the basis of the earliest significant Christianunderstandingsof this text. For Origen the Canticle is a love-song between Christand the ecclesia, the ChristianChurchthatquite literallyhas takenthe place of the Communityof Israel.13 AlthoughOrigen is very much an Alexandrian in his knowledge of classical sources and his reading of Christianfaith againsta Hellenistic background,he moved around233 to Caesarea and spent the last two decades of his life in the Holy Land. It has been shown that Origen became quite familiar with rabbinicteaching duringthis period, both arguing with it and adaptingsome of it to the Christiancontext.14 Even afterOrigen was condemned for heresy and posthumouslyexcommunicated(553 C.E.), the influence of his writings, especially his reading of the Canticle, remainedundiminished.15 10. This was the innovativeassertion of Saul Lieberman.See his "MishnatShir ha-Shirim"referredto above in n. 6. Lieberman'sclaim has been disputedby Daniel Boyarin"Two Introductionsto the Midrashon the Song of Songs," Tarbiz56 (1987): 479-500, and others. Cf. my discussion of this controversyin Keter, p. 78f., n.3. 11. Thus of RabbiAkiva's own successful entry and returnfrom the pardes, (the "orchard"of mystical vision) the Talmudsays: "Draw me after you; let us run. The king has broughtme into His chambers"(Cant. 1:4). This is a raredirect applicationof the Canticle to an individual'sown love and visionary experience of God. 12. See Shir Rabbah8:6, for example, where "for love is as strong as death"is applied simply to the love of man and wife, and 4:31 (end), where "let my beloved come into his garden"is referred, in a probablynon-allegorical context, to the bridal chamber.In Shemot Rabbah24:3 use is made of Cant. 1:4 to describe the relationshipbetween Moses and his flock. 13. Of the commentaryin ten books that Origen wrote to the Song of Songs, only the prologue and commentarythroughvs. 2:15 survive. In addition,we have two homilies of Origen to the opening chaptersof the Canticle. Origen'swritings on the Song of Songs survive primarilythroughthe Latin translations of Jerome and Rufinus, though some Greek fragments are preserved. For details see E. Ann Matter,The Voiceof My Beloved: TheSong of Songs in WesternMedieval Christianity.(henceforth:Matter, Voice)Philadelphia:Universityof PennsylvaniaPress, 1990, p. 25ff. They are translated into English by R. P. Lawson in the Ancient Christian Writingsseries, #26. Westminster:Newman, 1957. 14. On the contact with rabbinic interpretationreflected in Origen see E. Urbach, "Rabbinic Exegesis and Origen'sCommentaryon the Song of Songs and Jewish-ChristianPolemics" (Hebrew). Tarbiz30 (1960/61) 148-170 andin English translationas "TheHomileticalInterpretationofthe Sages and the Exposition of Origen on Canticles, and the Jewish-ChristianDisputation."Scripita Hierosolymitana22 (1971) 247-275. 15. BernardMcGinn, ThePresence of God:A History of WesternChristianMysticism,v.l: The

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs But some greatervariety of interpretationsexisted on the Christianside of of Song Songs interpretationthan did among the Jews.The text was always a highly popularone for exegesis or homily within the Christiancontext; at least seventy Latin commentariesexist dating between the seventh and fourteenthcenturies. Whatwould laterbe called tropologicalreadingsof some verses, referringthem to a dialogue between Christand the individualsoul ratherthan the collective ecclesia, are alreadyto be found in Origen and elsewhere in pre-medievalChristianinterpretation.16 Even in the opening lines of his commentaryOrigen says, Thislittlebookis an epithalamium, thatis a nuptialsong,whichit seemsto methatSolomonwrotein a dramatic formandsangafterthefashionof a bride to herbridegroom, who is the wordof God,burningwithcelestiallove. Indeed,he lovesherdeeply,whethershe is the soul,madein his ownimage,or theChurch.17 Origenknows to write quite personallyand touchingly abouthis experience of the Bridegroomdrawingnear to him and then withdrawing.18 This earlier developmentof an individuallyfocused and personal readingof the Song is not surprising,given the Hellenistic contextwithin which Origenlived andwrote. Though he is earlierthan Plotinus,the same forces that would create the Neo-Platonic religion of the soul's longing to returnto its heavenly source were already quite fully presentin his day.One might also say that in this readingof the Song Origen is being quitefaithfulto the Philonic legacy of allegories of the soul, even though the Song of Songs is not in Philo's canon and thereforenot the object of his allegorization.19 But early Christiantraditionknows yet anotherway of interpretingthis text. I referhere to the Marianinterpretationof the Song of Songs. Particularlyin liturgical settingsfor the fourfestivals of Maryfound in the old Christiancalendar(NaFoundationsofMysticism. (henceforthMcGinn,History, v.1)New York:Crossroad,1992, pp. 140-150, 209f., passim.; Matter, Voice,p. 36ff. 16. Matter,Voice,p. 20ff. 17. Prologueto the Commentaryon the Song of Songs. Lawson translation(see n. 13 above), p. 21. The "word of God" is Christ, bridegroom of the soul as well as of the ecclesia. It is interesting that Origen depicts Solomon writing as would the bride, rather than the bridegroom. The Solomon mentioned in the Song, including that of the superscription,is seen by the rabbis as referring alternativelyto the historical Solomon and to God, the King of Peace (based on a supra-literalist reading of Shelomo as "His peace."). See b. Shevu'ot 35b. The divine Solomon is thus the bridegroom of the text, but the earthly Solomon speaks from the bride's point of view. The same is true of Moses in the Song at the Sea, where his opening line "then sang Moses" (Ex. 15:1) is repeatedly associated with the bride's words in the Canticle and other female expressions. See Shemot Rabbah 23:3, 4, 5, 10. 18. Homily on Cant. 1:7;tr. Lawsonpp. 211-223; 229-238. While Song of Songs was not yet canonizedwhen the New Testamentwas written,and thereforeis not quoted as Scripture,the image of Christas the bridegroomis well attestedin New Testamentwritings. See especially John 3:29. On eros in Origen see also Matter,Voice,p. 32ff. 19. On the degree of Origen'sindebtednessto Philo see D. Runia,Philo in Early ChristianLiterature,(Assen: Van Gorcum, 1993) pp. 157-183.

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Arthur Green tivity, Purification,Annunciation,and Assumption of the Virgin),20verses from the Canticle are often used to depict the love between God, to whom she is both bride and mother, and the Virgin. She is the garden of delight whom God enters and in whom He takes pleasure;she is also the "sealed fountain"out of whom will flow the living spring of Christ.21 The place of Mary as bride of the Song of Songs is complex and not without its problems. Her virginity is representedas the "locked garden"and "sealed fountain"of Canticles 4:12. But as both bride and loving (and nursing!) mother she has also to be symbolized as fertile, lush, and flowing.22This is a problemfor theological writing as much as it is for Christianart throughthe centuries.The place of Mary in relationto the trinitarianGodheadis also not simple. In the older Patristicreadingof the Song of Songs it would seem that she is the Brideof God the Fatherand the motherof Christ.23This changes in the High MiddleAges when full-scale Marianinterpretationof the Canticlebegins. Using the ancient identification of Mary with the ecclesia, to be discussed more fully below, she becomes bride of Christas well as His mother. The varied interpretationsof the Song of Songs presentin the early Church attest to a special fascination with this book and its message. For Origen, God's greatgift to us in Creationis eros, the powerof love thatalso fuels thejourneyback to God. For the matureChristian,one who has overcome earthlypassions for the sake of this still more passionate innerjourney, the Song of Songs contains the most importantmessage of the Bible. Of course this is precisely a Christianoutgrowth and a Platonic reading of Rabbi Akiva's original claim that the Song of Songs is the "Holy of Holies."The eros that is essential to Neo-Platonic religion finds its Biblical home in this Christianizedreadingof the Song of Songs. 20. The four long-established(pre-twelfthcentury) feasts of the Virginare:the Purificationof the Virgin, February2; the Annunciationof the Virgin, March25; the Assumption of the Virgin,August 15; and the Nativity of the Virgin, September8. The legend behindthe Feastof the Nativity is told in the addendumto HonoriusAugustodinensis'Sigillum Beatae Mariae, trans.Amelia Carr(Toronto: PeregrinaPublishing Company,1991), p. 86f., about which we will have more to say below. 21. Matter, Voice,p. 151ff. 22. The nursing Madonnais well-known in Chrisianart of the MiddleAges. Fordepictions see Caroline Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. (Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1987), pp. 13-25. The otherMaryof the New Testamenttale, Mary Magdalene, also takes her place in some later readingsof the Song of Songs. Pope Gregorythe Great,in his 25th homily on the Gospels, repeatsfrom John20:11-18 the accountof Mary Magdalene staying behind in the empty tomb after the male disciples had left. She is then described as the passionate beloved of the Canticle,the one who says: "I sought him but I foundhim not (3:1)." Here Mary Magdalene is a wounded lover with whom the Jewish readercould empathize:disappointedfor now, but knowingthat her lover will returnto her.On this passage see GroverA. Zinn Jr.,"TextswithinTexts: The Song of Songs in the Exegesis of Gregory the Greatand Hugh of St. Vistor"in Studia Patristica 25 (1991): 209-215. 23. J. Beumer,"Die marianischeDeutungdes Hohen Liedes in der Frueskolastik"in Zeitschrift fuer Katholische Theologie 76 (1954): 411-439. Beumer says the process of change begins as early as the seventhcentury,culminatingin Rupertand Honorius.But the complexityis sometimeselegantlynegotiated. In Honorius'Sigillum to Cant. 4:7 (English translationp. 66), Christ,the male figure in the dialogue, refers to Mary as "My spouse,"but adds that he speaks this way "becauseI am one with the Father,to whom you, remainingclosed, bore the Son."

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Shekhinah, The Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs This view of the Canticle'scentralityto the message of Scriptureand Christian faith is carried forwardin the fourth century by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (334-397) and in the sixth centuryby Pope Gregorythe Great.Ambrose, reading the Song of Songs both as an ecclesial text and as a testament of the individual soul's love of God, refers to it frequentlyeven when supposedly exegeting other parts of the Bible. His treatise On Isaac in fact masks a short commentaryon the Song of Songs.24 Ambrose sees Isaac and Rebecca themselves in highly erotic terms: Isaacis goodandtrue,forhe is fullof graceanda fountainofjoy.TothatfountaincameRebecca,to fill herwaterjar.ForScripturesaysthat:"goingdown to thefountainshe filledherwaterjar andcameup (Genesis24:16)."25 And so theChurchorthesoulwentdownto thefountainof wisdomto fill its own vesselanddrawuptheteachingsof purewisdom,whichtheJewsdidnotwish to drawfromthatflowingfountain.26 Once Rebecca is seen filling her "waterjar" from Isaac's "fountain,"we understandthatthe leap from Genesis to the Song of Songs is a small one indeed. Soon Ambrose is commenting openly on the Song itself. One particularlyrich passage will give us a sense of his direction in this work: "Thekingbroughtme to his innerchamber" (Cant.1:4).Blessedis the soul thatenterstheinnerchambers.For,risingupfromthebody,shebecomesdistantfromall, andshesearchesandseekswithinherself,if in anywayshecan pursuethe divine... andwhenshe was broughtintothe secretplaceof divinity,thesoulsaid:"Letusbe gladandrejoiceinyou.Letus loveyourbreasts morethanwine."Forthejustmanrejoices,notin treasuresof goldandsilver, norin theproceedsof his property, butin Godalone.27 Quotationsfrom the Canticle also aboundelsewhere in Ambrose'swritings, especially in his lengthy commentaryon Psalm 118 (119).28 In this traditionthat extends from Origen to Gregory we may find a Christian devotion to the Song's allegorical reading that chronologically parallels the developmentof MidrashShir ha-Shirim in the rabbinicworld. The collection of texts designatedby that title (sometimes referredto as MidrashHazit in the early sources)was probablyeditedaroundthe seventhcentury,29thoughit containsread24. See McGinn'sperceptivereading of Ambrose's On Isaac in History, v. 1,p. 209ff. and especially his note on p. 210 regardinggender transformation. 25. Of course, Isaachimself is not presentat all in the Genesis account,which tells of Rebecca's meeting with Abraham'sservantwho has come to seek a wife for Isaac. Ambrose'serotic portrayalrequires him to eliminate the middleman. 26. On Isaac 1:2 in Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Seven Exegetical Works,trans. Michael P. McHugh (Washington:Catholic University Press, 1972), p. 11. 27. On Isaac 4:11-12 (p. 18). 28. McGinn, History, v. 1,209ff. 29. Moshe David Herr, writing in the Encyclopedia Judaica (s.v. Midrash) dates it between 500-640, the later period of"classical" Midrash.

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Arthur Green ings of individual verses that go back as far as the Tannaiticperiod. Two other Midrashic compilations, Shir ha-Shirim Zuta and Aggadat Shir ha-Shirim are somewhat later,30though these too may contain early materials,as is the way of Midrash. It is in the last-namedtext where we find the surprisingstatement,attributed to Rabbi Akiva: "Had Torah not been given, the world could have been conducted by the Song of Songs,"31a view with which these roughly contemporaryChristianwriters would have been more than comfortable,at least in theory.32In the rabbiniccorpustoo we find the Song of Songs becoming a favorite of exegetes even when dealing with other books of the Bible and matters seemingly far from the gardensand fountainsof love. Both the sacrificial rites of the by then absent and mournedTemple and the rabbiniclife of devotion to prayerand commandments are in many places romantically adorned by association with verses from the Canticle. Perhapseven more is the act of Torahstudy and exegesis itself describedby the rabbisas a descent into the gardensof eros. Forthe Jewish writers on the Canticle there seems to be no greateracting out of the text than the act of commentaryitself, the exegete playfully skipping among the verses and seeking out the objects of his homileticaldesire much as the loverin the Song seeks his own beloved amid the lush growth of ancient gardens. Notably absentfrom the rabbinicdiscussionof the Canticleis any theoretical concern with the natureof allegory. In the centurieswhen such Christianreaders as John Cassian and Gregory were deeply involved in the fine points of this discussion, the rabbis,still lacking the refinementsof self-reflectivethoughtthathad come to the ChurchthroughHellenistic and especially Philonic sources, maintain a certain naivete abouthow allegory is the "real"meaning of this holy book. Usually it is the great wisdom of Solomon thatis seen as havingproducedso profound and multivalenceda text, althoughthis writing is also understoodas a fine articulation of the "event"of the Song of Songs to which we have alluded earlier.The text is thus seen as a special mingling of divine revelationandhumancleverness.33 30. Shir ha-ShirimZuta was first published from a Cairo Genizahmanuscriptby L. Gruenhut. Jerusalem: W. Gross, 1897. It has been reprinted with a new introductionby Y. H. Wertheimer. Jerusalem:KetavYadva-Sefer, 1971. Wertheimerdates it beforethepayyetan R. Eleazarha-Kallir,who he claims used it. Kallir'sown dates are a matterof some controversy,but a seventh-eighthcenturydate for this Midrash seems likely. Aggadat Shir ha-Shirim was published by Solomon Schechter from a Parma(De Rossi) manuscript(Cambridge:Deighton, Bell and Co., 1896). He dates it (p. 102) to the mid-tenthcentury. 31. p. 5, line 22-23. My readingis based on an emendationof the Hebrewtext thatas it stands makes no sense. The letterbet needs to be moved from before the word"Torah"to the next word"shir." This line, even if not Akiva's own, stems directly from the school of R. Akiva. It may even have originated as a gloss on Akiva's statementquoted above. 32. That is to say that neitherthe Churchnor the Synagoguewould have understood"theworld conducted by the Song of Songs alone" as a call to abandon the slightest bit of the ever-growing legal structureswithin which both were operating.RabbiAkivais also the one, it should be remembered, who derived "heapsand heaps of laws from the crown-points"that surmountcertain lettersas written in the Torahscroll. 33. This is the key subject of the opening discourse in MidrashShir ha-Shirim. On Christian agreement with this approachto the Song as a joint divine/humancreation, see Ann Astell, TheSong of Songs in the Middle Ages; (henceforth:Astell, Song) IthacaNY: Cornell University Press, 1990, p. 25f.

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs Its use as a secondarynarrativethroughwhich the primaryJewish narrativeof the Torahcould be read,intensified, and eroticizedwas articulatedby the rabbiswhen they praisedSolomon for creatingthe first "handles"by which Torahcould be uplifted.34 The Christianliturgicaluses of the Song of Songs parallel the very extensive use of the Song in the HebrewPayyetanicor poetic tradition.35As early as the seventhcentury,36poets in the Holy Landwould turn, especially when composing synagoguehymns for Passoverand Shavu'ot, to the text of the Song, which is recited in the synagogue on the seventh day or the intermediateSabbath of Passover.37 This poetic usage continues in both the Sephardicand Ashkenazic traditions, though in rather different idioms. Among the Sephardim, ancient piyyut gives way to the Golden Age poetry of Spain, based on Arabic models, as is well known.38 This poetic oeuvre contains many religious love poems, which naturally refer to imagery drawnfrom the Song of Songs.39 In these poems, if we may broadlyconceive them as a form of Canticles interpretation,we find much talk of the poet's or the soul's longing for God, sometimes in settings replete with images of the Song of Songs. It would seem at first glance that these are perhapsthe earliest tropological("Godand the soul") readings of the Song in Hebrew.The problem with this view is that the poems themselves are allegorical. Most of the religious love poetry of JudahHalevi, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, and the other "Golden Age" poets of Spain was composed for use in the synagogue service.40 The "beloved"in these poems, though the poet thoroughly identifies with her, is the Communityof Israel, the poetic embodiment of the Jewish people, so familiar from rabbinicliterature.Her femininity is very much underlinedin these poems, 34. Shirha-ShirimRabbah1:8;ed. Dunskyp. 5. See the articleby D. Boyarincited in n. 6 above. 35. On Piyyut, see A. Mirsky,Ha'Piyut [!]: The Development of Post-Biblical Poetry in Eretz Israel and the Diaspora (Hebrew). Jerusalem:Magnes Press, 1990. 36. ForYannai, see Z. M. Rabinovitz'edition of The Liturgical Poems of Rabbi Yannai,Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1987. There survive two long poems almost completely based on the Song of Songs, a shiv 'ata le-pesah, in v.2, pp. 265-272 and a qerovahle-pesah v.2, pp. 272-289. 37. See TractateSofrim 14:1; 14:16. 38. On the influence of olderpiyyuton SpanishHebrewpoetry and the continuityof themes between them, see A. Mirsky,Ha'Piyut, pp. 522-652, and especially p. 617ff. 39. Mirsky (see previous note), p. 590 finds surprisinglylittle direct use of the Song of Songs in Spanish Hebrew Poetry.The poets "took from the Song of Songs a few concepts and images, like the deer and the gazelle, appelationsfor the beautiful lover.. . " Indeed in Gabirol'sreligious love poetry there is less of Song of Songs than one might expect. The images of betrayal,wounded love, and abandonmentthat predominateseem to lead him more to the prophetsand Lamentations.Among the clearerexamples of Song of Songs influence are poems #31 and 32 in the Bialik-Ravnitzkyedition of Gabirol'spoetry Sha'ar asher Nisgar and Shalom Lekha Dodi (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1925). The same may be said of JudahHa-Levi. Forextensive use of the Song of Songs, see his Yafahka-Tirtsah,poem # 144 in H. Brody,ed., Diwan desAbu-l-HasanJehudaha-Levi (Berlin:Mikize Nirdamim, 1930). Of course, occasional language and setting reminiscentof the Canticle are found throughoutthe writings of these and other Spanish Hebrewpoets. 40. About half the religious poetry of Gabirol, collected in the above-mentioned volume, is specifically liturgical. In the case of JudahHalevi Shirey Qodesh (Jerusalem: D. Yarden,1980), all of that publishedas the "sacredverse" is within the frameworkof liturgy.This variancemay be attributable, however,to differentprinciplesof editing.

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Arthur Green but that too is derivative,both from the Canticle itself and from its rabbinicinterpretation.The poet's soul that longs for a renewedrelationshipwith God, calling out in female terms to her beloved, is thus also the collective soul of Israel. The poet sees himself as shaliah tsibbur,"emissary"or representativeof the congregation. Indeed a great many of the poems are reflections on exile, Israel'shistorical, as well as the poet's spiritual,situation.So while it may be saidthat sacredlove is a key theme in the poetry of the Golden Age, the poet's personallove of God and that of his audience/congregation,the community of Israel, are not to be distinguished. Among the Ashkenazim,piyyut in the old EretsIsrael traditioncontinuedto be written into the twelfth and thirteenthcenturies.There whole verses from the Canticle were sometimes used as refrains and incorporatedinto new poetic settings.41But the Ashkenazic poetic tradition,more conservativein many ways than the Sephardic, remained entirely faithful to the collectivist interpretationof the Song that it had received from earliergenerationsof poets and Midrashicexegetes. The emergence of peshat or "plain meaning" literal exegesis in early medieval Jewry was problematicwhen applied to the Song of Songs. Unlike any other partof Scripture,here an explicit rabbinicstricturewas in force againstreading the text in accord with its plain meaning.42Perhapsfor this reason both the commentaryattributedto Sa'adya Gaon43(tenth century)and RaSHI44(eleventhcentury) offer versions of the historic allegory45in their commentaries,unlike their writings on otherbooks of the Bible, where they permitthemselves, to one degree or another,to leave rabbinictraditionbehind and to seek out the plain meaning. Otherexegetes did so nevertheless,some prefacingtheircommentarieswith apologia over this possible transgression.Theirclaim was usuallythatan understanding of the peshat was necessary in orderto better comprehendthe subtleties of King Solomon's allegorical masterpiece.46The peshat dealt with the text exactly as it presents itself, within the context of Solomonic authorship.Thus it might be 41. Piyyutim based on the Song of Songs predominatefor the opening days and intermediate Sabbathof Pesah. See Mahzor le-Pesah, ed. Y. Frankel(Jerusalem:Koren, 1993), pp. 60-91, 94-105, 139-152, 245, 291-300, 304-330. 42. See n. 8 above. 43. The pseudo-Sa'adyacommentarywas first publishedin the collection SheloshahPerushim le-Shir ha-Shirim. (Constantinople:Yabez, 1577?). The Arabic original was published by Y. Kapahin Hamesh Megillot, Jerusalem:Ha-Agudahle-HatsalatGinzey Teman,1962. On the commentarysee H. Malter,Saadia Gaon: His Life and Works(Philadelphia:Jewish PublicationSociety, 1921), p. 322f. 44. RaSHI's commentary was first published in Perush Hamesh Megillot, Bologna, 1477. A critical edition by J. Rosenthal was published in the 'Samuel K. Mirsky Jubilee Volume, ed. S. Bernsteinand G. Churgin(New York:Jubilee Committee, 1958), pp. 130-188. 45. On the questionof RaSHIand "allegory"see SarahKamin,"Dugmain Rashi'sCommentary on the Song of Songs" in her collected essays Jews and Christians Interpretthe Bible (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1991), pp. 13-30. 46. A complete "AnnotatedBibliographyof Medieval Jewish Commentarieson the Song of Songs" by Barry D. Walfish is found in Ha-Miqra'bi-Re 'i Mefarashav:The Sarah KaminMemorial Volume.Jerusalem:Magnes, 1994, pp. 518-571. Walfish'sworkreplacesthe formerstandard,butvery dated work on the subject, S. Salfeld's Das Hohelied Salomo'sbei denjuedischen Erklaererndes Mittelalters (Berlin: J. Benzian, 1879).

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Shekhinah, The Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs Solomon'sown epithalamiumto his bride or a hymn to the innocent love of shepherd and shepherdessas composed by the romanticking. Some of these Hebrew commentaries, particularlythat of RaSHI, were read and studied by medieval schoolmen. The Jews' knowledge of the original language of Scripturewas respected47by Christiancommentators,and on the level of grammarand sentence structurethere was much to be learnedfrom them.48This was to have ratherlittle effect, however,on the allegorical references of the text. The otherbest known of these classic medieval Jewish commentariesis that of AbrahamIbn Ezra,49an often daringinterpreterwho offers what seem to be a promisingthree levels of readingin his commentary.The first rung, as it turnsout, is philological, an explanationof unusualwords and grammaticalusages found in the Song. The second is thepeshat commentary,the tale of"a very young girl, one who as yet had no breasts, who was guardingher vineyardwhen she saw a passing shepherdand desire fell in the hearts of both of them."The third rung of Ibn Ezra'sreadingis that of historical allegory, tracing Jewish history from Abraham to the messiah, though in somewhatless fantasticform than had the Targumictradition. AbrahamIbnEzrais well-knownto us as a Neo-Platonistphilosopheras well as a most importantand textually perceptive Bible commentator.It may seem strange at first glance that he did not make use of the Canticle for purposes of philosophicalallegory. Such a possible readingwas by no means unknownto him. But in the introductionto his commentary he specifically denounces such attempts:"Philosophershave soughtto interpretthis book in metaphysicalterms ['al sod ha-'olam] or the way in which the elevated soul is joined to the lowly body. Othersinterpretit rhetorically.50May the wind carryall of them away,for they are 47. This is hardlythe right word for the likes of Alexander Neckam (Nequam) (1157-1217), an English theologian and exegete who expressed terribledisdain for the "modem"Jews, referredto them as "pigs,"thoroughlydisapprovedof theirunderstandingof Scripture,and yet quotedthem when useful. See A. Saltman,"JewishExegetical Materialin AlexanderNequam'sCommentaryto the Song of Songs"in TheBible in the Lightof ts Interpreters:TheSarahKaminMemorial Volume.(Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1994), pp. 421-451. Interestingly,Nequam's(as yet unpublished)commentaryis mostly Mariological.Foran earliertreatmentsee R. J. Loewe and R. W. Hunt,"AlexanderNeckam's Knowledge of Hebrew"in Medieval and RenaissanceStudies 4. (CambridgeMA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1958). 48. See the anonymous Latin paraphraseof RaSHI's commentary,Expositio hystorica Canti CanticorumsecundumSalomonem,edited by S. Kamin and A. Saltman;RamatGan: Bar-IlanUniversity Press, 1989. Kamin is also authorof"Rashi's Commentaryon the Song of Songs and the JewishChristianPolemic" in her Jews and ChristiansInterpretthe Bible (Jerusalem:Magnes Press, 1991), pp. 31-60. See also MichaelA. Signer,"ThirteenthCenturyChristianHebraism:The Expositio on Canticles in MS Vat. Lat. 1053" in D. Blumenthal,ed, Approachesto Judaismin Medieval Times.(Atlanta: Scholars'Press, 1988) pp. 89-100. 49. Ibn Ezra'scommentaryon Canticles exists in two recensions.The standardedition appearing in Mikra'ot Gedolot was first publishedin Perush 'al Hamesh Megillot in Constantinople,1505. A second shorterversion is that published by H. J. Matthews, London, 1874. The various super-commentariesto Ibn Ezra are listed by N. Ben-Menahemin Areshet 3 (1961): 71-92. 50. The Hebrew 'al ha-matkonotis obscure. I suggest that it refersto a way of learningthe language of love, the poetics of erotic expression.

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Arthur Green vanity...." Ibn Ezra remains conservative in this case, opting for a modified homiletical commentaryratherthan for philosophical allegory that would necessarily stray far from the text. Perhaps, having seen some early attempts in this genre, the poet/philosopher/exegete was not optimistic about the possibilities of reading the very bodily and erotic text of the Canticle aroundthe love of an increasingly abstract,incorporeal,and non-anthropomorphicGod. While the early Hebrewphilosophic commentariesto which Ibn Ezrarefers remain mostly lost or unpublished,51 there does survive an example of such treatments in the lengthy Judaeo-Arabiccommentaryof Joseph Ibn 'Aqkin (c. 11501220), first published and translatedinto Hebrew by AbrahamHalkin.52Ibn'Aqnin's "thirdlevel" (following peshat and "the method of our rabbis")is an Aristotelian commentary,in which the longing of the soul to be joined to the Active Intellect forms the main subjectof Solomon's Song. It providesthe best and fullest example we have of philosophical allegoresis in the Jewish commentaries to the Song. Here we have shed the collectivist reading quite completely and dwell fully in the realm of Aristotelianreligious philosophy in the Maimonideanage.53 While IbnAqnin was originally from Barcelona,he lived and workedin a JewishIslamic context, probablyin Fez, having little contact with the CatalanJewishculture from which he came and no effect upon it. The influences upon him seem to be those of Arabic philosophical literature,not those of ChristianEurope.Still, it is interestingthat Ibn Aqnin, a younger contemporaryof Maimonides, reads the Canticle as he does at this particulartime. In the same traditionis the commentary of R. Moshe IbnTibbon,though in this case the intergrationof rabbinicand philosophical comments makes for a "softer,"less philosophicallytechnical, readingof the text.54Their most importantsuccessor in this tradition,R. Levi ben Gershom or Gersonides, writes in Languedoc in the early 14th century.55All of these texts are attemptsto interpretthe Song of Songs as a love poem between the individual and the divine, in the new fashion that became popular among Christiansin the Middle Ages, as we shall presently discuss. But they do so in highly intellectualized ways; it is the individualmind and the Active Intellectthatare wooing one anotherin the Canticle,andthey do so in strictlyAristotelianterms. In fact these commentariesmay be chararacterizedas ratherstilted attemptsto fit the bold passion 51. See the list of Walfish mentioned in n. 46. There are quite a few grammaticaland some philosophical commentaries that preceded Ibn Ezra, including several by Karaiteauthors, in whose works Ibn Ezra often took a particularinterest. See Walfish p. 528ff. 52. Hitgallut ha-Sodot ve-Hofa 'at ha-Me 'orot:PerushShir ha-Shirim.Ed. A. S. Halkin.(Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1964). 53. While Ibn 'Aqnin'sprimaryinfluences are Islamicthinkerswhom he knows directly,not via Maimonides, he does mention RaMBaM several times and once (f. 102b) makes specific referenceto the Guide to the Perplexed. 54. The IbnTibbon commentarywas first publishedin Lyck:Mekize Nirdamim, 1874. The fact that neither of these commentarieswas printedbefore moderntimes is witness to their relativeunpopularity. 55. Gersonides' commentarywas first published in Perush Hamesh Megillot, Riva di Trento, 1560. AnotherAristoteliancommentatorwas JosephIbn Kaspi (1279-1340). His commentaryfirst appeared as Hatsotserot Kesef, Constantinople, 1577 [?] and again in Asarah Keley Kesef, ed. J. Last, Pressburg,1903 [photo. ed. Jerusalem, 1970].

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Shekhinah, The Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs of the Song of Songs into the formal categories of Aristotelian metaphysics, in which the commentaryseems like more of an excuse for philosophical disquisition that it does a true coming-to-termswith the meaning of the Scripturaltext. These attemptsby Hebrewcommentatorson the Song of Songs to turn to an individual ratherthan a collectivist readingremainremarkablytame and barren,especially when comparedwith the great transformationin readingthe Canticle to be allowed by the new symbolic language of Kabbalah. II Before we come to Kabbalah,however, we need to say a few words about the era in which it was born, or at least entered its public phase. The twelfth century,particularlyin France,has been describedas an age of greattransformationin the historyof WesternChristianEurope.It is a periodof discovery,technologicaladvance, a renaissanceof ancient learning, and an age of new directions within the all-embracingsphere of religion. It is the century of both Crusadesand troubador romances, a time when the notion of personal quest is idealized in both the secular and sacred spheres of romance.The knight/hero in quest of his lady and the monk seeking the love of God or the grace of the Virgin have been described by more than one studentof the age as differing manifestationsof the same spirit.56 This sense of individual quest, and especially the search for perfect love, makes the twelfth centurythe age when the Song of Songs most fully takes its place as a key documentin the spiritualheritageof the Westernworld. This is the century of Bernardof Clairvaux' (1090-1153) homilies on the Song, one of the most populartexts of WesternChristianmysticism of all time.57 Bernard'seighty-six homilies covered the text only through Canticles 3:1. After Bernard'sdeath, Gilbert of Hoyland (d. 1172) sought to complete the task, and when he too died before writing on the entire Song, John of Ford (d. 1214) finished the job with a collection of sermonsthat itself fills seven volumes in the recent Englishedition.58Forthe most partthese Cisterciansinterpretthe Song tropo56. J. LeClercq,Monksand Love in Twelfth-Century France (Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1979); France (Philadelphia:University of PennsylvaniaPress, 1972). J. C. Moore, Love in Twelfth-Century See especially "The Varietiesof Love,"pp. 131-155. The best example of the thoroughmixing of sacred and worldly longings in quest of the ideal is found in "The Quest for the Holy Grail."This thirteenthcenturytext (discussedbriefly in Matter,Voice,p. 55f.) includes referencesto the Song of Songs. It is publishedin English in the translationof P. M. Matarasso(London: Penguin Books, 1969). The complex interplayof the rhetoricof sacredand profane love is depicted by PeterDronke in "The Song of Songs and Medieval Love-Lyric,"The Bible and WesternCulture,ed. W. Lourdauxand D. Verhelst (Leuven: Leuven UniversityPress, 1979), pp. 236-262. See also J. I. Wimsatt,"Chaucerand the Canticle of Canticles"in Chaucer the Love Poet, ed. J. Mitchell and W. Provost. (Athens GA: University of Georgia Press, 1973). 57. The Latintext is found in Sancti BernardiOpera,ed. Jean Leclercqet al., (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1955-77), v. 1-2. An English edition in four volumes is translatedby K. Walsh et al., Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1976-1980. See the extensive treatmentby B. McGinn in The Presence of God:A Historyof WesternChristianMysticism.v. 2: TheGrowthof Mysticism(henceforth: McGinn,History, v.2). (New York:Crossroad,1996), pp. 158-224. The popularityof Bernard'swork is attestedby the survivalof more than 900 manuscripts,as reportedby McGinn, p. 487, n. 21. 58. Gilbert'sworksin Latinare publishedin the PatrologiaLatina (=PL) 184: 11-298. Gilbert's

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Arthur Green logically, an allegory of Christ and the individual soul or the Christian. But Bernard's friend William of St. Thierry also interpretedthe Canticle, continuing more in the old ecclesiological reading.59Among the other importantcommentators of the age are Rupert of Deutz (c.1075-1129), Honorius Augustodinensis (1090-1156), and Alain of Lille (c. 1120-c.1203), all of whose works include importantmariological interpretationsof the Song.60These take up what was once just a liturgicalreading,appropriateto the feasts of Mary,and make it a full-fledged streamwithin Song of Songs interpretation,in which the entire Canticle is understoodas betokeningthe love between ChristandMary.No matterthat Mary is the mother of Christ,and virginal mother at that. Here she is very much His loving bride, though in a context that also preservesand glorifies virginity,to be sure. The twelfth centurywas also the time in which the Kabbalistictraditionbegan to emerge among the Jews. While the first Kabbalistswe know are in Languedoc in the latter half of the century,and the movement quickly crossed the Pyrenees and found its best home in Catalonia and Castile of Northern Spain, the earliest origins of Kabbalisticliteraryexpression are Franco-Germanratherthan Sephardicin origin.61This is true in the first place with regardto Sefer ha-Bahir (in contrastto its title perhapsthe most uncleardocumentin the entire spiritualhistory of Judaism),containingmaterialspossibly of older orientalor Byzantineorigins but certainly edited and first released in southernFrance.62Recent scholarsermons in three volumes have been published in the English translationof L. Braceland,along with a fourth volumes of other collected writings (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1978-81). John of Ford'ssermons, in seven volumes, are translatedby W Beckett (Kalamazoo:Cistercian Publications, 1977-84). The Latin original, edited by E. Mikkers and H. Costello as loannis de Forda: Super ExtremamPartemCantici CanticorumSermones CXX,is in the series Corpus Christianorum,Continuatio Mediaevalis (= CCCM) (Turnhout:Brepols, 1970), pp. 17-18. Fordiscussion of Gilbertand John's works see McGinn, History, v.2, pp. 298-309. 59. A critical edition and French translationby J. M. Dechanet is in Sources chretiennes 82 (Paris:Cerf, 1962). Englishtranslationby MotherColumbaHart(Spencer,MA: CistercianPublications, 1970). 60. Rupert'sCommentumin Cantica Canticorumis in CCCM26. On him see JohnVanEngen, RupertofDeutz. (Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1983). RegardingHonorius, I referhereto his first commentaryon the Canticle,the Sigillum Beatae Mariae, to be quoted below. The Latintext is found in PL 172. There is an English translationby A. Carr(Toronto:PeregrinaPublishingCompany, 1991). His later commentary,the better-knownExpositio in Cantica Canticorum,revertsto more of the ecclesial and tropologicalmodes. OtherMarianinterpretersinclude Philip of Harveng(d. 1183; PL 203) and William of Newburgh(d. 1198), ed. J. C. Gorman,Spicelegium Friburgense6, Fribourg, 1960. See E. Ann Matter,"Eulogiumsponsi de sponsa: Canons, Monks, and the Song of Songs." The Thomist49:4 (1985), p. 552, n.5. 61. G. Scholem's Origins of the Kabbalah (Philadelphia:Jewish PublicationSociety, 1987) already points in this direction. See pp. 180-187 and index, s.v. "GermanHasidim."Furthersteps in this identification of the Franco-Germanarea as the primary source of Kabbalisticsymbolism have been taken by more recent scholarship.See M. Idel, "The Intentionof Prayerin the Beginning of Kabbalah: Between Germanyand Provence,"Porat Yosef:Studies Presented to RabbiDoctor Joseph Safran,eds. B. and E. Safran.(Hoboken:Ktav,1992), pp. 5-14, as well as severalotherstudiesby JosephDan, Idel, and Elliot Wolfson. See also my priordiscussion in Keter, chapter 10. 62. The Hebrew text of the Bahir has recently been published in a highly useable edition by

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs ship has also had much to say aboutthe emergence of proto-Kabbalisticsymbols in writings transmittedby Rabbi Eleazar of Worms (d. c. 1230).63The Castilian Kabbalahof the mid-thirteenthcentury contained a new infusion of Ashkenazic materials and there are some halakhic and liturgical formulations in the Zohar (Castile, c. 1290) that also point to Franco-Germaninfluence.64Moshe Idel has stressedthe antiqueorigins of certainaspects of Kabbalisticsymbolism, a position that will get no argumentfrom me.65But some key parts of the network of symbolic associationsthatmakes for Kabbalah,its organizationinto a well-defined hierarchy,andthe daringto publish such ways of thinking in writtenand distributed form all still seem to belong primarilyto the latterpartof the twelfth century,centering aroundsouthernFrance. A key element in this symbolic universe is the emergence of the divine female, a figure within the divine-symbolic realm who serves as consort to the blessed Holy One, God of Israel.The radicalcharacterof this developmentcannot be overstated.The singularityand aloneness of God, describedalmost exclusively in masculineterms, is of the very essence of the monotheistic revolutionwrought by Israel'sancientprophets.66It is the God who by definition has no heavenly conDanielAbrams(Los Angeles: CherubPress, 1994), reproducingand transcribingthe Munichmanuscript as well as reprintingthe first printededition (Amsterdam, 1651) of the Bahir.This edition rendersthat by R. Margulies(Jerusalem:RabbiKook Institute,1951) obselete. Forscholarshipon the Bahirthrough the early 1990's, see the fine bibliographyin the Abramsedition. An English translationby Aryeh Kaplan is only partiallyreliable, tending to smoothe over real problems in the text. Selections from the Bahirin a bettertranslationareincludedin J.Danand R. Kiener'sTheEarlyKabbalah,New York:Paulist Press (Classics of WesternSpiritualitySeries), 1986. 63. The Song of Songs Commentaryunder the name of R. Eleazar, first published in Lublin, 1608, as Yeynha-Reqah,is of dubiousattributionand unfortunatelynot particularlyhelpful in this context. 64. See I. Ta-Shma,Ha-Nigle sheba-Nistar:The HalachicResidue in the Zohar(Israel:Ha-Kibbutz ha-Me'uhad,1995), pp. 19-34. 65. M. Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 156ff andpassim. His position is not quite identicalwith that of RaphaelPatai'sTheHebrew Goddess, which posits a direct historicalconnection between the ancient cult of Inana/Ishtarin Babylonia and the female shekhinahof the Zoharand later Kabbalah.Thatthesis simply lacks any evidence for a period of over a thousandyears. 66. This is not to deny a certainmaternalstrainthat runs throughBiblical descriptionsof that "almost exclusively" male deity. Recent feminist-inspiredBible studies have treated this subject extensively. See MayerGruber,"TheMotherhoodof God in Second Isaiah"in RevueBiblique 90 (1983): 351-359, reprintedin his TheMotherhoodof God and OtherEssays (Atlanta:Scholars' Press, 1992). See also J.J. Schmidt,"TheMotherhoodof God andZion as Mother"in RevueBiblique92 (1985): 557569. My thanksto George Savranfor these references. I also do not deny that in the popularcult of ancient Israelthere may have been elements of goddess worship.This is obvious from the negative references in Jeremiahto "the Queen of Heaven."and possibly from archaeologicalevidence. But none of this denies the centralthrustof Biblical and rabbinicJudaism'sinsitence that God's only "female" partneror beloved is His people Israel. Interestinglythe Zohar (1:49a) subsumes the Biblical asherah amongthe namesof shekhinah,linkingits own female diety figure to the ancientand forbiddenone. For the Kabbalistthe essential sin of 'avodahzarah is not the worshipof "foreign"deities but the separation of the sefirot from one another,especially of the female from her mate. That is the thrustof this Zohar passage. RaphaelPatai'squotationof it in TheHebrew Goddess, p. 318, n. 51, does little to strengthen his argumentfor historicalcontinuityfrom ancient Near Easterngoddess worship to Kabbalah.

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Arthur Green sort that seeks out a humanbeloved in the people Israel,allowing for the essential God-Israel erotic myth that plays a key role in rabbinicJudaism.Now Kabbalah comes and tamperswith this most essential datumof Jewish devotional life. Sefer ha- Bahir, the founding documentof Sefirotic Kabbalah,intentionally leaves unclear the borders between God's divine and human beloved, as I have shown in my Keter study.67It is not quite certain, in several key passages of that strangepseudo-Midrash,whether the lost or fallen object of God's affection is a divine hypostasis, the human soul, or the collective community of Israel.68The Bahir, written and edited over a long period of time, representsthe earliest stages of Kabbalah'sevolution, reaching back perhapsa century or more before its publication, c. 1150. A female figure is present in the Bahir text, but she is eitherthe seventh or the eighth of the ten sefirot and is not necessarilyidentified by the term shekhinah. By the time of the late thirteenth-centuryZohar,however,the Kabbalistic readingis very well defined. The Song of Songs69 is an epithelamiumwritten 67. Chapter12, pp. 134-150. On this point I differ fromthe view of PeterSchaeferin the article to which I will refer in n. 88 below. 68. The term kenessetyisra 'el is interestinglyratherrarein the Bahir.In #46 kenessetyisra 'el is the force thatjudges and punishes Israel, based on "I will punish you sevenfold for your sins" (Lev. 26:28). Therefore,kenessetyisra 'el says, "do not imagine that I will seek mercy for you."Thuskenesset yisra 'el and the actual people of Israelare clearly distinct from one another.Yisra'el, withoutkenesset, is the term used for the actual Jewish people in #26, 94, 107, and elsewhere. The term shekhinahappearsseveral times in the Bahir.In #50 shekhinahis identified with the first sort, the less harsh sort, of tsedeq, based on association with the verse "righteousnesswill dwell in her" (Is. 1:21). Since that verse clearly refers to Jerusalem, we see that the associative cluster Jerusalem/Righteousness/Shekhinahis already in place in the Bahir.In #85, shekhinahappearsin association with the same Isaiahverse, but is also linked to King David,again predictinga commonplace association of later Kabbalah.The most complex referenceto shekhinahis in #115-116. In #115 the lowest two sefirot (=netsah and hod) are referredto as sofshekhinato shel ha-qadosh barukhhu, "the end of the blessed Holy One'sshekhinah"or again as just "sofha-shekhinah."In #116 we are told that "shekhinahis above as shekhinahis below,"a saying reminiscentof older Midrashicusages. But then, in response to the question, "Whatis this shekhinah?"the following definition is offered: "Say that it is the light emanatedfrom the first light, which is hokhmah.It furthersurroundsall [all the sefirot? all the world(s)?] , as it says: "The whole earthis filled with His glory" (Is. 6:3). This very importanttext reflects an early stage in the developmentof Kabbalisticsymbolism, in which the termshekhinahis not yet identified with the feminine aspect of the Godhead.See the parablethat follows in Bahir# 116. See my translationand treatmentof this text in Keter, p. 145ff. The "elevation"of netsah and hod from ninth and tenth place to seventh and eighth in the sefirotic system is a subjectthat I hope to treatelsewhere. 69. The two important extant early Kabbalistic commentaries to the Song of Songs are those of R. Ezraof Geronaand R. Isaac Ibn Sahula.The formerwas first publishedundername of Nahmanides in Altona, 1764. (A Berlin edition supposedly publishedin the same year is lacking this text, despite the promise of it on the title page, in both copies examined in the Scholem Library in Jerusalem-a ratherstrangebibliographiccuriosity. Scholem wrote a note about the rareHrubyszow, 1820 edition of this text in Kirjath Sefer 1, 167f.) This same rather poor version is included in C. Chavel's edition of Kitvey RaMBaN, Jerusalem:Rav Kook Institute, 1963. An English translation by Seth Brody (completedby A.G.), partlybased on manuscriptreadings,is now available(Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval InstitutePublications, 1999). I published the Sahulatext from a unique survivingmanuscript in Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought6:3-4 (1987). Unfortunatelylost is the commentaryof Moses of Burgos, a documentthat would probablyhave offered importantinsight into the early history and development of this symbol.

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs to celebratethemarriageof maleandfeby KingSolomon,themystichierophant, malewithinGod,blessedHolyOneandshekhinah,a marriageto whichearthlyIsandas weddingattendants,71 but not as marraelarerelatedbothas offspring70 riagepartner. GershomScholemclaimeda very late datefor trulyfemininedescriptions fromits earlierusageas a simpledesignationforGod of shekhinah,distinguished in His indwellingmode.72One or two Midrashicreferencesdistinguishbetween Godandshekhinah,73 butthereis nothingbeforethe eleventhcentury,andhardly the before twelfth,thatdepictsshekhinahas a femalehypostasis.More anything recentscholarshipmaydisputethis, suggestingthata shekhintafiguremayhave 70. Early Kabbalahis much interestedin the divine origins of the human soul, including both the specific locus of origin and the process by which souls become embodied. One famous source in the Bahir depicts souls flying off the cosmic tree; others see them flowing in a divine river.Rabbi Isaac the Blind identifies the soul's ultimatesource as binah, the mother/wombof the sefirotic world. It proceeds to journey throughthe sefirotic world and thus into malkhut,whence it goes on to enter into the humanbody. See R. Ezra'sCommentaryto the Aggadot Ms Vatican294, f. 48b. Here there is no mention of divine copulation or of a birth-process,nor is there yet any distinctionbetween various partsof the soul. Fromthe Geronaperiod (mid-thirteenthcentury) onward,Kabbalisticnotions of the soul become tied to the Platonic and Aristoteliantraditionsof tri-partatesoul division; sometimes only neshamah,the highest portionof the soul, is takento come fromthe world of the sefirot. In CastilianKabbalah,especially the Zohar,the main view seems to be thatneshamotare bornof the coupling oftif'eret and malkhut,the male and female principleswithinthe Godhead.See the discussionby I. Tishby in Wisdom of the Zohar (Oxford:Oxford University Press, LittmanLibrary,1989), p. 697f. 71. See Zohar 1:8a. Both Israeland the angels are depicted as shushbinin,attendants,at the divine marriage.These passages may be influencedby the older tales of angels as shushbininat Adam and Eve'swedding.See PirkeRabbiEliezer 12 and Louis Ginzberg,Legendsof the Jews (Philadelphia:Jewish PublicationSociety, 1925), v. 5, p. 90. See also Zohar 3:98 a-b, quoted in my Keter,p. 159f. 72. Shekhinahis of course a feminine noun in Hebrew and that can lead the casual readerto certainwrong impressions. My re-checkingof the rabbinicsources confirms Scholem's view. Even in the very powerfulpassage in Echah Rabbah,where shekhinahis seen in bitter weeping and mourning (texts which were laterrewrittenby the Zohar [ZoharHadash on Lamentations.This text has also been translatedby Seth Brody and is publishedalong with his translationof R. Ezra'sCommentaryto the Song of Songs. See n. 69 above.] to beautifully describe Mother Shekhinah)the single parablegiven in the originalMidrashcomparesthe mourningshekhinah(= God) to an earthlyking! See Echah Rabbah, petihta25. There areother scatteredpassages in which shekhinahseems to be separatefrom God's own self (see b. Sukkah5a, for example-"He spreadover [Moses] the glow of His shekhinah... "), but thereis no real separationand certainlyno evidence of femininity here, unless one projects it back from the later Kabbalisticreadings.The same is true of Devarim Rabbah 11:3, sometimes quoted in this context, where Moses is said to "speak with the shekhinah face-to-face." Face-to-face conversation can of course take place between God andman, as the Biblical text in question (Deut. 34:10) makes clear, while they are yet two male figures. When one of the two is female, however,as will come to be in Kabbalah,"face-to-face"contact is read as sexual intimacy,leading to mystical union. 73. MidrashMishle (ed. S. Buber,f. 47a-ninth-tenth century?)depicts the shekhinahas speaking to the blessed Holy One. In BereshitRabbati,a still laterMidrashiccompilation (ed. H. Albeck, p. 27-School of R. Moshe ha-Darshan,twelfth-centuryProvence) God threatensto remove "Himself and His shekhinah"from the world in response to human sin ( atsmo u-shekhinato),a locution not to be found in earliersources. But this phrasingmay reflect the influence of Sa'adya'stheology which insisted on the distinction between God and His "createdglory."A much earlier Midrashic source, VaYiqraRabbah6:1, uses ruah ha-qodesh ("theholy spirit")in a clear intermediaryrole, but not shekhinah.

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Arthur Green very ancient origins, representingthe divine presence in female form.74 But in the older sources this shekhinahis never the consort of the male God. ForJudaismbefore Kabbalahsuch thoughtsremaincompletelytaboo. Neitheris thereany identification ofshekhinah,the presenceof God,withkenessetyisra'el,the collective embodiment of Israel,nor any blurringof the distinctionbetween them. Shekhinahis a way of representingGod. KenessetYisra'el is the humancommunityof Israelpersonified. Despite the female genderof the termshekhinah,thatdeity remainsmostly masculinein description;God and Israelarelovers,frequentpartnersin dialogue, sharersof the sufferingsof exile, but they alwaysremaindistinctfrom one another. The God who suffers exile may be depicted as shekhinah,the long-sufferingpresence that accompaniesIsraelin their wanderings.But this is a daringmetaphorfor the God who takes on suffering,not a hypostizationof a divine consort. While shekhinahis not female in the early sources, kenessetyisra 'el surely is. She is the embodimentof the people, precisely the bride of God in the Midrash on Canticles. Kenesset Yisra'el often appearsas a seemingly female figure, representing Israel as an eternal entity.75As such she addresses God, sometimes expressing her love and devotion, occasionally questioning His justice, and so forth.76Torahtoo is a female, generally depicted as the daughterof God.77 So too 74. The term shekhinta,even in its plural form (non-existentin Jewish sources) is widely used in Mandaeanreligious texts. The Mandaeansof Iraqare descended,as their name indicates, from ancient gnostics, probablyof the paganvariety,and theirwritings,which date fromthe earlyMiddleAges, have often been used as a source for otherwise lost gnostic traditions.Their sources indicate knowledge of various Hebrewterms alongside significant hostility towardthe Jews. Scholars have long debated whether these indicate origins in or close to Judaism,or whether this informationand attitude could have come entirely throughIslam and its reportson Judaismand the Jews. The term shekhinta in the Mandaeansources refersto a dwelling, sometimes to a sanctified or ritualhut where ceremonies are performed.See KurtRudolph,Die Mandaeer,v.2 (Der Kult,Goettingen:Vaendenhoeck& Ruprecht, 1961), p. 21, n.6. Thereareplaces, however,where the termrefersalso to heavenlyforces. See EdwinYamauchi, Mandaic Incantation Texts(New Haven:American Oriental Society, 1967), text 31, line 21 (p. 290) for one example. The question of the Mandaeans'connection to Judaismin any period is an open one. To assert any connection specifically to Kabbalahwould be highly speculative. 75. According to rabbinic sources Israel at least "occured in thought"before Creationitself, which is sometimes described as having taken place for their sake. This sounds like a Jewish parallel to the notion of a primordialecclesia, found already in the early church,and perhapseven its source. EphraimUrbachtreatskenessetyisra 'el strictlyas a locution ratherthanas a hypostasis,dismissingthe parallel to early Christianity.See The Sages (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1975), p. 646ff. He notes that the phrase does not appearat all in the TannaiticMidrashimand later it is "chiefly found in Homilies on verses of the Prophetsthat liken Israelto a woman ... or on passages of Canticles that were interpreted allegorically as referringto Israel"(p. 647). It should be said thatthis approachis generalto Urbach, who tended to minimalize both Hellenistic influences and parallelswith Christianityin his readingof the rabbis. If we accept his view with regardto the early sources, the question becomes one of tracing the evolution of the locution into a hypostasis, something it has clearly become before the spreadof Kabbalah. 76. The phrase kenessetyisra 'el is also (like shekhinah)grammaticallyfemale, and one must beware of over-readingsimple grammaticalgender usages. On the other hand,the choice of kenesset over 'amor beney was made by the rabbinicauthors,and perhapsthat in itself is significant.While kenesset yisra 'el is commonly the bride/spouse of God in Midrashic sources, see Shir Rabbah 6:18 (= Shemot Rabbah 15:10) for an occuranceof kenessetyisra 'el as daughter. 77. See E. Wolfson, "Female Imaging of the Torah:From LiteraryMetaphorto to Religious

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs is the Sabbathoccasionallydepictedin rabbinicsourcesas brideor queen,sometimesthe spouseof Israelbutoccasionallyalso as the brideof God.78Shabbatis and depictedas a femalefigurealso in boththe writingsof Philoof Alexandria79 in the Te'ezazaSanbat,a medievalcollectionof EthiopianJewishtraditions,some of whichmaybe quiteancient.80 in thisareabeginswiththe drawingtogetherof Theinnovationof Kabbalah thesedistinctimagesfromtheaggadictraditionintoa singleassociativecluster,the membersof whichbecomeinterchangeable withone another.81 Kabbalahis, or a Symbol"in FromAncientIsrael to ModenJudaism:Intellect in Questof Understanding,Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, ed. J. Neusner et al., vol. 2 (Atlanta: Scholars' Press, 1989), pp. 271-307 and A. Green "Bride,Spouse, Daughter:Images of of the Femininein Classical Jewish Sources"in On Being a Jewish Feminist, ed. S. Heschel (New York:Schocken, 1983), pp. 248-260. The relationshipof the sages to the female Torahis depicted in many aggadot, especially in the BabylonianTalmud. 78. Shabbatis to be greetedas a bride.Cf. b. Shabbat119a and Bava Qama32a-b.The first SabbathafterCreationwas the momentwhen the brideenteredherbridalcanopy.See BereshitRabbah10:9, ed. Theodor-Albeckp. 85. One has the impressiontherethatthe King has prepareda canopy for His own bride. In the following chapterof Bereshit Rabbah,however(11:8; p. 95f.), shabbat is the bride of Israel. See E. Wolfson in the Journal ofJewish Thoughtand Philosophy 6:2 (1997): 302f. This is the rabbinic source for what much later(late sixteenthcentury)developed into the KabbalatShabbatservice. The Sabbathis God'squeen in an importantpassage in Va-Yiqra'Rabbah27:10 (ed. Margalioth,p. 643) where the readinessof an animal for sacrifice is delayed until the eighth day so that one see the queen (i.e., pass a Sabbath)before coming in to see the king. This may indicate an intercessoryrole for the queen. In variousother parablescomparingGod to a humanking, it is the queen who intercedeswith him on behalfof her waywardson. On the prerogativesof queens and grandladies in rabbinicliterature, see S. Kraus,Paras ve-Romi ba-Talmuduva-Midrashim(Jerusalem:Rabbi Kook Institute, 1948), p. 128ff.A female figure of "SabbathPrincess"or "anAngel of the Sabbath"is found in the MidrashSeder Rabbade-Bereshit(ed. Wertheimer,BatteyMidrashot1, chapter15=P. Schaefer,Synopsis #852, quoting MS Oxford 1531, translatedhere:"Theblessed Holy One broughtsarah shel shabbatand seatedher upon the Throneof Glory.He broughtbefore her the prince of each one of the heavensand of each one of the depths;they dancedand rejoicedbefore Him, [each] proclaiming:"Shabbatunto the Lord!"and all the othergreatprincesresponding:"Untothe Lord,Shabbat!"This certainlyseems like the wedding feast of God and Shabbat.Is it possible thatthereis some relationshipbetween this odd collection of esoteric midrashimand the Philonic traditionsto be discussed in n. 79 and 83? 79. See Vita Mosis 2:210 (Loeb Philo Series 6:553): " .. . the prophetmagnified the holy seventh day ... for he foundthat she was in the first place motherless,exempt from female parentage,begotten by the fatheralone, withoutbegetting,broughtto birthyet not carriedin the womb. Secondly he saw ... that she was also ever virgin, neitherborn of a mothernor a mother herself, neitherbred from corruptionnor doomed to suffercorruption.Thirdly ... he recognized in her the birthdayof the world, a feast celebratedby heaven,celebratedby earthand things on earthas they rejoice and exult in the full harmonyof the sacred number[seven]." See also De Spec. Leg. 2:56-58 (Loeb 7:343, 345). Quoted by Patai, TheHebrew Goddess,p. 248f. It is certainlyinterestingthat Philo's virgin Sabbath(seven being the only numberin the decad that is neitherthe dual of any other nor capable of redoublingwithin the decad) should combine with the Virgin Mary in in the emergence of Kabbalisticsymbolism. 80. See W. Leslau, ed, The Falasha Anthology (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1951), pp. 3-39. Leslaudates the text as no earlierthanthe fourteenthcentury,but with possibly earlierelements. There is much controversyover the age of the EthiopianJewish traditionsand their connection to other sources. 81. This is the functionalway in which to understandthe sefirot in general. Though described by the Kabbalistsas "stations"or hypostases somehow within the Godhead,in function they are symbol-clusters, groups of nouns thatjoin togetherelements from the cult, from Scripture,and from na-

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Arthur Green text may be defined as Kabbalisticif it has, a certain fixed patternof these symbolic clusters.82The Kabbalistsareparticularlydaringin identifyingshekhinahand kenessetyisra 'el. These two, formerlypartnersin the divine/humanromance,are now a single hypostasis, a female consort of the blessed Holy One. The identification of these two allowedthe Kabbaliststo claim the ancientMidrashictraditionof exegesis as their own, while they were in effect standingit on its head. The Song, the rabbishad always said,is aboutthe love of God and kenessetyisra'el, the Community of Israel.The Kabbalistsnow agreed with thatreading,but they interpreted kenessetyisra 'el in their own way, as the divine female. The store of images by which this female figure is described has ancient roots, to be sure. Shekhinah, kenesset yisra'el, shabbat, and also malkhut,the "kingdom"of heaven are all familiar terms to the readerof Midrashand Jewish liturgy.Also key among these is hokhmah,the feminine figure of wisdom, God's plaything and delight as described already in Proverbs8.83 One of the terms for this female hypostasis will turn out to be "the lower wisdom" or "the wisdom of Solomon." She will also be "holy city" and "holy land,"bearingwith them feminine associations stretchingback to the prophets.All of these are now joined together, combined also with such feminine images from natureas moon, sea, and earthto create a feminine divine figure of tremendousmythic power and symbolic richness.84 Gershom Scholem referredto the emergence of female divinity in twelfth century Kabbalah as a "Rebellion of Images,"85an event in which "the power of images proved to be stronger than the conscious intent of their authors."86 Speaking to the Jungianassembly at Ancona, Scholem describedthis resurgence ture. These serve to create a new enrichedsymbolic language that can be used for discourseabout the divine process, a realm that is impenetrableto ordinarylanguage. I have written briefly about this in my Keter, p. 129 and in my review of Elliot Wolfson's Througha Speculumthat Shines in History of Religions (1997) p. 267f. 82. I refer here to that which Idel designates as "theosophic"or "theurgic"Kabbalah.My interest here is in distinguishing such a Kabbalisticpassage from a pre- or non-Kabbalisticpassage in such writings as those of R. Eleazarof Wormsor R. Judahben Barzilai of Barcelona.I intend no reference here to the question of ecstatic Kabbalah. 83. This female figure of wisdom is identified with Torahthroughoutrabbinic literature.The wisdom traditionstandsbehindthe notion ofprimordialTorah,which scholarlyopinion todaysees more as an inner development from Jewish/Semitic sources than as a reflex of the Hellenistic logos. The relationships here are complex, however.The interplayof traditionsis manifest in Philo, who depictsthe "Wisdom"of Prov.8:22 as copulatingwith the Fatherand giving birth to the visible universe.See On Drunkeness 8:30 (Loeb Philo series v.3, p. 333, 335). Philo designatesthis primalpairalso as "reason" and "instruction;"it is not hardto see why attemptshave been made (none convincing to date) to connect this pair to the male hokhmah/wisdom and the female binah/understanding,the primal pair in Kabbalahas it emerges in the twelfth century.On the primalsyzygy in Philo see also his De Cherubim 9:27 and 14:49, Loeb v. 2, p. 25 and 39. 84. See Tishby, Wisdomofthe Zohar, v.1, pp. 371-387 and Scholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead (New York:Schocken Books, 1991), pp. 140-196. The Germanoriginal was first published in Eranos Jahrbuch21 (1952) 45-107 as "Zur Entwicklungsgeschichteder kabbalistischen Konzeptionder Schechinah." 85. On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead, p. 147. 86. Ibid., p. 146f.

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs of "theGreatMother"as an eventthatrequireseithera psychologicalor a historical explanation. Therearetwowaysof explainingtheemergenceof thefemaleShekhinah. One possibilityis that,whentheseideaswereoriginallyconceived,the finalSefirahwas alreadyconceivedas a vesselreceivingall the otherSefiroth;it was understood mindas a feminineelement,and consequently by theKabbalistic hencenaturallydrewto itself the femalesymbolspresentin religiouslanguage.The otherpossibilityleadsus in a differentdirection.Whenthe medievalJewishGnosticstookthedecisivestepof identifyingtheShekhinah and KenessethYisra'el-two hypostasesthathadthusfarbeendistinctin therabbinictradition-thisnecessarilytriggeredan eruptionof the femaleintothe Thestateof ourearlisphereof theGodhead;therestfollowedautomatically. est extanttextsdoesnotallowusto choosebetweenthesealternatives-if,indeed,thesearemutuallyexclusive.Theformerview is basedupona psychothatprecedestheexegesesinwhichit is confirmed: logicalassumption namely, thatwhenthe imageof theGreatMotherresurged,it founditselfappropriate Jewishsymbols.Thesecondalternative, by contrast,takesas its pointof debecausea powerfulnationalsymbol,the parturea certainhistoricalstatement: of Israel(Kenesseth Yisra'el)wasincorporated withina newdyCongregation namicconceptionof the Godhead(perhapsas a resultof theprofoundshock causedby thepersecultions associatedwiththe Crusades,orperhapsfarearlier,underGnosticinfluence)andbecauseKenessethYisra'elwasunderstood as constitutingthe bodyof the Shekhinah,in whichandthroughwhichthe Shekhinah actsandsufferstogetherwiththepeopleof Israel(perhapssomewhatparallelto Christianity's notionof theChurchas CorpusChristi,thebody of Christ)-becauseof thesefactorsthe archetypal, primordial imageof the femaletook shape,its resurgencebeingrootedin these specifichistoricexperiences.87 In either case Scholem sees the emergence of the divine female in the heart of medievalJudaismas an "eruption,"as somethingquite unintendedby those who first articulatedthese symbols. I wish to suggest anotherexplanation,one I believe to be somewhat simpler on the one hand and more embracingof the broaderculturalcontext of this shift, on the other.The female figure of shekhinahmay be seen as a Jewish response to thegreatpopular revivalofMarian piety in the twelfthcentury Westernchurch.88The emergence of such a figure representsa remarkable

needs and the ready comingtogetherof internalJewishspiritual-psychological in of a Christian the culture. availability parallelfigure surrounding Thetwelfth-century emphasison the piouslife andquestof the individual

87. Ibid.,p. 160f. 88. Thisconclusionis alsothatof PeterSchaefer,"Tochter, BrautundMutter:Bilder Schwester, derWeiblichkeit Gottesin derfruehenKabbala," Saeculum: Jahrbuch 49:2 fuer Universalgeschichte severalof theconclusions of this (1998),259-279.Inverybriefform(pp.274-279)Schaeferanticipates Sister,Bride,andMother:Imagesof the Femininityof Godin study.An Englishversion"Daughter, theEarlyKabbala" hasappeared thein Journalof theAmerican Academyof Religion68 (2000)221242.

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Arthur Green found its echoes in the world of the Jewish minority as well as the Christianmajority in whose midst they lived. Jews in WesternEurope, in the Christiannorth as well as in Muslim Spain, were aware of and to a degree participantsin cultural trends within the general society.89 Thus the theme of religious life as personal quest, usually for self-perfection leading to union with God (and here we see the Muslim version of the quest) become popularamong Jews as well. The earliest text of such pietism, The Duties of Hearts by the eleventh-centurySpaniard Bahya Ibn Paquda,was translatedfrom Arabic into Hebrewby JudahIbnTibbon in 1161. The Hebrewparaphraseof Sa'adya'sBeliefs and Opinions, considerably more mystical/devotional in tone than the Arabic original, influenced movement in the same direction.90The private life of piety as a sublime goal is attested as well in Sefer Hasidim, reflectingtwelfth throughthirteenthcenturyRhinelandcircles.91 There grew up a genre of such works of Jewish moral piety, in which traditions of Spain and Ashkenaz were sometimes blended. Perhapsthe most famous description of this newly articulatedindividual is piety Maimonides' descriptionof the love of God, a passage in which the Song of Songs plays a key role:92 Whatis the properlove [of God]?Oneshouldlove Godwith an exceedinglygreatandpowerfullove untilone'ssoul is boundup in the loveof withit like one who is lovesick,one whose God,continuouslypre-occupied mindis neverfreeof thinkingaboutthatwoman,whethersittingor standing, evenwheneatingordrinking.Evenmorethanthisshouldtheloveof Godconstantlypre-occupytheheartsof thosewholoveHim.ThusHe hascommanded us:"Withall yourheartandwithall yoursoul(Deut.6:5)."Solomonspoke of this allegoricallywhenhe said:"ForI am sickwithlove(Cant.2:5)."The entireCanticleis an allegoryconcerningthismatter. But the attemptto readthis new emphasis on individualpiety into the Song of Songs also entailed a difficulty, one that eventually brought forth the female shekhinah as a newly conceived object of devotion. The collective Communityof Israel as the bride of God was a figure of ancient lineage, quite taken for granted, her female gender witnessed by the prophets as well as by the allegorical understanding of the Canticle. But if the erotic metaphorwas really about the longing of the individualsoul for God,the soul of the male reader/worshipper,the language 89. This dimension of reality is still often under-emphasizedby Judaica scholars, who tend to look more for internal Jewish continuities than for extra-Jewishfactors in determiningpractices. A refreshingchange from this tendency is I. G. Marcus'Rituals of Childhood:JewishAcculturationin Medieval Europe (New Haven and London:Yale University Press, 1996). 90. A critical edition of the never-publishedparaphrase,called Pitron Sefer Emunot,is soon to appear,edited by Ronald Kiener.The first portion of this projectconstitutedhis doctoraldissertation at the University of Pennsylvania(1984), undermy supervision. 91. See I. G. Marcus, Piety and Society: The Jewish Pietists of Medieval Germany,Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981. 92. Mishneh Torah,hilkhot teshuvah 10:3. See also Guide 3:51. Note the obliviousness to the issue of gender in this description:one [presumablythe male reader]is to love God with the same passion that one has for love of woman. Of course Maimonides' God is without gender.

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Shekhinah, The Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs andgenderwere somehowinadequateor not quitefitting. True,neshamahis a feminine wordin Hebrew (as is anima in Latin), so technically the verses could work. But the intense eros of the Canticle could not be reduced to grammaticalappropriatenessof gender.This discomfortwith the designationof the worshipperas female is expressedby R. Moshe IbnTibbonin his comment on Song of Songs 7:1: "Return,return,O Shulamite": TheLoverreplied:"Return,return,O Shulamite," meaningthatshe is fit to attainshelemut,perfectionandto becomesthe King's[female]partner.His is clearproofthatsheis a penitent.Sheis called"Shureturn" saying:"Return, lamite"in thefemininegenderbecauseshe[thesoul]is attachedto matterand dueto herlowlystate,as we havesaidwithregard[also]to the terms"kingdom"and"garden."93 Here misogyny (the souls of males are referredto as "female" because they are lowly, attachedto the body, and not yet penitent) is taken for grantedand used as an apology for the text's allegorically treating male souls as though they were women! Whenwe look at the unabashederoticismof Bernard'sHomilies on the Song of Songs, or that of his Cistercianfollowers, we wonder where their parallel is in the Hebrewliterature,or wonderat the reasonfor its absence.Any comparisonof the Hebrewand Latincommentarieson the Canticlewill have to agree with Ann Matter that "althoughthe intellectualcontactsbetween Christiansand Jews in Champagne in the late eleventhand twelfthcenturiesmay well have influencedthe Song of Songs interpretationin both traditions, the passionate love-language of the moralreadingsis a Christiantradition,a particularlywell-adaptedresponse to the christocentricspiritualityof the medieval church."94 To appreciatethis difference we need to restate an essential difference between Jewish and Christianunderstandingsof the Bible or the Christian"OldTestament."Since its very beginning, Christianityhas read the old Biblical texts throughthe prism of a new Scripture.The Old Testamentnarrativeis readby way of referenceto thatof the New: Old Testamentfigures and situationsareoften seen as typologies and prefigurationsof Christ or the events of Jesus' life and death. Prophetictexts, repletewith theology,arere-readboth as predictionsof the Gospel and in the light of Paul'stheological formulations.The Song of Songs is also read this way:its eroticpoesis is transformedby the prism of the Jesus narrative.95That 93. Ed. Lyck, f. 21a. 94. Matter, Voice,p. 137. 95. This is a Midrashicreading,if you will, of the Canticle,just like the applicationof the Canticle to the Exodusnarrativepointedout by Daniel Boyarin.See "The Song of Songs, Lock or Key:The Holy Song as a Mashal"in his Intertextualityand the Reading of Midrash(Bloomington:IndianaUniversity Press, 1990), pp. 105-116. In this way I find Boyarin's interesting distinction between the Midrashicreadingof the Song of Songs andthe Christianallegorizationsomewhatinadequate.All premodem Christianreadingsof the "OldTestament"must be seen throughthe New Testament(NT) prism, even if there is anotherlayer of allegory laid atop a particulartext. I would thus see Origen'sreading as a Hellenistic allegory superimposedon a Jewish-ChristianNT Midrashon the Song of Songs. This is true even though the NT authorsthemselves do not quote the Canticle; later Christianreadersnevertheless inevitablyread it throughthe NT prism.

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Arthur Green story is not a tale of eros in the same gendered sense as the Canticle, but it is one filled with love andpassion. The whole account of the gospels, from the love of Mary for her child Jesus to the torments of the crucifixion and the bliss of Jesus' disciples in encounteringhim afterthe resurrection,is washed over with eros as it is interwovenwith verses from the Song of Songs. The Latin devotee, completely unlike his Jewishneighbor,knows an embodied diety.Even if one's love for Christmust not be eroticin the lustfulsense, the fact remainsthat Christhas a body, one depictedlovingly in Christianart fromthe third centuryonward.Thereis an eros in the way one is to relateto Christ'spassion.The centralrite of the Churchis, afterall the consumptionof His divinebody,an act that claims to transformthe life of the one who partakesof it.96 The eros of a relationship with an incarnateGod, especially one whom one best veneratesby incorporating Him, has been much discussed by modem historiansof Christianity97and was an element of which the medievalsthemselves were at times aware.98Sometimes, especially in popularreligious literature,the erotic relationshipbetween Christand the faithfulis presentedquite unabashedly.99 The Jewish readerdid not easily picturehimself as God's lover, with all the erotic intensity suggested by that phrase.o00Why not? In part because medieval 96. The consumptionof Christ'sbody and its mystical understandingsis an importanttheme in Caroline WalkerBynum'sHoly Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women(Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1987). See especially chapterfive: Food in the Writings of Women Mystics. 97. BernardMcGinn in his History, v. 2 often shows awarenessof the complex reverberations of these issues. See especially his treatmentof Bernardof Clairvaux's references to bodily eros, pp. 175-177, 196. On the theological plane, he shows how a theology of incarnationmakes true, even on a literal level, the anthropomorphicreferencesapparentlyto God in the Song of Songs and othertexts. See History, v.2, p. 167f. See also the sophisticateddiscussion of modernresponses to medieval"spiritual eroticism" in Matter, Voice,pp. 138-142 as well as the works of CarolineWalkerBynum, both that quotedin the precedingnote and "TheBody of Christin the LaterMiddleAges: A Responseto Leo Steinberg"in herFragmentationand Redemption:Essays on Genderand the HumanBody in Medieval Religion (New York:Zone Books, 1991), pp. 79-117, and elsewhere in thatvolume. Manyof the same (O.T.) Scripturalpassages treatedin these works were the crux of painstakingreinterpretationby medieval Jewish rationalists,culminating in Maimonides' Guide, part I, where their literal meaning was set aside in orderto reduce anthropomorphism.They were to be reclaimed,though on a symbolic level, by the Kabbalists. 98. Bernardof Clairvaux,Sermonson the Song ofSongs 20:6, speaks of the need to attachoneself first to a bodily love of Christ,thenceto be raisedhigher.See the discussionby MichaelCasey,Athirst for God: Bernard of Clairvauxs Sermons on the Song of Songs (Kalamazoo:CistercianPublications, 1988). Bernard'sfriendWilliam of St. Thierryalso seems to show such awareness,which may also be traced as far back as Origen'sprologue to his Commentaryon the Song of Songs. 99. See for example the wonderful anonymous late-eleventh-centuryLatin poem quoted in McGinn, History, v.2, p. 145. 100. See for example the beautifully and unabashedlyerotic passage from Hugh of St. Victor discussed by GroverZinn in his "Textswithin Texts:The Song of Songs in the Exegesis of Gregorythe Greatand Hugh of St. Victor"in StudiaPatristica25 (1991): 209-215. Commentingon a passage from pseudo-Dionysius, Hugh tells the tale of the disciples from Emmaeuswalking with Christ,only gradually realizing that it is he who accompanies them (Luke 24:13-35). Their heartsare so burningwith love that they realize the one with whom they walk can be none other.On this burningpassion Hugh

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs Jewish intellectuals,at least, had a more abstractnotion of the deity than did their Christiancounterparts.Jewish intellectuallife had been shapedby contactwith Islam earlier and more decisively than by the influence of Christianity.From the ninth through the twelfth centuries, culminating in Moses Maimonides (11351205), we see an ongoing quest for "purification"'1oof the idea of God. This purification means greater abstraction,avoidance of any literal reading of Biblical anthropomorphisms,and a mighty struggle over whetherand how one may speak of divine "attributes"at all. The lack of incarnationin the Jewish God, combined with the absence of plastic images, meantthat He did not rouse the passionate intensity one could not help but feel in gazing at the lovely figures of Christ,in wood carving,in metals, and in paint,thatare among the greaterand lesser masterpieces of the Westernartistictradition. But there may be anotherreason as well why eros was harderto arouse in the Jewish reader,one embedded more directly in the encounter with the text itself. Jewish (male) readersof the Song of Songs were not able to identify themselves individuallywith the bride or the female beloved of the Song. Perhapsthey simply were less attractedto this type of reading, one that called for a high level of emotional involvement, because the language and imagery did not lead them in thatdirection.One may also suspect that such readings might have been avoided because their homoerotic overtones made them (consciously or not) uncomfortable.The Christianmonastic community,perhapsdrawnmore passionately to sacred eros by their celibacy of the flesh, perhaps more naive or more flexible about spiritualizedgender roles also because of celibacy, were able to ignore the difficulties and see themselves as Christ's beloved and bride,102 something the Jewish readergenerally was unwilling or unable to do. Christianreadershipfor homilies and commentariesbased on the Canticle also came to include women, quotes from Canticles 3:4, "1will seize him and not let him go until I have broughthim to my mother's house, into the chamberof her who bore me." Such a usage would be unthinkablein pre-Kabbalistic Judaism;only the Zoharcould find a way to re-introducethe passion of that line into its intra-divine readingof the text. See below. In fact the greatlove amongthe disciples of RabbiSimeon ben Yohai as depicted in the Zoharis reminiscentof the fellowship of the Apostles. See Liebes, "ChristianInfluences on the Zohar,"(Hebrew)p. 70f.; idem., "Mashiahshel ha-Zohar"162ff. and English translations in his Studiesin the Zohar (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993). 101. See. S. Rawidowicz, "Saadya'sPurification of the Idea of God" in Saadya Studies, ed. E. R. Rosenthal(Manchester:ManchesterUniversityPress, 1943), pp. 139-165; H. A. Wolfson, "Maimonides on Negative Attributes"in TheLouis GinzbergJubilee Volume(New York:Jewish Theological Seminaryof America, 1945), pp. 411-446; J. Guttmann,Philosophies ofJudaism (New York:Holt, Rinehart,and Winston, 1964), p. 134ff.; C. Sirat,A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1985), p. 141ff., 180ff. 102. Much has been made of this by CarolineW.Bynum in Jesus as Mother:Studies in the Spirituality of the High MiddleAges (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1982). Not only Jesus, but abbots and bishops are seen as taking maternalroles in many passages quoted from monastic literature,andmonks are trainedto be comfortablewith the feminizing of their spiritualroles. Ann W.Astell, The Song of Songs in the MiddleAges (Ithaca:Cornell Univsity Press, 1990), follows Bynum's lead with specific regardto readingsof the Canticle.The medieval (male) readerof the Song, she claims, is being taughtto retrievehis own inner female, since "the reversalof the Fall depends metaphorically on the action of a new Eve, the woman within each one, the Bride of God."

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Arthur Green at least female as well as male monastics, whereasthe Jewishreadershipremained exclusively male. This is not to say that the eros of sacred quest was absent among the Jews. Farfrom it! Already in the poetry of Golden Age Spain,to which we have referred above, we have seen Israel as the passionate, sometimes temporarilyabandoned, beloved of God. Both in that genre and occasionally even in the more formalistic Ashkenazic piyyut there are outcries of wounded love that lack nothing for passionate intensity.But there the figure is always still Israel. Even if the poet identifies wholly with her, the female gender is justified by the weight of tradition;it is kenessetyisra 'el, the earthly,historic embodimentof the Jewish people that loves God and longs for her Loverto returnto her. But this collectivist readingdid not fit well into the new individualizingturn of piety, where the lover might be the soul andjust the soul. We,as Israel, had long been seen as God's beloved bride. But I, as a man standing before God, indeed a man who probablyhad and loved a real bride of my own and at the same time blessed God daily for not having made me a woman, could not comfortablyassimilate that self-image. This situation demanded(I speak of "demand"in the psychological sense) an innovationin Jewish piety. A female figure was needed, one who would be interposed between the male God and the male worshipper,to whom both could be passionately devoted. It was in responseto this emotionalneed thatthe Kabbalists' shekhinah emerged,a female hypostasis positioned between God and Israel,bride of God, mother of the soul, perhaps even bride or lover of the adventurousKabbalist who dared identify with Moses, alone among men designatedas "husband of the Matrona."'03 The imagerythatcreatedthis hypostatizedfemalefigurewas indeedof ancient 103. The fact thatMoses alone is given this designationin the Zohar(once alongside Jacob;cf. Zohar 1:21b) by no means precludesthe possibility thatothersmight experiencesomethingof thatrole. Moses is present, after all, in the righteousof each generation,accordingto a much quotedpassage in TiqquneyZohar69 (112b). The Biblical paradigmsof such intense mysticalexperiences areoffered by the Kabbalistsmore as ways to stimulatelatter-daycopiers thanto forbidtheirattempts.The soul of R. Simeon is also the soul of Moses; he (like Rabbi Akiva in the later rabbinicsources; see Be-Midbar Rabbah 19:4, Pesikta Rabbati 14:13) reveals that which Moses could not. Might not he-and those Kabbalistswho identified with him-also rise at least as high in their coupling with shekhinahas did Moses? The difficulty in male/male spiritualcoupling is too delicate an issue for us to expect to see it directly addressedin the early Kabbalisticsources. In the laterand more spelled out Hasidic writings, however, it occasionally is articulated quite clearly. Here Rabbi Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl (d. 1798) explains why Moses could not dedicatethe tabernacleon his own: "It is knownthatthe main arousal has to be that of the lower world in relation to the upper,that of a female [desiring]the male, as Scripturesays [God speakingto Eve]: "Yourlonging will be for foryourman(Gen. 3:16). But Moses, who is called "husbandof the shekhinah,"was male. Thereforehis desire to ascend could not rouse the "femalewaters."The lowerrungsare consideredto be needy;they have to long to rise up andbe aroused like a woman for a man. But Moses, to whom Torahwas given, and was even called "Torahof Moses," was a male... God said to him: "Torahwas mine and I gave it to you. Youare on the level of Torah,that of the male, husband of shekhinah.Therefore you cannot ascend [to provide] the delight of female arousal for which God longs; it is female arousal that is needed by the Male ... "Note that here the male/male union does not work because it does not fufill Gods need! Me 'or 'Eynayim,aharey#2; ed. Jerusalem, 1984, p. 88.

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs Jewishorigin:shekhinah,wisdom,KenessetYisra'el,shabbat,MotherRachel,Mother Zion, Temple,Ark, Tentof Meeting, and all the rest. Severalelements of femininitywere alreadypresentwithin this list, as we have indicated.But it all came togetherin the shadowof the great Marianrevivalin twelfth-centuryFrance,a result of the tremendousculturalinfluence exercisedby the venerationof Mary throughout the majoritycultureamid which the Jews lived.104 Whateverelse the Kabbalistic shekhinahis historicallyor psychologically,she is also a Jewish responseto the growthof the popularMariandevotionthat flourishedin the twelfth century. Marianpiety took on a very public characterin twelfth-centuryFrance.The renascantcult of Mary was visible in the dedication of cathedrals105 and their "LadyChapels,"where prayerswere especially directedto the Virgin. It is key to many of the artistic creations of the age, including statuary,painting, and manuscriptilluminations.Marywas veneratedin streetprocessions, in sacreddramaenacted in town squareson her holy days and other festivals, and in roadside shrines that dottedthe countryside. She was celebratedin music, popularand quasi-"secular"as well as sacred, and in many other forms that show the deep diffusion of Marianpiety throughoutthe culture. In the art of the age Mary is commonly depicted as the Queen of Heaven.The altarsof Frenchcathedralsof the twelfth and thirteenthcenturies are sometimes graced by twin statues of Christthe King and Mary, Queen of Heaven. Of this tendency, limited to that century, one scholar writes: "As the bride and bridegroomare made equal in their love, the King and Queen of Heaven appearnearly equal in their power. Both sit uprightin a frontal pose, turnedslightly towardeach other."106The Assumption of the Virgin, her tri104. Scholem'ssilence regardingthe Christiansetting in which shekhinahsymbolismdeveloped needs some explanation.It is partof his general tendency to avoid reference to Christianinfluence on Kabbalah.Scholem was creating a cultural-nationalistreading of Jewish history, one in which Kabbalah representedthe very heartof Jewish uniqueness,the place in which native Jewish creativitywas most deeply felt. In contrastto Jewishreligious philosophy,which was so obviously an adaptationof Islamic models, Kabbalahwas seen as truly and authenticallyJewish. For Kabbalahto have been as influenced by Christianmodels (though in a differentway) as philosophy was by Islam would be to portrayJudaismas a minorityculturein both societies, inevitablysubjectto culturalshapingby the majority, ratherthanas a "national"culture,creatingout of its own deep well of ancientsources and inexhaustible creativity.Fora discussion of this tendencyof Scholem, see Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin,"'WithoutRegard for ExternalConsiderations'-The Questionof Christianityin Scholem and Baer'sWritings."(Hebrew) Mada'eyha-Yahadut38 (1998): 73-96. The question of shekhinah,not raised in that article, provides an extremeexampleto supportRaz-Krokotzkin'sthesis. As perceptivea scholaras Scholem would have had to work hardto avoid noticing the parallelsand likely course of influence. This is not to say that I disagree altogetherwith Scholem's view. I would formulatemy position this way: In response to both the inner need and the outwardstimulus, the Kabbalists indeed engaged in work of remarkablereligious creativity.Their chief sources for this achievement were their great wealth of Jewish textual knowledge and their own inner experiences, fantasies, and longings. 105. In the twelfth through fourteenth centuries the Gothic Cathedralsof Chartres,Amiens, Laon,Paris,Reims and many othersthroughoutFrancewere built and dedicatedto "NotreDame."The fact thata certain group of these cathedralsappearson the map to imitate the constellation virgo was taken as an earthly representationof the Virgin's heavenly powers. See. E. Ann Matter,"The Virgin Mary-A Goddess?"in C. Olson, ed, The Book of the Goddess: Past and Present (New York:Crossroad Books, 1985), p. 86. 106. Penny Schine Gold, TheLady and the Virgin:Image, Attitude,and Experience in Twelfth-

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Arthur Green umphantascent into heaven to be seated at Christ'srighthand as his Queen, is the greatestof all the Marianmiracles(the ImmaculateConceptionof the Virgin,much celebratedby the modernchurch,is mostly a laterinnovation).107 A study of manuscript illumination of codices of the Song of Songs notes that Latin manuscripts of the late twelfth and thirteenthcenturies are replete with depictions of the Virgin and child Jesus, a featureabsent in the earlierexamples.108 All this was seen by the Jews, who could not but have been awareof this new outgrowthof pious devotionamongtheirChristianneighbors.109 While they might have been theologically offended by what seemed like worship of an admittedly human woman (new evidence, if any was needed, of the idolatrousand polytheistic tendencies of Christianity'10),I would suggest that there might also have been an attractiveside to the love, beauty, and simple piety associated with the cult of the Virgin.This attractionfound its echoes in the newly constitutedclusterof symbols aroundshekhinah.In the shadowof this new developmentin the majorityculture, the Jews, responding chiefly their own needs and in a form shapedby their own limitations, createda religious symbol that was to transformthe characterof Jewish devotional life. Among the several female symbols adoptedby Sefer ha-Bahir from earlier aggadic sources is the figure of Abraham'sdaughterwhose name was ba-kol, "in all."'11This obscure female figure is taken in the Bahirto representdivine pleniCenturyFrance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 61. For a Kabbalisticpassage just slightly reminiscent of this pose, see the most surprisingparablein Zohar 2:140b, where Moses and the Matronitaappearas king and queen. 107. Mary'sAssumption as Queen of Heaven is sculpted, for example, on the West Facadeof the Cathedralof Chartres.Reproducedin ChristianSpiritualityII, ed. J. Raitt,p. 399. 108. Judith GlatzerWechsler,"A Change in the Iconographyof the Song of Songs in Twelfth and ThirteenthCenturyLatin Bibles" in Textsand Responses:Studies Presented to NahumN. Glatzer (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), pp. 73-93. Wechslerexamined 120 LatinBibles of the period,focussing on the usually illuminatedinitial "C"of CanticaCanticorum.(That letterand "0" of Osculetur["Lethim kiss"] were the most frequentlyilluminated.) She suggests that the shift from a single woman, depicting ecclesia, or a couple, representingeither Solomon andthe Queenof Shebaor Christandthe Church, to the Virgin and Child, reflects the growth of Mariological interpretationin the lattertwelfth century. Wechsler also suggests that Virgin and Child may be a "safe"way of depicting the love between the Loverand the Virgin,obviously portrayedin erotic terms in the text of the Canticle.On the broadersetting of this change see R. W. Southern, TheMaking of the MiddleAges (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1953), p. 238ff. 109. Ivan Marcusnotes in the Leipzig Mahzor,a twelfth-thirteenthcenturyilluminatedHebrew manuscript,a depiction of Moses with a school child on his lap that is very like depictions of Mary as nursing mother.See his Rituals of Childhood:Jewish Acculturationin Medieval Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), p. 88 (and see illustration,p. 82). The breastsof the bridegroom,according to an ancientChristianexegeticaltradition(basedon the Septuagintreadingof the Masoreticdodekha ["your love" or "your affections"] in Cant. 1:2 as dadekha, "your [m.] breasts")are filled with milk. See Honorius, Sigillum (English trans., see n. 60 above) p. 53 110. On Christianityas idolatryin the eyes of most medievalJewishauthorities,see J. Katz,Exclusiveness and Tolerance:Studies in Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), p. 24ff. 111. Bahir #52, based on b. Baba Batra 16b and Bereshit Rabbah 59:7. This Bahir passage is quoted and discussed at length by Nahmanides in his commentaryto Genesis 24:1.Fromthereit became widely known and influentialthroughoutKabbalisticliterature.

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Shekhinah, The Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs tude, the fullness of God's blessing. She is both daughterand bride in the Bahir and the early Kabbalah,both chaste betrothedand fruitful spouse. So too "the understandingsof the Virgin Mary as the exalted spouse of the Song of Songs emphasizes her flexible naturein medieval Christianpiety: she is the bride of God, and the mother of God; she representsthe Church, and each individual Christian."112The same, mutatis mutandi,could be said of shekhinah. The cluster of symbols aroundthe tenthsefirah, as she comes to be placed by the latterthirteenth century,is the most highly developed part of Kabbalistic symbolism.'13 Shekhinah is the daughterof hokhmahand binah within the Godhead,the hidden sources of "wisdom"and "understanding"that broughtforth seven lower sefirot or divine essences, six clusteredaroundthe male deity, the "blessed Holy One"well-known from Biblical and rabbinic literature, and shekhinah or malkhut, His sibling/ spouse. She in turn is the Mother of all lower worlds, angels, intermediaries,and serves especially as motherof the humansoul. Shekhinahhas precisely that function of standingperfectly balancedbetween the upper and lower worlds, the agent throughwhom grace [or shefa] descends to the community devoted to her praise. She is the sublime Communityof Israel, the ideal of Israel of which the human communityof Israelitesis an earthlymanifestation. The identificationof kenessetyisra 'el with shekhinah,as we have suggested earlier,was key to this entire development,especially to the Kabbalists'ability to claim the rabbinictraditionas secretly intendingthe same meaning as their own. The audacity of this move surprisesus, but it is renderedconsiderablymore understandableas a Jewish replicationof one made much earlier in Christian symbolic language.The association between Mary,Motherhood,and Churchhas been taken for grantedsince earliesttimes. Mary is a figure of the ecclesia because she was the first on earthto recognizethe divinityof Christandto worshiphim, andbecause her womb containedhim before his birthas the churchcontainshim afterhis deathandresurrection.But Marywho represents,embodies, or symbolically is the ecclesia is also directlyparallelto shekhinahas representingor identifiedwith kenesset yisra 'el. This identificationof the embodied communitywith the divine or quasi-divine female took place first in Christianity,where it made considerably more sense, and that may well be the source of the parallel development in Kabbalah. Ecclesia is depicted as "mother" to Christians as early as Tertullian is well-known and fully used by the (c.160-c.220).114 This ancient association"'15 112. Matter, Voice,p. 15. 113. The classic Kabbalisticlexicon of symbols is Joseph Gikatilla'sSha'arey Orah (first editions, Mantuaand Riva di Trento, 1561; Latin translationpublished 1516); now available in the standardedition of Y Ben-Shelomo(Jerusalem:Bialik Institute,1981). Sha'arey Orahis translatedinto English by Avi Weinsteinas Gates of Light (San Francisco:HarperCollins, 1994). The first chapteris a beautifullywrittenand highly accessible account of the symbols associated with shekhinah. 114. De Oratione 2:198-200. See J. Plumpe, Mater Ecclesia: An Inquiry into the Concept of Churchas Mother in Early Christianity(Washington:n.p., 1943). Professor Elaine Pagels has suggested to me thatthis identificationis alreadyfound in the New Testament,in the female figure of Revelation 12. The symbolic associations there remain somewhatobscure, however. 115. J. Beumer suggests that the associaton of Mary and the Churchgoes back to Augustine. Thence is derivedthe importanceof this symbolic linkage for the WesternChurch.See his "De mari-

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Arthur Green authorsof the Mariologicalcommentariesto the Song of Songs. "Everythingthat is said of the churchcan also be understoodas being said of the Virginherself, the bride and mother of the bridegroom,"writes Honorius."6 "The glorious Virgin Mary stands for the church, who is both Virgin and Mother.""7The understanding that the Canticle is aboutthe love of Christand Mary does not come to replace the reading that says it refers to Christ and the Church,but only to symbolically deepen it, since Mary is the ecclesia."8 Of course, Maryis not God. The explicit worshipof Maryas a deity was condemned in the fifth century.19 She is the humanvessel throughwhom God is born into the world. As Kabbalisticsymbolism emerged there was no room for shekhinah to be a separatefigure who would serve exactlythe same intermediaryrole.As mystics, the Kabbalists'interest was ultimately in the returnof all, including the human soul, to its place within the One. This is especially true of the earlierCatalonian traditionwithin Kabbalah,wherethe returnof all to its sourcein the highest sefirot still takes precedence over the later Castilian fascinationwith the mysterium conjunctionis, the mystical union of male and female.120 Nahmanides arguedfiercely againstMaimonidesand the whole philosophicaltraditionto insist that shekhinah was in no way separablefrom the Godhead. 21 So the female who was also God, kallah ha-kelulahmin ha-kol,'22"thebridewho comprisesall,"better served their need by standingwithin, or mostly within,123 the divine realm.But anische Deutung des Hohen Liedes in der Frueskolastik"in ZeitschriftfuerKatholischeTheologie76 (1954) p. 414. 116. PL 172, c.494. 117. PL 172, c.499. 118. Thus my own long-range"Historyof Religions"view (in contrastto thatof RaphaelPatai) is that it is not Ishtar/Inanaof the Ancient Near East but ratherthe Mediterraneangoddess figures (Ceres/Demeter) who shaped early Christianviews of Mary that find Jewish verbal and imaginative expression in the medieval Kabbalisticshekhinah.The fact that the Zohar'sshekhinahhas so large a piece of bothjudgment and violence abouther has partlyto do with the legacy of rabbinicJudaism(the importance of justice as balanced with love, etc.) but even more reflects the historical experience of Jewry and its need for a divine defenderand avenger.The avengingGod of post-CrusadesAshkenazis attachedin Kabbalah(especiallythatof the so-called "Gnostic"school in Castile,shapedin severalways by Ashkenazic influence) to the figure of shekhinah. 119. The worship of Mary was denounced at the Council of Ephesusin 431. 120. I have arguedthis briefly in my Keter, chapters 13-14. It is a key contentionof the book by my late student Seth Brody,Cosmos and Consciousness: Worshipand Mystical Experiencein Thirteenth Century Kabbalah.This work, a revision of Brody's doctoral dissertationat the Universityof Pennsylvania,is currentlybeing preparedfor publicationby SUNY Press. 121. See RaMBaN's commentary on such passages as Genesis 46:1; Exodus 23:20, 33:14; Leviticus 1:9, etc. 122. This formulationwas well-liked by the early Kabbalists.Cf. Nahmanidesto Genesis 24:1 and RabbiAzriel of Gerona'sCommentaryto the Aggadot, ed. Tishby,Jerusalem:Mekize Nirdamim, 1945, p. 3 (f. 1b). The Kabbalisticderivationofkallah ("bride")from kol ("all")is explainedin Gikatilla's Sha 'arey Tsedeq,ed. Cracow, 1881, f. 6b. 123. Shekhinahis of course a liminal figure. Though she is within the sefirotic world and thus an essential partof the ten-in-one thatcomprise it. she is often seen as tragicallyseparated,exiled from the higher sefirotic realms, cut off from her sources of sustenance and light. In that mode she is subjectto "capture"and subjegationby the "otherside" of evil. But even shortof her sometimealienation from God, shekhinahis seen as an "emissary"of divinity,a "lad"[na'ar] sent forth into the low-

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs recent examinations,both feminist and phenomenological,of the role of Mary in the devotionallife of LatinChristendomas well as elsewhere, have tended to cast doubt on her "non-god"status,making us wonder how much the denial of her divinity is a matterof theological formalismthat flies in the face of devotionalreality. Does the fact that she is lavishly worshipped,124 addressedin prayer,serves as the object of shrine, pilgrimage, and so many other forms of devotion, not (functionally speaking) make her a "god,"despite the denials of formal church doctrine?125 As the the structureof Kabbalisticsymbolism develops in the thirteenthcenthe triadof hesed-gevurah-tif'eret,the second triad of sefirot, becomes partury, ticularly important,and malkhutor shekhinah is joined as a liminal and passive fourthpartnerto them. These threesefirot representthe threepatriarchsAbraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but King David,the personalembodimentof shekhinah,is their completion.126They are the four directions,with shekhinahbeing west (based on "the shekhinah,has never departedfrom the WesternWall").The threesefirot are also the bundle of greens, palm, myrtle, and willow, used on sukkotand the feminine etrogcompletes them as theirfourth.This oft-repeatedquaternalform is quite directly parallel to the Christiantrinity and the Virgin Mary as a nearly-but-notquite adheringfourth,makingthat trinitytoo into a quaternity.Picture,if you will, a simplified Kabbalistic chart, depicting only those four sefirot. Tif'eret, representing the blessed Holy One or God the Fatheris in the middle. On His right and left are hesed andgevurah,love and power.Seen historically,these two figures are of ancientJewish origin,to be sure,derivedfrommiddatha-din and middatha-rahamimin Talmudicsources.127 But topographically,in termsof the chart,they take er worlds.The relationshipof shekhinahand her servantMetatronis thus complicated,since na 'ar is his title as well. On this see the brief discussion by Tishby in Wisdomof the Zohar, p. 379. 124. Among the most blatant examples of medieval Mary-worship are the "Mirrors"and "Psalters"devoted to her name. In the latter,Psalms are actuallyre-writtento be addressedto her. ElizabethJohnsonquotesfromone of these:"Singto ourLadya new song, forshe has donewondrousthings./ In the sight of the nations she hathrevealedher mercy;hername is heardeven to the ends of the earth." Here Psalm96 is essentially re-writtenin feminine form (some 900 years before Jewish feminists dared to do so!); Mary is clearly in the place of God. See The Mirror of the Blessed VirginMary and the Psalter of our Lady (St. Louis: Herder,1932), cited by E. A. Johnsonin "MarianDevotion in the Western Church"in ChristianSpiritualityII (New York:CrossroadBooks, 1988), p. 395. 125. Cf. E. Ann Matter,"TheVirginMary-A Goddess?"in C. Olson, ed, TheBook of the Goddess: Past and Present (New York:CrossroadBooks, 1985), p. 80-96. My thanksto one of the anonymous readersof this paper for pointing out that the designation of Mary as goddess goes back to the thirteenth-centuryGermanmystic Mechtildof Magdeburg.See her TheFlowing Light of the Godhead 1:22 and 3:9. 126. The association of David with shekhinahmay seem strangeto the modernreader.How is it thatthis most masculineof Biblicalheroesis the humanembodimentof the female? But we shouldrecall thatshekhinahis also frequentlydesignatedas malkhut,the "kingdom"of God,andthatGod'skingdom is represtedon earthby the Houseof David.The medievalDavid is also morefrequentlythe Psalmist than the warrior,and as Psalmist he is depicted as longing for God, calling out for divine closeness, very much as shekhinahdoes in her exile. 127. The replacementof rahamimby hesed as the "rightside" of God is characteristicof Kabbalah and seems to be in place alreadyin Sefer ha-Bahir#132. A fuller history of the relationshipbetween these two terms in the lateraggadic sourcesmight prove interesting.They both appearin the old

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Arthur Green the same places as the Son and the Holy Spirit, to the right and left hand of the Fa-

ther. Below these three, on a rung poised directly between the upper and lower worlds, stands either shekhinahor the Virgin,bride of God, mother of those below, receiving the grace of the upper trinityfor dispensation to the lower world, bringing us lower creaturesthe love and blessing of God, and serving as the gateway to heaven throughwhomprayer is directed in thefaith that she will bring it to God's throneas she comes before/is united with Him. Seen in this comparative structural way, the two traditions are very close indeed. In the following passage the Zohar describes the role of shekhinah in relation to the transcendent God beyond her: Come and see. Thus says Rabbi Shim'on: The blessed Holy One has established before Him a holy, sublime palace, a holy sublime city. It is called Jerusalem, the holy city. One who comes before the King may only enter throughthat city, takingthe pathto the King. It is therethatthe pathproceeds, as Scripture says: "This is the gateway unto the Lord; the righteous walk throughit" (Ps. 118:20). Every message the King requiresgoes forthfromthis Lady's house. Any message from below that is sent to the King arrivesfirst at the house of His Lady,and from there proceeds to the King. The Lady is thus the universalgo-between, from above to below and from below to above. She is the emissary of all, of whom Scripturesays: "The angel of the Lord who goes before the Campof Israelmoved on" (Ex. 14:19). Israel above. "Theangel of the Lord"-the one of whom it says "The Lord walked before them" (Ex. 13:21).128 And that [conclusion of the verse] "to walk day and night,"is as it has been interpreted. Is it in the King's honor that the Lady go and engage in battle, that She be His emissary?l29 But this is like a king who was wedded to a grand lady. He saw how much more glorious she was than any other lady in the world. "Next to mine," he said, "all the others are mere handmaidens.She rises above all. What shall I do for her? My entire household will be in her hands."The king sent forth a decree saying thathenceforthall the king's affairswould be handedover to the lady.Whatdid he do? He placed in her hands all his weapons, all his warriors, all the king's precious stones, all the royal treasures. "Fromnow on,"he said, "anyonewho wants to speak with me may not do so unless he first informs my lady." So the blessed Holy One, out of His great passionate love for Commuthatservebeforethethroneof glory"or"qualities withwhichGodcreatedtheworld," listsof "qualities indicatingthatat an earlypointtherewas a cleardifferencebetweenthem.SeeAvotde-RabbiNatan in Kabbalah, 37. Thisis alsothecase,butquitedifferently, whererahamim becauseof itsplur(perhaps al form)is identifiednotwithhesed,butwithtif'eret/emet/shalom/Jacob, thesixthsefirah. to showthatthe"angel"of 128.TheZoharis usingthe Biblicaltext'sseeminginconsistency Ex. 14:19is "theLord"of Ex. 13:21.Theangelwhois alsotheLordcanbe noneotherthanshekhinah, who is partof Godyet sometimesactsas God'semissary. of din,thedi129.TheZoharcontainsmanypassageswhereshekhinah, as lowermanifestation vineforceofjudgment,is depictedas doingbattleagainsttheforcesof evil.

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs nityof Israel,placedall in herhands.130He said:"Allthe othersarenought comparedto her.""Sixtyqueensand eighty concubines,maidenswithout number;one is my dove,my perfectone"(Cant.6:8-9). WhatshallI do for Her?My entirehouseholdis in Herhands... whoeverneedsMemayspeakto Meonlyif he firstinforms Henceforth my Lady. this [one]mayAaronenterthe Holy" ThusScripturesays:"Through (Lev. 16:3).131

Based on this passage is the following descriptionof shekhinahand her role an by eighteenth-centuryHasidic master,132 showing the long-lasting and popular influence of this key featureof Kabbalisticpiety: Whoeverseeksto comebeforetheKingcannotenterwithoutthe Matronita, as is explainedin theZohar,that"everyrequestthatonemayseekto askis by Firstone mustcome to Her,andby Herone is meansof the Matronita."•33 broughtinwardto the King.Howdoesone come in to Her?By meansof the Shemaywear.ThusShecomesin to the gift thatone bringsher,adornments in thefinerygivenHerby Herpeople.In in dressed Kingglorious adornment, thiswaytheycomebeforethe King.So it is heretoo.134Wemustadornher ThenShecomesbeforethe King. in thefineryof Torahandcommandments. Inthiswaywe [too]enterthe King'spresence.Thisis "Whatshallwe do for Forone oursister(Cant.8:8)"-In whatwayshallwe "greettheShekhinah?" mustcomein to Herfirst."Onthedaywhenshe will be spokenfor"-When thatbeourbehavioris "forHer,"is in accordwithHerTorah,commandments .... comeHeradornments Hereshekhinahas intercessorstandsin directparallelto what is perhapsthe best-knownrole of Mary in the devotionallife of the Catholic Church.The role of Mary as intercessorin prayeris largely a creation of the twelfth-centuryMarian revival.135Like the Kabbalisticshekhinah,Mary is an intermediaryin both directions. By bearing Jesus in her womb, Mary brings heaven's grace to earth, the identification of kenessetyisra'elwithshekhi130.TheZoharhereis defendingtheKabbalists' nah;it is dueto God'suniqueloveforIsraelthatHe haspromotedthemin this seeminglysurprising way. 131.Zohar2:51a.Lev.16:3is takento meanthatshekhinahis thesinglegatewayto thedivine world,the innersanctum,beyond.See also Zohar2:22b,whereit is onlythe unmarried (i.e. virgin) Onceshe is weddedto Moses,it is he whotakeson of theKingwhoservesas intermediary. daughter canspeakto God"faceto face." thatrolesincehe, unlikethepriorpatriarchs, Yeshivath MeorEnaim, 132.R. MenahemNahumof Chernobyl, Me'or'Eynayim (Jerusalem: 1986),p. 251b. 133.See alsoZohar2:200bandR. Margulies' NitsotseyZohar#3. doesnotquitetake 134.Thetextshiftsintoananologicmodeeventhoughthepriorstatement theformof parable. 135.J. Pelikan,MarythroughtheAges(New Haven:YaleUniversityPress,1996),p. 125ff.; in Christian A. Johnson,"Marian DevotionintheWesternChurch" Elizabeth II,ed. J.Raitt Spirituality Books,1988),p. 400-405. (NewYork:Crossroad

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Arthur Green greatest of gifts to humanity.136This places her in the role of mediatrixin the other direction as well, offering the prayersof humanityto her risen Son. Shekhinah too is conduit of divine grace, indeed of the life-force itself, into the lowerworlds. She is active in creation,in revelation,and in the daily conductof the worldthrough divine providence.137As Motherof the lower worldsand as Throneof Divine Glory, it is also she who receives the prayersof humanityand the merits of theirgood deeds. Here the traditionsdiverge along the predictablefault of virginal/celibate versus marital/coitaldifference. Shekhinah,energizedby this flow from below, is herself stirredwith sexual desire. She arouses her husband,the blessed Holy One or the male principle,and he entersher and fills her with the flow of renewedblessing for the world. But there is yet anotherway in which the female figures of intercessionare parallel in the two traditions.Mary as mediatrixand intercessoris relatedin Christianity to the depiction of Mary as Mater Dolorosa, the Motherof Sorrows.She is the woman who has suffered the greatest of humanpain, the death of a beloved child, and yet has borne that pain in faith. It is because of her own sufferingthat she can identify so fully with all the sufferings of humanityand thus bring their prayersbefore God as her own.'38 Shekhinahtoo is seen as a sufferingfigure.This goes back to the old rabbinicdepiction of shekhinah, long before female or maternal imagery crystallized aroundher. "WhereverIsrael were exiled, shekhinah was exiled with them."'39Mary has witnessed the greatest sufferingknownto the Christianimagination:the tormentand death of Jesus on the cross. Shekhinahhas witnessed and taken part in the greatest sufferingexperiencedby the Jewish People: the destructionof the Temple and the exile of Israel. Both sufferingMothers thus serve as bearersof tears as well as prayers."The gates of prayerare closed, but the gates of tears are never closed."'40 The emergence of Kabbalistic symbolism has an importanteffect on the place of eros in all laterJewish devotion. The Kabbalistictexts speak in richly developed and highly pictorial fashion of the inner life of God, the male Deity uniting with his own female Self, ratherthan with the humansoul. The positing of this divine female entity allows passion to emerge fullblown in KabbalisticJudaism. God engages in kissing, in foreplay, and in coitus with shekhinah. This sexual union became the chief fascinationof the CastilianKabbalistsof the late thirteenth century.The writings of these Jewish mystics include incrediblydetailed descrip136. Interestinglythe same Psalmverse, 68:18 ("Youwent up above,took a captive;you brought gifts for man ... ") that the rabbis interpretas referringto Moses' ascent at Sinai is used in Christian traditionin praise of Mary.See Pelikan,op. cit., p. 35. 137. See Tishby, Wisdomof the Zohar, p. 379f., 423ff. 138. The relationshipbetween Mary'sroles as mediatrixand materdolorosa is discussedby Pelikan in op. cit., p. 125ff. JeremyCohen discusses the relationshipof the mater dolorosa motif to the Biblical MotherRachel and to the figure of a victim of the 1096 massacresnamedRachel. See his "The 'Persecutionsof 1096'-From Martyrdomto Martyrology:The SocioculturalContext of the Hebrew Crusade Chronicles"in Zion 59 (1994): 169-208, especially pp. 200ff. 139. b. Megillah 29a. On the sufferingofshekhinah in sympathywith humansuffering,see also b. Hagigah 15b. Of course in the old rabbinicsources "shekhinah"here is nothingother than a way of saying "God suffers with them."IndeedPsalm 91:15, "I am with him is sorrow,"is the usual proof-text. 140. b. Berakhot32b.

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs tions of divine sexuality, male and female arousal, the act of coitus, and climax within God. They speak of human devotion as the "female waters" needed to arouse the zaddik, the ninth sefirah or the "righteousone" within God, but when arousedhe is also the erect cosmic phallus, readyto fill the beloved, the bride, the palace, the holy city, or the great sea with the seed that has been gatheredfrom all the upper reaches. Of course this is speech on a symbolic plane, but it contains endless and sometimes completelyunrepresseddiscussions of the divine male and female. Once both male and female exist within God-and the presence of the female inevitably makes the upper aspect of the deity more clearly defined in its maleness-within the context of a tradition that unambiguously values sexual union andfecundityratherthanvirginityor celibacy,the stage is set for what sometimes indeed feels like "thereturnof the repressed,"an erotic language that would shock most Westernsensibilities in its fullness of variety and detail. Human love and propermaritalsexuality are seen as earthly copies of these cosmic/symbolic processes, copies flawed by their fleshy natureand corruptiblethrough demonic forces everpoised to turnhumansexualityinto sin ratherthanholy fulfillment. But at theirbest, when living within the law and and having propermoral attitudes,the Kabbalistand his wife in sacredunion are earthlyembodimentsof the innerdivine kiss and of the coital embracethat takes place within the Godhead.141 This font of erotic mythos dominates in the writings of the Castilian Kabbalah, and especially the Zohar,the great compendiumof medieval Spanish Kabbalah.Afterthe Torahtext and the Psalter,the Song of Songs is probablythe most widely quoted Biblical source in the Zoharliterature.There is hardlya page in the Zoharthat is not replete with the lush imagery of the Canticle'sgardens, streams, fountains, and lovers' embrace.142Indeed, once eros is given free rein by the in141. We should add here thatthere is just a bit of evidence for the involvementof real women, the wives of Kabbalists,in thinkingabout or acting out sexual activity as an act of imitatio dei. (Generally the sources are silent aboutany such praxis and seem more interestedin guardingagainst excess than in celebratingthe humanacting out of cosmic sexual joy.) The anonymousthirteenth-centuryIggeret ha-Qodesh(ed. prin. Rome, 1546), serves as a manualfor sexual conduct. While devoting much of its attentionto the male partner,it does instructhim to "appeasehis wife and make her happy,preparing her and drawingher forth by such things [or "words"]as bring happiness to her heart, so that she agree with [his] pure and righteousthoughts.Thus they will be one regardingthis mizvah [the sexual act]. Then theirthoughtwill be bound as one, shekhinahwill dwell between them, and they will bring forth a son fitting to the holy form they have pictured."Both partnersare to concentrateon the divine anthropicform duringintercourse,the beautyof the union above.The verbyetsayyeru["havepictured"] indicatesthatthey may do so in somewhatgraphicterms, and the child of their union will be in the image of that beautiful divine form they have gazed upon during lovemaking. Kitvey RaMBaN, v. 2, p. 331 (Jerusalem:Mossad Ha-RavKook,1964). The fact thatthis text was long attributedto Nahmanides certainlyaddedto its prestige and influence over the course of many generations.In the same spirit is the reportin Moshe Ibn Machir'sSeder Ha-Yom(Israel:Mefitsey Or, n.d.; reprintof Lvov, 1858[?], 22a) thaton Fridayafternoonsthe "earlyhasidim"(i.e., the Kabbalistsof Safed) "wouldimmersethemselves togetherwith their wives, to unite their hearts in a single place."Seder Ha-Yomwas first published in Venice, 1599. Insofar as we know, Kabbalistic sexuality is largely a world of symbolically laden fantasy,conceived and discussed in an entirely male setting.This point was first made by M. D. Georg [=Jiri] Langerin Die Erotikder Kabbalah,Prague:Dr. Josef Flesch, 1923. Much discussion of it is to be found in the writings of Elliot Wolfson (see following note). 142. The section of the Zohar specifically devoted to the Song of Songs, Zohar Hadash 60b-

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Arthur Green troductionof the divine female, the Kabbalistis able to rediscovererotic meanings throughoutthe Song, some of which turn out to be nothing but long-forgottenpeshat, symbols of male and female in the trees, streams,and fountainsof the garden already in the Biblical text itself. The spring of sacred eros continues to flow in Kabbalisticcreativitydown throughthe seventeenthcentury,includingboth the Lurianicand Sabbatianexpansions of the Zoharicmyth. This liberationof the spiritual-eroticmuse in Judaismcan only happenonce the female hypostasis has been set in place. No mere exegetical exercise, this new reading of the Canticle is an essential transformationin the language and logic of sacred love in the context of Judaism.Due to the influence of the Zohar,the language of sacred eros would come to play a very majorrole throughoutlater Jewish piety. There is good reason to believe that this transformationtook place in Franceand NorthernSpainin the twelfth andthirteenthcenturiesin the directpresence of the Marianrevival,which was producinga morepassionateChristianreading of that shared Scriptureon love than any the Jews had yet dared. III In its precedingsections, this study has referredbroadlyto the Christianculturalcontext in which Kabbalahbegan to emerge. It sought out structuraland symbolic parallels between the treatmentof the divine (or quasi-divine)female in the two traditions,particularlyshowing that the complex of symbols aroundshekhinah, including its identification as divine bride and as kenessetyisra 'el, is parallel to a similar symbolic constructin Christianity. We turn now to an examination of certain passages from Christiancommentaries on the Song of Songs with the "eye" of a studentof Kabbalah.While I have no evidence that Jews read these specific commentaries,'43the internalpar75a, is but a small portionof the Zohar'streatmentof the Canticle, covering only the first ten verses of ChapterOne. Anotherextended discussion of the Song is found in Zohar2:143a-145b.A collection of the manyZoharpassagesthatinterpretthe Song of Songs is foundin IsaacCrispin'sZehoreyHamah(Salonkia, 1738). Something similar (with Hebrewtranslation)is containedin the seventh volume ofYudl Rosenberg'sZohar Torah(Bilgoray, 1930). The role of eros in the Zohar literature,significantly underplayedby such earlier scholars as Scholem and Tishby,has been a key subjectof recent scholarship.YehudaLiebes' essay Zoharve-Eros, Alpayyim9 (1994): 67-119, is the pioneering work in this field, presentinga nuancedview of the erotic fantasy that he sees as underlyinga great deal of the Zoharmythology. Eliot Wolfson goes significantly fartherthan Liebes in claiming that obsession with the phallus and with gender transformation (the absorptionof the female within the male) is the very centerof Kabbalisticesotericism. Both Liebes and I have been critical of some of his views. See my review of his Througha Speculumthat Shines: Visionand Imaginationin MedievalJewish Mysticismin History of Religions (1997): 265-274. Wolfson's rejoinderappearsin his "Occultationof the Feminineand the Body of Secrecy in Medieval Kabbalah"in E. Wolfson, ed., Rending the Veil(New York:Seven Bridges Press, 1999), p. 353, endnote 6. My agreementwith some of Wolfson'sreadingsof the sources (as well as my greatrespectfor his scholarship) is greaterthan is obvious from the polemical expressions of our positions in those statements. 143. Partof the problemin claiming Jews readChristiancommentarieshas to do with language. It is generally thought that very few Jews, even among the educated elite, were able to read Latin. It should also be noted, however,that there were vernacularChristiancommentarieson the Canticle as early as the twelfth century.Most famous is the St. TrudperterHohelied, made for female monastics.

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs allels between the Christianand Kabbalisticlanguages of eros are quite striking.I believe that an examinationof these Christiansources from the point of view of comparisonto Kabbalistic symbolism will force us to admit at least a possibility that the language of sacred love was read or heard across the generally rigid communal and linguistic divide that separatedJewish and Christianreligious creativity. I am interestedin demonstratinghere thatthe type of thoughtthat characterizes Kabbalisticeros, the complex symbolic interfacing of lover and beloved, including the multiple faces of gender,are to be found in ChristianFranceof the twelfth century.The spirit of the age is very much manifest in these writings. That spirit, I want to suggest, is the spirit of Kabbalahas well. Of course the notion that Kabbalahwas influenced by Christianityand thus will reflect certain hidden Christianstructuralelements is by no means new. Renaissance Christiansbecame interestedin Kabbalahout of a similarbelief,144 and one may say that the whole edifice of ChristianKabbalah is built around it.145 The TrudperterHohelied, which makes use of both Bernardand Honorius, was widely distributedin the southernpartof the German-speakinglands and influencedmany vernacularsermons and popular tracts. See the recent edition by E Ohly and N. Kleine, St. TrudperterHohelied: eine Lehreder liebenden Gotteserkentnis(Frankfurtam Main: Deutscher KlassikerVerlag, 1998), and the study by H. E. Keller, Wortund Fleisch: Koerperallegorien,mystischeSpiritualitaet,und Dichtung des St Trudperter Hoheliedes im Horizant der Inkarnazion(Frankfurtam Main: P. Lang, 1989). See also J. Van Engen, Rupertof Deutz (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), p. 180ff. On the Jewish side there were vernacularold-Yiddish paraphrasesof the Song of Songs by the fourteenthcentury.These have been studiedprimarilyby Karl Habersaat.Thatthe Christianvernacularliteraturecame into the hands of Jews is by no means implausible,althoughoral conversation,including disputation,seems the more likely route for passing this sort of awareness. 144. Ratherthan claiming Christianinfluence on Kabbalah,Pico della Mirandola(1463-94) and otherssaw the Kabbalisticteachings as stemming from a lost ancientrevelationthat would provide the true key to understandingChristianityitself, along with Orphic and other ancient esoteric texts. ChristianKabbalistsin the sixteenth century identified Mary with shekhinah, a naturalmove in their attemptto unite the two traditions.See Genevieve Javary,"A propos du theme de la Sekina:Variations sur le nom de Dieu,"in KabbalistesChretiens,ed. A Faivreand N. Tristan(Paris:Albin Michel, 1979), p. 294 and 302ff. See also her full-lengthtreatmentin Recherchessur l'utilisation du themede la Sekina dans l'apologetique chretiennedu quinziemeau dix-huitiemesiecle (Paris:Champion, 1977). 145. A great deal has been writtenon the ChristianKabbalah.The essential introductionsto the subjectare those of Joseph Blau, The ChristianInterpretationof the Cabala in the Renaissance (Port WashingtonNY: KennikatPress, 1944) and Francois Secret, Les Kabbalistes Chretiansde la Renaissance (Paris, n.p. 1964). For a bibliographythrough the 1960's see G. Scholem in Encyclopedia Judaica, v. 10, p. 652f. Major writings in more recent times include Philip Beitchman,Alchemy of the Word:Cabala of the Renaissance (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998); Allison P. Coudert, The Impactof the Kabbalahin the SeventeenthCentury:TheLife and Thoughtof Francis Mercuryvan Helmont (16141698) (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Essays collected by Joseph Dan in The ChristianKabbalah:Jewish Mystical Books and TheirChristianInterpreters(Cambridge,MA: HarvardCollege Library,1997); Moshe Idel, "The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretationsof the Kabbalah in the Renaissance,"Jewish Thoughtin the Sixteenth Century,ed. BernardD. Cooperman(Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press, 1983), pp. 186-242 (Reprintedin Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy,ed. D. Ruderman(New York:NYU Press, 1992); KabbalistesChretiens,essays edited byA. Faivre and E Tristan(Paris:Albin Michel, 1978); CatherineSwietlicki,SpanishChristianCabala: The Worksof Luis de Leon, Santa Teresade Jesus, and San Juan de la Cruz(Columbia,MO: Universityof Missouri Press, 1986); Hayyim Wirszubski, Three Chapters of Christian Kabbalah, Jerusalem, 1975 and A ChristianKabbalistreads the Torah,Jerusalem,1977 (both in Hebrew).

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Arthur Green Much of non-Jewish interest in Kabbalah,even in modem times, has still been shaped by this view.146Among Jewish scholars in the nineteenth century, some saw Christianinfluence as a majorfactorin the emergenceof Kabbalah,thoughin a more realistic historicalsetting.147Gershom Scholem, with his Jewish nationalist-historical view of Kabbalah,148 as well as his strong sense that the mysticism of each traditionwas unique to it and representeda specific stage in its development, set aside the questionof Christianinfluence.A generationlater,however,the question was treatedanew by YehudaLiebes in his landmarkarticle "ChristianInfluences in the Zohar."'149 Liebes points to several areas of Christianinfluence, based primarilyon a suggestion of the Kabbalists'fascination with Christianity, including a certain flirtationwith trinitarianism,in a numberof specific passages within the Zohar.15soLiebes has also suggested that the community of disciples aroundR. Simeon ben Yohai,a subjectof the Zoharnarrativethat is key to his understandingof that entire work, is reminiscentof the apostles and their community aroundJesus. He does not deal, however,with the Marianquestion. 146. See Adolph Franck,TheKabbalahor the ReligiousPhilosophyof the Hebrews(New York: KabbalahPublishing Co., 1926). The Frenchoriginal, publishedin 1843, was a landmarkquasi-modem study of Kabbalah.Francksees Kabbalah'sorigins in the "orientalphilosophy"or mysteryreligions of late antiquity.The commonalitiesof Kabbalahand Christianityareexplainedby the fact of this common age and source.ArthurE. Waite(TheSecretDoctrine in Israel;London:Wm Riderand Son, 1913), the most importantand criticalof the "occultist"writersin the earlytwentiethcenturyentertainsbut rejects as "misleading"the notion that "[shekhinah]occupies in Kabbalahthe same position of intercessor as is ascribedto the Blessed Virginby the devotion of the LatinChurch,yet havingregardto shekhinah's incorporationwith the Divine Hypostases."(p. 215) Much of Waite'seffortin this book, however, is to providea counterweightto De Pauly'sthenrecentlypublishedFrenchtranslationof the Zohar,which treatedthe work openly as one filled with secret Christiancontent. 147. The most perceptiveof these was Adolph Jellinek. See his Beitraege zur Geschichteder Kabbala (Leipzig: C. L. Fritzsche, 1852), and especially part2, p. 51ff, "ChristlicherEinfluss auf der Kabbala."This view was sharedby HeinrichGraetzand otherswho were less sympatheticthanJellinek towardKabbalah.It played a majorrole in emergingmodem Jewry'splacing of Kabbalahin the "margins" of Jewish religious history,outside the "mainstream." 148. See the article by Amnon Raz-Krokotzkindiscussed in n. 104 above. On the place of Kabbalah in Scholem's Jewish culturalnationalistideology, see also David Biale, GershomScholem:Kabbalah and Counter-History(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress, 1979). 149. Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought2 (1982/83) 43-74 (Hebrew).English translationin his Studies in the Zohar (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993), pp. 139-161. 150. To Liebes' list of such references I would like to add Zohar 2: 147a: "Attachmentto the Fatheris through His Son."The Zohar is speaking the language of sefirotic symbolism; the "Son" is Jacob, the sixth sefirah, while the Fatheris the reconditehokhmah,the second sefirah. Still the passage is remarkablyreminiscentof John 3:35-36 and 14:6, "No man comes to the Fatherbut throughme." The Zohar context depicts Jacob, God personified as a male figure, as the one through whom kisses come from the hidden God who is beyond all personification.This is relatedto the well-known change in person in the opening verse of the Song of Songs: "Lethim kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your kisses are betterthan wine." "Him"here would refer to the hidden Godhead,while "your"is God in the form of Jacob, surpringlyreferredto as the "son."Thereis also likely an unspokenreferencehere to Psalm 2:12: "kiss the son," interpretedChristologicallythroughoutthe history of Christianexegesis. As Liebes makes clear, the point of noting such passages is not to claim that the Zohar'sauthors were crypto-Christians,but ratherthat they were awareof ChristianScriptureand enjoyedteasing with the possibilities it affordedto the Kabbalisticmind.

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Shekhinah, The Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs As indicatedpreviously,the Marianrevival in twelfth-centuryFranceis especially representedin commentarieson the Song of Songs.151 In both the tropological and the Mariologicalinterpretationsthe issue of gender, both within God and within the beloved (or the community of the beloved), is treated in complex and subtle ways. We will come presentlyto the Mariological tradition,where'52 the issues are somewhat clearer.But let us turn first to Bernard,the most important figure among the Cistercians,who subscribemostly to the tropological reading. Actually,like all latter-dayinterpreters,he combines his approachwith the older one. The ecclesia is indeed Christ'sbeloved for Bernard.But this is also the pre-existentecclesia, identicalwith the heavenlyJerusalem, who has been Christ's bride since the beginning of time.153In his earthlyincarnation,says Bernard,the eternalChrist cameto seek a bride[thechurch,the earthlyecclesia],buthe did not come withoutone. He soughta bride,butshe was [already]withhim.Hadhe then twobrides?Surelynot, "Oneis my dove(Cant.6:8)"... althoughfromthe beginninghe hadas a bridethemultitudeof angels,it pleasedhimto summon thechurchfromamongmenanduniteit withtheone fromheaven,thatthere be butone brideandone Bridegroom.154 This union of the primordialbride with the earthlybride or church, so "thatthere be but one bride and one Bridegroom"seems remarkablylike that which the Kabbalists were to do in uniting the heavenly divine manifestation called shekhinah with what had until then been kenessetyisra 'el, the earthly community of Israel. God has a bride above but He chooses to make her one with the community of Israel, so thatthere be "butone bridegroomand one bride."We will see more of this parallelfurtheron. But let us continuewith Bernard.The bride Christalreadyhad, before coming to earthas Jesus, is made visible in the incarnationas she is manifest within Christ: These two then have their origin in heaven-Jesus the Bridegroomand thebride.He, in orderto be seenby men,"emptiedhimself,taking Jerusalem the formof a servant,beingbornin the likenessof men(Phillipians2:11)." Butthebride-in whatformorexteriorloveliness... didSt Johnsee her?155 ... He sawthebridewhenhe lookedon theWordmadeflesh,andacknowledgedtwonaturesin one flesh... we cameto knowthevisibleimageandradiantcomelinessof thatsupernalJerusalem,our mother,revealedto us in 151. A mosaic in the churchof S. MariaTrasteverein Rome, dated c. 1140, shows in its lower panels scenes from the life of Mary.Above them the Virgin is seated at Christ'sright hand,crowned, and holding a copy of the Song of Songs. 152. Michael Casey, Athirstfor God: Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs, (Kalamazoo,CistercianPublications,1988), p. 192f. 153. Christis bridegroomor husbandof the churchalreadyin the writingsof Paul;cf. Ephesians 5, wherethe relationshipof husbandsand wives is comparedto thatof Christand the church.The heavenly Jerusalemis Christ'sbride in Revelation21. 154. Bernard,Homilies on the Song of Songs 27:6. 155. Referringto Revelation21:9ff.

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Arthur Green Christandby his means.Whatdid we beholdif not the bridein the bridegroom?Whatdid we admirebut thatpersonwho is the Lordof glory,the deckedwitha garland,thebrideadornedwithherjewels?.. . the Bridegroom as bodyis one andsameLordwho as headof the churchis the bridegroom, thebride.156 The incarnateChrist, in other words, is androgynous.'57He is male insofar as he seeks the earthlybride, the churchor the soul. But he also contains within him the eternalfemale, knownhere as the heavenly Jerusalem.She is the eternalbridewith whom the earthly soul will be joined as one, as she too becomes Christ'sbride. Bernardoffers a strikinglydifferent reading here of the classic formula "two natures in one flesh," using it to refer to Christ'smale and female aspects. The androgynousnatureof the KabbalisticGod is well-known and has been much discussed. The ancient aggadah'58 containsa Platonicallybased tale thatdescribes Adam as an androynousbeing, a sort of Siamese twin of both genderswho had to be separatedat the rear in order to turn face-to-face to him/herself. This myth, which serves as an etiology of humansexual differenceand attraction,is applied by the earliest Kabbalists'59to God; it is then in imitatio Dei that Adam is bi-gendered.The back-to-backjoining and the need for separationand turningoccured in the first place within the Godhead,in relationto the "male"and "female" aspects of the divine Self.'60 That the female is originally seen as containedwithin the male also fits with much of what one finds in the Kabbalisticmaterials.161 Thatthese are apre-existentpair is taken for grantedby the entireKabbalisticcon156. Bernard,Homilies on the Song of Songs 27:7. 157. See the discussion of this passage by McGinn in History, v. 2, p. 178f. Although noting the parallel to the Jewish mystical interpretation,McGinn does not deal with the seeming parallelto the Kabbalisticnotion of primordialdivine androgyny.On the androgynyof Christ'sbody in some medieval depictions, see CarolineW. Bynum, Fragmentationand Redemption:Essays on Genderand the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York:Zone Books, 1991), p93ff. and extensive notes there. See also other writings of Bynum cited throughoutthis essay. 158. b. Berakhot61a. 159. Althoughthis "secret"is not discussed explicitelyin the Bahir,it may lie in the background of such passages as #55 and #116-117, where referenceis made to the original oneness of the divine male/female syzygy. For a more open Kabbalisticdiscussion of this myth see TodrosAbulafia'sOtsar ha-Kavod to the Berakhot61a passage; ed. Warsaw,1879, 9a. 160. Kabbalistsunderstandthis mythas referringto the sixth andtenthsefirot, the second male/ female syzygy of their symbolic universe. The primal male/female pair, hokhmahand binah, exist in a properly ordered and eternally undisturbedflow, that of "two lovers never separated."But the relationship of the sixth sefirah, often called tif'eret ("glory"),and the tenth, malkhutor shekhinah,is the chief subjectof the Zohar and otherworks of CastilianKabbalah.These two emergedas a single entity, were separated,turned face-to-face, and exist in a state that alternatesbetween harmoniousmarital union and exile/alienation of the female. Much of the reality of Jewish history is reflected in the instability of this symbolic configuration,including the old rabbinicclaim that"whereverIsraelwereexiled, shekhinahwas exiled with them."Shekhinah'sexile from her spouse is the divine prototypeof Israel's exile. 161. The inclusion or reabsorptionof the female within the male is a key theme in E. Wolfson's understandingof Kabbalah.See discussion in his Circle in the Square:Studies in the Use of Genderin Kabbalistic Symbolism(Albany: SUNY Press, 1995) and more recently in the essay referredto in n. 142 above.

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs text. It is interestingto note that the heavenly Temple (parallel to the "heavenly Jerusalem"here), a figure to be identified with shekhinah,is also listed in the Talmud162as one of "seven things that were createdbefore the world came to be." It will also come as no surprise to readers of the Jewish sources that this Christiantext understandsthatthe soul of Christis male andthat "theone and same Lord ... as body is the bride."Here is the ubiquitousNeo-Platonism that underlies most Westernmystical traditions,assigning soul-like qualities to the male and those of the body to the female. This view too is widely evident in Kabbalistic sources. 163

We turnnow to two furtherpassages fromthe Homilies on the Song of Songs by Bernardand two from the Seal of the Blessed Virginby Honorius Augustodunensis,all reflectingtypes of exegesis and/or the use of specfic symbols that are also found in Kabbalah.First let us see Bernard'scomments on the "polished arrow"of Isaiah49:2.164 The verse in its entiretyreads:"He has made my mouthlike a sharpswordand has hidden me in the shadow of His hand;He has fashionedme into a polished arrow,placing me in His quiver."Bernardsays that Thisis thespecialloveof Christ,whichnotonlypiercedMary'ssoulbutpenetratedthroughandthrough,so thateventhetiniestspacein hervirginalbreast waspermeated shewouldlovewithherwholeheart,her by love.Thenceforth wholesoul, andherwholestrength,andbe full of grace.It transpierced her thusthatit mightcomedownevento us, andof thatfullnesswe mightall receive.Shewouldbecomethemotherof thatlovewhosefatheris theGodwho is love;andwhenthatlovewasbroughtto birthhe wouldplacehis tentin the 162. b. Pesahim 54a and Nedarim 39b. 163. See the Zohar'sMidrash ha-Ne 'elam for an extended allegory of Abrahamas soul and Sarahas body.The parallelof this text to Philo'sreadinghas been noted and was the subjectof a study by SamuelBelkin,"TheMidrashHa Naeelam [!] of the Zoharand Its Sourcesin AlexandrianLiterature" in Sura: Israeli-AmericanAnnual 3 (1957-58): pp. 25-92 (Hebrew). There is apparentlyno historic connection between Philo and the Midrash ha-Ne 'elam other than that borne by Christianity.Philo's work was unknownto post-AlexandrianJews until AzariahDi Rossi's reclamationof it in the sixteenth century.The seeming Philonicinfluencethen becomes a questionof paralleland independenttypologies of thoughtor else some possible influence by Christianneo-Platonic interpretationof Genesis. The latter seems possible but has not yet been demonstrated. 164. Sermon 29; p. 109. It is noteworthythat the "dart"or "polished arrow"of Isaiah 49:2 is associatedwith the exegesis of the Song of Songs alreadyby Origen. See his Commentary,book three, Lawsontranslationp. 198. Of course this Christianreadingof Isaiah may have behind it the arrowsof Cupid,an association not to be found among the Jewish interpreters.Unlike Christians,Jews did not see themselves as heirs to the world of classical mythology.The wounding of Mary with the arrowof love is the scene commemoratedby Bernini in the well-known statue in Santa Mariadella Vittoriain Rome. This is also the arrowor dartof love with which St. Teresaof Avila was wounded:"an arrow... driveninto the very depths of the entrails,and sometimes into the heart, so thatthe soul does not know either what is the matterwith it or what it desires ... The arrow seems to have been dipped in some drug which leads it to hate itself for the love of this Lord so that it would gladly lose its life for Him." Vida29:13; English translationfrom The CompleteWorksof Saint Teresaof Jesus, tr. E. Allison Peter (London:Sheedand Ward,1944), p. 191. See the treatmentof this "arrowof love" by BernardMcGinn in "Tropicsof Desire: Mystical Interpretationof the Song of Songs" in That Others May Know and Teach:Essays in Honor of ZacharyHayes (FranciscanInstitute, 1997).

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Arthur Green be fulfilled:"Iwill makeyouthelightof thenationsso sun,thattheScripture thatyoumaybe my salvationto the endsof theearth(Is.49:6)." Reading this text as though Bernardwere a (Christian)Kabbalistratherthana Cistercian, I would understandhim to be saying that Christ'slove is an arrowthat enters Mary and fills her with love of heart,soul, andmight. She is so filled with love from above that her overflowing of love is passed on to us. But Mary is also the tent that the arrowof God's love has pierced and filled. As the arrowpierces her, that tent (like Jerusalem, a conventional term for the feminine tenth sefirah) is "placed in the sun,"a referenceto Psalm 19:5. If I allow myself to look a bit more deeply at this text from the viewpoint of a contemporaryKabbalahscholar, I would say that the arrowis an obvious sexual symbol; it is by the "arrow"of God that Marybecomes impregnated,filled with grace, indeed so filled that she gives birth to the Son/Redeemer. He in turn becomes the new bridegroomalludedto by the referenceto Psalm 19:5. The one who "places his tent in the sun" is there (19:6) "like a bridegroomcoming forth from his chamber,"Christthe bridegroomemerging from the womb of Mary.The love of God fills Mary and from her overflows into the person of her son, bringingthat love into the worldin his birth.Shekhinahtoo is filled to overflowingwith the malegenerated love that flows from above until that blessing pours forth into the lower worlds as well. One of the key symbols of shekhinah in the Zoharis that of the sea.'65The upper sefirot are streamsthat flow into the single sea; Ecclesiastes 1:7 ("All the streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is not full. To the place where the streams flow, they flow yet again.") is frequently quoted in this connection.'66 Israel, throughthe powerof theirprayers,raise shekhinahback to her source, causing the waters to renew their flow. Here is the opening of Bernard'sthirteenthhomily on the Song of Songs: Justas thesea is theultimatesourceof wellsandrivers,so ChristtheLordis theultimatesourceof all virtueandknowledge.Forwhohasthepowerto endowus withvirtuesif nothe whois theKingof Glory?Andwhatarewe told in the Songof Hannah(1 Sam.2:3) butthatGodHimselfis the Lordof all knowledge?HencefromHimas froma well-headcomesthepowerto be pure in body,diligentin affectionanduprightin will ... Aretheynotall streams fromthatone spring?If the watersthatsurroundus inevitablyreturnto the sea by hiddenundergroundchannels, only to gushforth again withoutfail and without wearinessfor the refreshingof our sight and the relief of our needs, why should not those spiritual streams returnunerringlyand withoutceasing

to irrigateoursouls? to theirnativesource,andflowbackwithoutinterruption Let the rivers of grace circle back to their Fountain-Headthat they may run their course anew (Ecc. 1:7). Let the torrentthat springs in heaven be channelled back to its starting-point,and be poured on the earth again withfertil165.SeeTishby, Wisdom of theZohar,p. 161. ha-Ketuvah 166.Hyman'sHa-Torah veha-Messurah (TelAviv: Dvir, 1939) lists twenty-five ciSha'areyOrah,ed. Ben-Shelomo, tationsof thisversein theZohar.See also Gikatilla's p. 61f.

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs Youaskhowthiswillbe done.Itwillbe doneinaccordwithPaul's izingpower. advice:"Inall thingsgive thanksto God(1 Thess.5:18)."If you can credit yourselfwith wisdomor with virtue,realizethatthe creditis due ratherto Christ,whois thePowerandWisdomof God.167 By giving credit to God, by acknowledging Him as the source of our own powersof virtue,we cause the watersof the spiritualsea to flow back into the fountainhead,so thatthe streammay refreshus yet again. The studentof Kabbalahwill recognize the parallel to the key symbolic structurein Zoharic literature.We receive the flow of divine energies through the streams that flow into the sea of malkhutor shekhinah.Ourjob is to re-energizethem and returnthem by uplifting shekhinahto unite with their source, so that they may flow back to us yet again. In anotherpassage, speaking in a more Marian context, Bernardactually refers to Mary as a kind of spiritualaqueduct:the divine waters flow downwardto bless us on earthandthe Virginbecomes an aqueductthroughwhich we areable to lift them back to their source in God!168 Now it is true that both traditions worked from the same Scriptureand reflected on the same naturalsurroundings.It is indeed possible that each independently came up with this notion of a cycle of spiritualenergy as the undiminishable watersof the sea. But the mechanism of renewal is so similarthat we cannot entirelydismiss the possibility of historical and culturallinks, as well as typological parallels,between them. One reasonwhy scholarshave not noticed these parallelsuntil now is the rejection by Scholem andTishby'69of "allegory"as a way of understandingthe Kabbalists'readingof Scripture.Workingfrom a ratherrigid definition of allegory,one they associatedwith the remezlevel of Jewish philosophical exegesis, they sought a completely differentterm to representsod, or the Kabbalisticunderstandingsof the text. These, they insisted,were symbolic readings,over the allegorical.Allegory was depicted by them as unidimensionaland fixed, while symbols were freeflowing, associative, and multivocal.Allegory was thus always readily capable of specific decoding, in which the object in the narrativeis "replaced"by the significant it represented,while the symbol is itself uplifted by and included in the "field" of holiness createdby symbolic thinking.Thatwhich is representedby the symbols remainsmysteriouslyelusive and is given form only by the aggregate of its symbolicrepresentations.Totakea Kabbalisticexample,we may not know what binah, the thirdsefirah, representswithin the divine realm;its essence, like that of all the sefirot, necessarily transcendsour comprehension. (The literal translation of binah as "understanding"adds very little.) We come to grasp it ever so slightly, however,by referringto the key symbolic terms associated with binah, including "mother,""womb,""jubilee,""repentance,""palace,""quarry,""fountain,"and 167. On the Song of Songs I, p. 87f. Emphasis mine. 168. Bernardof Clairvaux,De aquaeductu,cited in E. A. Johnson's"MarianDevotion in the WesternChurch,"p. 413, n. 9. 169. See Scholem'sdiscussions in On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism(index, s.v. "allegory") andTishby'sin "Ha-Semelveha-Datba-Kabbalah,"the opening essay in his collection NetiveyEmunah u-Minut(TelAviv: Massada, 1964).

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Arthur Green "upperEden."Puttingall of those togethergives us an animatedsense of binah as a deep and primary source of love-energy within the Godhead, and a source to which all return.That is as close as we can come to "decoding"the Kabbalistic symbol. We are usually taughtto think of Bernard,along with otherChristiansof this age, as speaking allegorically when they interpreta text like the Song of Songs. But this allegory versus symbol distinction, going back to Scholem's early conversations with Walter Benjamin,170is overplayed.The category of allegory is broaderthan that allotted to it by this typological distinction.Allegory is not limited to a simplistic x=y system of replacement.Subtlety and multivocalityare by no means lacking in the Christianreadingsof Scripturethat are termed"allegory." Complex theories of allegory and its ways of representingrealityare articulatedas early as Augustine and John Cassius (fifth century).171These classic definitions were used ratherloosely by Westernwritersin the MiddleAges. When theirprose descriptions are allowed to flow freely, as is naturallythe case especially in homiletic texts, there emerges an exegetical poesis that is often quite complex, with levels of meaning playing off against one another.The result is closer to what Scholem calls "symbolism"than we might have expected. There does remain a difference between Christianand Kabbalistic usage, however. Only the latter developed a fixed system of allegorical equivalences, a grid of symbols in which terms or verbalpictureswhose meaning was established could replace and weave in and out of one another.In the Christianinterpretations, as in non-KabbalisticHebrewtexts, the primaryreferents(Christ,Mary)could not be let go of. The Kabbalist(especially in the Zohar literature)can speak in extenso aboutthe well, the garden,the six days of the week, and the moon, the sea, and Jerusalemwithout touching back to tell us at all that he is referringto elements 2, 3, 6, and 10 in the sefirotic system, or to such conventionalnames as hokhmah,binah, tif'eret, and malkhut.Even were he to do so, he would only be tradingsymbol for symbol. Thereis no concrete referencepoint in these hypostases,which are in fact nothing but clusters of symbolic associations.The grammarof the symbolic language being spoken here has been wholly absorbed,allowing for a freedom of image-playpreviouslyunimagined.This refinementin the use of verbalpictures might indeed be expected of a traditionthat, while suffering no lack in the richness of its pictorial imagination,was neverthelesslimited by its aniconic prohibitions to the expression of such imagery throughthe medium of words alone. The Jews may have felt the greater need to create this special symbolic language because they did not have recourse to expression in the medium of pictorial art.172 170. See the very importantdiscussion by Susan Handelmanin Fragmentsof Redemption,p. 105ff. See also the earliercomments by FrankTalmagein "Applesof Gold: The InnerMeaningof Sacred Texts in Medieval Judaism"in Jewish SpiritualityI, ed. A. Green (New York:CrossroadBooks, 1988), p. 341. 171. See the treatmentin Matter, Voice,pp. 49ff. 172. In this regardI have some reservationaboutthe claims of KalmanBland'smost interesting TheArtless Jew: Medieval and ModernAffirmationsand Denials of the Visual(Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2000). I fear that in the course of polemic he tends to underestimatethe toll takenby the stricturesof the second commandment(even in its narrowreading).Becauseof it, the Kabbalistswere

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Shekhinah,The Virgin Mary,and the Song of Songs While these differences are importantfor the reader of texts from the two traditions,there is nothing in them to preventour viewing such symbols in a crosstraditionalcomparativeway. The ultimate meaning of the parallels we find, like their genesis, remains somewhatbeyond reach. There are some places where the Biblical text itself seems to dictate a bit of symbolic structure,andtherewe shouldnot be surprisedby the parallelsin the two traditions.Such is the case, for example, in Canticles 2:6: "His left hand is beneath my head and his right hand embraces me." Thus we are not surprised to hear Bernard,after expressing consternationover the blatantphysicality of the image, come to familiarconclusions: Whatmorearewe to thinkthelefthandandtherightareforthebridegroom, theWord?Does thatwhichis calledthe wordof manhavewithinit separate bodilyparts,distinctfeatures,anda differencebetweenthe left side andthe All themoredoesHewhois GodandtheWordof Godnotadmitdiright?173 versityof anykind.He is who He is, so simplein his naturethatHe has no parts,so muchone thathe is withoutnumber... Butwe speakas well as we as the HolySpiritreveals... canof thatwhichwe do ourbestto understand, are as and Therefore, adversity prosperity usuallydesignatedby thelefthand as theWord's andtheright,it seemsto me thatheretheleftmaybe interpreted therightas his promiseof thekingdom.'74 threatof punishment, After the familiarapologies, this interpretationis very much like the Jewish readings that see God's "left" standing for divine justice and retribution,while His "right"is the force of compassion and forgiveness. But Bernardthen employs anotherBiblical text to move on fromthis distinctionbetween "right"and "left,"opting for thatwhich comes between them. This seems very like the Kabbalisticpreference for the "centralcolumn"of the sefirot. We read a bit furtheron in Bernard's text: "Ifyousleepinthemiddleof thechosenlots,therearedove-wingscoveredwithsilver."(Psalm68:14)WhatI thinkthismeansis thatthereis a place betweenfearandsecuritylikethatbetweenthe left armandthe right,a centralhope,as it were,in whichthe mindandconscienceveryhappilyrepose uponthesoftbedof love.Andperhapsthisplaceis referredto in a subsequent textof this Song,wherein a descriptionof the throneof Solomonyou have of Jerusalem" thefollowing:"themidsthe coveredwithloveforthedaughters (Cant. 3:10).175 fromdisplayingtheirimage-laden andrichlypictorialconceptionsof theGodheadin visual prevented on canmedia.Imaginehowdifferenttheculturallegacyof Jewrywouldbe if we hadrepresentations andthebride,the streams andhermaidens,thedivinebridegroom vasorin stainedglassof shekhinah hillsof Lebanon,andintothegreat of divinegraceflowingforthfromEden,downfromthepatriarchal sea! Christobviouslyhasa body,two hands,andthereforea rightand 173.Althoughtheincarnate andentirelysimple left,therisenChristorthesecondpersonof thetrinityspokenof hereis incorporeal and"left." thuswithoutsuchcorporealdistinctionsas "right" (inthesenseof indivisibility), 174.Sermonson the Songof Songs51:7-8, Englisheditionp. 45f. 175.Bernard, op. cit. 51:10(p. 47f.).

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Arthur Green Although there is some differenceof specific symbols between this text and the Kabbalisticusage, the idea thatthe bride'strue restingplace is in the center,the throne or dwelling of the Spouse, is sharedby both traditions.Shekhinahis at the bottom center of the Kabbalistic chart and her lover is directly above her, surroundedand supportedby the forces of the right and left. Schoolmen as well as monastics took partin the "bride-mysticism"that was so widespreadin the twelfth and thirteenthcenturiesand seems to be so much reflected in the Zohar.In The Soul's Pledge, Hugh of St. Victor,the leading figure in the Victorine school of exegesis, "interweavesthe story of Esther,the brideprepared for the King, with the sponsa of the Song of Songs ... The tricliniumwhere the bride is readiedfor the heavenlycubiculumis, of course,the church.The means used for her beautification are the sacramentsand the life of prayerand virtuous living. Scriptureis the speculum in which the bride can guage her renewedattraction for the Divine Lover who has rescued her from the squalor of sin."176This weaving togetherof the Esthernarrativeand the bridalmysticism of Kabbalahis precisely what is done by Rabbi Shelomo Alkabetz in his sixteenth-centurycommentaryon EstherManot ha-Levi. But it is alreadypresentto some degree in the Zohar and elsewhere in thirteenth-centuryKabbalah.The Zohar contains several very lavish descriptionsof the adorningof shekhinahand her maidens in preparation for the bridalfeast."77Thatsuch descriptionsecho the Biblical accountsof Esther and the other Persianbeauties as they preparedto meet the king should come as no surprise. We turn our attention now to some of the classical Mariological commentaries of the twelfth and thirteenthcenturies. Before doing so, however,we should give some thoughtto the natureof this Marianexegesis of the Canticle.On one hand,the Marianreadingis said to be a "historical"one178; the authoris in effect claiming that the love between Mary and Jesus is the original, "plain"meaning of this Scripture.Such a fanciful view of "history"of course relies upon a Solomon of prophetic gifts, anticipating the New Testamentquite directly.The same is done for many other "OldTestament"writingsand causes no problemfor the medieval Christianmind. But the Canticle as "history"speaks of the Virgin in symbolic as well as direct terms. She is the garden,the spring, and date-palmas much as she is the maiden whose breasts are so perfect ("like the twins of a gazelle"), whose teeth are so straight ("like a flock of ewes come up from the bath"),whose hairis so flowing ("like a flock of goats coming out of Mt. Gilead"). Even if Solomon were interested in the hair, teeth, and breasts of the beautiful woman who bore Christ into the world,his contributionlies more in the realm of metaphorand simile than it does in the appreciationof female beauty (something the historic Solomon apparentlydid quite enough of in his own day!). Ourinterest here will be in this rich language of the Song of Songs and the ways in which its 176. McGinn, History v. 2, p. 590, n. 150, referringto pp. 964a-67d in the text. 177. See for example Zohar 3:98a-b. 178. Such is the claim in various sources quoted by Rachel Fulton in her "Mimetic Devotion, MarianExegesis, and the Historical Sense of the Song of Songs,"p. 87ff.

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Shekhinah, The Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs applicationto Mary anticipatesthe symbolic shekhinah language of the late-thirteenth-centuryKabbalah.179 We turn first to Honorius' Sigillum, one of the classic Mariological commentarieson the Song of Songs. Honoriusis an early twelfth-centurymonk, probably English in origin, who latersettled in Germany,possibly Regensburg.The SigillumBeatae Mariae, composed c. 1100-1110, was the first of two commentaries Honoriuswrote on the Song of Songs. His later Expositio in CanticumCanticorumis in fact better-known,but less specifically devoted to Mary and thereforeof less interestto us here. Honoriusbegins the Sigillum with a liturgicalquestion, witness to the older liturgicalroots of the Mariologicalinterpretationof the Song, to which we have referredabove. Yousaythatyou wonderwhythe GospeltextJesusenteredandthe Canticle arereadon the feastof theblessedMary[theAssumption],althoughneither of themis seenby simplepeopleto sayanythingabouther.Firstof all, then, you shouldknowaboutthis Gospelthatin all of Scripturethereis nothing morefitting,moresuitable,moreworthyto be readon hersacredfeast.The text reads:Jesus entered into a certain town (Luke 10:38). In this town there

is a hightowerwhichhasramparts againstenemies;anda wallon theoutside of theholy forprotectionof thecitizenswithin.Thistownwasthatsanctuary spirit,namelythegloriousMotherof God,theVirginMary,whowasfortified on all sideswiththe unfailingprotectionof the angels.Inherthereis a high tower,thatis to say,humility,reachingto thehighestheaven,whenceit is said: He has regardedthe humilityof his handmaid(Luke 1:48). The wall outside

herwaschastity,whichfurnisheda defenseforthe restof the virtueswithin. TheLordenteredthistownwhenhetookhumannatureto himselfinthewomb in of theVirgin... Thefountof WisdomHimselfhadmadea dwelling-place herandthereforeall the treasuresof wisdomandknowledgewerehiddenin her.

The liturgical question is answeredwith a homily telling us that Jesus' entering the town really refers to his entering the Virgin. She is a town with ramparts to protect her and a high tower within her. All of this is spoken, of course, in the context of the glorification of virginity. Jesus' entering Mary is innocent; the Christ child enters her womb without an act of sexual penetration. Mary=town= Jerusalem is an association completely familiar to the reader of Kabbalistictexts. But looking back at this text from the perspective of Kabbalah (includingthat notoriousViennese neo-Kabbalist,Dr. Freud),we cannot help but wonderwhetherthat"hightower"in the "townwith rampartsto protecther"might not be an unconscious sexual symbol, perhaps like the high Gothic tower in the medievaltown itself. Jesus entersthe town, the woman,the Virginwho is also bride of God. He is the Fount of Wisdom enteringher; because of his presence "all the to theMarianreadingas "partlyhistoricalandpartly 179.IndeedAlexander Neckhamreferred Fulton,op. cit.,p. 98. mystical."

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Arthur Green treasuresof wisdom and knowledge"arecontainedwithinher.To one who has read thirteenth-centuryKabbalistic texts, there is something strikingly familiar in all this, the male "fountain"enteringinto and being placed at the center of the female "town,"filling her with the flow of his wisdom. The parallelsto Kabbalisticsymbolism could not be more direct, except that the Kabbalistis quite awarethat this powerful symbolism also has sexual meaning. In a non-celibate context, the flowing fountainenteringthe palace or the gardenmay also be revealedto be the "sign of the holy covenant,"or the circumcisedphallus.The Kabbalistis allowed to hint more directly at such meanings and to develop the symbolic associations in that direction as well as others. At the same time, the symbol is not reduced to stand exclusively for sexuality.The "flow"is also the flow of light from one divine realm to another, of blessing and bounty from the upper Godhead into shekhinah and thence to the world. Because we are mere humans,we understandthis cosmic coupling in the language of mere bodily union. ThroughoutJewish mystical literature, however, even as late as eighteenth-centuryHasidism, we are regularlyreminded of the inadequacyof this metaphor.In the Christiancontext, where virginity and chastity are so highly valued, indeed where the discussion takes place among presumed celibates, the innocence of the language, and perhapsof consciousness itself, needs to be still more fully protected. Next we turn to a pair of passages where figures of the bed or couch are found in the Song of Songs text. At the conclusion of chapterone, on the phrase "ourbed is flourishing,"Honorius says: Marywasthebedof Christ,in whomhe restedas on a bed.It is called"ours" becausethe Fatherand the Holy Spiritwerealwaystherewith him. It was flourishingin virtues.Forshe is thehouseof God,in whomhe lived.'80 A bit furtheron, on the verse "King Solomon made himself a litter,"he says: Christthetruekingof peace'8'madehima litter.Thatis, he chosetheVirgin andkings,in whomhe reclinedas on a bedplacedfor fromamongpatriarchs a feast,becausethe faithfulfeaston flesh,whichhe tookfromtheVirgin... "Theseatof gold":thiswasthebodyof theLord,takenfromher,uponwhich divinityreclined.Thiswasof gold,meaningadornedwithwisdomandcharity. FortheVirginherselfwasthe seat,in whosewombChristreclined;it was of goldbecauseit shonewiththesplendorof chastity. Here we should notice how many of the symbol-termsfor shekhinahare also applied to the Virgin Mary: she is bed, house, litter, and seat, in addition to sea, tent182and city/Jerusalem.Now it is true that all of these are fairlypredictablefor 180. Honorius,p. 57. 181. According to the Talmud(b. Shevu'ot 35b), every referenceto Solomon (Shelomo) in the Canticle, except for one (8:12), refersto God, the King of Peace.This play on the Hebrewmeaningof the name Solomon was adaptedfor Christianuse to refer to Christ,who was much earlierreferredto as the "princeof peace,"itself undoubtedlya translationof the Hebrewsar shalom (Is. 9:5). 182. For Mary as tent see also Bernard,Sermons 53:7 (English ed., v. 3, p. 64f.).

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Shekhinah, The Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs the female in relationto the male, and they are taken from the sharedBiblical text andthe shared"Book of Experience,"to use a term of Bernard's.One can also find Mary as moon,183 and I am sure we will find other parallel associations as well. What we are seeing here is at least the influence of the same Biblical text and the same symbolization of the naturalworld working in both traditions.But is there more thanthat? The fact is thatthereis hardlya female symbol used by the Kabbaliststo designate shekhinahthat was not used, and usually a century earlier,to describe the VirginMary.An importantdesignationfor shekhinahis that of gate, for she is the lowest sefirah, the gatewayinto the divine world. Honoriussays, on Cant. 7:5, "at the gate of the daughter of the multitude;""the gate is the eternal virgin, through which, though closed, the king of heaven enteredinto the world,unto us. And she is the 'daughterof the multitude'because a multitude of the faithful will enter throughher into the palace of heaven."184She is also referredto as the "doorway" throughwhom Christhas enteredthe world.'85Shekhinahis precisely that:the female door or gatewaythroughwhich divinity entersthis world and throughwhich the Kabbalistenters"heaven"or the realmof the sefirot.Shekhinahis aron ha-berit, the arkthat contains the covenant. In the Zoharthis is a sexually charged symbol, because of the phallic meaning of "covenant."But Mary too is the ark, as the one who has borne Christwithin her womb. Maryis also the tabernaclein which Christ rests and the "bridalchamber"in which he stands.186 Adam of Dryburgh(d. c. 1210) calls Mary "the tabernacleof the Father,the chamberof the Son, the arbor of the Holy Spirit,the restingplace of the Trinity,the celestial habitation,the home of the IncarnateWord,the temple of God."187She is also associated with Jerusalem, Christ's"heavenlyhomeland,"Zion, the earthlyChurchthat contains Him, and the Cedarof Lebanon.'88Bethel, the House of God, is anotherof her names in 183. Rupertof Deutz in PL 932C, based on Cant. 6:10. See also Philip of Harvengt(d. 1183) who refersto Christas the rising sun, Maryas the birth-givingmoon. PL 203:182 as cited by R. Fulton in "MimeticDevotion, MarianExegesis, and the Historical Sense of the Song of Songs," p. 95. These are directlyparallelto the Kabbalisticsymbolizationsof tif'eret as the sun and the east and malkhutas night, moon, mother/birtherof lowerworlds,and west, except for the crucialdifferencethattif 'eretand malkhutarebridegroomandbride,not son andmother.The Kabbalisticassociationof moon with shekhinah is based primarilyon othertexts, including Is. 30:26 and the famous aggadah in b. Hullin 60b. 184. Honorius p. 78f. Cf. also his comment on 5:4 (p. 70): "My beloved put forth his hand throughthe hole"-Therefore my beloved .., .put his hand throughthe keyhole, that is, his son, into the world throughme, who became a hole throughwhich he came unto men, narrowby humility, but shiningin chastity,and thereforeaccessible to him alone."Similarlyon p. 71 Mary is a "door"through which Christenteredthe world. 185. Honorius,p. 71. 186. Honorius,p. 50. Cf. Alan of Lille (as cited by R. Fulton,"MimeticDevotion,"p. 96) who, in likeningMaryto the Tabernacle,humblypresentshis commentaryas a mere offering of "goat skins" after the gold, silver, and precious stones she has already received. See Ex. 25:3-5. 187. Addresses to Mary, PL 198: 367D. The Latin text reads: "Ipsapatris tabernaculum,filii cubiculum,Spiritussanti umbraculum,Trinitatisreclinatorium,coeleste habitaculum,incarnati Verbi domicilium,Dei templum."See also the sources quoted by C. W. Bynum, Fragmentationand Redemption: Essays on Genderand the HumanBody in Medieval Religion (New York:Zone Books, 1991), p. 338, n. 53 and 355, n. 120-121. 188. Honorius,p. 51.

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Arthur Green Scripture.189 "Furthermore,a multitude of metaphorstaken from the Old Testament were applied to her: burning bush, the Ark of the Covenant,the Star of the Sea, the enclosed garden,the blossoming shoot out of the Root of Jesse, the fleece, the bridechamber,the door, the dawn, the ladderof Jacob."190 Among the most beloved images of shekhinahin the Zoharliteratureis that of nourisher;motherlyshekhinahis naturallydepictedas the source of sustenance for the lower worlds. Here the imagery of female fullness and of humansnursing at the divine breast is expressed in various ways, including comments on verses thatreferto the breastsfromthe Song of Songs andotherScripturalpassages. Elsewhere she is depicted in a lovely metaphorderived from the animal kingdom, by extension also connected to the imagery of the Song of Songs. Shekhinahis here the doe of morning, each dawn gatheringaroundher all the beasts of the forest to give them food she has brought from "above."'91All of these passages are characterizedby a maternally-directederos, a desire to nurseat the breastof the divine Motherthatit takes only a small dose of Freudto see also as the fulfillment of male sexual fantasy. But despite this well-known feature of shekhinah as nourisher/sustainer, something paradoxicalis seen in her ability to feed. When viewed from the viewpoint of the uppersefirot, shekhinahis regardedas empty-handed.She is the "poor one," an embodiment of poverty itself, an empty vessel until filled by the forces above her. One of her key symbolic manifestationsis as moon, dark on her own until she receives the light of the sun. Yet it is only throughher that light shines onto the lower world.192In a well-known Zoharpassage describingshekhinahas Sabbath,the paradoxof her role as source of nourishmentis laid out:

the SabbathDayto keepit holy(Ex.20:8)."RabbiIsaacopened "Remember by saying:"Godblessedtheseventhday(Gen.2:3)."Butof themannaScripit for six days,buton the SabbathDaythereshallbe none turesays:"Gather (Ex. 16:26)."If thereis no sustenanceon SeventhDay,whatblessingis to be foundin it?Butthushavewe learned:All blessings,bothaboveandbelow,dependuponSeventhDay.Whywasno mannafoundon the SeventhDay?Becausethatis theDayby whichall the Six SupernalDaysareblessed.Eachof themsendsits ownsustenancebelowon its owndayoutof thatblessingthey all receiveon the SeventhDay. Shekhinah,Sabbathamong the seven lowersefirot or "supernaldays,"is both pure passivity,receiving her light or strengthonly fromthe "male"forces aboveher,and 189. Honorius,p. 61 190. ElizabethA. Johnson,"MarianDevotion in the WesternChurch"in ChristianSpirituality II, ed. J. Raitt (New York:CrossroadBooks, 1988), p. 397. 191. Cf. Zohar 1:4a;2:7a; 3:21b etc. 192. "Sun"and "moon"here are symbolic entities within the realm of the sefirot, sun representing tif'eret or male principleand moon shekhinahor female.The fact thatthe earthis daily blessed with sunlight is celebratedin the daily Jewish liturgy.The lowered statusof the moon is the subjectof a well-known aggadic passage in b. Hullin 60b.

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Shekhinah, The Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs the uniquefont of blessing [in Christianterms:"grace"]upon whom all the worlds depend. 193

Marytoo is nourisherand sustainerof humanity."The lactatingvirgin is, of course, one of the most common iconographicthemes in all of Christianart."'94 By the very fact of being a lactatingvirgin, to be sure, her unique and paradoxical status is clear.The virginalwoman from whom one can expect no sustenance has been transformedinto a flowing fountain. Honorius'Sigillum remains in close contact with the liturgicalroots of the Mariological reading. He interpretsonly selected passages of the Canticle, emphasizing those that echo with liturgicalfamiliarity.The first consistently Mariological readingof the entire Song of Songs is found in the commentaryof Rupert of Deutz. Rupertrevealsthathe composed his Commentaryonly in response to "a certainholy brother,who had seen our Lord Jesus Himself, sitting above the altar on a throne, surroundedby the saints and holding Solomon's book as an outward sign of the celestial music of love."l95Ruperthimself was also known for religious experiencesof an erotic nature.196His Commentarium,writtenin about 1125, and possibly influenced by Honorius'work, seems to have enjoyed considerablepopularity in its day, though it hardly achieved the classic status of Bernard'sSermones.197Its influence was mostly limitedto Germany,where over40 manuscripts of it survive.Thereis no evidence thatit was knownas far awayas southernFrance or Spain. ForRupertthe Canticle is all aboutthe love of Motherand Son. In its verses Marycontemplatesthe life of Christ,includinghis sufferingin rejectionand death, and she yearnsfor his presenceafterHis ascension.198The relationshipof Mary and Christ,while it is primarilythat of motherand son, is also that of bride and bridegroom. It is Christratherthan God the Fatherwho plays the male role in Rupert's readingof the Canticle. Mary'slonging for Him after His ascent is thus changed from that of motherto that of Christ'sbeloved. Elsewhere, however, Rupert sees Mary as the bride of both God the Fatherand the Son: ThustheVirginMary,whowasthebestpartof theold churchbeforeChrist, meritingbeingthebrideof GodtheFatherin orderto becomealsothepattern of thenewchurch,thebrideof Godthe Son.199 193. Zohar2:88a. This passage is recited by pious Sephardicand Hasidic Jews at the Sabbath Eve table. 194. Bynum, op. cit., p. 102. 195. PL 168: 837-8. Cited by Astell, Song, p. 33. 196. Van Engen, RupertofDeutz, pp. 50-52. 197. It shouldbe noted thatthe VenerableBede had expressedoppositionto the Marianreading of the Canticle. It may be in partdue to his influence that Bernardmostly avoids it. Cf. Van Engen, Rupert, p. 293. But the Marianreadingwas mostly associated with liturgyand was simply not thought of before Honoriusand Rupertas a frameworkfor consistent Biblical interpretation. 198. ibid., p. 294. 199. De SpiritoSancto 1:8. Cited by Henride Lubec, TheSplendourof the Church(New York, 1956), p. 243.

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Arthur Green The dualrole of Maryas motherand brideof Christseems to have been most boldly tackled by William of Newburghin his relativelyobscureExplanatiosacri epithalamii in matremsponsi. William has Christtell Marythat her role as Mother of God ends with his death, after which she is to love him as bride.The nature of her love is transformedonce the respectivebodily roles have been left behind.200 "Once you looked at me with maternal eyes, when I was growing up with you, when, the word of life having been sown, I hung on the cross; but, because I have now ascendedto my father,those maternaleyes are exempt from now on from service, and more abundantlyyou may have the eyes of a lover and a bride."201 This rich and varied symbolization of eros in the Christiantexts precedes and provides a context for understandingthat which happensa centurylaterin the Jewish mystical sources, especially the Zohar, where images of mother, sister, bride, and a host of others are deeply interlocked.For the Christiansthis love remains mostly a chaste, maternaleros, here transformedon the spiritual/hermeneutical plane to that of the virginal, untouchedbride. Forthe Jews, not having a tradition that glorifies virginity or celibacy, the varieties of female imagery in the imaginationof the mystic will culminatein the fantasyof a direct sexual coupling. For the Christiansources the love expressed in these readings of the Canticle is thatbetween Christ,who is God, and His humanmotherMary,who is not God. For the Kabbalist, whose God is manifest in the ten sefirot, shekhinah is within the Godhead and the eros of the Canticle is about the love of God for God. This love is strengthenedand supportedby human effort, indeed allows itself to be dependent on the energies aroused by Israel in this world,but essentially remainstranscendent. Despite these real differences,however,the commonalityof symbols,typologies, and structuresof thought is truly remarkable. Scholars have long seen the reading of the Song of Songs as an important point of contact between Judaismand Christianity.Jewish scholarshiphas generally been quite content to note this, both in the case of the early rabbis'influence on Origen and RaSHI'sinfluence on the Victorinesand Nicholas De Lyra.As long as the Jews are the giving partnerin this relationship,most scholarsof Judaicaremain untroubled.Recognizing Jewish indebtednessto Christianity,especially on the level of popularpiety, is often much more difficult, beclouded by a long history of martyrdom,persecution, and unwanted,often forced, missionary efforts. But there are well-known examples where the flow does go that way. The present treatmentis offered in the same spirit,an example of the complex intertwiningof these two traditionsas they were lived in greaterphysical and culturalproximity to one anotherthan is often realized, and continuedto read,interpret,and be spiritually nourishedby the same font of Scripture. ArthurGreen BrandeisUniversity Waltham,Massachusetts 200. William of Newburgh,Explanatiosacri epithalamiiin matremsponsi: A Commentaryon the Canticle of Canticles, ed. J. Gorman,Fribourg, 1960 (SpicilegiumFriburgense6). 201. Op. cit., p. 280f. Cited by Rachel Fulton in "Mimetic Devotion,"p. 107.

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Sephardic Epitaphs in Hamburg's Oldest Jewish Cemetery: Poetry, Riddles, and Eccentric Texts Author(s): Marian Sárraga and Ramón F. Sárraga Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 53-92 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131556 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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AJS Review 26:1 (2002), 53-92

SEPHARDICEPITAPHSIN HAMBURG'S OLDEST JEWISH CEMETERY: Poetry,Riddles, and Eccentric Texts

by Marian and Ram6n F. Sirraga INTRODUCTION

The Sephardiccommunityof Hamburgwas founded by Portugueseconversos who had settled in the Hamburgarea duringthe three decades prior to 1611. In that year,after receiving permission to form a Jewish community in Hamburg, the conversos purchasedfrom ChristianIV,king of Denmark,a tract of land near the town of Altona for use as a cemetery.Duringmost of the time period discussed in this article,Altona was underthe crown of Denmark,while Hamburgwas an independentHanseaticcity ruled by a senate of burghers.Today,Altona is a district of the city of Hamburg,within walking distance of the city's historic center. The Sephardicsettlementin Hamburggrew in parallel with the one in Amsterdam,nurturedin Jewish religion and cultureby rabbisand other scholarlyvisitors, mostly from Italyor Amsterdam.However,apparentlyby the the 1650's, this growth had slowed down considerablycomparedto that of Amsterdam,probably because of lack of space within Hamburg,and because the countryside was endangeredby factors such as the frequentwars of Denmark.The community continued to be importantuntil around1697, when a large, abruptincrease in taxation by the city drove awaythe wealthiest members of the community.' In the eighteenthcentury,the HamburgSephardiccommunitybecame practically a satelliteof the one in Amsterdam.It remainedessentially stablein its modest numbers and resources until the French occupation of Hamburgduring the Napoleonic Wars(1811), whose consequences severely depletedthe community's resources.Duringthe nineteenthcentury,most of the remainingmembersemigrated or lost their Sephardicidentity,either by marriageinto the Ashkenazi community, or by abandoningJudaism.By the Nazi era, the communitywas very small. WethankDr.MartjePostmafor very substantialassistance in Hamburg.We are also most grateful to Robert Singerman,JudaicaLibrarianat the University of Florida in Gainesville, for invaluable help over more than ten years. We thankProf. Rochelle Weinsteinfor sharingmuch valuable information and Rabbi Samuel Z. Fishman for importantcomments. In Hamburg,we also thank the Jewish communityfor access to the cemetery over many years, HerrJiirgenSielemann of the Staatsarchivfor invaluablehelp with primarysources, Dr. Ilse-MarieRiittgerodt-Riechmannof the Denkmalschutzamt for access to importantphotographs,and Prof. Dr. Monika Richarz, Prof. Dr. Ina Lorenz, and Dr. Alice Jankowski,of the Institutfiirdie Geschichteder DeutschenJuden, for access to their institute'sphotographs. 1. See H. Kellenbenz, "History of the Sephardimin Germany,"in R. D. Barnett, and W. M. Schwab, eds., TheSephardiHeritage, vol. 2, (London: GibraltarBooks 1989), pp. 26-40.

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Marian and Ramon F Sairraga By contrast,the Ashkenazim,who had startedto immigrateto the Hamburg area in large numbersin 1648, formed a ratherlarge and influential community that lasted until the Nazi era. One of their oldest cemeteries, containingthe graves of notables like Jacob Emden and JonathanEybeschuetz, bordersthe Sephardic cemetery in Altona.2 Related Workon theAltona Cemetery A comprehensivehistory of the HamburgSephardiccommunity has never been written,althoughimportantbooks have appeared,such as the one on the community's seventeenth-centuryeconomic history by Hermann Kellenbenz.3 The main reason for the absence of a communityhistory may be that most community records were lost in the Hamburgfire of 1842.4 Concerning the Altona cemetery, specifically, there exist several sources of information. One source is the records of the burial society, Irmandade de GuemilutHasadim, which cover the years 1675-1760 in a very incomplete and inconsistent way.5 In 1874, two officials of the community,A. R. Rocamoraand S. I. Sealtiel, listed the visible graves by name and date, assigning a sequence number to each stone.6 Another listing of graves was published by Grunwaldin 2. For interestinginformationon how the Sephardiminfluenced the Ashkenazim in Hamburg duringthe late eighteenth-and early nineteenth-centuries,see I. Schorsch,"TheMyth of SephardicSupremacy,"Leo Baeck InstituteYearbook,vol. 34 (1989), pp. 47-66, and L. C. Dubin, "The Rise and Fallof the ItalianJewish Model in Germany:FromHaskalahto Reform, 1780-1820," in E. Carlebach, J. M. Efron,and D. N. Myers, eds., Jewish History and Jewish Memory:Essays in Honor of YosefHayim Yerushalmi,(Hanover,NH: University Press of New England,1998), pp. 271-295. 3. HermannKellenbenz, Sephardiman der UnterenElbe, (Wiesbaden:Franz SteinerVerlag, 1958), hereaftercited as Sephardiman der UnterenElbe. 4. Foran accountof the losses caused by the 1842 fire, see Alfonso Cassuto, GedenkschriftAnIdsslich des 275-Jdhrigen Bestehens der Portugiesisch-Jiidischen Gemeinde in Hamburg, (Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger,1927), hereaftercited as Gedenkschrift.The protocol for the years 16521682 was spared,and its original is kept at the HamburgStaatsarchivas item 993, Protokollbuch,Portug.-Jtid. Gemeinde,with vol. 1 (1652-1672) in microfilm HM 8724, and vol. 2 (1672-1682) in microfilm HM 8735; a copy is also availableat the CentralArchives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem.This original is hereaftercited as Protocol. Most of the protocol from the years 54135430 (1652-1670) has been translatedto German and annotated;see J.C., "Aus dem iiltesten Protokollbuch der Portugiesisch-jiidischenGemeinde in Hamburg,"Jahrbuchder Jidisch-Literarischen Geselischaft, vol. 6 (1908), pp. 1-54, vol. 7 (1909), pp. 159-210, vol. 8 (1910), pp. 227-290, vol. 9 (1911), pp. 318-366, vol. 10 (1912), pp. 225-295, vol. 11 (1916), pp. 1-76, vol. 13 (1920), pp. 55118. This set of articlesis hereaftercited as "Protokoll";in some places,the handwritingof the original is unclear and could be read differently from the version in "Protokoll".The author"J.C."on the cited journal pages apparentlywas an Isaac Cassuto; see p. 317 in Alfonso Cassuto, "Die Portugiesischen Juden in Glfickstadt,"Jahrbuchder Jzidisch-LiterarischenGesellschaft,vol. 21 (1930), pp. 287-317. 5. Memoriasdas Misvot q Se enterrardoem BetahaimDepois de Instituidaa Sta Irmandadede guemilut Hassadim (1675-1760), unpublishedmanuscriptlabeled as item 996a of the Portug.-Jiid. Gemeinde(microfilm HM 9409) at the HamburgStaatsarchiv(hereaftercited as Irmandade). von den Grdbern... (July 1874), unpublished 6. A. R. Rocamoraand S. I. Sealtiel, Verzeichnif3 manuscriptlabeled as item 996b of the Portug.-Jiid.Gemeinde(also microfilm HM 9409) at the Hamburg Staatsarchiv.In this article, epitaphs are labeled by their Rocamora-Sealtielsequence numbers,

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SephardicEpitaphsin Hamburg'sOldest Jewish Cemetery 1902.7 This listing is less complete than the one by Rocamoraand Sealtiel, but it includes a few epitaphic texts. Amazingly, Grunwald lists as partially illegible some stones that were in perfect condition in 1999. The most comprehensivelisting is the one containedin Alfonso Cassuto'sunpublishedDissertation, which was left unfinished in 1933, the year in which the Nazis rose to power.8Cassuto emigratedto Portugalaroundthat time. A detailed summaryof the work done since the Second WorldWarhas been published by Rochelle Weinstein, who has worked on the Altona cemetery for roughly two decades.9 Moreover, Michael Studemund-Hal6vyhas edited two books of papers on the cemetery and the community;'0 he has also co-authored one book," has published several papers,12 and has recently published an encyclopedic book on the cemetery.'3KennethBrown has published a fair numberof excerpts of Iberianliteratureassociated with HamburgSephardim,including several Altona epitaphs.'4 Importantinformationon the history of the cemetery has which are denotedby the prefix "RS".The letters"EX"referto numbersin the list of graves exhumed around 1902, which is storedat the Staatsarchivas item 996c (also microfilm HM 9409). The designations "WE"(west end) and "NE"(northeastcorner) identify the general locations where transferred sepulchralmonumentswere placed. 7. Max Grunwald,Portugiesengrdberauf deutscher Erde, Hamburg:Alfred Janssen, 1902), hereaftercited as Portugiesengrdber. 8. Alfonso Cassuto,Dissertation iber den Friedhofder Port.-Jiid.Gemeinde,Hamburg,in Altona, unpublisheddraft in the HamburgStaatsarchiv,dated 1927-1933 (hereaftercited as Dissertation). Cassutoalso donateda handwrittentranscriptionof numerousHebrewand Portugueseepitaphs, includingtexts from some stones subsequentlydestroyedduringthe Second WorldWarand afterward; see Alfonso Cassuto, Grabschriftender portugiesisch-jiidischenFriedhife in Hamburg,Altona, Emden und Gliickstadt,stored at the HamburgStaatsarchivas item 996e of the Portug.-Jiid.Gemeinde (hereaftercited as Grabschriften). 9. Rochelle Weinstein,"The Storied Stones of Altona. Biblical Imagery on SephardicTombstones at the Jewish Cemetery of Altona-K6nigstraBe,Hamburg,"in M. Studemund-Hal6vy,ed., Die Sefardenin Hamburg,vol. 2, (Hamburg:HelmutBuske Verlag, 1997), pp. 550-660 (hereaftercited as "StoriedStones"). 10. See Michael Studemund-Hal6vy,ed., Die Sefardenin Hamburg,vol. 1 (1994), edited in collaborationwith PeterKoj, and vol. 2 (Hamburg:Helmut Buske Verlag, 1997). 11. J. Faustand M. Studemund-Hal6vy,Betahaim:Sefardische Grdberin Schleswig-Holstein, (Gliickstadt,Germany:VerlagJ. J. Augustin, 1997), hereaftercited as Betahaim. 12. See, e.g., M. Studemund-Hal6vy,"Die portugiesisch-spanischenGrabinschriftenin Norddeutschland:Gliickstadtund Emden,"Aschkenas,vol. 7 (1997), pp. 389-439; "L'imprimeries6farade 'i Hambourget la censureprotestanteet rabbinique,"Revuedes AtudesJuives, vol. 159 (2000), pp. 485 500; "Senhoresversus criados da Portugueses,asquenasiesy tudescosen el Hamburgodel siglo Na9do: XVII,"Sefarad,vol. 60 (2000), pp. 349-368. 13. M. Studemund-Hal6vy,BiographischesLexikonder HamburgerSefarden,Hans Christians Verlag, Hamburg(2000), hereaftercited as BLHS.This book appearedafter the basic version of the currentarticlewas accepted for publication.Nevertheless, brief remarkshave been insertedin this article to point out, in general, which primarysources used here are also included in BLHSand to indicate majordifferencesbetween this article and BLHS regardingthe contents of these sources. 14. See, e.g., KennethBrown,"Spanish,Portuguese,andNeo-Latin PoetryWrittenand/or Published by Seventeenthand Eighteenth-CenturySephardimfrom Hamburgand Frankfurt(1)", Sefarad, vol. 59 (1999), pp. 3-42, hereaftercited as "Spanish,Portuguese,and Neo-Latin Poetry(1)," and Ken-

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Marian and Ram6n E Sarraga been published by Gaby Ziirn.l5 The 1999 Ph.D. thesis of JuttaBradenprovides importantinformation about Jewish history in Hamburgduring the seventeenth century.16The scholarly literaturestill lacks a truly thoroughand comprehensive treatise on Altona epitaphs."7Majorreasons for this deficiency are the magnitude of the epigraphictask andthe wide diversityof linguisticand culturalbackgrounds that influenced the composition of Altona's epitaphictexts. Scope and Goals of this Article Our work, which started in 1986, has concentratedon recording and analyzing epitaphictexts in the SephardicAltona cemetery.We have recordedabout 1650 epitaphs,nearlyall texts extanton the cemeterygrounds,many of them only fragmentary.In 1874, Rocamoraand Sealtiel countedabout 1806 tombstones.The difference in numbersgives a rough estimate of how many stones have been totally destroyedby war, vandalism, and weathering. For this article, as in a previous one,"8 we are selecting a small sample of epitaphs that illustratethe religious and culturallife of HamburgSephardim.In this article, the selection is limited mostly to the seventeenthcentury.The reasons for this limitation and other aspects of the selection are explained in the next section. Most of the selected epitaphs contain Portugueseor Hebrew poems, which we analyze in a preliminarymannerin orderto point out the majorlinguistic, literary,and religious trends of the time that influenced their composition. Authorship is not explicitly discussed, unless it is fairly evident. Forthe Hebrewpoems, the basic references used are two well-known books by Dan Pagis19and, in one neth Brown and Reyes Bertolin Cebridn,"Spanish,Portuguese,and Neo-Latin PoetryWrittenand/or Publishedby Seventeenth-,Eighteenth-,andNineteenth-CenturySephardimfrom Hamburgand Frankfurt(2)," Sefarad,vol. 61 (2001), pp. 3-56, hereaftercited as "Spanish,Portuguese,and Neo-LatinPoetry (2)." Like BLHS, these two articles appearedafter the basic version of the currentarticle was accepted for publication. 15. Gaby Ziirn, "Der Friedhof der Portugiesisch-JiidischenGemeinden in Altona (16111902),"in M. Studemund-Hal6vy,ed., Die Sefardenin Hamburg,HelmutBuske Verlag,Hamburg,vol. 1 (1994), edited in collaborationwith PeterKoj, pp. 103-124. Informationon the Sephardiccemetery is also found in Zuirn'sPh.D. thesis on the Ashkenazi communityof Altona: GabrieleZiirn,Die Altonaerjfidische Gemeinde(1611-1873), LIT-Verlag,Hamburg(2001). 16. Jutta Braden, Die Hamburger Judenpolitik 1580-1720, Lutherische Orthodoxie und stddtisches Wirtschaftsinteresse,Ph.D. dissertation,Universityof Hamburg(1999). 17. Note, e.g., the remarksin BLHS,pp. 75-77. 18. M. and R. Sarraga,"Some Episodes of SephardicHistoryAs Reflected in Epitaphsof the Jewish Cemetery in Altona,"in M. Studemund-Hal6vy,ed., Die Sefardenin Hamburg,Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg,vol. 2 (1997), pp. 661-719 (hereaftercited as "Episodes");for additionalepitaphic texts, including recentphotographsof tombstones, see M. and R. Sarraga,"EarlyLinksbetween Amsterdam, Hamburg and Italy: Epitaphs from Hamburg'sOld Sephardic Cemetery,"Studia Rosenthaliana, vol. 34 (2000), pp. 23-55. 19. Dan Pagis, IHidushu-Masoret be-Shiratha-IHolha-'Ivrit:Sefarad ve-Italyah (Change and Traditionin Hebrew SecularPoetry:Spain and Italy), KeterPublishingHouse, Jerusalem(1986), hereafter cited as IHidushu-Masoret;and Dan Pagis, 'AlSod Iatum (A Secret Sealed: Hebrew Baroque Emblem-Riddlesfrom Italy and Holland), (Jerusalem:Magnes Press, HebrewUniversity,1986), hereafter cited as Sod Hatum.

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SephardicEpitaphsin Hamburg'sOldest Jewish Cemetery case, the highly informativePh.D. thesis by J. A. Brombacheron Amsterdam's Sephardicrabbiand poet, Selomoh ben David de Oliveyra (d. 1708).20 Forthe epitaphictexts presentedin this article, we are relying exclusively on our transcriptions.If a version of an epitaphictext has been publishedbefore, this fact is indicatedand explainedat the appropriatepoint in the presentation.The unpublished epitaphic texts that were copied for Cassuto's Dissertation and Grabschriften were consulted only for a cursory comparison, which resulted in no changes to our transcriptionsor analysis. We disagree with Cassuto on many epigraphicdetails of the epitaphsselected for this article; moreover,Cassuto did not consider literaryaspects that are importantto our discussion. In this article, Portugueseepitaphicpoems in seventeenth-centurystyle are translatedto modern Castilian (in addition to English), because a rendition in a modern Iberianlanguage brings out prosodic elements without the hindrance of archaic spelling and engravingerrors.Castilian is more convenient for us, and it is not irrelevant,because the style of these poems dates from a time when Portuguese and Castilian literaturewere more closely linked than now; in fact, one or more of these epitaphicpoems may have been translatedfrom Castilian.No Castilian version is given for the Portuguesepoem from 1770, because its spelling and style are more modern.21 Pitfalls of Epigraphy Retrievingthe originaltext of a poem from a stone inscriptionis a time-consuming and highly subjective enterprise.22The root of the problem is not just 20. J. A. Brombacher,Hofne Zetim, Handen VolOlijven, De poezie van Selomoh D 'Oliveyra rabbijnen leraar van de PortugeseNatie in de 1 7e eeuw te Amsterdam(Handfulsof Olives, The Poetry of Selomoh d'Oliveyra, Rabbi and Teacherof the PortugueseNation in the 17th Century in Amsterdam),Ph.D.thesis, Leiden (1991), hereaftercited as Olijven. 21. The following conventionsare also used in this article: (a) Following an informaltradition among historiansof western SephardicJewry,this article spells personalnames, Hebrew months, and the like in the way thatthey are found in traditionalPortuguesedocuments,e.g., Isaac or Ishac instead of Yitzchak,Moseh instead of Mosheh, Tisri instead of Tishri,Tebet instead of Teveth, etc.; similarly, modern Iberianaccents are often omitted from surnamesof seventeenth-centurySephardim.(b) Following Sephardicpractice,the title "H.H."(he-hakhamha-shalem: the complete sage) is used at times with the names of full rabbis,i.e., persons qualified to be consulted on complicated halakic problems. (See I. S. Emmanuel,Precious Stones of the Jews of Curagao, Bloch PublishingCompany,New York (1957), which is hereaftercited as Precious Stones; the abbreviation"H.H."is defined on p. 494, and hakhamis explainedon pp. 84 and 560. In seventeenth-centurySephardicdocumentsand epitaphs, the title hakhamis sometimes used alone even for a full rabbi.) (c) In the transcribedepitaphs, letters that appearinsideparentheses"( )" areconsiderederroneous,and lettersin brackets"[ ]" are suggested correctionsto the text; i.e., these lettersare not currentlycomplete on the stone, as they may have eroded or maybe were not even engraved.(d) Differences in the sizes of engravedletters are often not shown in this article;moreover,spaces are insertedbetween words that are engravedwithout spacing, and engravedpunctuationmarksare often omitted or renderedin a differentway. 22. See, e.g., J. A. Brombacher,"Poetryon Gravestones:Poetry by the Seventeenth-Century PortugueseRabbi Solomon de Oliveyra Foundin the Jewish Cemetery at Ouderkerkaan de Amstel," in Dutch Jewish History, Proceedings of the Fourth Symposium on the History of the Jews in the Netherlandsvol. 2 (Tel-Aviv 1986), Van Gorcum,Assen, The Netherlands(1989), pp. 153-165.

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Marian and Ramrn E Sirraga weatheringand damageto the stone.23The main problemwith seventeenth-century stones is the often poor qualityof Hebrewlettering,which does not make a clear distinction between somewhat similar letters. The most common ambiguities are among letters in each of the following sets: (n, n, and sometimes ri), (n, %,and sometimes an eroded a), (n, -, and sometimes 1), (a and a), and even (n and in). In many cases, the distinctivefeaturesof letterswere engravedratherfaintlyand have eroded with time. Deciphering engraved poetry requires many hours of work to evaluatethe possibilities and essentially compose a poem in the style that one expects. Clearly, the risk of self-deception is always present. On the other hand, quite valuable historical informationwould be lost, if only informationthat is absolutely certain is ever published.Nevertheless, we believe thatpublishingjudgmentaltexts entails the responsibilityto publish corrections of importanterrors,when these are discovered. Hence, an appendix is included with corrections to some major epigraphic errorsin "Episodes",our first paperon the Altona cemetery. LITERARY TEXTSIN ALTONAEPITAPHS

The Altona cemetery has a surprisinglylarge proportionof literarycompositions in Hebrew.With only approximatecounting, the numberof seventeenthcentury epitaphs containing at least a few verses in Hebrew appearsto be in the order of 40-60. By contrast, the number of seventeenth-centurystones with at least a few verses in Portuguese seems to be about 6-10. Accurate numbersare difficult to give, because one must distinguish between poetry and florid prose, sometimes in very brief portions of text; moreover,at times one must detect versification within textual arrangementsthattend to conceal the verses they contain. In the future,one may also discover recordsof epitaphicpoetry for stones that no longer exist. The numbersgiven above are particularlysurprising,because the numberof Portuguesewords on seventeenth-centurytombstonesappearsto be at least equal to the numberof Hebrewwords. Moreover,most seventeenth-centurytombstones, even rabbis' stones graced with extensive Hebrew poetry, contain at least a few lines of Portuguesetext. Clearly,the Portugueselanguage was not avoided in epitaphs, even by fairly devout persons. All numbersgiven in this section arebased on a cursoryliteraryclassification of roughly 1650 copied epitaphs from all centuries.The relatively small number (46-70) of seventeenth-centuryepitaphscontainingversification in any language reflects the fact that most inscriptionsconsist of trite epitaphic formulasfilled in with names,dates,and maybe a few items of personalinformation.Notwithstanding the uncertaintiesin counting, the large proportion(at least four to one) of epitaphs 23. In Altona, many of the seventeenth-centurystones are betterpreservedthan eighteenth-or nineteenth-centurystones. In fact, the nineteenth-centurystones are in the poorest condition, because (a) their engraving tends to be the most superficial, (b) the stones tend to be smaller and of inferior quality, and thus more susceptible to weatheringand vandalism,and (c) these stones were laid along the peripheryof the cemetery,the region most damagedduringthe Second WorldWar.

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SephardicEpitaphsin Hamburg'sOldest Jewish Cemetery with Hebrewverses to those with Portugueseverses is not in doubtfor seventeenthcenturystones. Forthe eighteenth century,the situation is similar but not as lopsided: 4060 epitaphswith Hebrewverses and 6-20 with Portugueseverses, including two poems (or rhymingprose) in Castilian.The numericalspread6-20 reflects an increaseddifficulty one encountersin distinguishingbetweenpoetry andfloridprose in eighteenth-centuryPortugueseepitaphs. Incidentally,during this century, the proportionof Portugueseand Hebrew words in epitaphs seems to tilt in favor of Portuguese. In the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries, the languages used in the epitaphsarealmost exclusively Hebrewand Portuguese.The total numberof epitaphs with mostly Castiliantext is about 10-15, dependingon one's perceptionof Castilian text. Isolated Castilianexpressions do appearfairly often in seventeenth-century Portugueseinscriptions:a particularlyfrequentexample is the phrasedel Dio (of God), which was apparentlyborrowedfrom the FerraraBible, a 1553 translation of the Tanakhinto Castilian,whose versions were in wide use among western Sephardim.24In the nineteenthcentury,there is a very clear transitionto epitaphic formulasin German,particularlyafter the Napoleonic Wars.One also finds an 1838 epitaphwritten in Frenchand one in English dating from 1868, shortly before the closing of the cemetery around 1870. We have found no obvious versification in German,French,or English.25 The Altona cemetery may have had a larger percentage of literary texts among its Hebrew epitaphsthan most other Sephardiccemeteries; however, this possibility is now probablyunverifiable.The total numberof Hebrewliterarytexts in Altona was probablysmaller than the numberthat originally existed in larger Sephardiccemeteries, such as that of Salonika. Detailed numerical comparisons based on extant stones or epitaphictranscriptionsfrom the past would be essentially meaningless,because many stones have been lost in all cemeteries, and transcribersof epitaphs have generally handled literary compositions in an arbitrary and unsystematicway. In fact, many transcribersprobablyopted for totally omitting, withoutmention, any literarycomposition that they could not readily reproduce in toto, even if they copied the nonliterarypart of the epitaph.26 Epitaphictranscriptionscan give some indication of the geographic locations in which epitaphic poetry was most cultivated by Sephardim.In the New World,a fair amount of Hebrew epitaphic poetry seems to have existed in the 24. Fora recently edited version of the FerraraBible, see Moshe Lazar,ed., Biblia de Ferrara,

citedinArondeLeoneLeoni, JoseAntoniodeCastro,Madrid(1996);seealsothereferences Fundaci6n of theFerrara onYomTobAtias(aliasAlvaroVargas),Co-Publisher "NewInformation Bible,"Sefarad, vol. 57 (1997),pp.271-276. 25. Thisroughsketchis notconcernedwithsecondarylinguisticinfluences,suchas theoccasionaluse of Dutchwordsor Dutchspellingin Portuguese epitaphs,or the rareuse of Aramaicexpressionsin Hebrewepitaphs. 26. E.g.,BLHSoftendoesnotalertthe readerto the numberof Hebrewlinesomittedfroma whetheromittedHebrew givenepitaph,althoughtheexistenceof an omissionis generallyindicated; linesincludeversesis oftenleftunstated.

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Marian and Ramdn F Sdrraga while apparentlymuch less existed in the cemeSephardiccemetery of CuraQao,27 teries of Barbados28and Jamaica.29In Europe,the unpublishedepitaphs of Amsterdam30need to be investigated for literary texts (assuming each epitaph was copied in toto). Among published epitaphs from Salonika,31 one does find a fair number of poems. We know of no lists of Sephardicepitaphic transcriptionsfor Bayonne, London, or Italy.At least some epitaphicpoetry from North Africa has been published.32 Selection of Sample Epitaphs This article presents a selection of mostly seventeenth-centuryPortuguese and Hebrew epitaphs, which should convey a preliminaryimpression of the literary and religious influences that shapedthe Hamburgcommunityduringthat century.The selection is necessarilylopsided because of the numbersgiven above;i.e., it includes some of the best Portugueseliteraturein Altona, but it does not even approacha representativesample of the Hebrewliterature.AlthoughAltona's Hebrew poetry has a great variety of prosodic styles, the selection of Hebrewpoems in this article has been limited mostly to one basic style, explained later,which is fairly typical of seventeenth-centurystones. One guideline used in choosing sample epitaphs has been to focus on influences from the IberianSiglo de Oro (golden century),which is summarizedbelow. Threeof the four selected Portugueseepitaphsare clearly productsof thatperiod. The fourth is a 1770 poem that is totally different in style and thus helps delineate the Siglo de Oro period by contrast.Most of the selected Hebrewpoems exhibit a parallel developmentin Hebrew of the literarydevices and tastes typical of the Siglo de Oro, e.g., the penchant for succinct, emotionally restrainedforms of expression,the use of paradox,etc. One long epitaphin Hebrewand Portuguese is included because it contains an elaborateemblem-riddle,a type of multilingual composition used mostly for entertainmentduringfestive occasions, such as weddings, but usuallynot in epitaphs.33Not surprisingly,the Hebrewpoem in this epitaph is quite different from the others in its literarystyle. Finally,two nonliterary 27. See Precious Stones. 28. E. M. Shilstone, MonumentalInscriptionsin the Burial Groundof the Jewish Synagogueat Bridgetown,Barbados, American Jewish Historical Society (1956). 29. R. D. Barnettand P. Wright, TheJews of Jamaica: TombstoneInscriptions (1663-1880), ed. by OronYoffe (Jerusalem:Ben Zvi Institute, 1997). 30. D. Henriquesde Castro, Grafschriftenop de OudeAfdeeling der Port.-Isr.Begrafplaatste Ouderkerkaan den Amstel, unpublishedmanuscriptnotes stored at the GemeenteArchiefAmsterdam underthe designation GAA, PA 334: 1328-1329 (hereaftercited as Grafschriften). 31. Michael Molho, MatsevotBet 'Alminshel YehudeSaloniki (Tombstonesof the Cemeteryof the Jews in Salonika),Tel-Aviv(1974); see also I. S. Emmanuel,MatsevotSaloniki (Tombstonesof Salonika), (Jerusalem:Mekhon Ben-Zvi, 1963-1968). These books do not include a literaryclassification of epitaphs. 32. E.g., see Isaac Bloch, InscriptionsTumulairesdesAnciens CimetieresIsraelites d'Alger, LibrairieArmand Durlacher,Paris (1888); this book contains a fair numberof Hebrew poems from Algerian cemeteries, including Frenchtranslations,but no literaryclassification. 33. See Sod IHatum;the entire book is dedicatedto the study of emblem-riddles.

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Sephardic Epitaphs in Hamburg's Oldest Jewish Cemetery Hebrewepitaphsare includedbecause of their eccentric nature,which reflects attitudes of seventeenth-centurySephardim. The next two subsections summarizesome aspects of the Siglo de Oro and theirimportanceto the Iberianand Hebrewliteratureof seventeenth-centurySephardim.The purpose is only to remindthe readerof certainlinguistic, literary,religious, and historicalcircumstancesthatare particularlyrelevantfor understanding seventeenth-centuryepitaphs in Altona. Especially importantis the popularityof paradoxas a literarydevice, and even as a view of the world,among authorsof the Siglo de Oro. This world view was also suffused with pietistic symbolism, some of which was sharedby IberianJews, Christians,and Moslems alike. The last subsection explores reasons why Altona epitaphshave much more Hebrewthan Iberian literature.Statementsby the Sephardimthemselves are used to shed light on this question. Influenceof the Iberian Siglo de Oro The IberianSiglo de Oro was a period of roughly 150 years (c. 1530-1681) in which Iberian literatureflourished, influenced by Italian literary models and stimulatedby the prominentrole thatthe IberianPeninsulaplayedin sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuryEurope.In the worldof literature,the end of the period is generally taken to be the death of the dramatistCalder6n de la Barca (1600-1681). More generally,events outside the IberianPeninsula also moved Sephardicliterary interests away from the Siglo de Oro during the EighteenthCentury.For example, as a result of the Warof Spanish Succession (1701-1714), the crown of Spain lost all its territoriesin Italy and Flandersand most of its influence in Europe; hence, Iberianliterarymodels became more remote and progressively less influentialon Sephardimliving in Italy and Northern Europe, while non-Iberian ideas and literary styles gained in influence (e.g., the controversialideas of the FrenchEnlightenment).Duringthe eighteenthcentury,the bulk of Hebrew literaturein Altona epitaphsseems to evolve from a theme of confidentpietism to a moralizing emphasis on the vanity of life, as if trying to counteracta secularizationof the community;however,the significance of this evolution is not discussed here. This article focuses on the earlier seventeenth-centuryperiod and its vestiges on eighteenth-centurystones. Five aspects, or historical circumstances,of the Siglo de Oro are especially importantfor understandingseventeenth-centuryAltona epitaphs:(a) the close relationship between Portuguese and Castilian literatureduring this time, (b) the great influence of Italianliterarymodels, (c) the literarydevices, particularlythe affinity for paradoxesand riddles, that characterizedthe Siglo de Oro, (d) the medieval cultural syncretism among Jews, Christians, and Moslems in the Iberian Peninsula,which persisted into the Siglo de Oro, and (e) the Iberian interest in pietistic mysticism, which among Jews expressed itself as affinity for the Kaballah. The following paragraphselaboratebriefly on these items. Aspect (a), the closeness of Portugueseand Castilianliterature,is highlighted by the fact that, duringthe earlierpart of the Siglo de Oro, some literary figures wrote in both languages. For example, the Portuguesepoet Gil Vicente (c. 147061

Marian and Ram6n F Sarraga c. 1536) composed many verses in Castilian,while the popularCastilianpreacher and Dominican monk FrayLuis de Granada(1504-1588) wrote moraltreatisesin Portuguese.34Between roughly 1580 and 1640, Portugalwas underthe crown of Spain, and hence Portugueseconverso merchantsand financiers developed close contacts with Spain, sometimes receiving universityeducationsin Spain,and even settling in Spain priorto their final departurefrom the IberianPeninsula.35In the case of HamburgSephardim,Kellenbenz has discussed at length the importance of contacts with Spain in the areas of internationalcommerce and diplomacy.36 Because of this background,one is not surprisedto find a fair numberof Castilian words in the Portugueseepitaphs of Altona. Aspect (b), the influence of Italianliterature,was reinforcedby the extensive territoriesthat the crown of Spain controlledin Italy duringthe Siglo de Oro. Italy had a decisive influence, both on Iberianliterature,and on SephardicHebrewliterature.37Moreover,in sixteenth-centuryItaly,formerconversosstartedto formtheir own Ponentini (western) communities, which were organizationallyindependent from the Levantini(eastern)communitiesof Sephardimfrom the OttomanEmpire and NorthAfrica.38ProminentPonentinicommunitieswere foundedin cities such as Venice, Livorno,and Ferrara,and the Sephardiccommunitiesof Amsterdamand Hamburglaterfollowed the model of the Ponentini.In spite of theirorganizational independence,the Ponentinialways maintainedclose contactswith the Levantini; e.g., major Amsterdamrabbis, such as Joseph Pardo (d. 1619), Ishac Uziel (d. 1622), JacobSasportas(c. 1610-1698), and SelomohAyll6n (c. 1655-1728), were Levantiniwho had been rabbisin Islamic countriesbefore settling in Amsterdam. Aspect (c) entails particularstylistic and thematic preferencesof the Siglo de Oro that are discernible in some Altona epitaphs.A prominentstylistic feature was a certain succinctness of expression in which a nuance of a word can have a decisive role in conveying the meaning of an expression. As a result, the reader 34. Luis de Granadaand other IberianChristianauthorsinfluenced the Sephardimof Amsterdam, as discussed in HenryMechoulan,"TheImportanceof Hispanicityin JewishOrthodoxyand Heterodoxy in Seventeenth-CenturyAmsterdam,"in B. D. Cooperman,ed., In Iberia and Beyond:Hispanic Jews between Cultures(Cranbury,New Jersey:Associated UniversityPress, 1998), pp. 353-372 (hereaftercited as "Hispanicity"). 35. On the Spanishconnections of Portugueseconversos, see, e.g., Yosef Kaplan,From Christianity to Judaism:the Story of saac Orobiode Castro (Oxford UniversityPress:The LittmanLibrary of Jewish Civilization, 1989); Yosef HayimYerushalmi,From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto:Isaac Cardoso: a Study in Seventeenth-CenturyMarranismand Jewish Apologetics, (Seattle: University of WashingtonPress, 1981); J. C. Boyajian,PortugueseBankersat the Court of Spain, 1626-1650 (Rutgers, New Jersey:RutgersUniversityPress, 1983); and MarkusSchreiber,Marranenin Madrid, 16001670, FranzSteinerVerlag, Stuttgart(1994), hereaftercited as Marranenin Madrid.We are indebted to Michael Studemund-Halevyfor giving us a copy of Schreiber'sbook. 36. See Sephardiman der UnterenElbe, passim. 37. The interactionbetween Italian and IberianHebrew literatureis discussed, e.g., in HIidush u-Masoret,pp. 247-355. 38. The customs and interactionsamong the variousJewish groupsin seventeenth-centuryItaly are described at length in Giulio Morosini, Via della Fede, Stampariadella Sacra Congregationede PropagandaFide, Rome (1683). The Sephardicapostate Giulio Morosini (c. 1612-1683), formerly known as Semuel ben David Nahmias, wrote this detailedbook in orderto provideCatholicpreachers with backgroundinformationfor their proselytizing efforts.

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Sephardic Epitaphs in Hamburg's Oldest Jewish Cemetery was requiredto reflect carefullyon the language used. Anotherprominentfeature was a predilectionfor paradoxas a literarydevice to emphasize a concept or sentiment. Riddles of many types were also quite popular with the reading and theatergoingpublic of that period. Again, the readerwas requiredto ponder all possible associations of the language used. Poetic compositions were also subject to fairly strictrules of style prescribingthe roles of sets of verses within a category of poems, e.g., in a sonnet or an octave. Some of these literarydevices are quite similar to features already present in the Hebrew literatureof the medieval Andalusianperiod;nevertheless,the Siglo de Oro exertedan influence by subtlymodifying older featuresthat it supported.39 Aspect (d) of Siglo de Oroliteratureflowed fromthe culturalsyncretismthat had gradually developed in the Iberian peninsula because of the close contact among Jews, Christians,and Moslems.40On the Christianside, twentieth-century researchdevotedparticularattentionto the Castilianpoetry of the monastic mystics Juan de la Cruz (1542-1591) and Teresa de Avila (1515-1582). Juan de la Cruz was of essentially Moorish converso lineage,41while Teresade Avila was of Jewishconversoextraction.Herpaternalgrandfather,JuanSanchez,was penanced by the Inquisitionof Toledo in 1485 for "judaizing"practices.42Syncretistic elements in the works of these two authorsattractedthe attentionof the Spanish Inquisition:Juande la Cruz was investigated,43and Teresade Avila was questioned about the literaryimagery she used in her religious treatises.44 The Altona epitaph of Hazan Jacob Cohen Belinfante, analyzed below, echoes a religious theme of Juande la Cruz and Teresade Avila. It is highly improbablethatthese mystics influenced HamburgSephardim;however,a common general backgroundis quite likely. For example, Inquisition records show that some conversosreturningto Judaismhad close relativesin the Catholic clergy and monastic orders;45hence, a common social and culturalbackgroundis to be expected. Strikingexamplesof borrowedreligious metaphorsandmoralizingphraseology are found in the Iberianliteratureof some Sephardicand Catholic authors from that period.46Linguistic and thematic influences are also known to have en39. See Hidush u-Masoret,e.g., pp. 294-299. 40. See, e.g., Luce L6pez-Baralt,Islam in SpanishLiterature:fromthe MiddleAges to the Present, Brill, Leiden (1992), hereafter cited as Islam in Spanish Literature,and references contained therein. 41. See the excellent biographicalsketchin Poesia Completa/ San Juan de la Cruz,ed. by Jose Jimenez Lozano, (Madrid:Taurus,1983), hereaftercited as Poesia Completa/ San Juan de la Cruz. This sketchexplainsthe knownandconjecturedMoorishconverso influences on Juande la Cruz,which came from his mother'sside of the family, and the probable reasons why the Jewish converso backgroundof his fatherhad little or no influence. 42. Te6fanes L6pez Egido, El Linaje Judeoconversode Santa Teresa:Pleito de Hidalguia de los Cepeda, (Madrid:Editorialde Espiritualidad,1986). 43. See the introductionby J. Jimenez Lozano to Poesia Completa/ San Juan de la Cruz. 44. See, e.g., Islam in Spanish Literature. 45. See, e.g., the recordsof the Inquisitionof Venice publishedin P.C. I. Zorattini,Processi del S. Uffizio di VeneziacontroEbrei e Giudaizzanti,vol. 9 (1608-1632) (Florence, Italy: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1991). 46. Forexamples of such borrowingby AmsterdamSephardim,see "Hispanicity."

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Marian and Ram6n F Sarraga teredthe Hebrew(andAramaic)literatureof the Sephardimsince the MiddleAges; e.g., Castilian expressions have been identified in the Aramaic of the Zohar.47 Fromthe Islamic side, influence of Sufic themes on the Kaballahhas been noted.48 In Altona, one sees many examples of culturalsyncretism.Particularlystriking for a Jewish cemetery are the images engravedon the stones.49Syncretismis also noticeable in the epitaphictexts. Forexample, in Portugueseepitaphs,the first day of the week is usually called domingo, which comes from the Latin dies dominicus (the Lord'sday), an expression that is clearly of Christianorigin. Instead of domingo, the number of the day could have been used quite readily, because Portugueseuses numbersto denote weekdays, i.e., all days otherthansibado (the Sabbath)and domingo;in fact, a few Altona epitaphsdo give the day'snumberinstead of domingo.An analogous case of insensitivity to borrowingexists even today among Portuguese-and Castilian-speakingChristians,who regularlyuse the exclamations oxald and ojald (may it be so), although these words originated from an Arabic expression that essentially says: "mayAllah wish it so." The final relevant aspect (e) of the Siglo de Oro is the pietistic mysticism that characterizedreligious thinking in Iberian society. This backgroundprobably predisposed at least some former conversos to the correspondingtrendwithin Judaism, viz., the Kaballah. In fact, the Kaballahwas a prominentingredient of religious life in all seventeenth-centurySephardiccommunities, whetherin Islamic countries, Italy,or NorthernEurope.50 Altona epitaphsreflect some, but not all, aspects of this interest.Clearly absent are explicit referencesto the theosophic elements of the Kaballah; similarly, the language of amulets seems unimportant.51On the other hand, one often sees phrases that have special meanings in Kabbalistic pietism and ethics; e.g., the phrase ,n wm ('ish hai: a living mani.e., a holy man) is common.52 Typically, Kabbalistic phrases in epitaphs refer 47. See the introductionin IsaiahTishby,TheWisdomof the Zohar:anAnthologyofTexts,(London: The LittmanLibraryof Jewish Civilization, 1991). 48. See, e.g., Moshe Idel, Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah,(Albany: State Universityof New York Press, 1988), and the referencescontainedtherein;also of interestis H. Zafrani,Kabbale, VieMystique et Magie: Judaisme d'Occident Musulman,(Paris:Editions Maisonneuve& Larose, 1986). Forthe influence of the Sufis on Christianliterature,see, e.g., Islam in Spanish Literature. 49. See, e.g., "Storied Stones" and Betahaim, passim; for the case of Amsterdam,see D. Henriques de Castro,Keur van Grafsteenenop de Nederl.-Portug.-Israil.Begraafplaatste Ouderkerkaan den Amstel, (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1883), reprintedwith English translations,Ouderkerkaan de Amstel, 1999; for Curagao,see Precious Stones and Rochelle Weinstein,"Stonesof Memory: Revelationsfrom a Cemetery in Curacao,"in M. A. Cohen, and A. J. Peck, eds., Sephardimin the Americas, (University of Alabama Press:AmericanJewish Archives, 1993), pp. 81-140; and for a recent survey of Jewish cemeteries, including several artistic photographsof SephardicAltona stones, see HanneloreKiinzl, Jiidische Grabkunst,(Darmstadt:WissenschaftlicheBuchgesellschaft, 1999). 50. See, e.g., Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah, (New York:PenguinBooks, 1978), hereaftercited as Kabbalah.Cabalistictrendsamong post-expulsion Sephardimare summarizedon pp. 67-79; in particular, see pp. 72-73, which touch on kabbalisticpietism and ethics, the kabbalisticthemes most often reflected in epitaphs and also most similar to the world view of the Siglo de Oro. 51. For sample texts used in amulets, see T. Schrire,HebrewAmulets: TheirDeciphermentand Interpretation,(London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1966). 52. For a fairly detailed, but not erudite, explanationof the implicationsof 'ish hai, see Aryeh

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Sephardic Epitaphs in Hamburg's Oldest Jewish Cemetery to the moral qualities of the deceased or to the soul's reward in the Garden of Eden.53Moreover,some elements of Kabbalisticbiblical exegesis seem to be present. Examples of kabbalistic allusions are presented below in connection with Hebrew epitaphs. A general source for the kabbalisticbackgroundof seventeenth-centuryepitaphic terminologyis the 1651 book, Sefer Nishmat IHayyim,writtenin defense of the immortality of the soul by one of Amsterdam'sforemost Sephardic rabbis, Menasseh Ben Israel(1604-1657).54 NishmatHayyimdoes not treatsome aspects of the Kaballah,such as the theosophy.55Interestingly,the aspects omitted from Nishmat IHayyimare among the ones not mentioned explicitly in Altona epitaphs. Perhaps,both the book and the epitaphswere intended for the same type of audience, i.e., former conversos, or their children, who had learned Hebrew and understood basic Kabbalistic pietism (possibly by analogy with the syncretistic pietism of the Siglo de Oro) but were unfamiliarwith the esoteric Kaballah. Seventeenth-CenturySephardicLiteratureand Moses GideonAbudiente Throughoutthe seventeenthcentury,western Sephardimretaineda high degree of interestin IberianSiglo de Oro literature.56Literarygroups were formed, at least sporadically,in Amsterdam57and Livorno,58such as the Academia de los Sitibundos(academyof the thirsting),which performedtheatricalplays of Iberian authors.In anotherexample, the inventoryof books previously owned by the deceased Semuel Abas of Hamburg(d. 1691), which were auctionedin Amsterdam, includes works of Calder6n de la Barca, as well as the Talmud,Midrashim, and Kabbalistic literature.59A fair number of Iberian literary compositions of Sephardicauthorshave been conserved. Forexample,60Rohiel Jesurun,while still Kaplan,Meditationand Kabbalah, (YorkBeach, MA: Samuel Weiser Inc., 1982), pp. 233-235; this book is hereaftercited as Meditation. 53. See, e.g., Kabbalah,pp. 333-334. 54. See, e.g., the edition: Menasseh Ben Israel, Sefer Nishmat Hayyim, (Jerusalem:Yerid haSefarim, 1995), hereaftercited as Nishmat IHayyim;its relevance notwithstanding,this book contains ideas that may have been rejectedeven by pious Sephardim. 55. Fora discussion of these omissions, see Joseph Dan, "ManassehBen Israel'sNishmatHayyim and the Concept of Evil in seventeenth-centuryJewish Thought,"in Jewish Thoughtin the Seventeenth Century,ed. by I. Twerskyand B. Septimus, (Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press, 1987), pp. 63-75. 56. See, e.g., Harm den Boer, La LiteraturaSefardi de Amsterdam,Instituto Internacionalde Estudios Sefardies y Andalusies, Universidadde Alcalii de Henares (1995), hereaftercited as La LiteraturaSefardi;also relevantis FernandoDiaz Esteban,ed., Los Judaizantesen Europay la Literatura Castellana del Siglo de Oro, (Madrid:Letrfimero,1994), hereaftercited as Judaizantes. See also "Spanish,Portuguese,and Neo-Latin Poetry(1) and (2)." 57. See, e.g., Miriam Bodian, Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in EarlyModernAmsterdam,(Bloomington, Indiana:IndianaUniversity Press, U.S.A. (1997). 58. See, e.g., Sod Hatum,p. 118. 59. We are indebted to Michael Studemund-Hal6vyfor supplying us with a copy of this unpublishedinventory. 60. Formore examples, see La LiteraturaSefardi and Judaizantes.

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Marian and Ramdn E Sarraga residing in Amsterdam,wrote a religious play,Dialogo dos Montes [sic],61which included sermons by H. H. Saul Levy Morteira(c. 1596-1660).62 The play was first performedin Amsterdamon Shabuoth5384 (1624).63 One of the actors was Moses Gideon Abudiente (c. 1610-1688), who later became one of the most influential Hebrewpoets in seventeenth-centuryHamburg.64Althoughthe sequence of events is not known, it is clear thatAbudientemarriedJesurun'sdaughterSara, and that Abudiente, Jesurun,and their families eventuallymoved to Hamburg.65 Jesurunwas buried in Altona in 1634, and Abudiente in 1688.66Abudiente'sparents and some siblings were also buried in Hamburg.67 Abudiente was the SephardicHebrew poet who was most closely associated with Hamburgduringthe seventeenthcentury.All availableevidence indicates that he lived there from about 1633, or earlier,until his death in 1688. Abudiente published in Hamburga short Hebrew grammar,written in Portuguese,with the title GramaticaHebraica [sic], which is dated 3 Elul 5393 (1633), when Abudiente was about 23 years old.68 This grammarincludes practical tips on various items, ranging from the pronunciationof the sheva to composing Hebrewverses in an elegant style.69 Abudientealso authoreda collection of 102 octaves in Hebrewnamed 'Avne Shoham (onyx stones).70These octaves were composed in a refined style, quite 61. Fora critical edition, see Rehuel Jessurun,Dialogo dos Montes [sic], ed. by Philip Pollack, (London:Tamesis Books, 1975). 62. For a comprehensive summaryof the life of Saul Levy Morteira,see the introduction(in Dutch) by H. P. Salomon in the modem publicationof one of Saul Levy Morteira'streatises:Saul Levy Morteira,Saul Levi Morteraen zijn Traktaatbetreffendede waarheidvan de wet van Mozes (Saul Levi Morteraand His Treatise concerning the Truthof the Law of Moses), ed. by H. P. Salomon, (Braga, Portugal:Barbosae Xavier, 1988). 63. See David FrancoMendes, Memorias do Estabelecimento [sic], Fuks, L., Fuks-Mansfeld, R. G., and Teensma,B. N., eds., (Assen, The Netherlands:VanGorcum, 1975), pp. 36-37. 64. See Zvi Malachi, "Moses Gideon Abudiente and His Literary Creation"(in Hebrew), Pe'amim,vol. 1 (1979), pp. 67-75, hereaftercited as "Abudienteand His LiteraryCreation;"a French translationof Malachi'sarticle appearedin M. Studemund-Halevy,ed., Die Sefardenin Hamburg,Helmut Buske Verlag,Hamburg,vol. 1 (1994), edited in collaborationwith PeterKoj, pp. 307-316. 65. For a discussion of the Abudientes' move to Hamburgand related circumstances,see pp. 141-142 of H. P. Salomon, Portraitof a New Christian,FerndoAlvaresMelo, vol. 18 of FontesDocumentais Portuguesas, (Paris: Editions JeanTouzot, 1982). 66. For Abudiente's epitaph in Altona, see "Abudienteand His LiteraryCreation",p. 74; see also "Episodes,"pp. 692-694. A version of Jesurun'sepitaph is found in "Episodes,"p. 685, but the Hebrew text has epigraphicerrorsto be correctedin a futurepublication.(See the prewarphotograph in "Episodes,"p. 696, and the entry in BLHS,p. 527.) The Portuguesepartof Jesurun'sepitaphis found also in Betahaim, p. 62. 67. See "Episodes",pp. 681-684 and p. 711. 68. We are indebted to the Hebrew Union College Libraryin Cincinnati,Ohio, for supplying us with an excellent microfilm copy of Abudiente'sgrammar,hereaftercited as GramaticaHebraica. 69. Fora detailed discussion of the Gramatica,see Anthony J. Klijnsmit,"'Se qual o ouro entre todos os metais...,' Abudiente'sHebrew Grammar(1633)," in M. Studemund-Halevy,ed., Die Sefarden in Hamburg,vol. 1 (1994), edited in collaborationwith PeterKoj, pp. 317-373, hereaftercited as "Abudiente'sHebrew Grammar". 70. Moses GideonAbudiente, 'AvneShoham,undatedmanuscriptwith copies storedat the Bibliotheca Rosenthalianaof the University of Amsterdam,the Jewish National and UniversityLibraryin

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Sephardic Epitaphs in Hamburg's Oldest Jewish Cemetery common in seventeenth-centuryAltona epitaphs, that combines Italian models with the principlesof classical Andalusianpoetry.E.g., the poems conform to Italian guidelines on the role of each verse in conveying the message of an octave; in addition, they obey a fixed "quantitative-syllabic"meter (in the terminology of Pagis), which representsa compromise between Italianand Andalusian metrical forms.7"Although 'AvneShoham was never published,it has survived in several manuscripts.72The copy of 'AvneShoham at the Bibliotheca Rosenthalianawas vocalized by the well-known Sephardicpoet and author,David Franco Mendes (1713-1792), who admiredAbudiente'sstyle and had some of Abudiente'sverses published in the well-known periodical of the Haskalah period, Ha-Me 'asef73 FrancoMendes' vocalization of 'AvneShoham is used below as an arbitrarybasis of comparisonwhen discussing an anomalous vocalization requiredby the meter of an epitaphicpoem. TheExcellence of Hebrew:Excerptsfrom the GramaticaHebraica The prefaceof Abudiente'sGramaticaHebraica containsseveraldedications by supporters,some of whom later became prominent members of Hamburg's Sephardiccommunity.These dedicationsare quite revealingof the enthusiasmfor the Hebrewlanguage sharedby Sephardimof various backgrounds,even conversos who hadbeen educatedas Christians.This enthusiasmhelps explain the prominence of Hebrewliteraturein Altona epitaphs.Some excerptsfrom the dedications are presentedbelow, togetherwith summariesof the authors'backgrounds.74 The first excerpt is an epigram in Latin by the physician, Jacob Rosales (c. 1590-c. 1662). The epigramfollows a lengthy poem, also in Latin,that is not included here.'" Kellenbenz has pointed out that Rosales, alias Manuel Bocarro Frances,had an excellent educationfor his time.76He studiedin a Jesuit school in Lisbon and later attended the universities of Coimbra, Alcali de Henares, and Montpellier.He signed the 1652 consolidation document of the Hamburg synagogues,77but he left Hamburgshortlythereafter.The epigramreads78: Hic docetin Linguaproprioq[ue]idiomateMoses Linguamcoelestis,dictaq[ue]sanctaChori: Jerusalem,and Oxford University.Although the introductionto 'AvneShohammentions 102 octaves, two octaves are essentially repetitions. For furtherinformation on the manuscriptversions of 'Avne Shoham,see "Abudienteand His LiteraryCreation." 71. See Hidush u-Masoret,pp. 294-299; however,Pagis' analysis of Italianinnovationsmight not applyto Abudiente'spoetry in every detail. This article does not consider such issues. 72. We are very gratefulto the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana,the Jewish National and University Library,and Oxford University for supplyingus with copies of their versions of 'AvneShoham. 73. See, e.g., Ha-Me'asef, Tishri5545 (1784), p. 5. 74. These texts arereproducedherewith many,but not all, the punctuationmarksin Abudiente's Gramatica.The texts are italicized here only if they are italicized in the Gramatica. 75. See BLHS,p. 234. 76. See Sephardiman der UnterenElbe, pp. 338-344. 77. See Protocol, p. 5, datedElul 5412 (1652); the list is also found in "Protokoll,"vol. 6, p. 7. 78. A slightly differentversionandtranslationof this epigramis found in "Spanish,Portuguese, and Neo-Latin Poetry (1)," p. 25.

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Marian and Ram6nF Sdrraga Hanc disce et disces Superumcommercia, linguam Tuncaliam in sacris ignis amoris habe: Hac Deus ad nos, adq[ue] illum nos pellimur ist [a]: Haec homines reddetmutua lingua Deos.79

The second dedication is by Dr. Baruch Namias de Castro(d. 1684), also a signatory of the 1652 consolidation document.80 He was almost certainlythe Dr. Baruch Namias who was parnas in Hamburgin 1666 and, duringthat year, supportedthe messianic claims of ShabbetaiZvi.81His dedicationin prose uses some terminology from medieval philosophy: Encomio do Dotor Baruch Nahmias de Castro Se qual o ouro entre todos os metais, ofogo entreos elementos,e o sol entreos planetas, resplandesce a lingua Hebrea entre todas as do mundo,bem he que com muitas uerasse cultiue daqueles que a herdara3de seus maiores,pois so por meio de seu conhecimentopodemos uir a especular, e inuestigarprofundos misteriosde nossa ley sagrada, que aque nosfazfeliges e bemauenturados, e com que alcansamos aquele grande bernque o diuino autor da naturezatem goardado para seus tementes. Se o homem que he hu[m] soberano retrato de seu fazedor, unica perfeiga&da idea de seu artifice se define 'n "lnm (uivo q' fala) mostrase bem que he a lingoa hum espelho do coragao, hua imagem do entendimento,com a qual por meio do discurso como co hum delicado pinsel se va6 ao uiuo retratandoos mais altos congeitos da alma; Ora quantos quilates de uentagem leue a todas as demais, no misterio, na excelle[n]tia, na breuidade,e na significasa6 a lingua santa,julgue o quemtiuer hua piquena noticia dela, e para que com todas as perfeicois se exercite comuemque seja por regras de Grammatica,e como ate oje carecemos dela no nosso Idioma, deuemos as grasas a o snor R. Moseh Guideon. ... 82 79. Latin epigram by Jacob Rosales: Here Moses teaches, in his own tongue and language, / the language and holy sayings of the celestial choir. / Learnthis one (Hebrew), and you will learnthe social intercourseof those on high, / then have another language in the sacred mattersof the fire of love. / With this one (Hebrew) God (speaks) to us, and to Him we are moved with that one. / This one (Hebrew) will turn men, with a common language (i.e., common with God), into gods. (The slashes indicate roughly where Latin lines end. The bracketsin the Latinword ista at the end of line five correspondto a smudge in the original text we consulted;the other bracketscontain expansionsof abbreviations in the original.) 80. See "Protokoll,"vol. 6, p. 7, dated Elul 5412 (1652). 81. See Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi, TheMystical Messiah, trans.by R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, (Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1973), hereaftercited as Sabbatai Sevi; for the original source, see Jacob Sasportas, Tsitsat Novel Zvi, ed. by Isaiah Tishby, (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1954), hereaftercited as TsitsatNovel Zvi. 82. Dedication by Baruch Namias: Encomium by Dr. Baruch Namias de Castro. Like gold among all metals, fire among the elements, and the sun among the planets,the Hebrewlanguageshines among all (languages) of the world. It is good that it be cultivatedwith much dedicationby those who inheritedit from their ancestors,for only by means of its knowledgecan we come to reflect on, and investigateprofoundmysteriesof our sacredLaw,which heremakesus happyand blessed, andwith which we attainthatgreatgood thatthe divineAuthorof naturehas storedfor those who fear Him. If man, who is a masterfulportraitof his Maker,unique perfection of the idea of his Artisan, is defined as "an'n

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SephardicEpitaphsin Hamburg'sOldest Jewish Cemetery Thisdedicationis followedby a poemof praiseby DanielAbudiente,uncle of theauthor,whichis notquotedhere.AfterDaniel'spoemis the followingpoem (whichis readdownthe columns)by a JosephFrances:83 Entreas chamascorruscantes Nos 9elestesorizontes, Tremulosos firmesmontes Humildemente arrogantes. Nos foi dadaa ley;masantes Mosse Quea communique Porquecom artenos de Luzde seuspontosaltivos Nos soberanosarchivos Profundosmisterios,ve.

FoireqebendoIsrael Cabalisticaa doctrina, Jaquasia nos clandestina, No cativeirocruel. Masnestehorrorde Babel Emvez do em Sinay;permitte Deos, queestaartefacilite Quantoo Galutdifficulta E o quede Mossehsepulta OutroMossehresqucite.

Thispoemby JosephFrancesexplicitlyrefersto the Kaballahin line two of

the second column.84It also makes an implicit referenceto cabalistic concepts in the phraseLuzde seuspontos altivos (light from its lofty points).The poem has two oxymoronsthat reflect how common a literarydevice oxymorons had become in Iberianliterature.The first one, Tremulosos firmes montes (the firm mountains

arrogantes trembling)fits well in the context,butthe secondone, Humildemente seemsratherforced.Ineachcolumn,therhymeis abbaaccddc. (humblyarrogant), The last dedicatorypoem is a sonnet by Ishac Abas, which ends with a line that is typical of Siglo de Oro literature:Tituloadquirireisde Apolo Hebreyo (you

(a living being that talks), it is well shown (this fact clearly shows) that language is a mirrorof the heart,an image of the mind, with which by means of discourse, as if with a fine brush,the loftiest concepts of the soul are paintedin a live portrait.Now, how many karatsof superioritydoes the holy tongue have over the rest, in (its) mystery (capacityto express divine mystery), in (its) excellence, in (its) conciseness, and in (its) signification (powerof expression), may he judge (this) who has (at least) a small notion of it (the holy tongue). And so that it can be exercised with all (its) perfections, it is opportune that it be (exercised) using rules of grammar.And since up to now we lack one (a grammar)in our language, we must give thanksto R. Moses Gideon. ... (For a facsimile of the first page of this dedication, see "Abudiente'sHebrew Grammar,"p. 318, and see pp. 320-323 for a discussion and partial translation.) 83. This poem appearedalso in "Spanish, Portuguese,and Neo-Latin Poetry (1)," p. 26. The poem's authoris probablythe Joseph Franceswho was called "el Camoens de Hamburgo."See p. 343 of: Sienz-Badillos, Angel, "DavidCohen de Laray Sus Dos VocabulariosRabinicos,"in Judaizantes, pp. 341-349; this article is hereaftercited as "David Cohen de Lara." 84. Poem by Joseph Frances:Amid coruscatingflames / in the celestial horizons, / as the firm mountainstrembled,/ humblyarrogant,/ the Law was given to us; yet before / Moses transmitsit, he sees / profoundmysteries / in the archives of the Sovereign, / (shown to him) so that he may give us, artfully,/ light from its lofty points. // Israel was receiving / a doctrinecabalistic, / now (given) to us, as it were, clandestinely,/ in (our) cruel captivity./ Yet in this horrorof Babylon, / instead of the case on Sinai, God allows / thatthis art(the cultivationof Hebrew)should facilitate / all thatwhich the Galut (exile) makesdifficult. / And that(gift) of Moses, which (the Galut)buries, / may anotherMoses (Abudiente) raise to life. // (The slashes indicate roughlywhere the Portugueselines end, and double slashes indicatethe end of a column. However,the word orderhas been changed, especially in lines 6-10, in orderto make the poem more intelligible in English;moreover,the puntuationof the Portuguesetext has been ignored.)

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Marian and Ram6n E Sarraga will acquirethe title, "a HebrewApollo").85Such a title is quite typical of the Renaissance and the Baroque,yet quite contraryto the spirit of the Talmud. The Altona cemetery has tombs that could be the graves of some of the men who endorsedAbudiente'sGramatica.Dr. BaruchNamias is almost certainlythe one buried in RS1122 with date 15 Sebat 5444 (1684). Joseph Francescould be the one buried in RS855 with date 1 Nisan 5441 (1681),86 and Ishac Abas could be the one buried in RS494 with the partially legible date [6] Tamuz 54[05] (16[45]). The dates for BaruchNamias and Joseph Francessuggest thatthese men were roughly of the same age as Moses Gideon Abudiente. These endorsementsindicate why Hebrew appearsoften in Altona epitaphs and why Hebrew literary compositions are not rare in these epitaphs. First, the widespread use of Hebrew must have resulted from the central role that Hebrew played in the religious thinkingof an influentialcore of communitymembers.Second, since Hamburg'sformer conversos valued literaturein general, they naturally fostered a literaryuse of their most cherishedreligious language. Hence, the occurrence of Hebrew literature is understandable;however, the rather small proportionof Portugueseliterarycompositions is not fully explained. In particular, it is remarkablethat the ratio of literary over nonliterary epitaphs is much smaller in Portuguesethan in Hebrew.Perhapsfutureresearchwill shed light on this question. EPITAPHS MAINLY IN PORTUGUESE

The first three Portugueseepitaphspresentedbelow, those of JacobAlves de Vargas(1622), Sara Miriam Senior Coronel (1635), and Jacob Cohen Belinfante (1761), clearly show the influence of the Siglo de Oro, e.g., in their concise forms of expression and in the use of paradoxwithin the poem for Cohen Belinfante.No claim is being made thatthese epitaphsare greatworks of literature,althoughthey contain probablythe best Siglo de Oro Portuguesepoems in Altona. As noted below, the conciseness of Siglo de Oro style sometimes leads to difficulties of interpretation. By contrast,the fourth epitaph,that of Rachel HanaAbudiente (1770), beto longs the period of Romanticismin literature.It is includedhere to highlightthe differences between Siglo de Oro epitaphsand those of other periods. Jacob Alves de Vargas The first sample epitaph contains simple moral maxims and terse expressions of praise for the deceased, JacobAlves (Alvares) de Vargas.The inscription was chiseled on a flat tombstoneof great size (probablythe most massive flat stone in the cemetery); the stone has two engravednumbers:36 and 37. The spelling of Portuguesewords is quite bad and inconsistent. For exam85. The poem by Ishac Abas is found in "Spanish, Portuguese, and Neo-Latin Poetry (1)," p. 27. 86. The Hebrewepitaphic poem of the Joseph Francesin RS855 was publishedin "Episodes", pp. 689-690.

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Sephardic Epitaphs in Hamburg's Oldest Jewish Cemetery ple, one finds HOVENESTHIDADEfor HONESTIDADE,MVDO for MVNDO, andVICTORIAIfor VICTORIA.In particular,almost every letter"H"is chiseled as a "K",and words are not separatedfrom each other on the stone. The "C"is not distinguishedfrom the "C".The transcriptionbelow shows many of the engraving errors,except some that would be extremely confusing to the reader.The Castilian text adjacentto the verses serves in partas a pointerto engravingerrorsat their locations in the text. The verses have seven to nine syllables per line. (Two adjacent vowels may count as one syllable.) The rhyme is aabba cddcd deded. By contrast,the engraving of the Hebrew epitaph is much better.The Hebrew text has no poetry, only a standardtext and a scripturalquote. The phrase niii nayn nx• (this is the monumentof the grave of... ) is a standardinitial formula for SephardicHebrew epitaphs in Altona duringthe first half of the sevennn: teenthcentury.Afterwards,the nxT(this) is dropped.The abbreviationa"s(C1ipa here is buried),which is quitecommon in Ashkenaziepitaphs,is almost neverused on Sephardicstones: it appearsin at most a handfulof the approximately1650 inscriptionswe have copied. RS1060-Jacob Alvesde Vargas (17Tebet5383 / 1622) Aquel que aqui Ilegare AQVELEQVEAQVICHEGAR note que, para alcanzar NOTEQVEPERAALCANSAR O SVMOBEMQVEHEA GLORIA el sumo bien, que es la gloria, SE DO MONDOQVERVICTORIAI si del mundoquiere victoria, SAIBASOFRERE CALLAR sepa sufriry callar.

inp n; n rig niam'-v

(engraved skull) '.7 , ...1 AQVIDESCANCAO BEM DE IACOB AVENTVRADO ALVESDEVARGASOIE17 DE DEZENBRO1622ANOS CVIAALMAGOZEDA GLORIAPERAQVEFOI CRIADAAMEM5383

:

Leftsideat thebottomof the stone: A TERA PAGAHOTRIBVTO Paga el tributoa la tierra; va a gozar de la claridad; VAIGOZARDA CLARIDADE va a ver la suma bondad; VAI[V]ERA [SV]MABONDADE

71

Marian and Ramrn E Scfrraga DO MAOMVNDOSE DESTERA PERAHOMV[N]DODA VERDADE

del mal mundose destierra para el mundode la verdad.

Rightside at thebottomof thestone: En su boca la verdad, EMSVABOCAA VERDADE en el coraz6n amor EN HOCORACAO AMOR MAIORQVEHOVENESTHIDADE mayor que honestidad, de los pobres consolador, DOSPOBRESCONSOLADOR PROXIMIDADE con hospicios proximidad. CO[M]HOSPIC[I]OS (36) (37)

The readingof the three-stanzapoem87is partiallyuncertain:(a) In the second stanza, lines one to three, the verbal forms "PAGA"and "VAI"could be read as imperatives.(b) In two cases, bracketsindicatesuggestederrorsof omission (i.e., the lettersin bracketswere definitely neveron the stone):the "[N]"in "MV[N]DO" (stanzatwo, last line) and the "[I]"in "HOSPIC[I]OS"(stanzathree, last line). (c) The "D" in "DO MAO" (stanza two, line four) may have an "E"engravedwithin the letter"D", as if the intendedexpressionhad been the quasi-Castilianform "DE O MAO;"similarly,a bias towardsCastilian orthographymay explain the phrase "EN HO CORACAO"(in the heart-stanza three, line two), unless the reading should be "E NHO CORACAO"(and in the heart), with "NHO" as a variantof the standard"NO". The phraseamor maior que honestidade(a love greaterthan decorum:stanza three, lines 2-3) may mean thatAlves de Vargasgave assistance to certainpersons even at the risk of evil gossip. This type of explanationavoids interpretations that question the characterof Alves de Vargas.Disparagingremarkson the conduct of the deceased would be uncharacteristicof Altona epitaphs. The engraved"HOSPICOS"(stanzathree, last line) could be explainedas a spelling errorfor os ricos (the wealthy), but closeness to the wealthy is not a notable virtue.Anotherpossible readingis ospicds (the drunks);however,"closeness to drunks"suggests negative implicationsthatseem out of context.The most prob87. Epitaphof JacobAlves de Vargas:Portugueseat the top: He who arriveshere / shouldnote that, in orderto attain/ the supremegood, which is the glory: / if over the world he wants victory,/ he shouldknow how to sufferand keep quiet.Hebrew:This is the monumentof the grave,and restingplace of / the honoredelder, a man of integrity,the honorable/ Jacobde Vargas;may his soul be boundin the bond of life. / He departedon the thirdday (of the week), 17thof Tebet(gematriafor ), year:/ "the "1v Lordwill be for you an eternallight; and they will be finished: / the days of your mourning."(The quote is fromIs. 60:20 and denotes the year 383 by the gematriaof a~w Portuguese:Herereststhe bles"•6x.) / sed Jacob / Alves de Vargas,today, 17 / December 1622 years; / may his soul enjoy the / glory for which it was / created.Amen. 5383. Bottomleft side: He pays the tributeto the earth;/ he goes to enjoy the brightness;/ he goes to see the SupremeKindness;/ from the bad world he exiles himself / to the world of truth.Bottomright side: In his mouth, the truth;/ in (his) heart,a love / greaterthandecorum; / of the poor, a consoler; / by means of hospices, closeness (to the needy), or: towardhospices, closeness. (The date 17 Tebet5383 does not correspondto 17 December 1622; however,the Hebrewdatedid fall on a thirdday of the week. Hence 17 Decemberis probablyan engravingerrorfor 10/20 December, the Julian/Gregoriancounterpartof the Hebrewdate.) Comparethe differentversionsof the Portuguese text in BLHS,p. 245, and in "Spanish,Portuguese,and Neo-Latin Poetry(2)," p. 41.

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Sephardic Epitaphs in Hamburg's Oldest Jewish Cemetery cerpts fromthe GramaticaHebraica. Forexample, both poems use Hebrewwords inside Portuguesetext (viz., tal andgalut), andboth contain similarstyles of pietistic allusions. ThePortugueseEpitaph of Hazan Jacob Cohen Belinfante The two Portuguese stanzas presented below are an excellent example of Siglo de Oro literature,although they were engraved on the much later (1761) tombstoneof HazanJacobCohenBelinfante.91Futureresearchmay well show that these stanzas were copied from some earlier Siglo de Oro composition, which could havebeen writtenin Castilianas well as Portuguese,since the syllable count (seven per line) and the rhyme are the same in both languages. RS873-Hazan Jacob,son of JosephCohenBelinfante (24 Nisan5521 / 1761) (Portuguese epitaphonly) TAOBEMESTO[U]COMMEUMAL Tanbien estoy con mi mal DESPOISQUEPERDIMEUBEM despuds que perdi mi bien; QUEO BEMMEPARECEMAL que el bien me parece mal BEM E O MALMEPARECE y el mal me parece bien. La dicha de merecer A DITTADE MERECER no la pude bien lograr NAOA PUDEBEMLOGRAR sin primeropadecer, PADECER SEMPRIMEIRO a cabo de bien penar. A CABODE BEMPENAR In the first line, the "U" addedin "ESTO[U]"was definitely never engraved on the stone92;however,the message of the two stanzasflows better,if one makes this addition.93In this message, Belinfante tells the readerthat his reward after death is so good that having undergonedeath seems like good fortune to him; on the other hand, those who appearto have good fortune-because they are still physically alive-seem unfortunateto Belinfante, because they are missing the type of rewardthat he has. This message is conveyed,in a fashion typical of the Siglo de Oro, by means of a paradox,viz., "O BEM ME PARECEMAL E O MAL ME PARECEBEM" (good fortuneseems bad to me, and bad fortune seems good to me). The paradox is reminiscentof the well-known oxymoron of the mystics Juan de la Cruz and 91. See "Episodes"pp. 694-696, and comparethe subsequentversion in Betahaim, p. 70; see also "Spanish,Portuguese,and Neo-Latin Poetry (1)," p. 13, and BLHS, pp. 268-269. 92. Portugueseepitaph of Jacob Cohen Belinfante: I am so well off with my misfortune, / after I lost my good fortune, / that good fortune seems like misfortune to me, / and misfortune seems like good fortuneto me. / The joy of deserving, / I could not really achieve it / without first suffering, / as a resultof sufferingwell. 93. We are indebtedto an anonymouslector of AJS Review for pointing out this correction.The same correctionwas made in Betahaim,p. 70; however,the rest of thattranslationdiffers from the one presentedhere. In the translationof "Episodes",pp. 694-696, we missed the probable"ESTO[U]"and assumed "TAOBEM" meant tambnm,since both expressions were often written as ta6 bem [sic] in seventeenth-centurySephardicdocuments.

75

Marian and Ram6n F Sirraga Teresade Avila, mueroporque no muero (I die because I do not die).94 The antiquity of this sentimentis shown by a twelfth-centurypoem of JudahHalevi,95which n xn qe p -inr (if I am far fromThee, "rn says to the Lord:m'inI•w•n i• u• pa7! ,•n my death is in my life, and if I adhereto Thee, my life is in my death). The verses of Judah Halevi provide the general sense of the paradoxcontained in the clause: "O BEM ME PARECEMAL E O MAL ME PARECEBEM." The second stanzaof the epitaphalso explains this sense; i.e., bad fortuneseemed like good fortune,because sufferingled to the joy of deserving the world to come. Incidentally,the paradox"O BEM... " also has the interpretationthatthe author's life had become so wretched that he was happy to die and escape his suffering. Even if the authorof the epitaphintendedthis interpretationas a secondarymeaning, the last stanza imposes a primaryreligious interpretation.Recall that the acceptance of suffering in orderto achievejoy is also echoed in the 1622 epitaphof JacobAlves de Vargas:"SE DO MONDO QVERVICTORIAI/ SAIBA SOFRER E CALLAR"(if he wants victory overthe world,he should know how to sufferand keep quiet). Rachel Hana Abudiente The 1770 epitaph shown below96 contains a Portuguesepoem whose mode of expression is definitely uncharacteristicof the Siglo de Oro and fits much better in the period of Romanticism.Typicalof this period is the melancholy manner in which this poem dwells on the impressionof the young woman'sbreath,her liveliness, and the contrastwith the still image imposed by death.Well-knownliterary devices of the Siglo de Oro, such as paradox,are missing. The Portuguesepoem consists of ten verses with basically eight syllables apiece and rhyme abbaa ccddc. RS470-Rachel HanaAbudiente (2 lyar5530 / 1770) Thefirsttwolinesarearchedat thetopof the stone:

94. For Juan de la Cruz, see Poesia Completa/ San Juan de la Cruz, pp. 107-108; for Teresa de Avila, see L. Santullano,ed., Obras completas / Santa Teresade Jesds, (Madrid:Aguilar, 1951), p. 711. Both Juan de la Cruz and Teresade Avila introducetheir poems, which are different from each other,with the same words: Vivosin vivir en miy de tal maneraespero, que mueroporque no muero(I live without living in myself, and I am hopeful to such a degree, that I die because I do not die). Note the subtleties in both the similarities and the differences between these words and the verses of Judah Halevi that follow in the main text. 95. See the poem n, e.g., in YehudaRatzaby,ed., Leqet Shirim mi-Tequfatha-Zoharha1'•o Sefaradit (Selection of Poems from the SpanishAge of Splendor),(Tel Aviv: 'Am 'Oved Publishers, 1994), p. 82; this book is hereaftercited as Leqet. 96. A photographof the stone for Rachel HanaAbudienteappearedon the interiorside of the back cover of TheAmericanSephardi,vol. 4, No. 1-2 (1970).

76

OldestJewishCemetery SephardicEpitaphsin Hamburg's EPiTAPHiO PELLA INCURTADAMORTE DA BEM,, AVENTURADAS~ RACHEL HANAH ABUDIENTE FU EM 2 IIAR 5530 QUE CORRESPONDEA 27 ABRiL 1770 FALLA HUA CAVEIRA DECIMA ACABOUSE ESTE PORTENTO ESTE SOL JA SE ECLiPSOU ESTA FLORJA-SE MURCHOU JA SE ACABOU ESTE ALENTO COMO A VIDA FO~ HUM VENTO (INDA QUE CORREUTAO FORTE) ACABOUSE DE TAL SORTE QUE SENDO COM SEU ORNATO HONTEM DA VIDA HUM RETRATO OJEM TRIUMPHODA MORTE S, A, G, D, G,

(atthe bottom,anengravingof a treebeingcut) The Hebrewepitaphis more traditionalin style thanthe Portuguesepoem.97 However,the explanatoryremarkin line three, "Behold it is speakingto the eye of the reader,"is atypical of seventeenth-centuryAltona epitaphs, although similar remarksare found frequentlyon eighteenth-centurystones. As a general rule, seventeenth-centuryepitaphsrely more on the perspicacityof the reader.Incidentally, the stone lacks some of the tildes shown above to markthe gematria letters of the date 530; nevertheless,the gematria letters were engravedlargerthan the rest, and hence there is no ambiguity. This eighteenth-centuryinscriptioncontains substantiallymore punctuation marksthan the norm on seventeenth-centurystones. In general, more recent Altona epitaphs show increasing concern with punctuation,especially in the nonHebrewtext. A detailed discussion of this feature and its ramifications (e.g., the intrusionof German punctuation)is beyond the scope of this article. Moreover, punctuationmarks are not reproducedexactly in this article. 97. Epitaphof Rachel HanaAbudiente:Hebrew:It is / the monumentof the grave of Rachel to this day (Gen. 35:20). // Behold it is speakingto the eye of the reader:/ (even) if (as regards)the body, its foundationis in my chamber,/ yet the soul I throw aside (1 Sam. 20:20) to the light of life, / and behold Rachel is in the shadowof the Almighty,the Creator./ She departedto her eternalhouse on the day of the eve of the holy Sabbath,2nd of the month lyar, / in the seder andparashah: "and on being completed the days of her purification"(Lev. 12:6): 530 by gematria of the letters markedby tildes. Portuguese:Epitaph/ for the prematuredeathof the / blessed lady, Rachel Hana / Abudiente;she died on 2 Iyar 5530, which / correspondsto 27 April 1770. / A skull is speaking. / A ten-line poem. / This marvel is finished; / this sun is eclipsed now; / this flower is now wilted. / This breathis now finished; / like life, it was a wind / (and yet it blew so hard)./ It ended in such a manner/ that, having been with its ornament/ yesterdaya pictureof life, / today it is a triumphof death. / May her soul enjoy the glory. CompareBLHS, pp. 238-239, where most of the Hebrew text is omitted; see also "Spanish, Portuguese, and Neo-Latin Poetry (2)," p. 42.

77

OldestJewishCemetery SephardicEpitaphsin Hamburg's

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The epitaphof IshacCohen Lobato98containsanAramaicquotefromthe Talmud (Ber.5b)99followed by an Aramaictext'00thatparaphrasesHebrewepitaphic expressionsoften foundin Altona.TheAramaictext is too lengthyto be regardedas a naturalextensionof the talmudicquote.Apparently,the personwho chose the epitaph'slanguagewas ratherfond of Aramaic,e.g., a personfor whom Aramaicwas a novelty,such as the boy Ishac or maybehis fatherJacobCohen Lobato. The scramblingof phrasesin the epitaphof Reina Saruco'o1is too extensive to be attributedto confusion on the partof the engraver.The nearbystone of Ester de Andrade(RS1 163), dated7 Iyar 5399 (1639), exhibits the same kind of scrambling, which is not found on any other extant stone in the cemetery.The Hebrew letteringon both stones has a particularlywavy style, as if designed to make reading more difficult. Nevertheless, the epitaph'smessage is clear even to a novice in Hebrew;hence, the purposecould not have been to conceal in an effective way the

98. Epitaphof Ishac Cohen Lobato:Hebrew:Forthis / beauty,as it dissolves in the dust, / I am certainlyweeping (Ber. 5b). It is / the son of Jacob Lobato / the Cohen, whose name was / Ishac, and he is called away from his blooming (the flower of his health) / and from the age of ten years he departed/ on the day of the Sabbath,9th / of the month Elul, year / 5418 of the world. (In line seven, the initial vav and mem are only conjectural,as a crack in the stone has destroyedmajorportions of these and otherletters.The last line can be readalso as "yearof the resurrectionto eternity,"if one vocalizes (as above)thegematria for 5418 as the Hebrewwordfor "resurrection".The double meaning was clearly intentional,because the heh denoting the millenium was placed at the end of the number,i.e., in the position requiredby the Hebrewword.) Portuguese:Ishac, son of Jacob / Cohen Lobato;he died / on the Sabbath,/ 9th of Elul / 5418. (The "V"in "FALESEv"is engravedsmalleron the stone, as shown above.) CompareBLHS,p. 572, where the Aramaictext is omitted. 99. In fact, the passage in Ber. 5b has instead of the on the stone. 1-an engraved ••:n 100. Inline nine,thereferenceto themonthwouldbe syntacticallymoreappropriate as:5~1Kiwi xr'. 101. Epitaphof Reina Saruco:This is the monument of the grave of the elderly, modest, and honoredwoman,the lady Reina Saruco;she departedto her eternalhouse on the 18thday of the month Elul, year 5397. May her soul be boundin the binding of life. (Among seventeenth-centurySephardim, it was common to give a feminine ending to the family surnamesof women; hence, the Hebrew text says "Saruca"instead of "Saruco".)This epitaphis found also in BLHS,pp. 777-778.

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Sephardic Epitaphs in Hamburg's Oldest Jewish Cemetery On the prism, the Hebrew text is arrangedin two columns, but the text is read all the way across on each line, not down the columns.104The rhyme is aaaaabab on the first side and abcbcbaa on the second side. On the first-side, the rhyme is forced by suppressingthe endings of certainwords, which are shown unvocalized. This type of rhymeandthe repetitionof whole phrasesin the poem violate the standardsof refined poetry in the Siglo de Oro and in the classical Andalusianperiod. End I of the prism has no words, only an engraving of Abrahamabout to sacrifice Isaac. End 2 has a crown over the hands of a cohen; the crownhas the inscription: ruin iann(crown of the priesthood), while beneath the hands is the name:ABRAHAM LOBATO. Bottomfringesunderend 1, side 2, end2, andside 1:

Groundslabinscription:

ESTA HEA [SEP]OLTURA D[O]

HEVIRTUOZO BEMAVENTURADO SR AB COHEN LABATTO... FALESEUEM ALTANAEM24 DETAMUSAQ5463 S.A.G.D.G.

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The bottom fringes of the prism were engravedas shown above on the lefthand side.105(Note the inconsistency in the spelling of the name Lobato and the misspelledALTANA.)The prism itself was originallyelevated on two supports,as shown by the Second WorldWarphotographlabeled 12-8.13.106 On the ground under the prism there apparentlywas a slab containing the Hebrew inscription shown above on the right-handside.107 104. Epitaphof AbrahamCohen Lobato: Topof theprism: And he went on his travels from the south (Negev) to Beth El, to the place where his tent had been (Gen. 13:3). Prism side 1: In this grave, my body is buried;/ for this calamity,raise a dirge with a bittervoice. // With a bittervoice take up a dirge, for my body has passed / from this world, and here it is buried. // My body is buried here, and my soul has passed / from this world to the life of the world to come. // Therefore, open (your) eyes and see what has passed away: / for this world is like nothing to the life of the world to come. Prism side 2: Remember,oh man, and do not slumber,/ for like Adam I was taken from the ground. // And in a parcel of dust, in the end, / in the dust I was hidden away.// And time has passed without a word (unnoticed),/ and I was caught in a patch of dust. // And like Abram (the original name of Abraham in Gen. 17:5) in the hidden light, / my soul has been placed with a Fatheron high (pun on the name "Abram"in Hebrew). 105. Inscriptionon thefringes of theprism: This is the grave of the / blessed and virtuous gentleman,AbrahamCohen / Labatto... ; he died in / Altona on 24 Tamuz,year 5463. May his soul enjoy the glory. 106. The label 12-8.13 was assigned in the collection of photographsat the Institutfiir die Geschichteder Deutschen Juden of the University of Hamburg.The inscriptionsengravedon the supports were obtainedfrom these photographs.Although the supportsare still on the cemetery grounds, the sides of text facing the groundcannotbe read,because the supportsare too heavy to move. The side numbersof the inscriptionswere markedwith chalk on the photographedstones. 107. Slab inscription:Monumentof/ the grave of the / beloved, honored,highly regarded,/ and

81

Marian and Ramdn F Scirraga Supportside2 (12-8.16): n•.a37 llartn nnn'l

Supportside 3 (12-8.17):

Supportside4 (12-8.14): EM8 DE S7ULHO NAST

3gnn W :a Dia_ t lln11nv7

E. SOBREA PEDRA CAHi E. COM ELLA ME CUBRI E NO PROPiO DIA FOP MEU

FiN Supportside 1 (photograph12-8.15) is not shown here, because it has only an engraved sketch of the sun or a bright star.108 In his book, A Secret Sealed: Hebrew Baroque Emblem-Riddlesfrom Italy and Holland (i.e., Sod the late Israeli poet Dan Pagis describes at length a family of riddles thatH.atum), became quite popularin Italy and Amsterdamduringthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially among the Sephardim.He calls them multilingual"riddleswith pictureand text,"or "emblem-riddles."Generally, these riddles were composed for entertainmentduringfestive occasions, especially weddings. Well-knownauthorscomposed the riddles as public challenges, andthe winner was the first person who could find the solution and also explain how the solution fits in the riddle. Prizes were awardedto the winner. Pagis explains that the formulationof a riddle could have many parts. For example, almost alwaysthere was a pictureaccompaniedby some maxim and one or more poems. The main language was Hebrew,but maxims and poems in Italian, Portuguese,and Castilianwere common. EvenAramaicwas used. In addition, finding the solution might requirerecognizing a word of a different language inside a poem, as in the case of the Hebrewwordtal in the Portugueseepitaph,shown earlier, for Sara Miriam Senior Coronel. Allusions to the Kaballahare found in some riddles. The first known "emblem-riddles"in Hebrewliteratureappearedin Italy in the 1640s. They were apparentlyadaptationsof riddles that aboundedin the Italian and Iberianliteratureof the time. Accordingto Pagis, the first adaptationsmay have been the work of the rabbi,cabalist, and poet Moseh Zacuto (c. 1610-1698), who became well-known as an authorof this type of riddle.Zacuto was bornin either Amsterdam or Hamburg and pursued at least some rabbinical studies in Poland.109He apparentlyreturnedto Hamburgand lived there for about seven years before moving to Italy around1642-3.110 Zacuto was one of severalmen of exalted man, the honorableAbraham/ Cohen Lobato; / he departedon the first day (of the week), / 24th of the month / Tamuz,year 5463. / May his soul be bound in the binding of life. The burialof AbrahamCohen Lobato appearson p. 72 of the Irmandaderecordswith the name "AbrahamIshac." 108. Supportside 2: And underthe stone I was buried/ on the very day I was born, / year 5463 (1703). Supportside 3: On the stone I was born / on the very day I was buried,/ year 5402 (1642). Support side 4: On the 8th of July I was born, / and on the stone I fell, / and with it (the stone) I covered myself, / and on the same day was my / end. 109. See J. Michman (Melkman), Michmanei Yosef:Studies on the History and Literatureof Dutch Jews (in Hebrew), (HebrewUniversity,Jerusalem:Institutefor Researchon Dutch Jews, 1994), pp. 427-430. 110. See Meir Benayahu,"RabbiMoses Zacuto between his Departurefrom Hamburgand His Settling in Venice" (in Hebrew),Asufot:Annualfor Jewish Studies, vol. 5 (1994), pp. 309-326.

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Sephardic Epitaphs in Hamburg's Oldest Jewish Cemetery letterswho spent part of their lives in Hamburgand undoubtedlycontributedto a climate of literaryinvolvementthere.111 The epitaphof AbrahamCohen Lobato fits quite well as an emblem-riddle, especially the text on the supports,which clearly challenges the readerwith a humorous paradox.112This challenge is quite similar to that of a multilingual emblem-riddle,because it includes:(a) a figure thatillustratesthe riddle(supportside one), (b) paradoxicalstatementsof the riddle,usually in Hebrewand in a Romance language,(c) hints to the solution hidden in the texts and in the figure, and (d) ambiguous statementsmeant to mislead the reader.A solution to the riddle is sug-171 t gested by Dan. 12:3: t tvan.n ':-J1,7'~-'.. Y_'Pi,7 ".7•_! tW5. will like the those who understand shine sky, andthose .-i.... (and brightnessof theU-m•57. who lead people in a just path [will shine] like the stars forever and ever). Consequently,to poets, the word "star"became a metaphorfor the soul of a just person, especially one who leads others in the correctpath.'13 A just persontakes a place (i.e., is born) among the starson the day of death. Hence, supportside 1 portraysthe shining starofAbrahamCohen Lobato.The other sides are read in the order3, 2, 4. In the text, the speakeralternatesbetween Cohen Lobato'ssoul (the star) and his body. Side 3 says that Cohen Lobato's body was born in the year 5402 (1642) on a birthing stone (cf. Exod. 1:16);114 moreover, he was born on the same numericalday and month of his futuredeath (only a hint here, but inferredfrom side 4). Side 2 restates the coincidence of the numericalday and month,while giving the year of deathas 5463 (1703). Side 4 says, in part,thatthe coincidence of day and month refersto the common date; i.e., Cohen Lobato was born on 8 July 1642 and died on 8 July 1703. Since Hamburg changedfrom the Julianto the Gregoriancalendarin 1700,"" the birthdate could be the 8th of July of either calendar. Side 4 requires Cohen Lobato's star for a full explanation. The message seems to be that:(a) Cohen Lobato'sstarwas born on the day of his death (NASY ... E NO PROPIODIA FOY MEU FIN); (b) on that day, the rays of the new star fell on a stone (E SOBREA PEDRA CAHI); and (c) this stone was used to carve Cohen Lobato'stombstone (E COM ELLA ME CUBRI). The text on side 2 of the prism fits well with this solution. In fact, this text Cohen Lobato'ssoul went into the hidden light, where "light"is a hint to that says the solution.Pagis often mentionsthis type of hint.The phrasehidden light is a cabalistic expression referringto the light of heavenly reward,which the Lord hid 111. Formore informationon men of letters in Hamburg,see Sephardiman der UnterenElbe, passim; a partiallist was also publishedin Gedenkschrift. 112. No suggestion is being made here that this 1703 epitaphwas directly influenced by Zacuto, althoughit belongs to the genre possibly startedby him. 113. Severalpassages in the books of the Zohar quote and elaborateon Dan. 12:3; see, e.g., the beginningof Tiquneha-Zohar. For more informationon the religious imagery of light among seventeenth-centurySephardim,see NishmatIHayyim,e.g., p. 49. The "star"metaphoris also prominentin the 1680 Altona epitaphof JuditMilano (RS757); see "Episodes,"pp. 690-691. 114. We are indebtedto Rabbi Samuel Z. Fishmanfor bringingthe birthingstone to our attention. 115. We are indebtedto HerrJiirgenSielemannof the HamburgStaatsarchivfor this information on calendarsin Hamburg.

83

Marian and Ram6n F Sarraga from humanity so that the wicked would not see it, but the just would enjoy it after death, as in Dan. 12:3.116 H. H. David Cohen de Lara and Jacob Ishac de Lima The two epitaphspresentedbelow contain eight-line Hebrew poems whose style is quite common in seventeenth-centurySephardicHebrew poetry of Italy and NorthernEurope.The poem for H. H. David Cohen de Larawas composed by the Amsterdam poet H. H. Selomoh de Oliveyra. Its Amsterdamdraft, which is slightly different from the version on the stone, was included on p. 199 of Olijven.'•7 The authorof the poem for Jacob Ishac de Lima is unknown. RS679-H. H. DavidCohende Lara (20 Tisri 5435 / 1674)

RS 1382-Jacob Ishac de Lima (4 Tamuz5429 / 1669)

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DAVIDCOENDE LARA FO.EM.20 .DETISRI ANNO5435 M"31Y= in the index to the LurianicKaballah:Haim 116. See, e.g., the entries mnn ~IKand •at nix ben JosephVital, Sefer ToratNatan, HIelekErkheha-Arizal,ed. by NatanZvi Kenig, (Jerusalem:BeneBerak, c. 1990). 117. Otherpoems of Selomoh de Oliveyrawere also used in epitaphsoutside Amsterdam.E.g., the verses on the Altona stone of Hazan Joseph Namias (RS971), publishedon p. 701 of "Episodes", are the last six lines of a poem composed by Selomoh de OliveyraforHIakhamSemuel de Casseresof Iakham Ishac Amsterdam.(See Olijven,p. 194.) The same six verses are found in the 1754 epitaphofH Rephael Abarbanel Souza in the Sephardiccemetery of Bayonne, France(which we saw in the summer of 1999).

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SephardicEpitaphsin Hamburg'sOldest Jewish Cemetery is quitefadedby now;in fact,theirSecond Theletteringof bothinscriptions arepartiallyillegible.Forthe epitaphof H. H. DavidCoWorldWarphotographs the versionin Olijvenwitha hende Lara,118thetextwascompletedby comparing In the case of JacobIshacde Lima,120 fromthe 1920's.119 the fading photograph lettersarefurtherobscuredby protruding grayveinsin the shiningwhitemarbleof this monument; however,a rubbingof the stoneshowsmostof the lettersclearly. Apartfromthe engraving,the qualityof de Lima'sstonecertainlyconveysan impressionof opulence,whileCohende Lara'sstoneis decidedlymoremodest. H. H.DavidCohende Lara(c. 1610-1674)distinguished himselfas a scholseveralworksin CastilianandHebrew.21 He wasa forcefulearlyopar,authoring ZvievenbeforeShabbetaiZvi apostatized Shabbetai ponentof thepseudomessiah to Islam.Infact,Cohende Larausedto turnhis backto the hazanas the latterled a prayerfor ShabbetaiZvi thathadbeenaddedto the synagogueservicein 1666, beforetheapostasy.Onthe eveningof YomKippurforthe year5427, Dr.Baruch the samemanquotedearlierfromAbudiente'sGraNamiasde Castro(apparently 118. Epitaphof H. H. David Cohen de Lara:A sun came out as light to the world, / and as it shone, his sun set (discussed in the main text of the article). / A sun will shine in the morning light (2 Sam. 23:4); / his soul will dwell in goodness forever(Ps. 25:13). / And David was in all his ways / understanding(in) his heart,generous(prolific) in concepts. / And in Israelhis name is great; / he is also a priestto God on high (Gen. 14:18). Rightpage of the book:Thus you will bless / the childrenof / Israel. Leftpage of the book: Say to them: / may He bless you, / may He shine, may He raise. (The text quotes key words of the priestly blessing in Num. 6:23-26. The full text is not quoted in the left column because of lack of space on the stone.) Portuguese:Tomb / of the most illustrious, / the learned riby (see below), / David Cohen de Lara;/ he died on the 20th of Tisri, / year 5435. May his soul be bound in the binding of life. (The title riby was used by PortugueseJews to honor a teacher,a h.akham cantor,or a full rabbi;see, e.g., Precious Stones, p. 84. Riby appearsoften in seventeenth-centurydocuments such as the Protocol.) CompareBLHS,p. 540. 119. See photographlabelled DA 27.062 at the HamburgDenkmalschutzamt,which was attachedto a cardwith the name of Max Halberstadtof Hamburg.This photographalreadyshows a crack in the stone, but the affected text (shown above in brackets)was reconstructedusing the Amsterdam drafton p. 199 of Olijven. Olijven was also used to resolve ambiguities in readingthe letters bet and kaf from the stone. On the other hand,the Amsterdamdraft has In instead of ta in the last line of the octave, and here the stone is quite clear. Olijvenalso includes an additionalword in line four, which is not on the stone and would violate the meter,but Olijven also indicates that this word was crossed out in the Amsterdammanuscript. 120. Epitaphof Jacob Ishac de Lima: Jacob, whose name was called Isaac, / will smile at his fate in the end of days; / though he left (Hamburg)and died in his youth while still afar, / his maturity is a grave here, among those who are to rise; / it (the grave) is for him like a ladder to ascend to Heaven. / I will praisethe son ofa living man, a wholly just man, / even if today he sleeps in the midst of silence, / tomorrowhe will be enrichedwith a lofty hand (i.e., in an outstandingway). // He is the gentleman, and exalted, the honorable/ Jacob Ishac de Lima, resting in honor; / he departedon the fourth day (of the week), on the fourth (day) / of the fourthmonth, and he was broughtto / the tiled floor (see below) of his forebearsand siblings, in his plot, / on the eve of the Sabbath,year: "andI / have trustedin Thy kindness;may my heartrejoice / in Thy salvation"(429 by gematria). (The quote is from Ps. 13:6. The phrase "tiled floor" - fourth line from the bottom - probably alludes to an arrangementof Sephardictombstone slabs, which are laid horizontally side by side quite close to one another.)The entry for Jacob Ishac de Lima in BLHS,p. 561, omits this epitaphaltogether. 121. Fora summary,see the article on Cohen de Larain the EncyclopaediaJudaica; for a more detailed discussion, see "David Cohen de Lara."

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Marian and Ramrn F Sacrraga matica), who was parnas during that year, rose from his chair in the synagogue and physically interferedwith Cohen de Lara,therebycausing a scandal.122 The eight-line poem in Cohen de Lara'sepitaphimitatesthe structureof four batim in the Andalusian style; i.e., the odd lines are delatot, and the even lines sogerim. Only the sogerim rhyme,but instead of a uniformrhyme,the rhymehere n can is aabb. The first two lines are somewhat ambiguous,because the verb •'u; mean either "darkened"or "made pleasant"and can be transitiveor intransitive. The word "sun"in the first two lines probablyrefers to Cohen de Lara'sscholarly accomplishments, and the setting of the sun while still shining, in line two, probablyalludes to Cohen de Lara'sdeath before finishing the publicationof his scholarly work.123 The second meaning of (made pleasant) simply stresses •,'1'n In line three, the "sun"is a the greatness of Cohen de Lara'saccomplishments. metaphorfor Cohen de Lara'sreward,which is noted in line four.124 In line three, the word "sun"could also refer to Cohen de Lara'ssoul; in this sense, the "sun" would be a more glorious version of AbrahamCohen Lobato's"star",discussed earlier. The octave for Jacob Ishac de Lima has the same rhyme, abababcc, as the poems of 'AvneShoham;the meter, shown above, is one of the variantsfound in 'AvneShoham. Strictlyspeaking,the octave'smilra' rhymeis violatedby the final word pn3rin line five, whose stress is mil'el. This anomalousrhymeof prvnis not found in 'AvneShoham;however,a similar case occurs in at least one Amsterdam epitaph, the 1673 inscription of Ishac de Jacob Pinto.125 In classical Andalusian poetry, the mixing of mil'el and milra' had been acceptable,but it was becoming objectionablein seventeenth-centuryItaly.126 The octave for de Lima illustratesthe technical virtuosityrequiredof poets in line one exemplifies who tried to adhereto a fixed meter.The vocalization -jpya type of meter-preservingexception used in 'AvneShoham. However,the vocalin line six is not an exception, because it has a scripturalpreceization tarns•3 dent, albeit unique, in Ps. 18:26. In essence, this example is to be regardedas a triumphof the poet, who managedto follow the meterwithoutdeviatingfrombiblical vocalization.The use of biblical Hebrewas the standardof a refined style is a classical Andalusian principle reiteratedin Abudiente's Gramatica Hebraica. Inciin the fashion of lines seven and eight became quite popudentally,the use of ,-j device. lar as a meter-preserving Line three of the poem for de Lima, "thoughhe left (Hamburg)and died in his youth while still afar,"may seem puzzling, because one may think that Jacob Ishac would not have been buriedin Hamburgif he had died elsewhere.However, p. 52 of the Irmandade records describes precisely this situation:Em R Hodes tamus 7 [5447] = demos sepolturaa Samuel de lima quefaleceo em Copenhagen 122. For an account by H. H. Jacob Sasportas,who lived in Hamburgat the time, see Tsitsat Novel Zvi, pp. 132-133; the incident is also reviewed in Sabbatai Sevi, p. 580. 123. See "David Cohen de Lara,"p. 344. 124. See Olijven,p. 183, where this metaphoris discussed; Olijvenincludes a full vocalization of the poem (p. 199) but not a complete translation. 125. See Grafschriften,oude afdeeling (old section), carton 3, grave 90. 126. See Hlidushu-Masoret,p. 127.

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Sephardic Epitaphs in Hamburg's Oldest Jewish Cemetery e foy Enteradoa os pes de seo IrmailJacob de lima. (On 7 Tamuz [5447/1687], we gave burialto Semuel de Lima, who died in Copenhagenand was buried at the feet of his brotherJacob de Lima.) This Semuel de Lima must be the one buried in RS 1467, dated 29 Sivan 5447, undera stone that in 1999 still lay at the feet of the stone of Jacob Ishac de Lima. Cemeteryrecordsshow no otherde Lima stones that fit the Irmandadedescription.Since Semuel de Lima'sbody was taken to Altona for burialon a trip lasting roughly one week,127 it would not be surprisingif the body of his brotherJacob had been handledin a similar way.128 A cabalistic flavor is evident in the poem for Jacob Ishac de Lima. The expression-inut 1p (son of a living man, quoting 2 Sam. 23:20) is a cabalistic designation for a holy man.129 Similarly,the word ladder in line five alludes to Jacob's ladder(Gen. 28:12), which acquiredadditionalconnotationsin the Kaballah. is used in the sense of Ps. 92:16 or In the last line of the poem, the word Prov.28:25. Nevertheless, there is an ambiguity .t . in the vocalization, which can be: in an outstandingway), as shown above, or nim 1~ (a Tn;?" p~.i (enriched in the hands of a worm). Obviously,the first renditionmust be the I-l_primary feast .r meaning, althoughthe second one provides a closer rhyme with r•vy. In fact, the second meaningmay have been also intendedby the authorin orderto contrastthe obvious physical realitywith the spiritualreality he saw in the worldto come. Ambiguous vocalization as a device for expressing paradoxis certainly not found in Iberianlanguages;nevertheless,the motivationfor expressing contrastssuccinctly by means of ambiguitywas present in the ideals of IberianSiglo de Oro literature. A Seventeenth-Century"WanderingAramaean" The epitaphbelow emphasizesan exile, real or metaphorical,of the deceased from his original home. One is remindedof the "wanderingAramaean"of Deut. 26:5. The poem follows the style of Avne Shoham, including strict adherenceto the meterby using ratheruncommon,but scripturallybased, vocalization. The epitaphis presentedbelow in two versions. On the left is the actual layout of the lines on the stone, showing the apparentletteringwith bracketsaround the locations that are most difficult to decipher. On the right is a vocalized rearrangementof the text, which shows thatthe epitaphis an octave with a mil'el abbaabcc rhymeand meteras indicated.(The initial 'n is consideredoutside the metrical poem.) 127. The trip's durationof roughly one week follows from the date of death on the stone, 29 Sivan, and the date of burial in the Irmandaderecord,7 Tamuz. 128. Jacob de Lima's epitaph says he died on a Wednesdayand was buried on a Friday,presumablytwo days later;hence, Jacob could not have died as far away as Copenhagen.For a history of the de Lima family (includingreferencesto a Jacob and a Semuel, who almost certainlyare the brothers buriedin RS1382 and RS1467), see GiinterBdhm, "La Familiade Lima entre Hamburgo,Curacao y Chile,"in M. Studemund-Halevy,ed., Die Sefarden in Hamburg, Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg, vol. 2 (1997), pp. 879-900; the referencesto Jacob and Semuel de Lima are on pp. 881-883. 129. See Meditation,pp. 233-235, which cites the primarysources in the works of Haim Vital and other Kabbalists.

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Sephardic Epitaphs in Hamburg's Oldest Jewish Cemetery "and"as a meaning for 1x.131 Also in line three, the word ,'ax (those who gather me) is readas in Prov.10:5;however,one could also read ,rnx (my lights), assuming thatthe gimel is a mistakenengravingof a vav. In line four,the yod in m ', resembles the upperportionof a dalet; hence, one tends to thinkthatthe missing vertical strokeof the dalet has eroded. In the same line, the word on the stone 1•-x on closer inresembles wii5, but the bottom stroke of the possible tsadi seems, spection,to be only damageon the stone.Also in line four,the translationof'rn'n, as "my soul"follows the usage in the Kaballah,132 which is based on Ps. 22:21 and Ps. 35:17. In line six, the meter is preservedby adopting a nonstandardvocalization of b5nr -, which has biblical precedents in Job 40:26 (T0,n)and Lam. ,?,'n 1:2 (mror).In the last two lines, the meter is preservedby rejecting readings that in the penultimateline, and 1.5i-,in would be more natural,such as nuj5tr the last line. Kx.3n, Assuming the exile of the deceased is not entirely metaphorical,one could speculatethat he may have been a converso who had left his parentsin the Iberian peninsula.Perhapsthe name of the deceased was omittedintentionallyfor fearthat spies of the Inquisitionmight read the epitaph and cause problems for his family.133 The name may also be hidden within the epitaph. For example, the phrase 'nwvp5xt Kx•in, in the penultimateline, mightbe an allusionto a name like Rephael Castiel.134 The 1687 epitaph of an Elyakim Castiel (RS1285) uses similar language, includingthe word ,nwp, in an allusion to the name of the deceased. EPILOGUE

The preponderanceof Hebrew poems in Altona within a period of roughly 200 yearsstartingin 1611 is a strongindicationthat,duringthis time, the Sephardic communityhad an influentialcore of persons who could read and appreciateHe131. See GramaticaHebraica, p. 143, where four possible meanings of 1Kare given, including the Portuguesee (and); see also poem 36 in 'AvneShoham, where 1Kis used in a sense that is clearly not disjunctive. 132. See, e.g., Kabbalah,pp. 157-158. 133. It is well-known that the Inquisitionreceived reports from informers about former conversos living as Jews in Hamburg,althoughit is unknownhow well informedthe Jews were about such reports. For sample reports, see Cecil Roth, "The Strange Case of Hector Mendes Bravo,"Hebrew Union College Annual, Cincinnati,Ohio, vol. 18 (1944), pp. 221-245; P.A. d'Azevedo, "O Bocarro Francese os Judeusde Cochim e Hamburgo,"ArchivoHist6rico Portuguez,vol. 8 (1910), pp. 15-20 and 185-198; I. S. Revah, "Une famille de 'nouveaux-chretiens':les Bocarro Frances,"Revue des JEtudesJuives, vol. 16 (CXVI) (1957), pp. 73-87; and the 1661 and 1662 denunciationsby a Semuel Aboab to the Spanish Inquisitionin Madridcontainedin ArchivoHist6rico Nacional, Inqu., lib. 1127. Formore informationon denunciationsand Portugueseconversos living in seventeenth-centurySpain, see Marranenin Madrid. 134. An Ester,orphanof a Rephael Castiel, is listed among candidatesfor the dowry drawing of Amsterdamin 5419 (1659), eleven years after the date on the tombstone. (See the unpublisheddocuments of the Sephardic dowry society in Amsterdam, Dotar, stored at the Amsterdam Gemeentearchiefunderlabel GAA, PIG 1143, p. 299.) In addition, Kellenbenz mentions a Rephael Castiel in connection with Danzig; see Sephardiman der Unteren Elbe, p. 83.These references show that a Rephael Castiel did live in the relevanttimeframe, and they do not exclude the possibility that this Rephael Castiel had died in Hamburgin 1648.

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Marian and Ram6n E Sarraga brew literature.This core group included more persons thanjust the rabbis, hazanim, and teachers;e.g., it must have includedthe men whose epitaphscarryonly the title ha-maskil ve-navon (an understandingand prudentman, i.e., a learned scholar).135

Additional persons were probablyinvolved, at least as a moderatelyknowledgeable audience that applaudedHebrew literatureand stimulatedits cultivation. Such an audienceshouldhavehad a betterthanelementaryeducationin the Tanakh, Talmud,Kaballah,and othertraditionalliterature.In the case of Amsterdam,it has been noted that some ordinarypersons (i.e., Sephardimwho did not pursue fulltime positions as rabbis, cantors, or teachers) received a solid educationin traditional Judaica.136Therefore,one could make the tentativeassumptionthat at least some ordinarypersons in Hamburgreceived a similareducation.The numberand quality of seventeenth-and eighteenth-centuryHebrewepitaphsin Altona areconsistent with this assumption. APPENDIX: SOME CORRECTIONSTO OUR PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED EPITAPHS

The inscriptionbelow for a Batseba, with no family name given, was published in "Episodes,"p. 667, with epigraphicerrors.By makingbetteruse of a biblical concordance and comparingwith the stone, one obtainsthe superiorversion presented below. Also included is the inscriptionof SaraAbigail Rachel, wife of BenjaminMussafia, which was publishedin "Episodes,"p. 677, with an incorrect translationand no meter.The version below includes both the layout of the letters on the stone and a vocalized renditionof the poem in the first eight lines of the inscription. RS1306

RS 1046 (EX 132) NE

SaraAbigailRachel,wife of BenjaminMussafia (EveningafterSabatNahamu:12Ab 5394/ 1634)

Batseba

(14 Iyar5386 / 1626)

- 73 r: Ix 1nn 11":1~r3

7tl ~i

MY5n n~

135. See Precious Stones, pp. 84, 560. 136. See. e.g., Yosef Kaplan,"The Sephardimin North-WesternEuropeand the New World,"

in HaimBeinart,ed., MoreshetSefarad:TheSephardiLegacy(Englishversion),MagnesPress,HeCenbrewUniversity, vol.2 (1992),pp.240-287; fora specificexamplein theEighteenth Jerusalem, Family,1660-1924"(in Hebrew), tury,see MordechaiArbell,"TheHistoryof the Lopez-Penha Pe'amim,vol. 48 (1991),pp. 117-134.

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Marian and Ramrn F Scrraga tion of ZekherRav (Amsterdam 1635).139 The preface to this edition contains a moving speech in which Mussafia addresses his deceased wife Sara in Heaven, summarizingher life. Sarawas born in Adar II 5372 (1612) as the only daughter of Dr. Semuel da Silva (most probably RS1049 WE, d. Gregorian 3 January 1631)140 and his wife Ribca (RS1047 NE, d. 1634), sister of Mussafia's mother. Sarareceived the additionalnames Abigail and Rachel because of life-threatening illnesses she contractedduringher life. She marriedMussafia on 13 Sivan 5388 (1628), but her children did not survive. Mussafia also states that Sara died of smallpox in Hamburgand that he had her buried in Altona. The date he gives for her death agrees with the epitaph.141 The fact that Sara'sepitaphicpoem combines Aramaic with Hebrew,as in the Talmud,violates a principleof elegant style listed in Abudiente's grammar;however,talmudic usage would not be surprisingfrom Dr. Benjamin Mussafia, who also made an influential contributionto the philology of the Talmud in his Musaf he- 'Arukh(Amsterdam1655). Incidentally,even Abudiente's 'AvneShoham includes a few verses in Aramaic. Finally, "Episodes,"p. 695, contains a mistranslationof 'nrintwnin ,rnwn (searchingthe innermostrecesses) in the Hebrewinscriptionfor JacobCohen Belinfante, because the relationof this phraseto Prov.20:27 was missed. Otherproblems in "Episodes"will be discussed elsewhere. Marianand Ram6n E Sairraga Warren,Michigan 139. We are indebtedto Drs. F. J. Hoogewoud,deputy curatorof the BibliothecaRosenthaliana at the University of Amsterdam,for copying for us the relevantpages fromthe prefaceof the 1635 edition of ZekherRav (item ROS 20D3). 140. This Dr. Semuel da Silva was almost certainlythe physicianof the same name who wrote a treatise defending the immortalityof the soul against the Sephardicunbeliever Uriel da Costa; see H. P. Salomon and I. S. D. Sassoon, eds., Uriel da Costa, Examinationof Pharisaic traditions = Exame das tradicoesphariseas: facsimile of the unique copy in the Royal Libraryof Copenhagen,(Leiden: Brill, 1993). 141. For furtherinformationon the Mussafia family, see Dieter Lohmeier,"Die Mussaphiain Hamburgund Altona: Genealogischeszu den Hofjudender Herz6ge von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf," FamilienkundlichesJahrbuchSchleswig-Holstein, vol. 37 (1998), pp. 78-103.

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Review: Maimonidean Scholarship at the End of the Century Author(s): Norbert M. Samuelson Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 93-107 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131557 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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AJS Review 26:1 (2002), 93-107

REVIEW ESSAY MAIMONIDEANSCHOLARSHIP ATTHE END OF THE CENTURY

by Norbert M. Samuelson HowardKreisel. Maimonides'Political Thought:Studies in Ethics, Law, and the HumanIdeal. Albany: SUNY Press, 1999. x, 360 pp. Jose Faur.Homo Mysticus:A Guide to Maimonides'Guidefor the Perplexed. Syracuse:SyracuseUniversity Press, 1998. xiii, 272 pp. KennethSeeskin. Searchingfor a Distant God: TheLegacy of Maimonides.New York:Oxford University Press, 2000. xii, 252 pp. INTRODUCTION

It is astoundinghow much scholars find to say about the writings of Maimonides.' This numericalbreadthin itself suggests two things. First,it is not possible for any scholars to be sure that their coverage of the secondary materialis complete. To remain currenton all that is published about Maimonides is a fulltime job, one that leaves little opportunityto actually write about him. Second, it is not conceivable for any Rambamscholarsto think that what they publish is the "final word"on what Maimonidesintendedto say on any topic. If you want to take a critical stance you could say that what he wrote is too fuzzy for that, but I would say,more constructively,thatMaimonides'writings aretoo rich in depthand complexity for us to ever exhaust what he wrote. That richness in itself is one of the reasons for studying and teaching Maimonides. It is a good indication why Maimonides' theology properlyranksamong the greatestbodies of work in the history of philosophy. How then is it possible to assess the status of Maimonides studies at the end of the twentiethcentury?Thereis no straightforwardway to do it, at least not with any kind of conceptualdepth.WhatI have chosen to do instead is to examine three 1. Amazon.com lists 120bookswiththename"Maimonides" in thetitle.(Yahoo.com lists95. TheArizonaStateUniversityLibrary, whosecollectionin Judaica,especiallyin Jewishphilosophy, is in thetitle.)Thatmeans in no waydistinguished, possesses107bookswiththe name"Maimonides" thattherea minimumof 120bookscurrentlyin printin the UnitedStatesthatdealwithwhatMaimonideshadto say.Similarly, thePhilosopher's Index,whosesubjectmatteris limitedto scholarlyessaysin philosophy, datingbackno furtherthan1940,lists 220 entries.Thetotallist of writtenworks on Maimonides, of course,is muchlarger.These 120 booksand220 articlesarealmostexclusively workswrittenin Englishpublishedin the finalhalfof thetwentiethcentury.

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Norbert M. Samuelson recent book-length studies of Maimonides' philosophy,all published in the closing years of the century,all first-rate(i.e., rigorous,careful, and creative),and all entirely different-not only in what they claim Maimonides said but also in the historical, intellectual, and academic contexts within which they frame Maimonides' thought.All threebooks are "must-reading"for serious scholarsof Maimonides the philosophical theologian. KREISEL:

ISRAELI SCHOLARSHIP

AND INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

Howard Kreisel is an Associate Professor at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, where he teaches Jewish thought together with his colleagues Daniel Lasker and Gerald Blidstein. His doctoral work was completed at BrandeisUniversity under the direction of Alexander Altmann, Marvin Fox, and Alfred Ivry. Kreisel's work reflects the influence of all his teachers and colleagues. The book is a collection of previouslypublishedessays with an introductory chapterthat attemptsto unify the work.2 One of the many attractivefeatures of Kreisel's organizationis that the book contains a detailed synopsis of each essay with useful summariesof each distinctsection within each chapter.In fact, the synopsis is so good thatthere is no reasonhere to repeata summaryin my own words. InsteadI will briefly statethe main theme in each essay andthen turnto some critical comments. According to the first chapter,the centraltheme that emerges from the remaining six essay-chaptersis twofold. First,Maimonides'philosophyemergesfrom his primarycommitmentto Judaism,not to philosophy.Second, the heartof Maimonides'philosophicaldefense of Judaismis his oppositionto idolatry.Whatcounts here as "philosophy"is primarilyAlfarabi'swritings on political philosophy.The defense of the first thesis is in oppositionto Strauss'sinterpretationof Maimonides' use of esotericism to veil a primarycommitmentto Aristotelianphilosophy. ChapterTwo is an analysis of the relationshipbetween the practicaland the theoreticalintellect. Kreisel arguesthat Maimonides'failureto distinguishthem is a teaching device. Maimonidesjudges the Torahto be a workin practicalintellect, which is an exercise in the use of imagination.As for why Mosaic prophecyis divorced from the use of imaginative excellence, Kreisel argues that Maimonides makes this non-normativemove to preventthe laws of the Torahfrom being read allegorically,andthatthis motive is to be understoodin the generalcontextof reading Rambam'sprimaryintentionas a defense of Judaismfrom idolatry. ChapterThree is an argumentfor the moral primacyof theoreticalwisdom in Maimonides' ethics, tracingthe sources of Maimonides'judgments here to the Aristoteliancommentariesandphilosophy of AlfarabiandAvicenna.In the course of his argument,Kreisel introducesthree differentsenses of the term "good."This ambiguity is the focus in ChapterFour,which deals explicitly with Maimonides' conception of what it means to imitate God. Kreisel argues that claimed contradictions between Maimonides' treatmentof this concept in the Guide of the Perplexed and in his more legal writings (notably in Sefer Mitzvotand the Mishneh 2. Chapter2 was first published in HUCA in 1988, Chapter3 in lyyun in 1989, Chapter4 in AJS Review in 1994, Chapter5 in PAAJRin 1992.

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Maimonidean Scholarship at the End of the Century Torah)are resolved by readingthese works with care and by rememberingthatthe Guide is not a philosophic system;therefore,Maimonidesneed not explain everything that he means. ChapterFive deals explicitly with the general issue of contradictionsin Maimonides'ethics. Again the claim is thatcarefulreadingswill show thatwhat seems to be contradictoryis really not so. The apparenttensions dissolve when we consider Maimonides'differentperspectives-(1) thatof the solitary,elite individual, for whom perfection is independentand achievable and ethics is an end in itself that is known throughthe rationalfaculty, and (2) that of the society as a whole, for whom ethics is a means to an end that cannot be achieved and rests on accepted conventionsin a social context. Kreisel has made a significant contributionto the study of Maimonides. It comes out of one of the majorlines of academic studies in the intellectual history of Jewish philosophical texts, a line that goes back to Wolfson throughAltmann, StraussandTwerskyin the United States, throughthe studentsof Pines at the end of the century.Kreisel is American-trained,but this book shows how much he has become partof Israeli scholarshipin medieval Jewish philosophy.Forthis group, the single most importantinfluence in setting the agenda for Maimonideanscholarshiphas been Strauss.Strausswas not the first commentatorto suggest that Maimonides hid his true intent, but Strauss'sway of interpretingwhat Maimonides meant when he said that his work is esoteric has been the single dominanttheme that runs throughoutIsraeli historical studies of Maimonides' writings. Kreisel standsclearly within this dominanttraditionof late-twentieth-centuryscholarship andthis book is a fine example of the academictradition'shealth. Still, there is one criticismto which I would like to call the readers'attention. With reference to Kreisel's first chapter, I agree that there are no valid grounds for doubting Maimonides' strong commitmentto what we would today call a religious, even spiritual,understandingof Judaism.However,it is less certain that,as Kreisel argues,Maimonidesdoes not have an equivalentlystrongcommitmentto the value of philosophy.Kreisel says that Maimonides "does not define himself as belonging to the philosophic camp,"but rather"as belonging to a particularreligious tradition"(p. 1). But this is the wrong way to put the issue. Philosophy and a religious traditionare not "camps."It is for Rambam an applesand-orangescomparison. In support of his claim, Kreisel points out that when "Maimonides speaks in terms of 'we,' he is addressing his coreligionists. The philosophersare invariablyreferredto as 'they"' (p. 1). But this is a non sequitur, as Kreisel himself admits when he adds that the "commitmentto philosophy and the commitmentto Judaism,or to any religious tradition,are not necessarily mutually exclusive" (p. 2). The "we/they" distinction says nothing about camps; ratherthe "we"indicates whom Rambamconceives as his audience, that is, a certain class of Jews, and the "they"refers to his non-Jewish (Greek as well as Arabic) philosophical sources. Kreisel'sconclusionis correct,specifically,that"Maimonides'primarycommitment was not to a furtherexploration of the frontiers of knowledge illuminatedby Aristotle. He did not take upon himself the task to expandthe bordersof philosophy.Maimonides' principal effort was directed to the understandingand 95

Norbert M. Samuelson strengtheningof Judaism"(p. 2). The point is accurate,but misleading. For, despite his claim to the opposite, Kreisel thinks of philosophy and religion as opposing camps and not as complementary.Maimonides is not concerned with extending the limits of philosophybecause (as Maimonidesarguesspecifically with referenceto the origin and end of the world)philosophyalreadyis at its limits. Philosophy (viz., naturalscience) can understandwhat is within the world,both temporally and spatially,but it cannot understandeither (spatially)the world in general (hence the weakness of astronomyand the impossibility of cosmology) or the world's origin and end (hence the impossibility of both cosmogony and eschatology). To understandthese domains we are dependenton revelationand a reliable traditionfor understandingthe revelation.Here the commitmentis not reallyto Judaism as such. Maimonides does not use the term. Rather,he speaks of "the law of Moses." If his interestwere in "religion,"then therewould indeedbe camps. But it is not. Rather,his interestis in ways to grasp truth,one of which is the revealed Torah as interpreted through a claimed unbroken chain of rabbinic tradition. Hence, it is not the Jewish party to whom Maimonides is here committed(even though he undoubtedlywas), but to the Jewish texts. Furthermore,he is not committed to them simply because he is a Jew. That is too modern a view to project back on Rambam. Rather, he is committed to them because he believes that throughthem we can achieve true belief beyond the knowledge presentedthrough the naturalsciences. This critiqueis, in effect, a summaryof what we will see below as a majortheme of Faur. FAUR: EUROPEAN

SCHOLARSHIP

AND MYSTICISM

Faurargues thatthe kind of"Wissenschaft" approachto studyingthe Guide that we encountered in Kreisel is inherently inadequate.Instead it must be read throughwhat Faurlabels (following Eliade) "creativehermeneutics."Faur'suse of his understandingof this technique makes the Guideprimarilya study in theological Kabbalah-"theological" in the sense that it is what Maimonides says about God that becomes the centraltheme of the work, and "Kabbalah"because Faur's Maimonides can claim a certain grasping of the divine that reflects more Jewish mysticism than Jewish philosophy. In this sense, then, Faur'sGuide is also about religious experience. Hebrew mysticism, Faurtells us, posits mystical experience as an end at which the perfectedhumanarrives,at which stage the humantranscendsbeing human. For Hebrew mysticism religious experience is the end or goal of humanexistence, not a beginningof a paththatleads to perfection.This kindof mysticismhas two forms. There is the mysticism of Maimonides that is theocentric and deanthropomorphic,which stands in markedcontrastto the mysticism of Kabbalism that is ethnographicand anthropocentric.However,the two forms sharethe claims thatthere is a radicalontological differencebetweenthe humanandthe divine, that this difference entails that God must be revealed ratherthan discovered,and that prayerand prophecy are the same thing. Faurdistinguishesthreestages of knowledge:(1) a rejectionof imaginationin favor of rationality,(2) the consequent discovery of objective, non-sensate, reality, and finally (3) transcendenceof the objective for union with the divine. He goes 96

Maimonidean Scholarship at the End of the Century on to arguethat the animalityof the humantranscendsthe three stages of knowledge, and that Maimonides'understandingof perfection is as a unity of the individual and society thattranscendsthe vision of humanperfection in the parableof the cave in Plato's Republic. In at least this sense Faurand Kreisel agree that in Maimonides' vision of human perfection the distinction dissolves between the good of the individualin the autonomouspursuitof intellectualknowledge and the good of the whole in the creationthroughpracticalwisdom of a just society. Faur,no less than Kreisel, has made a significant contributionto the study of Maimonides.However,the two books are radicallydifferentkinds of academic work. Whereasthe primaryinfluence sources for Kreisel are academic studies of Jewish philosophicaltexts as intellectualhistory,for Faur,Maimonides'works are partof a living traditionof constructiveJewish theology that has its roots in Spanish literatureand contemporaryacademic studies of religious experience no less than in Kabbalah.Among the voices behind the analyses of both Kreisel and Faur is Leo Strauss,but most of the other voices are significantly different. Whereas Kreiselwill quoteAltmannand Pines, for example, Faurquotes Mircea Eliade and Jorge Luis Borges. WhereasKreisel compares Maimonides'thought with the political ethics of Aristotle,FaurcomparesRambamwith the psychology of Sigmund Freud.Kreisel'sMaimonidesis primarilysituatedin time. What Kreisel says is related to contemporaryethics, but in no sense are his pronouncementstaken seriously to be relevantto contemporaryethics. Faur'sMaimonides,on the otherhand, is a living religious mystic. His Maimonidesis timeless; his voice is as alive today as it was in the twelfth century.Hence, there is a kind of intellectual excitement in reading Faur'stext that cannot be said for reading Kreisel's. With Kreisel's work, the primarysets of questions have to do with whetheror not the claims made are historicallyaccurate;with Faur'swork we can also ask whetherwhat Maimonides says is true. Much of Faur'sstudy shouldbe assentedto, but not all of it. I will here raise three lines of criticism. One deals with Faur'suse of the term "myth,"a second with his treatmentof time, and the thirdwith Maimonides' conception of creation. Concerningmyth, Faurmakes the following judgments that seem problematic. Faurtells us that "perplexity"arises at the juncture where "neitherrationality nor prophecy are operative"(p. 111). At this point ordinarylanguage "cannot articulatethe fantastic, hence, the need for metaphor"(p. 111). This description closely fits what Plato in the Timaeuscalled "myth,"but Faurdoes not seem to recognize this connection.In fact Plato'saccountof cosmogony is very close to Faur's, but, again, Faurseems unfamiliarwith this criticalpartof the Timaeus.Otherwise he could not say that"thePlatonicthesis implies thatdivine and humanknowledge are homogeneous"(p. 124). That clearly is wrong. Plato's creation story is a tale about space which lies beyond the two primarycategories of Plato's epistemology, namely reason (whose domain consists of ideas) and opinion (whose domain consists of sense experience). Space is real, but it is neitheran idea nor something that can be experienced.Hence, Plato introducesthe notion of "myth"as a way to handle it. Cosmology, Faurtells us, "resultsin a crisis of reason that could be resolved eitherby regressingto mythology or by enteringthe world of esoterics and prophecy"(p. 124), but this clearly is not how myth functions for Plato. It is any97

Norbert M. Samuelson thing but a regression. In fact it has more in common to the epistemic characteristics of what Faurcalls "esoterics." Concerningtime I will limit myself to a single text. With referenceto Sinai being in naturalratherthanmythicaltime, Faursays that the "JewishSabbathdoes not marka primordialcosmological moment but the beginning of historicaltime" (p. 144). That judgment is far from self-evident. It is intended as a criticism of Eliade, but, again, it is not so obvious that Eliade's analysis in this case does not fit Maimonides, or other Jewish philosophersfor that matter,notably Gersonides and Rosenzweig. Thereare all kinds of time. Rosenzweig at least, commentingon the biblical view of creation as well as Maimonides' negative theology, distinguishes between mythicaland historicaltime. Historicaltime is that of pagans;for Jews and Christiansthere are two otherkinds of notions of time, both of which are "mythical."By comparisonFaur'sanalysis is much too simplistic. Finally, concerning Faur'streatmentof creation by Maimonides, I would raise the following considerations.Faurargues that to "deny Creationex nihilo it would be necessary to postulate an ontological link between the deity and man, and either deny perfect omniscience and omnipresencefrom the deity or human freedom of choice" (p. 94). However,this is a non sequitur.Choice and freedom of choice are not the same thing. Freedom is something the medieval Jewish philosophers tended to ascribe only to God. Humanshave choice, but it need not be free. And they could make this distinctionwhile at the same time, consistently and coherently,affirming a belief in creationex nihilo. Faurcorrectly states that creation is something "willful,"which entails that it is not due to "necessity."But he adds that this kind of creation "is akin to the principle of probability"(p. 114), and this extension is far from clear. Probability goes with chance, which Maimonides and Fauridentify with the view of the Epicureans. Fauralso says that this probabilitythat is associated with divine creation "cannotbe 'determined.'... Therefore,althoughGod knows the future,it remains indeterminate"(p. 114). Now this claim has a long history of philosophical discussion, including in Jewish philosophy, and it remainsunsettledto this day. It is not at all obvious that because God's act of creationis indeterminate,the world is indeterminate.Hence, it is conceptually possible for God to create a world indeterminatelythat is itself knowabledeterminately. The problemis that Faurfails to see what we have alreadybroughtout in his discussion of myth, that is, that Platonic cosmogony, at least in the Timeaus,cannot be reduced to Aristoteliancosmology. Hence, Faurcan state that the "eternity of the universe posits a Platonic kind of knowledge, essentially contemplativenot a function of creation"(p. 121), which simply is not true, and Maimonidesexplicitly says that it is not true when he comments that the Timaeuscould be used to interpretthe biblical account of creation. Whether or not that is what Maimonides in fact does is an issue discussed in our final work for consideration. SEESKIN: AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIPAND PHILOSOPHY

Seeskin, a professor of philosophy and former chair of the philosophy departmentat NorthwesternUniversityand,from its beginning, a majorfigure in the

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Maimonidean Scholarship at the End of the Century internationalAcademy for JewishPhilosophy,has writtena first-ratework in Jewish philosophy-a fine example of how intellectualhistory is enrichedby a philosophical perspective and constructivetheology is deepened by historical knowledge. This work does so by presenting an extended discussion of the concept of monotheismin relationshipto Maimonides'negative theology. The book consists of seven chapterswith an appendixon Maimonides' esotericism. The first chapterarguesthat Maimonidespresents us with a Judaismthat is inherentlyphilosophic. More accurately,Seeskin uses Maimonides as a focus to constructhis own argumentfor the centralityof philosophy and rationaltheology to Judaism.To present God in a human form is both anthropomorphicand inescapable,but to say that it is inescapabledoes not allow us freely to think of God in this way.We are obliged to presenta philosophical account for this move. Seeskin's thoughthere is directed against contemporaryfeminist Jewish theology. In effect he claims againstthese Jewish thinkersthat by avoiding philosophy in their theology they affirm a deity for Judaismwho simply is anthropomorphic,without qualification,and, as such, is idolatrous. Jewish feminist theologians, however,are not Seeskin's main opponents in this chapter.That status is reserved for Leo Strauss and his radical separationof philosophy (Athens) from religion and Judaism (Jerusalem). Against Strauss's claim thatthe two are incompatible,Seeskin argues that it is a mistake to see philosophy as a set of fixed truths.Rather,as is clearly exhibited in Aristotle'sTopics, philosophyshould be understoodas dialectical reasoning,where the way of thinking ratherthan the conclusions of the thought is what defines the discipline. The question is, can Judaism be understood in the same way, that is, as something whose thought is dialectical. Seeskin's argumentfor Judaismbeing dialectical is that the Judaismof Maimonideswas dialectical. Seeskin's second chapterargues that it is more importantto avoid idolatry than it is to gain intelligibility.In his third chapter,Seeskin faces the problem of prayerin a Maimonideanform of radicalmonotheism. Here the challenge comes fromThomasAquinas'argumentationagainstan interpretationof divine attributes as absolutelyequivocalbecause this extreme interpretationof equivocalitycannot preserve the ordinaryusage in prayerof affirmative statements about God. The bottomline of Seeskin'sdefense of his interpretationof Maimonides'monotheism is that all language is a form of idolatrybut prayeris a concession that allows us to say something. ChapterFouris Seeskin'sinterpretationof what Maimonidesbelieved about creation.Seeskin properlyassociates this doctrinewith the previous discussion of prayer.Prayerseems to be a relationshipbetween the creatorand those whom he created.If there is no real relationship,then it would seem to follow that there can be no prayer,and a religion withoutprayerwould indeed not be Judaism. ChapterFive deals with the doctrineof imitatioDei. Seeskin argues,against both HermannCohen and Steven Schwarzschild,that this highest ethical ideal, while difficult, is nonetheless achievable,and, in agreementwith Faur,as the ideal is approachedthe distinctionbetween practical and theoretical wisdom disappears. For Maimonides the way it is achieved is through observance of the 613 99

Norbert M. Samuelson commandments.This ideal can also be called devequt, but even the Kabbalists, contrary to Idel's interpretation,did not consider a mystical union with God to mean actually becoming one with God. Still, the problem is, how can something finite like a human being imitate what is infinite? Seeskin argues that Maimonides used a Platonist conception of the world and of knowledge to present imitatio Dei as a process of purification from worldly matterin orderto enable ultimate conjunctionnot with God proper but with the Agent Intellect. Next, Seeskin turns to the centraltopic of Kreisel'sbook, what kind of wisdom constitutes the attainmentof human perfection. He notes that Shlomo Pines and Larry Berman argue that it is political, Schwarzschildand HermannCohen that it is ethical, and Julius Guttmannthatthe ethicaltakes on a new dimensionafter intellectualperfectionis achieved. Seeskin arguesthatthe line between the theoretical and the practicalfades as the ideal is approximated. Having settled to his own satisfaction the historical question of what Maimonides believed, Seeskin turnsto the philosophical question:whetherthatbelief is believable. The seventeenth-centuryrejection of the medieval physics of form and matterand the medieval epistemology in which there is a conjunctionbetween knower and known leads to the Kantianmove of explaining divine transcendence in terms of ethics ratherthan physics. However,the ideal remains no less remote from the actual in modernphilosophythanthe heavens were remote fromthe earth in medieval philosophy.Kantand HermannCohen, no less than Maimonides,see holiness as a process of becoming like God, and this process involves continuous purification from the concerns of the self and the world. The problem is that humans will by naturefail to make this separation,and there is no "ought"withouta "can."The solution for both is to assume an infinite amount of time to succeed through subsequentlives. However,this solution is not availableto a Maimonides, for whom there is no developmentof the soul afterdeath. Seeskin raises a number of objections to the Kantianview and arguesthat the medieval view is preferable. The reason for the preferenceis Seeskin's opposition to seeing the end as asymptotic. Chapter Six argues that Maimonides' thirteen "pillarsof faith" lie beyond what even the pious can know. Contraryto Moses Mendlessohn,Judaismis an orthodoxy and not just an orthopraxy.The problem is, however,how Judaismcan command belief in God. Bahya argues in Duties of the Heart that belief is voluntary. Maimonides' position is more subtle. Belief involves representationand affirmation, which correspondsto meaning and truth, which involve apprehension in the former case andjudgment in the latter.It is judgment that requiresvolition even when the judgment is necessary. The final chaptersummarizesSeeskin's conclusions and deals directlywith the charge that Maimonides' form of Judaism,at least in the radical way Seeskin presents it, is a religion that few, if any, Jews would adopt. Seeskin argues in response that Rambam'sJudaismand popular religion are reconcilable.This argument turns on showing what sense can be made out of saying that Rambam'sdeity is a person, and what it means to love him.

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Maimonidean Scholarship at the End of the Century What popularreligion calls the love of God cannot really be love, because, according to Seeskin's Maimonides, it is not possible to really love an illusion. Maimonides'God does love as a person, and not (contraryto HermannCohen) as an ideal. Rather,it is God'spersonallove that makes it possible for us to love him. The real question about the love of God does not have to do with whether or not God is a person.All of these theologians make that assertion.The issue is whether the person we love is an ideal person, as Cohen claims, or a concrete person, as Rosenzweig and Buber claim. However,both approachesare guilty of anthropomorphismbecause both entail a correlationbetween the divine and the human. For Maimonides,God is radicallyotherand asymmetricwith the human. Rosenzweig sees the commandmentto love God as the startingpoint of the humanjourney towardsperfection,but for Maimonidesit is the final end. Of the three books I found Seeskin's to be the most exciting, probablybecause, like Seeskin's, my interests in the writings of people like Maimonides are philosophical.I find this to be Seeskin'smost philosophically and religiously mature statement.He is a majorfigure in contemporaryJewish philosophical theology and this is his most importantwork, both as intellectual history and as constructivetheology. Still, I do have a numberof criticisms to raise, most but not all of which are minor. Seeskin says that the Guide is "a letter writtento a disciple named Joseph, an observantJew unsurewhetherto follow his intellect and renounce the Law or hold fast to the Law and renouncethe intellect" (p. 11). I don't think that is quite right.Thereis no either/orpresentedfor Joseph. Rather,he is perplexedas to how the two are correlated. Seeskin argues that philosophy is a corrective of the tendency of imagination to employ anthropomorphism,and revelation is a corrective on the tendency of reason to subject God to principles of reason (p. 14). Again, I think this an inappropriateeither/or. Modelling in science is a good example of how reason employs imagination.Fractalsare an even better example. Seeskin tells us that accordingto his "vision"the experience of God is never direct."Even at the highest levels, it is plagued by doubt and uncertainty."Furthermore,we "cannotresolve this issue simply by citing Scripturebecause doing so will only raise the question of how Scriptureshould be interpreted"(p. 22). If this is so, why should he or Maimonidesor any one else pay any attentionto Scripture at all, since the implication is that Scripturehas absolutely no epistemic authority.It is an importantquestion, critical I think to Seeskin's defense of a rational Judaism.It is in short the question of revelation. Seeskin never deals with it, and that is a majoromission. Seeskin arguesthatthe reason why Maimonides opts for a metaphysicalinterpretationof imitatio Dei is that Maimonides accepts enough of the Platonic world view to regardearthlymatteras the source of evil and sees imitatio Dei as a way to free ourselves from matter(p. 96). Now, if Maimonides sees the created world in Platonicterms, why does he not see creationthat way as well? In short, I do not find Seeskin's argumentsfor adoptingcreatio ex nihilo and de novo as if it were opposedto a Platoniccosmogony convincing. Certainlyfor Rambamcreation 101

Norbert M. Samuelson is out of nothing and totally unique. But what does Maimonidesthinkthat means? I have suggested that he thinks that means somethinglike what Plato gives us in a different story form in the Timeaus. In relation to the end of his book, Seeskin's argumentfor why Rambam's view of the love commandmentdiffers radically from those of modem Jewish philosophers like Buber, Rosenzweig, and Levinas is unconvincing. Seeskin argues that any concept of God is inadequatesimply because it is a conception and, as such, compromises divine uniqueness.That'sright, but that'sbecause God is a person and not a concept. Seeskin then says thattalk about God should be understood as "ways in which the idea of divinity is presentedto us, not ways in which it is circumscribedby our attemptsat classification" (p. 161). But whom is Seeskin attackinghere? Certainlynot Buber, Rosenzweig, and Levinas. Furthermore, Seeskin asserts that on Rambam'sview there is "a radicalasymmetrybecause of God's uniqueness"(p. 159). However,God is just as radically other for Levinas, Rosenzweig, and Buber as he is for Seeskin. The issue is that what Seeskin'sMaimonides and the modem Jewishphilosophersin questionsay aboutthe radicalotherness of God, the modem Jewish philosopherssay aboutthe radicalothernessof the human, and that is why symmetry is possible. This assertion makes sense of the love of God as the love of neighbor in a way that Seeskin's account of Maimonides can not approximate. Finally, I want to say something about Seeskin's critique of understanding ethics as the pursuitof asymptotes.Seeskin thinksthatall unattainableends are insignificant, which is why he thinks that asymptotic interpretationsof the human ideal are not sound. His objection seems to be pragmatic.He tells us that if "the goal is not attainable,if it outstripseven the most generous estimate of humancapacity, then so far from providinghope for a betterworld,religion would only provide despair or what Hegel termed alienation"(p. 92). But what has become of Seeskin's hard-headedcommitment to monotheism? He says that even while it might help people pray to think of God imaginatively,they must not, because of the dangerof idolatry.Betterthat people not know to whom they are prayingthan pray to the wrong God. Doesn't that apply as well to people's moral actions as it does to their worship?Isn't it also better that people not know why they are pursuing an end than to pursuethe wrong end, especially since that end, namely,ultimate human wisdom, is in some sense associated with divinity? Seeskin's primary opposition to an asymptotic reading of the ideal is his commitment to defending Rambam'sunderstandingof divine difference as absolute equivocation.As such he feels he must removethe attainmentof humanperfection from any association whatsoeverwith the divine as divine. The alternative is to make Gersonides' (to my view vastly more intelligent)judgment that the relation between divine and humanattributesis pros hen3 equivocal. Ralbag'sjudg3. I.e., equivocal in such a way that the term has a primary,paradigmaticmeaning, and all other significantly different uses of the term have a meaning that is derived in one way or anotherfrom the paradigm.On Gersonides'use of this term, see NorbertM. Samuelson,Gersonideson God'sKnowledge (Toronto:Pontifical Instituteof Mediaeval Studies, 1977), p. 28.

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Maimonidean Scholarship at the End of the Century ment leads directlyto the asymptoticmodel of Cohen, Rosenzweig, and Schwarzschild. In support of his position Seeskin quotes Ehud Benor's statementthat the modem view is "romantic."4It certainlyis. But it is eminentlyreasonableas well, far more reasonablethan Seeskin's uncompromisingrationalistMaimonideswith his (in my judgment) excessively radicalizedmonotheism. CONCLUSIONS

Whatcan we conclude aboutthe state of academic Maimonideanstudies at the end of the twentieth century? Different scholars will answer the question in differentways. Thereare at least three loci for Maimonideanscholarship-Israel, Europe,and the United States. There are differences of approachesand cannons in these three centers. But the differences have more to do with the intellectual orientationsof the scholars and less with their geographic locations. Kreisel is American-bornandeducated,buthis agendadoes reflectthe predominantinterestof Israeli scholars on intellectualhistory,especially focused on Maimonides' Islamic predecessors.Faurhas taught in America and now teaches in Israel, but his interests, as his references exhibit, are clearly European.His Maimonides is a timeless mystic, and reading the Rambamthis way is certainly a legitimate way to interprethim. Minimallyit helps us visualize whatAlexanderAltmannmight have meant when he spoke against a radicalseparationof Jewish philosophy and mysticism.5 The only clear case of identification of geographical and intellectual locationis KennethSeeskin. His agendain readingMaimonidesis religious androoted in an English language traditionof doing philosophy. This has not been the dominantorientationof Maimonideanstudies since Wolfson. Certainly it is impossible to study Jewish philosophy abstractedfrom the historical context of the writing,but that study could be less historical and far more philosophical than it has been. However,that is my American intellectual bias, no less than Seeskin's. Forme as a student,the direction-determiningworks of the first half of the century were Isaac Husik'sIntroductionto Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy, Harry A. Wolfson'sCrescas'CritiqueofAristotle, and Shlomo Pines' English translation of Maimonides' Guide with Leo Strauss'introduction.Husik's work not only introducedme and others (at least in North America) to the field, but the texts he dealt with constitutedfor all of us a sort of canon, works that determinedthe historical context into which the Guide was to be located. In the second half of the centurythatcanon has been significantlyexpanded.It now includes workson Jewish mysticismas well as philosophyand it extends beyond the late middle ages into the earlymodernperiod. Wolfson'swork set the standardfor what it means to do a thoroughand rich analysisof a sophisticatedphilosophicaltext in the context of the history of ideas. 4. EhudBenor, Worshipof the Heart (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995), p. 41, quotedby Seeskin on p. 215, n. 66. 5. It should be noted that David Blumenthalalso has argued that Maimonides should be understoodhistoricallywithin a certaintraditionof Islamic rationalistmysticism.

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Norbert M. Samuelson It still is, in my judgment,unequaledin quality and,therefore,continuesto set the standardof excellence for the field. Wolfson's commentariesextended the topics of interest in the Guide beyond religious concerns to the philosophy of science, and located the book beyond Jewish philosophy in the domain of Muslim and Christiantheology. As is evident in the three books discussed in this essay, the range of topics of interestis now considerablybroader.I think it can be safely said that no one can any longer readthe Guide as a workof religious philosophy in isolation from Maimonides' other writings, especially his halakhic ones. Furthermore, the Guide can no longer be read simply as a workof rationalisttheology.As the books of both Kreisel and Faur show, approachesto the work from the perspectives of Jewish mysticism and political ethics are no less central to the text than are questions of physics and metaphysics. Pines' translationof the Guide became the standardfor writingtranslations, that is, translationsthat attemptto make text no more intelligible than it actually is, reserving commentaryto footnotes. An accuratetranslation,one that is precisely imprecise, is of course an unattainableideal, but it nonetheless is and should be the translator'sgoal. Finally, Strauss'introductionto the Guide determinedthe most widely discussed question in Maimonidean studies for the second half of the century-how are we to interpretMaimonides' professed esotericism. It is clear from the three books considered that this question has had some light shed on it, but it is not settled. I doubt that it ever will be. What is clear, at least in the three books discussed here, is that whatever were Maimonides' motives, they were not what Strauss thought they were. Maimonides did not believe that Aristotelian natural philosophy and rabbinic Judaism were irreconcilable. He was not a philosophical marrano. As this conclusion about Strauss' reading is the most controversialclaim I have to make in this essay, it requires some explanation. With reference to the works considered here, my main argumentis with Kreisel. He suggests that Rambam is hiding the fact that the only ones who can attain"final perfection"and, as disembodiedintellects, overcomethe deathanddegenerationof the body,arethose members of an elite who achieve intellectualperfection(p. 7). Kreisel says, paraphrasingRambam,that thereis no 'injustice'inthisstateof affairs.Thisis simplythewayof theworld. Of coursethephilosopher doesnotgo andteachthesematterspubliclyto the masses.Discretionis notonlythebetterpartof valor,butalsothephilosophicallymoreresponsiblecourse.Themassesaretaughtthosebeliefsor myths thatensuretheirproperbehaviorand contributeto the welfareof society" (p. 7). But Rambamdoes not make a secret of these judgments, and even if he did, it was completely transparent.Certainlyif therereally aresecrets,they mustbe morethan just this. However,Kreisel seems thoroughlycommittedto Strauss'conspiracythesis when he says thatMaimonides"is interestedin concealing his views frommany

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MaimonideanScholarshipat the End of the Century of his readers,at the same time he impartsthem to some."Yet the general theme that runs throughoutKreisel's work is that the historically claimed contradictions are only apparentand not real once we see that Maimonides' claims are set within differentcontextualperspectives.I don't think that Kreisel has freed himself as much as he has claimed to, at least not yet, from the influence of Straussianconspiracytheories of intellectualhistory. Another hidden view that Kreisel claims for Maimonides is that the world was not createdex nihilo but that it is, as the Aristoteliansclaim, eternal.Withreference to the "Lawsof the Principlesof the Torah"1:5 and the "Lawsof Idolatry" 1:3 in the Mishneh Torah,Kreisel says that the "nonphilosophicreader will certainly understand(the cited texts) as conveying the notion of creationas ex nihilo. The philosophic readerwill grasp the true meaning of this phrase as it is used by Maimonidesin this context"(p. 43). But this is not at all an obvious claim. In fact both HerbertDavidson and I, independentlyand by very differentmeans, have argued fairly extensively that a simple "out of nothing"interpretationof what Maimonidesbelieved is far fromthe best possible interpretationof his words. If Kreisel wants to maintainthis interpretation,it requiresa defense, and that defense must include dealing with alternativearguments. Kreisel says that "Maimonidesfocused on the single most importantissue to which the other areas of disagreementcan be traced-creation" (p. 219), but Kreisel offers no argumentto supportthis claim. It is far from obvious. At least equal in importanceis corporealattributionsto God. However,I am not claiming that no argumentexists to supporthis claim. In fact, at least one has been given, by Gersonides in the introductionto The Warsof the Lord. The objection is that Kreisel doesn't give one. Similarly,Kreisel claims thatnot "even in the Guide does [Maimonides]indicate that the acceptance of creation contributesto the true conception of God necessary for the perfection of the intellect" (p. 220). That's because it doesn't. What is at stake in the creationvs. eternitydispute is whetherthe universe is contingentor necessary and,to the extentthatit is contingent,it cannotbe known. Creation entails that intellect alone is insufficient, no matterhow developed,to know everything.So much is clear in Gersonides.Kreisel does not seem to know this literature,and in this case the lack is significant. Kreisel wants to argue that Maimonides believed in a purely intellectualhuman perfection. Primafacie that presupposes that at least in principle all of the universe is intellectually knowable. However,the doctrine of creation (whether it be eternally or temporally created) entails that such complete knowledge is in principle unattainablegiven the very natureof the universeitself. If this analysisis correct,and I thinkit is, then Kreisel's centralthesis about humanperfection is in need of serious repair. It is in his fourthchapterthat Kreisel arguesthat most of the inconsistencies in Rambam'swritings are only apparentand those that are real are "due to the religious sensitivity of the subject in question ... or for pedagogical reasons" (p. 125). By the former claim he means that Maimonides hides some mattersbecause of his concern for the welfare of Judaism,which was the dominantway of readingMaimonidespriorto Strauss,from GersonidesthroughIsaac Husik. How105

Norbert M. Samuelson ever, even these exceptions should not be grantedgiven the strong,and to me convincing, argumentsagainst an esoteric readingof Maimonides'corpus in Kreisel, pp. 126-27. Faurand Seeskin offer very different interpretationsof Maimonides'esotericism. ForFaurthe whole work is esoteric. Forhim esotericismrepresentsa way of thinking beyond rationalismthat is the path to the attainmentof humanperfection. For Seeskin, like Kreisel, the role of the esoteric is far more limited. What Maimonides hides is that the foundationalbeliefs of Judaismcannot be proven. Rather,they are what reasonablepeople will believe even though they know these views cannot be demonstrated. On Seeskin's readingof the texts Maimonidesclearlywantsto hide fromthe masses what they are not ready to hear,but how deep does the hiding go? Strauss says thatit is deep. Maimonides'method is to assertA and B, which arecontraries, and the one said least frequently is the one that Maimonides believes. All three books share in common a rejection of Strauss'sapproachto the text of the Guide. Where Strausssees doctrinalcontradictions,Seeskin in particularsees conjectures. When viewed this way, i.e., with what Seeskin calls "conceptualflexibility,"most of the claimed contradictionsdisappear.Seeskin arguesthis specifically with reference to Mosaic prophecy,creation, imitatio Dei, miracles, the use of Kalam arguments, divine volition, and (what for Seeskin is the most importantexample)the claim that the divine intellect is like the humanintellect. Seeskin arguesthat Maimonides cannotbe read correctlywith the strictrigor of formal logic. Rather,the Guide must be read as a conversationwhere there can only be a glimpse of the truth. In other words, this is a work in dialectic and not in mathematicallogic. This is a majorinsight, and I think it is the single most importantcontributionthat Seeskin makes in this work for guiding futurestudies of the Guide. What then are we to say about the supposed "secrets"of the Guide? Certainly there must be some, since Maimonides explicitly tells us that thereare. Ibn Tibbonthoughtthat the secret is thatthe true Judaismis Aristotle. Strausssays almost the same thing, that is, that Judaismand science are irreconcilable.Seeskin rejects both. Forhim, Maimonides' secret is thatthere is no knowledge, only reasonable belief, of some of the most centraltheses of both science and Judaism. In summary,note that all three authors-Kreisel, Faur,and Seeskin-claim that Maimonides is hiding something from people who are not sufficientlymature to grasp the hidden. Maturityin all three cases is epistemic. However,contraryto the Straussiantraditionthat has dominated Maimonideanacademic scholarship since the appearanceof Pines' English translationof the Guide with Strauss'introduction,there is no question of Maimonides'affirmationof Judaism.All agree that the Straussianline of interpretationis completely contraryto Maimonides'intention. Ratherwhat is being hidden is that the most fundamentalbeliefs of Judaism cannotbe demonstrated.This does not mean that these beliefs are doubted. Rather,it means that at this level of cognition it is inappropriateto speak about demonstration,and a certainamountof intellectualmaturityis requiredto be able to believe in this way.

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Maimonidean Scholarship at the End of the Century What then will be the agenda of Maimonidean studies for the first half of the new century?My hope is that scholarly interest in esotericism will decline. It seems to me to be a conceptualblackhole, for there is no adequatemethodological way to settle the question and I doubt that there can be. Clearly Maimonides says that he will hide things and even tells us what some of them are. But he does not tell us why he is hiding them, everythingthat he is hiding, and how to determine what he "really"meant if he really meant anything specific. Clearly we can find contradictionsin the text, but not all of them are real and, even among those that are real, it need not be the case that Maimonides himself knew that he was contradictinghimself. In other words, there is no way to solve the problem, and unsolvable problemsare best set aside in the interestof addressingreal textual problems that can be answered. Undoubtedly,topics will emerge from contemporarystudies of which we are not yet cognizant.But certainlythe centraltopics consideredin this essay will continue to occupy attention,that is, why did Maimonides write what he wrote, what is the relationship between the practical and the theoretical intellect in Maimonides' ethics, how do both relate to his understandingof the value of communal forms of worship,and what is the best readingof what he says about creation? Also clearis thatinterestin Maimonides'workwill not decline. Thatis, in myjudgment, as it should be. The corpus of Maimonides'writings is the productof an intellectualgenius. Thereare otherswho may be his equal, but none is greater,as the richness of interpretationssurveyedin this essay illustrates. NorbertM. Samuelson Arizona State University Tempe,Arizona

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Review: [untitled] Author(s): Lisbeth S. Fried Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 109-111 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131558 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review 26:1 (2002), 109-217

BOOK REVIEWS Paul Heger. The ThreeBiblical Altar Laws. Beihefte zur Zeitschriftftir die alttestamentlicheWissenschaft, 279. Berlin:Walterde Gruyter,1999. xi, 463 pp. In this monumentalbook, Paul Heger attempts to explain how synagogue recital of biblical texts replacedthe sacrificial cult (p. 366). He posits that gradual disaffection with the Temple enabled the rabbis to institute synagogue ritual for sacrifice even while the second Temple stood. The work is wide-ranging,yet focused, andprovides a detailedhistoryof the cult from the BronzeAge until the destructionof the second Temple.The first half is a diachronicstudyof the threebiblical altarlaws. The second half investigatesthe impact of Ahaz, Josiah, Ezra and Nehemiah, the Maccabees, and finally the rabbis on attitudestowardtemple sacrifice. Perhapsit is unavoidablein a work which spans the time from the Bronze Age to the Rabbinicperiod that much is left out. Heger relies heavily on a Persian period dating for P, and does not attemptto engage other views.1 The three biblical altarlaws Heger refers to are Exod. 20: 24-26 (which he mysteriously refers to as vs. 21-23), Deut. 27: 2-8, especially 4-7, and Exod. 27:1-8. He assumes these laws were knownby the populace and binding on them. He does not discuss Westbrook'swork (nor the large amountwrittengenerally on the role of law codes in the ancientNear East)thatsuggests law codes were confined to scribalschools.2 Hegerarguesfor a progressiveweakeningin lay attachmentto the sacrificial cult. Ahaz instituted the first step when he substituted the bronze altar (a presentationaltar)by a great altar for burnt offerings (2 Kings 16: 10-16). Priorto Ahaz, altarsthroughoutIsraelwere for presentationofferings only; burntofferings were made on an ad hoc basis (p. 262). Ahaz encouragedburnt-offeringaltars in the towns, and instituteda regulardaily burnt-offeringritualin the temple (p. 264). This reformchanged the relationshipbetween the deity and the people-it forever removedthe theological necessity of feeding the god. Heger derives evidence for Ahaz's inaugurationof burnt-offeringsacrifices from two sources.The first source is the biblicaltext. The descriptionof Solomon's temple does not mention a burnt-offeringaltar,so therewas none in the temple pri1. Several scholars have arguedrecently that P is early and precedes D (the many articles and books by A. Hurvitz;I. Knohl, TheSanctuaryof Silence: The Priestly Torahand the Holiness School, AugsburgFortressPress, Minneapolis, 1995, J. Milgrom, Leviticus,Anchor Bible Commentary,Doubleday,New York, 1991). Otherswant to do away with the documentaryhypothesisentirely (e.g. R. N. Whybray,TheMaking of the Pentateuch:A Methodological Study,JSOTSupp. 53, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987). 2. See especially, J. Bottero, "The 'Code' of Hammurabi,"in idem., Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992, pp. 156-184; B. M. Levinson (Ed.), Theoryand Method in Biblical and CuneiformLaw: Revision, Interpolationand Development, JSOT Supp. 181, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994; and R. Westbrook'sarticle in that book "Whatis the CovenantCode?,"pp. 15-36.

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AJS Review or to Ahaz. (The small bronze altarAhaz put aside was not capable of sustaining burntofferings.3)Heger does not considerthatthe statementin 2 Chron.4:1 might have been simply left out of the Kings accountby haplography.4The second source is archaeological.The large altar in the court at Arad was used for slaughtering only, and the temple of Arad was lined with offering benches. These offering benches disappearin StratumIX, the middle of the eighth century,the period of Ahaz's reign (742-727). This convinces Heger that Ahaz instituteda nationwide reformto eliminatefood offerings to the deity (p. 263). WhatHeger does not mention is that the entire temple at Arad was buriedin StratumIX, an act the excavator attributesto Hezekiah.sThe temple ofArad cannotprovideevidence forAhaz's reform. To Heger,the second step in the eliminationof the sacrificial system was the reform of Josiah (2 Kings 22:3-7)-a reform confined to the removal of local bamoth (p. 284). The reformof Josiahwas the main cause of the weakeningof lay attachmentto the temple. The centralizationof the cult resulted in "a professional class of clergy and . . . exclusion of laics from . . . the sacrifices" (p. 366). "The priesthood developed into an intermediarybody between God and the people." "[This notion was] totally incompatible with Israelite tradition and consciousness" (ibid.). No evidence is brought for the latter assertion. An elaborate priesthoodis partof the traditionof the entireancientNear East.6Ostracaindicate the presence of a priesthoodat Arad. Heger brings no evidence for the historicity of Josiah'sreform, except to posit the Deuteronomicredactorwould have no reason to make it up. Yet,archaeologicalevidence shows all cult sites were destroyed duringAssyrian conquest-long before Josiah.7 The centralizationof the cult andthe exclusionof the laityled to "minimalconcern for the temple among a significant elementof Israelitesociety"(p. 335). Ezra and Nehemiah reversedthis, invigoratedthe cult, and broughtabouta theocracyin Jerusalem(pp. 350-351). Hegerdoes not mentionthatboththesemen workedforthe Persiangovernment.Accordingto Heger,the Persiangovernmentplayedno role in Judaeaninternaldevelopments.The wishes of two Persianofficials were paramount, 3. N. H. Gadegaard,"On the So-Called BurntOfferingAltar in the Old Testament,"PEQ, 110, 1978, pp. 35-45. 4. S. Japhet, I and II Chronicles, The Old TestamentLibrary,Westminster/Louisville:John Knox Press, 1993, ad. loc. p. 564. Gadegaard(ibid., n. 4) states that a small bronze altar could never sustain a fire large enough to consume an entire sheep or bull. A very large copper altarwould be able to sustain such a fire however,and "copper"may be the correct translation(Deut. 8:9). Heger argues (p. 242, n. 24) that 1 Kings 8:64, which refers to a large altarout in the middle courtyard,was a priestly interpolation,and so from the Persianperiod. Ratherthan the end of chapter8 being a priestly interpolation,I would arguethatvs. 14-61 area deuteronomicinterpolation.[I thankVictor(A) Hurowitz for remindingme of Deut. 8:9 (personalcommunication).] 5. Z. Herzog, "TheArad Fortress,"in Arad, HakibbutzHameuchadPublishingHouse, IES, Tel Aviv, 1997, p. 199-203 (Hebrew). 6. A cursory readingof ANET will confirm this. 7. A survey of cult sites in Judah/Samariashows thatnone remainedin existence after701. All were eitherdestroyedin the course of conquest, or intentionallyburiedto avoid desecration(L. S. Fried, "The High Places (Bam6t) and the Reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah,"forthcoming;presentedat the Meeting of the AmericanOrientalSociety, New Orleans,April 1998).

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Book Reviews yet these two officials had only the interestsof the Jews at heart.This is not consistentwithPersianadministrative patterns.8Hegerprovidesno evidenceforpriestlysecularpower.A detailedstudyof the historyof Judahin the Persianperiodsuggeststhe priestshad no realpower.Exceptfor brief periods,they were subordinateto the Persian monarchsandtheirlocal representatives.9 To Heger, the elaborateritual developed by the priesthood shifted the performanceof the cult from the offererto the priest. It thereby"diminishedthe excitementof the sacrificialcelebrationfor the individualwho came to Jerusalemfor that purpose"(p. 370). The ability to send money to pay for the cult (a system developed by Nehemiah) also helped to eliminatethe "emotionaldevotion"of those who could not come in person (p. 370). Yet this conclusion is belied by the huge holiday throngsthat both Josephusand the New Testamentreport. According to Heger,the rabbissubstitutedsynagogue ritualfor temple sacrifice. Evenbefore the destructionof the Temple,the rabbishad organizedthe populace into assemblies to recite appropriatebiblical pericopes instead of attending the sacrifices (p. 381). As proof, he quotes only the Mishnah Ta'anith(4:2) as if it were a reliable source for first centuryevents. The entirepurpose of his work is to explain the rapidsubstitutionof recitationfor sacrifice. Yethe provides no real evidence to indicate when this occurredor that it was a first-centuryphenomenon. In sum, Heger attemptsto show a gradual weakening of attachmentto the sacrificial cult. This weak attachmentenabled the rabbis to substitutethe recitation of biblical passages even before the Temple'sdestruction.The phenomenonof ritualizedprayeras a substitutefor the sacrificial system is interestingand worthy of investigation.I am not convinced it was caused by a decrease in emotional attachmentof the laity towardthe Temple,nor do I think it was a first-centuryphenomenon.A critical readingof Talmudictexts might yield an answerto this interesting question. Lisbeth S. Fried University of Michigan Ann Arbor,Michigan

Steven L. McKenzie. King David: A Biography.Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2000. viii, 232 pp. Marti J. Steussy. David: Biblical Portraitsof Power. Studies on the Personalities of the Old Testament.Columbia:University of South CarolinaPress, 1999. viii, 251 pp. BaruchHalpern.David'sSecretDemons:Messiah, Murderer,Traitor,King. Grand Rapids:Eerdmans,2001. xx, 492 pp. 8. L. S. Fried,"The Rise to Powerof the JudaeanPriesthood:The Impact of the Achaemenid Empire,"Doctoral Dissertation,New YorkUniversity,May 2000. 9. Ibid.

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Review: [untitled] Author(s): Adele Berlin Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 111-117 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131559 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews yet these two officials had only the interestsof the Jews at heart.This is not consistentwithPersianadministrative patterns.8Hegerprovidesno evidenceforpriestlysecularpower.A detailedstudyof the historyof Judahin the Persianperiodsuggeststhe priestshad no realpower.Exceptfor brief periods,they were subordinateto the Persian monarchsandtheirlocal representatives.9 To Heger, the elaborateritual developed by the priesthood shifted the performanceof the cult from the offererto the priest. It thereby"diminishedthe excitementof the sacrificialcelebrationfor the individualwho came to Jerusalemfor that purpose"(p. 370). The ability to send money to pay for the cult (a system developed by Nehemiah) also helped to eliminatethe "emotionaldevotion"of those who could not come in person (p. 370). Yet this conclusion is belied by the huge holiday throngsthat both Josephusand the New Testamentreport. According to Heger,the rabbissubstitutedsynagogue ritualfor temple sacrifice. Evenbefore the destructionof the Temple,the rabbishad organizedthe populace into assemblies to recite appropriatebiblical pericopes instead of attending the sacrifices (p. 381). As proof, he quotes only the Mishnah Ta'anith(4:2) as if it were a reliable source for first centuryevents. The entirepurpose of his work is to explain the rapidsubstitutionof recitationfor sacrifice. Yethe provides no real evidence to indicate when this occurredor that it was a first-centuryphenomenon. In sum, Heger attemptsto show a gradual weakening of attachmentto the sacrificial cult. This weak attachmentenabled the rabbis to substitutethe recitation of biblical passages even before the Temple'sdestruction.The phenomenonof ritualizedprayeras a substitutefor the sacrificial system is interestingand worthy of investigation.I am not convinced it was caused by a decrease in emotional attachmentof the laity towardthe Temple,nor do I think it was a first-centuryphenomenon.A critical readingof Talmudictexts might yield an answerto this interesting question. Lisbeth S. Fried University of Michigan Ann Arbor,Michigan

Steven L. McKenzie. King David: A Biography.Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2000. viii, 232 pp. Marti J. Steussy. David: Biblical Portraitsof Power. Studies on the Personalities of the Old Testament.Columbia:University of South CarolinaPress, 1999. viii, 251 pp. BaruchHalpern.David'sSecretDemons:Messiah, Murderer,Traitor,King. Grand Rapids:Eerdmans,2001. xx, 492 pp. 8. L. S. Fried,"The Rise to Powerof the JudaeanPriesthood:The Impact of the Achaemenid Empire,"Doctoral Dissertation,New YorkUniversity,May 2000. 9. Ibid.

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AJS Review Biography is not a genre usually associated with the academic study of the Bible, but it has found a small niche therein.The Universityof South Carolinapublishes the series called "Personalitiesof the OldTestament,"in which Steussy'svolume is the eighth, and OxfordUniversity Press will soon release what may be considered a companion to McKenzie's book, King Josiah of Judah by Marvin A. Sweeney. The advantageof biographyis that it can encompass literary,historical, and archeological information,uniting them holistically aroundthe focal point of a biblical figure, or as holistically as the authorchooses. As a heuristicdevice, biblical biographymay serve well even if the subjectof the biographyis fictional, or suspected of being so. (The "Personalities"series has volumes on Noah, Jonah, Esther and Daniel, hardlythe most "historical"of characters.)When it comes to David, suspicions abouthis fictionality are at an all-time high. While the historicity of Abrahamhas been in doubt for some time, it was, until recently,axiomatic thatone could speakwith confidence aboutthe earlyhistoryof the Israelitemonarchy and could draw on the books of Samuel and Kings as primarysources, or at least as containingremnantsof primarysources for the period of the unitedmonarchy. Now that confidence has been shaken;the very existence of a united monarchy is being questioned by some scholars, especially the "minimalists,"who see its "primarysources"(the DeuteronomisticHistory) as a fabricationfromthe Persian or Hellenistic period.' A battle currentlyrages among historiansof ancientIsrael between the minimalists and their opponents(not all of whom are "maximalists") about the antiquity and the reliability of the DeuteronomisticHistory as a historical source.2 Remarkablylittle of this battle intrudes into the books by McKenzie and Steussy, although both authorsacknowledge its presence on the academic scene. Steussy is concerned not with history but with literature.She is interestednot in the historical David but in the Bible's portraitsof David. In this she conforms to the goal of the series in which her book appears,which examines biblical personalities not to "learnancienthistory. .. or to discovermodels for ethical action"but in order to see what "light they throw on the imagining of the deity in biblical times" (viii). The study of the Bible's religious outlook is the goal, and the means is literaryexegesis of the biblical text. While Steussy does not have to wrestle with the questionof the historicalaccuracyof the biblicalmaterial,she does not ignorethe datingof the texts she examines: Samuel, Psalms, and Chronicles.She summarizesquite intelligentlythe range of dates attributedby variousscholars(includingthe minimalists)to all herbiblical material,never deciding which dates to accept.Then she makes a subtlemove, typical of literaryapproaches.Insteadof belaboringthe issue of when the textswere ac1. See G. N. Knoppers,"TheVanishingSolomon: The Disappearanceof the United Monarchy from Recent Histories of Ancient Israel,"Journal of Biblical Literature116 (1997): 19-44. Fora representativeof the minimalist view see K. W. Whitelam, "The History of Israel:Foundationsof Israel" in Textin Context,edited by A. D. H. Mayes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 376-402. 2. The names prominent among the minimalists are Philip Davies, Niels Lemche, Thomas Thompson,and KeithWhitelam.The bibliographyon this debateis largeandgrowing. Foran overview see Amy Dockser Marcus, The Viewfrom Nebo (Boston: Little, Brownand Company,2000), 105-128, 256-257.

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Book Reviews tuallywritten,she focuses on the issue of how they presentthemselvesto be readin theircanonicalform.The materialon David, 1 Samuel 16-1 Kings 1, presentsitself as connectedto the DeuteronomisticHistory,whetheror not it was writtenas partof it; Chroniclesreadsas thoughit is to be associatedwith Ezra-Nehemiahwhetheror not it had the same author.Both Chroniclesand Psalms, being in the Ketuvimsection of the canon,alignthemselveswith late biblicalwritings.Steussy notes thatthe "literarymatricesof our three majorDavid portraitseach suggest a horizon for interpretation"(p. 24). Psalmsand Chronicles,Steussy says,"drawourattentionto the life of the SecondTemplecommunity,thus invitingus to interpretDavid as partof that community'shistory"while Samuel contains "little to make us look beyond David's own lifetime" (no matterwhen it was written-p. 24, and cf. 194-96). Samuel'saccountis more realisticwhile Chroniclesand Psalms are more imaginative and idealized.This is an observationaboutthe literarynatureof these writings, not abouttheiraccuracyor theirdistancefromthe eventsthey recount.But it is easy to see why manyscholarstakethe "realistic"materialin Samuelas being more "historical"thanthe imaginativematerialin Psalmsand Chronicles.The clues thatmost scholarstake as pointingto signs of datingthe compositions,Steussy takes as literary markersof the claim the text makes on the reader,regardlessof when they were actuallywritten."WhenI use these horizons in interpretation," says Steussy,"I do so as a responseto the readingcues offered in the texts, not as a claim about comin that it seeks to dispositionaldates"(p. 24).3 This approachis "literary-critical" tinguishtexts on the basis of theirgenre, style, andposition in the canon. I stressthe pointbecauseat times it may appearthatSteussy employs standardsourcecriticism, but thatis not her intention. Steussy'sbroadtime horizon workswell for her purpose of helping the modem readerunderstandDavid's relationshipwith God, and ultimately the reader's relationshipwith God. This a-chronistic approach(or what I think of as sourcecritical agnosticism)is still favoredby many modem literaryscholarsof the Bible, and has always been favoredby traditionalfaith communities. It makes the Bible timeless-unbound by chronologicalconstraints-such that every readerin every periodcan find his or hermeaningin it. Literaryscholarslike this because it breaks free of the notion thatthe text has just one meaning. The text comes to have many meanings andthe meaningis as much a productof the readeras of the author.Traditionalcommunitieslike it because it lets every generationconnect with the Bible, makingthe Bible its own. On the otherhand,biblical scholars of the historicalpersuasionhave always soughtthe "originalmeaning"or the meaning for the first audience. Increasingly,though, both historiansand literaryinterpretersare interested in readingthe Bible in light of its ideology. In orderto discern its ideology, we 3. This is trickierthan it sounds. Takethe book of Ruthas an example. Ruthtells us that it is a story from the period of Judges, and culminates in the genealogy of David. It seems to be telling the reader:"Readme as a prologueto the story of David."But it is not partof the DeuteronomisticHistory. Its location in Ketuvimsuggests that it belongs to the context of the postexilic community.As such, it becomes partof the idealized portraitof David from this period. Dating Ruthby this literaryfeature correspondsto the dateascribedby most scholarson othergrounds.Whethersuch literarydatingworks in all cases is unclear;one can never breakfree completely of the hermeneuticcircle in which we date a text by what we think it is saying while at the same time we interpretit to fit the date we assign to it.

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AJS Review need to know the context-the social and political location-from which the text emerged.4This is anotherway of saying that many biblicists are still interestedin the "original meaning" or the "intentof the author"-an idea that is acceptable once again if couched in the postmodernadmission that there is not one correct meaning for all time. In fact, uncoveringthe ideology of the text is where literary and historical readings converge nicely. Enter McKenzie. McKenzie, unlike Steussy, is searchingfor the historical David.As if reversingthe wordsof the editorof the "Personalities"series, McKenzie statesthat"Wewill readthe Bible not for its model of David as a religioushero nor for the artistryof its story about him, but for the historicalinformationabout him that it may provide"(p. 5). Right from the startMcKenzieconfrontsthe question: "Wasthere a King David?"He reviews the epigraphicand archeologicaldata and readilyadmitsthat they do not prove incontrovertiblythat David was a historical person. All we know of David comes from the Bible.5 If so, why assume that David actually existed? Because, according to McKenzie, the David stories in Samuel are an apologia, propagandain defense of David. They are a cover-upintended to justify David's actions. No one would constructa cover-upunless there were things to be covered up. In McKenzie'swords,"Whowould inventsuch allegations against Davidjust to try to explain them away?"(p. 35). "The fact thatthe authorfelt the need to try to explainthe motives behindDavid'sdeeds indicatesthat those deeds were widely believed to have occurred"(p. 186). This, then, becomes the most compelling reasonto conclude that David was a historicalfigure andthat the stories abouthim bear some relationshipto actualevents. That the David stories are apologetic is not a new idea, but McKenzie develops it in a thoroughgoingand convincing way.6In orderto get to the "real"history of David, he must strip away the apologetics and uncoverwhat it sought to hide. This is done by interpretingthe biblical text, and it is at this point that the projects of McKenzie and Steussy coincide, because they are both constructing portraitsof David based on their interpretationsof the biblical text. McKenzie'sDavid is ambitiousand ruthless.David did whatmanymen have done to gain, consolidate, and protect their political power. He tried to usurp the kingship from Saul and he is implicatedin the murdersof Nabal, Saul,Abner,and Ishbaal.He even had his own sons Amnon andAbsalom killed when it looked like 4. The same hermeneuticcircle is presenthere, for one can never escape it. 5. This is not a new position, as McKenziemakes clear.The only new extra-biblicalfactor,noted by both McKenzie and Steussy,is the phrasebytdwd on a recentlydiscoveredAramaicinscriptionfrom Tel Dan, dated to around800 BCE. Most scholarstake this as a referenceto the Davidic dynastyor the kingdom of Judah.Interpretationsrange from consideringthe inscriptionas proof of the existence of a historical David to reading the word dwd as something other than David's name, to taking the inscriptionas a forgery. 6. For earlierreadings of the David story as an apologia see P. K. McCarter,"TheApology of David,"Journal of Biblical Literature99 (1980): 489-504; J. VanderKam,"DavidicComplicityin the Deaths of Abner and Eshbaal:A Historicaland RedactionalStudy,"Journal of Biblical Literature99 (1980): 521-539. The "apologetic"reading has become a commonplace,especially given the current tendency to analyze literaturein terms of its political ideology. Cf., for example, P. K. McCarter,I Samuel (Anchor Bible, GardenCity, NJ: Doubleday,1984), 120 andpassim, and MarcZ. Brettler,The Creationof History in AncientIsrael (London and New York:Routledge, 1995), 91-111.

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Book Reviews they were becoming a threatto his kingship.This portraitis less flatteringthan the one the Bible presumablytried to convey, and more radical than most readers would like. While McKenzie knows he can't prove it, he maintainsthat it is certainly plausible.And so it is-it offers one scenario,althoughperhapsnot the only one, that makes sense of the material. The David that Steussy finds in Samuel is somewhat,but not altogether,different.He is "moreworldly-wise, more fallible, and conspicuously less pious than our first overview led us to expect" (p. 70). Steussy is not looking for a unified readingof the material,so it is not unexpectedthatshe finds a mixed portraitDavid, with both positive and negative images. She begins by acceptingthe common perceptions of David but then problematizesmany of them. She too implicates David in the murderof Abner, noting that the narratorprotests David's innocence too much (p. 57), and of Ishbaal. She too does not take the Abigail story at face value, but interprets it differently from McKenzie (a negative picture of Abigail emerges from Steussy's reading). Some of these similarities in interpretation should make us wonder how clever we are when we discover "hidden secrets" about David's actions. Just how hidden are they? Were we meant to see them all along? If the defense of David is so transparent,how good a defense is it? The books by Steussy and McKenzie are thoroughlyresearchedand clearly written, and accessible to students and non-specialists. Both authors are wellinformedand sophisticatedreaders,and their interpretationsof many passages are models of exegesis. While each book stands solidly in its own right as a contribution to the study of the Bible, readingthe two together is beneficial because each problematizesthe approachof the other.McKenzie's argumentis more powerful because it is more focused and unified. He identifies the David materialin Samuel as apologetic,and interpretsall of it in thatlight. He privilegesthe Deuteronomistic History,which he views as being as close to the historical David as we can get (p. 36; he accepts the standardsource-criticalposition on its composition), and consequentlyhas relativelylittle to say aboutChroniclesand Psalms, which he perceives as more distantin time and less accurate.(Actually, of course, the Chronicler is just as much a historiographeras the Deuteronomistichistorian,but since his workderivesfrom the DeuteronomisticHistory and his ideology is more obvious, his "objectivity"as a historianis taken less seriously.) Steussy's approachis more diffuse and more encompassing,and is not dependenton a particularposition regardingthe composition of the DeuteronomisticHistory or its purpose. She also has some interestingthings to say about the book of Psalms as a coherent work, reflecting its own view of the history of Israel-a parallelideology of David, as it were, to the material in Samuel and Chronicles.' When McKenzie and Steussy agree in theirinterpretationsof a passage, we can feel prettyconfident thatwe have the best thatmodem interpretationhas to offer.When they disagree,we realize that biblical interpretationis an art, not a science. 7. See also A. Cooper,"The Life and Times of King David Accordingto the Book of Psalms," in The Poet and the Historian. Essays in Literaryand Historical Biblical Criticism, edited by R. E. Friedman(Chico, CA: ScholarsPress, 1983), 117-131. This work is not listed in Steussy's bibliography.

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AJS Review The art of interpretingthe Bible for its historicalinformationhas been finehoned ly by Baruch Halpern. Of the three books reviewed here, Halpern'sis the most recent, the longest (twice as long as the others), the most erudite, the most ambitious in scope, the most intricatelyargued,and the most daring.McKenzie's goal is to revealthe historicalDavid, Steussy'sis to describehow the Bible presents David, and Halpern'sgoal is to reconstructthe earlyhistory of the Israelitemonarchy and,concomitantly,to argueagainstthe minimalistposition thatthe David story was fabricatedseveralcenturiesafterhis putativelife. Halpern,too, readsthe story as an apology, and considers David to have been a "serialmurderer"(p. 100), suspected of involvementin the deaths of Nabal, Saul and his sons at Gilboa, Ishbaal, Abner, Saul'sother descendants,Amnon, Absalom,Amasa, and Uriah.David possibly instigatedthe rapeof Tamar(p. 87). But Halpern,who has the longest list of possible murders,is more subtle than McKenzie in his disposition of these accusations. Whereas McKenzie tends to imply that David was guilty of the crimes for which the apology clears him, Halpernsuggests thatthe apology was necessary because David was thoughtto have been implicatedin these crimes, whetheror not he did them. Halpernfinds him guilty of some, but not of all. The one murderthat the apology clearly holds David accountablefor is Uriah's, and this fact is troublingif the David and Bathshebastory is read as partof an apology for David. McKenzie is at somethingof a loss as to whatto do with the story, so he suggests that it was added after the completion of the Deuteronomistic apology. Halpernis much more clever in his explanation,partly,I suspect,because he works hard to show that the David story was writtenno later than the time of Solomon, so to have such a crucialpartof it as a late additionwould underminehis position. Why, then, would an apology include such a damningepisode? Because, accordingto Halpern,it makes clear that Solomon was David's son, therefore,he could not possibly be Uriah's.To get at the truthbehindthe apology,just flip it over; "Historians ... can invert the obvious implications of textual data" (p. 100). Halpernproposes that Solomon was, indeed,Uriah'sson-that the first heir to the Davidic dynastyandthe builderof the Templewas not a child of David but a usurper. Furthermore,partsof the apology of David were meantto justify Solomon'staking of the throne. Halpernsupportsthis daringproposal with other evidence, but whetherit will be widely accepted remainsto be seen. Because his scope is broader,Halperngoes beyond David'spersonalhistory and takes in the entire sweep of early monarchichistory.(Halpern'sreconstruction of historicalevents is too long and complex to be addressedsubstantivelyin this review.)As a writerof history,he bringsto bearon his reconstructionall the evidence at his disposal, including archeology,ancient near eastern inscriptions,chronology, and geography(as opposed to McKenzie and Steussy,who do not look beyond the Bible). Halpern'sknowledgeis impressiveand his conclusionsare at times eyeopening. For example, after an intense and closely arguedanalysis of 2 Samuel 8, Halpernconcludesthatit is equivalent,in form, style, andpurpose,to the displayinscriptionsfamiliarfromAssyriathatglorifythe feats of kings.This chapter,andother sourcesfrom which the final text is composed,are, accordingto Halpern,moreor less contemporaneouswith the events they describe,and they do, indeed,reflectactualhistoricalevents,but sometimesthe sequenceof eventshas been changed,or oth116

Book Reviews er libertiestaken with the facts, in orderto achieve theirpurposeof making David look good.This approachmightbe calledpost-Albrightean(Halpernwas a studentof FrankM. Cross,who was a studentof Albright).Halpernemploysthe same type of evidencethatAlbrighteansdid,andtakesthe evidencejust as seriously.His stancetowardsthe biblicaltext is similarin thathe views it as authentic-ancient and reliable (in Halpern'ssense of"reliable")-but he interpretsthe text moreskepticallyandless literally.It is Albrightwith the "hermeneuticsof suspicion."As Halpernsays in a deliciouslyoxymoronicline, "WeknowthatSamuelis accuratebecauseit is nothingbut lies" (p. 100). Halpern'spoint is thatthe existenceof an apologyfor Davidprovesthe existenceof David.Moreover,such an apology could only havebeen writtenclose to the time thatthe issues it addresseswere current,duringDavid'slifetime or shortly thereafter.If one wereto fabricatea storyof a nationalicon, or rewriteit centuriesafter his death, it would not look like the cover-upin Samuel;it would be an unambiguousencomium(morein the mold of Chronicles).This is a compellingargument againstthose who denyany credibilityto the biblicalevidence,andto the historythat can be extractedfromthis evidence.Halpern'sbook has a lot to offer aboutIsraelite and our own writingof the historyof Israel. history,Israelitehistoriography, David is the starof biblical narrative.There is more informationabout him than aboutany otherbiblical figure, and there are probablymore studies of David thanof anyoneelse in the Bible. Now therearethreemore, andthe fascinationwith David does not abate.All this interestis due to the public relationsgenius who authored the David story, and whose promotional efforts have been successful for three millennia. Adele Berlin University of Maryland College Park,Maryland

Uriel Simon. The JPS Bible Commentary:Jonah. Philadelphia:JPS, 1999. xliii, 52 pp. TheJPS Torah/BibleCommentaryseries has alreadyproducedsome exceptional commentariesthat have immensely enrichedbiblical scholarship,and Uriel Simon's Jonahcommentaryis a worthy additionto this series. He concludes that the Book of Jonah was composed during the Second Temple period, mainly because of the late Hebrew language, but he does not find sufficient grounds to decide between a sixth-, fifth-, or even fourth-centurydate. Nor does Simon believe that the book offers evidence for reconstructinga particularsocial-political context thatwould help to define a special targetaudience. He concludes that, like the Book of Job, which was also composed in the Second Temple period and which also featurednon-Jews among its cast of characters,the Book of Jonah was written duringa period in which theodicy was a dominantconcern within the Jewish community. Simon begins with a search for the dominanttheme/issue that the Book of 117

Review: [untitled] Author(s): James S. Ackerman Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 117-120 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131560 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:54 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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Book Reviews er libertiestaken with the facts, in orderto achieve theirpurposeof making David look good.This approachmightbe calledpost-Albrightean(Halpernwas a studentof FrankM. Cross,who was a studentof Albright).Halpernemploysthe same type of evidencethatAlbrighteansdid,andtakesthe evidencejust as seriously.His stancetowardsthe biblicaltext is similarin thathe views it as authentic-ancient and reliable (in Halpern'ssense of"reliable")-but he interpretsthe text moreskepticallyandless literally.It is Albrightwith the "hermeneuticsof suspicion."As Halpernsays in a deliciouslyoxymoronicline, "WeknowthatSamuelis accuratebecauseit is nothingbut lies" (p. 100). Halpern'spoint is thatthe existenceof an apologyfor Davidprovesthe existenceof David.Moreover,such an apology could only havebeen writtenclose to the time thatthe issues it addresseswere current,duringDavid'slifetime or shortly thereafter.If one wereto fabricatea storyof a nationalicon, or rewriteit centuriesafter his death, it would not look like the cover-upin Samuel;it would be an unambiguousencomium(morein the mold of Chronicles).This is a compellingargument againstthose who denyany credibilityto the biblicalevidence,andto the historythat can be extractedfromthis evidence.Halpern'sbook has a lot to offer aboutIsraelite and our own writingof the historyof Israel. history,Israelitehistoriography, David is the starof biblical narrative.There is more informationabout him than aboutany otherbiblical figure, and there are probablymore studies of David thanof anyoneelse in the Bible. Now therearethreemore, andthe fascinationwith David does not abate.All this interestis due to the public relationsgenius who authored the David story, and whose promotional efforts have been successful for three millennia. Adele Berlin University of Maryland College Park,Maryland

Uriel Simon. The JPS Bible Commentary:Jonah. Philadelphia:JPS, 1999. xliii, 52 pp. TheJPS Torah/BibleCommentaryseries has alreadyproducedsome exceptional commentariesthat have immensely enrichedbiblical scholarship,and Uriel Simon's Jonahcommentaryis a worthy additionto this series. He concludes that the Book of Jonah was composed during the Second Temple period, mainly because of the late Hebrew language, but he does not find sufficient grounds to decide between a sixth-, fifth-, or even fourth-centurydate. Nor does Simon believe that the book offers evidence for reconstructinga particularsocial-political context thatwould help to define a special targetaudience. He concludes that, like the Book of Job, which was also composed in the Second Temple period and which also featurednon-Jews among its cast of characters,the Book of Jonah was written duringa period in which theodicy was a dominantconcern within the Jewish community. Simon begins with a search for the dominanttheme/issue that the Book of 117

AJS Review Jonah addresses, reviewing the four traditionalinterpretiveanswers to this puzzle (atonement vs. repentance,universalism vs. particularism,prophecy realization vs. compliance, and justice vs. mercy). Although the best-known figures within the Jewish interpretivetradition seem to be ratherevenly spread among the four-some opting for combinations among them-Simon gives whathe believes to be convincing argumentsagainst the first three proposed answers. His decisive argumentis that none of the first three themes is addressed in all parts of the story. Only the fourth theme-justice vs. mercy-accomplishes that (although Simon has to admit that it would have covered all four chapters much more clearly had 1:3 included something like " . . . to flee from the presence of the Lord,for he said in his heart, 'I know thatthe Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger,etc.'"). Although Simon makes an exceptionally strongcase that "justice vs. mercy" is the dominant theme, he does not convince this reviewer that the other themes must somehow be subordinateto it. For example, one could argue that the "universalismvs. particularism"theme runs more consistently through every part of the story. Moreover,in a literaryclassic why cannot all four of these themes have an equal claim to the reader'sattention, even if some are more developed in some parts of the story than in others? One cannot assume that great writers begin their compositions by settling on a theme and then clothing it with a story. Simon makes a near-convincingcase that Jonah'sprayerin 2:3-10 was incorporatedinto the story at a later time. It was common to add songs and prayers into already-composedstories duringthe SecondTempleperiod (e.g., 2 Kgs. 20:2; Isa. 38:9-20; LXX of Esther4:17 and Daniel 3:23). Jonah'sprayer,moreover,does not fit smoothly into its narrativecontext. With our prophetin the belly of a great fish, we should have a prayerof entreatyratherthan of thanksgiving.Further,if the prayerwere part of the original story, we should expect Jonah'srepentanceto accompany his vow to sacrifice after his safe return.Some later editor must have incorporatedthe psalm into the story, Simon believes, primarilybecause of its reference to drowning.This leaves the interpreterwith two options: (a) reading2:310 as a freestandingprayerthat depicts a worshipperwho was lost (drowningin Sheol) but who has found redemption(returnedto God's temple), and (b), reading Jonah'spsalm as partof the story.Although his heartdoes not seem to be in it, Simon chooses (b), (he must transformmany perfects and waw-consecutiveimperfects into Propheticfuturesin orderto make the psalm cohere with the narrative). Now we see that, althoughhe still hasn't repented,the silent prophetof ch. I has a lively faith that comes throughas "no whit inferiorto the idolaters of the crew" (p. 16). In fact, the anti-paganpolemic in 2:9-10 may be showing us thatJonahis superiorto the crew (!). Simon asserts that "any reconciliation of the psalm and the story obscures the uniquemeaning of each... " (p. 16). Agreed! Combiningthe two does indeed create an entirelydifferentwork of literature;and when one readsthe plain meaning of the psalm, the resulting dissonance with the narrativeframeworkproduces satiric effects. Ratherthan risking interpretingthe entire story based on the plain meaning of the psalm, however,Simon'sattemptedreconciliation(optionb, above)

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Book Reviews forces the psalm to fit in smoothly with the rest of the story.He has thus given the psalm "second-class citizenship" in the Tanakh,and such an approach-long a part of the historical-criticalmethod-must be challenged. If almost every book of the Tanakhis the result of a literarytraditionthat has evolved over many centuries,by what rightdoes a scholarstatethat one partof the tradition(the so-called "originalauthor,"for example) trumps later parts within the same text? Who, for example, is the "originalauthor"of the Book of Genesis, and whatpartsof the text must then be given second-class status (e.g., Gen. 14 or 24)? Or, if a later scholarly consensus should some day decide that Jon. 4:6-11 was added secondarily, should the commentariesthen disregardor downplay the Lord's lesson with the plant as contributingto the meaning of the tale? Since giving the psalm first-class status would bring the story's genre close to satire,Simon'sapproachcould be justified if therewere a general scholarlyconsensus thatthe story is virtuallydevoid of irony;but such a consensus is lacking. Simon admitsthatthere is some irony in the story,but it is gentle and forgivingfar removed from satire and "irreverentjesting." In fact, however, his reading of the story comes throughas ratherstraitlaced,as we see in the following instances where Simon sees no irony or satire:(a) It is pathos, not irony,when the ship captain confrontsthe sleeping prophetwho remains silent, despite the crew's efforts and the captain'sappeal;(b) Jonah'srequestto be thrownoverboardis an example of his "moralgrandeur"in saving the crew ratherthan a continuationof his selfisolation and death wish that run throughoutthe story; (c) There is nothing risible aboutJonah'sbeing vomited(qy') back onto dry land (but cf. Prov.26:11; Isa. 28:8; and esp. Jer. 48:26, where those who wallow in their vomit become laughingstocks); (d) The scorn for idolaters in 2:9-10 (the interpretationof which Simon bases on Ps. 31:7-8, which begins "I detest those who rely on empty folly") is a glorification of the Lord ratherthan self-exaltation or a put-down of the nonbelievers; (e) Jonah must have spoken more than five words in effecting such an amazing turnaroundin Nineveh, even though Simon had earlier concluded that there was little attemptto give the story a realistic dimension; (f) Moses (Num. 11:15) and Elijah (1 Kings 19:4-5) requestdeath when theirpropheticleadership appearsto be threatened.Thus Jonah'srequest for death in 4:3,8 elevates him to theirlevel, despite his havingjust achievedthe greatestsuccess of any prophet;and (g) Just as Jacob's silence in response to Levi and Simeon's rebuke over Dinah's rape indicates his assent (Gen. 34:31, but cf. 49:5-7!), Jonah'ssilence at the end of the story indicates that he agrees with God's viewpoint. This review has focused on points of disagreement,but I have learned so much fromthis commentary.Forexample, whereasmost Jonahcommentariesare full of "cf."s that refer the readerto allusions and parallel passages, no one has done a betterjob of plumbing meaning througha sensitive explorationof the ties not only to Jeremiah,Elijah, etc., but also between the chs. 1-2 and chs. 3-4 parallels withinthe storyitself. Simon is at his best in his interpretationof ch. 4, where he convincingly shows that the tone never goes above gentle irony. I still believe thatchs. 1-3 arerepletewith satiricalelements, but the story has such a "soft landing" that I wonder whetherit can be designated as satire, when taken as a whole.

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AJS Review Despite the methodological questions I have raisedregardingSimon's commentary,it is surely a book that belongs on the shelf of every biblical scholar. James S. Ackerman IndianaUniversity Bloomington, Indiana

Benjamin Uffenheimer.Early Prophecy in Israel. Publicationsof the PerryFoundation for Biblical Research. Jerusalem:The Magnes Press, 1999. 591 pp. In this book (a translationof a revised version of the second Hebrew edition), the late ProfessorBenjaminUffenheimerexamines a varietyof topics in the history of prophecy from the time of Moses until the time of Elisha. The book includes extensive discussions of all the prophetic figures in this period, focussing on the relationbetween preclassical prophecy on the one hand and magic, divination, and rationalistic or monotheistic trends on the other. Uffenheimer also devotes a lengthy chapterto alleged parallelsto Israelprophecyamong ancientEgyptians, Mesopotamians,and Northwest Semites. Uffenheimerdoes not present one overarchingthesis, but, rather,attendsto particularissues and texts while returningto several centralconcerns. In particular, he repeatedlychallenges the judgments of older scholars such as Wellhausen and Holscher,the basis of whose work has been underminedby new perspectives and evidence from the ancient Near East. This critiqueis salutary,since the influence of these olderjudgmentshas enduredeven thoughtheirfoundationshave fallen away. Uffenheimer strongly rejects the notion that prophecy arose in Israel around the time of Samuel and Saul, instead dating the origins of the prophetic movement to the era of Moses. In each chapter,Uffenheimercarefullyreviewsand usually rejects-conclusions by older scholars;the very detailedtreatmentof older secondary literaturerendersthis book crucial to specialists writing on any aspect of preclassical prophecy or texts in which they appear.(Uffenheimer discusses secondary literaturenot only pertainingdirectlyto the history of prophecy itself but also regardingthe composition and development of texts that mention preclassical prophets, especially in 1-2 Kings.) At the same time, these detailed treatmentswill make the book less interestingto readerswho are looking for a historical overview of early prophecy. Of particularinterest is Uffenheimer's discussion of ancient Near Eastern prophecy. He takes pains to undermine the notion that many of the texts from Mesopotamia and Egypt associated with this rubric are in fact comparableto the Israelitematerial.While his conclusions will strikemanyreadersas overlyconservative(and,regardingMaritexts, even stretched),he raises importantquestions regardingthe precise definition of prophecy in ancient Israeland the relationship between prophecy and divination. His analysis of so-called apocalyptictexts implies an appropriatewarning against the facile discovery of parallels between Israelite culture and the cultures of Israel's neighbors. Also noteworthyis the last 120

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Benjamin D. Sommer Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 120-121 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131561 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:55 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review Despite the methodological questions I have raisedregardingSimon's commentary,it is surely a book that belongs on the shelf of every biblical scholar. James S. Ackerman IndianaUniversity Bloomington, Indiana

Benjamin Uffenheimer.Early Prophecy in Israel. Publicationsof the PerryFoundation for Biblical Research. Jerusalem:The Magnes Press, 1999. 591 pp. In this book (a translationof a revised version of the second Hebrew edition), the late ProfessorBenjaminUffenheimerexamines a varietyof topics in the history of prophecy from the time of Moses until the time of Elisha. The book includes extensive discussions of all the prophetic figures in this period, focussing on the relationbetween preclassical prophecy on the one hand and magic, divination, and rationalistic or monotheistic trends on the other. Uffenheimer also devotes a lengthy chapterto alleged parallelsto Israelprophecyamong ancientEgyptians, Mesopotamians,and Northwest Semites. Uffenheimerdoes not present one overarchingthesis, but, rather,attendsto particularissues and texts while returningto several centralconcerns. In particular, he repeatedlychallenges the judgments of older scholars such as Wellhausen and Holscher,the basis of whose work has been underminedby new perspectives and evidence from the ancient Near East. This critiqueis salutary,since the influence of these olderjudgmentshas enduredeven thoughtheirfoundationshave fallen away. Uffenheimer strongly rejects the notion that prophecy arose in Israel around the time of Samuel and Saul, instead dating the origins of the prophetic movement to the era of Moses. In each chapter,Uffenheimercarefullyreviewsand usually rejects-conclusions by older scholars;the very detailedtreatmentof older secondary literaturerendersthis book crucial to specialists writing on any aspect of preclassical prophecy or texts in which they appear.(Uffenheimer discusses secondary literaturenot only pertainingdirectlyto the history of prophecy itself but also regardingthe composition and development of texts that mention preclassical prophets, especially in 1-2 Kings.) At the same time, these detailed treatmentswill make the book less interestingto readerswho are looking for a historical overview of early prophecy. Of particularinterest is Uffenheimer's discussion of ancient Near Eastern prophecy. He takes pains to undermine the notion that many of the texts from Mesopotamia and Egypt associated with this rubric are in fact comparableto the Israelitematerial.While his conclusions will strikemanyreadersas overlyconservative(and,regardingMaritexts, even stretched),he raises importantquestions regardingthe precise definition of prophecy in ancient Israeland the relationship between prophecy and divination. His analysis of so-called apocalyptictexts implies an appropriatewarning against the facile discovery of parallels between Israelite culture and the cultures of Israel's neighbors. Also noteworthyis the last 120

Book Reviews chapter'sdescriptionof the tension in earlyprophecybetween a popular,magicallyoriented substrateand a theologically rationaltrend. Uffenheimer shows that this tension exists both within the work of the prophets themselves and in the narratives which were passed down and recast by their followers and later tradents.Finally, the last chapter touches briefly on the movement from early to classical prophecy.Uffenheimeridentifies the violent excesses of militantprophetismin the age of Elishaas well as the inherenttension between popularand rationalelements as impelling prophecy in a new direction that becomes evident from the time of Amos onwards. One hopes that this issue will receive even more attention in a forthcomingvolume on classical prophecywhich Uffenheimerwas completing at the time of his death. The book containsvery lengthy discussions of issues that do not strictlybelong to the history of preclassical prophecy. For example, the chapter on Moses contains only aboutten pages dealing narrowlywith Moses as prophet.The other hundredpages of this chapterinclude a detailed discussion of the origin of monotheism, the light shed on the dating of the Sinai covenantby ancient Near Eastern treaties, and the traditions describing the revelation at Sinai. Similarly, the chapteron the period of the Judges devotes considerable space to the ark of the covenant,the sabbaticalyear, the Jubilee. The book contains two appendices, one on the redactionof the Book of Judges and the other on term segullah. Most of these discussions should be of great interestto specialists in the various subfields they treat.Unfortunately,it is likely thatmost scholarsworkingon these issues will be unawareof Uffenheimer'sargumentsand his insightful analysis of secondary literature.In fact, one almost wonders whether the book might have been structured slightly differentlyand given a title like Studies in the Early History and Religion of Israel, which might have been more descriptiveof its contents. Any library with a biblical studies collection must buy this book, and researcherson a wide spectrumof issues not limited to prophecy will profit by examining relevant sections. I am less sure that many people will want to read the book from startto finish in orderto gain insight into the broadtrajectoriesof early prophecy.The book might be describedas encyclopedic in scope ratherthan oriented towardsthe developmentof a single idea. Benjamin D. Sommer NorthwesternUniversity Evanston, Illinois

Eugene Ulrich. TheDead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature.Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Col., 1999. xviii, 309 pp. Eugene Ulrichis JohnA. O'Brien Professorof HebrewScripturesat the University of Notre Dame. Since his graduate student days at Harvardin the early 1970s, he has been studyingand writing aboutthe biblical text, that is, the text of 121

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Leonard J. Greenspoon Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 121-123 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131562 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:55 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews chapter'sdescriptionof the tension in earlyprophecybetween a popular,magicallyoriented substrateand a theologically rationaltrend. Uffenheimer shows that this tension exists both within the work of the prophets themselves and in the narratives which were passed down and recast by their followers and later tradents.Finally, the last chapter touches briefly on the movement from early to classical prophecy.Uffenheimeridentifies the violent excesses of militantprophetismin the age of Elishaas well as the inherenttension between popularand rationalelements as impelling prophecy in a new direction that becomes evident from the time of Amos onwards. One hopes that this issue will receive even more attention in a forthcomingvolume on classical prophecywhich Uffenheimerwas completing at the time of his death. The book containsvery lengthy discussions of issues that do not strictlybelong to the history of preclassical prophecy. For example, the chapter on Moses contains only aboutten pages dealing narrowlywith Moses as prophet.The other hundredpages of this chapterinclude a detailed discussion of the origin of monotheism, the light shed on the dating of the Sinai covenantby ancient Near Eastern treaties, and the traditions describing the revelation at Sinai. Similarly, the chapteron the period of the Judges devotes considerable space to the ark of the covenant,the sabbaticalyear, the Jubilee. The book contains two appendices, one on the redactionof the Book of Judges and the other on term segullah. Most of these discussions should be of great interestto specialists in the various subfields they treat.Unfortunately,it is likely thatmost scholarsworkingon these issues will be unawareof Uffenheimer'sargumentsand his insightful analysis of secondary literature.In fact, one almost wonders whether the book might have been structured slightly differentlyand given a title like Studies in the Early History and Religion of Israel, which might have been more descriptiveof its contents. Any library with a biblical studies collection must buy this book, and researcherson a wide spectrumof issues not limited to prophecy will profit by examining relevant sections. I am less sure that many people will want to read the book from startto finish in orderto gain insight into the broadtrajectoriesof early prophecy.The book might be describedas encyclopedic in scope ratherthan oriented towardsthe developmentof a single idea. Benjamin D. Sommer NorthwesternUniversity Evanston, Illinois

Eugene Ulrich. TheDead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature.Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Col., 1999. xviii, 309 pp. Eugene Ulrichis JohnA. O'Brien Professorof HebrewScripturesat the University of Notre Dame. Since his graduate student days at Harvardin the early 1970s, he has been studyingand writing aboutthe biblical text, that is, the text of 121

AJS Review the Hebrew Bible as transmittedand translatedin antiquity.His primaryclaim to academic fame, and at one point public notoriety,is his ongoing leadershipin editing and publishing the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is Ulrich's interpretationsof these scrolls in the context of the history and developmentof the biblical text that form the subject of the first eight of his essays collected here. These essays, especially the first six, are also bound to be the most interestingto nonspecialists. (The remainderof the book is taken up with fairly technical discussions of the Septuagint and the Old Latin.) By assemblingthese essays in one place, Ulrich intends,I think,nothingless than a paradigmshift in our understandingof the history of the biblical text. Up until now (and for many this is still the case), biblical scholarshave tendedto posit a sharpbreakbetween the period of the text's compositionand its transmissionand translationas Scripture.The former,characterizedby often extensive literaryand theological activity (the extentof this activity,althoughnot its existence, is the subject of debate between conservative and centrist-criticalscholars), is the domain of higher criticism. At some point, as early as the Persianperiod for some blocks of biblical material, composition comes to an end, and copying begins: This is properlythe field of inquiryfor textual or lower criticism.Ulrich urges us to scrap this dichotomy and to recognize that creative literaryactivity on the biblical text continued far longer than generally accepted, in some cases into the common era. Apparentlythere were scribes more adventurousthan their fellow "copyists"to whom we are indebted for this extraordinaryprocess. As Ulrich sees it, the evidence for this activity,primarilyin the form of double literary editions (i.e., extended literary units demonstrablychanged from an earlierto a laterform "to a sufficient extent thatthe resultantform shouldbe called a revised edition"), was already staring us in the face in the Septuagintand the SamaritanPentateuch.But before Qumran, it could be argued that Greek texts widely divergentfromthe MasoreticHebrewwerethe resultof manipulationby the translatorsandthatalmost all distinctiveelements in the SamaritanPentateuchrepresentedtendentioussectarian(mis)handlingof an alreadyestablishedtext. In Ulrich's interpretation,the Scrolls provide incontrovertibleevidence that double literaryeditions existed in the Hebrewthroughoutthe SecondTempleperiodand that they frequentlycirculatedsimultaneouslyand in the same circles. Suchtextualpluriformity was an accepted element among Jews, who would recognize certain books as "authoritative"without insisting upon a single, uniform "inspired"text for each of these books. In supportof his argument,Ulrich lays out in detail evidence from Exodus, First Samuel, and Jeremiah,all of which (among others) exhibit substantialdouble literaryeditions in the Scrolls from Qumran. Ulrich'spresentationis a clear challenge to those fundamentalistswho argue that there has always been one authoritativeand recognized text of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.But a greaterchallenge to most scholars,especially those involved in Bible translation,arises from the implicationsof Ulrich'sresearchon the alreadythornyquestionof what a version of the HebrewBible shouldbe reflecting. Although Ulrich allows for religiously-sponsoredor -centeredtranslationsthatare based on a particulartext, such as the LeningradCodex (for Biblia HebraicaQuin-

122

Book Reviews ta andearliereditions) or the Aleppo Codex (for the HebrewUniversityBible Project), he urges the creation of a critically established text, drawing systematically and without bias from all traditionsand texts. Because this is the guiding principle of the Oxford Hebrew Bible, whose chief editor is Ron Hendel, we can imagine that in theory the resultantbase text and translationof this project will please Ulrich. We will have to wait and see how it turns out in practice. AlthoughUlrich describesthe ancientera ofpluriformity as somethingquite foreign to contemporaryusage, it strikes me that, for most modern readersof the Bible who rely on translations,the situationtoday is quite similarto the older one. After all, a person who reads Jeremiahin the ArtScroll version comes away with a ratherdifferentunderstandingthanthe user of the JPSTanakh.And the variations widen considerablyif we bring in, for example, the New King JamesVersion,the ContemporaryEnglish Version,or the Living Bible (which must be distinguished from Aryeh Kaplan'sLiving Torah!).The book of Jeremiah,all may agree, is inspired,but the actual words exhibit substantialvariation.In essence, modem pluriformity! The richness and subtlety of Ulrich's discussion are, I hope, clear to potential readers.It remains to ask whetherthe format adopted by this volume, a collection spanning two decades, is the best method of presentation.On this point, there is reason for ambivalence. Most users, it is clear, can discern and evaluate Ulrich'smain points on the basis of one or two of these essays. Reading them seriatimexposes even specialists to considerablerepetitionand may lead to unnecessary confusion on the partof nonspecialists.But, takenas a whole, Ulrich'sbook is important,even essential, in the ongoing quest for greaterunderstandingof the HebrewBible. Forthat, we should all be grateful. LeonardJ. Greenspoon CreightonUniversity Omaha, Nebraska

M. P.Weitzman. The Syriac Versionof the Old Testament:An Introduction.University of CambridgeOrientalPublications56. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1999. xv, 355 pp. As RobertP.Gordon'sforewordexplains, Michael PerryWeitzman'sSyriac Versionof the Old Testamentwas originally projected as the first of two volumes on the subject.One can only concurwith Gordonthat Dr.Weitzman'srecent death is a great loss to the academic communityas well as to family and friends. One is immediately struck by the presence of the "Old Testament"in the book's title. As explained in the Preface, the Syriac version of the Bible-known as the Peshitta-has historicallybeen preserved and used exclusively within the easternchurchtradition:thus Weitzman'suse of "OldTestament"ratherthan "He-

123

Review: [untitled] Author(s): John David Brolley Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 123-125 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131563 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:55 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews ta andearliereditions) or the Aleppo Codex (for the HebrewUniversityBible Project), he urges the creation of a critically established text, drawing systematically and without bias from all traditionsand texts. Because this is the guiding principle of the Oxford Hebrew Bible, whose chief editor is Ron Hendel, we can imagine that in theory the resultantbase text and translationof this project will please Ulrich. We will have to wait and see how it turns out in practice. AlthoughUlrich describesthe ancientera ofpluriformity as somethingquite foreign to contemporaryusage, it strikes me that, for most modern readersof the Bible who rely on translations,the situationtoday is quite similarto the older one. After all, a person who reads Jeremiahin the ArtScroll version comes away with a ratherdifferentunderstandingthanthe user of the JPSTanakh.And the variations widen considerablyif we bring in, for example, the New King JamesVersion,the ContemporaryEnglish Version,or the Living Bible (which must be distinguished from Aryeh Kaplan'sLiving Torah!).The book of Jeremiah,all may agree, is inspired,but the actual words exhibit substantialvariation.In essence, modem pluriformity! The richness and subtlety of Ulrich's discussion are, I hope, clear to potential readers.It remains to ask whetherthe format adopted by this volume, a collection spanning two decades, is the best method of presentation.On this point, there is reason for ambivalence. Most users, it is clear, can discern and evaluate Ulrich'smain points on the basis of one or two of these essays. Reading them seriatimexposes even specialists to considerablerepetitionand may lead to unnecessary confusion on the partof nonspecialists.But, takenas a whole, Ulrich'sbook is important,even essential, in the ongoing quest for greaterunderstandingof the HebrewBible. Forthat, we should all be grateful. LeonardJ. Greenspoon CreightonUniversity Omaha, Nebraska

M. P.Weitzman. The Syriac Versionof the Old Testament:An Introduction.University of CambridgeOrientalPublications56. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1999. xv, 355 pp. As RobertP.Gordon'sforewordexplains, Michael PerryWeitzman'sSyriac Versionof the Old Testamentwas originally projected as the first of two volumes on the subject.One can only concurwith Gordonthat Dr.Weitzman'srecent death is a great loss to the academic communityas well as to family and friends. One is immediately struck by the presence of the "Old Testament"in the book's title. As explained in the Preface, the Syriac version of the Bible-known as the Peshitta-has historicallybeen preserved and used exclusively within the easternchurchtradition:thus Weitzman'suse of "OldTestament"ratherthan "He-

123

AJS Review brew Bible." However,the book's driving thesis is thatthe Peshitta was not originally producedanywherewithin the early Christiancommunity.Instead,Weitzman posits, an isolated, non-Rabbinic Jewish community produced the Syriac translation form a Hebrew Vorlagesometime before 200 CE; this community subsequently converted to Christianity,thus introducingthe Peshitta to the eastern churchby which it was eventually adopted. After succinctly reviewing Peshittaresearchto date,Weitzmanoffers a fresh evaluationof the relationshipof existing SyriacandHebrewtexts, all the while asserting that a now-lost Hebrew text served as base for both the Peshitta and the Masoretic text. ChapterThree compares the Peshitta with those biblical versions with which it most frequentlyagrees. ChapterFourexaminestranslationtechnique more closely by "grading"individualbooks of the Peshitta: Some exhibit a conservative approachin their Syriac renderingsof Hebrewwords and phrases;some exhibit what Weitzmancharacterizesas a modern approach,primarilyby appealing to the Septuagint;still othersreflect theirtranslators'consultationof otherpassages within the Peshitta itself. Thus, though the notion that multiple translators producedthe Peshitta is nothing new, Weitzmanrefines the theory by suggesting thatthere was a school of translators"workingon the same greaterproject."Chapters Five and Six address the book's core issues: Weitzman'sargumentsfor the Peshitta'sJewishorigin,his suggestions concerningrecoveryof the Peshitta Urtext originallytranslatedfrom the Hebrew,and the suggestedhistoricalbackgroundfor the subsequentdistributionof Peshitta manuscripts. Overall, this is an extraordinaryvolume: its premise is innovative, its research exhaustive, its organizationthoughtful.ThoughWeitzman'sargumentsare persuasive throughout,there is ample and careful mention of scholars representing other schools of thought.Above all, the book's approachis astoundinglycomprehensive for a volume of this size. The readeris not only presentedwith examples from the entire Hebrew Bible to support Weitzman'stheses, but also with painstaking reconstructions-both written and graphic-of the proposed relationships among variousbiblical versions as well as among extantPeshitta manuscripts. It is worthmentioningthat this is the only book of its type availablein English. With all this in mind, it must be noted thatthe book presentsthe readerwith one significant problem. Where parallel passages are given in two or more languages or dialects-say, from the Masoretictext, the Peshitta,the Septuagint,and one of the Targumim-the presentationof the English translationis frustratingly inconsistent. Sometimes all the passages in question are translatedinto English; sometimes only the Syriac is treated,sometimes only the Hebrewor Greek, sometimes none of them. This is no doubt due to the book's having reachedproof stage only at Dr. Weitzman'sdeath,and one trusts it will be ironedout in futureeditions. If one were to express any concern in terms of the book's content, it would be a concern occasioned from time to time by many a great scholar: namely,that the elegance of Weitzman'stheories is occasionally allowed to overpowerthe evidence at hand.The most notableexampleof this is his discussionof theological"improvements"early Syriactranslatorsmay have introducedto the proposedHebrew

124

Book Reviews Vorlage.Weitzmanaccuratelyidentifies such themes as bodily resurrectionand a personal Messiah-figure as being present in the Peshitta but absent in the Masoretic text. But then-having argued quite persuasively that the Peshitta of the HebrewBible did not originatein the Christiancommunity-he reiterateson page 246 thatthe communityin question"is of non-RabbinicJewish origin"and that its "translatorsseem to representa closed community,estrangedfromthe Jewishpeople as a whole."While this scenario is perfectly acceptable,one might just as easily suggestthatthe nascent Christianmovementitself was perceivedas a non-Rabbinic Jewish sect by contemporaryadversariesand adherentsalike, and may have producedthe Peshitta before the term "Christian"was widely used. These decidedly minor complaints aside, we have here a landmarkvolume whose valueto Semitists (andotherlinguists), historians,andbiblical scholarscannot be overestimated.It serves as powerfultestimony to Dr. Weitzman'sextraordinary abilities as scholar and writer. John David Brolley Hebrew Union College Cincinnati,Ohio

Shaye J. D. Cohen. The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties,Uncertainties. Hellenistic Cultureand Society, 31. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. xv, 426 pp. This volume explores two majorquestions:"Whatis that makes a Jew a Jew, and a non-Jew a non-Jew?"and "Can a gentile become a Jew?" (p. 2). The term "Jew"was ambiguousbecause "therewas no single or simple definition of Jew in " antiquity... and there were no "empiricalor 'objective' criteriaby which to dewho termine was 'really' a Jew.... Jewishness was a subjective identity, constructedby the individual. .. other Jews, other gentiles, and the state"(p. 3). Cohen points to Herodto demonstratethat one could be called a Jew and an Idumean at the same time (p. 23). Cohen chose to explore Jewish identity in antiquityby collecting ten of his previouspublications.Only ChaptersOne and Six, as well as the prologue and the epilogue, were written for this volume. Because Cohen did not significantly rework or add to these articles, his assertions, arguments,and conclusions are well known in the field. At the same time, the result of this approachis that, in place of a coherent,sustainedinvestigationof Jewish identity in antiquity,we have ten detailed,but separate,examinationsof topics and Greek words which help us understand what Jews and non-Jews meant by the term "Jew."Only by doing the work that Cohen did not do and connecting the ten studies can one create a cogent line of reasoning,as follows. In the Diaspora,Jews were not necessarily distinguishedfrom non-Jews by 125

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Gary G. Porton Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 125-127 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131564 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:55 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews Vorlage.Weitzmanaccuratelyidentifies such themes as bodily resurrectionand a personal Messiah-figure as being present in the Peshitta but absent in the Masoretic text. But then-having argued quite persuasively that the Peshitta of the HebrewBible did not originatein the Christiancommunity-he reiterateson page 246 thatthe communityin question"is of non-RabbinicJewish origin"and that its "translatorsseem to representa closed community,estrangedfromthe Jewishpeople as a whole."While this scenario is perfectly acceptable,one might just as easily suggestthatthe nascent Christianmovementitself was perceivedas a non-Rabbinic Jewish sect by contemporaryadversariesand adherentsalike, and may have producedthe Peshitta before the term "Christian"was widely used. These decidedly minor complaints aside, we have here a landmarkvolume whose valueto Semitists (andotherlinguists), historians,andbiblical scholarscannot be overestimated.It serves as powerfultestimony to Dr. Weitzman'sextraordinary abilities as scholar and writer. John David Brolley Hebrew Union College Cincinnati,Ohio

Shaye J. D. Cohen. The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties,Uncertainties. Hellenistic Cultureand Society, 31. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. xv, 426 pp. This volume explores two majorquestions:"Whatis that makes a Jew a Jew, and a non-Jew a non-Jew?"and "Can a gentile become a Jew?" (p. 2). The term "Jew"was ambiguousbecause "therewas no single or simple definition of Jew in " antiquity... and there were no "empiricalor 'objective' criteriaby which to dewho termine was 'really' a Jew.... Jewishness was a subjective identity, constructedby the individual. .. other Jews, other gentiles, and the state"(p. 3). Cohen points to Herodto demonstratethat one could be called a Jew and an Idumean at the same time (p. 23). Cohen chose to explore Jewish identity in antiquityby collecting ten of his previouspublications.Only ChaptersOne and Six, as well as the prologue and the epilogue, were written for this volume. Because Cohen did not significantly rework or add to these articles, his assertions, arguments,and conclusions are well known in the field. At the same time, the result of this approachis that, in place of a coherent,sustainedinvestigationof Jewish identity in antiquity,we have ten detailed,but separate,examinationsof topics and Greek words which help us understand what Jews and non-Jews meant by the term "Jew."Only by doing the work that Cohen did not do and connecting the ten studies can one create a cogent line of reasoning,as follows. In the Diaspora,Jews were not necessarily distinguishedfrom non-Jews by 125

AJS Review their looks, clothing, speech, names, residence, association, or even circumcision (p. 67). Although Judaeans,like all otherethnic-geographicgroups, had a distinctive language and their own "customs,institutions,dress, cuisine, religion, and so on,"none of these was necessarilymore importantthanany otherin defining a "Judaean"(p. 105), an Ioudaios. Before the second century BCE, Ioudaios referred to someone from Judaeaor to someone who belonged to an association of those who originally came from Judaea (p. 104); it did not denote a "Jew."Under the Hasmoneans,Ioudaios lost its ethnic-geographicmeaning. Now it named eithera member of a "political community" that could grant citizenship to non-natives and/or a participantin a culture or religion centered on the God of the Judaeans (p. 105). This change reflects the Hellenistic definition of politeria, "which means, among other things, both 'citizenship' and 'public way of life' " and the Hellenistic meaning of Greekness as a function of language and culture(p. 136). Gentiles could be associated with the Jewish communityon at least seven differentlevels, ranging from "admiring some aspect of Judaism"to "conversion to Judaism" (p. 141). Therefore,the Greek word Ioudaizzeindoes not mean to become Jewish. At most, in Paul and later Christiantexts it denotes someone who "adopt[s]the customs and mannersof the Jews" (p. 184), accordingto the non-Jewishauthors' definitions of "Jewish"activity. Conversionto Judaismbegan in the second century BCE, but the conversionritualoutlined in BabylonianTalmud,Yebamot47ab, comes from the first two centuriesCE. It was not an initiationrite, but was designed to regulateconversion,to ensurethatthe ritualswere administeredproperly, and to ensure that a proselyte knew what to expect (p. 217). The prohibitionagainst Jews marryingnon-Jews is post-biblical.This law may reflect the Roman law of persons, as well as the rabbinicprohibitionagainst kilayim, the mixing of diverse kinds. The matrilinealprinciple first appearedin Mishnah, but in two distinct parts: Some texts note that the offspring of a Jewish fatherand a gentile mother is a gentile, while othersclaim that the child of a Jewish mother and a gentile fatheris a Jew (p. 278). The PalestinianTalmudsuggests that the two "halves"were joined togetherin the second century,and Babylonian Talmud puts their conjunction in the late fourth century (p. 280). The earliest midrashic collections indicate that converts were different from native-bornIsraelites (p. 338). The Appendices conclude that (1) the epigram discussing Martial's slave does answerthe questions of his being circumcised,(2) there is no evidence that Menophilus was a circumcised Jew, (3) it is not clear whetherTrophimuswas a Jew or a gentile, and (4) Timothy was not Jewish. We see that one can uncovera line of reason from the collection; even so, as a book, the volume has some major shortcomings.Are the issues Cohen investigates pressing among currentscholars?Few claim that Jews in the Diasporawere clearly distinguishablefrom other groups, and Cohen does not make a sustained comparisonbetween the situationin Palestineandthat in the Diaspora(p. 27). The author'stranslationsofloudaios andloudaizein arepossible, but do they fit equally well in all of the examples, and are the dates at which the meanings "changed"

126

Book Reviews as clear-cutas Cohen suggests? Cohen'sbringingthis materialtogethercould have providedthe occasionfora sustainedexaminationof the processesof Judaism'smove from an ethnic group to a religious community in all of its facets. A detailed discussion of the fact thatthe prohibitionagainstintermarriage,the acceptanceof converts, andthe promulgationof the matrilinealprincipleall occur at aboutthe same time would have been valuable, especially in light of the Jewish community's changes in its self-perception.His explanation for the prohibition against intermarriageis provocative,but it would have benefited from a closer reading of the vast literatureon ethnicity and identity; prohibitionsagainst marriageout of the group are typical of many types of ethnic communities. Cohen does not respond to many of the more recent investigationsof conversion as a religious phenomenon, or as it occurredin the Romanworld or in Judaism,nor does he enter into sustained argumentswith those whose views differ from his. Deciding on the nature of an initiationritual solely on the basis of Gennep's studies ignores a good deal of relevantcurrentanthropologicaland sociological discussion. While the materialin this volume is interesting,informative,and provocamissed an opportunityto move the discussions of Jewish identity in Cohen tive, to another level. antiquity Gary G. Porton University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,Illinois

Marc (Menahem) Hirshman. Torahfor the Entire World.Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad,1999. 189 pp. (Hebrew). Hirshman'scautious studypromises a focus upon "a universalisticstreamin the Tannaiticliteratureand its relationshipto the wisdom of the nations."The "universalism"he hopes to identify is a modest one: the notion that the Torahof Israel is intendedab origine to be a possession of all human communities (with some pointed exceptions, such as the Amalekites). On this score Hirshmandeliversrathermorethanhe promises.Not only does he identify a "universalisticschool" of Tannaitictradition.He locates it in a distinctive priestly point of view representedin the Tannaiticcorpus by tradentsassociated with R. Ishmael (of priestly lineage), provides it with a Second Temple genealogy in such worksas the Wisdom of ben Siraandthe Testamentof Levi, and traces its presence in a numberof diverse Tannaitichalakhic concerns. These include, among others,the role of convertsin Israel,the status of Gentiles who perform commandments,the validity of the Noahide Commandments,and the relevance of Greek wisdom to Jews. Hirshman selects his sources wisely and elucidates them with great sensitivity to literary,redactional,and historical contexts. While it is alwayspossible to challenge attemptsto disentangleredactedRabbinic compositionsinto the traditionsthat fed them or the social groups that trans127

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Martin S. Jaffee Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 127-128 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131565 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:55 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews as clear-cutas Cohen suggests? Cohen'sbringingthis materialtogethercould have providedthe occasionfora sustainedexaminationof the processesof Judaism'smove from an ethnic group to a religious community in all of its facets. A detailed discussion of the fact thatthe prohibitionagainstintermarriage,the acceptanceof converts, andthe promulgationof the matrilinealprincipleall occur at aboutthe same time would have been valuable, especially in light of the Jewish community's changes in its self-perception.His explanation for the prohibition against intermarriageis provocative,but it would have benefited from a closer reading of the vast literatureon ethnicity and identity; prohibitionsagainst marriageout of the group are typical of many types of ethnic communities. Cohen does not respond to many of the more recent investigationsof conversion as a religious phenomenon, or as it occurredin the Romanworld or in Judaism,nor does he enter into sustained argumentswith those whose views differ from his. Deciding on the nature of an initiationritual solely on the basis of Gennep's studies ignores a good deal of relevantcurrentanthropologicaland sociological discussion. While the materialin this volume is interesting,informative,and provocamissed an opportunityto move the discussions of Jewish identity in Cohen tive, to another level. antiquity Gary G. Porton University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,Illinois

Marc (Menahem) Hirshman. Torahfor the Entire World.Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad,1999. 189 pp. (Hebrew). Hirshman'scautious studypromises a focus upon "a universalisticstreamin the Tannaiticliteratureand its relationshipto the wisdom of the nations."The "universalism"he hopes to identify is a modest one: the notion that the Torahof Israel is intendedab origine to be a possession of all human communities (with some pointed exceptions, such as the Amalekites). On this score Hirshmandeliversrathermorethanhe promises.Not only does he identify a "universalisticschool" of Tannaitictradition.He locates it in a distinctive priestly point of view representedin the Tannaiticcorpus by tradentsassociated with R. Ishmael (of priestly lineage), provides it with a Second Temple genealogy in such worksas the Wisdom of ben Siraandthe Testamentof Levi, and traces its presence in a numberof diverse Tannaitichalakhic concerns. These include, among others,the role of convertsin Israel,the status of Gentiles who perform commandments,the validity of the Noahide Commandments,and the relevance of Greek wisdom to Jews. Hirshman selects his sources wisely and elucidates them with great sensitivity to literary,redactional,and historical contexts. While it is alwayspossible to challenge attemptsto disentangleredactedRabbinic compositionsinto the traditionsthat fed them or the social groups that trans127

AJS Review mitted them, Hirshman'sclaim to find an ideologically coherent "universalistic school" circulatingbehindthe dominant"particularism" of the Tannaitic(in Hirshman'sview, "Aqiban")traditionstandsupon many differentstrandsof evidence. It will, I suspect,proveconvincingto many stubborntextualpositivists-such as this reviewer. Perhapsone of the most importantcontributionsof Hirshman'sisolation of this Ishmaelian"universalism"is the subtle way he unpacks its theological foundations.Tannitic"universalism"is hardlyof the "I'm OK, you'reOK"variety.Precisely because the Torah was given to the entire world as well as to Israel, the world's rejection of the Torahplaces it under Divine judgment. This yields some interestingparadoxes.Forexample, convertsandeven non-convertedGentileswho study Torahor perform commandmentsare said to enjoy a priestly status;yet the validity of the Noahide Commandmentsis rejected,since non-Jews are invited,no less than Israel, to observe the entireTorah. Hirshman'streatmentof the second theme of his subtitle-the relationship of this Tannaiticuniversalismto "the wisdom of the nations"-is also stimulating in its theological sensitivity. Here he seems to have at least two goals in mind: to explain how the "universalists"viewed the relationshipof the Torahto other traditions of humanwisdom and to compareTannaitic"universalism"to othersin the culturalcontext of Late Antiquity. Here Hirshmanis more suggestive than exhaustive.He convincingly shows, for example, that the "universalistic"view of Torahas a human,ratherthan a distinctly Israelite,inheritanceimplied a rejectionof "Greekwisdom"as an essentially illegitimate subjectof study.ThusTannaitic"universalism"did not translateinto a curiosity about "humanwisdom" per se. Here Hirshmanpointedly distinguishes the Ishmaeliantraditionfromthatpromulgatedby the Patriarchate,in whichthe cultivation of Greco-Romanrhetoricalculture was regardedas a practicalnecessity with its own theological legitimations.Hirshmanalso points out an interestingdistinction between Tannaitic"universalism"and that of anotherJudaically-inspired "universalism"found in early Christianity.Christian"universalism,"of course,was eschatological-expressed primarilyin the extension of Israel'scovenentalprivilege to all humanity,and groundedin the overcomingof the abidingvalidityof the Torah's commandments. By contrast, Tannaitic "universalism"remained thisworldly and anti-messianic,focusing on the incorporationof discerning individuals into the abidingcovenantrepresentedby the commandments.Thus, even in the context of its "universalism,"Tannaitictraditionremainedfirm in its essentially priestly sense of the solidity of communalborders. This review only touches upon the most readily summarizedelements of Hirshman'swork. The textual exegesis that yields his conclusions is itself of very great interest andjustifies a speedy translationof the study into English. MartinS. Jaffee University of Washington Seattle, Washington

128

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Moshe Simon Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 129-131 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131566 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews JeffreyL. Rubenstein.TalmudicStories:NarrativeArt, Composition,and Culture. Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. xvi, 435 pp. ShulamitValler.Womenand Womanhoodin the Talmud.Translatedby Betty Sigler Rozen. BrownJudaic Series, 321. Atlanta:Scholars Press, 1999. xx, 139 pp. Of the variousgenres of classical aggadic literature,the Talmudic"sage stories"areperhapsthe most open to literaryinterpretationusing contemporarymethods. Otheraggadic forms lack parallelsin the conventionalWesternliterarycanon. Sage stories,in contrast,are shortnarrativesthathave much in common with those found in other,more well-studied,literarytraditions.The tools of narrativeanalysis that have been developed by scholars of other literaturescan thus be fruitfully appliedto these rabbinicsage stories. It is therefore somewhat surprisingthat despite the proliferationof literarystudies on midrashand aggada appearingin English in recentyears,the analysisof sage stories has remaineda relativelyneglected field of inquiryamongAnglophone scholars.This field has been dominatedby Israeli scholars such as Jonah Fraenkeland Ofra Meir, whose work has appeared largely in Hebrew.Jeffrey Rubenstein'sTalmudicStories: NarrativeArt, Composition and Culture and the recent translation of Shulamit Valler's Nashim veNashiutbe-sipureha-Talmud(HakibbutzHameuchad,1993) underthe title Women and Womanhoodin the Talmudare thus welcome and importantadditions to the world of English-languagerabbinicsscholarship. Rubenstein'sbook consists of analyses of six extended narrativesfrom the BabylonianTalmud:"The Oven of Akhnai"(Bava Metsia 59a-59b), "Elisha ben Avuya"(Hagigga 15a-15b), "R. Shimon bar Yochai in the Cave" (Shabbat 33b34a), "RabbanYochananben Zakkai's Encounter with Vespasian" (Gittin 55b56b), "TheExpulsionof R. Meir and R. Natan from the Academy"(Horayot 13b14a), and "The Final Judgmentof the Nations" (AvodaZara2a-3b). These stories are some of the richest and most famous in Talmud.This fact, in addition to the book's lucid style, gives the book special value to specialists and non-specialists alike. Rubenstein'smethod of literaryanalysis owes much to the structuralistapproachpioneeredby JonahFraenkel.Rubensteinelucidates the various structures and symmetries of his Talmudicstories and demonstratesthe Talmudic authors' use of such literary devices as wordplay,key words, irony, and paradox. Like Fraenkel,Rubensteinis also attentiveto the human elements of the stories. This sensitivity allows Rubensteinto give fresh insight into stories that have already been extensively discussed. Thus, in his interpretationof "The Oven of Achnai," Rubensteincalls the reader'sattentionaway from the theological issues that have dominatedprevious discussions of the story and towardthe themes of human violence and suffering.The centralityof these themes to the story explains its position at the end of a Talmudicdiscussion of "verbaloppression." Rubensteinmoves beyond Fraenkel'sstructuralismby integrating into his reading strategythe methods of Talmudic source and redaction criticism, as developed by David Halivni and ShammaFriedman.Rubensteinargues that editorial processes that shapedthe legal sugyot of the Bavli were also crucial to the for129

AJS Review mation of the Bavli's narrativesections: The imprintof the Stammaim,the anonymous post-Amoraic editors of the Talmud,is discerniblethroughoutnarrativesof the BabylonianTalmud.It was the Stammaimwho reworkedthe earlier Palestinian aggadic sources at their disposal througha process of "embellishment,expansion, and supplementation."The Stammaimtherebyadaptedthe earliersources to their new contexts in the Bavli and to the Stammaim'sown sensibilities. Rubenstein shows how the editors of the Talmudaltered stories not only to fit into the immediate conversationinto which they are placed,but also to reflect themes and motifs present elsewhere in that particularchapterof the Mishna and Talmud.He also demonstrateshow Babylonian stories functionas exegeses of earlierhistorical traditions.Forexample, many of the details of the Bavli's extendedaccount of the life of Elisha b. Avuya are shown to be explicationsof phrases from the Tosefta's terse account of Elisha b. Avuya's case. On the basis of his comparisonsbetween parallel Babylonian and Palestinian narrative sources, Rubenstein also points to several potentially valuabledistinctionsbetween the narrativearts of the Bavli and the Yerushalmi.Among them arethe Bavli'spropensityfor candidlyportrayingthe faults and failures of rabbis of previous generationsand the Yerushalmi's tendency to deviate from strict chronologicalorderin narratingthe events of a story. Since in Rubernstein'sview, the stories found in the Bavli are essentiallythe productof the Stammaim,it follows thatthese stories can be used as windows into the intellectualand spiritualworld of the Stammaim.Inparticular,Rubensteinsees the world of the academyportrayedin these stories, with its intricatesocial structure and its emphasis on dialectic Torahstudy, as reflecting the conditions in the yeshivot of post-AmoraicBabyloniaratherthanearlierconditions in Palestineand Babylonia, as other scholarshave argued.Rubensteinextends the essentially literary natureof his work by using the results of his studies to contributeto our understandingof the social and culturalhistory of Judaismat a criticaljuncture of history. ShulamitValler'sbook, as the title suggests, belongs essentially to the burgeoning discourse on gender in rabbinicliterature.Valler'sunderlyingassumption is that narrativematerial is a more useful source for discovering the rabbis'attitudes towardswoman than Halachic or other discursive sources. She focuses her attentionon rabbinicstoriesthatdeal with the statusof women. Unlike Rubenstein, who concentrateson longer,more complex stories,Vallerturnsherattentionto collections of brief, relatively simple stories whose primarypurpose is to recordlegal precedents. Her study thus offers an importantcomplement to Rubenstein's. While the stories that Rubenstein discusses are more interesting than those in Valler'sbook, Valler'sselection is more representativeof the genre of rabbinicsage stories. Brief accounts of legal cases and rulings representthe overwhelmingmajority of sage stories in the Talmud,whereas extendednarrativesare quite rare. Valler'smethodology is similar to Rubenstein's.She too seeks to combine literarycriticism with the conclusions of twentieth-centuryAmericanTalmudcriticism. Herbasic argumentis that,throughthe carefulediting and arrangement,the Stammaiticeditorstook earlierPalestinianmaterialsand fashionedthem into thematic story collections that are literaryworks in themselves. By organizingstories 130

Book Reviews in a way that creates a developmentof the common themes of the stories, the editors give these collective works meaning that transcendsthe messages of the individual narratives. Valler also demonstrateshow these aggadic compilations are often in tension with their Halachic contexts. For example, in ChapterThree, she shows how a series of storiesbroughtin the sugya in Ketubot8b- 10b serves to underminethe Talmud'sprevious statementsthat a husbandis to be believed if he claims that he found that his wife was not a virgin on their wedding night. The story collection shows that this ruling is correct only in theory. In practice, the rabbis never annulled a marriageon the basis of such a claim. Valler'sultimateargumentis thatthe implicit message of the Stammaiticeditors is often more sensitiveto the woman'sperspectivethanthe explicit statements of the earlierTannaiticand Amoraic sources of the Talmud.This is a bold claim that certainlywarrantsfurtherstudy. If correct, it representsan importantcontributionto the study of rabbinicJudaism.However,we should be cautious of claims that rabbinicJudaismevolved along a trajectorythat broughtit more in line with modernvalues.Valleralso suggeststhataggadais somehowa more female-friendly mode of discourse than halacha.This is a difficult claim to back up. There is no shortageof halachic texts which show great sensitivity towardswomen and many aggadic texts fail to do so. Finally,a note on the translation.While Betty Sigler Rozen shows herself to be an able translatorof Valler'smodernHebrewtext, the same cannotbe said with regardto her work on the rabbinictexts cited by Valler.In her renderingsof passages from the Bavli, Rozen makes unattributeduse of the Soncino translation. This is a potential source of confusion for the readerbecause the Soncino translation of the standardprintededition does not always correspondto the manuscript traditionspresentedby Valler.Rozen's translationsof the Yerushalmi,which appearto be original,containnumerousmistakes and inconsistencies. It is a pity that the translationdoes not live up to the high standardsof the original work. Moshe Simon Massachusetts Boston,

MenachemElon, BernardAuerbach,Daniel D. Chazin, and Melvin Sykes. Jewish Law (Mishpat Ivri): Cases and Materials. Casebook Series. New York:Matthew Bender, 1999. xxiv, 746 pp., Glossary,Tableof Authorities,Tableof Cases, Index. JewishLaw (MishpatIvri): Cases and Materials is a comprehensiveand lucid analysis of Jewish law as it is used in the Israeli SupremeCourt as part of Israeli secularlaw,exhaustivelydetailedand clearlywritten.It is designed to be used as an Americanlaw school textbook and is published by a law school publishing house-Matthew Bender-as part of its casebook series. The book begins with two questions:"How is it possible that a legal system bereft of territoryand police power has not only perseveredbut flourished? Whence do the Jewish legal au131

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Michael J. Broyde and Angela Riccetti Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 131-133 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131567 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews in a way that creates a developmentof the common themes of the stories, the editors give these collective works meaning that transcendsthe messages of the individual narratives. Valler also demonstrateshow these aggadic compilations are often in tension with their Halachic contexts. For example, in ChapterThree, she shows how a series of storiesbroughtin the sugya in Ketubot8b- 10b serves to underminethe Talmud'sprevious statementsthat a husbandis to be believed if he claims that he found that his wife was not a virgin on their wedding night. The story collection shows that this ruling is correct only in theory. In practice, the rabbis never annulled a marriageon the basis of such a claim. Valler'sultimateargumentis thatthe implicit message of the Stammaiticeditors is often more sensitiveto the woman'sperspectivethanthe explicit statements of the earlierTannaiticand Amoraic sources of the Talmud.This is a bold claim that certainlywarrantsfurtherstudy. If correct, it representsan importantcontributionto the study of rabbinicJudaism.However,we should be cautious of claims that rabbinicJudaismevolved along a trajectorythat broughtit more in line with modernvalues.Valleralso suggeststhataggadais somehowa more female-friendly mode of discourse than halacha.This is a difficult claim to back up. There is no shortageof halachic texts which show great sensitivity towardswomen and many aggadic texts fail to do so. Finally,a note on the translation.While Betty Sigler Rozen shows herself to be an able translatorof Valler'smodernHebrewtext, the same cannotbe said with regardto her work on the rabbinictexts cited by Valler.In her renderingsof passages from the Bavli, Rozen makes unattributeduse of the Soncino translation. This is a potential source of confusion for the readerbecause the Soncino translation of the standardprintededition does not always correspondto the manuscript traditionspresentedby Valler.Rozen's translationsof the Yerushalmi,which appearto be original,containnumerousmistakes and inconsistencies. It is a pity that the translationdoes not live up to the high standardsof the original work. Moshe Simon Massachusetts Boston,

MenachemElon, BernardAuerbach,Daniel D. Chazin, and Melvin Sykes. Jewish Law (Mishpat Ivri): Cases and Materials. Casebook Series. New York:Matthew Bender, 1999. xxiv, 746 pp., Glossary,Tableof Authorities,Tableof Cases, Index. JewishLaw (MishpatIvri): Cases and Materials is a comprehensiveand lucid analysis of Jewish law as it is used in the Israeli SupremeCourt as part of Israeli secularlaw,exhaustivelydetailedand clearlywritten.It is designed to be used as an Americanlaw school textbook and is published by a law school publishing house-Matthew Bender-as part of its casebook series. The book begins with two questions:"How is it possible that a legal system bereft of territoryand police power has not only perseveredbut flourished? Whence do the Jewish legal au131

AJS Review thorities derive their tradition-embeddedanswersto what appearto be novel, contemporaryquestions?"The book seeks to answerthese queries with an exposition on the nature and purpose of Jewish law, followed by a chapter-by-chapterintegration of the uses of Jewish law into Israeli secularlaw. The book is divided into five parts.The first two providethe essential structure and decision-making process of Jewish law (halakhah),as well as its ethical underpinnings.Parts Three through Five explore a small number of legal topics that arise in Jewish and secularlaw and the relevanttexts for each. All of the chapters in each part have a series of notes at the end containingleading questions and informationfor furtherdiscussion or study. Part One, entitled "Basic Characteristicsof Jewish Law,"clarifies how halakha operateswith respect to both "civil" and "religious"law. The authorspoint out that a sharp,modernistic divide between these types of law is not necessarily helpful in understandingJewish law, where the lines of distinction are less clear. Elements of civil law like agency are present in mattersof Jewish rituallaw such as the slaughteringof sacrifices. Hence, a properunderstandingof halakha must carry with it an appreciationfor the interrelatednature of the civil and the religious. The book also uses this opening section to establish the absolute authority of the halakhic process (such that even God accepts it) and to explore the gap between law and ethics, remarkingthata hallmarkqualityof Jewish law is its attempt to "juridify"ethics and morals wheneverpossible. In Part Two, "The System of Jewish Law,"the book enumeratesthe legal sources of halakha and how these are used to renderdecisions in Jewish law. The authorsidentify six such sources, with the Torahas theirtouchstone:tradition(kabbalah), interpretation(midrash),legislation (takkanahandgezerah), custom (minhag), case or incident (ma 'aseh), and legal reasoning (sevarah). The first is described as static; however, the other five are "inherentlydynamic, and in fact a significant aspect of their function is to continue the creativity and development of Jewish law" (p. 62). The authorsthen analyze each legal source, using textual examples of its methodology. PartsThreethroughFive investigatea varietyof legal topics, focusing heavon human rights (PartFour)andbioethics (PartFive).The chaptersthereinshare ily the same basic structure:The book explores the relevanthalakhictexts on the subject in question, then proceeds to (secular) Israeli court cases on the same where Justice Elon's opinions examine Jewish law's view of the particularmatter.Each chapteris craftedto display how halakha-a "religious"form of law-impacts on or relatesto Israeli"civil"matters,be it property,contracts,or evidence. Withsome topics the need for a morallygroundedform of law is more obvious-abortion and capital punishment are two such examples-but the book does an excellent job demonstratingthatJewishlaw can-and does-have a voice on nearlyevery imaginable legal subject. This casebook synthesizes mishpat ivri (Jewish law as it is used in Israel) with secular Israeli law. It is a very good-indeed, excellent-synthesis of Israeli law and mishpat ivri. This summary of the book thus far has not addressed a crucial question: Is this work a successful casebook for an American law student?Defining what

132

Book Reviews exactly is a successful casebook for American law schools is no easy feat. Essentially, these writers sense that a successful casebook in any discipline taught in American law schools (which is not in an area of law obviously relevant to students) must seek to accomplish three difficult tasks. First, a casebook must seek to explain to students why this area of study should be relevantto them. Thus, a casebook teaching Jewish law, or space law, or law and literaryfiction, must court the student'sinterest in ways that constitutionallaw, securities law, and property law need not. Second, a casebook must compare and contrastthat which it wishes to teach with thatwhich it expects the studentsalreadyto know.Thus, when teaching Russian law to American law students one tends to compare Russian law to American law, as the compare-and-contrastprocess eases the pedagogic burdens. Third,a casebook should choose to presenttopics within its field for which American law studentshave a naturalinstinctbecause of their legal training, and natural questions aboutbecause of the flow of Americanlaw.Thus, when teaching Jewish law one should select topics that appeal to the naturalcuriosity of American law students, focusing on areas where American law is weakest, or where Jewish law speaks to the Americanlegal mind or culture. This question, a matterof pedagogy concerning what exactly a course entitled "JewishLaw"(or perhaps"MishpatIvri"?) should aim to teach, is a complex one that is worthyof greaterdiscussion. Book reviewers,however,should not ask, "Why did the authors of this book not write the book following the pedagogic method that I wanted?"and thus discussions of methodology for teaching Jewish law in America will have to wait for some other forum. In sum, this book, whose lead author,Justice Menachem Elon, is the senior scholarof mishpativri in Israel,is a brilliantwork with thoughtfulnotes designed to address the use of mishpat ivri in contemporaryIsraeli law. It is a sign of the strengthin the field thatthere is now a casebook in mishpat ivri in English. Hopefully this will open the gates for many other casebooks and teaching aids for Jewish law in AmericanUniversities. Michael J. Broyde Emory University School of Law Atlanta, Georgia Angela Riccetti Emory University Atlanta, Georgia

JeremyCohen.LivingLettersof the Law:Ideas of the Jew in MedievalChristianity. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1999. x, 451 pp. Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianitytraces the developmentof JeremyCohen'sscholarshipover almost two decades. Without 133

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Irven M. Resnick Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 133-135 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131568 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews exactly is a successful casebook for American law schools is no easy feat. Essentially, these writers sense that a successful casebook in any discipline taught in American law schools (which is not in an area of law obviously relevant to students) must seek to accomplish three difficult tasks. First, a casebook must seek to explain to students why this area of study should be relevantto them. Thus, a casebook teaching Jewish law, or space law, or law and literaryfiction, must court the student'sinterest in ways that constitutionallaw, securities law, and property law need not. Second, a casebook must compare and contrastthat which it wishes to teach with thatwhich it expects the studentsalreadyto know.Thus, when teaching Russian law to American law students one tends to compare Russian law to American law, as the compare-and-contrastprocess eases the pedagogic burdens. Third,a casebook should choose to presenttopics within its field for which American law studentshave a naturalinstinctbecause of their legal training, and natural questions aboutbecause of the flow of Americanlaw.Thus, when teaching Jewish law one should select topics that appeal to the naturalcuriosity of American law students, focusing on areas where American law is weakest, or where Jewish law speaks to the Americanlegal mind or culture. This question, a matterof pedagogy concerning what exactly a course entitled "JewishLaw"(or perhaps"MishpatIvri"?) should aim to teach, is a complex one that is worthyof greaterdiscussion. Book reviewers,however,should not ask, "Why did the authors of this book not write the book following the pedagogic method that I wanted?"and thus discussions of methodology for teaching Jewish law in America will have to wait for some other forum. In sum, this book, whose lead author,Justice Menachem Elon, is the senior scholarof mishpativri in Israel,is a brilliantwork with thoughtfulnotes designed to address the use of mishpat ivri in contemporaryIsraeli law. It is a sign of the strengthin the field thatthere is now a casebook in mishpat ivri in English. Hopefully this will open the gates for many other casebooks and teaching aids for Jewish law in AmericanUniversities. Michael J. Broyde Emory University School of Law Atlanta, Georgia Angela Riccetti Emory University Atlanta, Georgia

JeremyCohen.LivingLettersof the Law:Ideas of the Jew in MedievalChristianity. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1999. x, 451 pp. Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianitytraces the developmentof JeremyCohen'sscholarshipover almost two decades. Without 133

AJS Review abandoningthe thesis he espoused in TheFriars and theJews (Ithaca:CornellUniversity Press, 1982), that is, that a paradigm shift occurred among thirteenthcentury Christianmendicanttheologians with respect to the role of the Jew in the divine economy,here Cohen attemptsto respondto his criticswith a morenuanced treatment.Living Letters of the Law examines adaptationsto the "hermeneutical Jew"-the putative,ahistoricalJew createdby Augustiniantheology-as the cultural horizons of the medieval Latin world broadened.Cohen traces the contours of the "hermeneuticalJew"fromAugustine throughGregorythe Great,Isidoreof Seville, and Agobard of Lyons before he turnsto the twelfth century.Because he now finds more persuasive Amos Funkenstein'scontention that twelfth-century anti-Jewishpolemics signal an importantshift in medievalperceptionsof Judaism, here Cohen pays much more attentionto twelfth-centuryauthors(e.g. Anselm of Canterbury,Gilbert Crispin, Odo of Cambrai,Guibert of Nogent, PeterAlfonsi, Peterthe Venerable,and Bernardof Clairvaux)thanhe had done in TheFriars and the Jews, and considerablyless to thirteenth-centurymendicants. Indeed,Cohen explains that "reactionsto my thesis on the significance of the friars [in TheFriars and the Jews] ... quickly convinced me thata fair assessmentof latermedieval Christianideas of the Jew demandeda more conscientious investigationof their antecedents. The present study constitutes my attempt to move backward..." (p. 314). Thanks to this move backwardCohen now proposes that the roots for the most dramaticmodifications to Augustine'smodel of Jewish witness, which had established a theological basis for toleration of Jewish communities in Christendom, appearin the twelfth century.But for Cohenthese roots stem especially from Christendom'sencounterwith Islam, an encounterthat is responsiblefor new features in the polemical tradition.Forexample, it was largelythis encounterwith Islam, he avows, that necessitated Christianpolemics sola ratione.An unanticipated outcome of the engagement with Islam, however,was that "the Jew ceased to function in Christianthought as the sole or even predominant'other"' (p. 156). Many churchmenreclassified Jews as a subset of a largergroup of theological enemies alongside Muslims and heretics, which served "to disempower the hermeneuticallycraftedJew of patristictheology, deprivinghim of that singularity which distinguishedhim and underlayhis worth"(p. 159). As Cohen arguedpreviously in "The Muslim Connection or On the Changing Role of the Jew in High Medieval Theology,"the traumaticencounter with Islam both altered traditional perceptionsof Jews and also formed Christianviews of Islam accordingto the image and likeness of Judaism.' At the same time, the Jews' rejectionof dialectical"proofs"of fundamental Christiandoctrines raised disturbingquestions of the Jews' rationality(or even of their humanity) while a growing awareness in the twelfth century of the importance of the Talmudin Jewish religious life raised doubts about the Jews' role as faithful witnesses to biblical religion. For Cohen these trendsintensify duringthe 1. From Witnessto Witchcraft:Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought,ed. Jeremy Cohen, WolfenbiittelerMittelalter-Studien,11 (Wiesbaden:HarrassowitzVerlag, 1996), pp. 141-162.

134

Book Reviews thirteenthcenturyand,figuring prominentlyin the polemics of the new mendicant orders,resultnot only in more dangeroustheologicalcondemnationsof the Jew but also in a correspondingshift in ecclesiastical and royal policies. Repeated attacks in the thirteenthcentury on the Talmud(consigned to the flames in Paris in 1242 by ecclesiastical decree, for example) or efforts to censor the Talmudby expunging from it anti-Christiansentiments, reflect the harvest of seeds planted in the twelfth century. Throughoutthis work, Cohen engages in a reasoned dialogue with his critmost ics, notably Robert Chazan,who has repeatedlychallenged his claim that a fundamentalshift occurred in perceptions of Jews following the Christian"discovery" of talmudic Judaism.Although he acknowledges the ambiguity of some of the evidence, Cohen reaffirmsthat"As Christendomhad come to scrutinizethe Jews alongside other infidels and Christianheretics, churchmenin the thirteenth centuryvoiced the conviction that Jewish behaviorno longer comportedwith the constructionof the Jew whom Augustine had intended to preserve. Belief in the oral torah was a Jewish heresy" (p. 333). Qua heresy, it could no longer be toleratedwithinthe boundariesof Christendom,initiatinga series of attacks-often encouragedor at least administeredby the new mendicantorders-that demandedthe conversionof Jews and culminatedin the well-knownexpulsion of many European Jewish communitiesfrom the late thirteenththroughfifteenth centuries. In manyways, this study reiteratesCohen'searlierfindings. However,in this volume Cohen provides evidence that significant challenges to the Augustinian "hermeneuticalJew" appearalready in the eleventh and twelfth centuries-even if these challenges became widespreadand a genuine threatonly afterthe appearance of the mendicantordersin the thirteenthcentury.The change may be subtle, but it helps fashion Cohen'sresponse to his critics while delineatingmore sharply the lines of the debateover the evolution of anti-Jewishdoctrinesof the high Middle Ages. Living Lettersof the Law reveals a scholar in dialogue with contemporariesand, whatevershortcomingsone may find in the work, the process is itself illuminating. Irven M. Resnick at Chattanooga of Tennessee University Chattanooga,Tennessee

S. D. Goitein, A MediterraneanSociety: AnAbridgementin One Volume.Revised and edited by Jacob Lassner.Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of CaliforniaPress, 1999. xxii, 503 pp. Ever since the appearanceof the fifth and final volume (to be supplemented by Paula Sanders'excellent and indispensablecumulativeindex volume in 1993) of Goitein's magisterialreconstructionof Jewish social and economic life in the medieval Islamic Mediterraneanworld,there has been a general recognitionof the 135

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Norman A. Stillman Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 135-137 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131569 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews thirteenthcenturyand,figuring prominentlyin the polemics of the new mendicant orders,resultnot only in more dangeroustheologicalcondemnationsof the Jew but also in a correspondingshift in ecclesiastical and royal policies. Repeated attacks in the thirteenthcentury on the Talmud(consigned to the flames in Paris in 1242 by ecclesiastical decree, for example) or efforts to censor the Talmudby expunging from it anti-Christiansentiments, reflect the harvest of seeds planted in the twelfth century. Throughoutthis work, Cohen engages in a reasoned dialogue with his critmost ics, notably Robert Chazan,who has repeatedlychallenged his claim that a fundamentalshift occurred in perceptions of Jews following the Christian"discovery" of talmudic Judaism.Although he acknowledges the ambiguity of some of the evidence, Cohen reaffirmsthat"As Christendomhad come to scrutinizethe Jews alongside other infidels and Christianheretics, churchmenin the thirteenth centuryvoiced the conviction that Jewish behaviorno longer comportedwith the constructionof the Jew whom Augustine had intended to preserve. Belief in the oral torah was a Jewish heresy" (p. 333). Qua heresy, it could no longer be toleratedwithinthe boundariesof Christendom,initiatinga series of attacks-often encouragedor at least administeredby the new mendicantorders-that demandedthe conversionof Jews and culminatedin the well-knownexpulsion of many European Jewish communitiesfrom the late thirteenththroughfifteenth centuries. In manyways, this study reiteratesCohen'searlierfindings. However,in this volume Cohen provides evidence that significant challenges to the Augustinian "hermeneuticalJew" appearalready in the eleventh and twelfth centuries-even if these challenges became widespreadand a genuine threatonly afterthe appearance of the mendicantordersin the thirteenthcentury.The change may be subtle, but it helps fashion Cohen'sresponse to his critics while delineatingmore sharply the lines of the debateover the evolution of anti-Jewishdoctrinesof the high Middle Ages. Living Lettersof the Law reveals a scholar in dialogue with contemporariesand, whatevershortcomingsone may find in the work, the process is itself illuminating. Irven M. Resnick at Chattanooga of Tennessee University Chattanooga,Tennessee

S. D. Goitein, A MediterraneanSociety: AnAbridgementin One Volume.Revised and edited by Jacob Lassner.Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of CaliforniaPress, 1999. xxii, 503 pp. Ever since the appearanceof the fifth and final volume (to be supplemented by Paula Sanders'excellent and indispensablecumulativeindex volume in 1993) of Goitein's magisterialreconstructionof Jewish social and economic life in the medieval Islamic Mediterraneanworld,there has been a general recognitionof the 135

AJS Review need for an abridgementthat would make the work more immediatelyaccessible to the educated lay readerand could be a useful text for college studentsof Jewish, Islamic or even general medieval history.After all, such useful epitomes have been made-and remainpopular-for such voluminousmasterpiecesas Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,Toynbee'sA Study of History, or Frazer's The GoldenBough. Jacob Lassner'sskillful one-volume edited abridgementhas in part filled the need that was so sorely felt. I say "in part,"because the editor explains in his engaging Foreword(pp. xi-xxii) that it was in his view insufficient merely to delete major segments of the original (as any such abridgementwould require),nor was it enough to rearrangethe orderof the segments that he had selected (a perhaps debatable,but certainlyjustifiable editorialdecision which this reviewer finds quite successful), but ratherit was "deemed necessary"to go beyond pruning Goitein's style and occasionally "to rewriteentire passages for the sake of clarity."This latter editorial decision is somewhatunsettling since an author's voice, even when idiosyncratic or even flawed, is still his own. There is a slight echo offertaytsht unferbesert in such a tack. In this abridgement,the editorhas decided to focus on Jewish communalorganization, family life and structure,and the interactionbetween the Jewish minority and the Muslim majorityon all levels. Essentially,then, this is the essence of volumes two and three. Lassner demonstratesa good sense of narrative,and there is such a smooth flow thatthe readerfeels thatthis is a homogeneous, seamless text. Having kept the abridgementunclutteredby Goitein'snumeroustechnical annotations,he has judiciously provided a necessary minimum of notes that identify works specifically mentioned in the text, refer the readerto materialsin the original that are alludedto or touched upon tangentiallyin the abridgement,or clarify some point or discovery which Goitein himself had made elsewhere (as for example, in his extensive researchon the Indiatrade,the bulk of which has yet to be published). Lassner has provided a brief addendumon Geniza studies in the United States (spelled Genizah on the title and headers for this chapterafterword alone) and "Its Past and FutureLinks to Near EasternHistoriography"(pp. 469482) with the emphasis on the latter.Thereis a very detailedand useful generalindex (pp. 483-501). Goitein would have been particularlypleased by that;one of his pet peeves was the inadequateindexing of many scholarlybooks. Jacob Lassnerhas made a very importantcontributionby bringing a partof Goitein's magnum opus to the wider audience it deserves. This abridgementwill make a perfect text for college classes in medieval Jewish, Islamic, and Mediterranean history,anthropology,and sociology, as well as in adult educationcourses in the wider Jewish community.It is to be hoped that there may some day be an additional abridgementof the remaining volumes dealing with economic history, which has a vibrancythatdemolishes any notion thatthe subjectneed be dull;with material-culturalhistory,which gives a palpablefeel for the realia of everydaylife in the same vein as, but with far finer detail than, the many books inspiredby Carcopino's classic Daily Life in Ancient Rome; and with the analysis of the individual in which Goitein with deep sensitivity and insight painteda composite portrait of"the Mediterraneanpersonalityof medieval culturewhich emerges fromthe letters and documents of the Cairo Geniza" (A MediterraneanSociety 5:1). Such a 136

Book Reviews volume would be a perfect complementto Lassner'swork and would bring before the wider public the full scope of Goitein'smajestic historical vision. Norman A. Stillman University of Oklahoma Norman, Oklahoma

Abraham David. To Come to the Land: Immigration and Settlement in 16thCentury Eretz-Israel. Translated by Dena Ordan. Judaic Studies Series. Tuscaloosa:The University of AlabamaPress, 1999. xiii, 360 pp. AbrahamDavid. In Zion and Jerusalem: The Itinerary of Rabbi Moses Basola (1521-1523). Jerusalem:C. G. FoundationJerusalemProjectPublications, 1999. 148 pp. (English), 48 pp. (Hebrew). The intensification of Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel in the wake of expulsions and messianic stirringsbroughttogetheroutstandingfigures whose individual and collective achievementsleft an enduringimprinton Jewish life. The renaissance in sixteenth-centuryEretz Israel,particularlyin Safed, producedone of the most remarkableand creative moments in Jewish intellectual, religious, and culturalhistory.Refugees from Spainand Portugal,as well as from Italianand German lands, wended theirexile-weary way to the Holy Land.Fueled by a new, more favorableOttomanadministrationand unprecedentedeconomic opportunities,the conditionswere set for the renewalof Jewish culturallife. AbrahamDavid's book To Come to the Land is not primarilyabout the processes of immigration to the land,althougha brief chapteris devotedto that subjectat the beginning. It focusses on specific aspects of Jewish life in sixteenth-centuryEretz Israel, primarily in Jerusalemand Safed. Among the titanic figures of the sixteenth-centuryJewish intellectual world Joseph Karo, author of the compendium of Jewish law Bet Yosefand the code Shulkhzan Arukh,left an enduringimprinton the course of halakhah. Moses Cordovero, Isaac Luria, and Hayim Vital transformed the direction of kabbalah. an eminent ethical-kabbalisticwork, while he EleazarAzikri wroteSeferHIaredim, and Solomon Alkabetz contributedreligious poetry that is recited in synagogues aroundthe world to this day.The practices of the kabbalisth.avurah(fellowship) enrichedJewishritualand devotionallife. The attemptby Safed scholar Jacob Berabto revive the ancientpracticeof semikhah,apostolic ordination,with messianic undertones,aroused a controversywith Levi ibn Habib of Jerusalem.It pitted scholar against scholar, Jerusalemagainst Safed, Iberianexile against temporary marrano,and electrified rabbis aroundthe world. AbrahamDavid has eschewed virtuallyall discussion of the substanceof these intellectual and spiritualturning points. Instead,he has chosen to explore the political, economic, and communal circumstancesthat enabledthis moment to come about. David is a leading scholar of "late"geniza material,particularlythe docu137

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Elisheva Carlebach Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 137-140 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131570 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews volume would be a perfect complementto Lassner'swork and would bring before the wider public the full scope of Goitein'smajestic historical vision. Norman A. Stillman University of Oklahoma Norman, Oklahoma

Abraham David. To Come to the Land: Immigration and Settlement in 16thCentury Eretz-Israel. Translated by Dena Ordan. Judaic Studies Series. Tuscaloosa:The University of AlabamaPress, 1999. xiii, 360 pp. AbrahamDavid. In Zion and Jerusalem: The Itinerary of Rabbi Moses Basola (1521-1523). Jerusalem:C. G. FoundationJerusalemProjectPublications, 1999. 148 pp. (English), 48 pp. (Hebrew). The intensification of Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel in the wake of expulsions and messianic stirringsbroughttogetheroutstandingfigures whose individual and collective achievementsleft an enduringimprinton Jewish life. The renaissance in sixteenth-centuryEretz Israel,particularlyin Safed, producedone of the most remarkableand creative moments in Jewish intellectual, religious, and culturalhistory.Refugees from Spainand Portugal,as well as from Italianand German lands, wended theirexile-weary way to the Holy Land.Fueled by a new, more favorableOttomanadministrationand unprecedentedeconomic opportunities,the conditionswere set for the renewalof Jewish culturallife. AbrahamDavid's book To Come to the Land is not primarilyabout the processes of immigration to the land,althougha brief chapteris devotedto that subjectat the beginning. It focusses on specific aspects of Jewish life in sixteenth-centuryEretz Israel, primarily in Jerusalemand Safed. Among the titanic figures of the sixteenth-centuryJewish intellectual world Joseph Karo, author of the compendium of Jewish law Bet Yosefand the code Shulkhzan Arukh,left an enduringimprinton the course of halakhah. Moses Cordovero, Isaac Luria, and Hayim Vital transformed the direction of kabbalah. an eminent ethical-kabbalisticwork, while he EleazarAzikri wroteSeferHIaredim, and Solomon Alkabetz contributedreligious poetry that is recited in synagogues aroundthe world to this day.The practices of the kabbalisth.avurah(fellowship) enrichedJewishritualand devotionallife. The attemptby Safed scholar Jacob Berabto revive the ancientpracticeof semikhah,apostolic ordination,with messianic undertones,aroused a controversywith Levi ibn Habib of Jerusalem.It pitted scholar against scholar, Jerusalemagainst Safed, Iberianexile against temporary marrano,and electrified rabbis aroundthe world. AbrahamDavid has eschewed virtuallyall discussion of the substanceof these intellectual and spiritualturning points. Instead,he has chosen to explore the political, economic, and communal circumstancesthat enabledthis moment to come about. David is a leading scholar of "late"geniza material,particularlythe docu137

AJS Review ments dating from the fifteenth through seventeenth century.Over the past two decades, he has publisheddozens of these documentsin studies which, in theiraggregate, illuminatethe world-of the Jewish Mediterraneanand Middle East at a time of great turbulenceand upheaval. David's intimateknowledge of the literature of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-centuryMediterraneanworld-its chronicles, correspondence,and travel literature-forms the essential building blocks of his work. ToCome to the Land representsa double achievement.It is a useful and coherent synthesis of the results of David's specialized publications, and it is rendered into accessible English. The primarycontributionof this book revolves aroundtwo poles: the economic activities, on the one hand,and the internalcommunalorganization,on the other,of Jerusalemand Safed Jewry.In both realms,David sheds new light on fascinating and significant dimensions of this Jewish world. While supportof institutions in the Holy Land helped maintain close ties with diaspora communities, charity was far from the only source of income in sixteenth-centuryOttoman Palestine.The Ottomansplaced few economic restrictionson Jews, and their economic activities spanned agriculture,manufacture,trade, and finance. Nevertheless, Jews were taxed at exorbitantrates, were subject to capricious local rulers, and sometimes suffered severe hardship."As far as food is concerned,everyoneis in trouble, because meat is not available daily in Jerusalemas it is in our land [Italy], nor are fish and fruits ... apples and pears are importedfrom Damascus and are very expensive" (p. 43). This passage from an immigrant'sletterdescribing the economic privation in early-sixteenth-centuryOttoman Jerusalem can serve as an exemplar of the riches and strengthsof To Come to the Land. David drawsdirectlyfromprimarysources so that every set of statistics,every largerpattern, is sustainedby numerouscitations, which add color and detail and bring the materialto life. Another excerpt from a primarysource, however,hints at a tantalizingsubject that David does not address."Everyman andevery womanwho workswoolen fabric earns an abundantliving" (p. 37). This descriptionof economic opportunity in a letter from David min ha-Adummimraises importantquestions. Did Jewish women play any role in the textile industrythat supportedmuch of the economic boom in sixteenth-centurySafed? Traditionally,this industrytendedto be dominatedby women in some sectors, such as design and weaving. Did the immigrants generally arrivein family units or as single men? In his appendixproviding shipboardadvice to travelers,Moses Basola made recommendationsfor travelling Jewish families. Basola's text commentedon the largenumberof widows residing in Jerusalem(p. 82), but even this does not elicit from David any analysis whatsoever. In seventeenth-centuryJerusalemthere was such a dearthof marriageable women that a takkanahforbadeJewishmen to live thereunless they were married. Was this a problem in the sixteenth centurytoo? A book devotedto economic and communal history should have addressed these questions but the lives and even existence of women find no place in this book.1 1. This omission is all the more regrettableas David is cited as a resourceperson in other studies that focus on Sephardicwomen in this period. See Joel L. Kramer,"SpanishLadies fromthe Cairo

138

Book Reviews The chapterson communal organizationand education shed new light on these institutionsof Jewishlife. Wherewere the Jewish quarterssituated?How did the many different diaspora groups govern themselves and relate with others? David's book excels at answering these questions. His picture of the universal scholarshipof an entirepopulationprovidesthe context and frameworkfor the celebratedculturalflowering in sixteenth-centurySafed, whose content, however, is touched on only briefly. Ultimately,it is regrettablethat David set such strict parameters for himself. Had he provided more material on the substance of the achievementof sixteenth-centuryEretz Israel, this book could have provided the best one-volume introductionto the entire subjectin English.A section of brief biographiesappendedat the end of the book is a handy reference, a "Who'sWho" of sixteenth-centuryrabbinicfigures in the Holy Land,but the space devoted to this catalogue could have been betterused for a synthesis of the spiritualand intellectual componentof Safed'srise. In Zion and Jerusalem: The Itineraryof Moses Basola is the latest in a series of early modern chronicles or traveljournals that David has edited and translated. His introductionand notes to Basola's itineraryform a naturalcomplement to the more synthetictreatmentin ToCome to the Land.The itineraryprovides an individualportraitof one traveller'simpressions and motivations. David touches several times on the possible messianic motivations guiding Basola (p. 42). His discussion of the Jew from Cush whose description is similar to that of David Reubeni but who was apparentlya different person, illuminates one aspect of a phenomenonthat was recentlycalled "The JerusalemSyndrome"in its sixteenthcenturyvariation.Basola's discussion of the "reliable"informationhe was able to gatherconcerningthe Sambatyonand the Ten Tribes furtherillustratesthe atmosphereof expectationthatpervadedthe Holy Land duringBasola's time. Basola's rich text conveys both the textureand outlines of his personal experience as a pilgrim andthe complexion of the communallife in sixteenth-centuryEretz Israelas he saw it. It contains importantinformationaboutthe ritualand liturgy connected with the visiting of holy sites and veneratedgraves. Basola listed the takkanotcurrent in Jerusalem during his stay, a primary source of great interest. Ultimately, however,one wishes for a bettersense of the person, and the largercontoursof his life. Dena Ordanhas providedfelicitous translationsof both volumes, free of the strainedand stilted prose that often characterizessuch endeavors. One quibble, however:Some sources cited by David that are availablein English are not listed in in the documentationin their English translation.For example, in citing Jacob Katz'pioneeringanalysis of the semikhahcontroversy,only the Hebrewcitation is listed. The interestedreaderwould not know that an English translationhas been availablefor years.2In a book for serious readers,translatedfor those who do not Geniza,"in Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Mediterranean WorldAfter 1492, Alisa Meyuhas Ginio, ed., (London:FrankCass, 1992), p. 243, n. 23. On the Jerusalemtakkanah,see my ThePursuit of Heresy (New York:ColumbiaUniv. Press, 1990), p. 41.

2. JacobKatz,"TheDisputebetweenJacobBerabandLevibenHabiboverRenewingOrdination,"Binah (1989) 1:119-141.

139

AJS Review have access to David'soriginal Hebrew,this type of omission should not havebeen overlooked. Elisheva Carlebach Queens College, CUNY New York,New York

Moshe Hallamish.An Introductionto the Kabbalah.Trans.RuthBar-Ilanand Ora Wiskind-Elper.SUNY Series in Judaica:Hermeneutics,Mysticism, and Religion. Albany: SUNY Press, 1999. viii, 379 pp. The challenge of writing a book on Kabbalahfor the educated readeris to communicatethe range of Kabbalisticexperience,belief, andteaching withoutobscuring the subject or diluting its meaning. This book accomplishes thattask with thoroughnessand lucidity.The authordrawsupon a rich arrayof sources and presents a thoroughpanoramaof Kabbalisticteachings in a clear and readablestyle despite the fact that it is a translationfrom Hebrew. Although it is intendedas an introductorytext writtenfor the educatedpublic, the book is not an introductiongeared for undergraduatesor for a lay reader. It is densely packed and presupposes fluency in Jewish studies. It is, however,a valuablebook thatcan be recommendedto advancedundergraduatesor for student researchassignments.The book is a helpful and concise alternativeto the interpretive sections of Isaiah Tishby'sMishnat Ha-Zohar. The authorwrites a readable synopsis of the basic teachings of the Kabbalahand drawson a wide historicalarray of sources. It has advantagesover other introductionsto the Kabbalah:It is comprehensive and includes references to the most recent scholarly research. While it does not breaknew ground in researchon Kabbalah,it accuratelyreflects the state of the field. The first part of the book focuses on the experience of the Kabbalist.Hallamish defines Jewish mysticism as the encounterwith the divine presence, the deeper sense of being close to God. He explainsthat the more intense the effortto get to know God,the nearerone gets to the mysticallevel. The author,however,adds that Kabbalahis not otherworldlytranscendentalism.He capturesthe heartof the Kabbalisticexperience succinctly:"Here,then, is the secretof the Kabbalah'spower: Man ascends to God, and therebygains strength.He gains strength-not in order to standequal to God but in realizing himself as a humanbeing." The authorpresents the conflicting tendencies within Kabbalahalternately to conceal mystical teachings and to circulate them. He explains how Kabbalah preserved religious conformity and fostered innovationat the same time. He exploresthe moralandintellectualqualificationsof a Kabbalistandthe conditions,criteria, and restrictions that have historically limited access to the Kabbalah.He traces the meaning of the prohibitionon teachingthe esoteric subjectmatterof Ma 'aseh Bereshit and Ma 'aseh MerkabahthroughMishnah,Heikhalotliterature,and 140

Review: [untitled] Author(s): David S. Ariel Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 140-141 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131571 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review have access to David'soriginal Hebrew,this type of omission should not havebeen overlooked. Elisheva Carlebach Queens College, CUNY New York,New York

Moshe Hallamish.An Introductionto the Kabbalah.Trans.RuthBar-Ilanand Ora Wiskind-Elper.SUNY Series in Judaica:Hermeneutics,Mysticism, and Religion. Albany: SUNY Press, 1999. viii, 379 pp. The challenge of writing a book on Kabbalahfor the educated readeris to communicatethe range of Kabbalisticexperience,belief, andteaching withoutobscuring the subject or diluting its meaning. This book accomplishes thattask with thoroughnessand lucidity.The authordrawsupon a rich arrayof sources and presents a thoroughpanoramaof Kabbalisticteachings in a clear and readablestyle despite the fact that it is a translationfrom Hebrew. Although it is intendedas an introductorytext writtenfor the educatedpublic, the book is not an introductiongeared for undergraduatesor for a lay reader. It is densely packed and presupposes fluency in Jewish studies. It is, however,a valuablebook thatcan be recommendedto advancedundergraduatesor for student researchassignments.The book is a helpful and concise alternativeto the interpretive sections of Isaiah Tishby'sMishnat Ha-Zohar. The authorwrites a readable synopsis of the basic teachings of the Kabbalahand drawson a wide historicalarray of sources. It has advantagesover other introductionsto the Kabbalah:It is comprehensive and includes references to the most recent scholarly research. While it does not breaknew ground in researchon Kabbalah,it accuratelyreflects the state of the field. The first part of the book focuses on the experience of the Kabbalist.Hallamish defines Jewish mysticism as the encounterwith the divine presence, the deeper sense of being close to God. He explainsthat the more intense the effortto get to know God,the nearerone gets to the mysticallevel. The author,however,adds that Kabbalahis not otherworldlytranscendentalism.He capturesthe heartof the Kabbalisticexperience succinctly:"Here,then, is the secretof the Kabbalah'spower: Man ascends to God, and therebygains strength.He gains strength-not in order to standequal to God but in realizing himself as a humanbeing." The authorpresents the conflicting tendencies within Kabbalahalternately to conceal mystical teachings and to circulate them. He explains how Kabbalah preserved religious conformity and fostered innovationat the same time. He exploresthe moralandintellectualqualificationsof a Kabbalistandthe conditions,criteria, and restrictions that have historically limited access to the Kabbalah.He traces the meaning of the prohibitionon teachingthe esoteric subjectmatterof Ma 'aseh Bereshit and Ma 'aseh MerkabahthroughMishnah,Heikhalotliterature,and 140

Book Reviews Kabbalah.He also stresses the Kabbalistic expectation that a student has been groundedin modes of rationalthinkingand discoursebefore turningto Kabbalah. The chapterson the preparationsfor the mystic ascent and techniques for achieving mystic revelation are among the best explanations available in English. Despite the author'sfocus on the experienceof Kabbalah,he does not embraceMoshe Idel's evaluationof the ecstatic dimension in Kabbalah. The second partof the book-on the basic Kabbalisticconcepts-does not break new ground. It does, however,present a broad arrayof sources that are not otherwise availablein English. He lets the sources speak in their own words. For the most part,he presupposesthatthe readerof the book is literate in Jewish concepts, sources, and history.Occasionally,he will make a scholarly aside or reference. My majorcriticism of this study is that it often treats Kabbalahas a consistent movementwith common patternsof life and values. He speaks of Heikhalot, Zohar,and Hasidism in the same breathand presents Kabbalahas one unified tradition. Can one draw conclusions from Nachman of Braslav'steachings on hitbodedutabout Kabbalah'sapproachto solitude in general? Twodifferenttranslatorsrenderedthe originalHebrewtext into English. The translation is generally accurate but there are occasional inconsistent transliterations(e.g., simssum,sedek) and weak copyediting (e.g., Neoplatonians, Neoplatonists). Sometimesthe authorpresentsthe materialand lets it speak for itself. At other times he presents and analyzes the material from other perspectives, as when he describesYosef Karo'smaggid or heavenly messenger as the human unconscious or superego. Sometimes he raises majortopics but then does not develop them, such as the Kabbalisticview of human sexuality in relation to the androgyny of the Sefirot or Kabbalisticmessianism. At other times, he introduces but does not elaborateinterestingthemes such as the use of chant, divine names, and dreams.These are small omissions in an otherwise thorough and important contributionto the literatureon Kabbalahin English. David S. Ariel Cleveland College of Jewish Studies Beachwood, Ohio

Sarah Stroumsa. The Beginnings of the Maimonidean Controversyin the East: Yoseflbn Shim'on'sSilencing Epistle Concerning the Resurrection of the Dead. Jerusalem:Ben Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East, 1999. xvii, 174 pp. (Hebrew). Stroumsapublishesthe medievalHebrewversion of Ibn Shim'on'sSilencing Epistle Concerningthe Resurrectionof the Dead alongside the epistle in the original Judeo-Arabic,a fine modernHebrewtranslationof the latter,and profuse an141

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Albert D. Friedberg Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 141-143 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131572 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:57 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews Kabbalah.He also stresses the Kabbalistic expectation that a student has been groundedin modes of rationalthinkingand discoursebefore turningto Kabbalah. The chapterson the preparationsfor the mystic ascent and techniques for achieving mystic revelation are among the best explanations available in English. Despite the author'sfocus on the experienceof Kabbalah,he does not embraceMoshe Idel's evaluationof the ecstatic dimension in Kabbalah. The second partof the book-on the basic Kabbalisticconcepts-does not break new ground. It does, however,present a broad arrayof sources that are not otherwise availablein English. He lets the sources speak in their own words. For the most part,he presupposesthatthe readerof the book is literate in Jewish concepts, sources, and history.Occasionally,he will make a scholarly aside or reference. My majorcriticism of this study is that it often treats Kabbalahas a consistent movementwith common patternsof life and values. He speaks of Heikhalot, Zohar,and Hasidism in the same breathand presents Kabbalahas one unified tradition. Can one draw conclusions from Nachman of Braslav'steachings on hitbodedutabout Kabbalah'sapproachto solitude in general? Twodifferenttranslatorsrenderedthe originalHebrewtext into English. The translation is generally accurate but there are occasional inconsistent transliterations(e.g., simssum,sedek) and weak copyediting (e.g., Neoplatonians, Neoplatonists). Sometimesthe authorpresentsthe materialand lets it speak for itself. At other times he presents and analyzes the material from other perspectives, as when he describesYosef Karo'smaggid or heavenly messenger as the human unconscious or superego. Sometimes he raises majortopics but then does not develop them, such as the Kabbalisticview of human sexuality in relation to the androgyny of the Sefirot or Kabbalisticmessianism. At other times, he introduces but does not elaborateinterestingthemes such as the use of chant, divine names, and dreams.These are small omissions in an otherwise thorough and important contributionto the literatureon Kabbalahin English. David S. Ariel Cleveland College of Jewish Studies Beachwood, Ohio

Sarah Stroumsa. The Beginnings of the Maimonidean Controversyin the East: Yoseflbn Shim'on'sSilencing Epistle Concerning the Resurrection of the Dead. Jerusalem:Ben Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East, 1999. xvii, 174 pp. (Hebrew). Stroumsapublishesthe medievalHebrewversion of Ibn Shim'on'sSilencing Epistle Concerningthe Resurrectionof the Dead alongside the epistle in the original Judeo-Arabic,a fine modernHebrewtranslationof the latter,and profuse an141

AJS Review notationsto both versions. Both text andtranslationarepublishedfor the first time. The translationis highly readableandthe author'snotes very instructive.The work is a majorcontributionto our understandingof the intellectualclimate and fervor of the Near EasternJewish world of the twelfth and thirteenthcenturies. This review takes issue with Stroumsa'sassertionthat Ibn Shim'on'sEpistle "clarifies some hithertoobscure issues concerning the Maimonideandebate,and throws new light on it" (p. xii). Stroumsa is referring to the controversy surroundingMaimonides'Treatiseon Resurrection;the putativelyuncharacteristicnature of Maimonides' Treatiseled a numberof modem scholarsto questionhis authorship(see her note 29 in the introductionfor a full citation). Stroumsa argues that the Epistle "conclusively disprove[s]" (p. xiii) the forgery of Maimonides' Treatiseon Resurrectionby demonstratingthat the Treatise is respondingdirectly to his disciple's Epistle. I believe that the internal evidence, specifically the close correspondence with both Maimonides'theological views andhis writingstyle, is a sufficient guarantee of his authorship. The point under consideration, however, is whether Stroumsa'sargumentfrom external evidence is valid: I conclude that it is not. Some of Maimonides'followers,as indicatedin his Treatiseon Resurrection, had begun to deny bodily resurrectionon the basis of inferences from his own work. Such conclusions were rebuttedin correspondencewith followers.The controversy,however, continued as charges of heresy spread.The prominenthead of the Baghdadacademy,referredto as the gaon, composed an essay sharplycritical of Maimonides' views which demanded a response. It is at this point that Ibn Shim'on takes up the defense of his teacher, Maimonides. Ibn Shim'on's Epistle is both apologetic, in that he redefines some of Maimonides'words and concepts, and polemical, in thathe attemptsto counterthe gaon 'sarguments.Stroumsaspeculates thatthe epistle found its way to Maimonidesandthatit, ratherthanthegaon 's treatise itself, promptedMaimonidesto respondin a lengthy and seemingly rambling essay, the aforementionedTreatiseon Resurrection. Stroumsa posits that we can authenticateMaimonides' Treatise if we can demonstratethat it is respondingdirectlyto the Epistle of his highly esteemed disciple (for whom he wrote the Guideof the Perplexed). She infers that Maimonides had in fact seen Ibn Shim'on'sEpistle from a letterhe sent Ibn Shim'on on the subject of his dispute with the head of the Baghdadacademy(Y. Shilat, "IggerothaRambam,"Jerusalem,1987). My readingof Stroumsa'sreference(pp. 297-298 in the Judeo-Arabicversion and pp. 309-310 in the Hebrewtranslation)does not in any way supportthis inference. There is absolutely no indication in the passage that Maimonidesever received his disciple'sEpistle along with the gaon 'streatise: There is no mention of it, neither praise nor criticism. It is unlikely that Maimonides would have passed up the opportunityto comment on his disciple's work if indeed he had received it. Interestingly,Stroumsapoints to one instance where Ibn Shim'on displayed the same ignorance of philosophic principles ascribedto the gaon (comments to paragraph8, pp. 128-129) and anotherinstance where he clearly misread or misunderstoodhis mentor'swritings (comments to paragraph 31, page 134). Yet Maimonides remains strangely silent. Moreover,Maimonides also fails to correct Ibn Shim'on's misapprehension-that the notion that resur142

Book Reviews rection is to occur in the messianic era can be inferredfrom a numberof passages in the MishnehTorah.The most plausibleconclusion is thatMaimonidesnever saw Ibn Shim'on'sEpistle. Stroumsasupportsher thesis that Maimonideswas reactingto his disciple's Epistle, ratherthan directly to the gaon, with three pieces of evidence internalto the Treatiseon Resurrection.The weakest internal evidence is the "bittertone" found in Maimonides'words:"it discloses a certaindisappointmentwith the close disciple, who having readthe Guide, still remained,in a certain sense, perplexed" (pp. xii-xiv). There are, of course, a number of other explanations for this presumed bitterness,as Stroumsaacknowledges (page xiv, note 36). Anothersuggestion-that Maimonidesalludes to an expressionfound in the Epistle-is also unconvincing.In the Epistle, Ibn Shim'on quotes the gaon of the Baghdad academy responding to a question, "yes, indeed, there exists (some or someone)by us in Baghdad"(p. 108, par.80; see commentson p. 147). In the Treatise, Maimonides mockingly refers to certain Arabic philosophical works composed "by them in Baghdad"(Shilat, p. 351). That Maimonides is alluding to the gaon 'sexpression is quite far-fetched. A third suggestion is that when Maimonides mentions that the gaon draws on the work of Avicenna, he is referringto the Epistle in which an almost exact paraphraseof Avicenna appears. Since we possess only fragments of the gaon 's treatise,this line of reasoning amountsto an argumentfrom silence that the gaon did not refer to Avicenna elsewhere. More important,Maimonides states quite clearlythatit is the gaon who drew fromAvicenna'swork, not Ibn Shim'on, while the Epistlemakes it clear thatIbn Shim'on is the one who refersto Avicennato rebut a claim made by the gaon (who had, he claims, self-servingly truncateda passage from a philosophical work).There really is no reason to doubt Maimonides' explicit statement. In summary,the internalevidence that Stroumsahas gleaned does not support the problematicinference from Maimonides'correspondencethat he worked from his disciple's Silencing Epistle, which would by extension authenticatehis own Treatise.While Stroumsa'scontributionis extremely valuable,the Silencing Epistle by itself contributesnothing to resolving the age-old controversyregarding the authorshipof the Treatiseon Resurrection. Albert D. Friedberg Toronto,Canada

Y.Tzvi Langermann.TheJews and the Sciences in the MiddleAges.VariorumCollected Studies Series. Brookfield,VT: Ashgate PublishingCompany,1999 (pages not numberedconsecutively). Y. Tzvi Langermannand Snait Gissis, editors. Science in Context 10:3 (Autumn, 1997). Special Issue: "Judaismand the Sciences, Part 1: Medieval Period."Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press. 202 pp. (391-592). 143

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Tamar Rudavsky Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 143-148 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131573 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:57 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews rection is to occur in the messianic era can be inferredfrom a numberof passages in the MishnehTorah.The most plausibleconclusion is thatMaimonidesnever saw Ibn Shim'on'sEpistle. Stroumsasupportsher thesis that Maimonideswas reactingto his disciple's Epistle, ratherthan directly to the gaon, with three pieces of evidence internalto the Treatiseon Resurrection.The weakest internal evidence is the "bittertone" found in Maimonides'words:"it discloses a certaindisappointmentwith the close disciple, who having readthe Guide, still remained,in a certain sense, perplexed" (pp. xii-xiv). There are, of course, a number of other explanations for this presumed bitterness,as Stroumsaacknowledges (page xiv, note 36). Anothersuggestion-that Maimonidesalludes to an expressionfound in the Epistle-is also unconvincing.In the Epistle, Ibn Shim'on quotes the gaon of the Baghdad academy responding to a question, "yes, indeed, there exists (some or someone)by us in Baghdad"(p. 108, par.80; see commentson p. 147). In the Treatise, Maimonides mockingly refers to certain Arabic philosophical works composed "by them in Baghdad"(Shilat, p. 351). That Maimonides is alluding to the gaon 'sexpression is quite far-fetched. A third suggestion is that when Maimonides mentions that the gaon draws on the work of Avicenna, he is referringto the Epistle in which an almost exact paraphraseof Avicenna appears. Since we possess only fragments of the gaon 's treatise,this line of reasoning amountsto an argumentfrom silence that the gaon did not refer to Avicenna elsewhere. More important,Maimonides states quite clearlythatit is the gaon who drew fromAvicenna'swork, not Ibn Shim'on, while the Epistlemakes it clear thatIbn Shim'on is the one who refersto Avicennato rebut a claim made by the gaon (who had, he claims, self-servingly truncateda passage from a philosophical work).There really is no reason to doubt Maimonides' explicit statement. In summary,the internalevidence that Stroumsahas gleaned does not support the problematicinference from Maimonides'correspondencethat he worked from his disciple's Silencing Epistle, which would by extension authenticatehis own Treatise.While Stroumsa'scontributionis extremely valuable,the Silencing Epistle by itself contributesnothing to resolving the age-old controversyregarding the authorshipof the Treatiseon Resurrection. Albert D. Friedberg Toronto,Canada

Y.Tzvi Langermann.TheJews and the Sciences in the MiddleAges.VariorumCollected Studies Series. Brookfield,VT: Ashgate PublishingCompany,1999 (pages not numberedconsecutively). Y. Tzvi Langermannand Snait Gissis, editors. Science in Context 10:3 (Autumn, 1997). Special Issue: "Judaismand the Sciences, Part 1: Medieval Period."Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press. 202 pp. (391-592). 143

AJS Review Steven Harvey, editor. The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy. Dordrecht:Kluwer,2000. 547 pp. Interestin the tension between religion and science has become the focus of much recent scholarshipnot only in Christianbut in Jewish circles as well. Perhaps nowhere is this attemptseen as clearly as in recent works dealing with cosmology. Many recent books have attemptedto reconcile contemporaryviews of creation with accounts found in scripture:for example, Samuelson'sJudaismand the Doctrine of Creation (Cambridge, 1994), Matt's God and the Big Bang (Vermont, 1996), Schroeder'sGenesis and the Big Bang (New York, 1990), and analogous books from the non-Jewishperspective,such as Trefil's TheMomentofCreation (New York, 1983), and Davies' The Mind of God (New York, 1991). What these books have in common is the desire to harmonizeaccounts of creationthat result from two webs of belief: religious and scientific. This strugglebetween "Athensand Jerusalem,"between rationalspeculation and Torah-basedstudy, has been replayed in every generation.At every stage in Jewishthought,Jews havetriedto accommodate"secular"elements with theirown thinking; these elements have included scientific paradigms, whether of Plato, Ptolemy,Aristotle, Copernicus,or of contemporaryastrophysics.As a minorityreligion within the largercontext of a majorityculture,be it Hellenistic, Islamic,the world of EnlightenmentEurope,or most recentexamples of modernity(and postmodernity), Jews have both rejected and adoptedvarious aspects of these majority civilizations. For generations of Jews the issue has thus been how to reconcile the content of the secular learning with that of religious knowledge. The very desire for accommodationreflects a particularattitudetowardthe relation between religion and science. Late-nineteenth-centuryhistoriansof science would have us believe that science has been persecuted by religion: more specifically, that western science has been persecutedby the Catholic Church.In his enormously influentialwork History of the ConflictbetweenReligion and Science (New York, 1874), John William Draperarguedthat the Church"became a stumbling block in the intellectual advancementof Europefor more than a thousand years."On this model, the history of scientific developmentwas presentedas a war against a narrow-mindedestablishmentthat feared science; the conflicts between science and religion were seen as a one-sided affair in which the Church sought to suppresstruth-seekingscientists. Jewish institutionswere not castigated nearly as maliciously on this view (perhaps,the cynic may argue, because by this point in history Jews wielded so little power). It is importantto remember,however, that Jewish examinations of the religion/science debate are-for the most part-elaborated in counter-positionto a not unrelatedissue, namely the impact of secular Christianculture upon Judaism.Hence, whereas for the Christiantheologian the question is unifold, namely, how to accommodate Christianityand modern scientific outlooks, for the Jew the questionbecomes more complex:how to accommodateJudaismto secularism,which itself has been infiltratedby Christian influences. The accommodationistgroundis reflectedby the attemptsof those serious Jews committed to their religious faith as well as the achievementsof science to reconcile their faith with the secular learning surroundingthem. 144

Book Reviews But can Judaismultimately be reconciled with a web of scientific belief? This questionunderlies severalrecent edited collections by Langermannand Harvey. Of the ten essays appearingin Langermann'svolume The Jews and the Sciences in the Middle Ages, all but three have appearedas earlier publications. By collecting the essays, and addingthree hithertounpublishedstudies, Langermann offers a multi-faceted survey of the history of science in medieval Jewish communities. In the first of the new essays (ChapterOne), Langermannexplores the Rabbinicoppositionto the study of science and suggests that the opposition of religious authoritieshas to do in general with the aversion to secular studies that stands in the way of TalmudTorah.Concentratingfirst upon the works of AbrahambarHiyya and JudahibnVerga,Langermannhighlights developmentsin medicine, mathematics,and meteorology,and their incorporationinto Jewish thought. Langermannthen turns specifically to how scientific knowledge is integratedinto the work of particularJewish thinkers,namely Bahya ibn Paquda,JudahHalevi, and Hasdai Crescas. Influencedby Saadya Gaon, Bahya draws upon science and technologyfor many of his argumentsandexamples. Langermannarguesthatfrom Bahya'sperspective"the harmonyof religion and science is not controversial,but rathercommonplace"(chpt. 1, p. 42). Bahya's comments are indications of "the high status of the sciences" in Andalusiansociety. Turningnext to JudahHalevi, Langermannarguesthatthe Cuzariwas composed as a response to "the very successful integrationof science and philosophy into Jewish life" (chpt. 1, p. 44). As a response to the challenge of both science and philosophy, Halevi offers in the Cuzaria "Jewishcosmology" steeped in Neoplatonic and Neopythagoreanontology, thus replacingthe philosophy of the Greeks with an Isma'ili science. Turning finally to Crescas, Langermannargues that, in contradistinctionto the standard view promulgatedby Wolfson and Pines, Crescas "has no interest in the scientific enterpriseper se. He has no agenda for harmonizingthe truthsof science with sacredwrit,nor does he hold to the dreamof restoringthe ancient,true, and unique Jewish science" (chpt. 1, p. 46). Hence it should not be surprisingthat his students did not continue in the area of science. Like the mutakalimunwho also rejected Aristotelian science and replaced it with an occasionalist, atomist alternative, LangermannarguesthatCrescaswas not interestedin science for its own sake, but only for its theological implications(chpt. 1, p. 49). The second new essay (ChapterTwo) is devoted to Sa'adya's connection to the sciences, while the third new essay (ChapterFour) pertains to Maimonides' view of astronomy.In this work Langermannreturnsto a subjectexplored in great detail in an earlier piece published in 1991 ("TheTrue Perplexity,"in J. L. Kraemer, ed. Perspectives on Maimonides, Oxford, 1991), in which LangermannendorsedPines' skepticalreadingof a criticalpassage in Maimonides, Guidefor the Perplexed,11:24.Langermannnow wantsto rejectinstrumentalistreadingsof Maimonides that claim that because it is impossible to determinewhich astronomical modeling devices are the true ones, therefore astronomycannot hope to achieve anythingmorethanuseful computationalinstruments.Adaptingthe standardskeptical response to agnostic readings of Maimonides, Langermannargues that "if Maimonides'agnosticism is so thoroughgoing,how could he possibly be so sure that the motions of the heavens are uniform, circularand so forth"(chpt. 4, p. 4)? 145

AJS Review Otherchaptersin this volume arereprintsof articlespublishedbetween 1988 and 1993. These articles deal with scientific concerns in the worksof ibn Ezra(astrology), Nahmanides, Gersonides (action at a distance), Moses Isserles (physics, cosmology, and astronomy),andMordekhaiFinzi,as well as astronomicaland medical manuscripts.These articles help to flesh out Langermann'soverall thesis that Jews in the medieval and earlymodernperiod were very much engaged in areasof scientific discussion, and furthermore,that these scientific discussions were seen to be relevantto issues of Jewish belief. The relevanceof scientific discoveryto Judaismis exploredfurtherin two recent issues of Science in Context(1997); Issue 10:3,editedby LangermannandGissis, is dedicatedto Judaismand science in the medievalperiod,while Issue 10:4 is devoted to the modernperiod. I will focus upon 10:3, in which articlesby Charles H. Manekin,Tony Levy, RuthGlassner,J. L. Mancha,andY. Tzvi Langermannexplore the interactions of medieval Jewish thought and scientific developments. Manekin discusses three medieval Hebrewtranslationsof Peterof Spain'sTractatus, arguingthat inasmuchas a groundingin logic was an aid for Jewish students wishing to become physicians and needing to interactwith their Christianpeers, this logical textbook became as popularamong Jewish studentsas among Christians. Tony Levy provides a much-neededportraitof the transmissionof mathematics by thirteenth-and early-fourteenth-century HebrewtranslatorsfromArabic sources;the texts include the writingsof EuclidandArchimedes,as well as treatises on mathematicalastronomy.Of special interestare Levy'sspeculationsas to why these translationswere undertakenby individualswho for the most part were not themselves mathematicians.Levy suggests thatthe translators(e.g., JacobAnatoli, Moses ibn Tibbon, Jacob ben Makhkir,Qalonymosben Qalonymosof Arles, and Samuel ben Judahof Marseilles) recognizedthe importanceof these works in the Christianwest and felt the necessity to make them availableto a Hebrewreading public. More pointedly,for example, Jacob ben Makhirarguedthat Jews "haveto learn from the example of the [other]nations ... these nationsreveredscience and scholarswithoutany concern fromtheirreligion. Has any nationyet changedits religion throughthis?"(p. 445). It is to be hoped that in subsequentworks Levy will detail furtherthe use to which these translationswere made. Glasner'sarticle on Yeda'yaha-Penini'sconceptionof the void suggests a reliance upon Christian sources for a peculiar view of void not found in ArabicHebrew sources. She positions Yeda'ya alongside the two "anti-Aristotelians" Nicholas of Autrecourtand Hasdai Crescas, both of whom rejectedthe traditional Aristotelian conception of the vacuum as being neitherwithin, between, or outside bodies. She suggests that this unconventionalposition might be traceableto Yeda'ya's conversationswith scholastic contemporaries;in a similar vein, others (e.g., Pines) have alreadynoted,for example,Yeda'ya'stheory of individualforms, which reflects Scotus's concept of haecceitas. Finally,Manchatraces the the main stages of the Hebrew and Latin redactionof Gersonides'astronomicalworkSefer Tekhuna,while Langermannintroduceshis analysis of Halevi, which is developed furtherin Judaismand the Sciences. All of these articlesreinforcethe fact thatJewish philosophers, clearly awareof developmentsin science, mathematics,and astronomy,made use of these developments and incorporatednew scientific find146

Book Reviews ings into their own work. At the same time, these thinkerswere very much aware of the implicationsof scientific advanceswith respect to maintainingthe integrity of their religious worldview. This awarenesson the part of Jews of new scientific advances in the world aroundthem is the focus of Steven Harvey'scollection TheMedieval HebrewEncyclopediasof Science and Philosophy.This volume representsthe proceedingsof an internationalconference held at Bar Ilan University in January1998. Although the focus of the conference was primarilyupon Hebrew encyclopedias of the thirteenth century,several papers deal with twelfth- and fourteenth-centuryencyclopedias, while othersfocus upon contemporaneousArabicand Latinencyclopedias. As Harveynotes in his introduction,Hebrewmedieval encyclopedias first appear at the momentwhen Hebrewwas beginningto replaceArabic as the scientific language of the Jews; in manycases they representedthe first directcontact with classical and contemporaryscientific and philosophical thinking. It is not easy, however,to determine exactly what counts as an encyclopesince dia, many of the authorsdid not present their works as such. For example, can an encyclopedia incorporatecreativethought on the part of the author?How should an encyclopedia be read-as a reference,or from cover to cover? Must the encyclopedist necessarily be a popularizer?A tantalizing, but unansweredquestion, for example, is whetherMaimonides'Mishneh Torahshould be thoughtof as an encyclopedia. On the one hand, it is concerned primarilywith Jewish law and not science and philosophy; on the other hand, as Woolf argues in his article, the comprehensivenessand "reader-friendliness"of the work underscoresits close relation to other medieval encyclopedias. Perhapsthe most we can hope for is a set of family resemblances among the various works that attempt, in one way or another,to systematize, survey and disseminatea largebody of materialto a largely non-technicalaudience. Surprisingly,however,there appearsto be little influence of the thirteenth-centuryLatin encyclopedias upon their Hebrew counterparts. Both Voorbij and Albrecht discuss importantdifferences between the two sets of works, the most importantbeing that unlike Latin encyclopedias, Hebrew encyclopedias did not contain retrievalmechanisms such as headers and indices. Harvey is to be commended for including in the anthology several importantarticles (Voorbij,Albrecht,Biesterfeldt,and Butterworth)thathelp to situatethe Hebrew works in the context of their scholastic and Arabic counterparts. The earliest Hebrew encyclopedias of science and philosophy include the Yesodeiha-Tevunahu-Migdalha-Emunahby Abrahambar Hiyya (see Rubio) and Levi ben Abrahamof Villefranche'sLivyatHen. Zev Harvey provides a penetrating examinationof this latterwork, which may have been written in orderto preparereadersto graspthe sciencenecessaryto understandMaimonides'Guidefor the Perplexed. Several chapters are devoted to the three major Hebrew thirteenthcentury encyclopedias written by Judahben Solomon (see Fontaine), Shem-Tov Falaquera(see S. Harvey), and Gershomben Solomon. Gershom ben Solomon's Sha'ar ha-Shamayim,analyzed in detail by Robinson, was by far the most popular encyclopedia of the three. Otherchaptersconsidermore technicaltopics containedin the variousencyclopedias. Manekinsurveys logic in the encyclopedias;mathematicalsciences are 147

AJS Review discussed by Levy; Glasneranalyzes the question of celestial matter;Freudenthal and Langermanndeal with astronomyand astrology;and Ivry and Zontaturnto the treatmentof the psychology of the soul and metaphysicsin a numberof encyclopedias. Following two articles on Hebrewencyclopediasof the fourteenthcentury (see Eisenman)and the Renaissance(see Melamed),Harveyincludes as an addendum an annotatedtranslation,preparedby Manekin, of Steinschneider'sgroundbreaking 1880s workon Hebrewencyclopedias.This studyis still of enormousbibliographical interest, and scholars await with anticipationthe translationof the complete work, which-thanks to Manekin'sefforts-will includeupdatedlists of the manuscriptsmentionedby Steinschneider. The importanceof these encyclopedias to an understandingof the development of medieval Jewish scientific advancementcannotbe overestimated.In many cases, they representthe full presentationof Aristotelianscience to medievalreaders; as Harvey argues, the encyclopedists saw their task as one of "gatheringand combining all availablescientific knowledgeinto a single book"(p. 25). Thusthese works tell us much aboutthe statusof medieval science. Yetthere is much scholarship still to be done. Harvey notes in his introductionthat one issue, discussed at the conference but not covered in the presentvolume, has to do with the piety and religious agenda of the encylopedists;one would hope thatthis issue will be examined in subsequent studies. Although some of the research has commenced already-works of Fontaine,Manekin, Jospe, and others-many of the encyclopedias await furtherediting and analysis. Both Langermannand Harvey have made an admirablyconvincingcase thatthere is a wealthof riches to be uncoveredin our continuingunderstandingof the relationbetween Judaismand medieval science. TamarRudavsky The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio

Renee Levine Melammed. Heretics or Daughters of Israel: The Crypto-Jewish Womenof Castile. New York:Oxford University Press, 1999. vi, 256 pp. The forced conversionsof perhapsa thirdof the Jews of Spain in 1391 presented significant dilemmas for the Spanish Crown,the Spanish Church,and the conversos themselves. While the Churchinsisted that baptism,even by force, was irrevocable,instructingand assimilating so many convertswas a majorchallenge. Conversos, too, were in a quandary:Some chose to relocate and revertto Judaism openly; others accepted their altered situation and not a few pursuednew possibilities in Churchand public roles; many marriedtheir childreninto Old Christian families. Therewere New Christians,however,who relinquishedneitherbirthplace nor heritage, choosing to observe Judaism surreptitiously.By the last decades of the fifteenth century,when an increasinglyanxious Churchencourageda reluctant Crown to establish an Inquisitiondirected at conversos engaging in Jewish practices, women had become a particulartarget. As Renee Levine Melammed ob148

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Judith R. Baskin Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 148-151 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131574 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:57 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

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AJS Review discussed by Levy; Glasneranalyzes the question of celestial matter;Freudenthal and Langermanndeal with astronomyand astrology;and Ivry and Zontaturnto the treatmentof the psychology of the soul and metaphysicsin a numberof encyclopedias. Following two articles on Hebrewencyclopediasof the fourteenthcentury (see Eisenman)and the Renaissance(see Melamed),Harveyincludes as an addendum an annotatedtranslation,preparedby Manekin, of Steinschneider'sgroundbreaking 1880s workon Hebrewencyclopedias.This studyis still of enormousbibliographical interest, and scholars await with anticipationthe translationof the complete work, which-thanks to Manekin'sefforts-will includeupdatedlists of the manuscriptsmentionedby Steinschneider. The importanceof these encyclopedias to an understandingof the development of medieval Jewish scientific advancementcannotbe overestimated.In many cases, they representthe full presentationof Aristotelianscience to medievalreaders; as Harvey argues, the encyclopedists saw their task as one of "gatheringand combining all availablescientific knowledgeinto a single book"(p. 25). Thusthese works tell us much aboutthe statusof medieval science. Yetthere is much scholarship still to be done. Harvey notes in his introductionthat one issue, discussed at the conference but not covered in the presentvolume, has to do with the piety and religious agenda of the encylopedists;one would hope thatthis issue will be examined in subsequent studies. Although some of the research has commenced already-works of Fontaine,Manekin, Jospe, and others-many of the encyclopedias await furtherediting and analysis. Both Langermannand Harvey have made an admirablyconvincingcase thatthere is a wealthof riches to be uncoveredin our continuingunderstandingof the relationbetween Judaismand medieval science. TamarRudavsky The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio

Renee Levine Melammed. Heretics or Daughters of Israel: The Crypto-Jewish Womenof Castile. New York:Oxford University Press, 1999. vi, 256 pp. The forced conversionsof perhapsa thirdof the Jews of Spain in 1391 presented significant dilemmas for the Spanish Crown,the Spanish Church,and the conversos themselves. While the Churchinsisted that baptism,even by force, was irrevocable,instructingand assimilating so many convertswas a majorchallenge. Conversos, too, were in a quandary:Some chose to relocate and revertto Judaism openly; others accepted their altered situation and not a few pursuednew possibilities in Churchand public roles; many marriedtheir childreninto Old Christian families. Therewere New Christians,however,who relinquishedneitherbirthplace nor heritage, choosing to observe Judaism surreptitiously.By the last decades of the fifteenth century,when an increasinglyanxious Churchencourageda reluctant Crown to establish an Inquisitiondirected at conversos engaging in Jewish practices, women had become a particulartarget. As Renee Levine Melammed ob148

Book Reviews serves in her detailed and well-arguedanalyses of Inquisitionproceedings against women accused ofjudaizing, "The Inquisitorsrealized the unusual importanceof the home in crypto-Judaismand understoodthatwomen willingly became the carriersof the traditionthey viewed as inimical"(p. 15). Melammed'sdelineations of the interactionsbetween these women and their adversaries in the inquisitorial courts demonstratesthe determinationof some conversa women to subvert the teachings of the Churchand risk prison or death to provide for the Jewish continuity of their families. Melammed divides her analyses of Inquisition confession books and trial transcriptsinto three periods:the pre-expulsionera from 1391 to 1492, when conversos could still interactwith Jews; the years immediately following the expulsion, from 1492 to 1550; and the end of the sixteenth century,when New Christians who had been born as Jews were gone but their descendantsremained. She points out thatthe Spanishmonarchsjustified their 1492 edict of expulsion by accusing Jews of encouragingNew Christiansto participatein Jewish rituals, practices, and expressionsof belief. Melammedfinds thatJews did not, in fact, actively proselytize. Rather,conversos who were so inclined sought out and relied on Jews for moral, spiritual,and ritualsupport,such as providingkoshermeat and matzah, and frequentlyvisited synagogues. Moreover,New Christianssometimes provided funds to rebuild devastatedJewish communities and institutions.In one Inquisition proceeding, a conversanamed Beatriz Gonzalez of Toledo was accused of bathing, cutting her nails, wearing clean clothes, going barefoot, and asking forgiveness of othersonYomKippur,"andsome nightsbefore the GreatFast,she went to the synagogue to see how the candles burnedand how the Jews prayedand she heardthem" (p. 28). Many confessions to similar acts by accusedjudaizers leave no doubtthat by living in close proximityto Jews, New Christianswho wished to continue Jewish practices could easily do so. Melammed notes that following the expulsion, when the converso community lost its sole source of "Jewish"food, wine, and books, as well as active Jewish models, clandestine religious practice inevitably began to diverge from normative Judaism.It is in this period, she argues, that women's domestic activities, including preparingSabbathmeals, putting on clean Sabbathgarments, baking matzah, and observing dietary laws, became especially central to crypto-Jewish life as men were deprived of the public domain in which they had traditionally functioned. Indeed, the female commandmentsof kindling Sabbathlights, burning dough from the Sabbathloaves, and,to the extent possible, niddahobservance, emergedas majorsymbols of crypto-Judaismas women became the primarybearers of Jewish culture. Around 1500, a numberof messianic visionaries of Jewish ancestryclaimed to be prophetsbearinga message of salvationspecifically directedat conversos.At least two, Ines of Herreraand Mari G6mez of Chill6n, were women, and both preacheda returnto Jewishpracticesso that God would take conversosout of captivity and transportthem to the Holy Land.Melammeddetails how the Inquisition acted quicklyto condemnand eliminatethese visionariesand their supporters,successfully stoppinga movementwith obvious appealto the New Christiancommunity. She does not explore, however,whetherexposureto Christianity,with its many 149

AJS Review female saints and visionaries,might have set the stage for a degree of female empowermentotherwiseall but unknownin Jewishmessianicmovements. The conversalived in an environmentof suspicion in which virtuallyany encounterwith an Old Christiancould promptthe filing of an accusationwith the local Inquisition. Servantswho worked alongside conversahousewives had numerous opportunitiesto observe unusualfood preparationand dietarybehavior,while the nature of their subservient position often led to resentment towards their employers. In the second part of her book, Melammed analyzes several trials of accused judaizers, detailing the complexity of the legal system as well as the determinationof inquisitorsto quash any perceivedjudaizing proclivities. In the simultaneoustrialsof two women and one man fromthe same family, she shows how the social interactionsof a small town were laid bare as a large percentageof the town'spopulationbecame involved in or were mentionedin the proceedings.Since the accused were not told who had testified against them, they had to document any possible quarrel,employer-servantrancor,propertyfeud, family vendetta,or sexual intrigue that might have led to their denunciationto the authorities.These tachas, long lists of individualswith possible grievancesagainstthe accused,were essential since a witness's testimony could be discreditedif an ulteriormotive was proved. Melammed discusses the fascinatingcase of Beatriz Rodriguez,a Castilian midwife. The Inquisitionpersistentlycollected informationabouther overa period of fifty years and frequentlysummonedher to court.Melammedsuggests thattensions between midwives and male authorityfigures, especially clerics, were as influential here as any judaizing by Beatriz. Noting attemptsduring this period to impose legal limitationson midwives in some Spanishcities, she asks, "Wasthis conversamidwife a heretic,or was she a strong,independentwomanwhose actions and attitudesmight have perturbedthe inquisitoreven if she had not been a New Christian?"(p. 145). In 1550, after many years of harassment,Beatrizwas forced to submit to a trial at the age of almost seventy.Althoughultimatelyreconciledto the Churchand permittedto go home, confiscation of all the propertyshe had acquired over the previous fifty years effectively condemned her to an old age of povertyand shame.Thereseems little evidence thatBeatrizherself was involvedin any significantcrypto-Jewishpractices;however,Melammed'sfinal chapterreveals how trial transcriptsfrom late sixteenth-centuryAlcazar indicatethat descendants of conversos in a remote partof Spain still retaineda high degree of Jewish observance. While the communityundoubtedlyincluded knowledgeablecrypto-Jewish men, Melammedpoints out that, "Alongsidethem, workingin tandemor on parallel levels, were their sisters, nieces, mothers,and daughters"(p. 165). Scholarly debates over such issues as how many conversos deliberatelyretained Jewish practices,the proportionof those New Christiansdenouncedto the Inquisitionwho were actually guilty of knowinglyjudaizing, the real motivations of the Inquisitionin targetingNew Christiansand the extentto which it did so, and the reliabilityof Inquisitiontestimony,muchof it obtainedundertorture,haveraged in recent decades. Melammeddoes not addressthese controversiesdirectlybut assumes thatthe inquisitorswere sincerelylooking forjudaizersandthatmost of their accusationshad a factualbasis. She praisesIsabelGarcia,who was able to convince 150

Book Reviews the inquisitorsof the sincerityof her Christianity,as "a consciousjudaizerwho beat the system"(p. 44). Yet Isabel'stranscript,which reveals a syncretisticmerging of Jewishand Christianpractices,indicatesthatthe realitycould have been more ambiguous.In some instancesilliterateandignorantdefendantsmay haveunthinkingly maintainedtraditionaldomestic and family customs alongside Christianbeliefs. Nevertheless, the details Melammed painstakinglyamasses indisputablydemonstratethat some conversawomen did play centraland courageousroles in resisting the attemptsof the Churchand Inquisitionto eradicatetheir Jewish identification and heritage.Her importantand readablebook, which includes severalappendices of Inquisitiondocuments, demonstratesthe significance and usefulness of such records when carefully read and adds new substance and nuance to our understandingof the role of gender in one of the defining epochs of Jewish history. JudithR. Baskin State University of New Yorkat Albany Albany,New York

Yitzhak(Eric) Zimmer. TheFiery Embersof the Scholars: the Trialsand Tribulations of German Rabbis in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik for Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press, 1999. xii, 355 pp. (Hebrew). Germanrabbisof the sixteenthcentury,as Eric Zimmerremarksin his introduction,were not for the most partvery distinguished;they publishedrelativelylitben Bezalel) achievedeven moderatefame. Nevtle, andonly one of them (HIIayyim ertheless,Zimmerhas lavishedhis attentionon these forgottenfigures-David of Fulda,AbrahamStang Diilken,Isaac Ginzberg,and others-and his thirtyyears of patientresearchof manuscriptsources(some of which he publisheshere) have culminatedin this book. The book is less thana complete survey of the topic, and still shows some signs of havingbeen publishedinitiallyas separatearticlesand studies. Zimmerpresentsa series of snapshots,groupedaroundthe theme of conflict;these Germanrabbis,distinguishedor not, did not lack for quarrels. The title of the work-from Pirkei Avot: "Beware the fiery embers of the scholars,for theirbite is the bite ofj ackals"-signals the overarchingtheme. Zimmer leads his readersthroughthe messy stories of rabbinicconflicts, such as the ugly quarrelof the Ginzbergfamily against the rabbis of Frankfurt,including the unsuccessfulbattlesof David of Fuldaagainsta certainJewishdoctorandthe many conflicts over the receptionof the ShulhanArukh,whose foes were led by Ijayyim ben Bezalel; disagreements over loans, over divorces, over kashrut, over prayer customs, overwhat sort of buildingmay be built next to a synagogue;and conflicts overjurisdiction, over power, and especially over prestige, kavod. Writs of herem were sometimes issued; recourse by one or both parties to the non-Jewish courts was frequent;occasionally someone was throwninto prison;the rabbinicrhetoric (then as now) was heated. 151

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Joseph Davis Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 151-152 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131575 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:57 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews the inquisitorsof the sincerityof her Christianity,as "a consciousjudaizerwho beat the system"(p. 44). Yet Isabel'stranscript,which reveals a syncretisticmerging of Jewishand Christianpractices,indicatesthatthe realitycould have been more ambiguous.In some instancesilliterateandignorantdefendantsmay haveunthinkingly maintainedtraditionaldomestic and family customs alongside Christianbeliefs. Nevertheless, the details Melammed painstakinglyamasses indisputablydemonstratethat some conversawomen did play centraland courageousroles in resisting the attemptsof the Churchand Inquisitionto eradicatetheir Jewish identification and heritage.Her importantand readablebook, which includes severalappendices of Inquisitiondocuments, demonstratesthe significance and usefulness of such records when carefully read and adds new substance and nuance to our understandingof the role of gender in one of the defining epochs of Jewish history. JudithR. Baskin State University of New Yorkat Albany Albany,New York

Yitzhak(Eric) Zimmer. TheFiery Embersof the Scholars: the Trialsand Tribulations of German Rabbis in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik for Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press, 1999. xii, 355 pp. (Hebrew). Germanrabbisof the sixteenthcentury,as Eric Zimmerremarksin his introduction,were not for the most partvery distinguished;they publishedrelativelylitben Bezalel) achievedeven moderatefame. Nevtle, andonly one of them (HIIayyim ertheless,Zimmerhas lavishedhis attentionon these forgottenfigures-David of Fulda,AbrahamStang Diilken,Isaac Ginzberg,and others-and his thirtyyears of patientresearchof manuscriptsources(some of which he publisheshere) have culminatedin this book. The book is less thana complete survey of the topic, and still shows some signs of havingbeen publishedinitiallyas separatearticlesand studies. Zimmerpresentsa series of snapshots,groupedaroundthe theme of conflict;these Germanrabbis,distinguishedor not, did not lack for quarrels. The title of the work-from Pirkei Avot: "Beware the fiery embers of the scholars,for theirbite is the bite ofj ackals"-signals the overarchingtheme. Zimmer leads his readersthroughthe messy stories of rabbinicconflicts, such as the ugly quarrelof the Ginzbergfamily against the rabbis of Frankfurt,including the unsuccessfulbattlesof David of Fuldaagainsta certainJewishdoctorandthe many conflicts over the receptionof the ShulhanArukh,whose foes were led by Ijayyim ben Bezalel; disagreements over loans, over divorces, over kashrut, over prayer customs, overwhat sort of buildingmay be built next to a synagogue;and conflicts overjurisdiction, over power, and especially over prestige, kavod. Writs of herem were sometimes issued; recourse by one or both parties to the non-Jewish courts was frequent;occasionally someone was throwninto prison;the rabbinicrhetoric (then as now) was heated. 151

AJS Review Like Israel Yuval, to whose book on the fourteenth-and fifteenth-century Germanrabbinatethis book is in some sense the sequel, Zimmertakes a prosopographic approach.That is, he illustrateshis subjectby the biographicaltreatment of selected representativefigures. Zimmerfocuses on fewerindividualsthanYuval, and he is more successful in portrayingthem as individuals.More thanYuval,he focuses on the variationsthat separatedthe careerof a village rabbifrom that of a city rabbi, or a major scholar from a lesser one. In the laterMiddle Ages, Yuvalhas argued,processes of professionalization and sacralizationtended to make the rabbinateinto a class of sacralfunctionaries, sharplydistinguishedfrom the lay leadership,whose powermuch exceeded theirs, and who to a great extent defined the rabbinate'sduties and powers. Zimmeraccepts Yuval'sthesis and arguesthat duringthe sixteenth century,the Germanrabbinate, if anything,tended to lose power even further. In such a situation,the stakes of some of these intra-rabbinicconflicts were therefore quite small. Zimmer's interest, however,is not in the stakes, but in the complex fault lines which these conflicts lay bare. He finds conflicts between rabbis, kehilah leaders, and (later) court Jews; between clans or patronagegroups (such as the Ginzbergsand theirclients); betweenthe largercommunities--Frankfurt, Worms, and Prague-and the smaller ones; between "qualified"(yeshivahtrained)rabbisand unqualifiedrabbis;between Polish (and Polish-trained)rabbis and German ones; and between regional rabbisand local rabbis.The overall picture is thus one of the complex interactionof multiplepowercenters, a picturethat fits well into the largerpicture of the infinitely complex power structure,lay and clerical, of the Holy Roman Empire. It is a truismthat historiansare influenced by theirtimes and their societies. Even if they are careful andjudicious scholars, as Zimmer surely is, they may be influenced by contemporaryconcerns in their choice of topic or focus. In a sense, this is a very Israelibook. Zimmerchooses the theme of conflict as the lens through which to view his subjects,and in consequence producesan image of a highly contentious, highly politicized rabbinateof sacral functionaries.We would not be wrong, I would suggest, to see in this image the reflection of a certainview of the Israeli rabbinate. Joseph Davis GratzCollege Philadelphia,Pennsylvania

Don Harrain.Salamone Rossi: Jewish Musician in Late Renaissance Mantua.Oxford Monographs on Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. x, 310 pp. Salamone Rossi (c. 1570-c. 1630) is a fascinatingbut enigmaticfigure. The man who epitomizes the Jewish participationin the ItalianRenaissance left only 152

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Joshua R. Jacobson Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 152-155 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131576 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:57 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review Like Israel Yuval, to whose book on the fourteenth-and fifteenth-century Germanrabbinatethis book is in some sense the sequel, Zimmertakes a prosopographic approach.That is, he illustrateshis subjectby the biographicaltreatment of selected representativefigures. Zimmerfocuses on fewerindividualsthanYuval, and he is more successful in portrayingthem as individuals.More thanYuval,he focuses on the variationsthat separatedthe careerof a village rabbifrom that of a city rabbi, or a major scholar from a lesser one. In the laterMiddle Ages, Yuvalhas argued,processes of professionalization and sacralizationtended to make the rabbinateinto a class of sacralfunctionaries, sharplydistinguishedfrom the lay leadership,whose powermuch exceeded theirs, and who to a great extent defined the rabbinate'sduties and powers. Zimmeraccepts Yuval'sthesis and arguesthat duringthe sixteenth century,the Germanrabbinate, if anything,tended to lose power even further. In such a situation,the stakes of some of these intra-rabbinicconflicts were therefore quite small. Zimmer's interest, however,is not in the stakes, but in the complex fault lines which these conflicts lay bare. He finds conflicts between rabbis, kehilah leaders, and (later) court Jews; between clans or patronagegroups (such as the Ginzbergsand theirclients); betweenthe largercommunities--Frankfurt, Worms, and Prague-and the smaller ones; between "qualified"(yeshivahtrained)rabbisand unqualifiedrabbis;between Polish (and Polish-trained)rabbis and German ones; and between regional rabbisand local rabbis.The overall picture is thus one of the complex interactionof multiplepowercenters, a picturethat fits well into the largerpicture of the infinitely complex power structure,lay and clerical, of the Holy Roman Empire. It is a truismthat historiansare influenced by theirtimes and their societies. Even if they are careful andjudicious scholars, as Zimmer surely is, they may be influenced by contemporaryconcerns in their choice of topic or focus. In a sense, this is a very Israelibook. Zimmerchooses the theme of conflict as the lens through which to view his subjects,and in consequence producesan image of a highly contentious, highly politicized rabbinateof sacral functionaries.We would not be wrong, I would suggest, to see in this image the reflection of a certainview of the Israeli rabbinate. Joseph Davis GratzCollege Philadelphia,Pennsylvania

Don Harrain.Salamone Rossi: Jewish Musician in Late Renaissance Mantua.Oxford Monographs on Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. x, 310 pp. Salamone Rossi (c. 1570-c. 1630) is a fascinatingbut enigmaticfigure. The man who epitomizes the Jewish participationin the ItalianRenaissance left only 152

Book Reviews a few meager footprintsin history.We know of Rossi only from his thirteen surviving publicationsand from the appearanceof his name in the Mantuanarchives. He was all but forgotten until 1876, when Samuel Naumbourg, Chief Cantorof Paris,publisheda modem edition of fifty-two of Rossi's compositions. Foryet another hundredyears Rossi would remainfor the most part hidden in the shadows. Not until the past four decades has Rossi's music been extensively and seriously published,performed,recorded,and studied. Rossi was a man who moved freely between two worlds. Because of his enormous talent, he was hired by the Gonzaga family to serve as violinist and composer for the ducal court. Vincenzo Gonzaga even exempted Rossi from wearing the yellow Jew-badge,and grantedhim the privilege of free passage between the ghetto and the ducal court. Rossi was an avant garde musician. He was the first composer to publish concerted madrigals(1600-five years before Monteverdi). He was the first composer to publish trio sonatas (1607-ten years before Marini). He was the only composer in Mantuato publish both instrumentaland vocal music. His madrigalsare based on texts by the ultra-modemmanneristpoets. But Rossi was equally at home in the narrowerworld of the Jewish community. He was active in the Jewishtheaterof Mantuaas composer and performer.At the suggestion of Rabbi Leone da Modena, Rossi composed polyphonic settings of selected texts fromthe synagogueliturgy.Publishedin 1622/23, Ha-ShirimAsher LiShlomo,the first anthology of choral music for the synagogue, constituteda radical breakwith tradition.Bringing the styles of the madrigal,the balletto, and the churchmotet into the synagogue was a controversialmove-one that incurred both approbationand censure. In an attemptto deflect the criticism, Rossi prefaced his publicationwith a lengthyresponsumby Rabbida Modena,justifying this radicalpractice. But Rossi's music is not merely a historical curiosity,it's great art! Why has it taken so long for Rossi to be accordedhis due? Forseveralcenturiesafter Rossi's death, as the Jews of Italy retreatedinto their ghettos, there was no context for his synagoguepolyphony.Furthermore,in the non-Jewishworld,for most of the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturiesthe styles of the pre-classical period were considered passe. But in the twentieth century there has been a growing understanding of and enthusiasmfor "earlymusic." Harrnn'srecentmonograph,the first full-length study of this innovativemusician, is the culminationof nearlytwo decades of fastidious researchand analysis.1 Like a Sherlock Holmes, the authorhas pored over the sparse clues and immersed himself in his subject'senvironment.He expresses himself with authority in fields rangingfrom choreography,music, andpoetry to Jewishhistory andpractice. Harranis a meticulous researcher:He has counted every measure in Rossi's oeuvre, sung every verse of Rossi's strophiccanzonets, and analyzed every chord and contrapuntaldevice. Harranis careful about how he weighs his evidence. He will often suggest, 1. This publicationcoincides with the release of Harrin'sequally fastidious edition of the complete works of Salamone Rossi in modern, scholarly editions.

153

AJS Review but will rarely assert, a definitive conclusion. Forexample, the authorstates that it is a "reasonablepossibility" that Rossi's sacred music might have been performed in the setting of the Jewish confraternities(p. 217), andthat Rossi "might have even tried out some of the songs in Sara [Copio]'s house" (p. 34). In response to a surprising document from 1645 in which Rabbi Nathaniel Trabotto asserts that his late wife had sung Rossi's setting of the Kedushah, Harrin carefully posits, "But what if these sacred songs were not performed in prayerservices?" (p. 24). Harrin points out thatthe title of Rossi's collection of synagoguemusic, HaShirimAsher LiShlomo, is more thanjust a play on words. He reminds us of the well-established rabbinicalconvention of choosing titles which included the author's name in a Biblical citation, such as Isaac Arama'sAkedat Yitzhakor Judah Moscato's Nefutsot Yehudah.Harrin deduces thatby identifyinghimself with this convention, Rossi hoped to balance his modernitywith a grounding in tradition. It is interesting to note the evolution in Harrin's attitude towards Rossi's innovations in synagogue music. In 1987 he wrote that Rossi and Modena " ... wished to dispense with the conventionsof Jewish prayermelody, replacing them by a music based on the best featuresof the Italianartmusic tradition."2But in the present monographhe admits, "The polyphonic song ... via the 'Songs of Solomon,' supplemented [the synagogue chant]-notice that I did not say 'replaced it', for Rossi's intention was not to reform, but to expand the synagogue repertory..." (p. 254). Given the exhaustivenatureof this study,it seems odd to discover any lacunae. And yet Harrin misses a few connections between Rossi's synagogue compositions and churchmusic practice. In his analysis of Rossi's use of triple meter (p. 226) he fails to mention that the triplumis often used in churchmotets to designate rejoicing and to refer to the trinity.Thus the shift to the quickerdance-like tripletime in Psalm 128 underscoresthejoyous text, "yoursons will be olive shoots around your table."3In Adon Olam the triplumappearstwice, in both cases inspired by a quasi "trinity"of divine attributes:"And He was, and He is, and He shall be in glory"and "AndHe is my God, andmy living Redeemer,anda Rock for my suffering in a day of distress." Harrin is fully cognizantof Rossi's attractionto the balletto. It is curiousthat he misses the fact thatthe Kaddisha5 is modeledon this popularRenaissancedance form. And while calling attentionto Rossi's unusuallydarkscoring of Psalm 137 (Al Naharot Bavel), he seems unawarethat Rossi is merely following the accepted practice for composing church lamentations.4 But these are but a few tiny lapses in a work of carefuland thoroughscholarship. This is a fascinating study of a pre-modernJew coping with the dialectic that we normally associate with modernity:preserving Jewish identity in a non2. Don Harrin, "Salamone Rossi: Jewish Musician in Renaissance Italy,"Acta Musicologica 59/1 (1987): 61. 3. Not, as Harrin suggests, reactingto the word "around"[saviv] to indicate circularity. 4. Fora descriptionof this practice, see PietroCerone's 1613 handbook,El melopeoy maestro.

154

Book Reviews Jewish environment,communicatingwith both Jews and non-Jews, moving ahead with bold innovationsin the context of ancient traditions. Joshua R. Jacobson NortheasternUniversity Boston, Massachusetts

Keith H. Pickus. ConstructingModern Identities: Jewish UniversityStudents in Germany,1815-1914. Detroit:Wayne State University Press, 1999. 222 pp. Given the centralityof educationfor all programsto transformJewish society and ready the Jews for civic integrationin Europe, the disproportionateuse modernizingJews actually made of non-Jewish education, and the particularzeal of GermanJews for Bildung, Keith Pickus' book treats an importanttheme: the identityof Jewish studentsin Germanuniversities.It sets out to explore how young adultsconstructeda sense of self when loosed from familial moorings andgrouped with non-Jewish peers in an era of unprecedentedopenness as well as continuing hostility, an importantquestion in itself that is also significant because the university-educatedelite were disproportionatelylikely to lead or speak for the GermanJewish community in its main defense organization(the Central Verein, led overwhelminglyby men trainedin law) in the rabbinate,in welfare institutions and in political groups. Pickususes some importantarchivalsources:studentpublicationsandmemoirs (particularlythe holdings of the Leo Baeck Institute,New York).He makes a number of valuable observations:that organized anti-Jewish activity in German universitiesfaced opposition, and not only from Jews; that despite the widespread hostility Jewish studentsfaced, those who founded andjoined Jewish studentorganizations were not simply responding defensively to Jew-hatredbut were part of a broader,affirmative struggle to create a German-Jewishidentity in this era. He looks at students who joined or founded a wide range or organizations,from dueling societies to academic ones, Jewish and nondenominational,and rightly groundsthe impetus of Jews-men, and once they were admittedto universities, women-to found orjoin such organizationsin the Germanproclivity,in and outside the university,in a desire for "activeassociationallife" (p. 87, see too p. 145). Thus, even the foundingof Jewishassociations, far from demonstratingsimple defensiveness or separateness, was an expression of acculturation,of "Germanness"-at the same time, Pickus insists, that it was a venue for asserting Jewishness. In this, he usefully applies categories of analysis developed by Shulamit Bolkov and David Sorkin. The book as a whole has a number of problems. For most of it, we lack a sense of who Pickus' subjectsare. He writes of many organizationswithouttelling us about their founders or joiners: where they were from; what disciplines they studied;their religious affiliations, if any; or how, if at all, their studentactivism 155

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Shulamit Magnus Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 155-157 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131577 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:57 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews Jewish environment,communicatingwith both Jews and non-Jews, moving ahead with bold innovationsin the context of ancient traditions. Joshua R. Jacobson NortheasternUniversity Boston, Massachusetts

Keith H. Pickus. ConstructingModern Identities: Jewish UniversityStudents in Germany,1815-1914. Detroit:Wayne State University Press, 1999. 222 pp. Given the centralityof educationfor all programsto transformJewish society and ready the Jews for civic integrationin Europe, the disproportionateuse modernizingJews actually made of non-Jewish education, and the particularzeal of GermanJews for Bildung, Keith Pickus' book treats an importanttheme: the identityof Jewish studentsin Germanuniversities.It sets out to explore how young adultsconstructeda sense of self when loosed from familial moorings andgrouped with non-Jewish peers in an era of unprecedentedopenness as well as continuing hostility, an importantquestion in itself that is also significant because the university-educatedelite were disproportionatelylikely to lead or speak for the GermanJewish community in its main defense organization(the Central Verein, led overwhelminglyby men trainedin law) in the rabbinate,in welfare institutions and in political groups. Pickususes some importantarchivalsources:studentpublicationsandmemoirs (particularlythe holdings of the Leo Baeck Institute,New York).He makes a number of valuable observations:that organized anti-Jewish activity in German universitiesfaced opposition, and not only from Jews; that despite the widespread hostility Jewish studentsfaced, those who founded andjoined Jewish studentorganizations were not simply responding defensively to Jew-hatredbut were part of a broader,affirmative struggle to create a German-Jewishidentity in this era. He looks at students who joined or founded a wide range or organizations,from dueling societies to academic ones, Jewish and nondenominational,and rightly groundsthe impetus of Jews-men, and once they were admittedto universities, women-to found orjoin such organizationsin the Germanproclivity,in and outside the university,in a desire for "activeassociationallife" (p. 87, see too p. 145). Thus, even the foundingof Jewishassociations, far from demonstratingsimple defensiveness or separateness, was an expression of acculturation,of "Germanness"-at the same time, Pickus insists, that it was a venue for asserting Jewishness. In this, he usefully applies categories of analysis developed by Shulamit Bolkov and David Sorkin. The book as a whole has a number of problems. For most of it, we lack a sense of who Pickus' subjectsare. He writes of many organizationswithouttelling us about their founders or joiners: where they were from; what disciplines they studied;their religious affiliations, if any; or how, if at all, their studentactivism 155

AJS Review carried over into their later lives. Except for the photographthat adornsthe book, the groups largelylack a humanface; the book is less aboutstudentsandtheir identities than about organizations and their positions, treated in rathermechanistic progression. The lack of certain quantitativedata is a persistentfrustration:How many members did the various student groups have (especially the Jewish or Jewish-dominatedgroups, e.g., Kartell Convent,Kadimah, YoungIsrael, Jewish National Association)? Pickus provides some tables for years and associations in which the numberof Jewish university studentswas minuscule but does not provide them for the main years and organizationsof his study.One wonderswhatpercentage of Jewish universitystudents(per university,overall)joined Jewishor other associations, and how this comparedwith the membershiprates of Catholicsor Protestantsor religiously unaffiliated students. Pickus tells us (p. 113) that more than fifty percentof the total studentbody remained"unaffiliated,"yet he does not tell us if the same statisticheld true for Jewish students,explicitly avoidingthe importantquestion of whetherJews tended to affiliate more, less, or in the same proportion as non-Jewishstudents(p. 188, n. 1). Moreover,he tells us thatJewish students who did notjoin "Jewishfraternal"organizationstendedto join "a scholarly association" (p. 128), leading this reader to wonder whether the distinction between type of organizationwas less importantthan the act of joining or creating some form of association. There is a narrownessof focus that borderson the pedantic. Pickus discusses some student groups that had a heavy east EuropeanJewish component and notes that "Jewishstudentsfrom easternEuropegreatlycontributedto the creation of the first national Jewish studentassociation in Germany"(p. 104). Yet, astonishingly for a period when east EuropeanJewish influence on GermanJewishculture was so important,he ignores the eastern students-who were, afterall, "Jewish University Students in Germany,"too-and proceeds to write about only the German-bornones (or, in the case of the Association of Russian Jewish Academics, one). He tells us that one studentgroup in Berlin foundedby east European Jewish students eventually became indigenous, but he does not explore why and how this passage came about. He mentions the importantBiennese Jewish student organization,Kadimah,yet he does not study it as a parallelphenomenonor model. All this is an overly narrowapproachto the question of GermanJewish identity in the Wilhelminianera, which, despite the book's announcedtimeline, is in fact about the Wilhelminianyears.The memoirs he uses are analyzedconsecutivelyin the fashionof explicationde texte, ratherthantreatedthematicallyor integratedinto his narrativeabout the organizations,which might therebyhave been humanized. Pickus makes a numberof assertionsthathis analysis has not supportedand misses crucial connections. He repeatedly states that various student groups promoted Jewish identity,yet he himself illustrateshow vacuous a sense of "Jewishness" many of these groupshad. Indeed,the struggleto identitythe contentof Jewishness was much of what this era was about, for Germansas for all modernizing Jews. Ratherthan protest overmuch for his subjects by asserting that they had a clearer vision than they in fact possessed (or is, perhaps, fair to expect at that point), Pickus should have acknowledged and problematizedthis question and contextualized it in the largerstruggles of modern GermanJewish culture.Pickus 156

Book Reviews says (pp. 95-96) that the members of a Jewish student group in Breslau adumbrated a definition of dual Germanand Jewish identity that would later become the credo of the CentralVerein,yet he does not elaborateon the significance of this connection. It is not even clear he is claiming there was one: Werethe founders of the CV awareof and did they drawupon this precedent,or had this kind of thinking aboutGermanJewish identitybecome broadcurrencyin GermanJewryby the time this studentgroup as well as the CV were formed? Pickus does not even tell readerswhat the CV was. He notes but does not explore the similaritybetween the argumentsof two studentorganizationsaboutJewishnationalidentity andthe split on this samequestionbetweenthe CV and the GermanZionist Organization,thereby missing anotheropportunityto have shown the larger implications of his subject. Pickus' writing is clear, although there are some hackneyed images that should have been cut. He asserts that "a social history of German Jewry is still lacking," (p. 108) a curious statement given the work of Jacob Toury, Monika Richarz, Steven Lowenstein,and MarionKaplan,among others, as well as the recent multivolumeseries edited by Michael Meyer, which pays serious attentionto social history. In sum, there is value in this workand,at the same time, a need for its broader implications to be drawn so that we may come away not just with facts about Jewish universitystudentsbut with new knowledge aboutGermanJewry and Jewish modernity. ShulamitMagnus Oberlin College Oberlin, Ohio

Henry Abramson.A Prayerfor the Government:Ukrainiansand Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917-1920. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press for the UkrainianResearch Instituteand Center for Jewish Studies, HarvardUniversity, 1999. xix, 255 pp. Henry Abramsonhas chosen an appropriatelyambiguous title for his study of the short-lived alliance between Ukrainian and Jewish nationalists, a rapprochementwhich owed both its hopeful beginning and its violent end to the fate of Ukrainianindependencein the crucibleof war and revolutionthatbroughtdown the tsaristempire. Revising the pogrom paradigmprevalentin much of the scholarship on Ukrainian-Jewishrelations,Abramsonargues that following the fall of the Romanovs leaders of Jewish partiesjustifiably invested their hopes for civic and political emancipationin the autonomousregional governmentof the Ukrainian Rada,formed in 1917 underthe liberal auspices of Russia'snewly established ProvisionalGovernment.Ironically,the dreamdied a brutaldeath in the course of its own realization.The Russianwithdrawalunderthe terms of the treatyof BrestLitovsk opened a window of opportunityfor the fulfillment of Ukrainiannational 157

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Olga Litvak Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 157-159 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131578 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:57 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews says (pp. 95-96) that the members of a Jewish student group in Breslau adumbrated a definition of dual Germanand Jewish identity that would later become the credo of the CentralVerein,yet he does not elaborateon the significance of this connection. It is not even clear he is claiming there was one: Werethe founders of the CV awareof and did they drawupon this precedent,or had this kind of thinking aboutGermanJewish identitybecome broadcurrencyin GermanJewryby the time this studentgroup as well as the CV were formed? Pickus does not even tell readerswhat the CV was. He notes but does not explore the similaritybetween the argumentsof two studentorganizationsaboutJewishnationalidentity andthe split on this samequestionbetweenthe CV and the GermanZionist Organization,thereby missing anotheropportunityto have shown the larger implications of his subject. Pickus' writing is clear, although there are some hackneyed images that should have been cut. He asserts that "a social history of German Jewry is still lacking," (p. 108) a curious statement given the work of Jacob Toury, Monika Richarz, Steven Lowenstein,and MarionKaplan,among others, as well as the recent multivolumeseries edited by Michael Meyer, which pays serious attentionto social history. In sum, there is value in this workand,at the same time, a need for its broader implications to be drawn so that we may come away not just with facts about Jewish universitystudentsbut with new knowledge aboutGermanJewry and Jewish modernity. ShulamitMagnus Oberlin College Oberlin, Ohio

Henry Abramson.A Prayerfor the Government:Ukrainiansand Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917-1920. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press for the UkrainianResearch Instituteand Center for Jewish Studies, HarvardUniversity, 1999. xix, 255 pp. Henry Abramsonhas chosen an appropriatelyambiguous title for his study of the short-lived alliance between Ukrainian and Jewish nationalists, a rapprochementwhich owed both its hopeful beginning and its violent end to the fate of Ukrainianindependencein the crucibleof war and revolutionthatbroughtdown the tsaristempire. Revising the pogrom paradigmprevalentin much of the scholarship on Ukrainian-Jewishrelations,Abramsonargues that following the fall of the Romanovs leaders of Jewish partiesjustifiably invested their hopes for civic and political emancipationin the autonomousregional governmentof the Ukrainian Rada,formed in 1917 underthe liberal auspices of Russia'snewly established ProvisionalGovernment.Ironically,the dreamdied a brutaldeath in the course of its own realization.The Russianwithdrawalunderthe terms of the treatyof BrestLitovsk opened a window of opportunityfor the fulfillment of Ukrainiannational 157

AJS Review aspirations.The ensuing period between the Germanwithdrawaland the defeat of the UkrainianNational Republic by the Bolsheviks saw the transferof powerto a conservative regime, increasingly beleaguered by the chaos of Civil War,socioeconomic dislocation, and the excesses of local Cossack rule. In the durationof the short and troubledexistence of the Republic, its new government,headed by Symon Petliura,a man whose name still carriesits associationwith Ukrainianantisemitism, proved unable to exercise effective control over the violence raging throughoutthe formerPale of Settlement. Using new archival evidence, Abramson shows that Jews in Petliura's Ukraine had less to fear from the governmentthan from a lack thereof. In a situation of almost total anarchy,contemporaryJews-unlike their conspiracy-minded descendants-associated the attainmentof Ukrainianindependencewith the fateful absence of law and orderratherthan with an ideologically motivatedand centrally planned program of mass murder carried out by Petliura'swilling executioners. In 1917, Jews had every reason to prayfor the fledgling governmentof a newly autonomousUkraine. By 1919, they would find themselves directingtheir prayers for protectionto a successor state which could hardly guaranteelife and limb, let alone ensurethe civic and political equality of its Jewish constituency. Stressingthe links between the politics of the Jewish-Ukrainianhoneymoon of 1917 and the catastrophicturn of events in 1919, Abramson dislodges antisemitism from its pride of place in the oft-recountedtale of the Ukrainianpeasant as the perpetratorand the Jewish townsman as the victim of a self-perpetuating and unrelentingwave of pogroms. Abramson attemptsinstead to tell a different story, one in which the Ukrainianand the Jewish versions of an emblematichistorical moment are inextricablyintertwined.ForAbramson,the rapidpolitical mobilization of the shtetl-the proverbialsleepy backwaterof Jewish Eastern Europe-marked an importantmoment in the democratizationof Ukrainiannational politics and in the "Ukrainization"of the Jews, a process cut short by the exigencies of war and the radicalizationof nationalism from below. In his most compelling chapter,devotedto a painstakingassessment of the characterand scope of pogrom violence, Abramson carefully distinguishes between pogrom rhetoricalmost exclusively political and aimed entirely at the "Jew-Bolshevik"-and the natureof the attacks.Motivatedby the desire for plunderand often directedat nonJewish communitiesthatlay directlyin the pathof destruction,most pogromswere rooted in the particularpressures of local front-line conditions ratherthan in the malicious designs of Petliuraand his government. Abramson'simpressive commandof Ukrainianand Jewish sources lends itself to a critical shift towardthe understandingof modem ethnic conflict as a radically contingentphenomenonratherthan an escalation of venerable"historichatreds." However, the conceptual frameworkof the argumentstrains the reader's capacity to appreciatethe nuance and detail that went into the making of this potentially groundbreakingstudy.The introductorychapteropens with a slice-of-life descriptionof "Ukrainian"Jewish culturewhich seems to float in a kind of sociological haze. A breathless survey of Jewish politics follows, as if from nowhere. Evidence regardinglinguistic orientationand economic structureremainssimilarly unintegratedinto any largerclaim that might contextualizethe historicalexpe158

Book Reviews rience of so-called "Ukrainian"Jewry.This raises the most methodologically unsettling question left unansweredby Abramson'sstudy:Before the Ukrainianrevolution raised the stakes attendanton the assertion of national identity, what was UkrainianaboutUkrainianJewry?Notwithstandingthe influence of Ukrainianaspect on Yiddishverb construction,Abramson'sevidence for the existence of an enduringUkrainianself-consciousness among the Jews who lived for centuriesalong the west bank of the Dnieperremainsthin. Compromisinghis own position on the embraceof Ukrainiannationalaspirationsas a dramaticbreakin the history of the region's Jewishpolitical culture,Abramsonforegroundshis thesis in categories of self-ascription,the stabilityof which his evidence thoroughlyundermines.In fact, the book chronicles the failure of the Ukrainianrevolutionto transformthe Jews of Ukraine-along with many of their non-Jewish neighbors-into Ukrainians. Abramson'strenchantanalysis of the pogroms of 1919 rendersthe tragic consequences of this failure painfully clear. Olga Litvak PrincetonUniversity Princeton,New Jersey

Vicky Caron. UneasyAsylum:France and the Jewish Refugee Crisis, 1933-1942. Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. 730 pp. In this balanced and careful study,Vicki Caron examines the evolution of Frenchpolicy toward central EuropeanJewish refugees between 1933 and 1942 from three interrelatedperspectives: governmental policy, public opinion, and Jewish organizationalresponses. Foreach of these themes, ProfessorCaronoffers a comprehensiveanalysis and importantnew insights on the connections between policies and attitudesat the end of Third Republic and duringthe first two years of the Vichy regime, 1940-1942. In theirpathfinding 1981 book, VichyFrance and the Jews, Michael Marrus and RobertPaxton chargedthatVichy antisemitic legislation, and apparentpublic support for it, logically grew out of the hardeningpolicies and attitudestoward refugees duringthe 1930s. While Caron'sportrayalof pre-Vichy policy and public opinion will hardlygive comfort to defenders of the late Third Republic, she prefers the image of a twisted and open road. Pressed by an insistent economic campaignof middle-class pressuregroups, the right-leaningRadical governments from 1933 to 1936 instigateda police crackdownon refugees.The governmentalso placed occupationalquotas on foreign artisansand implementeda ten-yearwaiting period before even naturalizedcitizens could practice law or medicine. Although not explicitly antisemitic, these measures targeted occupations practiced by Jewish refugees and reflectedthe attitudesof many that this "invasion"of Jewish refugees broughtunfairand frequentlycorruptcompetition. After two years of the PopularFrontgovernment,the right-leaningRadical 159

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Sanford Gutman Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 159-162 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131579 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:58 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews rience of so-called "Ukrainian"Jewry.This raises the most methodologically unsettling question left unansweredby Abramson'sstudy:Before the Ukrainianrevolution raised the stakes attendanton the assertion of national identity, what was UkrainianaboutUkrainianJewry?Notwithstandingthe influence of Ukrainianaspect on Yiddishverb construction,Abramson'sevidence for the existence of an enduringUkrainianself-consciousness among the Jews who lived for centuriesalong the west bank of the Dnieperremainsthin. Compromisinghis own position on the embraceof Ukrainiannationalaspirationsas a dramaticbreakin the history of the region's Jewishpolitical culture,Abramsonforegroundshis thesis in categories of self-ascription,the stabilityof which his evidence thoroughlyundermines.In fact, the book chronicles the failure of the Ukrainianrevolutionto transformthe Jews of Ukraine-along with many of their non-Jewish neighbors-into Ukrainians. Abramson'strenchantanalysis of the pogroms of 1919 rendersthe tragic consequences of this failure painfully clear. Olga Litvak PrincetonUniversity Princeton,New Jersey

Vicky Caron. UneasyAsylum:France and the Jewish Refugee Crisis, 1933-1942. Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. 730 pp. In this balanced and careful study,Vicki Caron examines the evolution of Frenchpolicy toward central EuropeanJewish refugees between 1933 and 1942 from three interrelatedperspectives: governmental policy, public opinion, and Jewish organizationalresponses. Foreach of these themes, ProfessorCaronoffers a comprehensiveanalysis and importantnew insights on the connections between policies and attitudesat the end of Third Republic and duringthe first two years of the Vichy regime, 1940-1942. In theirpathfinding 1981 book, VichyFrance and the Jews, Michael Marrus and RobertPaxton chargedthatVichy antisemitic legislation, and apparentpublic support for it, logically grew out of the hardeningpolicies and attitudestoward refugees duringthe 1930s. While Caron'sportrayalof pre-Vichy policy and public opinion will hardlygive comfort to defenders of the late Third Republic, she prefers the image of a twisted and open road. Pressed by an insistent economic campaignof middle-class pressuregroups, the right-leaningRadical governments from 1933 to 1936 instigateda police crackdownon refugees.The governmentalso placed occupationalquotas on foreign artisansand implementeda ten-yearwaiting period before even naturalizedcitizens could practice law or medicine. Although not explicitly antisemitic, these measures targeted occupations practiced by Jewish refugees and reflectedthe attitudesof many that this "invasion"of Jewish refugees broughtunfairand frequentlycorruptcompetition. After two years of the PopularFrontgovernment,the right-leaningRadical 159

AJS Review government under Daladier resumed power in 1938 and the situation of Jewish refugees again deterioratedsharply.Caron has made excellent use of the Foreign Ministry archives to show the nefarious influence of Georges Bonnet, Daladier's xenophobic and antisemitic foreign minister. Confrontedwith a substantialincrease of refugees in 1938, Bonnet and Daladier implementedharshmeasuresto stem the flow of these "waste products" from Germany,Austria, and Poland. Through an exhaustive examinationof journals and the press Caron also demonstratesthat the xenophobia and antisemitismthat in the early 1930s had been the reserve of the extremerightnow spreadto broadstretchesof moderatepublic opinion. This included much of the so-called moderateclergy, which some historians have arguedhad become philosemitic in the 1930s. Increasinglyfearful of an impending war and encroaching socialism and communism, many Frenchmensaw foreign Jews as warmongersand Communists."BetterHitlerthan Stalin"became the popular slogan of the day. When the war broke out in September, 1939, the Frenchgovernmentignored the opportunityto enlist the willing refugees into the army and instead interned tens of thousands as enemy aliens in over eighty internmentcamps. Nevertheless, Caronmaintains,the path to Vichy was not direct. In early 1940, the Frenchgovernment,in response to foreign and domestic pressure, improvedconditions in the camps; by May it had released all but a few thousand of the refugees. Tragically,the governmentre-internedthe refugees when GermanyinvadedWesternEurope. Caron demonstrates,however,that there was anotherFrance,mostly on the was sympatheticto the plight of the refugees. Refugee supportersmountthat Left, ed public campaignsin 1934 and 1935 defending France'straditionof asylum, and when the Left came to power in May, 1936, the PopularFrontgovernmenteased restrictionsandpromisednew hope. Carondisagreeswith those scholarswho have arguedthat the PopularFrontgovernmentoffered much goodwill but little practical help. She maintainsthat the PopularFrontgovernmentwas unableto abrogate earlier restrictive legislation because of hostile public attitudes toward refugees and the vitriolic campaign against the Jewish Prime Minister,Leon Blum, which was organized by right-wing groups. Nevertheless, Caron demonstratesthat the Popular Frontgovernment did significantly amelioratethe plight of refugees already in France. She also gives high marks for Blum's efforts to circumventprotectionist attitudesby promoting settlement of refugees in Frenchcolonies and in agriculturalcolonies in the southwest of France. Caronpositions herselfbetweenthose who condemnnativeFrenchJewishorganizations for not having helped Jewish refugees and those who argue that they did all that was feasible given public opinion, governmentpolicy, and the financial and administrativechallenges resulting from the flood of refugees. Carondivides the French Jewish response into two periods: 1933 to 1936, when Jacques Helbronnerand the Comit6National directed and pursueda hard-linepolicy toward Jewish refugees; and 1936 to 1940, when the leadership-was replacedby Raymond-Raoul Lambertand the Comit6 d'Assistance aux Rofugids(CAR)-which supporteda farmorecompassionatepolicy. Forthe earlierperiod,Caronagreeswith Maurice Rajsfus'schargesthat the native Jewish leadershipfailed to provideadequate philanthropyand refused to press the Frenchgovernmentfor a more liberal 160

Book Reviews refugee policy. She points out that Helbronner,at that time a member of the Conseil d'.tat andthe government'srepresentativeto the League of Nations High Commission on Refugees, shared many of the negative stereotypes toward Jewish refugees and even pressed the governmentfor a more restrictiverefugee policy. Fromthe beginning, however,there were native Jewish leaders and organizations who supporteda moretolerantgovernmentpolicy. When the PopularFront came to power, this more liberal leadership-under the sympathetic direction of Lambertand the newly organizedCAR-replaced Helbronneras the spokespersons for the native Jewish community.Lambertrepresenteda younger generation of Jewish leaders who sought a more even balance between their obligations to Frenchnational interestsand concerns for their Jewish compatriots.Lambertand CAR increasedaid to the refugees and immigrants,helped them to find jobs, and lobbied the governmentto regularizethe status of those already in France.After the fall of the PopularFrontgovernment,they also campaigned against the policies of Daladierand Bonnet. Caron claims that by 1940 the former ideological gap between the native Jewish leadership and the Gourevitch Committee, whose leadership came from foreign Jews in France,had been substantiallyclosed. While these chapterson the Jewish response offer a more nuanced view of the Jewish leadershipthan earlier scholarship,I believe that Caron underplaysthe degree of tension that remained between native Jews and foreign Jews. Studies on FrenchJewry duringthe Holocaustby JacquesAdler,a moderatecritic of the nativeleadership,and even Richard Cohen, a moderatedefender,indicate that the distrustbetween native and foreign Jewish organizationspersisted and inhibited rescue and relief efforts during the criticalVichy years. In an important final chapter Professor Caron cautions against oversimplifying the parallelsbetween Vichy and late Third Republic policies and attitudes. ThirdRepublicpolicies towardrefugees were not primarilyor overtly antisemitic, nor did ThirdRepublic governmentsplace occupationalquotas on native Jews. Vichy even innovatedwhen it came to the internmentcamps by explicitly targetingJews, including many legal immigrants.Even in regardto public opinion, where Caronfinds more continuity,she carefully distinguishesThirdRepublic opinion by pointing out that it always included strong public voices in sympathy with the refugees, and that even as late as the winter of 1940 majorityopinion shifted in favor of more humanitarianpolicies. While Caronis certainlyrightto indicatethese differences,thereis a curious paradoxin her mitigateddefense of the ThirdRepublic in this chapter.For Caron, the period 1933 to 1945 markedthe last battle in France'slong civil war that began in 1789 over what kind of country it should be: a liberal, democratic, secular republic open to debate and economic modernizationor an authoritarian,hierarchical, and Christiancountryopposed to modernization.She maintainsthat since Jews had become the most prominentsymbol of the first model, the Jewish Question emerged as the centraltheme and barometerof that identity struggle in the 1930s and 1940s. Caronplaces herself in the middle, between those earlierpostwar defenders of Frenchrepublicanismwho argued that Vichy was not the real Franceandmore recenthistoriansand critics who point to the continuitiesbetween 161

AJS Review the late ThirdRepublic and Vichy.Yet,the massive weight of Caron'sevidence on public opinion, and to a lesser extent on governmentalpolicy, leads one to conclude that Franceof the 1930s was gravely besieged by the forces of intolerance and reaction, if not capturedby them entirely.Caron'simportantstudy shows, albeit sometimes grudgingly,that the step from the ThirdRepublic to Vichy, while not inevitable,was shorterthanmanyhistorianshavebeen willing to acknowledge. SanfordGutman SUNY College at Cortland Cortland,New York

Eli Faber.Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade:Setting the Record Straight. Reappraisals in Jewish Social and IntellectualHistory.New York:New YorkUniversity Press, 1998. xvii, 366. First published in October, 1991, the Nation of Islam's anonymously authored TheSecret RelationshipBetween Blacks and Jews has spawneda veritable cottage industryof scholarshipaddressingits centralclaim that Jewish merchants "dominated"the Atlantic slave trade.' One can only wonder whether, someday tractfor every Jew soon, there may be an essay or book refutingthe Farrakhanites' who ever tradeda slave. Eli Faber'sJews, Slaves, and the Slave Tradeis the latest, least polemical, and arguablymost importantcontributionto the new literatureon Jews and the slave trade.An indefatigableresearcherinto the history of Anglo-AmericanJewry, Faberdeploys his mastery of archivalmaterialson both sides of the Atlantic to reinforce the conclusion, already reached by Jacob Rader Marcus over a quarter of a century ago, that the Jewish role in the trade was minimal. He breaks new ground by showing not only that British and AmericanJews were marginalplayers in the Atlantic slave trade,but thatthis odious traffic did not contributesignificantly to the economic developmentof either old world or new world Jewry. Faber'sfocus is on Great Britain'strans-Atlanticcommerce during its preeminent period as a slave tradingpower. Between the late seventeenthand early nineteenth centuries, nearly half of the almost seven million slaves transported from Africa to the Americas were carriedon Britishships. Faberuses Spanishand Portuguese surnameson British merchantlists to identify Sephardim.He crosschecks less distinctive patronymicsagainst synagogue rolls, naturalizationlists, testamentaryrecords,tombstones, and genealogical studies to confirm the Jewish identity of other,often Ashkenazic families. His comprehensivesamples for both 1. See,forexample,DavidBrionDavis,"Jewsin theSlaveTrade," 1 (Fall,1992): Culturefront, 42-45; Davis,"TheSlaveTradeandthe Jews,"NewYorkReview,41 (December22, 1994):14-16; andMinorities, SlaveTrade," SeymourDrescher,"TheRoleof Jewsin theTransatlantic Immigrants 12 (1993):113-125;HaroldBrackman, BehindTheNation "The Ministryof Lies:TheTruth ofIslam's SecretRelationship BetweenBlacksandJews"(NewYork:FourWallsEightWindows, 1994);SaulS. JewsandtheAmericanSlaveTrade(NewBrunswick, NJ:Transaction Friedman, Publishers, 1998).

162

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Harold Brackman Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 162-164 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131580 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:58 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review the late ThirdRepublic and Vichy.Yet,the massive weight of Caron'sevidence on public opinion, and to a lesser extent on governmentalpolicy, leads one to conclude that Franceof the 1930s was gravely besieged by the forces of intolerance and reaction, if not capturedby them entirely.Caron'simportantstudy shows, albeit sometimes grudgingly,that the step from the ThirdRepublic to Vichy, while not inevitable,was shorterthanmanyhistorianshavebeen willing to acknowledge. SanfordGutman SUNY College at Cortland Cortland,New York

Eli Faber.Jews, Slaves, and the Slave Trade:Setting the Record Straight. Reappraisals in Jewish Social and IntellectualHistory.New York:New YorkUniversity Press, 1998. xvii, 366. First published in October, 1991, the Nation of Islam's anonymously authored TheSecret RelationshipBetween Blacks and Jews has spawneda veritable cottage industryof scholarshipaddressingits centralclaim that Jewish merchants "dominated"the Atlantic slave trade.' One can only wonder whether, someday tractfor every Jew soon, there may be an essay or book refutingthe Farrakhanites' who ever tradeda slave. Eli Faber'sJews, Slaves, and the Slave Tradeis the latest, least polemical, and arguablymost importantcontributionto the new literatureon Jews and the slave trade.An indefatigableresearcherinto the history of Anglo-AmericanJewry, Faberdeploys his mastery of archivalmaterialson both sides of the Atlantic to reinforce the conclusion, already reached by Jacob Rader Marcus over a quarter of a century ago, that the Jewish role in the trade was minimal. He breaks new ground by showing not only that British and AmericanJews were marginalplayers in the Atlantic slave trade,but thatthis odious traffic did not contributesignificantly to the economic developmentof either old world or new world Jewry. Faber'sfocus is on Great Britain'strans-Atlanticcommerce during its preeminent period as a slave tradingpower. Between the late seventeenthand early nineteenth centuries, nearly half of the almost seven million slaves transported from Africa to the Americas were carriedon Britishships. Faberuses Spanishand Portuguese surnameson British merchantlists to identify Sephardim.He crosschecks less distinctive patronymicsagainst synagogue rolls, naturalizationlists, testamentaryrecords,tombstones, and genealogical studies to confirm the Jewish identity of other,often Ashkenazic families. His comprehensivesamples for both 1. See,forexample,DavidBrionDavis,"Jewsin theSlaveTrade," 1 (Fall,1992): Culturefront, 42-45; Davis,"TheSlaveTradeandthe Jews,"NewYorkReview,41 (December22, 1994):14-16; andMinorities, SlaveTrade," SeymourDrescher,"TheRoleof Jewsin theTransatlantic Immigrants 12 (1993):113-125;HaroldBrackman, BehindTheNation "The Ministryof Lies:TheTruth ofIslam's SecretRelationship BetweenBlacksandJews"(NewYork:FourWallsEightWindows, 1994);SaulS. JewsandtheAmericanSlaveTrade(NewBrunswick, NJ:Transaction Friedman, Publishers, 1998).

162

Book Reviews the home countryand its colonies revealthe roles of Jews as investorsin slave trading companies, owners of slave ships, slave retailing factors, and employers of slave labor.From Bristol to Barbadosand Nevis to Newport, the general picture that emerges amidst regional variationsis of very limited Jewish participation. Jewishmerchantsin GreatBritainwere extensively involved in international tradein textiles,gold, silver,anddiamonds,butnot slaves.None investedin the Royal African Companyuntil 1691, two decades after it was chartered.Subsequently, they preferredinvestingin the Bank of Englandand the East IndiaCompany.Jews do not seem to have been among primaryowners of, or even consistentminor investors in, the slave fleets of London, Bristol, and Liverpool. Overall, Jewish involvementin Britain'seighteenth-centuryslave tradewas "minutein the extreme." In the western hemisphere,individualJewish firms, such as Lindo, Aguilar & Dias in Jamaica,emergedas importantslave retailersduringthe 1780s, but they were the exception to the rule. Between 1742 and 1769, of 149,705 African slaves imported into Jamaica, only 665-four tenths of one percent-were carried on ships owned by Jews. The Jewish role in the re-export trade of so-called "refuse Negroes"-ill or infirm slaves who were rehabilitatedfor resale to the Spanish Main-accounted for about six percent of such slaves sales during most of the eighteenth century.Yet it was enough to foster an enduring image of Jews as the "usedcar dealers"of the slave trade.In terms of slave ownership,the Jewish share on Britain'sCaribbeanislands variedbetween one and two percent. In the plantation economy,which employedovernine-tenthsof the slaves, Jewish masterswere almost unknown,though Jewishtraderswere accused of corruptingfield handsby trafficking with them in stolen goods. In the cities, Jews were as likely or even more likely to own slaves as non-Jews, but Jewish owners typically owned fewer slaves thantheir non-Jewishcounterparts.Jewish masters were also creditedwith giving their slaves Saturdaysoff in additionto Sundays. In the mainlandcolonies thatmaturedinto the United States,the preeminent slaving entrepot,Newport, Rhode Island,rankeda distant fourthbehind London, Liverpool, and Bristol, which sent in excess of 10,000 slave trading voyages to Africa duringthe eighteenthcentury.Jewish merchants,notablyAaron Lopez and his father-in-law,Jacob Rodrigues Rivera, were responsible for 34 of Newport's over 900 slave trading voyages-under four percent-between 1709 and 1807. Slave tradinghas left an indelible imprinton Lopez's reputation,but it should be borne in mind that only ten percentof his seaborne ventures involved slaves. Faberdoes not addressthe questionof motivation.Given theirproficiency in Spanishand Portuguese,and theirnetworkconnectionswith the New Christiansof LatinAmerica, why did the Jewish merchantsof the British Empireand the budding UnitedStatesfail to carveout a largerniche for themselves in theAtlanticslave trade?Werethey inhibitedsolely by economic calculationsof risk vs. reward?Or did ethical scruples also play a role? We know that by the 1780s the manumission societies of Philadelphiaand New Yorkattractedsome Jewish support. Despite unansweredquestions,Faber'sbook is a methodologicallyinnovative, exhaustivelyresearchedcase study of Jewish participationin the most important nationalbranchof the Atlantic slave trade.Futureresearcherscan use it as a model for studyingthe involvementofethno-religious groups in variedslave-tradecon163

AJS Review texts, with the caveatthatthe value of studies singling out Jews may have reached the point of diminishing returns. Harold Brackman Simon WiesenthalCenter'sMuseum of Tolerance Los Angeles, California

ArthurA. Goren. ThePolitics and Public CultureofAmerican Jews: TheModern Jewish Experience. Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1999. 274 pp. This volume is a collection of ten studies previouslypublishedby the author. Its theme is the "unfoldingcommunallife of AmericanJews-the way Jews transplanted, changed and inventedtheir social institutionsand ideologies and created over time an impressiveorganizationalculture"(p. 9). Eachchapter,originallyconceived as an independentarticle, has substantialdepth and a richness of historical detail. The volume is unified by a sustained,if prismatic,attentionto two topics. The first is the internal(that is, Jewish communal)and external(that is, civic and American)politics of twentieth-centuryAmericanJews.The second is whatthe author calls their"publicculture."By publicculturehe refersto the largepublicevents such as mass rallies, funerals,parades,and pageantsthatmarkedAmericanJewish life, particularlyin New York,in the first half of the twentiethcentury.Publicculture providedan expressive metier for socialist or Zionist politics. It gave expression to the collective identities of Jewish subgroupsor, on occasion, to the entire community.The treatmentof public cultureis reminiscentof George Mosse's work on the role of public ritualsin Europeanand Jewishnationalism. The materialsthat the authortreats are highly diverse. The first part of the book focuses on the politics and public cultureof the immigrantand second generations up until WorldWarII. The authorexplores how the immigrantsnegotiated their newfound "Americanness"throughan analysis of the ideology of pluralism. He analyzes Jewish electoral politics in a case study of the congressional elections of 1908 and 1910, where a Socialist candidate,Meyer London,was elected from the Lower East Side. An especially engaging chapterconsiders the political orientation-and skills-of OrthodoxJews, as refractedthroughtheirYiddish newspapers.Farfrombeing political naifs, some OrthodoxJewishleaderswere serious actors in national and municipal politics, had high-level access to the political echelon, including the president (at a 1912 fundraiserfor the Daughtersof Jacob Old Age Home, the guest of honorwas WilliamHowardTaft),and weretrusted supportersof the Republicanparty.Although this chapterdoes not presentitself as a backgroundfor currentOrthodoxand ultra-Orthodoxpolitical activism, it helps, at least inadvertently,to set it in context. In general,however,the subjectmatterof the first part of the book seems resolutely antique.Neither Jewish socialists nor the mass events carefullydescribedin chapterson funeralsandmass meetingshave much resonance in post-war Jewish America. It is unclear whetherIsrael Day parades or the mass meetings that took place after the assassinationof Yitzhak Ra164

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Alan Mittleman Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 164-165 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131581 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:58 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review texts, with the caveatthatthe value of studies singling out Jews may have reached the point of diminishing returns. Harold Brackman Simon WiesenthalCenter'sMuseum of Tolerance Los Angeles, California

ArthurA. Goren. ThePolitics and Public CultureofAmerican Jews: TheModern Jewish Experience. Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1999. 274 pp. This volume is a collection of ten studies previouslypublishedby the author. Its theme is the "unfoldingcommunallife of AmericanJews-the way Jews transplanted, changed and inventedtheir social institutionsand ideologies and created over time an impressiveorganizationalculture"(p. 9). Eachchapter,originallyconceived as an independentarticle, has substantialdepth and a richness of historical detail. The volume is unified by a sustained,if prismatic,attentionto two topics. The first is the internal(that is, Jewish communal)and external(that is, civic and American)politics of twentieth-centuryAmericanJews.The second is whatthe author calls their"publicculture."By publicculturehe refersto the largepublicevents such as mass rallies, funerals,parades,and pageantsthatmarkedAmericanJewish life, particularlyin New York,in the first half of the twentiethcentury.Publicculture providedan expressive metier for socialist or Zionist politics. It gave expression to the collective identities of Jewish subgroupsor, on occasion, to the entire community.The treatmentof public cultureis reminiscentof George Mosse's work on the role of public ritualsin Europeanand Jewishnationalism. The materialsthat the authortreats are highly diverse. The first part of the book focuses on the politics and public cultureof the immigrantand second generations up until WorldWarII. The authorexplores how the immigrantsnegotiated their newfound "Americanness"throughan analysis of the ideology of pluralism. He analyzes Jewish electoral politics in a case study of the congressional elections of 1908 and 1910, where a Socialist candidate,Meyer London,was elected from the Lower East Side. An especially engaging chapterconsiders the political orientation-and skills-of OrthodoxJews, as refractedthroughtheirYiddish newspapers.Farfrombeing political naifs, some OrthodoxJewishleaderswere serious actors in national and municipal politics, had high-level access to the political echelon, including the president (at a 1912 fundraiserfor the Daughtersof Jacob Old Age Home, the guest of honorwas WilliamHowardTaft),and weretrusted supportersof the Republicanparty.Although this chapterdoes not presentitself as a backgroundfor currentOrthodoxand ultra-Orthodoxpolitical activism, it helps, at least inadvertently,to set it in context. In general,however,the subjectmatterof the first part of the book seems resolutely antique.Neither Jewish socialists nor the mass events carefullydescribedin chapterson funeralsandmass meetingshave much resonance in post-war Jewish America. It is unclear whetherIsrael Day parades or the mass meetings that took place after the assassinationof Yitzhak Ra164

Book Reviews bin descend from these early events or whether the political culture of American Jews has so changed that the comparisonis at best superficial. In the second partof the book, a political culturemore akinto our own comes into view. Chartingthe post-warJewish scene, the authorconsiders how the early fragmentationof the community (over socialism, Zionism, religion, and class) gave way to greater cohesion, the latterbrought about by the twin challenges of helping the survivorsof the Shoah and supportingthe State of Israel.The largely consensualnatureof these urgenttasks called for a rational,professional,andmanagerial style. The great leaders of the prior half century gave way to effective administrators.The authorsuggests thatvigorous partisanshipis an existence condition for statesmanlikeleadership.In a chapteron the "Golden Decade" of 19451955, the authoranalyzes the consolidationof the liberal politics that continues to characterizeAmerican Jewish political culture to the present. American Jews found an elective affinity between their own liberal inclinations and the "aggressive liberalism" (p. 188) rising in American political culture. Exactly what accounts for the presence of this liberalismamong American Jews in the first place is, however,insufficiently explored.The closest we get to an answer is the assertion that "To a considerabledegree, the Red Scare hastened the political integration of American Jews. It greatly weakenedJewish radicalism,fortified the liberalism of "thevital center"and drew American Jews, as never before, into a whirl of "American"issues" (p. 201). The book concludes with a fascinating look into the contentiousinner workingsof the AmericanJewish Committee over the limits of liberalismin the face of nascent multiculturalism. This topical surveycannotdojustice to the subtle interplaybetweenthe chapters or to the wealth of insight and perspectivethat the authorbrings to the Jewish experienceof civic and political engagement.On a criticalnote, one might wonder why the authordoes not make use of the concept of "politicalculture"ratherthan the moreambiguous"publicculture"or the somewhatover-extended"politics."Unlike an empirical study of American Jewish political behavior such as we expect from a political scientist, this is really a book about norms, worldviews, symbols, culturaltrends,and moods. These featuresare capturedby the analytic concept of political culture.It is somewhatperplexingthat the authordid not make use of it. Alan Mittleman MuhlenbergCollege Allentown, Pennsylvania

Eliezer Bashan, TheAnglicanMission and MoroccanJewry in theNineteenthCentury. Ramat-Gan:Bar-IlanUniversity Press, 1999. 204 pp. (Hebrew). In the past three decades several scholarly books were written about Moroccan Jewryhighlightingthe impactof modernizationduringthe nineteenthcentury until the inaugurationof the colonial era. These studies concentrateon modem secular education propagated by the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU 165

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Michael M. Laskier Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 165-167 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131582 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:58 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews bin descend from these early events or whether the political culture of American Jews has so changed that the comparisonis at best superficial. In the second partof the book, a political culturemore akinto our own comes into view. Chartingthe post-warJewish scene, the authorconsiders how the early fragmentationof the community (over socialism, Zionism, religion, and class) gave way to greater cohesion, the latterbrought about by the twin challenges of helping the survivorsof the Shoah and supportingthe State of Israel.The largely consensualnatureof these urgenttasks called for a rational,professional,andmanagerial style. The great leaders of the prior half century gave way to effective administrators.The authorsuggests thatvigorous partisanshipis an existence condition for statesmanlikeleadership.In a chapteron the "Golden Decade" of 19451955, the authoranalyzes the consolidationof the liberal politics that continues to characterizeAmerican Jewish political culture to the present. American Jews found an elective affinity between their own liberal inclinations and the "aggressive liberalism" (p. 188) rising in American political culture. Exactly what accounts for the presence of this liberalismamong American Jews in the first place is, however,insufficiently explored.The closest we get to an answer is the assertion that "To a considerabledegree, the Red Scare hastened the political integration of American Jews. It greatly weakenedJewish radicalism,fortified the liberalism of "thevital center"and drew American Jews, as never before, into a whirl of "American"issues" (p. 201). The book concludes with a fascinating look into the contentiousinner workingsof the AmericanJewish Committee over the limits of liberalismin the face of nascent multiculturalism. This topical surveycannotdojustice to the subtle interplaybetweenthe chapters or to the wealth of insight and perspectivethat the authorbrings to the Jewish experienceof civic and political engagement.On a criticalnote, one might wonder why the authordoes not make use of the concept of "politicalculture"ratherthan the moreambiguous"publicculture"or the somewhatover-extended"politics."Unlike an empirical study of American Jewish political behavior such as we expect from a political scientist, this is really a book about norms, worldviews, symbols, culturaltrends,and moods. These featuresare capturedby the analytic concept of political culture.It is somewhatperplexingthat the authordid not make use of it. Alan Mittleman MuhlenbergCollege Allentown, Pennsylvania

Eliezer Bashan, TheAnglicanMission and MoroccanJewry in theNineteenthCentury. Ramat-Gan:Bar-IlanUniversity Press, 1999. 204 pp. (Hebrew). In the past three decades several scholarly books were written about Moroccan Jewryhighlightingthe impactof modernizationduringthe nineteenthcentury until the inaugurationof the colonial era. These studies concentrateon modem secular education propagated by the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU 165

AJS Review hereafter),the Anglo-JewishAssociation, Europeanconsularschools, and the Alliance Frangaise.They focus on Frenchand otherEuropeanacculturation,MuslimJewish relations,and social stratification.1Most of these books mentionbrieflythe oeuvre of the FranciscanCatholicandBritishorAmericanProtestantmissions. Few delve into the activities,agenda,and caliberof activistswho managedtheiraffairs,2 dismissing these as marginalin the overall daily pictureof Jewish communallife. Eliezer Bashan'smonographon the Anglican Mission is the first attemptto lend some significance to the programsof its envoys among Moroccan Jews. It shows how in additionto their policies aiming at religious conversions, the missionaries emerged as agents of modernization.While missionary activities attributed to Catholics and Protestantswere evident in partsof precolonial Morocco as far back as the earlynineteenthcentury,importantinroadsbecame noticeableonly since the 1870s. It was in 1875-1900 that schools, clinics, adult education, dissemination of the New Testament,and communalwork became essential features of missionary zeal. Only in the wake of the AIU's expansion,as well as subsequent initiatives of EuropeanJewry to improve social conditions in the Moroccan communities, did the missionaries' efforts graduallycome to nought. As Bashan demonstrates,the leading Protestantmissions active in the Moroccan communitiesincludedthe Britishand ForeignBible Society, NorthAfrican Mission, Southern Morocco Mission of Scotland, Mildway Mission to the Jew, PresbyterianChurchof England,and London Society for PromotingChristianity amongst the Jews. Whereas the Anglican trend among the Protestantmissions emergedas the dominantone, the Methodistsand Presbyterians,too, enjoyedsome measureof influence. The main bases of operationsand the places wherethe presence of the missionaries could be felt were the major cities of Essaouira, Rabat, and Casablancaon the Atlantic coast, Tangiernearthe Straitsof Gibraltar,and inland communities of Fez, Meknes, Sefrou, and Marrakesh.The London Society for the Promotingof Christianityamongst the Jews, with its headquartersin Essaouira,is the focal pointof Bashan'sstudy.He is also highly informativeaboutone of this Anglican Society's most controversialemissaries, James B. Ginsburg,who spent a total of eight years on the Moroccan Jewish scene. Though not a full Britishcitizen, the Russian-bornGinsburgenjoyedBritish consularprotectionwhen he engaged at missionaryendeavorsin Algeria and Morocco. Operatingout of Essaouirabeginning in 1875, Ginsburgextendedhis work to additionalcommunitiesfrom the Atlanticcoast to the Atlas Mountains.Like other heads of Protestantmissions in the Maghrebwho had convertedto Christianity, 1. Among these studies see: Michel Abitbol, Thmoinset acteurs: les Corcos et l'histoire du Maroc contemporain(Jerusalem:InstitutBen-Zvi, 1977); PierreGuillen, L'Allemagneet le Maroc de 1870 a 1905. (Paris:Presses Universitairesde France,1967); Michael M. Laskier,TheAllianceIsraelite Universelle and the Jewish Communitiesof Morocco: 1862-1962 (Albany: State University of New YorkPress, 1983); Jean-LouisMiege, Le Maroc et l'europe: 1830-1894, 3 vols. (Paris: Presses Universitairesde France, 1961-3); Daniel J. Schroeter,Merchantsof Essaouira (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1988); Reeva S. Simon, Michael M. Laskier,SaraReguer(eds.), TheJews of the Middle East and NorthAfrica: TheModern Period (New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress [forthcoming]). 2. One of the rareexceptions is Jean-LouisMiege's"Lesmissions protestantesau Maroc, 18751905,"Hesperis, 42 (1955): 153-186.

166

Book Reviews Ginsburgattractedmuch attentionamong the Jews and incurredthe wrathof local rabbis.Althoughtherewerefew convertsto Christianityin the communities,the Jewish masses,in part,evincedsome interestin the LondonSociety'sprograms.The poor of Essaouiraand nearbytowns frequentedits boys' and girls' schools and solicited its medical and social services. One of Bashan'sinterestingpoints revolves around the cordialrapportbetween ordinaryJews and the Society's staff. The former appreciatedthe services renderedby the missionariesat a time when communalinstitutionsandthe affluentelite displayedindifferenceto theirneeds. On the otherhand, most rabbis,albeitnot all of them, soughtto sabotageGinsburg'seffortseverywhere by fomentinganti-missionaryactivitiesthat sometimesborderedon violence. Ginsburghimself was once expelled from Morocco owing to political pressureimposed on the Britishgovernmentby the local Muslim authoritiesand rabbis. It is true that the British Minister Plenipotentiaryat Tangieras well as the British consuls in Essaouiraand elsewhere intercededto impose sanctions on Anglican and Presbyterianemissarieswho alienatedlocal rabbisand Muslim ulama. Nevertheless, Bashan reveals that these consuls often facilitated the work of the missions by teaching English and other subjects at their schools. Just as the AIU schools promoted Frenchculturalinfluence in the precolonial and colonial periods, the same held true for the British missionary schools or the Franciscanmissions. The Britishexpressedeagernessto spreadthe English languageby all means among the indigenous populationswhile the Franciscanswith the aid of Spain's consularservices extolled Spanish. The work of the Anglican missionariesamong Jews and Muslims reachedits zenith at the beginning of the twentiethcenturybefore witnessing a precipitousdecline. One of the reasonsfor rabbinicalsupportof the AIU networkhad to do with the rabbis' concern over the missions' potential influence over the impoverished socioeconomic stratum.The rabbiswere now inclined to tolerate girls' education at the AIU so long as the missionaries were prevented from placing them under their wings. As Morocco after 1900 was coming underFrenchcontrol,the AIU acquired a virtual monopoly over modern education in the communities. Notwithstanding,the missions will be rememberedmore as pioneering catalysts for modernizationand social service ratherthan as forces seeking religious conversions. This monographis a vital contributionto the history of Middle Easternand Maghrebi Jewry in the nineteenth century. Despite some unnecessary repetitiveness in contents and typographicalerrors,not to mention the erroneous claim on pp. 18-19 that Casablancadid not have a mellah (Jewish quarter),Bashan exploited his primarysources well, mainly the records of the British Foreign Office and the Protestantsocieties' bulletins. Furthermore,it would have been helpful for the Hebrewreaderto translatethe documentson pp. 145-178 into Hebrew,instead of presentingthem with brief Hebrew summaries. Michael M. Laskier of Ashqalon Regional College Bar-IlanUniversity Ashqalon, Israel

167

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Lev Hakak Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 168-170 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131583 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:58 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review Moshe Pelli. Kinds of Genre in Haskalah Literature:Types and Topics. Israel: HakkibutzHameuchadPublishingHouse, 1999. xxv (English), 357 pp. (Hebrew). Moshe Pelli, one of the majorscholarsof HebrewHaskalah(Enlightenment) literaturein ourtime and one of the majorcontributorsto Hebrewculturein America, presents in this book the fruits of his twenty-five years of study of the major genres in this literature.Previously published articles have been rewrittenby Pelli for this book. One tendency of Haskalah literaturewas to adoptJudaicgenres, such as the fable and the religious disputation,which existed in earlierHebrew literaturebefore the Haskalah and were continuedby the Haskalah. Anothertrendwas to use as a model genres that prevailed in Europeanliteraturesin orderto revitalize Hebrew belles lettres. Pelli presents an overview and a detailed discussion of the unique featuresof each one of these genres in orderto presentHaskalah as a modem, European-likephenomenon. Each of the ten chaptersof the book is dedicatedto one genre-biography, autobiography,utopia,satire,dialoguesof the dead,fable,religiousdisputation,the epistolarystory,the imaginarydialogueandthe travelogue-though it is clearthatseveral genresmay be tracedin a single literarywork.These genreshelpedto promotethe aims and ideology of the Haskalah and providednew modes of literaryexpression. Two worksof Isaac Euchel presentthe genre of biography: his biographyof Mendelssohn, published as a book in 1789, and his biographyof Isaac Abravanel. Mendelssohn is portrayedas a model of the ideal modem Jew,embodying Haskalah and Judaism.Abravanel,who achieved balance between Judaismand the culture aroundhim, is also presented as an exemplary figure for the Maskilim. The genre of autobiography is representedby MordechaiAharonGinzburg'sAviezer, writtenin the 1820s and published in 1864. Ginzburgemploys a variety of literary devices such as parables,epigrams, digressions, anecdotes and didactic allusions in his story, and strives for truthand criticism that will benefit the society. The genre of utopia attractedthe Haskalah writers who wanted to draw a ideal new, type of Jewish society; the utopian genre made it possible for them to it if it actually existed. Euchel's"IgrotMeshulam"and Isaac Satanow's as portray Divre Rivot representsthis genre. "IgrotMeshulam"is an epistolary story, satire and utopia. Euchel viewed the limited observance of the Marranosin Spain, the aesthetic aspects of the Catholic worship services, and the progressivelife of Italian Jews as utopianmodels for secularJewishlife and alternativesto traditionalJudaism. Satanow'sDivre Rivot portrays a utopian society in which the king's reforms of Jewish life change humanrelations,economy,education,and society; the changes resonate with the Haskalah's ideals. Pelli meticulously presents the satiric modes of Saul Berlin's 1794 Ktav Yosher,includingits structure,figurativelanguage,and secularizationof sacredidioms, as well as its use of irony, sarcasm, invective, obscenity, hyperbole, incongruity, reductioad absurdum,caricature,wit, and humor.Ktav Yosherwas written in defense of Naphtali Herz Wessely's treatise on education and displays the degenerating state of the Jewish society. When Pelli analyzes Erter'ssatire "Gilgul

168

Book Reviews Nefesh" he also offers a re-evaluationof Erter'sliteraryachievements.In this work the protagonistundergoes transformationsinto nine human charactersand eight animals, throughwhich the authorrelates to the problems of Jewish life. The dialogues of the dead genre was adopted by several Haskalah writers who were attractedto its dramaticdebateand searchfor truthof historicaland contemporary figures in the afterlife. Pelli analyzes the satiric dialogue of Aaron Wolfssohn's"SihahBa-EretzHa-Hayyim,"published in 1794, andTuvyahFeder's Qol Mehatzetzim,published in 1853 and 1875. In Wolfssohn'sdialogues, the discussion is between Maimonides,Mendelssohn, and a Polish rabbi.Wolfssohnpresents contemporarytopics, especially the controversiesbetween the Haskalah and its opponents.The participantsin Feder'sdialogue are historical figures and major figures of the Haskalah, who attackMendel Lefin's translationof the Book of Proverbsinto Yiddish. The choice of Yiddish ratherthan Germanseemed to Feder an act of disloyalty to the Haskalah 'sdedicationto high standardsof culture. The didactic natureof the fable, its entertainingaspect, its search for truth, and its compactnessexplain why Haskalah writersliked this genre. In his 1793 or 1794 Divre Rivot, Isaac Satanowadaptedthe style of religious disputation of Judah Halevi'sKuzariand used variousliterarydevices to achieve dramatictension. The first epistolary fiction writing in modem Hebrew literatureis Isaac Euchel's "IgrotMeshulam,"publishedanonymouslyin the Hebrew monthly Hameassef It includes various fictional letters with different opinions but supportsthe ideas of the Haskalah. Pelli disagrees with the opinion that Euchel's work is a "free translation" of Montesquieu'sLettrespersanes and substantiateshis view that the author of "IgrotMeshulam"is Euchel, who followed Montesquieu'suse of the epistolary genre but expressed his own personal experience. The imaginary dialogue is illustratedby BaruchJeitteles' 1800 dialoguebetween the year 1800 and the year 1801. The speakers are the two years and they both attackthe mystical Frankistsect. The genre of travelogue, which aims both to teach and to entertain,is representedby Shmuel Romanelli's 1792 Masa BaArav, a travelogueof the author'sjourney to North Africa. Pelli presentsthe literary conventionsof the Haskalahtravelogueandthe life of NorthAfricanJews from the Haskalah point of view. While the kinds of genre in Haskalah literatureare the focal point of Pelli's book, they are far from being its only subjectmatter.Pelli presentsmajor authors, major literary works, major problems, developments and aspirations of the Haskalah, using his immense knowledge of this literature.He passionately and skillfully advocates and highlights its achievements. His extensive bibliography (pp. 328-351) is useful. The culturaland literaryparametersof his discussion are expansive. His way of disagreementwith other scholars is amiable. Pelli's erudition and inquisitive mind are evidenced in each chapter. His analysis is artful. Pelli raises one importantquestion after another and answers each. For example, of the fable he asks and answers the following: Why was the fable such a popular genre? What transformationdid it undergo? How does the definition of the fable genre by Haskalah fabulists stand in comparisonwith their Europeancounterparts?In what ways was the affinity of the Haskalah 's fable to 169

AJS Review the classical Hebrewfable expressed?How shouldHaskalah'sfables be classified? Were all the "originalfables" original? In his presentationof the unique attributesof each genre, Pelli applies literary theory, probes the affinity between the Haskalah genre and the European genre, and analyzes the literary qualities and merits and traits of each genre in Haskalah literaturevis-A-vis its counterpartson the Europeanscene. This is, in short, a most significant contributionto the researchof Haskalah literature. Lev Hakak UCLA Los Angeles, California

Hayyim Nahman Bialik. RandomHarvest: TheNovellas of Bialik. Translatedby David Pattersonand EzraSpicehandler.Boulder,CO:WestviewPress, 1999. Modern Hebrew Classics. ix, 299 pp. Hayyim NahmanBialik (1873-1934) is widely regarded-especially in Israel-as the nationalpoet of the Jewish people. Bialik's poems express not only his own deeply conflicted emotions but also the ambivalenceof a generationof Jews caught between the breakdownof traditionalJewishlife andthe call of a new Jewish world whose outlines could be but dimly perceived. While these poems explore a wide rangeof subjects,almost all of them have the ring of Romanticism.Partof the appealof Bialik'spoems is thatthey speakthe language of the heartratherthan the language of the head. If Bialik is to be criticized in this regard,one might say that at times his pathos edges perilously close to bathos. In their recent translation,RandomHarvest: TheNovellas of Bialik, David Pattersonand Ezra Spicehandlerhave given the English readeran opportunityto hear Bialik speak in anothervoice. In the five short stories and one extendedlegend in this collection (none of them a novella, in my estimation), Bialik keeps a certain intellectualdistance from his subject.The balancebetween head and heart has shifted from what we find in his poetry; in these prose pieces we have more head and less heart. In his prose voice, Bialik reveals a capacity for satire,humor, and a wry playfulness that is much less evident in his poetry. This difference in voice is least apparentin the opening selection, Random Harvest (Safiach), an incomplete work of autobiographicalfiction written in stages between 1908 and 1923, when-oddly enough-Bialik completedChapter 1. Much of this piece echoes his poetry.Already in the second paragraphone encounters imagery reminiscentof his poem Levadi ("By Myself"): Likea forsakenfledgling,I wanderedaloneaboutmy nest;myfatherand motherleftme to myselfandtherewasno oneelse to lookafterme. Then Godin His mercytookme underthe shelterof His wings... (p. 22). 170

Review: [untitled] Author(s): James B. Rosenberg Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 170-172 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131584 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:59 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review the classical Hebrewfable expressed?How shouldHaskalah'sfables be classified? Were all the "originalfables" original? In his presentationof the unique attributesof each genre, Pelli applies literary theory, probes the affinity between the Haskalah genre and the European genre, and analyzes the literary qualities and merits and traits of each genre in Haskalah literaturevis-A-vis its counterpartson the Europeanscene. This is, in short, a most significant contributionto the researchof Haskalah literature. Lev Hakak UCLA Los Angeles, California

Hayyim Nahman Bialik. RandomHarvest: TheNovellas of Bialik. Translatedby David Pattersonand EzraSpicehandler.Boulder,CO:WestviewPress, 1999. Modern Hebrew Classics. ix, 299 pp. Hayyim NahmanBialik (1873-1934) is widely regarded-especially in Israel-as the nationalpoet of the Jewish people. Bialik's poems express not only his own deeply conflicted emotions but also the ambivalenceof a generationof Jews caught between the breakdownof traditionalJewishlife andthe call of a new Jewish world whose outlines could be but dimly perceived. While these poems explore a wide rangeof subjects,almost all of them have the ring of Romanticism.Partof the appealof Bialik'spoems is thatthey speakthe language of the heartratherthan the language of the head. If Bialik is to be criticized in this regard,one might say that at times his pathos edges perilously close to bathos. In their recent translation,RandomHarvest: TheNovellas of Bialik, David Pattersonand Ezra Spicehandlerhave given the English readeran opportunityto hear Bialik speak in anothervoice. In the five short stories and one extendedlegend in this collection (none of them a novella, in my estimation), Bialik keeps a certain intellectualdistance from his subject.The balancebetween head and heart has shifted from what we find in his poetry; in these prose pieces we have more head and less heart. In his prose voice, Bialik reveals a capacity for satire,humor, and a wry playfulness that is much less evident in his poetry. This difference in voice is least apparentin the opening selection, Random Harvest (Safiach), an incomplete work of autobiographicalfiction written in stages between 1908 and 1923, when-oddly enough-Bialik completedChapter 1. Much of this piece echoes his poetry.Already in the second paragraphone encounters imagery reminiscentof his poem Levadi ("By Myself"): Likea forsakenfledgling,I wanderedaloneaboutmy nest;myfatherand motherleftme to myselfandtherewasno oneelse to lookafterme. Then Godin His mercytookme underthe shelterof His wings... (p. 22). 170

Book Reviews By way of contrast,in Behind the Fence (Me-achoreyha-Gader),the second in story the collection, we "hear"a Bialik who is more detachedfrom his subject. He tells a modern version of Romeo and Juliet, star-crossedlovers separatedby a physical fence which symbolizes the impossible barriersof differentreligions, different socio-economic classes, different cultures. With an almost chilling irony, Bialik concludes his tale not with a tragic bang but ratherwith a banal whimper. In the end, the "hero"Noah rejectshis beloved shiksah Marinkaand settles for "a propervirgin, the daughterof a tax collector" (p. 131). Big Harry (AryehBaal Guf), written in 1898 when Bialik was still in his mid-twenties, satirizes a certainkind of rich but mindless boor who in our generation has been the butt of the acerbic wit of Philip Roth. Towardsthe end of this charactersketch Bialik describes a "spread"which Harryand his social-climbing wife Hannahpreparefor theirhousewarming;the scene is as familiaras those overdone wedding or barmitzvahreceptionsin which the overridinghalakhic question turns out to be: Is it kosherto eat like a pig? The Shamed Trumpet(Ha-ChatsotserahNitbayeshah) is a fictionalized account of the banishmentof a Jewish family from the Pale as a consequence of the "TemporaryMay Laws"of 1882. Writingthirty-threeyears afterthe event, Bialik makes his story all the more tragic by telling it with a restraintmade possible by the temporal distance of more than three decades. In endowing a Russian army trumpetwith a sense of shame, Bialik demonstratesyet again the fecundity of his artistic imagination. The fifth story in the collection, Short Friday (Yomha-Shishi ha-Katsar), which appearedin 1909, stands on the other end of the emotional spectrumfrom the oppressive sadness of TheShamedTrumpet.Short Friday is a light, zany farce that has the feel of a TV sitcom. Reb Lippa is not so much a characteras a caricature of a countrybumpkinrebbe. Readerscan laugh at the twists and turns of the far-fetchedplot because we do not invest our emotions in Reb Lippa'sself-inflicted predicament.Throughoutthe story Reb Lipparemainsan object of our tolerant ridicule-never a subject demandingour sympathy. The first five translationsin RandomHarvest are found underthe rubricof Sippurimin the frequentlyreprintedHebrew volume of Bialik's collected works published by D'vir. The sixth and final translation,The Legend of the Threeand the Four (Aggadat Shloshah v'Arba'ah) falls underthe rubricof Divrei Aggadah and the sub-rubricof Me 'aggadotha-MelekhShlomo. The text is the second version of this narrative,writtenin Germanyin 1929. The Hebrew of TheLegend of the Threeand the Four differsmarkedlyfrom the five preceding stories. Bialik invents an archaicquasi-Biblicalstyle; he begins almost every paragraphof this fully vocalized text with a vav-consecutiveand employs a spareand limited vocabulary. It is to the credit of our translatorsthat they are able to capturesomething of Bialik's deliberatelyartificial language. Like all legends, TheLegend of the Three and the Four can be read on many differentlevels. At this time of continued strife between Jew and Arab, I am especially moved by Bialik's propheticcall for making peace between ancient enemies. Near the very end of the story, he puts these words into the mouth of King Solomon, who is speaking at the wedding feast cel171

AJS Review ebratingthe marriageof Netanyah,a diasporaJew,to Ketziyah,the daughterof the King of Aram: Ourancestorshatedoneanotherbutarelongsincegone;theirhatredandtheir jealousyhave died with them. Shall we, theirsons, maintainthat enmity forever?See now,thejovialityof friendsandthe happinessof love bursting all aboutyou. ... Hateis indeeddeeperthanthepit,butloveis morepowerful andstrongerthanhateandcan overcomeit! Whenlovepoursits spiritupon man,it returnshimto his primordial state,as Godcreatedhim.He no longer keepspettyaccounts.(p. 281) One test of a good translationis thatthe readerforgetsthathe is in fact reading a translation.For the most part David Pattersonand Ezra Spicehandlerpass this test with distinction. Unfortunately,the very first sentence of the entire collection misses the mark: I cannotrememberhowmanysummersandwinterspassedfromthe earliest momentsI canrecallin mynativevillageuntilthetimewhenmyfamilytook me to live in a suburbof thenearbytown.(p. 21) To an Americanreadersuburbseems out of place-conjuring up images of crowded shopping malls and oversized SUVs. For some reason Pattersonand Spicehandler consistentlyrenderthe Hebrewparbaras suburb,even thoughoutskirtswould be far more appropriatefor the Ukrainiansetting of small towns and villages. Later on in this same story, we bump into the following sentence: At twilighton thathappyday,whenmyjoy overwhelmed me andI couldnot restrainit, I ranoutsideto noisemygreatnessabroad.(p. 47) The Hebrew reads levaser et gedulati ba-rabim,literally,"to proclaim my greatness among the many."Certainlyin this context there are a numberof choices less clumsy than "To noise my greatness abroad."To be fair, an occasional awkward moment is to be expected within almost threehundredpages of translation.On balance David Pattersonand Ezra Spicehandlerdeserve our praise and gratitudefor enabling the English readerto listen to the strong and distinctiveprose voices of Hayyim Nahman Bialik. A twenty-pagegeneral introduction,a short introduction to each of the six selections, a glossary, and a brief bibliographyhelp round out our picture of the nationalpoet of the Jewish people. James B. Rosenberg Barrington,Rhode Island

RuthKartun-Blum.Profane Scriptures:Reflectionson the Dialogue with the Bible in ModernHebrewPoetry. Cincinnati,HebrewUnion College Press, 1999. 97 pp. 172

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Marc Bernstein Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 172-175 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131585 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:59 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review ebratingthe marriageof Netanyah,a diasporaJew,to Ketziyah,the daughterof the King of Aram: Ourancestorshatedoneanotherbutarelongsincegone;theirhatredandtheir jealousyhave died with them. Shall we, theirsons, maintainthat enmity forever?See now,thejovialityof friendsandthe happinessof love bursting all aboutyou. ... Hateis indeeddeeperthanthepit,butloveis morepowerful andstrongerthanhateandcan overcomeit! Whenlovepoursits spiritupon man,it returnshimto his primordial state,as Godcreatedhim.He no longer keepspettyaccounts.(p. 281) One test of a good translationis thatthe readerforgetsthathe is in fact reading a translation.For the most part David Pattersonand Ezra Spicehandlerpass this test with distinction. Unfortunately,the very first sentence of the entire collection misses the mark: I cannotrememberhowmanysummersandwinterspassedfromthe earliest momentsI canrecallin mynativevillageuntilthetimewhenmyfamilytook me to live in a suburbof thenearbytown.(p. 21) To an Americanreadersuburbseems out of place-conjuring up images of crowded shopping malls and oversized SUVs. For some reason Pattersonand Spicehandler consistentlyrenderthe Hebrewparbaras suburb,even thoughoutskirtswould be far more appropriatefor the Ukrainiansetting of small towns and villages. Later on in this same story, we bump into the following sentence: At twilighton thathappyday,whenmyjoy overwhelmed me andI couldnot restrainit, I ranoutsideto noisemygreatnessabroad.(p. 47) The Hebrew reads levaser et gedulati ba-rabim,literally,"to proclaim my greatness among the many."Certainlyin this context there are a numberof choices less clumsy than "To noise my greatness abroad."To be fair, an occasional awkward moment is to be expected within almost threehundredpages of translation.On balance David Pattersonand Ezra Spicehandlerdeserve our praise and gratitudefor enabling the English readerto listen to the strong and distinctiveprose voices of Hayyim Nahman Bialik. A twenty-pagegeneral introduction,a short introduction to each of the six selections, a glossary, and a brief bibliographyhelp round out our picture of the nationalpoet of the Jewish people. James B. Rosenberg Barrington,Rhode Island

RuthKartun-Blum.Profane Scriptures:Reflectionson the Dialogue with the Bible in ModernHebrewPoetry. Cincinnati,HebrewUnion College Press, 1999. 97 pp. 172

Book Reviews In this slim yet analytically sophisticatedvolume, Kartun-Blum,professor of Hebrewliteratureat HebrewUniversity,seeks to elucidatethe "noisy existence" of the modern Hebrewpoet who is forced to contend with the echoes of traditional texts andthe multiple, diachronicregistersof the revived Hebrew language.The work consists of three chapters,the first of which, "The Prophet'sTongue in Our Cheek,"serves as an introductionto the use made of the Bible in modem Hebrew poetry.Building on this framework,in the second and longest section of the book, she engages the motif of the Binding of Isaac, and in the last chaptershe offers a readingof a poem by YonaWallach.In her analysis, she incorporatesthe insights to be gleaned from the perspectivesof intertextuality,deconstruction,and feminist criticism.This book is based on the EfroymsonLecturesdeliveredby the authorat Hebrew Union College in 1995, althoughthe core of the thesis developed in the chapteron the Binding of Isaac motif appearedin Prooftexts (September 1988). In the introduction,Kartun-Blumpoints out one of the centralparadoxesof modem Hebrewliterature:Despitethe iconoclastic stanceof manyIsraelipoets visa-vis the traditionaltexts ("the sources"),they cannot ignore the tradition.In thus confrontingthe canonical works, they continue the long Jewish tradition of engagement with text, and specifically, the metatextualpractice of midrash.However, while the rabbinicauthorsof midrashexult in their"belatedness"andareat pains to show how their readingsemerge from the text, the relationshipof the secular Israeli poet is typically one of subversionbased on strongand often ironic or parodic "misreadings."Kartun-Blumbringsup HaroldBloom's notion of the "anxietyof influence"-the oedipal struggle of strong poets with their precursors.She also highlightsthe special role the Hebrewlanguage, with the productivemorphology of its root system, plays in the generationof punning, intertextualconnections. Perhapsthe biblical theme that has most preoccupied Hebrew writersis the Binding of Isaac. Over the centuries,as Shalom Spiegel demonstratedin his masterful work, TheLast Trial,the biblical story has been interpretedtypologically as prefiguring Jewish martyrdom,particularlyduring the persecutions of the Crusades. Kartun-Blumdemonstratesthe centralityof this martyrologicalmotif within the formationof a Zionist masternarrativethat is in turn reflected and refracted in the treatmentof this motif by Israeli artists in a variety of media. (Menashe Kadishman,who has returnedrepeatedlyto this theme in his oeuvre, has provided the originalillustrationsthatadornthis book.) In her chapteron this topos, Kartun-Blumtraces the ways in which the deconstructionof the Aqedah myth can be read as a road map of the culture'sideological shifts that "lays bear the secrets of the collective Israeli psyche" (p. 19). While the heroic image of self-sacrifice of the halutsim characterizedthe earlier literatureof Zionist commitment (Yitzhaq Lamdan,"On the Altar"),much of the poetry up until the '60s viewed this motif in the context of the Shoah: the initial anger, as well as the residual traumaand guilt (NatanAlterman, "On the Child Abram";Haim Gouri, "Inheritance";Amir Gilboa, "Isaac").The move from the collective to personaltraumais exemplified by Yehiel Mar's"Aqedah"and "The Fearof Isaac"by T. Carmi;similarly,a dehistoricized, existential fear is reflected in Tuvya Riibner's"Voices"and David Avidan's"CurriculumVitae."In many of these poems, the deconstructionof the psychological, moral, or ideological consequences of the biblical event is realized 173

AJS Review throughthe manipulationof the roles or functionsof the charactersin the original drama-which is consequently deflated and ironized. In the most recent work discussed in this section, YehudahAmichai's "The Real Hero of the Aqedah"from 1982, the poet takes this to the extreme,notingthat it was the ram that was actually sacrificed; this brings the "truehero"to the foreground, endows it with human qualities, and portraysit as the innocent victim of the conspiracy engaged in by the other characters.Exploiting the metaphoricresonances of the industryof memorialbooks producedfor Israel'swar dead,the poet levels a stinging, anti-heroic critique of Israeli militarismand the willingness of the society to offer up its young on the altarof the battlefield.As Kartun-Blumexplains, this continues an anti-martyrologicalreading that the late playwright Hanoch Levinhadprovocativelyraisedin his 1970 musicalrevue, The Queenof the Bath. In the Aqedah sketch from this play (which includes the poem, "Dearfather, when you standover my grave"),Levin mocked the sacrosanct"cult"of bereaved parentsof fallen soldiers, touching a raw nerve in Israeli society and ignitingpublic furor.The discussion of the Aqedah motif could have been enrichedby including poets from the 1980s and 1990s (post-LebanonWar)whose focus has overwhelmingly been on the "internal"victimizationof Israel'syoung soldiers. David Jacobson has dealt with the recent use of this motif in Israel poetry in his 1997 work, Does David Still Play Before You:Israeli Poetry and the Bible. The thirdand final chapterof the book is ambitiouslytitled "A ModernMystical Experience:Intertextualityand Deconstructionin IsraeliWomen'sPoetry,"although Kartun-Blumrestricts her discussion to a single poem by YonaWallach, "The Troubles of Dona Teresa."Here she attemptsto counter the prevalentperception that Wallach'spoetry is self-containedor self-referentialand does not engage canonical texts. Kartun-Blumargues that Wallach was a "strong"feminist writer who in fact daringly engaged these texts. In doing so, the poet served as a precursorfor the revolutionthat has taken place in Israeliwomen's writing,a revolution whose impact can be gauged by the dramaticincrease in the numberand subtlety of allusions. Kartun-Bluminvokes here the approachof Alicia Ostriker, who calls upon women writersto become "thievesof language":to appropriatethe power of story-telling, to retell the myths from their own perspective in orderto challenge the hegemony of patriarchalthought. In her readingof the Wallachpoem, Kartun-Blumisolates three separateintertextualconnections that the poet drawsupon. She elucidatesthe direct allusion to the poem's eponymous subject,the sixteenth-centurySpanish saint and mystic, Teresa of Avila, showing how Wallach valorizes Teresaas an autonomous-and autoerotic-figure. Kartun-Blumarguesfor a dialectic relationshipacross artistic media between Wallach'spoem and one of Bernini'sbest-knownsculptures,"The Ecstasy of St. Teresa"(itself based on a vision of God's angel describedin Teresa's Life). The physicality and intense sensualityof the sculptedimage of Teresaallows for Wallach'sagonistic readingthatreversesthe powerrelationshipsof themale (angel) and female (saint).In the poem, it is the woman who possesses sexual control, wielding as she does the phosphorus-tippeddagger. Secondly, Kartun-Blumalso shows how Wallachengages the "Womanof Valor"acrostic poem from Proverbs

174

Book Reviews 31, "misreading"this paean to controlledfemale domesticity as an ode to armed power (',n). The final intertextKartun-Blumconnects with the poem is the myth of Amor and Psyche. Here, Kartun-Blumdemonstrateshow the poem's glowing, phosphorus-tippedknife (correlatingwith Psyche's attempton Amor's life while holding a knife and a lamp) and the house of crystal and velvet in which Teresa erotically luxuriates (correspondingto the palace in which Psyche is "imprisoned") highlight "the uncompromisingfight against patriarchal,chauvinist love" (p. 84). While the intertextualties here are subtle and veiled, reflecting Wallach's more hermeticstyle, Kartun-Blumteases out enough evidence to supporther feminist and post-structuraldecoding of this "difficult"poem. Although the two case studies that comprise the core of this study are fascinatingand standwell on their own, there is little to make them cohere. In the preface, Kartun-Blumstates that she will be examining the use made by Hebrew poets of biblical allusion. While the author has demonstratedthat Wallach does engage the Bible in her poem, it is done somewhat obliquely and is certainly not the primaryintertextevoked. Perhapsa connection between them beyond the intertextual reading could have been established: for example, the motif of the knife, the sacrificial blade lodged in the heart of Isaac's descendantsand the autoeroticallychargedknife held by the "ruptured"Dona Teresa;alternativelyan analysis of women's writing on the Aqedah motif such as poems by YehuditKafri andAliza Shenharthat,like the poem by BenjaminGalai which Kartun-Blumdoes treat,adoptthe perspectiveof the biblically absent and silent Sarah;or perhapsthe inversion of the roles of the dramatispersonae in the evoked texts. At the very least, the chapteron Wallach'spoem needs to be more directly integratedwith the frameworkestablished in the introduction.But none of this takes away from the overall eruditionand insightfulnessof Kartun-Blum'sexplorationof the intertextual and linguistic echo chamberin which Hebrew writers operate. Kartun-Blum cites as an epigraphto the book the statementof the poet David Avidan:"The purpose of battle is dialogue."This aphorismcouldjust as easily be turnedaroundand read to reflect the subversiveand contentiousengagement of contemporarypoets with the tradition-and the ensuing impacton our readingof both the alluding and source texts-that Kartun-Blumhas illuminatedin this small gem of a study. Marc Bernstein State Michigan University East Lansing, Michigan

StephenKatz. The CentrifugalNovel: S. YAgnon'sPoetics of Composition.Madison and Teaneck,NJ: FairleighDickinson University Press, 1999. 219 pp. Agnon studies are still with us. The great modern Hebrewprose writer has been gone for nearly three decades, but new studies in Hebrew and even in English have made it seem as if he were still in our midst. They continue to increase 175

Review: [untitled] Author(s): William Cutter Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 175-178 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131586 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:59 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews 31, "misreading"this paean to controlledfemale domesticity as an ode to armed power (',n). The final intertextKartun-Blumconnects with the poem is the myth of Amor and Psyche. Here, Kartun-Blumdemonstrateshow the poem's glowing, phosphorus-tippedknife (correlatingwith Psyche's attempton Amor's life while holding a knife and a lamp) and the house of crystal and velvet in which Teresa erotically luxuriates (correspondingto the palace in which Psyche is "imprisoned") highlight "the uncompromisingfight against patriarchal,chauvinist love" (p. 84). While the intertextualties here are subtle and veiled, reflecting Wallach's more hermeticstyle, Kartun-Blumteases out enough evidence to supporther feminist and post-structuraldecoding of this "difficult"poem. Although the two case studies that comprise the core of this study are fascinatingand standwell on their own, there is little to make them cohere. In the preface, Kartun-Blumstates that she will be examining the use made by Hebrew poets of biblical allusion. While the author has demonstratedthat Wallach does engage the Bible in her poem, it is done somewhat obliquely and is certainly not the primaryintertextevoked. Perhapsa connection between them beyond the intertextual reading could have been established: for example, the motif of the knife, the sacrificial blade lodged in the heart of Isaac's descendantsand the autoeroticallychargedknife held by the "ruptured"Dona Teresa;alternativelyan analysis of women's writing on the Aqedah motif such as poems by YehuditKafri andAliza Shenharthat,like the poem by BenjaminGalai which Kartun-Blumdoes treat,adoptthe perspectiveof the biblically absent and silent Sarah;or perhapsthe inversion of the roles of the dramatispersonae in the evoked texts. At the very least, the chapteron Wallach'spoem needs to be more directly integratedwith the frameworkestablished in the introduction.But none of this takes away from the overall eruditionand insightfulnessof Kartun-Blum'sexplorationof the intertextual and linguistic echo chamberin which Hebrew writers operate. Kartun-Blum cites as an epigraphto the book the statementof the poet David Avidan:"The purpose of battle is dialogue."This aphorismcouldjust as easily be turnedaroundand read to reflect the subversiveand contentiousengagement of contemporarypoets with the tradition-and the ensuing impacton our readingof both the alluding and source texts-that Kartun-Blumhas illuminatedin this small gem of a study. Marc Bernstein State Michigan University East Lansing, Michigan

StephenKatz. The CentrifugalNovel: S. YAgnon'sPoetics of Composition.Madison and Teaneck,NJ: FairleighDickinson University Press, 1999. 219 pp. Agnon studies are still with us. The great modern Hebrewprose writer has been gone for nearly three decades, but new studies in Hebrew and even in English have made it seem as if he were still in our midst. They continue to increase 175

AJS Review our understanding of his life and his oeuvre, obviously, but the immediacy of this Nobel prize laureate for his particularculture strikes me as unique among western literary figures. Speaking only of English, in this decade alone, Anne Golomb Hoffman and Nitzah Ben Dov have published full-length monographs, and scores of articles have appearedon subjects rangingfrom biographyto intertextual exploration,and from language to folklore sources.All this is on top of an even more plentiful supplyof materialsfromthe '70s and '80s (some Israelischolars, like Shaked,have even published in English), which followed on the heels of Arnold Band's indispensableNostalgia and Nightmare. One has to assume that Dan Laor'scomprehensiveAgnon biography,HayyeiAgnon-which hasjust been published-will be translatedinto English and share its plentiful light with the purely English-speakingscholarlycommunity.Laor'sbiographywas not completed when Stephen Katz published The CentrifugalNovel, althoughseveral articles containing material intended for the eventual biography appeared over recent years. It can be a pleasant surpriseto see how classic belles-lettresare illuminated throughnew critical lenses and new combinationsof lenses. Agnon can be turned and turnedagain, and-one hopes-the process won't stop soon. Of course, that turning is most relevantwithin Israeli scholarship,where a largercommunityunderstandsthe nativeculturalissues more fully, andmanywritersacknowledgetheir own literary obligation to the great Galician story teller. (Katz notes Laor'scontributionto the discussion in his note 6 to ChapterOne.) Katz endorses the well-discussed notion of centripetaland centrifugalvectors in Agnon's longer prose work. "The centripetalapproachto the formationof works of fiction reveals a process of creationby segments:pieces of narrativeare joined, at times artificially,in a chainlikesequenceof scenes havingassociativeand causal connection with each other ... " (p. 26). "Thecentrifugalnovel, on the other hand, may be likened to the ideal sculptureimprisonedwithin a block of marble ... awaitingthe artist'sact of releasingit by chippingawayat all excessive matter, leaving intact only that which is the work of art. To gain their ideal balance, centrifugalworkstend to undergosignificant contractionleaving behindany number or combinationof episodes or short stories ... " (pp. 26 and 27). I will leave it to Israeli critics to comment on whether Stephen Katz'swork will be viewed as an originalcontributionwithin the Israelicommunity.It certainly representsa more complete study than has been availablein English aboutone aspect of Agnon studies-a significant elaborationof the inevitablestudies of variant texts of Agnon's work. Clearly his applicationof this notion to OreahNatah LaLun ("A Guest for the Night") runs counterto the evidence of Band's original reckoning of the length of the novel's two primaryeditions. Katz combines his concentrationon OreahNatah LaLunwith the fascinating examinationof the author'spersonallife and the relationshipof that life to the fictive personahe created-as storytellerand chorusto the action on life's stage. Furthermore, Katz demonstrateshow some of the themes in the works which have been built out of several units work themselves out in other fictions, so that one may trace both themes and character.For the English readerthis is an especially

176

Book Reviews importantcontribution,but even Hebrew readersmay gain from the diligence of Katz'sanalysis. Katz has taken up the question of the literary persona of the storytellernarratorwhom Agnon createdas an author,and drawsupon his researchwithin the Agnon Archives to demonstratethe self-consciousness with which the apparently manipulativestoryteller,the "unreliablenarrator,"sets out to confound his reader as a partof the readingenterprise.For Katz, Agnon's narratorfunctions as a character within many of the novels and longer short stories. This in itself is not news to regularreadersof Agnon; what is news is that there is supportfor this readerly conclusion within the archivesand storageof manuscriptsthemselves. Eschewing the classical new critical concentrationon the finished literaryproduct,Katz has found evidence of a conscientious and determined use of rabbinic sources and sources from other stories within the Agnon oeuvre for the creation of new material. Thus,the study of manuscripts,pieces of paper,ostensibly randomnotes, and so forth adds to our understandingof the author'sintention, and, more important, creates a kind of metanarrativeto the narrativeas it came to be completed. The book begins with a quaintanecdotalintroductionto Bet Agnon, in a sensitive descriptionwhich capturesthe deceptive maneuversof this author-tricky both in his life and as a fictional persona.The intimateopening invites visitors to the Agnon home and drawsone into the experienceof uncoveringthe evidence that Agnon createda fictional characterout of himself throughthe artifactshe has left for us to discover. The life depicted in the museum's video tape and other organized curatorialpresentationsof Agnon (artfulthough all this is) are not nearly as satisfying, ultimately, as a careful piecing together of life and work. Katz contributesmightily to this piecing together,as does the epistolary presentation"Estherlein"which has been so popularon Israeli stages over the last couple of years. My only substantiveargumentwith Stephen Katz'sbook has to do with his effort to carrynew criticalthoughtto a "logical conclusion" which would deny us a scholarshipof building our understandingof Agnon and his oeuvre out of the reality of text and life. The strawman of new criticism has alreadybeen discredited, even as the new critical legacy remainssomethingto be heeded and utilized to enhance one's appreciationof an integratedliterarytext. Let all these flowers bloom, and we shall be able to continue in our literaryprogresson all fronts. Indeed,there are instances in Katz's study where one misses a discussion of the story itself, wherethe critic has let themes and meaningand intricatedescriptionsof story constructioninterruptone's appreciationof the delightsthatawaita readingofAgnon's stories. Katz's approachto the work would restrictthe uninitiatedAgnon reader from appreciatingwhat made this writer such a pleasure to read as well as so weighty an artist.And so we welcome work on Agnon by some of our traditional close readers.Books like The CentrifugalNovel owe their importanceto the new critical legacy. On a less substantivelevel, "S. Y. Agnon's Poetics of Composition"needed considerablymore editing than it received. The work is full of typographicalerrors, debatablecalls about punctuation,and extended sentences that should have been re-composed.Antecedentsneed to be searchedout, and sentences that ought 177

AJS Review to have ended early extend into indeterminacy.I fear that this fine study may not get the attentionit deserves because of these editing problems.Having said that, I can urge owning and using this importantbook, for its many ideas and for its diligent provision of notes, relevantappendices,and insights about composition. William Cutter Hebrew Union College-Jewish Instituteof Religion Los Angeles, California

S. Lillian Kremer. Women'sHolocaust Writing:Memory and Imagination. Lincoln: University of NebraskaPress, 1999. xi, 278 pp. Kremer'srecent book is an importantcontributionto the growing body of scholarship devoted to literary responses to the Holocaust. Women's Holocaust Writingjoins studies such as EdwardAlexander'sTheResonance of Dust: Essays on Holocaust Literature,LawrenceLanger'sTheHolocaust and the LiteraryImagination, Alvin Rosenfeld'sA Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature, Alan Berger'sCrisis and Covenant:TheHolocaust inAmericanJewish Fiction, his more recent ChildrenofJob: AmericanSecond-GenerationWitnessesto the Holocaust, Sarah Horowitz's Voicingthe Void,and Kremer'sprevious study Witness throughthe Imagination:Jewish-AmericanHolocaust Literature. The constructionof Kremer'sstudy meets the challenge of two widely debated issues in the area of Holocaust studies. The first relates to the fact that the book focuses on women's Holocaust writing;the second that it juxtaposes Holocaust fictional writing of women survivors with Holocaust fiction of Americanborn women writers. The group of 6migr6 women living in America, as Kremer calls them, include Ilona Karmel,ElzbietaEttinger,and HanaDemetz. The nativeborn Americanwriters are Susan FombergSchaeffer,CynthiaOzick, Marge Piercy, and Norma Rosen. Awareof the continuing debate concerningthe particularityof women'sexperience, Kremereschews fruitlessand inappropriatecomparisonsof sufferingbetween the sexes, both of whom were targetedby the Final Solution. She explains the rationale for her exclusive focus on women writers in the fact that women's Holocaustexperience was differentdue to theirbiological destiny andthattheirresponse to the Holocaust experience was differentdue to their patternsof socialization. The threatof sexual abuse and the dangersinvolved in motherhoodwere hardshipsdirectedparticularlyat women. The networksof bonding and cooperation as means of protectionand resistancecharacterizewomen'sresponse. Kremer groundsher argumentin worksby scholars such as Sybil Milton, JoanRingelheim and MyrnaGoldberg,and then sets to proveit in the novels underher examination. Kremer's readings of the novels corroboratethe findings that "[m]ale writing lamentsthe loss of childrenand addressesfather'sgrief, but does not centeron efforts to save the children"(p. 12). Her interpretationsof the novels also reflect the notion that "[n]o doubt there were men who sacrificed themselves for one anoth178

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Rachel Feldhay Brenner Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 178-180 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131587 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 13:59 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review to have ended early extend into indeterminacy.I fear that this fine study may not get the attentionit deserves because of these editing problems.Having said that, I can urge owning and using this importantbook, for its many ideas and for its diligent provision of notes, relevantappendices,and insights about composition. William Cutter Hebrew Union College-Jewish Instituteof Religion Los Angeles, California

S. Lillian Kremer. Women'sHolocaust Writing:Memory and Imagination. Lincoln: University of NebraskaPress, 1999. xi, 278 pp. Kremer'srecent book is an importantcontributionto the growing body of scholarship devoted to literary responses to the Holocaust. Women's Holocaust Writingjoins studies such as EdwardAlexander'sTheResonance of Dust: Essays on Holocaust Literature,LawrenceLanger'sTheHolocaust and the LiteraryImagination, Alvin Rosenfeld'sA Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature, Alan Berger'sCrisis and Covenant:TheHolocaust inAmericanJewish Fiction, his more recent ChildrenofJob: AmericanSecond-GenerationWitnessesto the Holocaust, Sarah Horowitz's Voicingthe Void,and Kremer'sprevious study Witness throughthe Imagination:Jewish-AmericanHolocaust Literature. The constructionof Kremer'sstudy meets the challenge of two widely debated issues in the area of Holocaust studies. The first relates to the fact that the book focuses on women's Holocaust writing;the second that it juxtaposes Holocaust fictional writing of women survivors with Holocaust fiction of Americanborn women writers. The group of 6migr6 women living in America, as Kremer calls them, include Ilona Karmel,ElzbietaEttinger,and HanaDemetz. The nativeborn Americanwriters are Susan FombergSchaeffer,CynthiaOzick, Marge Piercy, and Norma Rosen. Awareof the continuing debate concerningthe particularityof women'sexperience, Kremereschews fruitlessand inappropriatecomparisonsof sufferingbetween the sexes, both of whom were targetedby the Final Solution. She explains the rationale for her exclusive focus on women writers in the fact that women's Holocaustexperience was differentdue to theirbiological destiny andthattheirresponse to the Holocaust experience was differentdue to their patternsof socialization. The threatof sexual abuse and the dangersinvolved in motherhoodwere hardshipsdirectedparticularlyat women. The networksof bonding and cooperation as means of protectionand resistancecharacterizewomen'sresponse. Kremer groundsher argumentin worksby scholars such as Sybil Milton, JoanRingelheim and MyrnaGoldberg,and then sets to proveit in the novels underher examination. Kremer's readings of the novels corroboratethe findings that "[m]ale writing lamentsthe loss of childrenand addressesfather'sgrief, but does not centeron efforts to save the children"(p. 12). Her interpretationsof the novels also reflect the notion that "[n]o doubt there were men who sacrificed themselves for one anoth178

Book Reviews er, but the preponderanceof testimony and creativewriting suggests such activity was minimal comparedwith that reportedby women" (p. 18). Kremertraces the theme of solidarityand bonding and finds that, in practicallyall cases, moral considerationshave prevailed.Even in the single case of Karmel'scharacterizationof Tola, who decides to cooperatewith the Germansfor her own protection,the collaboratoreventually"forsakesphysical safety for spiritualsurvival. ... In risking her life to save another,Tola is redeemed"(p. 65). The issue of Holocaustrepresentationsin art and especially in literarywrithas been a longstandingdebateamong Holocaust scholars.Kremerplaces ficing tion groundedin the memory of the writer-survivoralongside works of fiction engenderedin the imaginationof American-bornwriters.The inclusion of the latter communicates the legitimacy of fictional representationsof the Holocaust. The juxtapositionof literatureof memory with literatureof imaginationplaces the outsider'sfiction in the same rankas the survivor's.Kremertells us that the intention of this constructionwas to extendthe canon of literarystudyby includingwomen's fiction. She is, however,awareof the inherentdifference between the two bodies of fiction that she chose to examine, and pays close attentionto the resources and the strategiesthe writersused in telling the story.The fiction of the 6migr6women is invariablygroundedin their personalexperiences.Thus, Karmelfocuses on her Krakowghetto experience and memories of the labor camps in which she was imprisoned.Ettingerdrawsupon her experiences in the Warsawghetto, and upon her activities as a resistancefighter in Aryan Poland(of special interestis the account of her protagonist'sreturnto post-WW II Poland and her consequent disillusion with the communistregime there). Demetz representsa particularcase of a child of "mixedrace" in the reality of the Holocaust, an experience centralto her novel. The fiction of the American-bornwomen writers grounds itself in secondary sources. Thus, Schaeffer'sAnya is based on interviews with survivors; Piercy's Gone withthe Soldiers demonstratesthoroughresearchandpersonalcontacts with survivors.Ozick and Norma also drawupon contact with survivorsas well as researchof the Holocaust post-traumaticeffects. Kremeralso triesto establisha thematicdifferentiationbetweenthe two bodies of writing. She claims thatthe Americanwritersavoid as much as possible representationsof ghettosand camps,thatthey refrainfrom criticizingthe victims and their moral decisions, and that they focus on individual survivaland the post-war social reintegrationof the victim. These suppositionsare not quiteborne out in the fiction itself. Suffice it to mention Ozick's imaginaryreproductionof the concentrationcamp and the murderof the child in "The Shawl,"and the critical representationof the child's mother,Rosa, the Holocaust survivor,in the sequel named "Rosa."Here an essential differentiationbetween survivorsand observers comes to the fore, exhibiting the Americans' limited comprehensionof prewarEurope. This lack of understandingaccountsfor the inclinationto judge pre-HolocaustEuropeanJewry from the Americanpost-Holocaustperspective,a perspectivewhich categoricallysees Jewish identification as the only possible response to the Holocaust. It seems to me that a more plausible interconnectionbetween the two bodies of fiction lies in Norma Rosen's argumentthat the enormityof the Holocaust, "themalaise, the maledictionof [Holocaust]knowledgehas enteredthe psyche of 179

AJS Review Jew and non-Jew alike" (p. 213), thusjustifying preoccupationwith the event and its aftermathand opening a variety of possible responses. Kremerpresentsa detailed andthorough,thematicallyarrangedsummaryof each novel. She locates her discussion in the socio-historicalcontext of the writer's biography and often verifies the fiction with historical factuality.As she herself admits, the intentionof the study is "to unite literaryexplication with sociopolitical constructs, to show how the writers negotiated the complicated interaction among life story,history, and fiction" (p. xi). All in all, Kremerhas deliveredher promise: She has expanded the canon drawingour attentionto importantliterary women's representationsof the Holocaust. I would suggest, however, that a discussion of the survivors'writing in second-languageEnglish would have been of particularinteresthere. After all, writing in English as an 6migr6in a new country implies an intendedreadershipquite unknownto the writer.This crucial decision certainly deserves an in-depth consideration. Rachel FeldhayBrenner University of Wisconsin, Madison Madison, Wisconsin

Kadya Molodowsky. Paper Bridges: Selected Poems. Translated, introduced, and edited by KathrynHellerstein. Detroit:Wayne State University Press, 1999. 543 pp. In recent years there has been much interest in the place of Kadya Molodowsky in the canon of Yiddish literature.At the same time, the translationof late nineteenth-and early twentieth-centuryYiddish literaturehas become an imperative-fueled by the Holocaust, the quality and quantityof writing that occurred prior to and even after it, and a heightened awareness of many women writers heretofore underrepresentedin translation.Nor can one ignore the tremendous fluctuations in the perceived viability and legitimacy of Yiddish, as either a language or a literaryvehicle, that have takenplace and are still taking place into the twenty-first century.Into this tumultuousset of circumstances,Molodowsky'spoetry has been rebornby virtue of an extensive translation. Kathryn Hellerstein's translation of Molodowsky's selected poetry ably demonstratesone reason she has been canonized: Even the most chauvinistic or politicized of her contemporarymale colleagues recognized that she was "a natural poet" with things of consequence to say. Anotherreason Molodowsky is being canonized is more complex, since her poetry (and life) reveal a purposefulbut anguishedcareeningback and forth. She was the traditionalJewish woman imbued with biblical and rabbinicalallusions, attitudes,and constraints,but she was also a socially-conscious political activist. She was a sophisticatedearlychildhoodeducator,yet she was drawnto a more lyric and personal aesthetic. She had a depressed view of her right to be a poet during and after the Holocaust, but it was a period of intense interestin Zionism for her. 180

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Leah Zazulyer Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 180-183 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131588 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review Jew and non-Jew alike" (p. 213), thusjustifying preoccupationwith the event and its aftermathand opening a variety of possible responses. Kremerpresentsa detailed andthorough,thematicallyarrangedsummaryof each novel. She locates her discussion in the socio-historicalcontext of the writer's biography and often verifies the fiction with historical factuality.As she herself admits, the intentionof the study is "to unite literaryexplication with sociopolitical constructs, to show how the writers negotiated the complicated interaction among life story,history, and fiction" (p. xi). All in all, Kremerhas deliveredher promise: She has expanded the canon drawingour attentionto importantliterary women's representationsof the Holocaust. I would suggest, however, that a discussion of the survivors'writing in second-languageEnglish would have been of particularinteresthere. After all, writing in English as an 6migr6in a new country implies an intendedreadershipquite unknownto the writer.This crucial decision certainly deserves an in-depth consideration. Rachel FeldhayBrenner University of Wisconsin, Madison Madison, Wisconsin

Kadya Molodowsky. Paper Bridges: Selected Poems. Translated, introduced, and edited by KathrynHellerstein. Detroit:Wayne State University Press, 1999. 543 pp. In recent years there has been much interest in the place of Kadya Molodowsky in the canon of Yiddish literature.At the same time, the translationof late nineteenth-and early twentieth-centuryYiddish literaturehas become an imperative-fueled by the Holocaust, the quality and quantityof writing that occurred prior to and even after it, and a heightened awareness of many women writers heretofore underrepresentedin translation.Nor can one ignore the tremendous fluctuations in the perceived viability and legitimacy of Yiddish, as either a language or a literaryvehicle, that have takenplace and are still taking place into the twenty-first century.Into this tumultuousset of circumstances,Molodowsky'spoetry has been rebornby virtue of an extensive translation. Kathryn Hellerstein's translation of Molodowsky's selected poetry ably demonstratesone reason she has been canonized: Even the most chauvinistic or politicized of her contemporarymale colleagues recognized that she was "a natural poet" with things of consequence to say. Anotherreason Molodowsky is being canonized is more complex, since her poetry (and life) reveal a purposefulbut anguishedcareeningback and forth. She was the traditionalJewish woman imbued with biblical and rabbinicalallusions, attitudes,and constraints,but she was also a socially-conscious political activist. She was a sophisticatedearlychildhoodeducator,yet she was drawnto a more lyric and personal aesthetic. She had a depressed view of her right to be a poet during and after the Holocaust, but it was a period of intense interestin Zionism for her. 180

Book Reviews Fora while she was unableto writeat all, but she producedmemorablechildren'spoetry.By hertenacioushold on her Jewish identityand her effortsto become a modem woman writer,she tempts us to see her as an iconic writer. Indeed she is that most iconic of all Jews, a "survivor,"in the sense that her will to write persistedand maturedthroughgood, bad, and worse times: in Bereza Kartuskain Grodno Province; in the Paleof Settlement of the Russian Empire, where she was born in 1894; in Warsaw,Kiev; back home; again in Warsaw;precipitously in 1935 to Philadelphiaand then New York;in Israel;and back in New York.Hellerstein makes a strong case for Molodowsky's ability to remain artistically and psychically intact despite geographic, political, and personal upheavals. What happens to a world-class poet when iconic status is bestowed on him or her? Might it affect what is selected of their work to translate?Does it limit or simplify the perceptionof complexity in the writer'svoice? Can it detractfrom an understandingof that writer'splace in the largercanon of world literature? I readthe undertextof desperationand despairin many of Molodowsky'spoems as a struggle to come to terms with her fear that her suffering is punishment for the "sin"of abandoningmore traditionalmores. Additionally,many of her poems dwell upon thwartedefforts to constructher identity as The Poet. Thus I am persuadedthat her own absorptionwith these issues both sustained and maimed her poetic potential. Whethershe is the perfect icon or not, the readerwill find the book compelling precisely because it is hauntedby this issue. Molodowskyplays out the often tragic tension between Socialism and Zionism, between Yiddish and Hebrew, between EuropeandAmerica,between post-Holocausttraditionalismand the self, in poem afterpoem. One wonders where her "take"on the currentbifurcationsin Jewish life, and the general state of affairs in the world, would have led her poetically were she alive today! The wonderfullyappropriatetitle of the book, Paper Bridges, has been inspiredby threeseparatepoems containingthatphrase-one publishedin the 1930s in Poland,anotherin the 1940s in New York,and the last in the 1960s in Buenos Aires. The second was even publishedby "The PaperBridge Press."Obviously the legend that when the Messiah comes Jews will cross into Paradiseover a paper bridge had deep symbolic meaning for Molodowsky. However,the differences in the three poems are compelling in light of the above comments. In the first, titled "My PaperBridge,"the bridge leads Molodowsky back to halcyon times. (Indeed,in villages such as Bereza Kartuska,the road out into the fields did appearto meet and merge with the sky at the end of the shtetl.) But the poet encountersthe poverty and despair of the Jewish condition in those times in the person of a homeless woman with whom she is forced to contend and with whom she in a sense merges or identifies. In the second,titled "A Poem to the PaperBridge,"there is a post-Holocaust recognition of the enduranceof the Jewish people, and hopes for manna in the desert and the dawn of a new day.Nevertheless, it is a bittersweetpoem. The third poem, "On the Paper Bridge,"dances tauntingly,teasingly, back and forthbetween dutifulnessand capriciousness,between her calling to write and the call of"women's work"and the world's work. In the end, she tries to resolve 181

AJS Review this fundamentalconflict in her life and work by using the learned metaphorof "Nutrikin"(or Notarikon), the mystical technique of interpretingletters of one word as initials of other words-i.e., by being a writer. This theme is further poignantlyelaboratedin poems such as "A PoemAbout Self" and "LeaveTaking." Of course, her ability to turn one metaphorover and over so differently is a tribute to her talents. Hellerstein'sfine introductionfleshes out Molodowsky'sbiography,simultaneously sketchingout the complexities of a life in many ways emblematicof the whole of Jewish cultural,political, and linguistic history in the twentieth century. Her extensive endnotesprovidereaderswith much food for thought.They areboth scholarly and remarkablyhonest commentaries on the challenges and choices faced in translatinga language as linguistically infused as Yiddish. Wayne State University Press, long the publisherof a diverse ethnic catalogue, is to be commended for not stinting on the supportivematerialHellerstein wished to include; they have createdboth hardand soft cover editions beautifully bound, illustrated,and papered. Hellerstein'stranslationstyle calls up some importantissues, solves them with a consistent and deliberateaesthetic, and successfully provides readerswith great access to Molodowsky'spoetry.We wanttranslatorsto "understand"theirauthors; she does. Mindful of Molodowsky'sgenerous use of rhyme,Hellersteinallows herself ratherfree renderingof these, particularlyin the children'stales, but less so in her more symbolic or visionary poetry. Some translatorstend to sacrifice rhyme for other qualities. By and large Hellerstein is not willing to. Differences in the typical metrical foot in Yiddish versus that in English also color her translations. Yiddishhas no capitalization;it often uses the conventionof beginninga line with "and."In normaldiscoursethe verb must be in second place. Hellersteinusually chooses to opt out of this pattern,which can sometimes change the semantic emphasisin a line. Hellersteinsometimes chooses the presentparticiplewhen Yiddish gives her the option of the simple presenttense as well. This is one of those nuances that poets know can subtly affect the impact or sense of immediacy of what is written.Hellersteinchooses to capitalizethe first letterof each line. Mostly her punctuationend-stops lines. True, this is characteristicof an older/and or more formalisticpoetry,but it can rein in the emotional intensityof a poem in English. Much has alreadybeen writtenaboutthe hazardsof gerundsin English,and about the choice between Latinateand more Anglo-Saxon synonyms. For example, in one poem Hellersteinchooses the word"primordial"over "ancient,"possibly out of respectfor its biblical undertones.Englishquantifiesits nouns-a bunch of, a group of, etc.-this is not as typical in Yiddish. On the other hand,Yiddish has gender markersthat can make for a certain cumbersomeness in English or create the alternativetemptationof condensation. Eruditeand extensive as Hellerstein'sbook is, it cannotbe expected to fully explore the modernistmovement in Yiddishpoetry,nor to providethe full story of Molodowsky's relationship with other great Jewish writers of her time on both sides of the Atlantic. It cannot possibly explore the full implications of Birobid182

Book Reviews jhan in one of her poems. About her relationshipwith her husbandand his politics much has been left unsaid. Whatthe book will do is impel the readerto discovermany othernoteworthy Yiddish poets and prose writersnow availablein translation.They are from times and places when to write, think, and dream in Yiddish was to be a Jew. After all, it was that anguishedJewish poet Paul Celan who said, "Only one thing remainedreachable,close and secure amid all losses: language.... " Leah Zazulyer Rochester,New York

David Patterson.Along the Edge ofAnnihilation: The Collapse and Recovery of Life in the Holocaust Diary. Seattle:Universityof WashingtonPress, 1999. xi, 311 pp. David Patterson'sAlong the Edge ofAnnihilation: The Collapse and Recovery ofLife in the Holocaust Diary adds to the ever-growingcollection of analyses of Holocaustliteratureby focussing specifically on diaries.Twoobvious goals of a study such as this would be to give the diaristsa voice (or, to put it anotherway, to give readersan introductionto a variety of diaries) and to develop a theory about the place of diaries in Holocaust literature.In the first matter,Pattersonbases his study on more than fifty diaries written during the Holocaust by Jewish victims. The readerneed only consult the primarysources in the bibliographyfor a listing of diaries availableto be read in their entirety.(I will say more about this later.) In the case of the second matter,Pattersonoffers a strict definition of the genre of Holocaustdiary,which functionsto include only those diariesthatexpress their "love for the communityof Israel"(p. x). Similarto other diarists,Patterson explains, a Holocaust diarist felt an impulse to record experience and to recover time and meaning, but in addition, was "accountable"to his community (p. 21). On its behalf, the diaristbegan and ended his writings with a "why" (p. 25). While the featuresof the genre Pattersonestablishes may be found in some diaries, they surely are not found in all. Ironically,his use of Etty Hillesum's diary,An InterruptedLife,1to explain that a diary "usually regardedas a Holocaust diary ... in truthis not"(p. 25) reveals the arbitrarinessof his taxonomy.It is thereforeworth looking closely at his comments on this particularwriterand her diary. Hillesum'sdiary does not satisfy the genre Pattersoncreatesbecause it does he not, claims, ask why or take the other to be of prime importance;yet various scholarsof Holocaust literaturereferto it positively.2In his brief analysis of Hille1. Etty Hillesum, An InterruptedLife: The Diaries, 1941-1943, trans. by Arnold J. Pomerans (New York:Henry Holt, 1996). 2. LaurenceKutlerrecommendsAn InterruptedLife as a source for teaching the Holocaust in Holocaust Literature:A Handbookof Critical, Historical, and LiteraryWritings,ed. by Saul S. Friedman (Westport,CT: Greenwood,1993), p. 525. Earl M. Friedmanrefers to it along with other Dutch diaries and memoirsthat provide"movingglimpses of life underthe Nazis," also in Holocaust Litera-

183

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Linda Raphael Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 183-185 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131589 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews jhan in one of her poems. About her relationshipwith her husbandand his politics much has been left unsaid. Whatthe book will do is impel the readerto discovermany othernoteworthy Yiddish poets and prose writersnow availablein translation.They are from times and places when to write, think, and dream in Yiddish was to be a Jew. After all, it was that anguishedJewish poet Paul Celan who said, "Only one thing remainedreachable,close and secure amid all losses: language.... " Leah Zazulyer Rochester,New York

David Patterson.Along the Edge ofAnnihilation: The Collapse and Recovery of Life in the Holocaust Diary. Seattle:Universityof WashingtonPress, 1999. xi, 311 pp. David Patterson'sAlong the Edge ofAnnihilation: The Collapse and Recovery ofLife in the Holocaust Diary adds to the ever-growingcollection of analyses of Holocaustliteratureby focussing specifically on diaries.Twoobvious goals of a study such as this would be to give the diaristsa voice (or, to put it anotherway, to give readersan introductionto a variety of diaries) and to develop a theory about the place of diaries in Holocaust literature.In the first matter,Pattersonbases his study on more than fifty diaries written during the Holocaust by Jewish victims. The readerneed only consult the primarysources in the bibliographyfor a listing of diaries availableto be read in their entirety.(I will say more about this later.) In the case of the second matter,Pattersonoffers a strict definition of the genre of Holocaustdiary,which functionsto include only those diariesthatexpress their "love for the communityof Israel"(p. x). Similarto other diarists,Patterson explains, a Holocaust diarist felt an impulse to record experience and to recover time and meaning, but in addition, was "accountable"to his community (p. 21). On its behalf, the diaristbegan and ended his writings with a "why" (p. 25). While the featuresof the genre Pattersonestablishes may be found in some diaries, they surely are not found in all. Ironically,his use of Etty Hillesum's diary,An InterruptedLife,1to explain that a diary "usually regardedas a Holocaust diary ... in truthis not"(p. 25) reveals the arbitrarinessof his taxonomy.It is thereforeworth looking closely at his comments on this particularwriterand her diary. Hillesum'sdiary does not satisfy the genre Pattersoncreatesbecause it does he not, claims, ask why or take the other to be of prime importance;yet various scholarsof Holocaust literaturereferto it positively.2In his brief analysis of Hille1. Etty Hillesum, An InterruptedLife: The Diaries, 1941-1943, trans. by Arnold J. Pomerans (New York:Henry Holt, 1996). 2. LaurenceKutlerrecommendsAn InterruptedLife as a source for teaching the Holocaust in Holocaust Literature:A Handbookof Critical, Historical, and LiteraryWritings,ed. by Saul S. Friedman (Westport,CT: Greenwood,1993), p. 525. Earl M. Friedmanrefers to it along with other Dutch diaries and memoirsthat provide"movingglimpses of life underthe Nazis," also in Holocaust Litera-

183

AJS Review sum's writing, Pattersonfails to tell us that she was a Dutch Jew, a significant fact when comparingher diary-a recordingof experience, as Pattersonremindsus a diary is-because her experience differedfromthose of diaristsfrom Poland,Germany, and France,for example. In fact, one might guess that Hillesum was Polish when Pattersonqueriesher words,"Evenif we areconsignedto Hell, let us go there as gracefully as we can,"with "Is she suggesting that the mothers of the Warsaw ghetto should send their childrento the flames of Treblinkawith grace?" (p. 26). That Hillesum would not be thinking of the mothersof the Warsawghetto is both apparentand reasonable;she died in 1943 in Westerbork(Pattersonmentionsthat Hillesum was confined in Westerbork),a transitcamp that was the last stop before Auschwitz for Dutch Jews. Pattersondoes not take into accountthe materialreality of Hillesum's life; thus he can project back onto her a concern we all share now-the experiences of the mothers of the Warsawghetto and countless other suffering individuals whose experiences we attempt to understandthrough the records they have left us-while he ignores the largercontext of her writing. Asserting that Hillesum's diary is not only not a Holocaust diary,but also that"althoughit is writtenby a Jew,it is not a Jewish diary"(p. 27), Pattersonconflates "Holocaustdiary"with "Jewishdiary."Thus he limits furtherthe first term, as well as giving a special definition to the second-a diary must be concerned with others to be a Jewish diary.The few lines he selects in defense of this and his other disclaimers concerning Hillesum's diary are too few to prove his point, especially because diaries generally reveal greaterinconsistencies in the inner life than do memoirs or autobiographies.By the same token, it is not possible here to give sufficient quotation to demonstratethat Hillesum was connected to others. Eva Hoffman writes in her introductionto the diary that it "grew out of the intimate experience of an intellectual young woman-it was idiosyncratic, individual, and recognizablymodern"(Hillesum, p. vii). With this in mind, even readers who accept Patterson'staxonomy,were they to read Hillesum'sdiary might decide that Etty'scommitmentto what she terms an "innerpreparation"is not at odds with her claim that when she prays it is "alwaysfor others"(both Hillesum, p. 183). Several of the points made so far explain why Pattersonpositions his study against JamesYoung's Writingand Rewritingthe Holocaust.3Youngnot only accepts the differences amongst what he terms the "figures and narrativemythoi" (Young, p. 36) that governedthe lives of the diarists,but he insists that these distinctions are centralto our understandingof diaries and to our estimationof them as historical documents. His interest in the way narrativeproduces interpretation and how explanationsof events may have affectedthe course of these eventsthemselves suggests the reciprocal relationshipbetween event and story (teller). Because Youngis concerned with the constructednatureof evidence-"the kinds of events, the time and the recording"(Young,p. 25)-surely Hillesum's identity as ture, p. 367. Mary Felstinercites it as an example of the sort of documentthat "get[s] valued as a human emblem ratherthan as historical evidence," in "CharlotteSalomon's Inward-turningTestimony," in Holocaust Remembrance:TheShapes of Memory,ed. by GeoffreyHartman(Cambridge:Blackwell, 1994), p. 104. 3. James E. Young, Writingand Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrativeand the Consequencesof Interpretation(Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1988).

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Book Reviews a Dutch Jew would warranthis attention.In fact, it is just this sort of focus that troubles Pattersonwhen he criticizes Young for contrastingthe diaries of Moshe FlinkerandAnne Frankon the basis of language, themes, and preoccupations.For Young,the differentexperiencesof these adolescents led to their differing conclusions about what was happeningto them. Pattersonclaims that Young is mainly concerned with "the tainted nature of the testimony" and thus takes "epistemological flight from responsibility"(p. 8). Finally, Young's argumentthat diaries should not be elevated over all other forms of literatureas a truer form of testimony conflicts with Patterson'sassertion that we should find our way into Holocaust diariesby "find[ing] our way into our own souls" (p. 9). As I mentioned earlier,the readermay well want to examine more of these diaries. I would suggest that one needs to know more about each diary in orderto evaluatePatterson'sanalyses. We are given very brief quotationsfrom the diaries, generally less than a line, in supportof his arguments.While the chaptertitles in the book are provocative-for example, "The Measure of Time,""Meaning Undone," "TheAssault on the Feminine"-the readermay have difficulty deciding from the short excerpts whetherthe diaries emphasize these themes and whether they conform to Patterson'sgenre definitions. Perhapsbecause his ideas about what constitutesa Holocaust diary are rigid, Pattersonmay not have wanted to invite us to make our own analyses, even though that process of engagement would offer us a better chance to "find our way into our own souls" and into Along the Edge ofAnnihilation. Linda Raphael George WashingtonUniversity Washington,D.C.

Nahma Sandrow,ed. God,Man, and Devil: YiddishPlays in Translation.Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1999. xii, 321 pp. Robert Skloot, ed. The Theaterof the Holocaust. Vol.II. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999. viii, 407 pp. It has been a quartercenturysince the last collections of Yiddish plays were publishedin America:Joseph Landis'GreatJewish Plays and David Lifson'sEpic and Folk Plays of the YiddishTheater.As Sandrowinforms us in the "Appendixes," translationsof a few individualplays are found in scholarlyjournals or mostly out-of-printbooks. Forthis reason alone, the beautiful new volume from Syracuse is a welcome arrival.Anotherreason is Sandrow'sinsightful introductionsto the five plays featured:Jacob Gordin, God, Man, and Devil; Peretz Hirshbein, Green Fields; H. Levick, Shop; David Pinsky, The Treasure;and Osip Dimov, BronxExpress.Herremarkstouch on the works' stage history detailingwho played what role, and how the plays fared on various Europeanand American stages. Landis'governingprinciple in selecting plays was popularity;Lifson's was 185

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Michael Taub Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 185-188 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131590 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews a Dutch Jew would warranthis attention.In fact, it is just this sort of focus that troubles Pattersonwhen he criticizes Young for contrastingthe diaries of Moshe FlinkerandAnne Frankon the basis of language, themes, and preoccupations.For Young,the differentexperiencesof these adolescents led to their differing conclusions about what was happeningto them. Pattersonclaims that Young is mainly concerned with "the tainted nature of the testimony" and thus takes "epistemological flight from responsibility"(p. 8). Finally, Young's argumentthat diaries should not be elevated over all other forms of literatureas a truer form of testimony conflicts with Patterson'sassertion that we should find our way into Holocaust diariesby "find[ing] our way into our own souls" (p. 9). As I mentioned earlier,the readermay well want to examine more of these diaries. I would suggest that one needs to know more about each diary in orderto evaluatePatterson'sanalyses. We are given very brief quotationsfrom the diaries, generally less than a line, in supportof his arguments.While the chaptertitles in the book are provocative-for example, "The Measure of Time,""Meaning Undone," "TheAssault on the Feminine"-the readermay have difficulty deciding from the short excerpts whetherthe diaries emphasize these themes and whether they conform to Patterson'sgenre definitions. Perhapsbecause his ideas about what constitutesa Holocaust diary are rigid, Pattersonmay not have wanted to invite us to make our own analyses, even though that process of engagement would offer us a better chance to "find our way into our own souls" and into Along the Edge ofAnnihilation. Linda Raphael George WashingtonUniversity Washington,D.C.

Nahma Sandrow,ed. God,Man, and Devil: YiddishPlays in Translation.Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1999. xii, 321 pp. Robert Skloot, ed. The Theaterof the Holocaust. Vol.II. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999. viii, 407 pp. It has been a quartercenturysince the last collections of Yiddish plays were publishedin America:Joseph Landis'GreatJewish Plays and David Lifson'sEpic and Folk Plays of the YiddishTheater.As Sandrowinforms us in the "Appendixes," translationsof a few individualplays are found in scholarlyjournals or mostly out-of-printbooks. Forthis reason alone, the beautiful new volume from Syracuse is a welcome arrival.Anotherreason is Sandrow'sinsightful introductionsto the five plays featured:Jacob Gordin, God, Man, and Devil; Peretz Hirshbein, Green Fields; H. Levick, Shop; David Pinsky, The Treasure;and Osip Dimov, BronxExpress.Herremarkstouch on the works' stage history detailingwho played what role, and how the plays fared on various Europeanand American stages. Landis'governingprinciple in selecting plays was popularity;Lifson's was 185

AJS Review a particulardramaticgenre. Sandrow'smix, on the otherhand,seems to be aiming for variety.Thus, we find serious dramadealing with complex religious/existential questions (Gordin, Pinsky), plays about the working-classimmigrantexperience (Dimov and Levick), and a folk romance (Hirschbein).Some works are set in Eastern-Europe(Hirschbein,Pinsky,Gordin),while othersdepict the American milieu (Levick, Dimov). These plays, as Sandrowindicates, do exist in other English translations,in some cases versions used only for a particularproductionand thus neverproperly published. Overall, Sandrowrenders the Yiddish in more idiomatic, present-day American English than her predecessors, which may make the plays more attractive to interesteddirectorsor producers.Sandrow'sinclusionof GreenFields, however, is ratherpuzzling since the play is readily availablein the Landisanthology. One wishes that more unknownplays would be made accessible in English. (The Dybbuk,for example, is availablein no fewerthan four differenttranslations:Landis, Morris Engel, Golda Werman,and JoachimNeugroschel.) This said, Sandrow'sselection, like Lifson and Landis' choices, shows the richness of the Yiddish stage. What sets this anthology apart is the inclusion of Shop and BronxExpress,two excellent examples of artisticrepresentationsof early immigrants'struggle to make it in America, to become so-called allrightniks, successful Jews in the new land, di goldene medine. The American public is familiar with these difficult times for newly-arrivedJews fromthe prose of such immigrantwritersas Abe Cahanand Anzia Yezierskaand the moving poetry of such giants as Moshe-Leib Halperinand A. Leyeles. I suspect that of the five plays, these two will attractthe most attention,as they touch directlyon Americanhistory. It would be wonderfulif producersrecognizedthe greatness of all these plays, especially Gordin and Hirschbein'sclassics, and took a chance by staging them. After all, superstarslike Maurice Schwartz, RudolphSchildkraut,Jacob P.Adler, Celia Adler, and Ida Kaminskahave all played in them to great success. In 1982, Robert Skloot published the first English-languageanthology of on plays the Shoah, The Theaterof the Holocaust. Soon after,ElinorFuchs edited anothervolume, Plays of the Holocaust-An InternationalAnthology. In 1996, I published my own edited book of Israeli plays, Israeli Holocaust Drama. In this 1999 volume, Skloot features six plays similar in theme and style to the four included in the 1982 volume. Skloot was also the first to write a critical studyof this slowly emergingdramaticgenre, TheDarkness WeCarry--The Drama of the Holocaust. Ten years later, Edward Isser wrote Stages of Annihilation-Theatrical Representationsof the Holocaust; this year,ClaudeSchumacher,the editorof Theater ResearchInternational,put out a collection of seventeenessays by variousdrama scholars and theaterpractitioners,Staging the Holocaust-The Shoah in Drama and Performance. In his introductionto the 1982 volume, Skloot listed five objectives of"serious playwrightswho are drawnto this forbiddingpart of recent history: honoring the victims, teaching history to audiences, evoking emotional responses, discussing ethical issues, and suggesting solutions to universal, contemporary problems" (p. 14; also quoted in TheDarkness WeCarry,p. 10). Clearly,Skloot's criteriafor judging Holocaust plays is a mixtureof educationaland moral values. 186

Book Reviews Fuchs,on the otherhand,arguesthata good Holocaustplay is one that"showedcatastrophichistorical events as collective catastrophe... dramaticinterest focused on the fate of the community ... arousingdisturbingemotions of rage, revulsion, helplessness"(Introduction,p. xii). Fuchs contraststhis type of play with unnamed family melodramas,supposedlyAmerican works, where the focus is on the individual or family. I imagine she is thinking of such works as BarbaraLebow's A SheyneMeydl, Jon Robin Baitz'sSubstance of Fire, or Emily Mann'sAnnulla,An Autobiography. The majority of plays in Skloot's edited volumes are the type that Fuchs prefers; the one exception in Vol.II would probably be The Model Apartment, a Donald Marguliespiece aboutthe fate of a couple of BrooklynHolocaust survivors trying desperatelyto rid themselves of their troublesomedaughter.For some reason, most of the plays are British: Howard Brenton, Hess is Dead; Christopher Hampton,ThePortage to San ChristobalofA.H. (basedon a storyby George Steiner); BernardKops, Dreams ofAnne Frank;and Roy Kift, CampComedy.The Margulies play and Lenny Sack's TheSurvivorand the Translatorare the only American works. As noted,most of these plays treatthe Shoah, in Fuchs' words, as a "collective catastrophe";stylistically,they are surrealistic,absurdistdramas.Their subjects include work about a fake Rudolf Hess in the famous Spandau prison, a ninety-year-oldHitlerfound by Israeli intelligence agents in the Brazilianjungle, and an Anne Frankwho acts as a critic of her diary and fantasizes about life beyond the attic. Margulies'play,the most commerciallysuccessful of the group, has stirredup a great deal of controversyby its use of comedy and the grotesque in depicting such serious Shoah issues as the relationshipbetween first- and secondgenerationsurvivors. Style and structureaside, these plays engage us in a variety of interesting and stimulatingways. Given the recent scholarly and media wranglings over the Anne Frankdiary and its various stage and screen reincarnations,Kops' Dreams ofAnne Frankis particularlyintriguing.One of the hotly debatedpoints is whether the reworkingsof the diary in Americanculturehave, as CynthiaOzick argued in TheNew Yorker(October, 1997), done more bad than good for Holocaust memory andhistory.Thereand elsewherein print,Ozick criticizes writers,directors,and Broadwayproducersfor strippingthe diary of its Jewishness, sanitizingthe Holocaust, and treatingthe public to what The New YorkTimescritic FrankRich calls "a sentimental,generic slab of postwar optimism exemplified by Anne's curtain line: 'I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really good at heart'" (November23, 1997). To be sure,Kops' play is a differentkind of Anne Frankplay from the ones Ozick so passionately rejects. Not only is this a very Jewish play, but it is also one thatmanagesto demystify its main character.In Kops' own words, Dreams ofAnne Frank accomplishes this by "taking anotherroute, finding that specific human being, strippingaway the deification and bringing her down to earth"(quotedby Skloot in his "Introduction,"p. 23). Roy Kift's CampComedyis an explorationof the sensitive and controversial question of Jewish collaborationin the camps and ghettoes. This is a moving account of the real-life experiences of Kurt Gerron, a Jewish actor and director, a 187

AJS Review prisonerat Theresienstadt.In the summerof 1944 he is given the task of producing a propagandadocumentaryaboutthe ghetto for Nazi public-relationspurposes, essentially implicatinghim andhis crew in a big deceptiongame. However,this game-immoral as it may have been-had one very beneficial side to it: It made survival more tolerable for both the shooting crew and the subjects filmed. Kift's treatmentof collaboration (some prefer the term "cooperation")invites comparisons with Joshua Sobol and Motti Lerner,two Israeli dramatistswho have dealt with this theme in Ghetto (1984) and Kastner (1985), respectively. Hopefully, Skloot's volume will generate more scholarly interest in this fascinating subject. It seems thatKops, Kift, Sobol, and Lerneraretryingvery hardto respondto what they perceive as the mystification of Holocaust victims. By showing them as humanbeings completewith admirablequalitiesbutalso with weaknessesand shortcomings, these victims become people with whom we can more easily identify.At times, choosing-between bad and worse, never between good and bad-meant resorting to less than honorable actions, but as these dramatistssee it, when survival is at stake, honor and moralityhave to wait. Michael Taub SUNY Purchase Purchase,New York

Daniel R. Schwarz.Imagining the Holocaust. New York:St. Martin'sPress, 1999. 353 pp. If good scholarshipis supposed to be disciplined, detached,and objective, the study of the Holocaust has taught us that mental, emotional, and physical reactions-even when experienced from a temporal and spatial distance, and consciously or not-condition our conceptualized or poetic responses to the Shoah. This unarticulatedpsychic involvementin our recentpast is perhapsthe place that generates intellectual, political, ideological, and imaginative expressions. Moreover, this location signifies the meeting point of ethics and aesthetics that makes any verbal or visual attemptto convey the unspeakableand unimaginablepossible, while at the same time being the very site thatcauses the collapse of the boundaries between objective and subjectiveresponse. How can it be otherwise?The impact of this recognitionis such that even general literary,cultural,and philosophic writing, mostly influenced by Holocaust studies, has begun to consider ethics as an analytic category.' Daniel Schwarz'sImagining the Holocaust is positioned at the core of this ethical-aestheticmatrix. Schwarzcombines two unevenpoints of references.At the centerof his study is a focus on specific Holocaust fictional works-the most discussed in contemporarystudies-whereas in the marginsSchwarzsituateseach work in the context 1. See, for example, HowardMarchitello,ed. WhatHappens to History: TheRenewalofEthics in ContemporaryThought(New Yorkand London:Routledge, 2001).

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Review: [untitled] Author(s): Yona Shapira Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 188-194 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131591 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review prisonerat Theresienstadt.In the summerof 1944 he is given the task of producing a propagandadocumentaryaboutthe ghetto for Nazi public-relationspurposes, essentially implicatinghim andhis crew in a big deceptiongame. However,this game-immoral as it may have been-had one very beneficial side to it: It made survival more tolerable for both the shooting crew and the subjects filmed. Kift's treatmentof collaboration (some prefer the term "cooperation")invites comparisons with Joshua Sobol and Motti Lerner,two Israeli dramatistswho have dealt with this theme in Ghetto (1984) and Kastner (1985), respectively. Hopefully, Skloot's volume will generate more scholarly interest in this fascinating subject. It seems thatKops, Kift, Sobol, and Lerneraretryingvery hardto respondto what they perceive as the mystification of Holocaust victims. By showing them as humanbeings completewith admirablequalitiesbutalso with weaknessesand shortcomings, these victims become people with whom we can more easily identify.At times, choosing-between bad and worse, never between good and bad-meant resorting to less than honorable actions, but as these dramatistssee it, when survival is at stake, honor and moralityhave to wait. Michael Taub SUNY Purchase Purchase,New York

Daniel R. Schwarz.Imagining the Holocaust. New York:St. Martin'sPress, 1999. 353 pp. If good scholarshipis supposed to be disciplined, detached,and objective, the study of the Holocaust has taught us that mental, emotional, and physical reactions-even when experienced from a temporal and spatial distance, and consciously or not-condition our conceptualized or poetic responses to the Shoah. This unarticulatedpsychic involvementin our recentpast is perhapsthe place that generates intellectual, political, ideological, and imaginative expressions. Moreover, this location signifies the meeting point of ethics and aesthetics that makes any verbal or visual attemptto convey the unspeakableand unimaginablepossible, while at the same time being the very site thatcauses the collapse of the boundaries between objective and subjectiveresponse. How can it be otherwise?The impact of this recognitionis such that even general literary,cultural,and philosophic writing, mostly influenced by Holocaust studies, has begun to consider ethics as an analytic category.' Daniel Schwarz'sImagining the Holocaust is positioned at the core of this ethical-aestheticmatrix. Schwarzcombines two unevenpoints of references.At the centerof his study is a focus on specific Holocaust fictional works-the most discussed in contemporarystudies-whereas in the marginsSchwarzsituateseach work in the context 1. See, for example, HowardMarchitello,ed. WhatHappens to History: TheRenewalofEthics in ContemporaryThought(New Yorkand London:Routledge, 2001).

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Book Reviews of its Westernand Jewish literaryand philosophical traditions.This structuraldiscipline is one of the book's main achievements,for it preventsthe works discussed from being universalizedor trivialized. On the other hand,the intellectual periphery provides its own insight in two majorways. It reveals that, despite the burden of contentandthe need for linguistic and imaginativeinventionsto express the horrors of the Holocaust, the writersof these narrativescreatedtheir works within already establishedethical and aesthetictraditions,and, most important,they made their own choices, intentionally or otherwise, regarding which of the available legacies to adopt. Schwarz,as others before him, tries to understandand evaluate these intellectualandpoetic preferences,which bringsus to the problemof the limits of representation,a term frequentlyused by scholars of the Holocaust but unfortunatelynot mentioned by Schwarz.The phrase was coined by Saul Friedlinder and discussed in its diverse dimensions (historical,philosophical, literary) in his Probing the Limits of Representation:Nazism and the "Final Solution."2Before dealing with the association between the two works, it is necessary here to provide some examples relatingto Schwarz'smethod of linking Holocaust fiction to modern Europeantradition. On Primo Levi's Survivalin Auschwitz,Schwarznotes that the narrator(the author'ssurrogate)reflects the archetypeof the figure who descends to hell and returns.The description of Europeanphysical and moral destruction is textured with allusions to a glorious past of securely founded civilization so that "at times [this erstwhile world] proposes an alternativecontext that looks towardvalues of a different,more stable, and presumablymore noble era" (p. 84). The works of modern poets and novelists such as T. S. Eliot in The Wastelandand James Joyce in Ulysses propose the employmentof the same method. Moreover,Levi alludes to Dante's Ulysses and Virgil and their sharedexperience in Inferno as well as to Homer's Odysseus, so that this subtext establishes the archaic, heroic, and humanistic traditionby which Levi judges events in Auschwitz. Schwarz concludes his discussion of Levi's works with the observation,"Levi is a modern Dante who will readthe hermeneuticsof history"(p. 98). A similarphenomenoncan be traced in other fictional works whose thematic texture or structuralarrangementcall at times for ethicaljudgment. For example, Schwarz links Jerzy Kosinski's Bildungsroman, The Painted Bird, which he defines as a historical allegory for the victimization of the innocent, to JosephConrad'sHeart ofDarkness, for Marlow,too, descends into a world of horrorand returnsto question all values and beliefs in light of his experience. Yet ThePaintedBird, accordingto Schwarz,is saturatedwith violence, perversion, pornography,sadism, and a vengeful tone, which does damage to "a sympathetic reading"(p. 192). On the same note, Schwarz traces the metamorphosis of Elie Wiesel'sNight from its originalYiddishversion founded on the prophetictradition of the Bible and on Jewish literatureinto the FrenchLa Nuit. He agrees with Naomi Seidman'sobservation3that this change-transpired throughFrancoisMauri2. Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1992. 3. In "Elie Wiesel andthe Scandalof Jewish Rage,"Jewish Social Studies:History, Cultureand Society 3:1 (Fall 1996): 1-19.

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AJS Review ac's modifying introduction-alters the text's thematiccenter,which is grounded in the parochialEuropeantraditionof the suffering,frustrated,and outrageousJew, transformingit into the Christiantheology of rebirthand resurrection.Schwarz judges this type of thematic appropriationto be an ethical transgression. Especially interestingis Schwarz'sassociation of AharonAppelfeld'sparables, Badenheim 1939 and TheRetreat, with ThomasMann'sDeath in Veniceand The Magic Mountain. These writers describe Europeancivilization and JewishEuropeancultureas a hermeticworld undergoinga process of moral decayand social and political disintegration.But, asserts Schwarz,Appelfeld drawsupon Kafka's objectivity and the language of the absurdas much as he is inspiredby Jewish folk tradition so that in these stories, as well as in others, the semantic and semiotic texture embodies allusions to both Hasidic tales and Kafka'sMetamorphosis. Although Appelfeld's stories exhibit close association with modem literature, at the same time, the fragmentationof characterssignifies the use of postmodern technique, as Gila Ramras-Rauchnotes and Schwarzconcurs.4Needless to mention that, as this concise outline suggests, Imaginingthe Holocaust reflects on the dialogic relationsbetween classical, modern, and postmodernthemes and modes, on the one hand, and narrativesof the Shoah, on the other.The universal texts and the Holocaustfiction express mutualthematicand stylistic concernsthat include: the crisis of Europeancivilization and the rethinkingof humanisticvalues; the quest for a father and home; the relationbetween art and life; or writing as self-reflection, creation, and affirmation;the sense of the (dis)integratedself; linguistic and artisticexperimentation;primitivismand modernity;and so on. If in both European and Jewish traditions the thematic configuration of Holocaustnarrativesis directlyrelatedto the ethicalproblemsemergingfromsuch conceptual correlationsas those between humanbeliefs and behavior,the idea of history and its teleological principle, civilization and the utilizationof technology, the merit of logic and the significance of myth, the valuableweight of traditionin the face of modernity,or moral choice, sociopolitical pressure,and the ontological limits of resistance,then for Schwarzthe coordinationbetween ethicaland aesthetic parametersin Holocaust fiction is embeddedin the choice of genre. There is no groundbreakingnovelty in this insight;the ongoing controversyoverthe limits of representationis epitomized by this very issue. However, Schwarz'sargument for accepting new poetic boundariesin Holocaust narrativeform is innovative. Before elaborating,let me briefly outline his method. Schwarz distinguishesgenres that offer a teleology from those suggesting a differentstructuralandtextualdesign. Books of fiction such as TadeuszBorowski's This Wayforthe Gas, Ladies and Gentlemenor GeraldGreen'sHolocaust (boththe TV productionand the novel), including diaries and memoirs, are signified as realistic writing even when containingparabolicfeatures.On the other hand,Andre Schwarz-Bart'sThe Last of the Just or Cynthia Ozick's The Shawl and Rosa are defined as parable or fantasy respectively. For example, Schwarz emphasizes the humanisticteleology suggested in The Diary ofAnn Frank, Sophie Goetzel4. Gila Ramras-Rauch.AharonAppelfeld (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1994) pp. 18-19.

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Book Reviews Leviathan'sThe Warfrom Within,and John Hersey's The Wall,and their representationof the Jew as an ideal and universalhumanist.This kind of delineationmakes these books availableto both Jews andnon-Jews in Americaas much as it explains their success with a heterogeneous audience. Arguing against Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi,5Schwarznotes, "She fearsthatredefiningthe Holocaustin terms of Western humanismcorruptsthe Holocaust ... but whetherwe can say that one way of presentingthe Holocaustis betterthananother... is moot. In fact ... therearemany diverse traditions"(pp. 144-145). Indeed, Schwarz moves on in search of other modes of Holocaustrepresentations,but before doing so he examines some more complex problemsemergingfrom the ethic-poeticjuncturesin realistic novels. A case in point is William Styron'sSophie's Choice. Defining it as a docufiction and a realisticnovel, Schwarzinvestigatesthe narrativeas a storythat,by allowing the variousspeakersto tell theirtrueor inventedautobiographies,illustrates the connection between memory and narrativein a comparativemanner.Still, the disputableaspect of this writingresides not in the chosen theme as it is inherentin the overall structureof the story and the imbalance created between its narratological segments,andthis in additionto the author'suse of a problematictechnique in characterization.In Schwarz'swords, "That Styron asks us to think of Southernersas victims of prejudicein a Holocaustnovel seems limp to some readers.... Moreover,we notice that within Styron'snovel it is the Jews ... who are at times stereotypedif not travestied.... The narratoris doing what he says he will not do, that is draining the Holocaust of its substanceby using it as contextual rather than essential role.... Styron is not beyond insensitivity if not anti-Semitism" (pp. 203-204). Narratologicalmechanisms of structuringand characterizationare also applied by Thomas Keneally to his realistic novel, Schindler'sList, and by Steven Spielbergto the epic film by the samename.Inthis case though,those elementsmissing or distortedin the novel, that is, the misrepresentationof Jewish traditionand the confused and misleadingdepictionof Jewish values, are visually correctedand appropriatedin the film. For one, the diachronic and synchronic arrangementof episodes in the movie reflects the technical disposition of events in the Bible. As Erich Auerbach describes biblical style in contrast to the Homeric epics in his Mimesis: TheRepresentationof Reality in WesternLiterature,crucial events in the Bible are foregroundedwhile others less significant are either relegated to the backgroundor missing altogether,and only implied at times through dialogues. Spielbergutilizes this very narratologicaltechnique.Although in principlethe ocular image of Schindleris based on the written text that indirectly delineates his characterthroughthe Jews' reactionto his behavior,which embues him with magic power,the weaving of the visual incidents in the film enlarges his figure to the epic-biblical proportionof a miracle workerwho can suspend history. Moreover, the camera,which reflects communityconscience, createsan optical dialogue with familiar visual and textual mythopoeticrepresentationsof the Holocaust, so that the images on the screen mirror our collective knowledge of Holocaust events. 5. By WordsAlone: TheHolocaust in Literature(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) p. 2.

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AJS Review Most important,Spielberg is aware of EuropeanJewish culture, and he stresses Jewish customs and traditions. By ending the pictorial story in Israel, Spielberg structuresthe film on the teleological principle of universalhistory,that is, drawing a movement from the Shoah to the State of Israel, thereby underscoringJewish survival and continuity. Leslie Epstein'sKing of the Jews is consideredby Schwarz a breakthrough in Holocaust representationfor its abandonmentof the realistic form. It suggests a furtherdevelopmentin style and tone from TadeuszBorowski's This Wayfor the Gas, which in itself offers a movement away from the representationof naturalistic verisimilitude through grotesque images and cynical tone. Both writers have sensed that the realistic form is problematicin the way it depicts Holocaust experience. Hence, the fantasy and surrealismthat control the parabolic King of the Jews, its humoristic and satiric tone, its grotesque imagery, and its vaudevillian narratingstyle enable Epsteinto deal with the complex ethical issues regardingthe behavior of the Judenratduringthe Holocaust. Relying on Jewish traditionalnarrative style and sensitivity,and in contrastto Borowski'scynicism, Epsteinis concerned with the helplessness and powerlessness of the Jews. By making the Elder (based on the controversialfigure of Rumkowski,the head of the Judenratin the Lodz ghetto) an ambiguous individual, Epstein avoids a restrictednegative moral diagnosis of the Judenrat,preferringinstead to draw a positive line of hope and survival for futuregenerations. A wider extension of the parametersof representationis suggested in Art Spiegelman'sMaus, which offers a postmodernexaminationof the impact of Europeanhistory,including its eventful terrorand anxiety as well as its artistictraditions and imaginativeinspiration,on the privatehistory of two generations,a survivor and his son. The experimentalmixed form of verbal and visual narrative, which includes, for example, the exposure of the characters'psyches and the use of the comic mode for humanizing and artistic expressions, allows us to identify with the victims on a humanisticuniversalground. Schwarz takes a cue from BarbaraFoley's assertion that "those narrative forms-both factual and fictive-that rely upon an informing teleology, generally prove inadequateto the task of encompassingthe full significance of Holocaust experience" (p. 207).6 For Schwarz, "Much of Holocaust narrativeis quite conservative and traditional.... The paradoxis that perhaps at this distance of years the Holocaustmay be bettergraspedwithin the humanken of understandingrather than when isolated as a sacred event apartfrom humanhistory"(p. 302). This requirementfor a humantreatmentof the Shoah is fulfilled in Cynthia Ozick's The Shawl and Rosa. Schwarz ends his book by presentingtwo primaryethical questions raisedby Bruno Schulz's TheStreetof Crocodiles and SanitariumUnderthe Sign of the Hourglass, on the one hand,and CynthiaOzick's response to Schulz in TheMessiah ofStockholm, on the other:the ethical difficulty encounteredthrough invadingthe past and creatingand (re)inventingoneself in the context of its histo6. In "Fact, Fiction, Fascism:Testimony and Mimesis in Holocaust Narratives,"Comparative Literature34:4 (Fall 1982): 353.

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Book Reviews ry and the moral dilemma of forgery.The major complication then, as Schwarz puts it, is the mode we choose in our quest for truthaboutthe Holocaust and about ourselves. One possible response to these problems is reflected in Schwarz'sown book, and here we reach full circle, confronting Schwarz'sown identity as a humanist in his worldview,scholar of modem literature,and Jew. In Schwarz'sown words,"As a humanist,I wantto show how these narratives are abouthumans,by humans,and for humans"(p. 4). Reflecting on his academic careerafterpublishingbooks that include TheHumanisticHeritage: Critical Theories of the English Novelfrom James to Hillis Miller, The Transformationof the English Novel, 1890-1930, and others written more or less in a similar vein, Schwarznotes, "Forseveraldecades, Jewish scholarspassionatelytaughtand still teach Anglo-Americanliterature,but now how many are rethinkingwhetherthese professional interestshave repressedethnic concerns"(p. 17). For him, as for his readers, Imagining the Holocaust provides an epistemological ground, painful, controversial,and complex as it is, for the establishmentof self-identity through an imaginative and intellectualjourney into Jewish recent history and its collective responses, which also entails, as he so eruditelydemonstrates,a quest for universal Jewish and Europeanhistory,culture, and traditions. Schwarz's style is fluent and direct. Instead of presenting historical and philosophical abstractions,he prefersto found his thoughts on the fictional works themselves. Througha close readingof the narratives,Schwarzdevelops an intellectual dialogue not only with the authorsof selected fictional works but with other scholarsof the Shoahas well, and he does so without suppressinghis own views on highly controversialissues. As a contemporarydarshan, he asks many questions and is courageous enough to try to deal with the most grievous and difficult dilemmas, engaging along the way his rich knowledge of Westernand Jewishartistic and literarytraditions.Forthis, and because he encouragesthe expansion of the boundariesin Holocaustrepresentation,the appearanceof Schwarz'sbook is a significant event in Holocaust studies. I cannot help but try to close anothercircle that touches upon the roots of own my identity as an Israeli. Schwarz considers Hebrew literatureof the Shoah and its Zionist context in his examinationof the writing ofAppelfeld, whose works are perhapsthe most discussed outside Israel. But there are other fictional works worthmentioningthat demonstratecomplex responses in additionto thematic and stylistic trajectoriesin Israelidiscourses on Jewish and Israeli identity (culturalas well as ideological) and its interconnectionto the changing perceptions of what constitutesexilic (galut) and Israelimentality(psychologicallyand ideologically)a problemexplained,illustrated,andmappedby YaelFeldmanin her essay, "Whose Story Is It, Anyway? Ideology and Psychology in the Representationof the Shoah in Israeli Literature."'Significantly associated with Schwarz's presentation is YoramKaniuk'sAdam Ben Kelev (AdamResurrected) and its carnivalesque-dialogic link to Epstein's King of the Jews and David Grossman's 'Ayen 'Erech 'Ahavah(See Under: Love) and its imaginative correspondenceto the works of 7. In Friedlander,ed. Probing the Limits of Representation,pp. 223-39.

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AJS Review Bruno Schulz and CynthiaOzick. Perhapsa comparativework on similarand different developments in Holocaust fiction as it has evolved in the two continents still awaits its realization. Yona Shapira TulaneUniversity New Orleans,Louisiana

Allison P. Coudert. The Impact of the Kabbalah in the SeventeenthCentury:The Life and Thoughtof Francis Mercury van Helmont (1614-98). Brill's Series in Jewish Studies. Leiden: Brill, 1999. xx, 418 pp. Allison Coudertis not the first historianto underscorethe importanceof the seventeenth century as a critical moment in the history of Jewish-Christianrelations in Westerncivilization. Scholars engaged in Spinoza'sthoughthave focused for some time now on the rich converso cultureof Amsterdamand its mediating role between Judaismand Christianity.'More recently,the messiahship of Shabbetai Zevi and the crisis his apostasy precipitatedin the Jewish world have been scrutinizedwithin the broadercontextof Jewish-Christianinteractions.2Coudertis the first, however,to study closely the circle of Christianthinkersand their fascination with the Kabbalahat the courtof Sulzbach,especially FrancisMercuryVan Helmont, the son of a famous Paracelsianphysician, and his close colleague, Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, the compiler of the greatest Latin collection of Kabbalistwritings ever published,the Kabbaladenudata. GershomScholem, among others,held a high regardfor VanRosenroth'saccomplishments,3and FrankManuel begrudginglyacknowledgedthe influence of Van Helmont on Henry More, Ann Conway,GottfriedLeibniz, and some of the Quakers,4but neitherundertooka systematic examinationof the political and intellectual worlds of these remarkablethinkers.Couderthas accomplishedthis task in a careful and intelligent manner.She has read extensively the writings of each of these principalthinkersand more; has studiedthe political context of their interactionsbased on impressive archivalresearch;and has not only availedherself of the most recent work of intellectualhistoriansworkingon the seventeenthcentury,especially those associated with the workof RichardPopkin,but has also attemptedto read widely in the recent work of historiansworkingon Jewish culture in early modem Europe.The result is an impressivereconstructionof a relatively 1. I refer here generally to the many volumes edited and writtenby RichardPopkin,Yosef Kaplan, David Katz, E. G. E. Van der Wall, and many others. 2. See, for example, the work of Yosef Kaplan,Jacob Barnai,and ElishevahCarlebach. 3. See, for example, his Kabbalah (Jerusalem, 1974), pp. 416-19. 4. See his TheBrokenStaff. Judaism ThroughChristianEyes (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1992), pp. 143-47.

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Review: [untitled] Author(s): David B. Ruderman Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 194-196 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131592 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review Bruno Schulz and CynthiaOzick. Perhapsa comparativework on similarand different developments in Holocaust fiction as it has evolved in the two continents still awaits its realization. Yona Shapira TulaneUniversity New Orleans,Louisiana

Allison P. Coudert. The Impact of the Kabbalah in the SeventeenthCentury:The Life and Thoughtof Francis Mercury van Helmont (1614-98). Brill's Series in Jewish Studies. Leiden: Brill, 1999. xx, 418 pp. Allison Coudertis not the first historianto underscorethe importanceof the seventeenth century as a critical moment in the history of Jewish-Christianrelations in Westerncivilization. Scholars engaged in Spinoza'sthoughthave focused for some time now on the rich converso cultureof Amsterdamand its mediating role between Judaismand Christianity.'More recently,the messiahship of Shabbetai Zevi and the crisis his apostasy precipitatedin the Jewish world have been scrutinizedwithin the broadercontextof Jewish-Christianinteractions.2Coudertis the first, however,to study closely the circle of Christianthinkersand their fascination with the Kabbalahat the courtof Sulzbach,especially FrancisMercuryVan Helmont, the son of a famous Paracelsianphysician, and his close colleague, Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, the compiler of the greatest Latin collection of Kabbalistwritings ever published,the Kabbaladenudata. GershomScholem, among others,held a high regardfor VanRosenroth'saccomplishments,3and FrankManuel begrudginglyacknowledgedthe influence of Van Helmont on Henry More, Ann Conway,GottfriedLeibniz, and some of the Quakers,4but neitherundertooka systematic examinationof the political and intellectual worlds of these remarkablethinkers.Couderthas accomplishedthis task in a careful and intelligent manner.She has read extensively the writings of each of these principalthinkersand more; has studiedthe political context of their interactionsbased on impressive archivalresearch;and has not only availedherself of the most recent work of intellectualhistoriansworkingon the seventeenthcentury,especially those associated with the workof RichardPopkin,but has also attemptedto read widely in the recent work of historiansworkingon Jewish culture in early modem Europe.The result is an impressivereconstructionof a relatively 1. I refer here generally to the many volumes edited and writtenby RichardPopkin,Yosef Kaplan, David Katz, E. G. E. Van der Wall, and many others. 2. See, for example, the work of Yosef Kaplan,Jacob Barnai,and ElishevahCarlebach. 3. See, for example, his Kabbalah (Jerusalem, 1974), pp. 416-19. 4. See his TheBrokenStaff. Judaism ThroughChristianEyes (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1992), pp. 143-47.

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Book Reviews neglected subject whose importancelies beyond the field of Jewish-Christianrelations, touching on the history of science, the origins of the Enlightenment,and the notion of political and religious tolerationin the modern era.5 Coudert'spoint of departureis clearly the work of her distinguishedteacher, the late FrancesYates,who had vigorously arguedmore than thirty-five years ago for the significant role of occultist thinking in the shaping of modem science and culture.AlthoughCoudertis well awareof the excesses of some ofYates'grandiose claims and the specific revisions offered by her thoughtful critics over the years, she is, nevertheless,quite convinced of the overall legitimacy of Yates'thesis. Her rich intellectualbiographyof Van Helmont is merely the launchingpad to canvass the larger intellectual links he established with his illustrious contemporaries, ChristianAugust, the count of Sulzbach,Von Rosenroth,More, Conway,Leibniz, George Keith, the Quakertheologian, and even John Locke. What emerges is a clear demonstrationof the centralityof the Kabbalahin the consciousness of Christianthinkersvery much engaged in the criticalreligious andpolitical issues of their age, in many ways analogous to the uses of the Kabbalahtwo centuries earlier in the work of such thinkersas Pico della Mirandolaand JohannesReuchlin. Unlike these fifteenth-centuryfigures, however,Coudert'ssubjects,throughthe masterful translationsof VonRosenroth,assimilatedespecially some of the principalthemes of the Kabbalisticsystem of Isaac Luria,as transposedinto a neo-Platonic key by such Jewish writers as Israel Sarug,AbrahamHerrera,and Joseph Delmedigo. What emerges, according to Coudert, is an enthusiastic appropriationof Lurianicnotions by these Christianintellectuals, especially their use of his view of transmigration(gilgul) and his radical optimism as reflected in the notion of tikkun.Although mixed with other forms of gnosticism found in Hermetic, Neoplatonic, and alchemical sources, their new infusion of Lurianicideas is significant for several reasons. In the first place, these thinkersadopted a vitalistic philosophy of perfectionism and universal salvation at the expense of rejecting partiallyor completely the traditionalChristiannotions of predestination,original sin, and the eternalityof hell, while at least minimizing the role of Christin the redemptive process. Second, by de-emphasizing these dogmas, they promoted a more tolerantand open version of Christianitythatblurredthe boundariesbetween Catholics and Protestantsand between Christiansand Jews. Third,by privileging the Jewish notions of theodicy and progress, they reveal their great indebtedness to Jewish and converso thought at a critical moment in the reshapingof Western culture. Finally,these individualsexemplify the religious roots of the process of secularizationand the Enlightenmentand the intimateconnections of Jewish and Christiangnosticism and messianism with science, toleration, and progress. These are not small claims and,if correct,they call for a majorre-evaluation of much previousthinkingaboutthe origins of the Enlightenment,on the one hand, 5. In some interestingways, her work converges with that of the ItalianhistorianSylvia Berti. See especially her "A WorldApart?Gershom Scholem and ContemporaryReadings of 17th Century Jewish-ChristianRelations,"Jewish Studies Quarterly3 (1996): 212-24; and her "Atthe Roots of Unbelief,"Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (1995): 555-75.

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AJS Review and the place of Jewish ideas in the shaping of earlymodernEuropeanculture,on the other. Especially noticeable is Coudert'splea directed at the Scholem school calling for the integrationof the Kabbalahinto the culturalhistory of ChristianEurope. By her careful study of how Lurianicnotions were not merely translatedinto Latin but integratedinto the Christianthinking of Van Helmont and Von Rosenroth, and through them, a circle of other associates, Couderthas made her most importantcontribution.No doubt her own readingsof these thinkerswill be challenged and refined by futureresearchers,particularlyregardingthe weight she attributesto Kabbalistic ideas in the evolution of their theologies.Nevertheless,her well-researchedand stimulatingbook has significantlyadvancedour understanding of both the history of modern thought and its ecumenical underpinnings. David B. Ruderman University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia,Pennsylvania

Norman Lamm, ed. The Religious Thoughtof Hasidism: Textand Commentary. Sources and Studies in Kabbalah,HasidismandJewishThought,vol. 4. New York: YeshivaUniversity Press, 1999. xlix, 711 pp. For half a century the Buber-Scholem debate over the essence of Hasidic teachings and literaturedefined the parametersof scholarly discussion of Hasidism. A new generationof scholarshas takenthe discussion of Hasidism in new and fruitful directionsin recent years. One result of this new researchhas been an interest in making the theological literature of Hasidism available to English readers.This volume is a welcome additionto this growing body of literature.Relying only on Hasidic stories instead of the theological writings of Hasidism, particularly as they were selected and edited by MartinBuber, has led to a distorted and reductionistunderstandingof Hasidism and its place in the Jewish mystical tradition.The theologically and intellectually sophisticatedaspects of Hasidism were not taken into account in populardescriptionsof the movement. On the contrary,Hasidism was seen as an anti-intellectualpopulist folk movement and even a break with the rabbinictraditionin some respects. Correctingthis misconception and acquaintingthe readerwith the intellectual and spiritualfoundationsof Hasidism is a primarygoal for Norman Lamm,the editor of this volume. His second aim is to show the intellectualcreativityand diversityof Hasidic thought. Though sharing common foundations, the Hasidic masters were often original and creativethinkers.Lamm concentrateson the teachings of the masters of the first three generations.The first generationof Hasidism was the Baal Shem Tov (Besht) and his contemporaries,such as R. Gershon of Kuty and R. Pinehas of Koretz, figures seen as colleagues of the Besht ratherthan as his disciples. The leading masters of the second generation were the Besht's immediate disciples, most notably R. Jacob Joseph of Pollnoye and R. Dov Baer, the Magid of Mezhi196

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Morris M. Faierstein Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 196-197 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131593 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:00 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review and the place of Jewish ideas in the shaping of earlymodernEuropeanculture,on the other. Especially noticeable is Coudert'splea directed at the Scholem school calling for the integrationof the Kabbalahinto the culturalhistory of ChristianEurope. By her careful study of how Lurianicnotions were not merely translatedinto Latin but integratedinto the Christianthinking of Van Helmont and Von Rosenroth, and through them, a circle of other associates, Couderthas made her most importantcontribution.No doubt her own readingsof these thinkerswill be challenged and refined by futureresearchers,particularlyregardingthe weight she attributesto Kabbalistic ideas in the evolution of their theologies.Nevertheless,her well-researchedand stimulatingbook has significantlyadvancedour understanding of both the history of modern thought and its ecumenical underpinnings. David B. Ruderman University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia,Pennsylvania

Norman Lamm, ed. The Religious Thoughtof Hasidism: Textand Commentary. Sources and Studies in Kabbalah,HasidismandJewishThought,vol. 4. New York: YeshivaUniversity Press, 1999. xlix, 711 pp. For half a century the Buber-Scholem debate over the essence of Hasidic teachings and literaturedefined the parametersof scholarly discussion of Hasidism. A new generationof scholarshas takenthe discussion of Hasidism in new and fruitful directionsin recent years. One result of this new researchhas been an interest in making the theological literature of Hasidism available to English readers.This volume is a welcome additionto this growing body of literature.Relying only on Hasidic stories instead of the theological writings of Hasidism, particularly as they were selected and edited by MartinBuber, has led to a distorted and reductionistunderstandingof Hasidism and its place in the Jewish mystical tradition.The theologically and intellectually sophisticatedaspects of Hasidism were not taken into account in populardescriptionsof the movement. On the contrary,Hasidism was seen as an anti-intellectualpopulist folk movement and even a break with the rabbinictraditionin some respects. Correctingthis misconception and acquaintingthe readerwith the intellectual and spiritualfoundationsof Hasidism is a primarygoal for Norman Lamm,the editor of this volume. His second aim is to show the intellectualcreativityand diversityof Hasidic thought. Though sharing common foundations, the Hasidic masters were often original and creativethinkers.Lamm concentrateson the teachings of the masters of the first three generations.The first generationof Hasidism was the Baal Shem Tov (Besht) and his contemporaries,such as R. Gershon of Kuty and R. Pinehas of Koretz, figures seen as colleagues of the Besht ratherthan as his disciples. The leading masters of the second generation were the Besht's immediate disciples, most notably R. Jacob Joseph of Pollnoye and R. Dov Baer, the Magid of Mezhi196

Book Reviews rech.The thirdgenerationwere primarilythe disciples of the Magid of Mezhirech. The leading figures of this generationinclude R. ShneurZalmanof Liadi, R. Levi Yizhak of Berdichev,R. Elimelech of Lyzhansk,and many others. R. Nahman of Bratzlavand R. Moshe Hayyim Ephraimof Sudilkov,though not disciples of the Magid of Mezhirech,were also consideredto be in the thirdgeneration.Lammhas chosen to concentrateon these teachers for pragmaticreasons including the limitations of space, and not because, as has been arguedin the past, Hasidic creativity declined after this period. There were original and creative Hasidic thinkers throughoutthe nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century.Two later figures that Lamm quotes often are R. Elimelekh of Dinov and R. Zadok haCohen of Lublin.Their inclusion is a personalpreference,their teachings having a particularinterestfor Lamm. The writings of the Hasidic mastersare not systematic theological treatises, but collections of sermons deliveredon sabbathsand festivals. The notable exception is R. ShneurZalmanof Liadi'sLikkuteiAmarim(Tanya).Lammhas culled the theological "nuggets"from the more extensive sermons in which they are embedded. His selections are well chosen and convey not only the ideas but also the style and methodology of Hasidic writings to the nonspecialist. The book is organizedthematicallyratherthan by individuals.In that way it is easier to see how differentHasidic masters have approachedbasic theological concepts.The teachings aredivided into eighteen chapters.They include basic theological concepts such as God and Providence,the Soul, Faith,TorahStudy, Love and Fear,Prayer,Evil and Suffering, Life and Death, Exile and Redemptionand others. Othertopics more specific to the kabbalistic and Hasidic traditions, such as Devekut, the Zaddik, Worshipthrough Corporeality,Joy and Dejection, and Smallness and Greatness,are also considered.The last chapteris on women in Hasidic thought. Each chapterbegins with an introductionthat puts the topic of the chapter into the largercontext of Jewishthought.This is followed by a selection of excerpts from a varietyof Hasidic masters.The source of each extractis noted and the passage is carefully annotated,making it more accessible to the general reader.The numberof selections in each chaptervaries from underten to more than forty.Not surprisingly,the chapteron the Zaddikhas the largest number of excerpts, fortythree. This volume is the most comprehensive anthology of Hasidic theological teachings in English to date. It is a most welcome additionto the literatureon Hasidism in English and is an excellent introductionto the theology of Hasidism. It can be highly recommendedas an entry to the riches of Hasidism for the nonspecialist and would make an excellent text for a course on the teachings of Hasidism. Morris M. Faierstein University of Maryland College Park,Maryland

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Review: [untitled] Author(s): Elliot N. Dorff Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 198-202 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131594 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

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AJS Review Eugene B. Borowitz and FrancesWeinmanSchwartz. TheJewish Moral Virtues. Philadelphia:JPS, 1999. xxii, 360 pp. Aaron Levine. Case Studies in Jewish Business Ethics. The Libraryof Jewish Law and Ethics, Volume XXII. Hoboken: KTAV and New York:Yeshiva University Press, 2000. xviii, 419 pp. Byron Sherwin.Jewish Ethicsfor the Twenty-FirstCentury:Living in theImage of God. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000. xxvi, 203 pp. While each of these three books is about Jewish ethics, they take very different approachesto the topic, serve differentpurposes, and speak to differentaudiences. If nothing else, they-and a numberof other books about Jewish ethics published in recent years-collectively demonstratethat Jews are paying serious attentionnot only to the theological, legal, historical, social, and culturalaspects of Jewish identity,but also to the Jewish tradition'smoral import. In doing so, methodology has become a key underlyingissue: How should we access the Jewish traditionfor its moral applicationto our times? Answering thatcriticallydepends, in turn,on how one understandssuch subjectsas revelation and the authorityof Jewish law. Clearly,if one takes a Reform approach,for example, individualconscience and autonomywill play a much largerrole than they will if one takes a Conservativeor Orthodoxapproach,where Jewish law is considered binding. Similarly,if one sees Jewish law as developing over time, as the ConservativeMovementdoes, the substanceof the law to which we arebound may well be differentfrom what is construedto be the law in Orthodoxy. But the methodologicalproblemgoes beyondthese familiardenominational differences, for even if you assume that we should follow God's will exactly as it has come down to us in the variouscodes and responsa-the Orthodoxpositionon many issues you will have a hardtime discerningwhat God wants of us in our time becausetechnological,social, andpoliticalchangeshave significantlychanged our reality fromthatof our ancestors.Indeed,ancientand medieval sources did not even contemplatecurrentrealities, let alone deal with them. One must thereforebe open to the possibility that the Jewish traditionmay have nothing on point to say abouta contemporaryproblem,although,with properattentionto methodology,situationslike that, I think, are rare.(Forten approachesto this methodologicalissue, see ContemporaryJewish Ethics and Morality:A Reader,Elliot N. Dorff and Louis E. Newman, eds., New York:Oxford, 1995, chpts. 6-15.) It is precisely the lack of attention to methodology that bothers me most aboutAaron Levine'sbook, Case Studies in Jewish Business Ethics. Typicalof Orthodox writers, Levine pays no attentionat all to the writings of people who come from the other movements in Judaism.At some point, I would hope, it may dawn on the Orthodoxthat they constituteless than ten percentof NorthAmericanJewry and that they at least need to consider the approachesof the other denominations, even if only to disagree with them. One can even demand that their disagreementstake the form of reasoned arguments.Who knows? Maybe Orthodox

198

Book Reviews writers who bother to read the other movements' materialsmay even learn from them! Moreover, Levine's methodology prevents him from considering whether Jewish law ought to be changedto meet the business conditions of our times. That is, he reportsand applies Jewish law to specific cases-often deftly-but he never asks whethermodern conditions would suggest that Jewish law be changed altogether. So, for example, Levine describeshow Jewish law forbiddingJews to charge other Jews interest can accommodate modern commercial conditions through adaptationsof the sixteenth-centurydocumentthat gives "permissionto do business" (heter iska). But the prohibitionapplies only to Jews doing business with other Jews, which is now a rarity.The very case that Levine uses to illustratethis law involves an encyclopedia salesman by the name of Henry Blackwell and his potential clients, the Fishers. Is Blackwell Jewish? Is the company for which he works Jewish? Levine never deals with the fact that the vast majority of companies these days are conglomerates, and even companies that used to be familyowned businesses have now generally "gone public," so that they are owned by membersof the family and other stock holders. Minimally,I would have expected Levine to mention whetherthese laws apply at all to observantJews engaging in business with such companies (including banks and stock brokerages).But even in the minority of cases in which Jews are dealing directly and solely with other Jews, can such business be conductedignoringcontemporarymarketassumptions and conditions?The very institutionof the heter iska was intendedto take into account the new marketconditionsof its time, in which interestwas just assumed, so that Jews would have permissionto do business (the literalmeaning of heter iska) in those times; now, when Jews are much more involved in the general marketplace, and when that marketplaceis trulyglobal, one would expect that Jewish law might have to change yet again to accommodatethe Torah'slaws against charging interest.So, for example, perhapsthe scope of those laws needs to be narrowedto applyonly to transactionsof very specific types so that observantJews can indeed do business in our time. Such a possibility, and even the underlyingproblem, are not even mentioned. The first chapter,on moral education, is by far the least satisfying; Levine does much betterwhen he gets to the areahe really knows-namely, business. He describes a numberof traitsthat it would be desirableto inculcate in our children and ourselves, but only once does he talk about how-specifically, that parents should not lie to children.A chapterentitled "MoralEducation"demands a much more sophisticatedunderstandingof the natureand methods of educationgenerally and of moral education in particular.Carol Ingall's award-winningbook on the A Jewish Perspectiveon Moral Educasubject, Transmissionand Transformation: tion (New York:Jewish Theological Seminaryof America, 1999) is a much better resourcefor a Jewish theory of, and practicalguide for, moral education. Still, Levine'sbook has much to recommendit. Beginning each chapterwith a specific case, like seculartextbooks in business ethics, helps to focus and clarify the discussion even for those not accustomed to business terms and modes of 199

AJS Review transaction.It would have been better,though, to list the issues of each chapterin the Table of Contents ratherthan the name of the case. Levine includes helpful glossaries of terms in American and Jewish law, and his summariesof, and comparisons to, American law clarify where Judaismdiffers from contemporaryassumptions and where it is similar.These comparisons also give the discussion a distinctly contemporaryring. Moreover,Levine clearly summarizesthe relevant concepts and precedents of Jewish law-of which he clearly has encyclopedic knowledge-before applying them to the modem case. For all these reasons, this is a book worth reading. It is also a book worth using in classes on Jewish business ethics, providedthat studentsare repeatedlywarnedaboutthe Orthodoxlimitations of this book and exposed to other Jewish approachesto the same issues. TheJewish Moral Virtues,by Eugene Borowitzand FrancesSchwartz,is, in contrast,quite clear about its methodological assumptions,describingthem in the very first chapter.The authorstell us that they will call upon a plethoraof Jewish sources, including not only Bible, Talmud,and Midrash,but medieval and modern writers, and even Yiddish, Ladino, and IraqiJewish epigrams spoken by ordinary people. They note the problem of selecting some virtues and not others, correctly saying that in a finite book "There is never a fully satisfactory response to that charge"(p. 7), and then explain that their selections are based on the twenty-four virtues discussed by the first authorof a well-receivedbook on Jewish virtues, the late-thirteenth-centuryRoman Jewish scribe, Yehiel b. Yekutiel b. Binyamin Harofe. One can surely argue whether that is a good basis for deciding which virtues to include or exclude, but at least the authorshave revealed their method of selection and the grounds for it. They also note that while Yehiel could simply cite biblical verses for each virtue and presume that his audience would immediately see the compelling natureof that virtue,biblical verses do not have thatpower in our time, and so the authorshave expanded on each virtue with more contemporaryargumentsand applications. They are also clear abouttheir organizationalpattern.They note thatthrough Chapter19 they have groupedthe virtues loosely into five sections and then "tackle the difficult process of convertinglearningto doing" (p. 8) in chapterson Torah and observing the commandments,repentance,and prayer(chpts. 20-22). Finally, at the end of the book, they discuss God, "OurGround,Our Guide, Our Goal." Thus they have gone from the concrete to the abstractin the way that people are likely to experience these virtues. The chapterson each virtuearewrittenin a light, contemporarytone thatbelies the considerableresearchthat went into writing this volume. It includes a delightful mix of ancient, medieval, and modern wisdom, including, in some cases, stories that come from the authors'own lives. Moreover,their suggestions for how we should live by these virtues are often poignantandeven funny,especially in the chapteron common decency. They also balance the virtues against each other.So, for example, they arguefor compassionwithjustice, religious zeal but not zealotry. I have some quibblesaboutspecific issues in the book, togetherwith one disappointment.In theirchapteron trustworthiness,I wish thatBorowitzandSchwartz had spoken about its role in business, where it is absolutely critical. As a college student,I once accompaniedmy father,a civil engineer,to the lumberyard,where 200

Book Reviews he orderedlumber for a building he was constructingwith just an oral agreement and a handshake.Given thatboth he and the salesman could lose a lot of money if either one of them reneged on the deal, I asked my fatherhow they could do that. He shruggedhis shouldersandthentold me thateven a detailedcontractwith a person you do not trust is not worththe paper it is writtenon, but people regularlydo business with those they trust on the basis of oral agreementsalone. Similarly,the chapteron embarrassment(boshet) has no referenceto the importantdiscussion in Bava Kamma86b on the elements of embarrassment-a personal sense of shame, degradationin the eyes of others,and dishonorof one's family. On page 36, I have problems with two decisions that the authors claim demonstratetrustworthiness.In one, they endorse lying to a patient ratherthan scaringhim or her with the doctor'sgrim diagnosis. There is some supportfor that approachwithin the Jewish tradition,but I franklyfind it highly problematic.The family and patient dance aroundeach other as they pretendthat they do not both know that the prospects are bad. Under those circumstances, the patient cannot openly cry with those near and dear,express worry about what is to come, or gain comfort from them. Moreover,lying infantilizes the patient. Tact is obviously in order,and visitors should focus on what the patient can still hope to do in his or her life, but ultimatelyhonesty enables far more effective caring. On that same page, the authorsrecommend keeping a promise to cremate a parent.Here the Jewish traditionactuallygives the opposite instruction,maintaining thatboth parentsand childrenhave the duty to obey God and so Jewish law supersedes what our parentsmay want (Sifra on Lev. 19:3; B. Yevamot5b). At the least, I wish that the authorshad explained their argumentsagainst that logic. The least satisfying chaptersin the book are the most theological ones at its end. The light style that works throughoutthe book does not work well when it comes to God, law, and prayer.Moreover,the topics requirea much more thorough analysisthan the one provided;I honestly felt cheated. I also wish that the authors had made the point that living by the virtues they describe is one of the Jewish tradition's paths to knowing God. Still, on balance, this book includes a wonderful discussion of a numberof Jewish virtues and is well worth the read. It may even change some behavior! Byron Sherwin'sJewish Ethicsfor the Twenty-FirstCenturyconsists of eight chaptersunified by the theme of creationin the image of God, which Sherwin discusses in the first chapter.The topics include health and healing, euthanasia,genetic engineering, parent-childrelations, reproductivetechnologies and cloning, zedakah,and repentance.The truly special thing about Sherwin'streatmentof several of these topics-especially genetic engineering and reproductivetechnologies-is his use of the Golem legends in additionto otherJewishsources.Throughout his book Sherwinevidences not only masteryof the wealth of Jewish materials and ideas thatcan reasonablyapplyto modem issues, but also the analytic skills to identify importantcomparisonsto Americanand Christianapproachesand the creativity to suggest new resolutions. So, for example, he makes a sharp distinction between Calvin's understandingof poverty as punishmentand Judaism'sview of povertyas tragedy.In what is boundto be a controversialchapter,he argues on the basis of Jewish sources for the permissibility of active euthanasia,thus challeng201

AJS Review ing the mainstreamposition of the past and present.He also is scrupulouslyhonest aboutthe varietyof approacheswithin Judaismto a numberof topics-e.g., the moral statusof the body and the identityof the image of God within us. In the end, the moral lesson of this book is that in an age of increasingtechnology, we must strive ever harderto become intensely human(e.g., p. 87). Sherwin finds genetic engineering for purposes of creating more fruitful plants and animals as well as life-saving pharmaceuticalsunequivocallygood, indeed "bothobligatory and desirable"(p. 122). I am currentlyserving on a federal commission to review and revise the government'sguidelines on researchon human subjects, and much of our work is to insurethat people do not suffer serious harm throughsuch research.Some healthy volunteershave even died. And genetic engineering of plants and animals carries the risks of leaving only one species of tomato, for example. Whathappenswhen that species is decimatedby some organism? Biodiversity, in other words, is critical for humanexistence. In humans, animals, and plants, in otherwords, our enthusiasmfor new genetic breakthroughs must be tempered with great caution. Still, Sherwin'sjudgments and arguments are, in general, sound, with clear attentionto the methodological issues I raisedat the outset, and his book, althoughnot easy reading,is well worththe effort. Elliot N. Dorff University of Judaism Los Angeles, California

David R. Blumenthal. The Banality of Good and Evil: Moral Lessons from the Shoah and Jewish Tradition.Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1999. vii, 326 pp. The Banality of Good and Evil, by David R. Blumenthal,a scholar/rabbiof JudaicStudies at Emory University,is a welcome additionto the understandingof good and evil. Whatmakes this workunique is thatProfessorBlumenthalhas been able to combine the research from social and experimentalpsychology, philosophy, education, literatureon the Holocaust and rescuers duringthe Nazi era, and religious teachings from the Jewish tradition. In his fourteenchapters,Blumenthalmanagesto presenta body of knowledge which is accessible not only to college-level students,but also to the general public. The first chapter deals with a Jewish-Nazi he knew who possessed rigidity, hatefulness, and dictatorialapproachesin his relationshipto others. In Chapter2, he comprehensively reviews the study of altruismin the fields of social and experimental psychology. Focusing on the Staub, the Milgram, and the Stanford prison experiments, Blumenthal illustrateshierarchicalauthority,which leads ordinarypeople to commit extraordinaryevil. In the Staubexperiment,a task was assigned to three groups; one group was permittedto leave the room, anotherwas given no instruction about leaving the room, and the third was prohibitedfrom 202

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Samuel P. Oliner Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 202-204 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131595 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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AJS Review ing the mainstreamposition of the past and present.He also is scrupulouslyhonest aboutthe varietyof approacheswithin Judaismto a numberof topics-e.g., the moral statusof the body and the identityof the image of God within us. In the end, the moral lesson of this book is that in an age of increasingtechnology, we must strive ever harderto become intensely human(e.g., p. 87). Sherwin finds genetic engineering for purposes of creating more fruitful plants and animals as well as life-saving pharmaceuticalsunequivocallygood, indeed "bothobligatory and desirable"(p. 122). I am currentlyserving on a federal commission to review and revise the government'sguidelines on researchon human subjects, and much of our work is to insurethat people do not suffer serious harm throughsuch research.Some healthy volunteershave even died. And genetic engineering of plants and animals carries the risks of leaving only one species of tomato, for example. Whathappenswhen that species is decimatedby some organism? Biodiversity, in other words, is critical for humanexistence. In humans, animals, and plants, in otherwords, our enthusiasmfor new genetic breakthroughs must be tempered with great caution. Still, Sherwin'sjudgments and arguments are, in general, sound, with clear attentionto the methodological issues I raisedat the outset, and his book, althoughnot easy reading,is well worththe effort. Elliot N. Dorff University of Judaism Los Angeles, California

David R. Blumenthal. The Banality of Good and Evil: Moral Lessons from the Shoah and Jewish Tradition.Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1999. vii, 326 pp. The Banality of Good and Evil, by David R. Blumenthal,a scholar/rabbiof JudaicStudies at Emory University,is a welcome additionto the understandingof good and evil. Whatmakes this workunique is thatProfessorBlumenthalhas been able to combine the research from social and experimentalpsychology, philosophy, education, literatureon the Holocaust and rescuers duringthe Nazi era, and religious teachings from the Jewish tradition. In his fourteenchapters,Blumenthalmanagesto presenta body of knowledge which is accessible not only to college-level students,but also to the general public. The first chapter deals with a Jewish-Nazi he knew who possessed rigidity, hatefulness, and dictatorialapproachesin his relationshipto others. In Chapter2, he comprehensively reviews the study of altruismin the fields of social and experimental psychology. Focusing on the Staub, the Milgram, and the Stanford prison experiments, Blumenthal illustrateshierarchicalauthority,which leads ordinarypeople to commit extraordinaryevil. In the Staubexperiment,a task was assigned to three groups; one group was permittedto leave the room, anotherwas given no instruction about leaving the room, and the third was prohibitedfrom 202

Book Reviews leaving the room. Cries of distress were then simulatedin an adjacentroom. In the experimentusing children, the children followed authorityin the no-instruction groupandthe groupprohibitedfrom leaving the room. However,when adultswere the subjects,they followed authorityonly in the "prohibited"group, while the noinstructionand permitted-to-leavegroups got involved in helping. Blumenthal maintainsthatauthoritycan permitethically correctbehavior;thatis, authoritycan function,as authority,to justify and permitpro-social, as well as evil, behaviortowardone's fellow being. Focusingon Milgram'sYaleexperiment,he shows thathierarchicalauthoritycan lead people to commit acts of cruelty,as demonstratedby people's predispositionto obey authority. Blumenthalconducted an experimentin his own class in order to examine students'response to no authorityor direction. He concluded that the studentsexpected authorityand direction;withoutit therewas some confusion, and some students even walked out. He gives other examples in hierarchicalrule where some individualshelp because they have learnedcaringnorms from leaders and society, which encouragethem to help. A numberof examples are given from Dutch and Polish rescuers,where caring norms and the role of moral leaders promptedthem to risk their lives on behalf of Jews. Blumenthal speaks about the importanceof teaching and praxis. Teaching can have racialand authoritariancontent, or caring in the pro-social behavior.Additionally,Blumenthalbelieves personal competence and commitment to intelligent moraljudgement could help prevent immoral acts. He discusses the role of extensivity,proposedby the Oliners,to explain such traitsas inclusiveness, attachment, connectedness, openness, acceptance, and diversity.These factors help facilitate pro-social attitudesand behaviors. Blumenthal emphasizes the importance of childhood discipline and personality development. Describing Alice Miller's book on authoritarianchildhood upbringingand obedience, he states that frequentlychildrenwho are humiliated and abused become good candidates as adults for authoritarianracist hate groups. He also discusses the Freudiannotion of repression,idealization,identification with strong leaders, projection,displacementof aggression, scapegoating, xenophobia, and a rigid adherence to conventional values, which are building blocks of Nazism/fascism. Similarly,the modeling of goodness and caring imprints itself into a kind of behaviorthat has been demonstratedin the rescue activity of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. In Chapters6 and 7 Blumenthaladdressesthe valued-conceptof pro-social life, which consists of commitmentto intelligentmoraljudgement,intellectualperseverance, moral strength,righteous anger, moral courage, love, compassion, respect, honor,devotion,friendship,justice,caring, inclusiveness,extensivity,bonding, attachment, empathy, critical consciousness, empowerment, and protest. These, he feels, can result in "manufacturing"goodness in society. Blumenthalsees a need to identifythe authoritythat is demandingobedience as well as the authoritythat is demandingresistance;to establish contact with victims; and to learn and listen to their sufferingby making person-to-personcontact with them and identifying one's feelings with theirs. 203

AJS Review Another importantcontributionof this work is the voice of Jewish religious tradition and how it helps to understandand buttress social justice. Blumenthal thoroughly examines the relevant social processes such as justice, charity,compassion, obligationto one's neighbor,and many othersthat come from centuriesof Jewish moral and ethical teachings on the obligation that human beings have toward others. This book would have benefited from discussion of economic and political forces that frequentlyadd to social instability,which in turn permit evil to arise and cause hurt to groups. For example, duringtimes of high unemployment,immigrants and foreigners are frequentlyblamed for lack ofjobs. In sum, Blumenthal'sworkhas a twofold purpose.The first is to explainwhat conditions are associated with caring, social responsibility towards one's fellow human being, as well as what forces contributeto evil. The second is to identify teachings and moral precepts from the Jewish Traditionthat could preventthe banality of evil. The Banality of Good and Evil is an importantbook, appropriatein classes on theology, ethics, altruism,the study of the Holocaust, genocide, literature, history, and Judaic studies, as well as for the general readership. Samuel P.Oliner Humboldt State University Arcata, California

Elliot N. Dorff and Louis E. Newman, editors. ContemporaryJewish Theology:A Reader. New York:Oxford University Press, 1999. xvi, 522 pp. It is arduousto review an anthology that has the ambitionof presentingthe large spectrum of movements and schools of contemporary Jewish religious thought. Limits of space preventus from discussing individuallythe many authors selected in it. Instead,we must considerthe criteriaby which the authorshavebeen chosen and how the editors have organized the anthologizedmaterials. Such criteria are reducibleto the idea that is expressed by the editors in the brief preface. In these last decades of the twentiethcentury,the Jewish worldhas experiencedan extraordinaryflourishingof thoughtthatproducedan enormousquantityof works of theological, philosophical, and ethical reflection, whose developmentwas unthinkable right after World War II. This production was especially widespread in the Anglo-American area, where the English-speaking Jewish communities emerged as the most learned,wealthy,and pluralisticcommunities in the diaspora. Nobody can deny this sociological fact, which is also a culturalphenomenon. This anthology objectively reflects this situation. Nonetheless, it also shows the great open-mindednessandthe vivacity with which the Jewishthinkersof this century have tried to answerthe questions posed by history. Perhapsthis is the rightkey to comprehendthe phenomenonof such a large, variegated,and high-quality intellectual production.The many, often tragic, unprecedentedfoundationalevents of contemporaryhistory touched the Jewishpeo204

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Massimo Giuliani Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 204-206 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131596 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review Another importantcontributionof this work is the voice of Jewish religious tradition and how it helps to understandand buttress social justice. Blumenthal thoroughly examines the relevant social processes such as justice, charity,compassion, obligationto one's neighbor,and many othersthat come from centuriesof Jewish moral and ethical teachings on the obligation that human beings have toward others. This book would have benefited from discussion of economic and political forces that frequentlyadd to social instability,which in turn permit evil to arise and cause hurt to groups. For example, duringtimes of high unemployment,immigrants and foreigners are frequentlyblamed for lack ofjobs. In sum, Blumenthal'sworkhas a twofold purpose.The first is to explainwhat conditions are associated with caring, social responsibility towards one's fellow human being, as well as what forces contributeto evil. The second is to identify teachings and moral precepts from the Jewish Traditionthat could preventthe banality of evil. The Banality of Good and Evil is an importantbook, appropriatein classes on theology, ethics, altruism,the study of the Holocaust, genocide, literature, history, and Judaic studies, as well as for the general readership. Samuel P.Oliner Humboldt State University Arcata, California

Elliot N. Dorff and Louis E. Newman, editors. ContemporaryJewish Theology:A Reader. New York:Oxford University Press, 1999. xvi, 522 pp. It is arduousto review an anthology that has the ambitionof presentingthe large spectrum of movements and schools of contemporary Jewish religious thought. Limits of space preventus from discussing individuallythe many authors selected in it. Instead,we must considerthe criteriaby which the authorshavebeen chosen and how the editors have organized the anthologizedmaterials. Such criteria are reducibleto the idea that is expressed by the editors in the brief preface. In these last decades of the twentiethcentury,the Jewish worldhas experiencedan extraordinaryflourishingof thoughtthatproducedan enormousquantityof works of theological, philosophical, and ethical reflection, whose developmentwas unthinkable right after World War II. This production was especially widespread in the Anglo-American area, where the English-speaking Jewish communities emerged as the most learned,wealthy,and pluralisticcommunities in the diaspora. Nobody can deny this sociological fact, which is also a culturalphenomenon. This anthology objectively reflects this situation. Nonetheless, it also shows the great open-mindednessandthe vivacity with which the Jewishthinkersof this century have tried to answerthe questions posed by history. Perhapsthis is the rightkey to comprehendthe phenomenonof such a large, variegated,and high-quality intellectual production.The many, often tragic, unprecedentedfoundationalevents of contemporaryhistory touched the Jewishpeo204

Book Reviews ple so deeply that they were stimulatedand sometimes forced to elaboratenew responses to the new problemsof meaningand interpretationthatthe events entailed. The re-flourishingof Jewish thinking duringthe last hundredyears is also fruit of what Emil Fackenheimcalled "the returnof the Jewish people into history."Such a returnforced Jewish thinkersto face, on the one hand,the problem of continuity and/or discontinuitywith the past, and, on the other hand,the challenge of imagining and creatingthe conditions of a less traumaticfuture. Dorff and Newman have organizedthe volume in the following manner.After Byron Sherwin'sintroductiondiscussing the historical-epistemologicalstatus of the controversialcategory of "Jewish theology,"the editors present some excerpts from the most significant oeuvres of philosophers who are already considered classics: Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Abraham I. Kook, MordechaiKaplan,and AbrahamJ. Heschel. A thirdand largerpartis dedicated to basic themes and includes essays by authors who belong almost completely to the second part of the century.The themes are classical chapters of all "Jewishtheologies of history": God, creation, revelation, redemption, covenant/ election, and the law.A fourthpartis an explorationof the two fundamentalexperiences of the Shoah and the rebuildingof the State of Israel and their differentoften conflicting-interpretations. The last part sets up a debate on the future of Jewish theology, especially the developments that neo-Hasidism, Jewish feminism, and postmodern hermeneutics can offer. In all, thirty-nine authors are presented, plus brief introductionsfor each of the five parts, and some final bibliographicalsuggestions. I dare say thatthe volume is the best anthology on this subject because it is a very accurate panorama of this old-new branch of Jewish philosophy,that is, Jewish theology. As the editors honestly admit,the majorproblem of the volume is the treatment of Zionist thought. Certainly,Zionism is also a philosophical phenomenon (we must rememberAhad Ha'am or Aaron Gordon, for example, who are completely absent from the anthology). As well, the theme of the returnto Zion and Jewish nationalism is partially absorbed into the reflection on the theological meaning of the rebuilding of a Jewish state. Notwithstanding,classical Zionism (at least in its most significant exponents) is a secular, anti-religious response to the problemof the economic alienation of the EuropeanJews and to persecution. The difficulty thus becomes finding a place for this essential currentof contemporaryJewish thought inside a theological anthology. I think an exception could be made for Eliezer Schweid, who is already well known in the United States for his outstandingresearchon Jewish thinking of this century.But, as I stated at the beginning, it is arduousto judge the criteriaof selection, always subjective, of the included and the excluded. The anthology is thought of in continuitywith a previous book, Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality (Oxford, 1995), also edited by Dorff and Newman. It is offered to academics and scholars, and to educatorsand religious leaders in search of new perspectives and insights. It shares a special space on the bookshelftogetherwith two otheranthologiesessential for a holistic vision of current Jewish thought: ContemporaryJewish Religious Thought,edited by Arthur Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr (New York, 1986), and The Zionist Idea. A His205

AJS Review torical Analysis and Reader (first edition, New York, 1959), edited by Arthur Hertzberg. Massimo Giuliani Washington,D.C.

Norbert M. Samuelson. A User's Guide to Franz Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption. Curzon Jewish Philosophy Series. Surrey, UK: Curzon Press, 1999. xxv, 386 pp. Ernest Rubinstein.An Episode of Jewish Romanticism:Franz Rosenzweig'sThe Star of Redemption. SUNY Series in Judaica:Hermeneutics,Mysticism, and Religion. Albany: SUNY Press, 1999. xiii, 306 pp. While TheStar of Redemptionis widely recognized as a great work, if not the single greatest work of modern Jewish thought, it has persistently had difficulty finding its readers. Written in an almost private language for a circle of friendsand relations,it has takenalmost a centuryto gain an audiencethatcan find a way into its imposing architecture.The situationbegan to change in 1982 with Stephane Moses' System and Revelation, which offered a detailed readingof the whole text. I, for my part,triedto offer a philosophicalinterpretation of the methodin in in of the three Correlations each of ology parts 1992, Rosenzweig and Levinas; RichardCohen'sElevations offered a set of readingsthat linked Levinasand Rosenzweig in 1994. Yudit KornbergGreenbergcontributeda reading that emphasized the relationto the Kabbalahin herBetter ThanWine,in 1996. The decade ended, however, with the two books under review here-both impressive, novel, and complex readingsof The Star. Norbert Samuelson has given us a paragraphby-paragraphparaphrase-or perhapswe need a new term, for Samuelson'sbook is a real commentary,leading us throughthe text and offering insight continuously, as well as pausing at key moments to guide us into richerconnections. Ernest Rubinstein,for his part,has offered a demandingand challenging book that interrogates The Star, reading it not once but twice, and each time not only introducing the various key concepts and developments,but also measuring Rosenzweig against a rich theoreticalframework. Many readers, when confronting The Star, have concluded that despite its reputation,the text is intractable.Rosenzweig did not simply present an argument or describe Jewish reality of his time. On the contrary,TheStar itself is a special kind of writing, a kind of performance,in which the readeris not only confused, but is led, questioned,exhorted,and commanded.It leads throughdifferentkinds of thinking (and so kinds of writing), and switches the reader'sperspectiveboldly. It demands a great deal of its reader,but offers to us a real teaching: about God, about ethics, about art, about being Jewish, and finally about the meaning of our existence. Its complexity requiresnotjust one reading,but several,and notjust one

206

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Robert Gibbs Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 206-209 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131597 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review torical Analysis and Reader (first edition, New York, 1959), edited by Arthur Hertzberg. Massimo Giuliani Washington,D.C.

Norbert M. Samuelson. A User's Guide to Franz Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption. Curzon Jewish Philosophy Series. Surrey, UK: Curzon Press, 1999. xxv, 386 pp. Ernest Rubinstein.An Episode of Jewish Romanticism:Franz Rosenzweig'sThe Star of Redemption. SUNY Series in Judaica:Hermeneutics,Mysticism, and Religion. Albany: SUNY Press, 1999. xiii, 306 pp. While TheStar of Redemptionis widely recognized as a great work, if not the single greatest work of modern Jewish thought, it has persistently had difficulty finding its readers. Written in an almost private language for a circle of friendsand relations,it has takenalmost a centuryto gain an audiencethatcan find a way into its imposing architecture.The situationbegan to change in 1982 with Stephane Moses' System and Revelation, which offered a detailed readingof the whole text. I, for my part,triedto offer a philosophicalinterpretation of the methodin in in of the three Correlations each of ology parts 1992, Rosenzweig and Levinas; RichardCohen'sElevations offered a set of readingsthat linked Levinasand Rosenzweig in 1994. Yudit KornbergGreenbergcontributeda reading that emphasized the relationto the Kabbalahin herBetter ThanWine,in 1996. The decade ended, however, with the two books under review here-both impressive, novel, and complex readingsof The Star. Norbert Samuelson has given us a paragraphby-paragraphparaphrase-or perhapswe need a new term, for Samuelson'sbook is a real commentary,leading us throughthe text and offering insight continuously, as well as pausing at key moments to guide us into richerconnections. Ernest Rubinstein,for his part,has offered a demandingand challenging book that interrogates The Star, reading it not once but twice, and each time not only introducing the various key concepts and developments,but also measuring Rosenzweig against a rich theoreticalframework. Many readers, when confronting The Star, have concluded that despite its reputation,the text is intractable.Rosenzweig did not simply present an argument or describe Jewish reality of his time. On the contrary,TheStar itself is a special kind of writing, a kind of performance,in which the readeris not only confused, but is led, questioned,exhorted,and commanded.It leads throughdifferentkinds of thinking (and so kinds of writing), and switches the reader'sperspectiveboldly. It demands a great deal of its reader,but offers to us a real teaching: about God, about ethics, about art, about being Jewish, and finally about the meaning of our existence. Its complexity requiresnotjust one reading,but several,and notjust one

206

Book Reviews readerbut several.That is why with the publicationof these works (and a few others of similarworth), we only now can really begin to form the set of readingsthat will allow us to plumb this great text. Samuelson'sparaphrase/commentaryis itself a group enterprise,as he explains:He was the editorand scribebased upon line-by-line readingsdone by graduate students at Temple University over an extended period of time. Samuelson's interestin contemporaryscience and in the relationof Jewish thoughtto such science illumines much of Rosenzweig's book-the paradigmsof quantummechanics, differentialequations, and biological processes, to say nothing of infinitesimal calculus, all contributeto our understandingof the reasoning of The Star. In Samuelson'swork, we see a Rosenzweig who can speak to contemporaryAmerican philosophy and who forges a way of bridging traditionalJewish thought and modernscience. This readingof Rosenzweig allowed Samuelsonto writeJudaism and the Doctrine of Creation(1994). Its greatest insight for new readerscomes in the discussion of creation(PartII, Book 1) and in its ongoing clarity on the role of mathematicsas organonof thought.The text, moreover,pays careful and rigorous attentionto the epistemological level of TheStar, an attentionthat brings wonderful light into some of the murkierplaces; even in the more accessible passages it teaches us a sobriety about the way that Rosenzweig is interpretingexperience, love, prayer,and so on. Samuelson discernsjust how rigorouslyphilosophical the whole book is. Moreover,there is another level of his reading that demands mention: the carefulattentionto the Jewishtexts upon which Rosenzweigis drawing.Samuelson is not simply providing anotherlist of sources; rather,he identifies the specific wordsandphrases(andtransliteratesthem in brackets),to show how much Rosenzweig is thinkingin Hebrew.His long quotationof the Alenu (pp. 265-266) stands out, for Samuelsonhas re-thoughtboth the traditionalprayersand the question of Rosenzweig'sinterpretationof them. His readingallows us to see Rosenzweig connecting to traditionalJewish texts (prayers,biblical texts, talmudic passages, and medievalphilosophical texts). As interestingas it is to find Rosenzweig engaging contemporaryphilosophy, it is still more rewardingto begin to see him reinterpreting the Jewish tradition, focusing on words that everyone prays in Shul. Samuelson'svoice sounds in the text, displaying in Rosenzweig's book his own unique combinationof philosophical interestsand Jewish life. Rubinsteinoffers a quite distinct and importantvantagepoint, exploring the romanticdimension of Rosenzweig's work. Startingfrom Leo Baeck's essay "Romantic Religion," Rubinstein first assesses how well The Star fits its characterization of romantic.The trip is long and demanding,more valuablethan the result, which is a qualified "no."But he then sets sail again, with the question of whether Schelling, in The Philosophy ofArt, was a Baeckian romantic,for which the answer is still more clearly,"no."And so only one more voyage is undertaken:but is TheStar a Schellingianromantictext? If I tell you thatagain we have a sort of"no," you will not yet have been to sea. For no simple identification or refusal of identification works because the voyages penetrateRosenzweig's work with such subtle acuityandbringback such greattreasures,thatwe reallybegin to see how com207

AJS Review plex the relation of romanticismand idealism is, and how Rosenzweig's aversion to idealism depends precisely on a flirtation with and an inversion (a romantic trope, as Rubinsteinexplores) of it. What Rubinsteinmanages to achieve in this complex set of readingsis to interrogate The Star in relation to romanticismand to find a place for Rosenzweig in the context of German intellectual history.The position of Baeck, by the way, ends up reducedto a heuristic,because its polemic againsthis contemporaryChristian cultureis not exploredin its context, andhis essay is not flexible or rich enough to fit Schelling, or even Rosenzweig. But in Rubinstein'sexplorationof Schelling, and in particularin the last voyage with Rosenzweig, we are given not only a much richerinterpretationof their relationthan heretofore,but also great insight into the way that romanticismcan be entertained. More importantstill is the doubled reading of Rosenzweig that Rubinstein offers on that last voyage, first in terms of philosophyand then in terms of art.This is not merely a clever way to distributeSchelling's The Philosophy ofArt; it also gives the best readingwe have of what Rosenzweig is doing with aesthetics in The Star. For both philosophy and art offer in PartI a language prior to language, a prophecy of what happensin the experiences of speakingin PartII, and so they remain underlying structuresthroughoutPart II and Part III. Rubinsteinpersists in interpretingthe changing role of aesthetics in TheStar until he reaches the zenith in the discussion of dance and the gesture. Here, Rubinstein'sown book breaksout of its rich and careful negotiating of Germanphilosophical and theological conceptuality,as he turnsto literature(Keats, Proust,Cather:p. 254) to make his point about the power of minute gestures to connect with whole worlds. Yet, both Samuelson and Rubinsteinmiss a truly wondrousirony in Rosenzweig's text, for the zenith of dance is the Hasid's dance and both readings could intersect. At the climax of Christian aesthetics, Rosenzweig writes about the dances on SimhatTorah,saying: "herethe dance too could develop as a cultic act, to wit in the dance of the Hasid, who 'praises God with all his limbs.' Dance thus finds a place in the religious service itself only among us ... " (Hallo trans., p. 373). Regardlessof how Rosenzweig must then move on to the CorpusChristiprocessions into the town from the church, we might well pause to see how Jewish aesthetics interruptsthis account of art and Christianity.That interruptionis flagrant here, for the image of a hasid dancing is not merely foreign to GermanJewry, but it is the very image for Germancultureof the aesthetic poverty of Judaism. Rosenzweig notes that Christianscannotreally dance in their service, so they substitute baptism and processions, but Jews reach the high point of aesthetic vision. As a devoted studentof Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption,I must honthat there are few sentences in it that do not open onto whole dimenadmit estly sions of reflection, like an intellectual hologram. This pair of clauses about the hasid dancing is one of hundreds,even thousands,of windows. I mention it here not as a rebuttalof eitherthe commentarythathadto hurrypast it (despite Samuelson's ability to enhance our understandingof the Jewish sources of the book), or of the complex explorationof artthatdid not take note of this interruptionof Christian aesthetics by a counter-iconof beauty,but only to underscorehow our work of interpretingRosenzweig is far from complete. This one sentence intersectsthe 208

Book Reviews perspectivesof our two authors,but also crosses it with reflection on the cultural rhetoricof Rosenzweig's time, as well as offering furtherreflection on the two religions and even on the German Jewish attitudes toward the Eastern European Jews. Each of these books offers a new valuablereadingof this truly great and difficult book, helping to drawreadersinto it and throughit. No reading will be conclusive, and some may appearthat will be better attunedto The Star, but Rubinstein'sultimate conclusion stands andjustifies not only his hard work in building his argumentand also the serious labors of readingby Rubinstein,Samuelson and his students:Rosenzweig's Star of Redemptiondeconstructsitself in orderto prevent achieving romanticclosure. TheStar as a text holds itself open, and these two readingshelp open it to new readers. Robert Gibbs University of Toronto Toronto,Canada

Alvin Goldfarb and Rebecca Rovit, editors. Theatrical Performanceduring the Holocaust: Texts, Documents, Memoirs. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. xiv, 350 pp. When HannahArendt wrote, in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), that "the holes of oblivion do not exist. Nothing humanis that perfect, and there are simply too many people in the world to make oblivion possible," she was referringto the survivorsof the Holocaustwho would live to tell the Shoah'smany "forgotten"stories. Nearly forty years after,there are fewer survivorsto do the job. And scholars have takenup the burdenof witness to help us fill in the gaps. ProfessorsRovit and Goldfarbhave compiled a collection of essays and documentsthat focuses on the specific issues of Jewish artistic creativityand theatrical performanceduring the Holocaust years. Their book has three sections, the thirdof which attendsto the extraordinaryperformanceevents associated with the concentrationcamp at Theresienstadt,where the arts flourished under terrifying conditionsof deprivationand loss. It is a story that has been told often, not only in memoirs and historical studies, but in the theatre itself, as can be seen in Ulrike Migdal'sGriisse aus Theresienstadtand Roy Kift's Camp Comedy,which attempt to push the problemsof survivaland death,creativityand complicity into the faces of contemporaryaudiences. (Kift's play is included in my anthology, The Theatre of the Holocaust, vol. 2.) The editors' purpose, however, is resolutely past-centered.The usefulness of this volume lies in its careful gathering of a number of critical essays, official pronouncements,theatrical texts, personal remembrances, and epistolary fragments to create a picturethat is at once astonishing and appalling. Professor Rovit eschews an analysis of the autobiographicalmaterial, preferring to let it speak for itself as testimony. She is content to provide a context for us, in interviews or 209

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Robert Skloot Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 209-211 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131598 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews perspectivesof our two authors,but also crosses it with reflection on the cultural rhetoricof Rosenzweig's time, as well as offering furtherreflection on the two religions and even on the German Jewish attitudes toward the Eastern European Jews. Each of these books offers a new valuablereadingof this truly great and difficult book, helping to drawreadersinto it and throughit. No reading will be conclusive, and some may appearthat will be better attunedto The Star, but Rubinstein'sultimate conclusion stands andjustifies not only his hard work in building his argumentand also the serious labors of readingby Rubinstein,Samuelson and his students:Rosenzweig's Star of Redemptiondeconstructsitself in orderto prevent achieving romanticclosure. TheStar as a text holds itself open, and these two readingshelp open it to new readers. Robert Gibbs University of Toronto Toronto,Canada

Alvin Goldfarb and Rebecca Rovit, editors. Theatrical Performanceduring the Holocaust: Texts, Documents, Memoirs. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. xiv, 350 pp. When HannahArendt wrote, in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), that "the holes of oblivion do not exist. Nothing humanis that perfect, and there are simply too many people in the world to make oblivion possible," she was referringto the survivorsof the Holocaustwho would live to tell the Shoah'smany "forgotten"stories. Nearly forty years after,there are fewer survivorsto do the job. And scholars have takenup the burdenof witness to help us fill in the gaps. ProfessorsRovit and Goldfarbhave compiled a collection of essays and documentsthat focuses on the specific issues of Jewish artistic creativityand theatrical performanceduring the Holocaust years. Their book has three sections, the thirdof which attendsto the extraordinaryperformanceevents associated with the concentrationcamp at Theresienstadt,where the arts flourished under terrifying conditionsof deprivationand loss. It is a story that has been told often, not only in memoirs and historical studies, but in the theatre itself, as can be seen in Ulrike Migdal'sGriisse aus Theresienstadtand Roy Kift's Camp Comedy,which attempt to push the problemsof survivaland death,creativityand complicity into the faces of contemporaryaudiences. (Kift's play is included in my anthology, The Theatre of the Holocaust, vol. 2.) The editors' purpose, however, is resolutely past-centered.The usefulness of this volume lies in its careful gathering of a number of critical essays, official pronouncements,theatrical texts, personal remembrances, and epistolary fragments to create a picturethat is at once astonishing and appalling. Professor Rovit eschews an analysis of the autobiographicalmaterial, preferring to let it speak for itself as testimony. She is content to provide a context for us, in interviews or 209

AJS Review mini-essays, so that we can "hear"clearly the voices of the "actors"in this tragic drama. Rovit's critical essay in Section One, along with two others by Alan Steinweis and Volker Kuhn that deal with the Jewish Kulturbundand the careerof its Nazi overseer,Hans Hinkel, provide a solid historicalbasis for understandingthe Jewish artistic world in central Europe in the 1930s until its final destructiona decade later.These threeessays aremuch strongerin analysisandimaginationthan those in Section Two ("Containment"),which deal with artistic performancein Jewish ghettos and concentrationcamps. In fact, the weakest essays in the book seem suffused with a tone of congratulationthatcan be expressedas: "Isn'tit wonderful that the Jews were able to do all that while the Nazis were killing them!" The occasional examples of flaccid writing find support,if not their origin, in the editors' understandingof the performanceactivity itself, one they see as proving the indomitabilityof the human spiritamid even abominabledegradation and murderousthreat.Rovit's introductionspeaks to this appraisal:"Weof a later generationcan rely only on the testimony of 'those who were there'to imagine the 'unthinkable.'We understandcreativityas being born from spirit and thus we are inclined to grasp onto the evocative, yet vague notion of a kind of 'spiritualresistance' and find it attractive"(p. 9). She closes her essay: "This book is dedicated to a tenacious affirmation of spirit even as the flesh so cruelly perished"(p. 10). The danger of this critical and psychological perspective is that "we" may be tempted toward too much celebration while evading difficult ethical and artistic questions, such as how creative people can also write and perform hateful, even dangerousthings. My own preference for this volume would have included the addition of a fourth section that dealt with the contemporarylegacy of this performanceactivity. Aaron Kramer'sessay in Section Three alludes to this subject in the discussion of his translation(which premieredin 1977) of Viktor Ullmann'sTheresienstadt opera The Emperorof Atlantis. He writes: "Obviously,objectivejudgment is not easy, and it may take a long time before The Emperorof Atlantis can be accurately gauged as art;but there is no question of its uniqueness as an affirming of the human spirit in the face of physical obliteration"(p. 189). The difficult question of "objectivejudgment" needs constant asking. Absent that inquiryand its companionquestion:"Shouldthese worksbe producedtoday?,"the strengthsof these concentrationarytexts could be reducedor overlooked by sentimentalityand uncriticaladmiration.Such dialogs are, in fact, ongoing in communities and theatres that are attractedto "Holocaustperformance,"as was the case in Madison, Wisconsin, in the spring of 2000, when a community opera company chose to produceKrasa'sfamous children'soperaBrundibar(the subject of Joza Karas'sessay in section three) in the presence of one of the few surviving members of the original cast. The issues of how to advertisethe performance(to say nothing of dealing with the audience response) are importantto our contemporary understandingof the ethical issues of post-Shoahproduction.This kind of discussion, as well as an essay on the receptionof the musicalmade of JuraSoyfer's songs in Vienna in the late-1980s and of Migdal's play in the late-1990s, would have roundedout a useful and caringvolume and extendedits rangeinto the issues 210

Book Reviews of performanceand representationthat are dealt with in the most interesting and importantwriting being done today about art afterthe Holocaust. (There is a historical erroron p. 68: the Germanofficial assassinatedat the startof Kristallnacht was vom Rath;Griinspan(or Grynszpan)was his murderer.) Robert Skloot University of Wisconsin Madison, Wisconsin

Vivian B. Mann.Jewish Textson the VisualArts.Cambridge,UK: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000, xviii, 236 pp. CatherineM. Soussloff, editor.Jewish Identity in ModernArt History. Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1999. x, 239 pp. The study of art in Judaismnow takes centerstage, as works of considerable intellectual ambition appearfrom year to year. The ones before us, a topical anthology and a coherentcollection of essays, some of them groundbreaking,and all of them remarkablyfresh and interesting,signal the advent of a new field within Jewish studies.The books complementone another,the one illuminating,the other argumentative,and both of them exceedingly interesting. Jewish Textson the VisualArts assembles fifty items, divided among seven basic subjects,each given an introductionand set into context, then given in translation, with notes, bibliography,and index. On the basis of a collection of primary sources, ancient, medieval, and modern, a course on art in Judaismcan be offered. ProfessorVivian Mann, of The Jewish Museum and the Jewish Theological Seminaryof America, has establishedherself as a principalvoice in the study of Jewish art and the art of Judaism.Her most recent majorarticle,"Artand material culture of Judaism:medieval throughmodem times," in the Encyclopedia of Judaism (Leiden, 1999: E. J. Brill), 1: 1-13, with sixteen figures, impressed many as a model of concision and mastery of the subject. Here she has collected a variety of texts pertinentto the same matter and presented them in translation;the translationsof Rabbinictexts by Dr. Eliezer Diamond,Professorof Talmudat the JewishTheological Seminary,are clumsy and not very accurate,scarcely reaching the level of scholarlyreliability set by Dr. Mann herself. The texts begin with passages of Scripture,proceed to the Mishnahand Talmuds, medieval authorities,and on to modern times. Each unit of the book then takes up a topic that is presented in the same temporal order,ancient, medieval, and modern. Mann'scollection deals with seven subjects:iconoclasm, the art of the other (meaning,Jews' use of artproducedby gentiles), the synagogue and its decoration, Jewish ceremonial arts, artistsand their practices, and collecting Jewish art. Iconoclasm takes up a passage of Scripture,anotherof the Mishnah, an essay of 211

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Jacob Neusner Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 211-213 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131599 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews of performanceand representationthat are dealt with in the most interesting and importantwriting being done today about art afterthe Holocaust. (There is a historical erroron p. 68: the Germanofficial assassinatedat the startof Kristallnacht was vom Rath;Griinspan(or Grynszpan)was his murderer.) Robert Skloot University of Wisconsin Madison, Wisconsin

Vivian B. Mann.Jewish Textson the VisualArts.Cambridge,UK: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000, xviii, 236 pp. CatherineM. Soussloff, editor.Jewish Identity in ModernArt History. Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1999. x, 239 pp. The study of art in Judaismnow takes centerstage, as works of considerable intellectual ambition appearfrom year to year. The ones before us, a topical anthology and a coherentcollection of essays, some of them groundbreaking,and all of them remarkablyfresh and interesting,signal the advent of a new field within Jewish studies.The books complementone another,the one illuminating,the other argumentative,and both of them exceedingly interesting. Jewish Textson the VisualArts assembles fifty items, divided among seven basic subjects,each given an introductionand set into context, then given in translation, with notes, bibliography,and index. On the basis of a collection of primary sources, ancient, medieval, and modern, a course on art in Judaismcan be offered. ProfessorVivian Mann, of The Jewish Museum and the Jewish Theological Seminaryof America, has establishedherself as a principalvoice in the study of Jewish art and the art of Judaism.Her most recent majorarticle,"Artand material culture of Judaism:medieval throughmodem times," in the Encyclopedia of Judaism (Leiden, 1999: E. J. Brill), 1: 1-13, with sixteen figures, impressed many as a model of concision and mastery of the subject. Here she has collected a variety of texts pertinentto the same matter and presented them in translation;the translationsof Rabbinictexts by Dr. Eliezer Diamond,Professorof Talmudat the JewishTheological Seminary,are clumsy and not very accurate,scarcely reaching the level of scholarlyreliability set by Dr. Mann herself. The texts begin with passages of Scripture,proceed to the Mishnahand Talmuds, medieval authorities,and on to modern times. Each unit of the book then takes up a topic that is presented in the same temporal order,ancient, medieval, and modern. Mann'scollection deals with seven subjects:iconoclasm, the art of the other (meaning,Jews' use of artproducedby gentiles), the synagogue and its decoration, Jewish ceremonial arts, artistsand their practices, and collecting Jewish art. Iconoclasm takes up a passage of Scripture,anotherof the Mishnah, an essay of 211

AJS Review Maimonides("whichimages arepermitted?"),and statementsof Don Guzmanand Rabbi Moses Arragel, Joseph Caro, Moses Sofer, and AbrahamIsaac Hakohen Kook. The art of the other startswith a passage of Tosefotto Bavli Abodah Zarah, a responsumof Ephraimof Regensburg,anotherof Meir of Rothenburg,Asherben Jehiel, Judahben Asher and David Amado, Joseph Karo, David ibn Abi Zimra, Samuel Aboab, Jair Hayyim Bacharach, Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen, and Joseph Saul Nathanson;and so throughout. The movementfrom ancientto modem times tracksthe changes in the situation of the Jews overtime. Forexample,the ancientandmedievalissue of using gentile artfor Judaismraisesthe questionof prayerrugs;for modem times, the issue is, "maya churchbuildingbecome a synagogue?"So too, Jewishceremonialartbegins with "lists of silver and precioustextiles belonging to the synagoguesof Old Cairo in the eleventh and twelfth centuries"and ends with Moshe Feinstein,"the starof David in the mid-twentiethcentury:is it a Zionist symbol?"Whenit comes to artists and their practices,the modem predominates:Buber,Roditi, Rosenberg,and Donald Kuspit"identityin modem art."Nearlyall the chapterson collecting artdeal with modem and contemporaryfigures.Apartfromthe woodentranslationsby Professor Diamond,the book is consistentlyengaging, startto finish. Jewish Identityin ModernArtHistory succeeds in provingwhat manydoubt: thatone can investigateJewish-ethnictraitsof mind anddo so rigorously,not merely subjectively.Such traitscan be alleged to respondto a situationcommon to Jews and different from that experiencedby others. That is the thesis arguedin the essays on how modem art critics, collectors, and artists worked out the experience of Jewishness throughthe media of art. Many assume what these essays rigorously argue, and that makes this collection a huge step forwardin Jewish studies, the mark of the coming age of a new venture in the field. Beginning at a session of the College Art Association in 1996, the book of essays edited by ProfessorCatherineM. Soussloff, University of California,Santa Cruz,proposes to "introduceJewish identityto arthistory":the meaningof antiSemitism for arthistory,the significance of Jewish6migr6arthistoriansto the discipline, above all, the effects of Jewish ethnicity on the interpretationof art. Art historianshave "wantedto avoid the notion thattheirreligion or ethnicityhad anything to do with their art criticism,"let alone establish the possibility of "a historiographyof Jewish identity in arthistory."But that is precisely Soussloff's intent, and the book accomplishes her goal. The essays divide into two parts. Some adopta postmodemistlanguage,e.g., requiring"thatthe multiple subjectivesof the interpreterbe consideredin historical critique."Others work within the familiar frame of art-historicalstudy.Soussloff, in her Introduction,bridges the gap between the two distinct modes of discourse; she makes the book work as a whole, notjust as a collection of essays. She even makes postmodernistjargon plausible, intelligible, and necessary-a truly remarkableachievement of clarity and lapidarythinking. The descriptive-analyticalessays of an essentially historicalcharacterprove uniformly compelling. In that category are MargaretOlin, "FromBezalel to Max Liebermann: Jewish art in nineteenth-centuryart-historicaltexts," Kalman P.

212

Book Reviews Bland,"Anti-Semitismand aniconism:the Germanophonerequiem for Jewish visual art,"a brilliantessay, one of unusualpower of persuasion;Lisa Saltzman,"To figure or not to figure: the iconoclastic proscriptionand its theoreticallegacy,"devoted to TheodorAdorno and others;LarrySilver, "Jewishidentity in art and history: Maurycy Gottlieb as early Jewish artist;"Robin Reisenfeld, "Collecting and collective memory: German Jewish identity, and the emigration of iconology;" Louis Kaplan, "Reframingthe self-criticism: Clement Greenberg's 'Modernist painting'in light of Jewish identity;"and CharlotteSchoell-Glass, "AbyWarburg: forced identity and 'culturalscience'." The post-modernistmodes of discoursepredominatein Lisa Bloom, "Ethnic motions and feminist strategies of the 1970s: some work by Judy Chicago and EleanorAntin;"and Donald Kuspit,"Meyer Schapiro'sJewish unconscious."The latterworkswell with the more conventionalpapers;I cannotsay I understandhow the formerfits into the book, exceptin a fairlygeneralway.The two essays of a postmodernistcharactertend to a certainsubjectivity,but both illuminatetheir subject. These essays do cohere, and readingthem in sequence shows the unfolding of a continuousline of thoughtand argumentthroughillustrativecases. Soussloff accomplishedthat in her editing and spells it out in her introduction.This brief account conveys little of the intellectual vitality of the essays. It suffices to say I learnedfrom all of them and can agree with the editorthat she has pointed to a new field of learning, one which promises more than merely subjective results: how Jewish ethnicity enters into aesthetics. With these two books, a new standardis set, and the promise of their subjects begins to be kept. Jacob Neusner Bard College Annandale-on-Hudson,New York

Steven J. Zipperstein.ImaginingRussianJewry:Memory,History, Identity. Seattle and London:University of WashingtonPress, 1999. 139 pp. David G. Roskies. TheJewish Searchfor a Usable Past. Bloomington and Indianapolis:IndianaUniversity Press, 1999. 217 pp. As one century,not to mentionone millennium,passes into the next, the past obsesses us. We are beset by fears of forgettingit or twisting it out of recognition. Polemics about what to rememberand what to forget divide societies all over the world. One of the most fruitful academic perspectives on this anxiety was initiated in the 1980s with the work of the FrenchhistorianPierreNora. Nora formulated a "fundamentalopposition"between memory("theremnantsof experience still lived in the warmthof tradition,in the silence of custom, in the repetition of the ancestral")and the "problematicand incomplete . .. reconstruction"that is histo213

Review: [untitled] Author(s): Michael Steinlauf Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 213-217 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131600 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:02 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Book Reviews Bland,"Anti-Semitismand aniconism:the Germanophonerequiem for Jewish visual art,"a brilliantessay, one of unusualpower of persuasion;Lisa Saltzman,"To figure or not to figure: the iconoclastic proscriptionand its theoreticallegacy,"devoted to TheodorAdorno and others;LarrySilver, "Jewishidentity in art and history: Maurycy Gottlieb as early Jewish artist;"Robin Reisenfeld, "Collecting and collective memory: German Jewish identity, and the emigration of iconology;" Louis Kaplan, "Reframingthe self-criticism: Clement Greenberg's 'Modernist painting'in light of Jewish identity;"and CharlotteSchoell-Glass, "AbyWarburg: forced identity and 'culturalscience'." The post-modernistmodes of discoursepredominatein Lisa Bloom, "Ethnic motions and feminist strategies of the 1970s: some work by Judy Chicago and EleanorAntin;"and Donald Kuspit,"Meyer Schapiro'sJewish unconscious."The latterworkswell with the more conventionalpapers;I cannotsay I understandhow the formerfits into the book, exceptin a fairlygeneralway.The two essays of a postmodernistcharactertend to a certainsubjectivity,but both illuminatetheir subject. These essays do cohere, and readingthem in sequence shows the unfolding of a continuousline of thoughtand argumentthroughillustrativecases. Soussloff accomplishedthat in her editing and spells it out in her introduction.This brief account conveys little of the intellectual vitality of the essays. It suffices to say I learnedfrom all of them and can agree with the editorthat she has pointed to a new field of learning, one which promises more than merely subjective results: how Jewish ethnicity enters into aesthetics. With these two books, a new standardis set, and the promise of their subjects begins to be kept. Jacob Neusner Bard College Annandale-on-Hudson,New York

Steven J. Zipperstein.ImaginingRussianJewry:Memory,History, Identity. Seattle and London:University of WashingtonPress, 1999. 139 pp. David G. Roskies. TheJewish Searchfor a Usable Past. Bloomington and Indianapolis:IndianaUniversity Press, 1999. 217 pp. As one century,not to mentionone millennium,passes into the next, the past obsesses us. We are beset by fears of forgettingit or twisting it out of recognition. Polemics about what to rememberand what to forget divide societies all over the world. One of the most fruitful academic perspectives on this anxiety was initiated in the 1980s with the work of the FrenchhistorianPierreNora. Nora formulated a "fundamentalopposition"between memory("theremnantsof experience still lived in the warmthof tradition,in the silence of custom, in the repetition of the ancestral")and the "problematicand incomplete . .. reconstruction"that is histo213

AJS Review ry.' He then launchedthe encyclopedic projectof documentingthe "memorysites" (lieux de memoire) of French consciousness, those sites, both materialand symbolic, located "betweenmemoryandhistory,"which hadbecome investedwith historical meaning in modern France. His original purpose had been to deconstruct such sites, in modem scholarlyfashion to revealtheirmythicnature,but, as the reviewer of an English translationof partof the resulting5,600-page collective work points out, at its completion Nora conceded, that as a consequence of the speed with which even these constructed sites were passing out of popular memory, "commemorationha[d] overtaken"his projectand it had become "a sort of scholarly lieu de memoirein its own right."2 ForJewishhistory,the correspondingtheoreticianhas beenYosef Yerushalmi, whose Zakhor:Jewish History and Jewish Memory,which appearedat the same time as Nora's work, is a meditationon the chasm that separatespre-modernJewish memory, covenantaland cyclical, from modem Jewish historiography.3In the contemporaryworld, however, as Nora has copiously demonstrated,history and memory, collective if not covenantal,engage in a complex interplay.Tracingsome of the results, specifically in relation to the fabled "traditional"Jewish world of EasternEurope,is the subjectof the two books underreview.Both arethe workof scholarswho have made majorcontributionsto theirrespectivefields, Steven Zipperstein in Jewish history, David Roskies in Jewish literature.The present works are both collections of essays linked by common metahistoricalthemes. These themes requirethe authors,each in their own way,to distancethemselves from the normativescholarlyvoice and assume a much riskierstance. In both cases, the results are more than worththe risk. Zipperstein'spurpose,he forthrightlystates in his prologue,is "to challenge some of the barriersbetween professional and popularknowledge of the world" (p. 3). The first of his essays tracesthe image of the shtetl in AmericanJewishconsciousness. He makesuse of literaryworksby writerssuchasAbrahamCahan,Anzia Yezierska,Isaac Rosenfeld and Philip Roth, not to mentionFiddler on the Roof in orderto touch upon "momentsof Jewishlife thatfall betweenthe cracksof the more standardhistoricalnarrativesaboutAmericanJewry"(p. 19). He uncoversa fantasy shtetl framedby the hopes and fears of the postwarJewish migrationto suburbia. This essay is still conventional culturalhistory. But in the following two essays the narratorincreasingly breaks through his narrative.In both cases, the occasion is an encounter with newly opened Russian archives. In "Reinventing Heders,"Zippersteindiscovers in the transcriptsof RussianJewishteachers'meetings at the turnof the centurya clear consensus towardthe rehabilitationof the traditional heder in the interests of "national"education. Earlierresearch,including Zipperstein'sown, largely based on the writingsof political activists, had suggested a scenario of "assimilationist"teachers "broughtaround"by the ideologues. What emerges throughthe new archivalwindow is a sense that more "national" 1. "Between Memory and History:Les Lieux de Mkmoire,"Representations26 (Spring 1989), 7-8. The essay was first published in 1984. 2. TonyJudt,"A la Recherchedu TempsPerdu,"New YorkReviewofBooks, December3, 1998, 54. Les Lieux de mimoire was first published in seven volumes between 1984 and 1992. 3. Seattle: Universityof WashingtonPress, 1982.

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Book Reviews perspectiveswere not simply the productof ideological struggle,but of widespread unease about the speed with which Haskalah objectives were being fulfilled and the old Jewish world vanishing.The new culturalstrategieswere therefore"at one and the same time, self-consciously conservativeyet modem, traditionalyet progressive, and nationalistyet differentfrom the nationalismof the well-known, ideologically preoccupied political parties"(p. 60). For these Jews, in other words, the heder had begun to function as a lieu de memoire. In the following chapter,Zippersteinengages his own past work even more directly by focusing on his changing understandingof his reasons for studying Jewish Odessa.4 Having relied in his research chiefly on maskilic texts, Zipperstein believed "until recently" that he was sifting them for "what could be learned about the city's economic and social life, its high, as well as its popular, culture."But afterexposurein newly accessible archivesto "farmore archivalmaterial on Odessa Jews than could be absorbedin ten lifetimes,"Zippersteinis led to re-evaluatehis relationshipto his subject (p. 78). What he realizes is that all along, what had most fascinatedhim about Odessa was less its hard-headedcommercial core than its margins, as exemplified in the problematiclives of the authors-Mendele, Dubnow,Bialik, Ahad Ha-Am-whose writings he had studied. It was their collective memory, as codified by their disciples, that had been "imposed on twentieth-centuryJewry."But these influential ideologies, Zipperstein concludes, were conceived in an urbanenvironmentthat was totally indifferentto them. They were conceived, that is, "against[a] backdropof abiding loss," and it is this loss that is Zipperstein'strue subject (pp. 82-83). Appropriately,the last chapteris aboutwriting Jewish history in the shadow of the Holocaust. In flight frommodernJewish"folk memory,"that collapses Jewish history into a narrativeof escalating destruction,Zippersteinand other academic historianshad sought "to implode collective memory,to juxtapose as starkly as possible the differences between history and myth, scholarship and error" (p. 95). But anotherexperiencein the post-communistworld,that of visiting Eastern Europe and perceiving these lands, inescapably after all, as "killing fields," leads Zippersteinto a changed stance as a historian.As an example of fine recent history-writingthat gains from the commemorativeurge that informs it, Zipperstein cites Theo Richmond'sbook Konin:A Quest, a monumentaland loving attempt, rooted in oral testimony,to document the life of a shtetl down to its outhouses.5And in the past, he rediscoversin his predecessorDubnow, who invented Russian Jewish history, "demands for a sober historiography"coexisting with "[a] powerfulauthorizationof history as an answerto the needs of the folk" (p. 91). That a Jewish scholar should address "the needs of the folk" is something David Roskies takes for granted.But how to address such needs at the startof the twenty-first century? First of all, with a healthy dose of irony. Roskies calls his book a map to "a vacationin Jewishlands.Alternatively,every chaptertreatsa different subject, in a kind of scavengerhunt with multiple prizes. ... Rousseau has 4. The Jews of Odessa: A CulturalHistory, 1794-1881 (Stanford,CA: Stanford University Press, 1986). 5. New York:PantheonBooks, 1995.

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AJS Review taught that the life story of each individualis utterlyunique. But the Torahteaches thatthe life of each Jew is essentially the same. One map serves all" (p. xi). Here are ironic echoes of Mendele's anxiety a centuryago about representingthe Jewish "ant-hill."But the stops on Roskies' tour are ratherup-to-date;following Nora, Roskies calls them "memory-sites."They are what remains when the covenantal narrativehas collapsed; at best what is left of the past is "isolated, segregated, repackageable"(p. 9). The tour begins with a bird'seye view of the terrainahead,from Haskalato the Marchof the Living. Fromthis perspective,Tevye emerges as a unique and exemplary marker,a figure capable of neutralizing,in his own person, the contradiction between memory and history. "Sholem Aleichem," writes Roskies, "did precisely what Yerushalmi thought to be impossible: he recast the historical predicamentof the modern Jew into the language of fatalism and faith" (p. 11). But for the other tour sites, loss is a given. Fromthe Oyneg ShabesArchive of the WarsawGhetto, to literaryand popularimages of the shtetl and the rabbi,to Jewish popularsong, to the HonorRow of the Workmen'sCircle Cemeteryin Queens, to the MontrealYiddish school system, to the figure of the talush, the wayward seeker who "has come to define the moral center and moral angst of present-day Israel"(p. 167), Roskies traces what he calls "a dialectic of loss and retrieval,"the constructionof memory-sites "fashionedfrom the priorawarenessof loss" (p. x). Even as Jewish small town life, for example, was rivenby change and Jews began to feel their past slip away,Jewish writersturnedthe shtetl into their key protagonist. "The shtetl was dead. Long live the shtetl!" declares Roskies (p. 49), and traces successive versions of the shtetl fromMendele, SholemAleichem andPeretz throughSholem Asch, Bashevis Singer andAgnon to Theo Richmond,Steve Stern andAllen Hoffman.In the hundredsofyizkor books commemoratingJewish communities obliteratedduringthe Holocaust,the movementRoskies tracescomes full circle: The shtetl again becomes "a covenantallandscape"(p. 64). Similarlywith song. The theatermusic of the maskil AbrahamGoldfaden,who first had men and women sing togetheron the stage, becomes "traditional"in the New World,while Moshe Nadir's"Az der rebe Elimeylekh,"writtenin New Yorkto parodyhasidim, "made it to the top of the neoHasidic hit parade on both sides of the Atlantic" (p. 114). Zipperstein'sbook is about writing history; Roskies' is about that and also something else. Forif in fact "themoment the past is finally laid to rest is the very moment that it reasserts its claim upon the living" (p. 59), we may legitimately question the present,howeverimpoverished,in the name of the future.Indeed,the lessons Roskies learns from "the brief sojourn in utopia"that was MontrealYiddish culture is that, first, "all Jews live after the hurban beit hamidrash,the destruction of traditionalfaith, but out of that loss, a new and viable culturecan be reinvented,"and, second, indispensablefor doing so is a sound ideology (p. 157). Yet,of all the memory sites Roskies visits, only the Zionist one offers hope for further renewal because, according to Roskies, "Zionism is protean, inclusive, and heteroglossic. Withinthe discourse of Zionism the languageof exile coexists with the language of covenantalspace" (pp. 170-171). Meanwhile, in the exile itself, the milk can that held the archives of the WarsawGhetto, now on exhibit at the 216

Book Reviews Holocaust Museum in Washington,resembles something that "mightjust as well have droppedfrom anotherplanet,"and "the literary-historicalcanon it protected from destruction"remains unknown(p. 40). Second Avenue, that "folk repository of Jewishcollective memory"has been exchanged for "'Sunrise, Sunset,'glitzy, sentimental,mass-marketedethnic pop."The klezmer revival is "born-again"and the Yiddish folksong revival arrived"a generationtoo late."The Second Avenue star Aaron Lebedeff's tri-lingual patter,with which Roskies closes his essay on popularsong, expandsbeyond this context as an epitaphfor the redemptivepossibilities of the diasporaas a whole: "Votkenyou makh?Es izAmerike!Amerikeun bol'she nitshevo [What can you do? It's America! America and nothing more]" (pp. 117-19). In other words, sometimes dead is really dead. Whatbegins to resonate here is the old-fashionedZionist discourse aboutthe emptiness of the galut, a particularlyodd turn though when the context is the creativity of the East European Jewishdiaspora.Never again?Sitting in exile, one is temptedto respondwith a sentence from thathoch-diasporistWalterBenjamin:"Likeevery generationthat precededus, we havebeen endowedwith a weakmessianic power,a powerto which the past has a claim."6 Michael Steinlauf Gratz College Philadelphia,Pennsylvania 6. Illuminations(New York:Schocken Books, 1969), p. 254; emphasis in the original.

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Collected Studies Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 219-231 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131601 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:02 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

AJS Review 26:1 (2002), 219-231

COLLECTED STUDIES Shaye J. D. Cohen, ed. TheSynopticProblem in RabbinicLiterature.Brown Judaic Studies,Vol. 326. Providence:Brown Judaic Studies, 2000. xiii, 167 pp. CONTENTS:General.RobertGoldenberg,"Is 'The Talmud'a Document?"Mishnah and Tosefta,Toseftaand Bavli. JudithHauptman,"MishnahAs a Response to 'Tosefta.'" ShammaFriedman,"UncoveringLiteraryDependencies in the Talmudic Corpus."Bavli and Yerushalmi,ThematicStudies. ChristineHayes, "Halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai in Rabbinic Sources:A Methodological Case Study."Richard Kalmin, "Rabbinic Portrayalsof Biblical and Post-biblical Heroes." Yerushalmi and Genesis Rabbah. Hans-JiirgenBecker, "Textsand History:The Dynamic Relationshipbetween TalmudYerushalmiand Genesis Rabbah." TovaCohen, ed. Marriage, Libertyand Equality: Shall the Three WalkTogether? Womenin Judaism,Discussion Papers,No. 4-5. Ramat Gan: Bar-IlanUniversity, 2000. 112 pp. CONTENTS:RuthHalperin-Kaddari,"Remarksin memory of Prof.Ariel RozenZvi." Susan Moller Okin, "Marriage,Divorce, and the Politics of Family Life." Phinhas Shifman, "Is There Indeed an Halachic Problem?"Susan Aranoff, "Two Views of Women/Two Views of Marriage." Ruth Halperin-Kaddari,"Man, Woman,Marriageand Captivity:The Constructionof Genderin Marriageand Divorce."EsterSivan,"PrenuptialAgreements:PastAgreements,PastExperienceand FutureProspects."David Golinkin, "Approachesof the ConservativeMovement toward Solving the Problem of Chained Women."Meir Simcha Feldblum,"The Problem of Chained Women and Mamzerim-Suggested Solutions." Emanuel Rackman,"FromStatusto Contractto Status:Historicaland Meta-HistoricalApproaches."Daniel Tropper,"Some Thoughtsin the Light of the Activities of Rabbi Rackman'sSpecial Court for ChainedWomen."Noam Zohar,"The Husband's Power in Halakhic Divorce: Is this Indeed 'A twisted thing that cannot be made straight'?" Hasia R. Diner,JeffreyShandler,and Beth S. Wenger,eds. Rememberingthe Lower East Side: American Jewish Reflections. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. viii, 291 pp. CONTENTS:Hasia R. Diner,JeffreyShandler,and Beth S. Wenger,"Introduction: Rememberingthe Lower East Side-A Conversation."Part 1. The Dynamics of Remembrance.Hasia R. Diner, JeffreyShandler,and Beth S. Wenger,"Towardthe Onomastics of the Great New York Ghetto: How the Lower East Side Got Its Name." Deborah Dash Moore and David Lobenstine, "Photographingthe Lower East Side: A Century'sWork."PaulaE. Hyman,"Beyond Place and Ethnicity:The Uses of the Triangle ShirtwaistFire."Riv-Ellen Prell, "The Ghetto Girl and the Erasure of Memory."David Kaufman, "Constructionsof Memory: The Syna219

AJS Review gogues of the Lower East Side." Stephan E Brumberg,"The One-WayWindow: Public Schools on the Lower East Side in the EarlyTwentiethCentury."Suzanne Wasserman, "Re-creating Recreations on the Lower East Side: Restaurants, Cabarets, Cafes, and Coffeehouses in the 1930s." Part 2. ContemporaryRecollections. Jack Kugelmass,"Turfingthe Slum: New YorkCity'sTenementMuseum and the Politics of Heritage."Eve Jochnowitz,"'Send a Salami to YourBoy in the Army': Sites of JewishMemory and Identityat LowerEast Side Restaurants."Seth Kamil, "Trippingdown Memory Lane: WalkingTourson the Jewish Lower East Side."Joseph Dorman,"The Lower East Side in the Memory of New YorkJewish Intellectuals:A Filmmaker'sExperience."Aviva Weintraub,"PerformingMemory: 'The Matzoh Factory' on the Lower East Side." Mario Maffi, "Translating AbrahamCahan,Teachingthe Lower East Side: A View from Italy." Ora Wiskind Elper and Susan Handelman, eds. Torahof the Mothers: Contemporary Jewish WomenRead Classical Jewish Texts.New York:Urim Publications, 2000. 510 pp. CONTENTS: I. Students and Teachers.Gilla RatzersdorferRosen, "God of My Teachers: Learning With Rav Soloveitchik."YardenaCope-Yossef, "Reflections On a Living Torah:RabbiAryeh Kaplan."Joy Rochwarger,"Wordson Fire:Then and Now-In Memory ofNechama Leibowitz."SarahMalkaEisen, "Onthe Sixth Anniversaryof YourPartingFromThis World:A Letterto My TeacherChanaBalanson." Susan Handelman,"'With Every Goodbye You Learn': Reflections on Leave-Takingsand the Passing of the LubavitcherRebbe."II. Readings of Biblical Texts.TamaraGoshen-Gottstein,"The Souls ThatThey Made: Physical Infertility and Spiritual Fecundity."Sarah Idit (Susan) Schneider,"The Daughtersof Tzlafchad:Towardsa Methodology of AttitudeAroundWomen'sIssues."YaelUnterman, "The Voice in the Shofar:A Defense of Deborah."Ilana Goldstein Saks, "Between Lines and Behind Masks: Reading and UnderstandingMegillat Esther." Rachel Adelman, "SerahbatAsher: Songstress,Poet, and Womanof Wisdom."Erica Brown, "StrangeWordsBetween Strangers:Jacob'sEncounterWith Pharaoh." Judy Klitsner, "Fromthe Earth'sHollow Space to the Stars:Two Patriarchsand Their Non-Israelite Mentors." III. Readings of Rabbinic Texts. Simi Peters, "'Na 'aseh Adam': Should We Make Adam? A Midrashic Reading of Genesis 1:26."Batya Hefter,"ThreeMeshalim of the King and His Daughterin Rabbinic Thought."Rella Kushelevsky,"ReadingMidrashToday:A Study of 'RabbiHanina ben Dosa and His Stone' in Song of Songs Rabbah 1.4."Leah Rosenthal,"Inui Nefesh (Self-Affliction) on Yom Kippur:A Literaryand ConceptualAnalysis of a TalmudicDiscussion."IV. Exile and Redemption.MiriamBirnbaum,"'This is the Essence of SpiritualExile': Galutha-Neshamahin TraditionalJewish Sourcesand as a ContemporaryCondition."Caroline Peyser,"The Book of Exodus:A Search for Identity."Bryna Jocheved Levy, "Moshe: Portraitof the Leader as a Young Man."JaneFalk,"RhetoricalQuestions:The FirstWordsof the Childrenof Israel." Ora Wiskind Elper, "Exodus and the Feminine in the Teachingsof RabbiYaakov of Izbica."ChanaBalanson,"TheNation of Israel:FromHistoricalProcessto SelfAwareness."Esther Sha'anan,"Torahof the Mothers:Beyond the Study Hall."

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Collected Studies Linda E. Feldmanand Diana Orendi, eds. Evolving Jewish Identities in German Culture:Borders and Crossings. Westport,Connecticut:Praeger,2000. xvii, 210 pp. CONTENTS:SanderL. Gilman, "Foreword."Linda E. Feldmanand Diana Orendi, "Introduction."Part 1: Drawing Borders: Cutting and Binding Communities. ChristopherD. Kenway,"Regenerationof the Volksk6rperandthe Jew'sBody: The GermanK6rperkulturMovementat the Turnof the Century."SonjaM. Hedgepeth, "The PalimpsesticIdentity:ResidualDiscourses on Jews Exemplified by German Notgeld."David Brenner,"Reconciliationbefore Auschwitz: The WeimarJewish Experience in Popular Fiction from the Israelitisches Familienblatt." Steven Taubeneck,"Binding Togetherby Cutting Apart: Circumcision, Kafka, and MinorityDiscourse."Part 2: Bridges and Gulfs:IntergenerationalRupturesand Connections. Scott Spector,"FromBig Daddy to Small Literature:On Taking Kafka at His Word."Iris M. Bruce, "'A Frosty Hall of Mirrors':Father Knows Best in FranzKafka and Nadine Gordimer."Diana Orendi, "NarrativeStrategiesto Disclose Pious Lies in the Worksof IreneDische."LindaE. Feldman,"Througha Distant Lens: CulturalDisplacement, Connection, and Disconnection in the Writing of Maxim Biller."Part 3: RedrawingBorders: RedefiningJewish Identity. Sabine G61z,"'My EarsRepeat': InterpretiveSupplementaryin EstherDischereit'sNovel Joemis Tisch: Eine jiidische Geschichte."Linda E. Feldman, "Zapping Jews, Zapping Turks: Microchip Murder and Identity Slippage in a Neo-Nazi Hate Game."Diana Orendi,"The New Expatriates:Three American-JewishWritersin GermanyToday."Denis M. Sweet, "An Entrepreneurof Victimhood:Jewish Identity in the Confessions of a Stasi Informant." Allon Gal andAlfred Gottschalk,eds. Beyond Survival and Philanthropy:American Jewry and Israel. Cincinnati:Hebrew Union College Press, 2000. x, 264 pp. CONTENTS: Allon Gal and Alfred Gottschalk, "Preface."New Dimensions. Steven M. Cohen and Charles S. Liebman, "Israel and American Jewry in the Twenty-FirstCentury: A Search for New Relationships." Responses: Steven Bayme and SheldonZimmerman.Negation of the Exile? Yosef Gorny,"ShlilatHaGalut:Pastand Present."Responses: JonathanD. Sarna,"The Question of Shlilat Ha-Galut in AmericanZionism."S. IlanTroen,"Beyond Zionist Theory: Coming to Termswith the AmericanJewishExperience."TheModernJewish Kulturkampf LeonardFein, "AmericanJewryand Israel:The Waysof Peace."Aviezer Ravitzky, "Religious and Secular Jews in Israel:A CulturalWar?"Responses: David Twersky and DeborahWeissman.TeachingandAppreciatingthe Other.BarryChazan, "Througha Glass Darkly: Israel in the Mirror of American Jewish Education." Olga Zambrowskyand MalkaOr-Chen,"AmericanJewry as Reflected in the Secondary School Curriculumin Israel."Responses: Harvey Shapiro, "Readmitting Tensionsin Cultivatinga Relationshipto Israel."William Cutter,"Mythsand Realities in TeachingIsrael."Shaul R. Feinberg,"Soul Searching."Gidon Elad,"The Multi-Rootednessof the IsraeliJew."AmericanJewish Institutionsand the Jewish State. Samuel Norich, "Can the Center Hold?" Shoshana S. Cardin,"American

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AJS Review Jewish Institutionsand Israel."Responses: HowardM. Weisband,Eric H. Yoffie, and RichardHirsch.A NewAgenda. AvrahamBurg,"ANew Agenda."Responses: Michael A. Meyer, "To Stand Within the Covenant."Daniel J. Elazar,"A Reinvented Jewish Polity in a Globalized World."ConcludingThoughts.PaulaE. Hyman, "Bridgingour Differences:An AmericanPerspective."Allon Gal, "AnIsraeli Perspective."RichardJ. Scheuer,"LiberalJudaism'sInteractionwith Israel." LeonardJ. Greenspoon,Dennis Hamm, S. J., and Bryan E LeBeau, eds. TheHistorical Jesus ThroughCatholic and Jewish Eyes. Harrisburg,Pennsylvania:Trinity Press International,2000. xviii, 171 pp. CONTENTS:Dennis Hamm, S. J., "Introduction."BernardBrandonScott, "New Options in An Old Quest."LukeTimothyJohnson,"TheReal Jesus:The Challenge of CurrentScholarshipand the Truthof the Gospels."Daniel J. Harrington,S. J., "Retrievingthe Jewishness of Jesus: Recent Developments."Monika K. Hellwig, "Historical Jesus Research: Its Relevance to Thoughtful Christiansand to Systematic Theologians."Michael J. Cook, "JewishReflections on Jesus: Some Abiding Trends."Amy-Jill Levine, "Jesus, Divorce, and Sexuality:A Jewish Critique." Adele Reinhartz,"Jesus of Hollywood: A Jesus Perspective."Alan E Segal, "Jesus in the Eyes of One Jewish Scholar."JonathanD. Brumberg-Kraus,"Jesus as Other People's Scripture."LeonardJ. Greenspoon,"Epilogue." A. Paul Hareand Gideon M. Kressel,eds. IsraelAs CenterStage:A Settingfor Social and Religious Enactments.Westport,CT: Bergin & Garvey,2001. ix, 217 pp. CONTENTS:A. Paul Hare,HerbertH. Blumberg,and Gideon M. Kressel,"Social Interactionas Drama."Part I. Setting the Stage or EnteringIt Intentionally.Eliezer Witztum and Moshe Kalian, "The Quest for Redemption:Reality and Fantasy in the Mission to Jerusalem."Moshe Schwartz,"Towerand Stockade:Whistling in the Dark and Heroic Tradition."Michael Feige, "WhereIs 'Here'?: Scientific PracticesandAppropriatingSpace in the Discourse of Israeli Social Movements." A. Paul Hare,"Israelas Africa:The HebrewIsraeliteCommunity."NarspyZilberg, "Why Change Culture?A TrilemmaConfrontingRussian Intelligentsiain Israel." Part II. Accepting the Meaning of the Setting. Malka Shabtay,"Slat (Synagogue) El-Gtar: 'More Than a Ritual Corner."'Gadi BenEzer, "YoungEthiopianJews' Journeyto Israel (1977-1985): Meaning and Coping."Gideon M. Kressel, "The Sulh: Mediating a Blood Feud."Part III: Imposing Roles on Others. Gideon M. Kressel, "Recognizing the Powerof Words:The Dynamic of Recollection in Micro-social Worlds."Gideon M. Kressel, "LetPalestineReturnto Khaybar."Gideon M. Kressel, "Reenactingthe Grantingof Islam'sCustodyof Jerusalemby the Seventh-CenturyChristianEstablishment." Benjamin H. Hary, John L. Hayes, and Fred Astren, eds. Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communicationand Interaction:Essays in Honor of WilliamM. Brinner. Brill's Series in Jewish Studies, Vol. 27. Leiden: Brill, 2000. xliii, 438 pp. CONTENTS:I. Introduction.Benjamin Hary,John Hayes, and JenniferQuijano, "Preface."FredAstren, "ATributeto ProfessorWilliam M. Brinner."BarryRoss, 222

Collected Studies "Bibliographyof the Worksof William M. Brinner."II. Overview.Jacob Lassner, "Time, Historiography,and Historical Consciousness: The Dialectic of JewishMuslim Relations."III. Jewish-MuslimInteractionin Medieval Times.Stephen D. Benin, "Jews,Muslims, and Christiansin Byzantine Italy."Mark R. Cohen, "Sociability and the Concept of Galut in Jewish-Muslim Relations in the Middle Ages." Daniel J. Lasker,"The Jewish-ChristianDebate in Translation:From the Landof Ishmaelto the Landof Edom."David Marmer,"PatrilocalResidence and Jewish CourtDocuments in Medieval Cairo."GordonD. Newby, "Textand Territory: Jewish-Muslim Relations 632-750 CE." Shaul Shaked, "Medieval Jewish Magic in Relationto Islam:TheoreticalAttitudesand Genres."IV. Jewish-Muslim Interactionin Modern Times.Michael M. Laskier, "Viewing the 'Other': Sephardic/OrientalJewry and Zionism in ContemporaryArab Political and Journalistic Writingin the 1960s and 1970s."NormanA. Stillman,"Jewsof the ArabWorld between EuropeanColonialism, Zionism, and Arab Nationalism." V. Bible and Qur'an. Eva Baer,"EarlyBible and Qur'anIlluminations:PreliminaryRemarks." Marc Bernstein, "The Story of Our Master Joseph: The Spiritual or the Righteous?" Reuven Firestone, "ComparativeStudies in Bible and Qur'an: A Fresh Look at Genesis 22 in Light of Sura 37." Vera B. Moreen, "Is[h]ma 'aliydt: A Judeo-PersianAccount of the Buildingof the Ka'ba."StephenD. Ricks, "TheGarment of Adam in Jewish, Muslim, and ChristianTradition."Sasson Somekh, "Vestiges of Saadiah'sTafsfrin ModernArabicBibles."Steven M. Wasserstrom,"Qisas al-Anbiya."VI.Law. VarditRispler-Chaim,"Islamic Law and Jewish Law on Deserted Wives/ Missing Husbands: HumanitarianConsiderations."Susan Spectorsky, "Problems of Intermarriagein Earlyfiqh Texts." VII. Philosophy and Ethics. LennE. Goodman,"Maimonidesand the Philosophersof Islam:The Problem of Theophany."Hava Lazarus-Yafeh,"Self-Criticism in Jewish and Islamic Traditions." VIII. Sectarian Communities. Fred Astren, "Karaite Jewish Approaches to History in Medieval Islam."Philip E. Miller, "A Speculation on External Factorsin the Formationof the Crimean Karaite (National) Identity."IX. Language,Linguistics,and Literature.Arnold J. Band,"SabbatianEchoes in A. B. Yehoshua'sMar Mani."Ariel A. Bloch, "Ideology and Realism in a Palestinian Novella: GhassanKanafani'sReturnto Haifa."Ross Brann,"'How Can My Heart Be in the East?'IntertextualIronyin Judahha-Levi."Jonas C. Greenfield, "From 'lhrhmnto al-rahmnin-The Sourceof a Divine Epithet."BenjaminHary,"Egyptian Judeo-ArabicSharh-Bridging the Culturesof Arabic and Hebrew."Shmuel Moreh, "The Nineteenth-CenturyJewish Playwright, Abraham Daninos, as a Bridge between Muslim and JewishTheater." DanaEvanKaplan,ed. ContemporaryDebates inAmericanReformJudaism:Conflicting Visions.New York:Routledge, 2001. xii, 274 pp. CONTENTS:Martin E. Marty,"Foreword."Dana Evan Kaplan, "Introduction: ConflictingVisions of the ReformMovementin the United StatesToday."Section 1: Where WeAre Today. Bernard M. Lazerwitz and Ephraim Tabory, "A Religious and Social Profile of ReformJudaismin the United States."Lewis A. Friedland,"ReformJudaismandModernAmericanCommunity."RichardCimino, "Re223

AJS Review form Judaism in the SpiritualMarketplace."Joel L. Levine, "Why People in the Sunbelt Join a Synagogue: Jewish Religious Preferencein Palm Beach County." Section 2: Legitimacy and Authenticity:The "Sins"of Yesterdayand the Controversies of Today.Jacob Neusner, "When Reform JudaismWas Judaism."Arnold Jacob Wolf, "Reform'sOriginal Sin."Harold S. Silver, "Fromthe ChristmasTree to the Yarmulke:WhatSeparatesClassical ReformfromMainstreamReform?"Jay R. Brickman, "Full Churches, Empty Synagogues: A Defense of Classical Reform." Aryeh Spero, "Orthodoxy Confronts Reform: The Two HundredYears' War."Section 3: Personal Status. Alexander M. Schindler,"Not by Birth Alone: The Case for a Missionary Judaism."Steven Bayme, "PatrilinealDescent Revisited." Eric H. Yoffie, "The Importanceof Outreachin MaintainingReform'sAutonomy, Diversity, and Pluralism."Hillel Cohn, "Why I Officiate at Mixed-Marriage Wedding Ceremonies."Section 4: Gender. Karla Goldman, "A Worthier Place: Women, Reform Judaism, and the Presidents of Hebrew Union College." Denise L. Eger, "EmbracingLesbians and Gay Men: A Reform Jewish Innovation." Hinda Seif, "'Where Kosher Means Organic and Union Label': Bisexual Women Re-embrace Their Jewish Heritage."Section 5: Visionsfor the Future. Samuel K. Joseph, "Leadershipfor Profound Change: A Means for Transforming the American Reform Synagogue."EphraimTabory,"The Legitimacy of Reform Judaism:The Impactof Israelon the United States."Alfred Gottschalk,"Reform Judaism of the New Millennium: A Challenge." Sheldon Zimmerman, "Transformingthe Reform Jew."W. GuntherPlaut,"Afterword." Aaron L. Mackler, ed. Life and Death Responsibilities in Jewish Biomedical Ethics. New York:The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2000. xiii, 527 pp. CONTENTS: Gerald I. Wolpe, "Foreword."Aaron L. Mackler,"Introduction."L Responsibilities in the CreationofLife. A. Artificial Insemination.Elliot N. Dorff, "ArtificialInsemination:GeneralConsiderationsand InseminationUsing the Husband's Sperm." Elliot N. Dorff, "Artificial Insemination:The Use of a Donor's Sperm."Elliot N. Dorff, "ArtificialInseminationand ReproductiveTechnologies: Using Donor Eggs, Donating Sperm and Eggs, and Adoption."B. In VitroFertilization. Aaron L. Mackler, "In Vitro Fertilization."C. Surrogate Motherhood. Aaron L. Mackler and Elie Kaplan Spitz, "On the Use of Birth Surrogates."Elie KaplanSpitz, "Onthe Use of Birth Surrogates."AaronL. Mackler,"SurrogateParenting."Aaron L. Mackler, "MaternalIdentity and the Religious Status of Children Born to a SurrogateMother."David H. Lincoln, "SurrogateMotherhood."II. Responsibilitiesfor Fetal Life. D. Abortion.Ben Zion Bokser and Kassel Abelson, "A Statementon the Permissibility of Abortion."David M. Feldman,"Abortion: The Jewish View."Isaac Klein, "A Teshuvahon Abortion."Kassel Abelson, "Prenatal Testing and Abortion."Robert Gordis, "Abortion:Major Wrong or Basic Right?"IIL Responsibilitiesat the End ofLife. E. Medical Care at the End of Life. AvramI. Reisner,"MaiBeinaihu?:Dorff and Reisneron Medical Carefor the Terminally Ill."AvramI. Reisner,"Carefor the TerminallyIll: HalakhicConceptsand Values."AvramI. Reisner,"Carefor the TerminallyIll: PracticalApplications."Elliot N. Dorff, "End-StageMedical Care: Methodological Concerns for a Jewish 224

Collected Studies Approach."Elliot N. Dorff, "End-StageMedical Care:HalakhicConceptsandValues." Elliot N. Dorff, End-Stage Medical Care: PracticalApplications."F. Medical Care at the End of Life:AdditionalReflections. Amy Eilberg, "On Halakhic Approachesto Medical Care for the TerminallyIll: A Response."Joel Roth, "On HalakhicApproachesto Medical Care for the TerminallyIll: A Response."Aaron L. Mackler,"JewishMedical Directives for Health Care."AvramI. Reisner,"PeriandNeonatology:The Matterof LimitingTreatment."G. Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. Elliot N. Dorff, "Statementon Assisted Suicide."Elliot N. Dorff, "Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia."IV Responsibilitiesfor the Health Needs of Others.H. Organ TransplantationandAutopsy. Isaac Klein, "Autopsy."Joseph H. Prouser,"Hesed or Hiyuv?:The Obligation to Preserve Life and the Question of PostmortemOrgan Donation."Joseph H. Prouser,ed., "Organand Tissue Donation Card."I. New Challenges. Elliot N. Dorff and Aaron L. Mackler,"Responsibilities for the Provision of Health Care."AvramI. Reisner, "Curiouserand Curiouser:Genetic Engineeringof Nonhuman Life." Seymour Siegel, "Smoking:A Jewish Perspective." Saul M. Olyan and RobertC. Culley, eds. A Wiseand Discerning Mind:Essays in Honor of Burke 0. Long. Brown Judaic Studies, Vol. 325. Providence:Brown Judaic Studies, 2000. xvii, 320 pp. CONTENTS: Alice Bach, "De-Doxifying Miriam."Gary Beckman, "Goddess Worship-Ancient and Modem."Adele Berlin, "NuminousNomos: On the Relationship between Narrativeand Law."Marc Z. Brettler,"A 'LiterarySermon' in Deuteronomy4." John J. Collins, "Models of Utopia in the Biblical Tradition." Robert C. Culley, "The Confessions of Jeremiah and Traditional Discourse." J. Cheryl Exum, "Desire Distorted and Exhibited: Lot and His Daughters in Psychoanalysis,Painting,and Film."DannaNolan Fewell, "TheGift:WorldAlteration and Obligation in 2 Kings 4:8-37." ErhardS. Gerstenberger,"ContextualTheologies in the Old Testament?"EdwardL. Greenstein,"The Role of the Readerin UgariticNarrative."David M. Gunn,"Entertainment,Ideology, and the Reception of 'History': 'David's Jerusalem'As a Question of Space." Douglas A. Knight, "Village Law and the Book of the Covenant."Saul M. Olyan, "The Biblical Prohibition of the Mourning Rites of Shaving and Laceration:Several Proposals." AlexanderRof&,"Clan Sagas As a Source in SettlementTraditions."Jack M. Sasson, "'The Motherof All ...' Etiologies." MarkS. Smith, "W.F.Albrightand His 'Household':The Cases of C. H. Gordon,M. H. Pope and F. M. Cross."Hugh C. White, "Metaphorand Myth:Percy,Ricoeur and Frye."MarshaWhite, "'The History of Saul's Rise': Saulide State Propagandain 1 Samuel 1-14." RobertR. Wilson, "Unity and Diversity in the Book of Kings."YairZakovitch,"PoetryCreates Historiography." YoramPeri, ed. TheAssassination ofYitzhakRabin. Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 2000. viii, 386 pp. CONTENTS:YoramPeri,"Introduction:The WritingWason the Wall."PartI: The Road to Rabin Square. YoramPeri, "The Assassination: Causes, Meaning, Outcomes." Nachman Ben-Yehuda, "One More Political Murder by Jews." Ehud 225

AJS Review Sprinzak,"Israel'sRadical Right and the Countdownto the RabinAssassination." Israel Orbach,"Self-DestructiveProcesses in Israeli Politics."Part II: ThePublic Reaction. Aviezer Ravitzky,"'Let Us Search Our Path': Religious Zionism After the Assassination."MajidAl-Haj, "AnIllusionof Belonging:Reactionsof the Arab Populationto Rabin'sAssassination."YoramPeri,"TheMedia andthe RabinMyth: Reconstructionof the IsraeliCollective Identity."PartIII:TheGriefand theMourning. TamarRapoport,"The ManyVoices of IsraeliYouth:Multiple Interpretations of Rabin's Assassination."Haim Hazan, "Rabin'sBurial Ground:Revisiting the Zionist Myth." Eliezer Witztum and Ruth Malkinson, "The Culturaland Social Constructionof MourningPatterns."Linda-Ren~eBloch, "Rhetoricon the Roads of Israel:The Assassinationand Political Bumper Stickers."Barbie Zelizer, "The Past in Our Present:The Assassinations of Yitzhak Rabin and John E Kennedy." Part IV: The Ongoing Crisis of Legitimacy.TamarHermannand EphraimYuchtman-Yaar,"The Latitudeof Acceptance:Israelis'AttitudestowardPoliticalProtest before and afterthe Assassinationof YitzhakRabin."GadiYatziv,"Atthe LastMoment."YoramPeri,"Rabin:Between Commemorationand Denial." Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim, eds. The Warfor Palestine: Rewritingthe History of 1948. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 2001. xv, 234 pp. CONTENTS: Rashid Khalidi,"The Palestiniansand 1948: the underlyingcauses of failure."Benny Morris,"Revisitingthe Palestinianexodus of 1948."Laila Parsons, "The Druze and the birth of Israel."Avi Shlaim, "Israeland the Arab coalition in 1948." Eugene L. Rogan, "Jordanand 1948: the persistence of an official history."CharlesTripp,"Iraqand the 1948 War:mirrorof Iraq'sdisorder."Fawaz A. Gerges, "Egypt and the 1948 War: internal conflict and regional ambition." Joshua Landis, "Syria and the Palestine War:fighting King 'Abdullah's'Greater Syria Plan'." EdwardW. Said, "Afterword:the consequences of 1948." Julius Simon, ed. History, Religion, and Meaning:American Reflections on the Holocaust and Israel. Westport,CT: GreenwoodPress, 2000. viii, 129 pp. CONTENTS: Julius Simon, "Introduction:Questions and Events."John K. Roth, "ConvertingDreamsinto Realities:Reflections on the Shadowof Birkenau."Edith Wyschogrod,"The Shoah and the Historian'sPassion for the Dead Others."Yehuda Bauer, "Explainingthe Holocaust."GilbertKahn,"AmericanGuilt Duringthe Holocaust: A Study of U.S. Foreign Policy Makers' Attitudes Toward Israel." Moshe Haar, "Israel after Auschwitz: Four Questions about Rememberingthe Holocaust."Liora Gubkin,"Re-ReadingRedemption:The WarsawGhettoUprising in Passover Haggadot."ThomasA. Idinopulos,"BritishMillenarianMissionaries in Nineteenth-CenturyPalestine."Julius Simon, "Philosophy,Genocide, and Nationalism." Michael A. Singer, ed. Humanityat the Limit:TheImpactof the Holocaust Experience on Jews and Christians.Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 2000. xiv, 461 pp. CONTENTS: Saul Friedlinder,"Facing the Shoah: Memory and History."Part 1: 226

Collected Studies The Impact of the Holocaust: An InterdisciplinaryApproach. John T. Pawlikowski, "Divine and Human Responsibility in the Light of the Holocaust." Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, "Racism and Ethics: ConstructingAlternative History."Joan Ringlheim, "The Strange and the Familiar."James E. Young, "Against RedempPart 2. Theologyfrom the Depths: New Dition: The Arts of Counter-Memory." rections in Germany.RobertA. Krieg, "Introduction:FourGermanTheologians." Hans HermannHenrix, "Inthe Shadowof the Shoah: Being a Theologian in GermanyToday."Petervon derOsten-Sacken,"TheRevival of the Jewish People within the ChristianConsciousnessin Germany."Bertold Klappert,"AnAlternativefor Christian Substitution Theology and Christology after the Shoah." Hanspeter Heinz, "AfterSixty Years-How Can We Speak of Guilt, Suffering, and Reconciliation?"Part 3: TheLimitsof Covenant.John K. Roth, "Introduction:The Limits of Covenant."PeterC. Phan,"TheHolocaust: Reflections from the Perspective ofAsian LiberationTheology."RobertA. Krieg,"MartinBuberand RomanoGuardini: Case Study in Jewish-Catholic Dialogue." Peter Ochs, "WoundedWord, WoundedInterpreter."Rachel Adler, "PourOut YourHeart Like Water:Towarda FeministTheology of the Holocaust."Part 4: Racism and Ethics: The Social Uses of Science. Phillip R. Sloan, "Introduction:Eugenics and the Social Uses of Science: Non-religious Factorsin the Genesis of the Holocaust."Daniel J. Kevles, "The Ghost of Galton: Eugenics Past, Present, and Future."PeterWeingart,"Eugenics and Race-Hygiene in the German Context: A Legacy of Science Turned Bad?"RobertaM. Berry,"Eugenicsafterthe Holocaust:The Limits of Reproductive Rights."JonathanMarks,"Heredityand Genetics after the Holocaust."Didier Pollefeyt, "The Significance of Nazi Eugenics for Medical Ethics Today."Part 5: History,Coexistence, and Conflict: Gentiles and Jews in East CentralEurope. Doris L. Bergen,"Introduction:ChallengingHistory:Reflections on the Holocaust in Austria,Germany,and Poland."GerhardBotz, "Non-Jews and Jews in Austria before, during,and after the Holocaust."J. Robert Wegs, "Jews and Non-Jews in Austria."SanderL. Gilman, "Who is Jewish?The Newest Jewish Writing in German and Daniel Goldhagen."Victoria J. Barnett, "What is Cultural Identity?" Michael C. Steinlauf, "Polandand the Memory of the Holocaust."MonikaAdamczyk-Garbowska,"Polandand the Holocaust."Part 6: Lost Hope and Betrayal: TheSurvivors.ArnoldJ. Band,"Introduction:'Reading'the Holocaust."Lawrence Langer, "Damaged Childhood in Holocaust Fact and Fiction." Edna Brocke, "Dealingwith the Holocaust:'AfterAuschwitz' in Germany."Michael Berenbaum, "Video History of the Holocaust:The Case of the Shoah Foundation."David R. Blumenthal,"Whatto Do: Approachesto Post-HolocaustEducation."Part 7: Beyond the Survivor:AestheticRepresentationsof the Holocaust. John P.Welle, "Introduction:The Notre Dame HolocaustProject."MarciaLandy,"CinematicHistory, Melodrama,and the Holocaust."John Felstiner,"SpeakingBack to Scripture: The Biblical Strainin HolocaustPoetry."Alan Mintz,"TwoModels in the Studyof HolocaustLiterature."Remi Hoeckman,"TheJewish-ChristianEncounter:A Matter of Faith?" Barbie Zelizer, ed. Visual Cultureand the Holocaust. New Brunswick: Rutgers UniversityPress, 2000. vii, 364 pp. 227

AJS Review CONTENTS: BarbieZelizer, "Introduction:On Visualizing the Holocaust."High Culture,Low Culture,and the Domains of the Visual.Liliane Weissberg,"In Plain Sight." Andreas Huyssen, "Of Mice and Mimesis: Reading Spiegelman with Adorno."Art. Ernst van Alphen, "Deadly Historians:Boltanski'sInterventionin Holocaust Historiography."Lisa Saltzman,"Lost in Translation:Clement Greenberg, Anselm Kiefer, and the Subject of History."Televisionand Video. Jeffrey Shandler,"The Man in the Glass Box: Watchingthe EichmannTrial on American Television."Geoffrey Hartman,"Tele-Sufferingand Testimony in the Dot Com Era."Film. Miriam Bratu Hansen, "Schindler'sList is Not Shoah: Second Commandment,PopularModernism,and Public Memory."Yosefa Loshitzky,"Hybrid Victims: Second-GenerationIsraelis Screen the Holocaust."Artifacts. James E. Young,"DanielLibeskind'sJewishMuseumin Berlin:The UncannyArtsof Memorial Architecture."TamarKatriel,"'From Shoreto Shore:The Holocaust,Clandestine Immigrationand Israeli Heritage Museums."Photographs.MarianneHirsch, "SurvivingImages: Holocaust Photographsand the Workof Postmemory."Barbie Zelizer, "Gender and Atrocity: Women in Holocaust Photographs."The Body. Lawrence Douglas, "The Shrunken Head of Buchenwald: Icons of Atrocity at Nuremberg."Dora Apel, "TheTatooedJew."Internetand the Web.Anna Reading, "Clickingon Hitler:TheVirtualHolocaust@Home."ElizabethLegge, "Analogsof Loss: VeraFrenkel'sBody Missing (http://www.yorku.ca/BodyMissing) JOURNALS

Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism, No. 1. Jerusalem:The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,2001. 351 pp. CONTENTS: Articles. BernardR. Goldstein, "Astronomyand the Jewish Community in Early Islam." Shlomo Sela, "The Fuzzy Borders Between Astronomy and Astrology as Reflected in the Thought and Work of Three Twelfth-Century Jewish Intellectuals."Resianne Fontaine,"The Reception of Aristotle'sMeteorology in Hebrew Scientific Writings of the ThirteenthCentury."Sarah Stroumsa, "'Ravings': Maimonides' Concept of Pseudo-Science." Dov Schwartz, "From Theurgyto Magic: The Evolution of the Magical-TalismanicJustificationof Sacrifice in the Circle of Nahmanidesand his Interpreters."ShulamitVolkov,"Jewish Scientists in ImperialGermany."Brief Communications.Ruth Glasner, "Zeno of Elea's Argumentfrom Bisection: Newly Discovered Evidence in a HebrewTranslation ofAverroes."TonyLevy, "Hebrewand LatinVersionsof an UnknownMathematical Text by AbrahamIbn Ezra."Mauro Zonta, "New Data on JudahMesser Leon's Commentarieson the Physics."Y. Tzvi Langermann,"Frommy Notebook: 1. An Unknown Medieval HebrewAstronomicalTreatise.2. Tekunatha-Hawayah by Meir b. Moses JudahLoeb Neumarkof Nicolsburg."Memorial Tribute.Y. Tzvi Langermann,"'Mori Yusuf': Ray Yosef Kafah (Qafih) (1917-2000)." The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism, Vol. 12. Edited by David T. Runiaand GregoryE. Sterling.Brown JudaicStudies,Volume328. Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2000. 241 pp. CONTENTS:Articles. J. R. Royse, "The Text of Philo's LegumAllegoriae."T. H. 228

Collected Studies Tobin,"TheBeginning of Philo'sLegumAllegoriae."A. van den Hoek, "Philo and Origen:a DescriptiveCatalogueof their Relationship."S. Etienne,"Reflexion sur l'apostasie de Tiberius Julius Alexander."Review Article. D. T. Runia, "Alexandria and Cambridge:JamesKugel's Traditionsof the Bible."BibliographySection. D. T. Runia,A. C. Geljon, H. M. Keizer, J. P. Martin, R. Radice, J. Riaud, K.-G. Sandelin, D. Satran,D. Zeller, "Philo of Alexandria:an Annotated Bibliography 1997." "Supplement:Provisional Bibliography 1998-2000." Book Review Section. Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, Volume 13. Focusing on the Holocaust and its Aftermath.Editedby Antony Polonsky.London:The LitmannLibraryof Jewish Civilization, 2000. xx, 476 pp. CONTENTS:Part I: The Holocaust and Its Aftermath.Antony Polonsky,"Introduction."JoannaMichlic-Coren,"Anti-JewishViolence in Poland,1918-1939 and 1945-1947." Andrzej Zbikowski, "Jewish Reaction to the Soviet Arrival in the Kresyin September1939."Simon Schochet,"Reflectionon Soviet Documents Relating to Polish Prisonersof WarTakenin September 1939."GunnarS. Paulsson, "The Demography of Jews in Hiding in Warsaw, 1943-1945." Maria EinhornSusulowska, "Psychological Problems of Polish Jews who Used Aryan Documents." Elzbieta Ficowska, "My Two Mothers." J6zef Lewandowski, "Early Swedish Informationabout the Nazis' Mass Murderof the Jews."JonathanWebber, "Jewish Identities in the Holocaust: Martyrdomas a RepresentativeCategory."MarianMalowist, "ThreeEssays on Jewish Educationduringthe Nazi Occupation." Janusz Korczak, "Two Coffins on Smocza Street and Sliska Street." JoannaRostropowicz Clark, "Krzysztof Kamil Baczynski: A Poet-Hero."Diana Kuprel, "Paper Epitaphs of a Holocaust Memorial: Zofia Nalkowska's Medallions."JanRyszardBychowski, "Letterto Father."JanGross, "Stereotypesof Polish-Jewish Relationsafterthe War:The Special Commission of the CentralCommittee of Polish Jews."Bozena Szaynok,"The Bund and the Jewish Fractionof the Polish Workers'Party in Poland after 1945." Padraic Kenney, "Whose Nation, Whose State? Working-ClassNationalism and Antisemitism in Poland, 19451947."Adam Penkalla,"Poles and Jews in the Kielce Region and Radom, April 1945-February 1946." JoannaMichlic-Coren, "Polish Jews during and after the Kielce Pogrom: Reports from the Communist Archives." Rudolf Reder with a translator'snote by M. M. Rubel, "Belzec."Teresa Swiebocka, "The AuschwitzBirkenauMemorial and Museum: From Commemorationto Education."Part II: A DebateAboutAntisemitismin Poland Today.StanislawMusial, "Black is Black." WaldemarChrostowski,"A Rainbowin Black."StanislawMusial, "The Sin of Antisemitism:A Response to WaldemarChrostowski."StanislawKrajewski,"Difficult Remarksto Write."MonikaAdamczyk-Garbowska,"A Shadow over the Dialogue."Part III:An Interview."MarianMalowist on Historyand Historians."Part IV: New Views. J6zef Bekker, "The Day after the Pogrom: A DocumentaryAccount."Maya Peretz,"JewishTheatrein Polandbefore the Second WorldWar:Its Audiences and its Critics."Regina Grol, "ForbiddenFruit:Illicit Love Affairs between Jews and Gentiles in the Novels of Julian Stryjkowski."MartaAleksandra Balinska,"LudwikRajchman:A BiographicalSketch of a Polish Jew."EdwardK. 229

AJS Review Kaplan, "AbrahamJoshua Heschel in Poland:Hasidism Enters Modernity."Part V:Reviews. Review Essays. JohnT. Pawlikowski,"RecentBooks on the Catholic Churchin Poland."JerzyTomaszewski,"'You shall not bearfalse witness': Stanislaw C. Napi6rkowski (ed.), A blizniego swego ... Materialy z sympozjum 'Sw. Maksymilian Maria Kolbe-Zydzi-masoni'." Nerijus Udrenas, "A Lithuanian Account of Life in the Camps: Balys Sruoga,Forest of the Gods: Memoirs."Alina Cala, "Analyses of WorldAntisemitism Published between 1991 and 1997." Book Reviews. Studia Rosenthaliana, Volume 34, No. 2. Amsterdam:Amsterdam University Press, 2000. 101 pp. (129-229). CONTENTS:Articles.Jewish Oratoryin the Netherlands.Marc Saperstein,"The Rhetoricand Substanceof Rebuke:Social and Religious Criticismin the Sermons of Hakham Saul Levi Morteira."Shlomo Berger, "For Which Types of Speech Would a Jew Have Studied Greek Rhetoricin Seventeenth-CenturyAmsterdam?" BartWallet,"ReligiousOratoryandthe Improvementof Congregants:Dutch-Jewish Preachingin the FirstHalf of the NineteenthCentury."Historical Sources. Lies Kruijer-Poesiat,"AnInaugurationin Suriname, 1804."PeterBuijs, "'May I come back again next year?' Letters to Elisabeth Cohen, at Huis ter Duin Children's Nursing Home."Recent Publications on the Jews in the Netherlands. Tirosh:Studies in Judaica, Volume4. Moscow, 2000. 307 pp. (Russian). CONTENTS: I. Jewish Religious and Philosophical Thoughts.Svetlana Babkina, "The Concept of Time in Qumran."Alina Lisitsina,"TheViews of MedievalMuslims on Torahand Judaism."Natalia Zabolotnaia,"The Imageof the Torahin Early Jewish Mysticism and PropheticKabbalah."Olga Sheremeta,"TheQuestionof the Relationship Between the Norms of Law and Ethics in the Tanakh.Three Views: Hirsch, Spinoza, Kierkegaard."Maria Endel, "KabbalisticCodes in Russian Masonic Literature."KonstantinBurmistrov,"The Encounterof RussianReligious Philosophy of the late 19th-early 20th centurieswith the Kabbalah."Larisa Namestnikova,"'Athensand Jerusalem'in Eugen Rozenshtock-Hussy'sVision of World History."II. Linguistics. Maria Chekunova, "Dreams in the Torah." Reuben Kagan, "Some remarksaboutThe Amida prayerand its possible parallels in Tanakh."Alla Kucherenko,"Eye in the Old Testament."Leonid Kogan, "Semitic and Hebrew Faunal Lexicon: an Etymological Approach."Nikolai Okhotin, "New Etymological Data for the Reconstructionof Proto-SemiticSibilants."Adel Nemirovskaia,"The 'One-hundredWordList' for JewishPalestinianAramaic."IH. Literature.Maria Kaspina, "The motif of the 'miraculous'birth of Biblical Heroes." Galina Zelenina, "Images of Jews in Prince Andrei Kurbskii'swritings." Konstantin Bondar, "King Solomon as told in Russian Apocryphal Texts."Olaf Terpitz,"Zakat-Isaac Babel's First Play."Diana Gantseva,"National Self-Identity in the Worksof Andrey Sobol."Vasilisa Shklovskaia-Kordi,"'The Tailor'by Nahum Gutman."Eli Shpirko, "Shamir'sAgnon: everything all right?"IV. Russian Jewry. MargaritaGershkovitch,"Arnold B. Dumashevskii and the 'Jewish question' in the Russian Press, 1858-1859." GabrieleFreitag,"Moscow as Novjy 230

Collected Studies Berdichev-The Shtetl in the Metropolis? Jewish settlement in Moscow in the 1920s."David Shneer,"Becoming a Revolutionary:Izi Kharik,SovietYiddish Poetry and CreativeDestruction."Motya Chlenov,"A Journeyfrom Birobidzhanto Moscow: The Restorationof Yiddish in the USSR, 1956-1961." Semyon Charney, "YeshivaKol Ya'akov,1957-1967." Viacheslav Likhachev,"TheMyth of Two Jewish Nations within the ContemporaryPolitical Ideology of the Russian Radical Right."

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Books Received Source: AJS Review, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Apr., 2002), pp. 233-240 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4131602 . Accessed: 17/07/2011 14:02 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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AJS Review 26:1 (2002), 233-240

BOOKS RECEIVED, (SEPTEMBER 1, 2000-MARCH 31, 2001) Almog, Oz. TheSabra:The Creationof the New Jew. The S. MarkTaperFoundation Imprintin Jewish Studies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. xv, 313 pp. Alter, Robert. Canon and Creativity:Modern Writingand the Authorityof Scripture. New Haven:Yale University Press, 2000. x, 198 pp. Alvarez, Alex. Governments,Citizens, and Genocide:A Comparativeand InterdisciplinaryApproach.Bloomington:IndianaUniversity Press, 2001. x, 224 pp. Arad, Gulie Ne'eman. America, Its Jews, and the Rise of Nazism. Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 2000. ix, 314 pp. Aschheim, Steven E. In Timesof Crisis: Essays on European Culture, Germans, and Jews. Madison:Universityof Wisconsin Press, 2001. x, 269 pp. Balin, Carole B. ToReveal Our Hearts: Jewish WomenWritersin TsaristRussia. Monographs of the Hebrew Union College, 24. Cincinnati: HUC Press, 2000. x, 269 pp. Baron, Dvora. "TheFirst Day" and OtherStories. Translatedand edited by Naomi Seidmanand ChanaKronfeld.The S. MarkTaperFoundationImprintin Jewish Studies. Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 2001. xxv, 236 pp. Bauer, Yehuda.Rethinking the Holocaust. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. xvi, 335 pp. Bentsur,Eytan. Making Peace: A First-HandAccount of the Arab-Israeli Peace Process. Westport,CT: Praeger,2001. viii, 281 pp. Berlin, Adele. TheJPS Bible Commentary:Esther. Philadelphia:JPS, 2001. lix, 110 pp. Billstein, Reinhold, Karola Fings, Anita Kugler and Nicholas Levis. Workingfor the Enemy:Ford, GeneralMotors and Forced Labor in GermanDuring the Second WorldWar.New York:BerghahnBooks, 2000. xii, 309 pp. Bruck, Edith. WhoLoves YouLike This. Philadelphia:Paul Dry Books, 2000. 135 PP. Cline, Eric H. TheBattle ofArmageddon:Megiddo and the Jezreel Valleyfrom the BronzeAge to the Nuclear Age. Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press, 2000. xv, 239 pp. Cluse, Christoph. Studien zur Geschichte der Juden in den mittelalterlichen Niederlanden.Forschungenzur Geschichte der Juden,A, 10. Hannover:Verlag HahnscheBuchhandlung,2000. vii, 495 pp. Cohen, Shaye J. D., editor. The Synoptic Problem in Rabbinic Literature.Brown Judaic Studies, 326. Providence:Brown Judaic Studies, 2000. xiii, 167 pp. Cohen, Steven M. and Arnold M. Eisen. TheJew Within:Self, Family and Communityin America. Bloomington:IndianaUniversity Press, 2000. x, 242 pp. Cohen,Tova,editor.Marriage, Libertyand Equality:Shall the ThreeWalkTogeth233

AJS Review er? Women in Judaism:Discussion Papers,No. 4-5. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University,2000. 112 pp. (Hebrew and English). Cronin, Gloria L. A Room of His Own:In Search of the Feminine in the Novels of Saul Bellow. JudaicTraditionsin Literature,Music, andArt. Syracuse:Syracuse University Press, 2001. xiii, 193 pp. Davila, James R. Liturgical Works.Eerdmans Commentarieson the Dead Sea Scrolls. GrandRapids:William B. Eerdmans,2000. xi, 338 pp. Denholtz, Elaine Grudin.Balancing Workand Love:Jewish Women the FamilyCareer Challenge. Hanover,NH: UniversityPressof New Englandfor Brandeis University Press, 2000. x, 202 pp. Diner, Hasia R., Jeffrey Shandler,and Beth S. Wenger,editors.Rememberingthe Lower East Side:AmericanJewish Reflections.The ModernJewish Experience. Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 2000. viii, 291 pp. Elbaz, Andre E. and EphraimHazan, editors. Tehillale-David: Poemes de David ben Hassine: Le Chantredu Judai'smeMarocain. RamatGan: Bar-IlanUniversity Press, 1999. 193 pp. (French),759 pp. (Hebrew). Elper, Ora Wiskind and Susan Handelman, editors. Torahof the Mothers: ContemporaryJewish WomenRead Classical Jewish Texts.New York:UrimPublications, 2000. 510 pp. Epstein, Shifra. TheDaniel-shpil in the BoboverHasidic Community:Froma Folk Drama to a Hasidic Ritualfor Purim.Yiddish:Textsand Studies. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1998. 180 pp. (Hebrew and Yiddish). Flam, Gila and Dov Noy, editors. Hobn Mir a Nigndl: The Songs of the Yiddish 'Troubadour'Nokhem Shternheim.Yuval Music Series 7. Jerusalem:The Jewish Music ResearchCentre,The Hebrew University,2000. 143 pp. (English), 36 pp. (Yiddish and Hebrew). Flinker, Noam. The Song of Songs in English Renaissance Literature:Kisses of Their Mouths. Studies in Renaissance Literature.Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer,2000. viii, 173 pp. Foa, Anna. TheJews ofEurope After the Black Death. The S. MarkTaperFoundation Imprint in Jewish Studies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. xii, 276 pp. Fonrobert,CharlotteElisheva. Menstrual Purity:Rabbinic and ChristianReconstructions of Biblical Gender. Contraversions:Jews and Other Differences. Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press. ix, 326 pp. Fox, Nili Sacher.In the Service of the Kings: OfficialdominAncientIsrael and Judah. Monographsof the HebrewUnion College 23. Cincinnati:HUC Press, 2000. xvi, 367 pp. Furman,Andrew. ContemporaryJewish American Writersand the Multicultural Dilemma: The Return of the Exiled. JudaicTraditionsin Literature,Music, and Art. Syracuse:Syracuse University Press, 2000. ix, 214 pp. Gal, Allon and Alfred Gottschalk, editors. Beyond Survival and Philanthropy: AmericanJewry and Israel. Cincinnati:HUC Press, 2000. x, 264 pp. Gerber,Merrill Joan. TheKingdomofBrooklyn. Libraryof Modern Jewish Literature. Syracuse:Syracuse University Press, 2000. 239 pp. Gerstenberger,Katharina.Truthto Tell: German Women'sAutobiographiesand 234

Books Received Turn-of-the-CenturyCulture.Social History, PopularCulture,and Politics in Germany.Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press, 2000. viii, 208 pp. Gir6n-Negr6n,Luis M. Alfonsode la Torre'sVisi6n Deleytable:Philosophical Rationalismand theReligious Imaginationin Fifteenth-CenturySpain. Leiden: Brill, 2001. xvi, 306 pp. Giuliani, Massimo. Christianesimoe Shod":Riflessioni teologiche. Brescia: Morcelliana, 2000. 162 pp. Goldsmith, Emanuel S., editor. YiddishLiteraturein America 1870-2000: Anthology. Volume 1: From Dovid Edelshtat to Moyshe Leyb Halpern.New York:Congress for Jewish Culture, 1999. xiv (English), 599 pp. (Yiddish). Goldsmith, Martin. The InextinguishableSymphony:A TrueStory of Music and Love in Nazi Germany.New York:John Wiley and Sons, 2000. vi, 346 pp. Gombrowicz, Witold. Ferdydurke.Forewordby Susan Sontag. Yale Nota Bene. New Haven:Yale University Press, 2000. xxi, 281 pp. Goodman,Henry,translatorand editor.TheNew Country:Storiesfrom the Yiddish AboutLife inAmerica.JudaicTraditionsin Literature,Music, andArt. Syracuse: Syracuse UniversityPress, 2001. xxix, 243 pp. Goshen-Gottstein,Alon. TheSinner and theAmnesiac: TheRabbinicInventionof Elisha ben Abuya and Eleazar ben Arach. Contraversions:Jews and Other Differences. Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 2000. xii, 416 pp. Hacohen,Malachi Haim. KarlPopper, TheFormativeYears,1902 - 1945: Politics and Philosophy in InterwarVienna.Cambridge,UK: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000. xiii, 610 pp. Hallamish,Moshe. TheKabbalahin NorthAfrica:A Historical and CulturalSurvey. Tel Aviv: HakibbutzHameuchad,2001. 239 pp. (Hebrew). Hare,A. Pauland Gideon M. Kressel, editors.IsraelAs CenterStage:A Settingfor Social and Religious Enactments.Westport,CT: Bergin & Garvey,2001. x, 217 pp. Hartman,David. Israelis and theJewish Tradition:AnAncientPeople Debating Its Future.TerryLectureSeries. New Haven:Yale University Press, 2000. xvi, 174 pp. Hary,Benjamin H., John L. Hayes and FredAstren, editors. Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication,and Interaction:Essays in Honor of William M. Brinner. Brill's Series in Jewish Studies, 27. Leiden: Brill, 2000. xliii, 438 pp. Hasan-Rokem,Galit. Webof Life: Folklore and Midrash in Rabbinic Literature. Contraversions:Jews and OtherDifferences. Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 2000. xiii, 287 pp. Kathleen.In the Spirit of OurAge: Eric Mendelsohn'sB'nai James-Chakraborty, AmoonaSynagogue. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 2000. xii, 84 pp. Jospe, Alfred. ToLeave YourMark:Selectionsfrom the Writingsof Alfred Jospe. Editedby Eva Jospe and RaphaelJospe. Hoboken:KTAV,2000. xiv, 257 pp. Julius,Anthony.Idolizing Pictures: Idolatry, Iconoclasm and Jewish Art. Paperback edition. New York:Thames & Hudson, 2001. 120 pp. Kahn, Susan Martha.ReproducingJews:A CulturalAccountofAssisted Concep235

AJS Review tion in Israel. Body, Commodity, Text: Studies of Objectifying Practice. Durham,NC: Duke University Press, 2000. viii, 227 pp. Kallir, Eleazar. Qedushta'otfor Shavu'ot. Edited by ShulamitElizur. Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim,2000. 336 pp. (Hebrew). Kaplan, Dana Evan, editor.ContemporaryDebates in AmericanReformJudaism: Conflicting Visions.New York:Routledge, 2001. xii, 274 pp. WhoAre theJews of India?The S. MarkTaperFoundationImprintin Nathan. Katz, Jewish Studies.Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress,2000. xv, 205 pp. Kaufman,Alan. Jewboy:A Memoir.New York:FrommInternational,2000. ix, 402 PP. Kieval, Hillel J. Languages of Community:The Jewish Experience in the Czech Lands. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 2000. xi, 311 pp. Klawans, Jonathan.Impurityand Sin in AncientJudaism.New York:OxfordUniversity Press, 2000. xii, 242 pp. Knohl, Israel. The Messiah Before Jesus: The SufferingServant of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 2000. xiv, 145 pp. Konvitz, Milton R. Nine AmericanJewish Thinkers.New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers,2000. 173 pp. Kranzler,David. TheMan WhoStopped the Trainsto Auschwitz:George Mantello, El Salvador, and Switzerland'sFinest Hour. Syracuse:Syracuse University Press, 2000. xxv, 341 pp. Kreisel, Howard (Hayyim). Ma 'aseh Nissim: A Commentaryon the Torahby R. Nissim ben R. Moses ofMarseilles. Jerusalem:Mekize Nirdamim,2000. 515 pp. (Hebrew). Kuzar, Ron. Hebrew and Zionism:A Discourse Analytic CulturalStudy. Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter,2001. xii, 324 pp. Laqueur,Walter.GenerationExodus:TheFate ofYoungJewish Refugeesfrom Nazi Germany. The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry Series. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England for Brandeis University Press, 2001. xvii, 345 pp. Laqueur,Walter,editor. TheHolocaust Encyclopedia.New Haven:Yale University Press, 2001. xxxix, 765 pp. Lassner,Jacob. TheMiddleEast Remembered:ForgedIdentities, CompetingNarratives, ContestedSpaces. Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press, 2001. xvii, 428 pp. Le Beau, Bryan E, LeonardGreenspoon,and Dennis Hamm, editors. TheHistorical Jesus ThroughCatholic and Jewish Eyes. Harrisburg,Penn.: Trinity Press International,2000. xviii, 171 pp. Lentin, Ronit. Israel and the Daughters of the Shoah:Reoccupyingthe Territories ofSilence. New York:BerghahnBooks, 2000. xiv, 256 pp. Leoni, Aron di Leone. La Nazione Ebraica Spagnola e Portoghese negli Stati Estensi:per servire a una storia dell'ebraismo sefardita. Reprintof 1992 edition. Rimini: Luise Editore, 2001. 431 pp. Levine, Alan J. Captivity, Flight, and Survival in WorldWarII. Westport,CT: Praeger,2000. x, 258 pp.

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Books Received Librett,Jeffrey S. The Rhetoric of CulturalDialogue: Jews and GermansFrom Moses Mendelssohnto RichardWagnerand Beyond.CulturalMemory in the Present. Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 2000. xxiii, 391 pp. London, Louise. Whitehalland the Jews, 1933 - 1948: British ImmigrationPolicy and the Holocaust. Cambridge,UK: University of CambridgePress, 2000. xiii, 313 pp. Mackler,Aaron L., editor.Life and Death Responsibilities in Jewish Biomedical Ethics. New York:The JewishTheological Seminaryof America, 2000. xiii, 532 pp. Mazor,Yaakov.TheKlezmerTraditionin the Land of Israel. Jerusalem:The Jewish Music ResearchCentre,The HebrewUniversity,2000. 276 pp. (English), 48 pp. (Hebrew). Morgan,Michael L. A Holocaust Reader: Responses to the Nazi Extermination. New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 2001. vi, 378 pp. Medoff, Rafael and Chaim I. Waxman.Historical Dictionary of Zionism. Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements, No. 31. Lanham, MD: The ScarecrowPress, 2000. xxix, 238 pp. Meiri, Baruch and RachamimElazar. The Dream Behind Bars: The Story of the Prisoners ofZion from Ethiopia. Jerusalem:Gefen Books, 2001. 196 pp. Miron, Dan. The Image of the Shtetl,And Other Studies of ModernJewish Literary Imagination.Syracuse:Syracuse University Press, 2000. xv, 412 pp. Neugroschel, Joachim, editor and translator.The Dybbukand the YiddishImagination:A HauntedReader. Syracuse:Syracuse University Press, 2000. xix, 412 pp. Neusner, Jacob. The Emergence of Judaism:Jewish Religion in Response to the Critical Issues of the First Six Centuries. Studies in Ancient Judaism. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000. xiii, 212 pp. Neusner,Jacob,editor. TheNative Category-Formationsof theAggadah: TheLater Midrash-Compilations,Vol. I. Studies in Ancient Judaism.xi, 317 pp. Neusner, Jacob and Alan J. Avery-Peck,editors. TheBlackwell Companionto Judaism. Oxford:Blackwell Publishers,2000. xv, 553 pp. Neusner,JacobandAlan J.Avery-Peck,editors. TheBlackwellReader in Judaism. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,2001. xxv, 452 pp. Nicosia, FrancisR. The ThirdReich and the Palestine Question. New Brunswick: TransactionPublishers,2000. xxii, 317 pp. Norman,Renee. House ofMirrors:PerformingAutobiograph(icall)yin Language/ Education. Counterpoints,vol. 146. New York:PeterLang, 2001. x, 282 pp. Oliner, Samuel P.NarrowEscapes:A Boy's Holocaust Memories and TheirLegacy. St. Paul: ParagonHouse, 2000. xix, 220 pp. Olyan, Saul M. and RobertC. Culley, editors. "A Wiseand Discerning Mind": Essays in Honor ofBurke 0. Long. BrownJudaicStudies,No. 325. Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2000. xvii, 320 pp. Ozv~ith,Zsuzsanna.In theFootstepsof Orpheus:TheLife and TimesofMikl6s Radn6ti. Jewish Literatureand Culture.Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 2000. xvi, 264 pp.

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AJS Review Pelli, Moshe. The Gate to Haskalah,An AnnotatedIndex to "Hame'asef"theFirst HebrewJournal. Jerusalem:The HebrewUniversityMagnes Press, 2000. ix (English) 221 pp. (Hebrew). Peres, Shimon. The Imaginary Voyage:WithTheodorHerzl in Israel. Paperback edition. Cambridge,MA: Zoland Books, 2000. 216 pp. Peri, Yoram,editor. TheAssassination of YitzhakRabin. Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 2000. viii, 386 pp. Pirro, Robert C. Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Tragedy.DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001. 224 pp. Rackman, Emanuel. One Man's Judaism:Renewing the Old and Sanctifying the New. New and revised edition. Jerusalem:Gefen Publishing House, 2000. 424 pp. Raphael,Marc Lee, editor.TheMargins of Jewish History.Williamsburg,Va.:The College of Williamand Mary Departmentof Religion, 2000. iii, 112 pp. Rebhun, Joseph.Leap to Life: TriumphOver Nazi Evil. New York:ArdorScribendi, 2000. 226 pp. Rechter,David. TheJews of Viennaand the First WorldWar.London:The Littman Libraryof Jewish Civilization, 2001. xiii, 218 pp. Rogan, Eugene L. andAvi Shlaim. The Warfor Palestine:Rewritingthe History of 1948. CambridgeMiddle East Studies, 15. Cambridge,UK: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2001. xv, 234 pp. Rosenbaum,Alan S., editor.Is the Holocaust Unique?Perspectiveson Comparative Genocide. Boulder:Westview Press, 2001. xvii, 304 pp. Rosenthal, StevenT.IrreconcilableDifferences?TheWaningof theAmericanJewish LoveAffair with Israel. Hanover,NH: UniversityPress of New England for BrandeisUniversity Press, 2001. xxii, 231 pp. Ruderman,David B. Jewish Enlightenmentin an English Key:Anglo-Jewry'sConstruction of ModernJewish Thought.Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 2000. xv, 291 pp. Sacks, Jonathan.A Letterin the Scroll: UnderstandingOurJewish Identityand Exploring the Legacy of the World'sOldest Religion. New York:Free Press, 2000. xii, 256 pp. Safran,Gabriella.Rewritingthe Jew: AssimilationNarratives in the Russian Empire. Contraversions:Jews and Other Differences. Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 2000. xvii, 269 pp. Sagi, Avi and Zvi Zohar.CirclesofJewish Identity:A Studyin HalakhicLiterature. Heilel ben Hayyim Library.Tel Aviv: HakibbutzHameuchad,2000. 249 pp. (Hebrew). Sapoznik, Henry.Klezmer!Jewish Musicfrom Old Worldto Our World.New York: SchirmerBooks, 1999. xviii, 340 pp. Sarna,Nahum. Studies in Biblical Interpretation.JPS Scholar of Distinction Series. Philadelphia:JPS, 2000. xxvi, 452 pp. Schultz, Debra L. Going South:Jewish Womenin the CivilRights Movement.New York:NYU Press. xix, 229 pp. Sebastian,Mihail.Journal 1935-1944: TheFascist Years.IntroductionandNotes by Radu Ioanid. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000. xxv, 641 pp. 238

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