This essay examines Maoz Kahana’s A Heartless Chicken: Religion and Science in Early Modern Rabbinic Culture. Against familiar narratives that explain change in early modern Judaism primarily through rupture, conflict, and defensive retrenchment, it argues that Kahana uncovers a more expansive intellectual world in which halakhic writing became a site for negotiating science, natural philosophy, and supernatural phenomena. It follows Kahana’s treatment of the “heartless chicken” controversy, bodily anomalies and medical testimony, and discussions of demons, spirits, and other wondrous beings, while advancing several new interpretations. Particular attention is devoted to R. Jonathan Eybeschütz’s consultations with the universities of Prague and Halle. Rather than subordinating Halakhah to external scientific expertise, Eybeschütz enlisted institutional science to confirm established halakhic norms. Yet in cases involving individual suffering or urgent social consequences, he set aside general scientific claims and employed halakhic mechanisms that enabled exceptional rulings. More broadly, the essay emphasizes that theoretical positions expressed in halakhic form should not automatically be read as operative legal rulings or straightforward evidence of a rabbi’s attitude toward science. At a moment when forms of wonder seem to be re-emerging in the age of artificial intelligence, Kahana’s book serves not only as a historical study of eighteenth-century rabbinic culture but also as a suggestive guide to thinking anew about the relation between nature and magic, science and religion.
This study examines the historical circumstances surrounding the addition of Ezekiel 16:6 (“Through your blood[s], live! Through your blood[s], live!”) to the medieval Franco-German circumcision liturgy, as first attested in Maḥzor Vitry. It traces the midrashic interpretation of this verse from tannaitic sources through post-talmudic texts, demonstrating how the “bloods” evolved from metonyms for commandments into a symbol of salvific power. The ritual innovation of dripping wine into the baby’s mouth while reciting the verse is analyzed within the context of evolving Jewish-Christian relations in medieval northern Europe, as more virulent forms of anti-Judaism emerged in the twelfth century to take their place alongside the well-developed adversus Judaeos tradition of earlier centuries. This liturgical development, together with the introduction of the liturgy’s closing verses, represents a subtle appropriation and rejection of Christian eucharistic symbolism, affirming Jewish covenant theology against Christian supersessionist claims. Through examination of Jacob haGozer’s thirteenth-century Rules of Circumcision, the study reveals how the meaning of these ritual elements intensified as Jewish-Christian relations worsened.
Severe flooding in the city of Worms in 1651 was documented by the communal shamash (sexton), Juspe Schammes. This article maps his account of the flood as a tool for exploring Jewish familiarity, use, and perceptions of the early modern city in which he lived. By comparing Juspe’s descriptions to what he would have seen, utilizing early modern maps, the article further explores the gaps between reality and representation. This case study models how mapping may be used as a historical tool for exploring Jewish and Christian neighborhoods in early modern Europe.
This article reconsiders the Ḥatam Sofer’s attitude toward print, arguing that it reflects a historically specific response to a crisis of rabbinic authority and transmission. Instead of approaching print as a neutral technological development, the article shows how Sofer employed the contrast between manuscript and print as a symbolic language for expressing substantive views on authority, loss, and an idealized past in which Torah knowledge was guardedly transmitted and evaluated. His nostalgic portrayal of the manuscript age—historically inaccurate yet rhetorically effective—served to imagine an idealized world of learning governed by rabbinic judgment, restraint, and ordered transmission. Drawing on responsa, letters, and biographical contexts, the article demonstrates that Sofer’s reflections on print are closely tied to his self-identification as a teacher rather than an “author”—a distinctive model of rabbinic authority inherited from his own teacher, Rabbi Natan Adler. In this paradigm, manuscript culture persists not only as a material practice in the age of print but as a symbolic framework through which Sofer asserted authority, expressed anxiety, and shaped his scholarly persona. Viewed through the prism of rabbinic agency, the article reconceives standard approaches in the history of the book and shows how concepts internal to rabbinic culture—such as Torah study undertaken for its own sake (lishmah) and innovative interpretation (ḥiddush)—actively shaped modes of knowledge production rather than merely reflecting broader, universal patterns.
Caleb Afendopolo, a prominent Karaite scholar of the 15th–16th centuries Byzantine-Ottoman realm, was a commentator, philosopher, and poet. A prolific author, he composed numerous works on Karaite principles of faith, halakhah, exegesis, philosophy, and sciences. He was a product of the Byzantine Greek-speaking Karaite society and a contemporary of the enormous wave of immigration in the Ottoman Empire of Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula who brought with them new intellectual trends that influenced his views and thought. His writings include fragments that contain anti-Christian polemics that have remained beyond the scope of scholarly research. Afendopolo’s polemical discourse addresses mainly heresiographic and legal issues based on historical arguments. His approach demonstrates a striking gap between a surprisingly positive image of the historical Jesus and fierce criticism of Christianity, encompassing some of its contemporary practices. The present study aims to reconstruct his perspective of Christianity in the context of major Rabbanite and especially Karaite polemical tendencies. For the first time, this article also presents fragments of anti-Christian polemics from Afendopolo’s works.
Moses Naḥmanides’s complex relationship in his commentary to the Torah with the two great Jewish Bible commentators who preceded him—Rashi and Ibn Ezra—is well known. As he declares in the introductory poem to the commentary, he does not treat them equally. He grants Rashi “the right of the first-born,” relegating Ibn Ezra to second place, and that his relationship with Ibn Ezra will be far more fraught—one of “open rebuke and hidden love.” This article maintains, however, that neither Naḥmanides’s stated preference for Rashi nor his sharp criticism of Ibn Ezra reflects his original exegetical stance. At the outset of his interpretive career, it was in fact Ibn Ezra who commanded Naḥmanides’s special admiration. Ibn Ezra’s commentary—not Rashi’s—served as the point of departure for Naḥmanides’s earliest exegetical work. Rashi’s influence entered Naḥmanides’s corpus only gradually, forming part of the larger cultural transformation he experienced as his intellectual orientation shifted from Andalusia to northern France.
Maimonides surpassed his Andalusian predecessors in the realms of Halakhah and philosophy but, unlike them, was not known as a poet and expressed opposition to both secular and liturgical poetry. However, we do find a piyyut attributed to him in the high holiday mahzor of the Sephardic and Eastern rites. The poem is analyzed and shown to be structured around Maimonides’s “Laws of Repentance.” It is suggested that Maimonides felt compelled to counter regnant theories of vicarious atonement; to highlight teshuvah (repentance), the path to prophecy; and to effect redemption at a time when Maimonides felt that the eschaton was nigh.
This essay examines a responsa by Moses Schreiber (Ḥatam Sofer) in which he addresses the implications of print and mechanical reproduction for Jewish books. Schreiber’s approach to print is strikingly ambivalent. On the one hand, he was an active and influential figure in the world of Hebrew printing—regulating printing activity, supporting publishers, endorsing books, and writing haskamot (approbations). On the other hand, he adamantly refused to allow his own writings to be printed. While scholarship on Schreiber has noted and documented this refusal, the present essay offers an additional layer of interpretation. I argue that Schreiber’s objections to the printing of his own work open a window onto his working methods and his views on scholarship and knowledge. Reading his responsa through two conceptual frameworks—migrating knowledge and the history of the book—this essay explores questions of the creation, transmission, and transformation of knowledge; the contrasting qualities attributed to hand-copied and press-printed texts; and the perceived fixity of the printed book and its impact on scholarly practice.
In the final third of the twentieth century the interpersonal ties between Moroccan Jewish migrants and their homeland significantly diminished due to migration patterns that effectively ended Jewish community life in Morocco. This shift led to the creation of Moroccan Jewish diaspora organizations, which fostered new community networks that became “melting pots” for the reconstructed memories of Morocco among migrants in their new places of residence. This study focuses on first-generation Jewish-Moroccan immigrants to Venezuela from 1970 to 2000. It builds on the idea that nostalgia—a selective process of remembering or creating a “place of memory” (lieu de mémoire)—played a crucial role in shaping a highly contextualized memory of their Moroccan homeland, culminating in homogenized, collective narratives of Moroccan Jewish history. The research also explores the complex social and cultural mechanisms that contributed to the homogenization of space and time in nostalgic recollections. By juxtaposing dominant narratives of reattachment to Morocco with those of Jewish disengagement from Arab-Muslim lands, the study highlights the role of nostalgia in shaping the temporal and spatial frames of displacement narratives within immigrant communities. It highlights the importance of understanding the formation of collective memory among first-generation immigrants, particularly minority groups undergoing mass relocation, and advocates for a more nuanced approach to these communities’ stories about the places they left behind.
This special issue of Jewish History explores Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) through the lens of time and space. External forces—modernization, colonialism, nationalism, and migration—reshaped temporal and spatial categories, profoundly affecting communal, religious, and social structures. The articles highlight the agency of the Jews operating within these constraints: Jews negotiated with external pressures; and frequently shaping new frameworks of time and space by drawing on, adapting, or critically reworking traditional patterns. From their often-marginalized positions, community members developed strategies in private and hidden spaces—both physical and textual—that fostered continuity and provided avenues for critique of colonial and national authority. In the wake of displacement, whether in countries of origin or in diaspora, Jews constructed mental maps and developed usable narratives to forge a sense of place and identity. These were not merely physical geographies but imagined spaces, shaped by selective memory and imbued with renewed meaning. Together, the articles contribute to a deeper understanding of time and space in Jewish history, particularly in MENA contexts. They present these categories not as static coordinates, but as active, fluid dimensions—central to the formation of identities, memories, worldviews, and strategies for both individual and collective survival.
The late nineteenth century marked a transformative period for diverse communities in the Muslim world, including the Sabbatian Ma’aminim of Ottoman Salonica, commonly known as the Dönme. This article examines the Ma’aminim’s spatial practices and temporal frameworks—focusing in particular on the Izmirli subgroup—to offer a nuanced account of their layered identity and modes of engagement during this era of change. By analyzing sites ranging from homes and schools to hidden venues of worship and marketplaces, alongside messianic rhythms, life cycle rituals, and daily practices, the study highlights how these dimensions shaped their communal life amid processes of integration into a modernizing Ottoman society. Drawing on accounts by European observers and Jewish writers, the article examines how aspects of the Ma’aminim’s covert communal world became visible during this period, emphasizing the interplay between secrecy, public performance, and social transformation. Through the lens of the Ma’aminim’s distinctive experience, the article challenges static or ahistorical portrayals of communal structures, showing how spatial and temporal practices reflected multifaceted intersections of tradition, modernity, and identity. More broadly, it suggests an approach for understanding how communities in the late Ottoman era navigated multiple spaces and temporalities.
Space and time played a crucial role in the social and cultural integration of immigrants living in Israeli transit camps during the 1950s. Over the course of three and a half years, approximately 720,000 immigrants from sixteen countries arrived in Israel. Lacking other options, one-third of them were housed in government-run transit camps, which created a barrier between them and the majority of immigrants who were able to assimilate independently throughout Israel, as well as between transit camp residents and society at large. Based on analysis of archival sources and oral documentation, this article provides insight into the daily lives of transit camp residents, focusing on the key dimensions of space and time. Regarding space, the camps became heterotopic spaces, isolated and separate from their surroundings. With regard to time, daily life within the transit camps operated on a different internal rhythm than the broader process of Israeli nation-building. Additionally, the article touches upon the routine of waiting, the significance of garden spaces within the transit camps, and the disconnect from social and political events outside of the camps.
