Medieval English : Image and Self-Image Pinchas Roth

Early Middle English, Volume 1, Number 1, 2019, pp. 17-33 (Article)

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For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/731651

[ Access provided at 2 Oct 2021 13:24 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] MEDIEVAL ENGLISH RABBIS: IMAGE AND SELF-IMAGE

PINCHAS ROTH

“The neglect of the British situation is explicable largely on the grounds that, compared with other northern, Ashkenazic communities, the Anglo-Jewish community was not perceived to have produced the scholarly superstars so evident in and .”1

tantalizing about the of medieval England. So much about them is unknown, perhaps unknowable, and even those facts that are well known There is something and ostensibly unquestionable have drawn attempts2 There to were bend, no crack, Jewish or communitiesotherwise move in Anglo-Saxonthem. The chronologically England.3 first fact known about this Jewish community is that itHistory came intoof the being Jews onlyin England after the Norman Conquest. 4 The end of the But, medieval as Cecil Anglo-Jewish Roth commented experience on the is first also pageclear—the of his Edict of Expulsion of 1290 did, not“Fantasy allow hasfor any… attempted continued to Jewish carry presencethe story inback England. to a remote5 That hasantiquity.” not stopped various people from believing that Jews continued to live in England for

* Boyarin and Shamma Boyarin for their kind invitation and extraordinary hospitality at the University I am deeply of Victoria. grateful to Menachem Butler for his unflagging help, and to Adrienne Williams 1 Patricia Skinner, “Introduction: Jews in Medieval Britain and Europe,” in The Jews in Medieval Britain: Historical, Literary, and Archaeological Perspectives, ed. P. Skinner (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003), 5. 2 Avrom Saltman, The Jewish Question in 1655: Studies in Prynne’s Demurrer (Ramat-Gan: Bar- Ilan University Press, 1995), 95–100; Joe Hillaby, “The Jewry: William I to John,” Jewish Historical Studies 33 (1992–94): 1–44. The earliest evidence seems to be William of Malmesbury’s traduxerat) from Rouen. William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings, ed. and tangential mention of Jews in London whom William the Conqueror had brought ( 3 Andrew P. Scheil, The Footsteps of : Understanding Jews in Anglo-Saxon England (Ann Arbor: trans. R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998–99), 1:562 (sec. iv:317). University of Michigan Press, 2004), 7; Heide Estes, “Reading Ælfric in the Twelfth Century: Anti- Judaic Doctrine Becomes Anti-Judaic Rhetoric,” in Imagining the Jews in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture, ed. Samantha Zacher (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), 265–79. 4 Cecil Roth, A History of the Jews in England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 1. See further: Shimon Applebaum, “Were There Jews in Roman Britain?,” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England Israel Numismatic Journal 4 (1963): 1; Robin R. Mundill, The King’s Jews: Money, Massacre, and Exodus in Medieval England (London: 17 (1951–52): Continuum, 189–205; 2010), Michael 1–4. Avi-Yonah, “The Melandara Castle Coin,” 5 Robin R. Mundill, England’s Jewish Solution: Experiment and Expulsion, 1262–1290 (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1998). 18 Pinchas Roth centuries, and indeed that all of the goldsmiths, importers, pepperers, moneylenders in fourteenth-century London were secretly Jews.6 This wishful thinking seems to compen- only was the period of time spent by Jews in medieval England brief and episodic, but sate for an underlying fear, expressed by Patricia Skinner in the opening quote—that not way, prevalent attitudes towards medieval English Jewish literature mirror the charac- terizationtheir cultural of Early achievements Middle English during literature that period as were“one insignificantof the dullest and and mediocre. least accessible In this intervals in standard literary history, an incoherent, intractable, impenetrable dark age scarcely redeemed by a handful of highlights.”7 royal archives teach a great deal about one aspect of the Jewish presence in England. The thousands of Latin documents preserved in the Exchequer of the Jews and other almost never afford even a glimpse of the day-to-day life of the Jews, or what the Jews themselvesAlthough they thought. provided To enormousunderstand detail how aboutEnglish financial Jews saw dealings themselves, involving we Jews,must turnthey to their own works. Rabbinic8 texts are inherently intertextual, explicating and echoing classic texts from the Bible and the . By reading medieval rabbinic English works closely, within and against their literary and historical context, we can salvage some traces of their authors’ self-image. From there we will turn to the ways in which that image was re-shaped by modern writers to suit their varying needs.

Medieval Self-Image The Jewish scholars of medieval England included the authors of several grammatical works, and a single poet, Meir ben Elijah of Norwich, whose liturgical compositions have received a great deal of academic attention.9 Grammar is not usually very reveal-

6 Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman and Donald N. Yates, The Early Jews and Muslims of England and Wales: A Genetic and Genealogical History (Jefferson: McFarland, 2014), 206. 7 Thomas Hahn, “Early Middle English,” The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 61. 8 “[C]ould something happen between Christian and Jew that might yield a story other than

Christians?”—Jeffrey Cohen, “The Future of the Jews of York,” in Christians and Jews in Angevin England:the timeless The one York provided Massacre by of the 1190 temporally Narratives rigidified and Contexts Jew, whose, ed. Sarah narrative Rees is Jones by, for and and Sethina about

9 See the description of ben Isaac of London’s Sepher ha-Shoham (a Hebrew grammar and Watson (York: York Medieval Press, 2013), 283. lexicon) as the “[m]ost important literary production of an English Jew before the Expulsion”— Joseph Jacobs and Lucien Wolf, Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica: A Bibliographical Guide to Anglo- The Sepher Hashoham (The Onyx Book) by Moses ben Isaac Hanessiah, ed. Benjamin Klar (London: Jewish Historical Society of(London: England, Jewish 1947). Chronicle, See also Ilan1888), Eldar, 17. “The The Grammaticalwork was published Literature as of Medieval Ashkenazi Jewry,” in Hebrew in Ashkenaz: A Language in Exile, ed. Lewis Glinert (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 26–45, at 35–36 and 39–41; Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, “Sefer ha-Shoham (le Livre

1260),” in En mémoire de Sophie Kessler Mesguich: études Juives, linguistique et philologie sémitiques, d'Onyx), Dictionnaire de l'Hébreu biblique de Moï�se ben Isaac ben ha-Nessiya (Angleterre, vers see Abraham Berliner, Hebräische Poesien des Meir ben Elia aus Norwich ed. Jean Baumgarten et al. (Paris: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2012), 183–98. On Meir of Norwich (London: Nutt, 1887); M. D. 19 Medieval English Rabbis ing, nor are Meir of Norwich’s poems particularly rich in historical detail. There are two areas, however, in which we possess a large body of writings by roughly a dozen different English rabbis. These are discussions of Jewish law (Halakhah) and comments on the Bible that became, for the most part, embedded within the rabbinic heritage of medieval France and Germany. Often, comments by English rabbis were copied in the margins of classic works such as Isaac of Corbeil’s Sefer Mitzvot Katan (Small Book of Commandments) or ’s eponymous legal anthology from late thir- teenth-century Germany.10 the printed editions of those works, and thus into the mainstream of modern rabbinic knowledge. These passages Somethrow oflight those on theglosses ways subsequently in which medieval found English their way rabbinic into scholars perceived themselves and their place in the world—both in their immediate geographic context, in relation to the Christian majority society, and vis-à-vis the larger Jewish communities on the Continent. In 1201, King John famously declared the Jews to be “our property.”11 An exegetical passage, probably attributed to an important Cambridge Jew who lived at the beginning of the thirteenth century, may provide a glimpse of the Jewish response to this declara- tion.12 By 1194, Benjamin of Cambridge was the wealthiest Jew in Cambridge, and before that he probably studied in Champagne with Jacob Tam, who died in 1171.13 In a collection of biblical exegesis from medieval France, a tense conversation is described between Rabbi Benjamin and a Christian:14

Davis, “Meir ben Elias of Norwich,” The Jewish Standard The Jews of Medieval Norwich (London: Jewish Historical Society of England, 1967), Hebrew section; Susan L. Einbinder, “Meir b. Elijah of Norwich: Persecution, June and 29, Poetry 1888, Among7; Vivian Medieval D. Lipman, English Jews,” Journal of Medieval History 26 (2000): 145–62; Miriamne Ara Krummel, Crafting Jewishness in Medieval England: Legally Absent, Virtually Present (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 49–67; Into the Light: The Medieval Hebrew Poetry of Meir of Norwich, trans. Ellman Crasnow and Bente Elsworth, intro. Keiron Pim (Norwich: East, 2013). 10 See, for example, the rulings of Isaac of Northampton, found in a manuscript copy of Sefer Mordechai. See Pinchas Roth, “New by Isaac ben Peretz of Northampton,” Jewish Historical Studies 46 (2014): 1–17. 11 Robert Chazan, Church State and Jew in the Middle Ages I. Schechter, “The Rightlessness of Mediaeval English Jewry,” Jewish Quarterly Review 4 (1913): 121–51; J. A. Watt, “The Jews, the Law, and the Church: The Concept (New York: of Jewish Berhman, Serfdom 1980), in Thirteenth- 79; Frank Century England,” in The Church and Sovereignty c. 590–1918: Essays in Honour of Michael Wilks, ed. of Jewish Service in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century England,” in Christians and Jews in Angevin England:Diana Wood The (London: York Massacre Ecclesiastical of 1190: History Narratives Society, and 1991), Contexts 153–72;, ed. Sarah Anna ReesSapir JonesAbulafia, and “Notions Sethina Watson (York: York Medieval Press, 2013), 204–21; Julie L. Mell, The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 237–316. These scholars have debated the

12 For a different example, see Ivan G. Marcus, “Why Is this Knight Different? A Jewish Self- precise legal meaning of the words, but here we are concerned with their social significance. Representation in Medieval Europe,” in Tov Elem: Memory, Community and Gender in Medieval and Early Modern Jewish Societies: Essays in Honor of Robert Bonfil, ed. Elisheva Baumgarten, Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, and Roni Weinstein (: Bialik, 2011), 139–52. 13 R. Barrie Dobson, The Jewish Communities of Medieval England 14 Hadar Zekenim (York: Borthwick, 2010), 108. (Livorno: Moses Yeshuah Tobianah, 1840), 57r (on Numbers 15); Oxford, 20 Pinchas Roth מין א' שאל אל ה"ר בנימן שוטה מה לכם לעשות קשרים ולתלות ח' חוטין בכנפי כסותכם. השיב לו ראה מה כתיב למעלה בפרש' מקושש אמר משה לפני הקב"ה רבש"ע איך יזכרו ישראל מן השבת ואינו אלא יום א' בשבוע מיד צוה לו הקב"ה פרשת הציצית וכתוב בה למען תזכרו שהוא סימן שאנחנו עבדים להקב"ה כאדם שעושה קשר ברצועתו להיות נזכר בדבר. וכדרך שהאדונים עושים סימן לעבדיהם בטליתם שלא יברחו. ומתוך שאנחנו מביטים בו זוכרים אנחנו מצות הקב"ה. A Christian (min) asked Rabbi Benjamin: Fool! Why do you tie knots and hang strings on the edges of your clothing? He responded: See what comes before—the story of the wood- gatherer [on Shabbat]. Moses said to God: Lord of the world, how can Israel remember Shabbat, which is only once a week? So God gave him the commandment of , about which it says “So that you will remember”—it is a sign that we are servants of God. Like a man who ties a knot in his belt to remind himself of something. And like masters who make a sign on the clothes of their servants so that they will not escape. When we look at it, we remember God’s commandment. The foundations of this passage lie in classic literature (rabbinic exegesis from the sixth to ninth centuries), which reads Numbers 15:37–41 about the fringes which the people of Israel are commanded to hang from their clothes in light of the preced- ing passage (verses 32–36) about a man who violated the Sabbath by collecting wood. Earlier interpretations found a range of associative connections between the verses, and emphasized the role of the tzitzit in reminding the Israelite of his religious obligations.15 For example, according to Lekah Tov, an eleventh-century commentary from Byzantium, Moses defended the wood-gatherer by explaining to God that he simply forgot about the prohibitions of the Sabbath day, to which God responded by telling the people of Israel to make themselves a reminder so that they would not forget.16 Benjamin’s account, however, was not a simple exegetical discussion; it was a con- frontation with a Christian who ridiculed Jewish observance of the tzitzit command- ment.17 second metaphor.Rabbi Benjamin Rather responded than serving by invokingas a reminder, the exegetical tzitzit are question a marker of ofcontext Jewishness. found Whilein earlier a man sources, who tiesbut ahis knot answer in his to belt that is question trying to tookremind it in only a new himself, direction the masterby adding who a

Bodleian Library, MS Or. 604, f. 69v. On these collection of biblical commentaries and others like them, see Israel Lévi, “Manuscrits du Hadar Zekénim,” Revue des Études Juives 49 (1904): 33–50; Midrash Unbound: Transformations and Innovations, ed. Michael Fishbane and Joanna Weinberg (Oxford: Ephraim Kanarfogel, “Midrashic Texts and Methods in Tosafist Commentaries,” in 46, f. 104v. Littman Library, 2013), 257–309. The story is also told briefly in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Mich. 15 Menahem Mendel Kasher, Torah Shelemah: Talmudic-Midrashic Encyclopedia on the Pentateuch (Jerusalem: Torah Shelemah, 1927–92), vol. 39, 217. 16 Tuviah ben Eliezer, Midrash Lekah Tov: Numbers 17 It is not entirely clear that medieval Jews in northern Europe wore tzitzit. Ephraim Kanarfogel, , ed. Aharon Moses Padua (Vilna: Rohm, 1880), 223. “Rabbinic Attitudes toward Nonobservance in the Medieval Period,” in Jewish Tradition and the Nontraditional Jew, ed. Jacob J. Schacter (Northvale: Jason Aronson, 1990), 7–13; David Malkiel, Reconstructing Ashkenaz: The Human Face of Franco-German Jewry, 1000–1250 (Stanford: Stanford Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz: Men, Women, and Everyday Religious Observance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014),University 149–55. Press, 2009), 184–86; Elisheva Baumgarten, 21 Medieval English Rabbis placed his mark on the clothes of his servant was speaking to the general public. It was not only lest the servant forget who his master is, but for the rest of society who would see the servant and be mindful of his lord. Servants of noble English households were indeed beginning to wear livery bearing their master’s symbol. If such a servant tried to escape, passersby could easily identify him and return him18 to his master. The con- verse is not said, but is implied—if some passerby tried to claim this servant for himself, the master’s mark on the servant’s clothes would reveal him as a thief. This novel emphasis on clothing as the marker of a servant, introduced by Benjamin of Cambridge into an existing midrashic mould, may be read as his attempt to respond to contemporary legal realities. As the King of England claimed the Jews as his own prop- erty, Benjamin asserted that the fringes on their clothes marked the English Jews as ser- vants of God—and not servi camerae. The self-image of English Jews was at odds not only with their image in the eyes of English Christians, but also with the way they were seen by Jews in other regions. Medi- eval German Jews perceived the Jews of England as an extension of the French Jewish - many, but it lives on in scholarship to this day.19 In fact, subtle but meaningful cultural differencescommunity. existedThis perception between ignoredthe Jewish the communitiessignificant ties in between each of theseEnglish three Jews regions— and Ger Germany, France, and England.20 - sum by Meir ben Baruch of Rothenburg (d. 1293), the most important German rabbinic authorityOne example of the thirteenthof the equation century. between According English to and classic French rabbinic Jewry islaw, found a married in a respon man cannot force his wife to move from one land to another, but within the same land, he can force her to move to a different city.21 The Rabbis delineated the “three lands” in their region—Judea, Galilee, and Transjordan. was asked how to apply this rule to his own time. He responded:22

18 English Historical Review The Livery Collar in Late Medieval England and Wales: Politics, Identity,Frédérique and Affinity Lachaud, (Woodbridge: “Liveries ofBoydell, Robes 2016).in England, c. 1200–c. 1330,” 111 (1996): 279–98; Matthew Ward, 19 For examples of such ties see David Kaufmann, “Three Centuries of the Genealogy of the Most Eminent Anglo-Jewish Family before 1290,” Jewish Quarterly Review Crispin, Disputatio Iudei et Christiani, section 4, in The Works of Gilbert Crispin, Abbot of Westminster, 3 (1891): 555–66; Gilbert Family, Commerce, and Religion in London and Cologne: Anglo-German Emigrants, c. 1000–c. 1300 ed. Anna Sapir Abulafia and G. R. Evans (London: British Academy, 1986), 9; TeshuvotJoseph P. maharamHuffman, me-Rotenburg ve-haverav (Responsa of Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg and his Colleagues) (Hebrew; (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 77–80; Simcha Emanuel, 20 For a recent survey of the differences between French and German medieval Jewry, see Ephraim Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 2012), 684–88. Regional Identities and Cultures of Medieval Jews, ed. Talya Fishman, Ephraim Kanarfogel, and Javier Kanarfogel, “From German to Northern France and Back Again: A Tale of Two Tosafist Centres,” in 21 Ketubot 13:10. Castaño (London: Littman Library, 2018), 149–71. 22 Meir ben Baruch, Responsa (Cremona: Vincenzo Conti, 1657), no. 117. 22 Pinchas Roth נראה דצרפת וארץ האי ואשכנז וארץ כנען חלוקים לארצות, כיון שחלוקים בלשונם. It seems that France and the Land of the Island, and Ashkenaz, and the Land of Canaan are divided into lands, because they are divided in their language. Meir of Rothenburg emphasized the linguistic criterion because, as he went on to point out, adopting political borders as the relevant criterion would create too many divisions (and, by implication, making it impossible for a husband to force his wife to move any- where beyond her home town).23 All of the German-speaking areas were to be consid- ered a single land, as were the Slavic regions (known collectively as Canaan).24 Likewise France and England (“The Land of the Island”), even though divided politically and even geographically, ought to be considered a single region for marriage, since they shared the same language.25 A more striking statement identifying the Jews of France and England as a single entity was written by another thirteenth-century German scholar, a disciple and rela- tive of Samuel of Bamberg whose name is unknown. This scholar composed a commen- tary on the prayer book in the spirit of the German Pietists, Haside Ashkenaz, a small sub-group of mystics and ascetics that formed around Judah the Pietist of Regensburg and Eleazar Rokeah of Worms.26 aspects of the Hebrew prayers—the number of words or letters in each section of the prayer order.27 This particular author The Pietists pushed found those hidden calculations significance to a polemical in the numerical extreme

23 “For if you come to say that Saxony and Francia and Alsace and Rhine and Bavaria and so on are considered separate lands, how could it be that the land of Israel, which measured 400 parsangs by 400 parsangs, had only three lands?” (Meir ben Baruch, Responsa, ibid.). 24 Brad Sabin Hill, “Judeo-Slavic,” in Handbook of Jewish Languages, ed. Lily Kahn and Aaron D. Rubin (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 599–617. 25 There is abundant evidence that Jews in medieval England spoke Anglo-Norman, and I am not aware of any evidence that they spoke English. Kirsten Fudeman, Vernacular Voices: Language and Identity in Medieval French Jewish Communities (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 10–11; Eva de Visscher, “Hebrew, Latin, French, English: Multilingualism in Jewish-Christian Encounters,” in Multilingualism in Medieval Britain: Texts and Sources, ed. Judith Jefferson and

Médiévales alsoAd Putter Judith (Turnhout: Olszowy-Schlanger, Brepols, 2013),Hebrew 89–103; and Hebrew-Latin David Trotter, Documents “Peut-on from parler Medieval de Judéo England:-Anglo A- DiplomaticNormand? andTextes Palaeographical Anglo-Normands Study en (Turnhout: écriture Hébra Brepols,ï�que,” 2015), 103 (“English 68 (2015): is very 25–34. rare, andSee appears in proper names and names of professions”); Abraham Schischa, “Review of Tosafoth Chachmei Anglia,” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England: Miscellanies 9 (1974): Some scholars have, however, insisted that these Jews must have .(לשון אינגלייש 224n9 (one word in known English, at least as a spoken language. David J. Wasserstein, “The Written Culture of the Jews of Norman England 1066–1290,” Parcours Judaïques 6 (2000): 47–60. 26 of Haside Ashkenaz about the Text of the Prayer), Mehqerei Talmud 3 (2005): 591–625. On the AshkenazicSimcha Pietists,Emanuel, see “Ha Ivan-pulmus G. Marcus, shel HasidePiety and Ashkenaz Society: alThe nusah Jewish ha Pietists-tefillah” of Medieval(The Controversy Germany A Remembrance of His Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017). (Leiden: Brill, 1981); David Shyovitz, 27 shel haside Ashkenaz” (Prayer in the Thought of the Ashkenazic Pietists), in Sefer Yeshurun, ed. On the prayer mysticism of Judah the Pious, see Avraham Grossman, “Ha-Tefillah be-mishnatam 23 Medieval English Rabbis by claiming that alternative versions of the prayer texts recited by Jewish communities outside of Germany were illegitimate because they changed the number of words and wrote: letters—thus28 erasing their mystical significance. In one particularly harsh section he תפלה של ראש השנה כתובה על הסדר ועליה אין להוסיף ואין לגרוע אפילו תיבה אחת כי הועתקה מפירושי כתב ידו של רבנו יהודה החסיד בן רבנו שמואל החסיד קדוש ונביא בן רבנו קלונימוס הזקן בן רבנו יצחק בן רבנו אליעזר הגדול. והמוסיף והגורע בה אפילו אות אחת תפלתו אינה נשמעת כי כולה במידה ובמשקל באותיות ובתיבות וסודות רבים יוצאין ממנה וכל ירא השם יזהר בה מלפחות ומלהוסיף ולא ישמע אל צרפתים ואנשי איי הים שמוסיפים כמה וכמה תיבות כי אין רוח חכמה נוחה בהם כי לא נמסרו להם טעמי תפלה והסודות כי חסידים הראשונים היו גונזין הסודות והטעמים עד שבא רבנו הקדוש רבנו יהודה חסיד זצ"ל והוא מסרם לאנשי משפחתו החסידים בכתב ובעל פה ישלם השם פעלו 'ותהי משכורתו שלימה מעם יי אלהי ישר‘. The prayer for Rosh ha-Shanah (New Year) is written in order, and nothing may be added or subtracted—even one word—because it was copied from the autograph commen- tary of Rabenu (our Rabbi) Judah the Pious son of Rabenu Samuel the Pious, saint and prophet, son of Rabenu Kalonymos the Elder son of Rabenu Isaac son of Rabenu Eliezer the Great. Anyone who adds or subtracts even one letter, his prayer will not be heard, because it is all measured and weighed, the letters and words. Many secrets emanate from it, and whoever fears God must beware of omitting or adding. He should not heed the French and the men of the islands of the sea, who add several words, because the spirit of wisdom is unpleased by them, because they did not receive the reasons for the prayer and the secrets. Because the early Pietists would hide the secrets and the reasons, until our holy rabbi, Rabenu Judah the Pious, the memory of the righteous is a blessing. He passed them on to the pious members of his family, in writing and orally, may God repay his effort and may his remuneration from the Lord of Israel be complete. Judah the Pious represented, for this writer, the ultimate source of authentic mysti- cal prayer traditions. Providing the counterweight as those who change the words of

French and the men of the islands of the sea.” The German Pietists had directed some ofthe their prayers, harshest without criticism, regard and for occasional the esoteric ridicule, significance at the lostrabbinic in the scholars process, of were northern “the

Tosafot).29 Francecraved traditionalism(known as the and Tosafists simplicity. for their Haside commentaries Ashkenaz watched on the with Talmud, dismay referred and envy to as While the Tosafists valourized intellectual acuity and innovation, the Pietists the hare to the German Pietist tortoise. Lumping the Jews of England in with the French, asthe this Tosafists thirteenth-century swept along generations polemicist did, of enthusiastic was meant asyoung an insult students. to the “The English. French” were

Michael Shashar (Jerusalem: Shashar, 1999), 27–56; Talya Fishman, “Rhineland Pietist Approaches to Prayer and the Textualization of Rabbinic Culture in Medieval Northern Europe,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 11 (2004): 313–31. 28 29 Haym Soloveitchik, “Three Themes in the Sefer Hasidim,” AJS Review 1 (1976): 311–57; Israel Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Can. Or. 86, f. 49r. Ta-Shma, Halakhah u-metsi’ut be-Ashkenaz 1000–1350 (Ritual, Custom, and Reality in Franco-Germany, 1000–1350) (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2000), 112–29. 24 Pinchas Roth On their own terms, however, English Jews were distinct from their French breth- 30 They did not hesitate to dis- agree with French rabbis, even with the most prestigious among them. Moses of London, aren, very notwithstanding powerful member their of significant the Jewish ties community and similarities. and the leading rabbinic scholar in England during the mid-thirteenth century, boasted of his argument with Yehiel of Paris, 31

מעשה בא לידינו בראובן שמת והניח רחל אלמנה ובן קטן... :time וישבו his ב"דof וישבתי Tosafist בדין עם הר"ר prominent יצחקthe most ב"ש והר"ר יוסף דשיילי... ושלחתי כתב מגילה עתה ]צריך להיות: עפה[ בפריש מזה, והר"ר שלמה ב"ר שמואל מכרך טיירי שלח כדברי כתב גדול, והר"ר יחיאל היה חולק עלי ואמ' כי לעולם נכסי בחזקת יתמי, ומאד האריכו וכתבם בידי. ומאד יש לגבב דברי' על זה, ואין פנאי להאריך למו' הרב לפי כבודו. ושלו' יגדל נצח כנ' אוהבו משה בן הר' י"ט עמש"י.

and a court was convened, and I sat in judgement with Rabbi Isaac b. S. and Rabbi Joseph A case came before us, of Reuben who died leaving his widow32 Rabbi Rachel Samuel and ben a smallSolomon son of… Château-Thierry responded with a long letter in agreement with me, and Rabbi Yehiel (ofof Saulieu Paris) disagreed … and I sent with a “flyingme. They scroll” were about exceedingly it to Paris. lengthy, and I have their letters, and there are many arguments that can be gathered against them, but there is not enough

forever—your friend, Moses ben Rabbi Yom Tov, may he rest in peace. time to respond at length as befits (you), our teacher the Rabbi. May your peace increase - power.Moses 33of London and his son Elijah Menahem were dominant figures within the medi eval English rabbinic community, wielding significant political, financial, and intellectual ignored other They rabbinicsaw themselves cultures. as34 autonomous within the confines of that community, andJewish as scribesequals toin France,the rabbis Germany, of France. Switzerland, French rabbis and may chose have to ignored incorporate them, the as comthey- ments of Moses, Elijah, and their Butcompatriots throughout into the their fourteenth miscellanies and fifteenth and glosses, centuries, pre- serving and ossifying the medieval English rabbis in the margins of a larger European rabbinic identity.

30 Pinchas Roth and Ethan Zadoff, “The Talmudic Community of Thirteenth-Century England,” in Christians and Jews in Angevin England: The York Massacre of 1190, Narratives and Contexts, ed.

31 Sefer mitzvot katan Sarah Rees Jones and Sethina Watson (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2013), 184–203. by Simcha Emanuel as Shivre luhot: sefarim avudim shel ba’ale ha- (Fragments of the Tablets: Lost Books of the Tosaphists), London, (Hebrew; British Jerusalem: Library, MS Magnes Additional Press, 26982, 2006), f. 190.44r (margin),See further published Pinchas Roth, “Jewish Courts in Medieval England,” Jewish History 32 Cf. Zech. 5, 1. 31 (2017): 77–78. 33 Cecil Roth, “Elijah of London: The Most Illustrious English Jew of the Middle Ages,” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 15 (1939–45): 29–62; Joe Hillaby, “London: The 13th- Century Jewry Revisited,” Jewish Historical Studies “Rabbi Elias Menahem: A Late-13th-Century English Entrepreneur,” Jewish Historical Studies 34 32 (1990–92): 89–158; Robin R. Mundill, 34 Israel Ta-Shma, Creativity and Tradition: Studies in Medieval Rabbinic Scholarship (Cambridge: (1994–96): 161–87; Roth and Zadoff, “The Talmudic Community.”

Harvard University Press, 2006), 80–86. 25 Medieval English Rabbis Modern Image By the sixteenth century, the rabbis of England had faded entirely from Jewish memory. Rabbi Elijah Mizrahi (d. ca. 1526), an important leader of the Romaniote (Greek speak- ing) Jews in Constantinople, came across a responsum written by Moses ben Yom Tov of London to Moses of Evreux.35 The opinion voiced by Moses of London, that a divorce writ delivered to a woman by messenger at night was valid, stood in opposition to the other medieval authorities that Mizrahi was familiar with, who considered such a divorce invalid because it was handed over at night, a time when judgement cannot be rendered. Mizrahi upheld the majority opinion, dismissing Moses of London as an outlier:36 ולא אשכחן לשום אחד מכל הפוסקים שיחלק בזה מלבד מה שנמצא בהגהה אחת משם הר"ם בן הרי"ט דלעיל דלא דיקא כלל כדפרשית וגם לא נזכר שמו בשום חבור ולא בשום מאמר של שום פוסק כלל. - fying a divorce delivered at night] except for a gloss in the name of Rabbi M[oses] ben Y[om]We have T[ov] not which,found aas single I wrote one earlier, of the is decisors entirely who unreliable. disagreed Besides, with histhis name [ruling is notdisquali men- tioned in any of the books or in any statement by any decisor at all. For Mizrahi, Moses of London’s descent into oblivion was itself a reason to ignore his rulings. If his opinions had, in general, been ignored by generations of rabbinic scholars, this was presumably not the result of a historical accident, but because his rabbinic scholarship was not worthy of becoming part of the tradition.37 Perhaps the most poignant illustration of the effaced memory of the medieval Eng- lish rabbis is found in Shoshan Yesod ha-Olam, a manuscript volume of Jewish magic (practical ) compiled by Joseph Tirshom in the Ottoman Empire sometime between 1510 and1530. Among the thousands of recipes and incantations recorded in the book are several that38 are attributed to Elijah of London, including one that begins with the following introduction:39

35 Sefer mayim amukim (Venice: Vendramin, 1647), 33d–34a, no. 36 (in later editions: 37): “A Responsum to Rabbi M[oses] of Evreux, and It Is Written in HisMizr Tosafotahi quoted around the Alfas, responsum First Chapter in full of inGittin.” The text is in fact found in the margins of Sefer hilkhot alfas the basis of that manuscript by Moses Judah Blau, Shitat ha-kadmonim al masekhet kiddushin (New York: Blau, 1970),, Paris, 344. Bibliothèque See Yacov nationaleFuchs, “Ms de Mantova France, 30,” MS Tarbizhéb. 314, f. 137r, and was published on 36 Elijah Mizrahi, Teshuvot she’elot 79 (2010–11): 389–412, at 392. 37 For a similar approach to any rabbinic positions not preserved within the printed corpus of (Constantinople: Jabetz, 1561), no. 82 (in later editions: 84). halakhic literature, see Zvi Yehuda, “Hazon Ish on Textual Criticism and ,” Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought Textual Criticism and Halakhah: A Rejoinder,” Tradition Role of Manuscripts in Halakhic Decision-Making: 18 (1980): 172–80; Hazon Ish,Sid His(Shnayer) Precursors Z. Leiman, and Contemporaries,” “Hazon Ish on Tradition 27 (1993): 22–55. 19 (1981): 301–10; Moshe A. Bleich, “The 38 For a description of the contents, see Meir Benayahu, “Sefer shoshan yesod ha-olam le-rabbi Yosef Tirshom” (The Book Shoshan Yesod ha-Olam by Rabbi Yosef Tirshom), Temirin 1 (1972):

39 Geneva, Library of Geneva, MS Comites Latentes 145 (formerly: Sassoon 290), 379, sec. 1001. 187–269. For descriptions of the manuscript, see David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel Dawid: Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London (London: Oxford University 26 Pinchas Roth סדר השאלה כמו שקבל מרקוש מר' יוסף ב"ר אברהם מאלימנה אשר בלוניל ומן הרב ר' אליהו מלונדריש בן ר' משה יצ"ו. וזהו מעשהו. בתחלת המעשה ישב בתענית ג' ימים רצופים ויטבול בכל יום מהתענית ויפרוש מדרכי העולם ככל יכלתו ובאותן ג' ימים יכתוב שמות כדי להרגיל עצמו בקריאתם. ומכאן תתחיל. מצאתי וזהו השם החקוק על מצח אהרן והוא הש' האמיתי מן ד' אותיות ועל תקון הנקוד נעשה שבעה אותיות.

ben Abraham of Allemagne which is in Lunel, and from Rabbi Elijah of London ben Rabbi Moses,The procedure may God for protect asking him. a question At the [frombeginning God], of as the received procedure, by Marcus he should from fastRabbi for Joseph three consecutive days, immersing each day and avoiding the ways of the world as much as he can. During those three days he should write [divine] names in order to practice their recitation. Then he can begin. I found: this is the [divine] name that was inscribed on Aaron’s forehead, and it is the true Tetragrammaton. Spelled out with the niqqud (ortho- graphical pointing), it becomes seven letters. of Ashkenazic and Castilian Kabbalah.40 There was a thirteenth-century rabbi named TheJoseph magical ben Abraham techniques who prescribed lived at least in this part recipe of his stem life in from Germany the linguistic (“Allemagne”) mysticism and whose name appears here and there in medieval Ashkenazic works.41 However, the ref- erence to “Allemagne which is in Lunel” is obviously inaccurate, combining places from northern and southern Europe. Many Jewish mystics were in the habit of posthumously recruiting the names of obscure medieval rabbis in order to add an element of authen- 42 That is clearly the case here. Plucked from the margins of medieval manuscripts and just familiar enough to an educated Jewishticity and reader antiquity to trigger to their a vague pronouncements. sense of recognition, the name of Elijah Menahem of London was inserted into this magical corpus in order to lend some additional mystery to an unattributed magical recipe.43

Press, 1932), 443–46; Gideon Bohak, Sefer Keshafim yehudi meha-me’ah ha-t.v. (A Fifteenth-Century Manuscript of Jewish Magic: MS New York Public Library, Heb. 190) (Los Angeles: Cherub, 2014), 27; Justine Isserles, Catalogue des manuscrits Hébreux de la bibliothèque de Genève (Geneva: Ohel Dawid, 445, and noted by A. Marmorstein, “Some Hitherto Unknown Jewish Scholars of Angevin England,”Bibliothèque Jewish de QuarterlyGenève, 2016), Review 243–61. This passage was partially transcribed by Sassoon, 40 A very similar formulation—but without the names of the tradents—is found in London, British 19 (1928): 32. Library, MS Additional 15299, f. 44r. The London manuscript was copied in Germany or Italy in the fourteenth century (https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/kabbalistic-collectaneum-add- ms-15299). See also Moshe Idel, “Incantations, Lists and Gates of Sermons in the Circle of Rabbi Tarbiz 41 Emanuel, Fragments of the Tablets Nehemiah ben Shlomo the Prophet and their Influences,” 77 (2008): 475–554 (Hebrew). 42 Ephraim Kanarfogel, “Rabbinic Figures in Castilian Kabbalistic Pseudepigraphy: R. Yehudah , 216–18. he-Hasid and R. Elhanan of Corbeil,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 3 (1993): 77–109; Bohak, A Fifteenth-Century Manuscript of Jewish Magic, 21. 43 Roth, “Elijah of London,” 52–53; Ephraim Kanarfogel, Peering Through the Lattices: Mystical, Magical, and Pietistic Dimensions in the Tosafist Period (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2000), 232–333; Amos Goldreich, Shem ha-kotev u-khetivah otomatit be-sifrut ha-Zohar uva- Modernizm (Automatic Writing in Zoharic Literature and Modernism) (Los Angeles: Cherub, 2010),

289–302, all take the attribution to Elijah Menahem at face value. 27 Medieval English Rabbis

Portuguese Jews, many of whom had converted at some point in their family histories The first Jews to resettle in England after the 1290 expulsion were Spanish and Sefarad— and Portugal, and as proud heirs to a heritage from another place and time.to Christianity.44 These descendants They all identified of refugees themselves and converts as Sephardim, were in fact from notorious, the communities throughout of their diaspora, for their superior attitude towards other Jewish cultures that they came across.45 It is not surprising that they showed no interest in the Jewish community that had existed in England centuries before, for it was a community that had, to their knowl- 46 By the nineteenth century, the Jewish presence in England was both more natural- edge,ized and no bearingmore varied. whatsoever Waves on of their immigration own self -haddefinition given theas Spanish Jewish -populationPortuguese aJews. more Eastern European character, but also a diminished sense of clear identity. It was in that

Anglo-Jewry for a modern audience.47 - context that the first attempts were Aguilar’s made by family English were Jews Spanish-Portuguese to tell the story of Jews,medieval and many of her publications were dedicated48 One to of glorifying the first accounts that community. was published49 Her account anony mouslyof the history by Grace of theAguilar Jews in of 1847. England tried to play up its positive aspects, but at least in its medieval portion, was a prime example of what Salo Baron famously called “lach- rymose” Jewish history.50 Drawn exclusively from Latin sources, it was an account of Jewish suffering in England, referring to those Jews as hapless, miserable, inoffensive, and unobtrusive.51 By contrast, “[i]n Spain and Portugal [the Jews] had always held the

44 Todd. M. Endelman, The Jews of Britain, 1656 to 2000 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 30–33. 45 Eleazar Gutwirth, “Sephardi Culture of the Cairo People (Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries),” Michael: On the History of the Jews in the Diaspora 14 (1997): 9–34; Jonathan Ray, After Expulsion: 1492 and the Making of Sephardic Jewry (New York: New York University Press, 2013). 46 For Cecil Roth’s attempt to bridge that gap, see Cecil Roth, “The Challenge to Jewish History,” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England Monstrosity’ yet ‘Occasionally Convenient’: Cecil Roth and the Idea of Race,” Patterns of Prejudice 42 14 (1935–39): 3; Elisa Lawson, “‘Scientific 47 (2008): 209–27, at 225–26. JewishOn WomenCelia Moss Writers and herin Britain poem ,“The ed. Nadia Massacre Valman of the (Detroit: Jews at WayneYork,” published State University in 1839, Press, see Cynthia 2014), Scheinberg, “‘And We Are Not What They Have Been’: Anglo-Jewish Women Poets, 1839–1923,” in 48 As “History of the Jews in England,” in Chamber’s Miscellany of Useful and Entertaining Tracts 38–42. Selected Writings, ed. Michael Galchinsky (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2003), 313–53. (Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers, 1847); see Grace Aguilar, 49 Michael Galchinsky, The Origin of the Modern Jewish Woman Writer: Romance and Reform in Victorian England (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996), 135–43; Richa Dwor, Jewish Feeling: Difference and Affect in Nineteenth-Century Jewish Women’s Writing (London: Bloomsbury,

50 Salo Baron, “Ghetto and Emancipation,” The Menorah Journal 2015), 78–84. “Revisiting Baron’s ‘Lachrymose Conception’: The Meanings of Violence in Jewish History,” AJS Review 14 (1928): 515–26; Adam Teller, 51 Aguilar, Selected Writings 38 (2014): 431–39 (with extensive references). , 317, 318, 321. 28 Pinchas Roth more than one instance, was closely connected with Jewish blood.”52 highestIt was offices, only nottowards only in the the end schools of the by nineteenth in the state centuryand the camp;that attempts nay, royalty were itself, made in to professionalize the study of Anglo-Jewish history, in the wake of trends in Western Europe, and to add depth to that history, beyond the by-now familiar narrative of perse- cution.53 - nied by a series of public events, was an ambitious project aiming “to promote a knowl- edge of Anglo-Jewish The Anglo-Jewish History” Historical and through Exhibition, that heldto discover in London new in materials 1887 and for accompa writing that history.54 The Jews of Angevin England. In this magiste- The most significant response to the impetus of the Exhibition was the publicationwhether printed in 1893 or inedited, of Joseph that Jacobs’ relates to the Jews of England up to the year 1206.”55 rial Itswork, truly Jacobs innovative included feature, “every however, scrap of was evidence the inclusion I could offind numerous in the English Hebrew records, texts, translated into English, relating to the Jews of medieval England. As Jacobs explained, he translated many of the Hebrew passages himself, but for the rabbinic texts he relied on the help of Solomon Schechter. An eminent scholar of born in today’s lectured in rabbinics at Cambridge University.56 In acknowledging his debt to Schechter, JacobsRomania, described Schechter the moved way in fromwhich Germany they worked to Great together: Britain Jacobs in 1882 indicated and from to Schechter1890 had those passages that he understood to be relevant to English Jewry, and Schechter then explained them to Jacobs. At that point, Jacobs proceeded to identify the rabbis men-

52 Aguilar, Selected Writings, 324–25. Michael Ragussis, Figures of Conversion: “The Jewish Question” and English National Identity when Aguilar published her ‘History of the Jews in England’ in the popular Chamber’s Miscellany (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 148–49: “Even thein 1847 secret and Jews thereby of Spain realized and Portugal.” the Anglo-Jewish writer’s authority in Jewish historiography—her ‘History’ was the first study of the topic produced by a Jewish writer—she included narratives of 53 Gregor Pelger, “Wissenschaft des Judentums and Jewish Cultural Transfer in Nineteenth-Century Anglo-German Networks,” in Anglo-German Scholarly Networks in the Long Nineteenth Century, ed. Heather Ellis and Ulrike Kirchberger (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 149–75. 54 Catalogue of Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, 1887 Exhibition and its impact, see David Cesarani, “Dual Heritage or Duel of Heritages? Englishness and Jewishness in the Heritage Industry,” in The Jewish Heritage (London: in BritishClowes, History: 1887), Englishnessvii. On the and Jewishness, ed. Tony Kushner (London: Frank Cass, 1992), 29–41; Michael Clark, Albion and Jerusalem: The Anglo-Jewish Community in the Post-Emancipation Era, 1858–1887 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 250–55. 55 Joseph Jacobs, The Jews of Angevin England: Documents and Records from Latin and Hebrew Sources, Printed and Manuscripts 56 On Schechter’s time in England and his independent contributions to the study of medieval (London: Nutt, 1893), iii. European , see Theodore Dunkelgrün, “Solomon Schechter: A Jewish Scholar in Victorian Jewish Historical Studies Schechter and Medieval European Rabbinic Literature,” Jewish Historical Studies 17–34.England On (1882–1902),” Schechter’s ties with Jacobs, see Norman 48 Bentwich,(2016): 1–8; “The Ephraim Wanderers Kanarfogel, and Other “Solomon Jewish Scholars of My Youth,” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 20 (1959–61): 48 (2016): 51–62. Solomon Schechter’s son published a study on medieval English Jewry (Schechter, “Rightlessness of Mediaeval English Jewry”). 29 Medieval English Rabbis tioned in the rabbinic texts with “Jews named in the English records”—a process which he emphasized that Schechter was not involved in.57 contributions to the study of English folklore, sociology, and Jewish history. But his JewishJoseph education Jacobs was extremelyan extraordinarily limited, prolificand he wasand acutelytalented aware scholar, of makinghis inability58 lasting to understand rabbinic texts on his own; nevertheless, he had never allowed obstacles like that to stop his literary ventures.59 The Jews of Angevin England also played a role in Jacobs’ larger goals: Jacobs was at pains to show that Jews in general were an assimilable group. In the light of the massive population shifts taking place, Jacobs’ studies were designed to allay the fears not only of the British government but also of other countries now confronted with great numbers of Jewish refugees. Wherever they went, he maintained, Jews soon par- ticipated to the fullest extent in the culture of their adoptive lands, displaying diligence, sobriety, and thriftiness.60 Their participation in local culture (but perhaps not their sobriety) was illustrated by one text, transcribed from manuscript and translated for Jacobs by : “It is surprising that in England they are lenient in the matter of drinking strong drinks of the Gentiles and along with them.”61 -

The translation was inaccurate and missedThe quotation the point, was since taken it fromwas not the all Talmud “strong commen drinks” tary of Rabbi Elhanan ben Isaac, an important French Tosafist who was killed in 1184. Gentile wine, and on drinking wine together with Gentiles.62 However, those stringen- ciesthat werewere appliedunder discussion, only to wine, but and specifically not to other beer. alcoholic Rabbinic beverages. law places63 England a strict isban not on a

57 Jacobs, The Jews of Angevin England, vi. 58 John M. Efron, Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in Fin-de-Siècle Europe

Studies in the Cultural Life of the Jews in England, ed. Dov Noy and Issachar (New Haven: Press, 1994), 58–90; Brian E. Maidment, “Joseph Jacobs and English FolkloreFolklorists: in the The 1890s,” Scholarship in of Joseph Jacobs and Moses Gaster,” in ‘The Jew’ in Late-Victorian andBen -EdwardianAmi (Jerusalem: Culture: Magnes Between Press, the 1975), East End185–96; and SimonEast Africa Rabinovitch,, ed. Eitan “Jews, Bar-Yosef Englishmen, and Nadia and Valman (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 113–30; Daniel Langton, “Jewish Evolutionary Perspectives on Judaism, Antisemitism, and Race Science in Late Nineteenth-Century England: A Comparative Study of Lucien Wolf and Joseph Jacobs,” Jewish Historical Studies 46 (2014): 37–73. 59 Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 24 (1970–73): 101–13. Brian Maidment, “The Literary Career of Joseph Jacobs, 1876–1900,” 60 Efron, Defenders of the Race, 63. 61 Jacobs, Jews of Angevin England Library, MS 65, f. 49v. It was published by David Fraenkel, Tosafot Rabenu Elhanan (Mukachevo: Kahn and Fried, 1901), 72; and again from, 269. the The same text manuscript was transcribed by Aharon from Yaakov London, Kroizer, Montefiore Tosafot Rabenu Elhanan (Bene Berak: Kroizer, 2003), 199. 62 Mishnah Avodah Zarah 2, 3; Haym Soloveitchik, Collected Essays (Oxford: Littman Library, 2013–14), 1:169–236. 63 Haym Soloveitchik, Ha-Yayin bi-yeme ha-benayim: yen nesekh: perek be-toldot ha-halakhah be- Ashkenaz (Wine in Ashkenaz in the Middle Ages: Yeyn Nesekh—A Study in the History of Halakhah)

(Jerusalem: Shazar, 2008), 305–18. 30 Pinchas Roth beer.64 The Jews of medieval England were known among their French compatriots as beingsignificant accustomed wine-growing to drinking region, beer and produced the English by Gentiles,drink of choiceand of indrinking the Middle it in Agesthe com was- pany of Gentiles—in short, taking full advantage of the fact that it was not wine. Some wine on the Continent, it should be prohibited in the same way.65 After all, drinking wine withFrench Gentiles Tosafists was felt forbidden that this lest was it toolead lenient; to social since interaction, beer filled which the socialcould rolelead playedto friend by- ship, which could lead to marriage between Jews and Gentiles. Obviously, beer could lubricate social interaction in the same way as wine. But, since imposing new limitations could bring negative repercussions upon English Jewry, Rabbi Elhanan felt it was best to leave things as they were, with no limitations on beer drinking even in England. This passage, included by Jacobs in his book, went on to play a role in his actual life. According to his friend Israel Zangwill, Jacobs asked Zangwill to arrange a meeting with G. K. Chesterton, who was known as an anti-Semite:66 The meeting took place at the Cheshire Cheese, where if the duel of Aryan and Semite came off without casualties, it was perhaps because I had prudently made provision in the spirit of one of the Tosaphoth of Rabbi Elchanan translated by Jacobs in The Jews of Angevin England. “It is surprising,” comments the worthy Rabbi, “that in the land of the isle the Jews are lenient in the matter of drinking strong drinks of the Gentiles and along

this, one must not be severe on them.”67 with them … But perhaps as there would be great ill-feeling if they were to refrain from Zangwill was being facetious, since neither he nor Jacobs would have refrained from drinking non-kosher wine with Chesterton. But that snippet of information about the medieval English Jews, made accessible to Zangwill68 through Jacobs’ book, provided him

64 Soloveitchik, Wine in Ashkenaz, 305–6; Judith M. Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300–1600 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 17; C. C. Dyer, “Seasonal Patterns in Food Consumption,” in Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition, ed. C. M. Woolgar, D. Serjeantson, and T. Waldron (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), The Wine Trade in Medieval Europe 1000–1500 (London: Bloomsbury, 2011), 16–17; Yavgeny Patent, “Birah, tarbut ha-tserikhah shelah ve-hitpathut ha-le’umiyut ha-Anglit be- shilhe208–9; yeme Susan ha-benayim” Rose, (Beer, Its Consumption Culture, and the Development of Nationalism in Late Medieval England) (MA thesis, Bar-Ilan University, 2015); C. M. Woolgar, The Culture of Food in England 1200–1500 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 52–55. 65 Soloveitchik, Wine in Ashkenaz, 311–13. 66 Michael Coren, Gilbert: The Man Who Was G. K. Chesterton 190–212; Dean Rapp, “The Jewish Response to G. K. Chesterton’s Antisemitism, 1911–33,” Patterns of Prejudice Constructions of (London: ‘The Jews’ Jonathan in English Cape, Literature 1989), and Society: Racial Representations, 1875–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 24 (1990): 75–86; Bryan Cheyette, Gilbert, 209, and Chesterton’s Jews: Stereotypes and Caricatures in the Literature and Journalism150–205. Chesterton’sof G. K. Chesterton friendship with Zangwill is briefly noted by Coren, questioned by Simon Mayers, 67 Israel Zangwill, “Dr. Joseph Jacobs: Memorial Meeting,” Transactions of the Jewish Historical ([s.i.]:[s.n.], 2013), 88–95. Society of England 68 On Zangwill’s nonobservance of Jewish dietary laws, see Meri-Jane Rochelson, A Jew in the 8 (1915–17), 131–32. Public Arena: The Career of Israel Zangwill

(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008), 84. 31 Medieval English Rabbis with just enough information to frame a meeting of British writers in early twentieth- century London as the reenactment of a centuries-old modus vivendi between Jews and Christians in England.

Rabbi Naftali Levy was a Polish rabbi who served in London as a chicken-slaughterer The need to find a usable Anglo-Jewish past was not limited to the secular elite.- ing.69 England,from the 1880s,Myer Davis and composedpublished severala letter booksin the inJewish the traditional Standard, modean Anglo-Jewish of rabbinic newslearn- paper, In asking 1888, forimmediately help from after rabbinic publishing scholars his in edition identifying of Hebrew some deedsof the fromJewish medieval names mentioned in the documents he had just published:70 Understanding that you count among your subscribers and readers a goodly number of

I am instituting. The volume of “Shetaroth” (deeds) that has just appeared brings to light theHebrew existence, and Rabbinical during the Scholars, 13th century, I venture of toseveral ask some English-born of them to Rabbonim.assist me in I anforward enquiry a list of these, and would fain ask rabbinical scholars and students to furnish me with any references they may have met with that mention the abode, career, or any particulars, indeed, of these eminent Rabbis. was able to supply rabbinic sources mentioning some of those same names.71 Levy endedThe question his series elicited of brief a series columns of responses with the exhortation: in the same72 newspaper by Naftali Levy, who Our lot has fallen in a more peaceful age, but we should yet try to learn the lesson of

mighty dead who lived in this island, which has become our home as well. If we model ourself -livessurrender on theirs, and theof unquestioning future of English obedience Judaism which will be comes assured, to usand as it a will message not be from unwor the- thy of those great men who have given to this country its due place in the history of Hebrew literature.73

69 Naphtali Halevy and his Commentary ‘Kedesh Naphtali’ on Talmudic Aggadah,” in Ve-Hinneh Rivka Yotzet: Koło, Essays Poland, in Jewish1839–London, Studies in 1894. Honor Pinchas of Rivka Roth, Dagan “Hokhmat, ed. Itamar Israel Dagan in the (Jerusalem: British Isles: Tzur Rabbi Ot, 2017), 271–76 (Hebrew). Levy is known to scholars primarily because of his correspondence with Charles Darwin and his Hebrew writings on evolution. See Ralph Colp Jr. and David Kohn, “A Real The European Legacy 1 (1996): 1716–27; Edward O. Dodson, “Toldot Adam: A Little-Known Chapter in the Curiosity:History of CharlesDarwinism,” Darwin Perspectives Reflects on on a Science Communication and Christian from Faith Rabbi 52 Naphtali (2000): 47–54;Levy,” Michael Shai Cherry, “Creation, Evolution, and Jewish Thought” (PhD diss., Brandeis University, 2001), 129–34. 70 M. D. Davis, “English Rabbonim,” The Jewish Standard M. D. Davis, Hebrew Deeds of English Jews Before 1290 , March 23, 1888, 4. For his edition, see 71 Naphtali Levi, “English Rabbonim,” The Jewish Standard (London: Jewish Chronicle, 1888). located this correspondence and brought it to my attention., April 6, 1888, supplement, 8; April 13, 1888, 6; May 18, 1888, 3; May 25, 1888, 12. I am very grateful to my friend Menachem Butler, who 72 Naphtali Levi, “English Rabbonim,” The Jewish Standard 73 Levy clearly meant that following the example of the medieval English rabbis would ensure the , June 1, 1888, 6. spiritual future of modern Jews in England, rather than their political security, for which medieval England did not provide an auspicious precedent. 32 Pinchas Roth Later that same year, Levy published a version of the correspondence in a Hebrew jour- - sa.74 In translating his English-language newspaper correspondence with Davis into a nal for rabbis, and in 1891 he included the Hebrew version in his volume of respon

שאלת חכם מחכמי לונדרוש פה עירנו, :question האם יש Davis’s זכר recast ושארית בין he also גדולי הפוסקים ,responsum לרבני rabbinicענגלאנד אשרHebrew חיו בארץ הזאת לפני הגירוש, לפני גלות ישראל מארץ אנגליא בשנת חמשת אלפים וחמשים לבריאת עולם, ואחרי נמצאו ונתגלו בעת הנוכחית כתבי השטרות בבית גנזי המלוכה שטרות מקוימות מאת הממשלה, כתובות עברית ומאושרות מידי הרבנים הגדולים עוד משנת תתקצ«ה לפ«ק, האם שמות הרבנים הללו נמצאו בכתבי הראשונים אשר חיו בימים ההם, וזכרם לברכה בפיהם ?

memory or remnant among the great rabbis of the rabbis of England who lived in this landThe questionbefore the of Expulsion, one of the before wise menthe Exile of our of cityIsrael here from of theLondon, land of whether England there in the is year any 5050 Anno Mundi (=1290 CE). After the present-day discovery of documents in the royal

the great rabbis from as early as the year 995 (=1235)—have the names of these rabbis beenarchives, found authorized in the writings contracts of the from rabbis the government who lived in written those times,in Hebrew and didand they confirmed preserve by their memory as a blessing in their words?

HebrewThe question Starrs, for had Levy proven was notbeyond simply any an doubt academic that Jews attempt were to alive identify and activethe names in England in the duringfinancial the documents, Middle Ages. as itBut was what for sortDavis. of TheJews medieval were they? documents, Did they includeand especially rabbis andthe scholars? The annals of Jewish history were, to be honest, the volumes of rabbinic litera-

England were absent from that library, then they didn’t really count. As he explained at theture end that of fill his every responsum, traditional Levy library believed throughout he had “performed the Diaspora. a kindness If the Jews with of themedieval living as well as with the dead, by reviving the great rabbis who left a written memory of the Talmudic literature in England.”75 Over the course of the twentieth century, several important works by medieval Eng- lish rabbis were published, and the dimensions of their contribution became clearer.76 But the fear that this corpus, and in fact the entire historical legacy of English Jews, is 77 continues to haunt its students. In 1937, Cecil Roth declared that Anglo-Jewish literature “affords no grounds for apology or “plagued by irrelevancy and insignificance”

74 Naphtali Levy, in Torah mi-Zion: kovetz hiddushe Torah Nahalat Naphtali: she’elot u-teshuvot 2 (1888), sec. 6, ff. 10v–13r; Levy, אקוה כי הקוראים יכירו כי עשיתי חסד גם עם החיים גם עם המתים להעלות לתחיה :Levy, Nahalat Naphtali, 30 75 (Pressburg: Abraham Bick, 1891), sec. 9, 22–30. גדולי הרבנים אשר השאירו שם עולם לקורות הספרות התלמודית באנגלטירא 76 Cecil Roth, The Intellectual Activities of Medieval English Jewry (London: British Academy, 1949); Judah L. Teicher, “Review of Cecil Roth, The Intellectual Activities of Medieval English Jewry,” Journal of Jewish Studies

2 (1950): 58–60; Pinchas Roth, “The Men of the Islands: A Survey of 77 “From the outset of Anglo-Jewish historiography as an organised enterprise, its practitioners Research on Medieval English Rabbinic Scholarship, 1948–2012,” forthcoming. histories and to the general history of England”—Mitchell Hart, “The Unbearable Lightness of Britain:felt their Anglo-Jewish subject plagued Historiography by irrelevancy and and the insignificance, Anxiety of Success,” both in Journalrelation of to Modern other national Jewish StudiesJewish 6 (2007): 149. 33 Medieval English Rabbis shame” and that England “need not be ashamed of the results,” although he dispensed with the medieval portion of those results in one and a half paragraphs. When, in one of his last lectures, Roth asked “Why Anglo-Jewish History?” his best answer78 was “Because it is fun.”79 With a more cynical sense of humour, Ephraim Elimelech Urbach suggested that the English rabbis suffered from bad luck, because those portions of their heritage

The Jewish community of medieval England was geographically isolated, one of the80 that were preserved reflect the least important and least original thinkers among them. population and much smaller than Jewish communities in nearby regions. The intellec- tualonly elite,island the communities. rabbis whose It writings was numerically have been insignificant, preserved, responded a tiny minority by asserting81 of the English them- selves as a viable alternative to the royal legal system and to foreign rabbinic communi- ties. If their modern heirs and students were disappointed by the achievements of the rabbis of medieval England, it is at least partly because of what they had hoped to find. PINCHAS ROTH is senior lecturer in the Talmud Department at Bar-Ilan University. He studies the history of halakhah (Jewish law) in medieval Western Europe. He recently completed a book about halakhic culture in late medieval Provence and, in partner- ship with Professor Rami Reiner, a critical edition of the responsa of Rabbi Isaac of Dampierre (Ri ha-Zaken).

Abstract: The tendency to underestimate medieval English rabbis can be found during the Middle Ages and in modern times. One reason for this is the assumption that the Jewish community in medieval England was simply an outpost of French Jewish culture, while another is simple ignorance about the literary heritage of English rabbis. During the nineteenth century, as Jews in Great Britain struggled against obscurity and preju- dice, their medieval predecessors became a useful foil for asserting a Jewish place in modern British society.

Keywords: halakhah, kabbalah, medieval Jewish history, Joseph Jacobs, Elijah Menahem of London, Grace Aguilar

78 Cecil Roth, The Evolution of Anglo-Jewish Literature 79 Cecil Roth, “Why Anglo-Jewish History,” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England (London: Edward Goldston, 1937), 3, 8. The Jews of Britain, 165622 (1968–69): to 2000 (Berkeley: 29. “Why University then did ofRoth California feel that Press, the writing2002), 2. of English Jewish history required justification? Roth himself never answered this question”—Todd M. Endelman, 80 Ephraim Elimelech Urbach, Ba’ale ha-Tosafot: Toldotehem, hiburehem, ve-shitatam (The Tosaphists: Their History, Writings, and Methods 81 The most recent estimate of the Jewish population in medieval England is by Robert Stacey, ) (Hebrew; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1980), 518. who suggests that at its height, the community numbered no more than 5,000 people. Cited in his name by Ann Causton, Medieval Jewish Documents in Westminster Abbey (London: Jewish Historical Society of England, 2007), 4, and provisionally accepted by Mell, The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender

, 184–85.