Beyond Tolerance and Persecution: Reassessing Our Approach to Medieval Convivencia

Home , Crown rabbi (Iberia), La Convivencia, Sepharad

Jonathan Ray

n 1992, the quincentennial marking the expulsion of the Jews from Spain brought with it a flurry of studies on medieval Jewish, or I Sephardic, civilization. In the succeeding dozen years, Spain has become an increasingly “hot” subject for medievalists and Judaicists alike, and new courses on the diverse cultural legacy of the Iberian Peninsula have continued to appear at colleges and universities throughout the Europe, Israel, and North America.1 The proliferation of such curricula has been aided by the publication of sourcebooks and readers that have enabled even nonspecialists to offer courses on medieval Iberia that highlight the important contributions of Muslims, Jews, and Conversos to the broader history of the medieval Iberian world.2 The historiographic motif that runs throughout this new interest in medieval Spain is the subject of convivencia, or coexistence—a term that has been used to describe the tripartite society of medieval Iberia ever since it was introduced by the great Spanish philologist and historian Américo Castro in the 1940s.3 In recent years, this term has been embraced and distorted by an ever-widening group of academics, journalists, and poli- ticians, a phenomenon that increasingly challenges historians of medieval Spain to return convivencia to its original context.

Jonathan Ray, “Beyond Tolerance and Persecution: Reassessing Our Ap- proach to Medieval Convivencia,” Jewish Social Studies 11, no. 2 (Winter 2005): 1–18 In the field of Jewish Studies, the fascination with the relative acceptance of Jews in medieval Spain and the resulting rapprochement be- [2] tween the Sephardim and their host societies date back to the German-Jewish Wissenschaft historians of the late nineteenth century. Jewish Frustrated by the Jews’ problematic encounter with modern European Social culture, the founders of Jewish Studies thought they had found, with Studies the medieval Sephardim, a paradigm of a Jewish society that could in- tegrate into its host culture without losing its own identity.4 Over the course of the past 50 years, Hispanists and scholars of Jew- ish history have taken up the discourse on the nature of convivencia, using it as a lens through which medieval Iberian civilization might be understood. The debate has traditionally centered around two polarized views. Some regard medieval Iberian society as a model of tolerance and cross-cultural interaction. This, indeed, was the original stance of both Castro and the Jewish historians who preceded him. Whereas the Wissenschaft scholars sought a paradigm of Jewish- gentile symbiosis, Castro and his followers hoped to explain the unique character of Spanish civilization and believed that the answer was the contributions of Iberia’s Muslim and Jewish societies. They argued that España es diferente—“Spain is different”—from the rest of Latin Christendom, its civilization the product of a unique religious and cultural frontier that brought Muslims, Christians, and Jews together in close contact with one another. Castro’s vision of Spanish history as the result of cross-cultural influ- ences was challenged by his lifelong critic and counterweight, Claudio Sánchez Albornoz, who saw Muslims and Jews as having little impact on the formation of the Spanish character, and who argued that medieval Spanish culture is best characterized by conflict, not cooperation.5 Although a somewhat altered version of Castro’s thesis has generally won out among most Hispanists, the corrective offered by Sánchez Albornoz has found increasing support within Jewish Studies, espe- cially among scholars assessing Jewish life in Muslim Iberia. Influ- enced, in part, by the deterioration of Arab-Israeli relations since the 1960s, a number of critics of convivencia have countered the idyllic view of an interfaith utopia in medieval Spain, pointing out the perse- cutions against Jewish populations under the Muslim Almoravid and Almohad dynasties of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the widespread Christian pogroms and forced conversions of Jews in 1391, and the cycle of forced conversions, expulsions, and inquisitorial harass- ment of Jewish and Muslim communities throughout the late medieval and early modern periods.6 To be sure, recent decades have witnessed the publication of more nuanced studies of Sephardic interaction with gentile culture, many of which have wisely substituted geographically and temporally limited [3] portraits for the broad canvases favored by the likes of Castro and Sánchez Albornoz. Nonetheless, the tendency to couch the discussion Medieval of medieval convivencia in terms of either persecution or tolerance “Convivencia” has proved to be remarkably durable. Scholars continue to gauge the • Jewish experience in medieval Iberia in terms of their treatment by Jonathan Ray Muslims and Christians, and to search for the moment when Spanish coexistence and cooperation fell victim to the exclusivism that had already swept across much of Europe.7 One of the principal reasons for the persistence of this oversimpli- fied view of convivencia has been the topic’s recent popularity both among nonacademics (as evidenced by a profusion of articles and ed- itorials in the popular press) and among scholars of adjacent fields of academic inquiry, including literary criticism and political science.8 Two recent articles in a leading travel magazine illustrate the degree to which the term has taken on a life of its own—albeit a life that continues to reflect back on its initial, academic context. One piece, entitled “Long Live Convivencia!,” notes that the term best characterizes the desire for peaceful relations and mutual respect held by native Span- iards as well as by that country’s growing population of immigrants from North Africa. Writing about the meaning of convivencia in contemporary Chilean society, another author notes: “It is an extremely useful word, at least in Chile, because it means ‘coexistence’ or ‘living together.’ And the Chileans—unlike, for example, the Israelis or even the Spanish—take great pride in their convivencia skills.”9 That this definition retains echoes of Castro’s original points of reference— Spain, Jews, Muslims—gives some indication (if only as a negative proof) of how the widespread use of the term has the potential to distort discussion of this topic. Indeed, the nonspecialists have emerged as the dominant voice in the debate on medieval Iberian history, and, as a result, those of us who write and teach on the Jews of this period continue to confront this old, polarized discussion of convivencia. The subject of medieval convivencia, including the term’s recent popularity as a catch phrase outside of academia, is one that can oc- cupy a much longer study than what I present here. The following observations are thus offered not as a resolution to this dilemma, nor as a full exposition of the topic of Jewish-gentile relations in medieval Iberia, but rather as a suggestion of a way to reorient the discussion on this topic. It is my hope that some of the points I present will be helpful to those who are dealing with these same issues, whether inside or outside the classroom, and whether for the Muslim or the Christian period of Hispano-Jewish history. [4] By focusing on Jewish legal status, or on the mentalité and attitudes of the majority culture toward the Jews, the discussion of convivencia Jewish within scholarly circles often becomes reduced to the question “Was it Social good for the Jews?” In my opinion, comparing levels of tolerance Studies under Muslim and Christian rule (that is, where was it better for the Jews) offers little variation on this theme.10 Instead, I would like to pose the following: What were the attitudes of the medieval Sephardim themselves? How did they view their social, political, and economic relationship to gentile society? I will endeavor to answer these questions, first by looking at the stance of medieval Jewish authorities toward what scholars today often label as manifestations of convivencia. I will then move from attitudes to actions, looking briefly at some of the ways in which individual Jews navigated between the various boundaries of identity in Iberian culture. Several aspects of this reassessment of medieval convivencia are also applicable to the Jewish experience in Muslim al-Andalus as well as to other premodern Jewish communities. For reasons of convenience, however, I have attempted to narrow my analysis to Jewish life in Christian Iberia during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.11 I propose that it was specifically those aspects of medieval convivencia most frequently lauded as ideal—that is, those of an open and ac- cepting society—that medieval Hispano-Jewish authorities found to be the most problematic. For Jewish spiritual and communal leaders, at least, the real problem was not the exclusion but rather the acceptance of Jews. After all, a certain amount of exclusion and “intolerance” (to use a popular anachronism) was to be expected. Theologically speak- ing, Jews understood themselves to be in Exile among the Nations as divine punishment for their sins. But Christian and Muslim permis- siveness presented these leaders with a much thornier problem. How do you prevent the social, economic, and political assimilation into non-Jewish society of the constituent members of your communities? How do you maintain social cohesion, religious identity, and a control- lable taxbase when Jews are allowed to settle outside of their desig- nated quarters, dress like gentiles, socialize with gentiles, and even take gentile lovers? It should first be pointed out that the permeability of religious and social boundaries on the Iberian Peninsula predates the Middle Ages. As early as the Council of Elvira in the early fourth century, we have evidence that Jews and Christians socialized together, that they inter- married, and even that Christians asked Jewish leaders to bless their crops. Although anti-Jewish policies generally prevailed under Visi- gothic rule, the problems arising from the accessibility and attraction to various aspects of gentile society and culture once again came to [5] pose a formidable challenge to Jewish authorities throughout the Mus- lim period. During the high Middle Ages, royal authorities in Chris- Medieval tian Iberia generally took a laissez-faire attitude toward the social “Convivencia” interaction of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Laws that were meant to • separate and distinguish members of the three religious communities, Jonathan Ray such as those drawn up at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, were generally ignored. Despite the recurrence of negative representations of Jews and Muslims in the Christian literature of the Reconquest, bal- lads and poems such as the Cantigas de Santa María nonetheless reflect a society in which social, cultural, and economic relations between in- dividuals of all faiths remained remarkably open and fluid.12 It was precisely this openness to heterodox groups that was a cause of concern for Jewish authorities. In the thirteenth century, leading Jew- ish moralists and would-be reformers Jonah Gerondi and Todros ben Joseph Halevi Abulafia of Toledo addressed the issue of the ethical con- duct of Spain’s Jewish communities.13 Although their sermons and writ- ings are filled with standard calls to greater piety (such as observance of Shabbat and support of scholars and the poor), both also point to ex- cessive social interaction with non-Jews as the leading cause for the low state of Jewish morals.14 Abulafia, who was writing while his young relative and namesake (Todros ben Judah Halevi Abulafia) composed erotic verses about Muslim women, even blamed such intermingling for a recent royal backlash against Jewish civil servants. This last case is instructive, in that Abulafia clearly (and perhaps deliberately) misinter- prets the cause of King Alfonso X’s anger with his Jewish courtiers. Christian sources regarding the incident mention only that the Jews were accused of redirecting royal funds to the king’s rebellious son.15 Abulafia was less interested in the particulars of this crisis than in using it as an opportunity to attack larger issues of acculturation. That Abula- fia, or other reformers, should seek to explain the vicissitudes of Jewish life as a result of moral laxity comes as no surprise. Yet their frequent emphasis on the seductiveness of gentile society, and of gentile women in particular, is worth noting. Such anxiety over the ease with which Jews could and, evidently, did cross one of the most significant boundaries separating them from the gentiles can also be found in contemporary mystical treatises and in the observations of foreign scholars such as the French talmudist and preacher Moses de Coucy.16 Behind the pietists’ complaints of sexual transgressions and the more pragmatic concerns of Jewish communal officials (which I will discuss further, below) loomed the great and abiding fear of Diaspora Jewry: conversion. In medieval Spain, anxieties that acculturation [6] might lead to assimilation and the abandonment of the Jewish community were not unfounded. Even prior to the mass conversions of Jewish 1391, there is evidence that an increased familiarity with Christian so- Social ciety had already convinced many Jews to adopt Christianity.17 And for Studies many Jews, the rise of a Converso society in Spain in the decades following 1391 helped to sustain the allure of Christian intellectual and material culture. Recently, Eric Lawee has shown how fifteenth- century Jewish intellectuals wrote admiringly of several aspects of Christian society, even as they continued to reject the Christian faith and its theological underpinnings.18 This somewhat ironic dichotomy between the condemnation of wide-scale Jewish attraction to gentile material culture and the concomitant admiration of Christian piety and religious solidarity can be seen in Solomon Alami’s Igeret musar (Epistle on Morality). Alami, who witnessed the events of 1391 and the subsequent decline of much of Iberian Jewry, echoed the contemporary notion that the Jews’ fate was a result of their own religious laxity. What is of interest in his assessment is the portrayal of Christian society as the custodian of proper social and religious boundaries between the different faiths:

Because we arrayed ourselves in their apparel, they have clothed us in different garments, so that we might appear as aliens in their midst and arouse derision and contempt in the sight of all; and because we have trimmed the corners of our beards and our hair, they have compelled us to let our beards grow long like mourners.

Far from lamenting what modern scholars identify as the rise of “intolerance” in Spanish culture, Alami juxtaposes Jewish religious negligence with gentile righteousness, and he praises the Christian world for provid- ing wayward Jews with a model of religious cohesion and devotion:

How much our rich coreligionists could learn from their Christian neighbors! The Christian princes and barons rival one another in efforts to promote and uphold their religion, and to train their youth in the pious sentiments of their ancestors. Our Jewish rich despise their faith, and per- mit the teachers of religion to eat the bread of sorrow and poverty.19

Despite such views of Christian religious vitality, the depiction of Christian secular culture as a garden of forbidden delights remained an enduring image among Jewish writers of the late Middle Ages. This view of gentile society is reflected in a well-known letter written by the fourteenth-century rabbi Yehoshua ha-Lorki to his erstwhile teacher, Pablo de Santa María (né Shlomo ha-Levi), after the latter’s conversion to Christianity. Struggling to comprehend the path taken by his [7] former mentor, ha-Lorki set forth a number of possible motivating fac- tors, among them the following: Medieval “Convivencia” Perhaps your appetitive soul longed to climb the rungs of wealth and • honor which everyone desires, and to satisfy the craving soul with all man- Jonathan Ray ner of food, and to gaze at the resplendent beauty of the countenance of gentile women.20

Rabbinic concerns about sexual liaisons between Jews and Christians (itself a representation of the general seductiveness of Christian society as a whole) are also reflected in contemporary Christian literature. In the story of Marisaltos, a well-known Castilian folktale that appears in Gonzalo de Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora and in Alfonso X’s Can- tigas de Santa María, a beautiful Jewess is discovered with her Christian lover. Enraged, the leaders of the Jewish community cast her from a cliff, only to have the Virgin Mary intervene and save her. The story offers a fairly common message of Christian forgiveness (and divine fa- vor) over and against Jewish harshness and obstinacy, but the sense of Jewish outrage at such relationships is not without historical merit. A responsum in the collection of Asher ben Yehiel, the leading rabbinic sage of Castile in the early fourteenth century, records the case of a Jew- ish widow near the town of Coca who had caused a scandal by taking a gentile lover and becoming pregnant. Upon hearing about the situa- tion, the great courtier-rabbi Yehudah ibn Waqar took it upon himself to punish the widow. His letter to Rabbi Asher, in which he describes the steps he took toward meting out justice, is particularly illuminating. After obtaining sufficient testimony that the woman in question was indeed guilty of fornication with a gentile, Ibn Waqar hesitated before openly condemning her and her behavior. He explained:

Since I was afraid that perhaps she might be converted, it did not seem [wise] to me to sermonize and to judge on this matter in public. I thus brought this matter concerning the gentile before Don Juan, may the Lord preserve him, while in Coca. And he responded that this was not a matter for him to decide, since she was a Jewess, but that we should judge her according to the laws of our Torah.

By Ibn Waqar’s own account, the Christian Infante, Don Juan, seems to have been far less disturbed by the interfaith relation than his Jewish counterpart. Furthermore, the mention of the woman’s potential conversion underscores Jewish anxiety over the very attractive op- tion that Hispano-Christian society presented to medieval Sephardim. [8] Finally, Ibn Waqar resolves that the woman is to be disfigured, both as a means of preserving the dignity and authority of the Jewish legal sys- Jewish tem and to send a cautionary message to other Jewish women. His con- Social cern that this is not an isolated occurrence, and that other Jews could Studies be easily enticed to commit similar transgressions, is unambiguous. His letter continues:

[A]ll of the [Jewish] communities in the vicinity of Coca share rumors, and thus the knowledge concerning this “whore” will spread among the non-Jews, who will look scornfully at our laws, and in order that the women should hear and not be like her. It occurred to me that since the matter received so much notoriety, that she should be punished by cut- ting off her nose in order to destroy the shape of her face which she adorned for her paramour, and that she pay the lords of the city a certain amount of money.

In his response, Rabbi Asher applaudes Ibn Waqar’s decision and echoes the courtier’s apprehensions regarding the potential humiliation posed by her conversion:

You have judged well to duly punish her so that she would become de- spised by her paramour. This matter should be carried out immediately in order that she not be allowed to escape by means of conversion.21

Nor were pietists alone in regarding the relative openness of gentile culture as inherently problematic. If rabbinic authorities were most alarmed by Jewish sexual liaisons with gentiles, Jewish communal officials were primarily concerned by the development of social and political ties between members of their communities and Christian institutions.22 The most common manifestations of this phenomenon were the chronic problem of malshinim, or informers, and the less cel- ebrated yet equally distressing custom of Jews taking their legal cases before royal, municipal, and even ecclesiastic courts.23 Although Jews were granted the right of judicial autonomy in cases between members of their own faith, they had a difficult time establishing their courts as the sole recourse for Jewish litigants. Christian and Jewish sources both document the common practice of Jews turning to non-Jewish judges, often after not receiving the verdict they wanted from their local Jewish court. Despite the formal recognition of Jewish autonomy, the challenge posed by gentile courts as a potential alternative for Jewish litigants was an issue throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The more re- ceptive these courts were to Jewish appeals, the greater the threat to Jewish legal and communal authority.24 In the lands of Christian Iberia, [9] Jewish willingness to patronize gentile courts was encouraged by the friendly reception that they (and their financial inducements) often Medieval received there, which was an indirect product of the system of social “Convivencia” and political structures we refer to as convivencia. In medieval Spain, • Christian tribunals had jurisdiction over cases involving both Jews and Jonathan Ray Christians, and Jewish presence in these courts as well as the subsequent relationships they established with Christian judges were a part of the fabric of their daily lives. For many Jews, the voluntary expansion of these relationships into the realm of ostensibly internal communal affairs was a logical expedience. A responsum by Solomon ibn Adret deals with one case in which communal officials, helpless to prevent their members from adopting local Christian customs regarding inheritance, merely declared that such practice falls within the cate- gory of dina de-malkhuta dina (the law of the land is binding), a tactic that sent Ibn Adret into a fit of rage.25 Such cases show that the average Jew and even his communal leaders understood themselves to be living in a relatively open marketplace of competing communal organi- zations and institutions. This fact raises another issue in the study of convivencia that merits reconsideration. For Spain, as well as for other cultural borderlands of the Middle Ages, scholars have tended to examine the cross-cultural contacts of various religious and ethnic groups. In doing so, they have focused their attention on issues such as the status of each group (Did Jews have equal rights with other minorities?) and cultural borrowing (To what degree were Jewish thought and attitudes shaped by other cultures?).26 Such an approach has been a valuable means of analysis for intellectual and cultural histories, but it does little to illuminate our understanding of daily life. It is my supposition that, by focusing on the individual rather than on the group, we will gain greater insight into the social history of Iberian Jewry and perhaps be able to avoid some of the chronic problems of “myth and counter-myth” that have so far dominated this subject.27 Indeed, though the attraction of gentile women and gentile courts might have been the principal concerns of Jewish spiritual and communal leaders, the degree to which individual Jews took advantage of what we might call the “opportunities of convivencia” is not limited to these areas. On the contrary, medieval Sephardic Jews tended to resist any policies that would restrict their social and economic movement within the larger society. The great territorial expansion of Christian Iberia during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries created an imme- diate need for settlers to help develop the economic and governmental [10] infrastructure of former Muslim lands. The dynamism and fluidity of Spanish society during this period afforded Jews a relatively high de- Jewish gree of social mobility, and many Jews responded by assuming several of Social the features of Christian identity. Among these was Christian dress, par- Studies ticularly clothes commonly worn by Christian burghers and nobles, which many Jews adopted in order to assume greater personal status and, in some cases, to avoid financial burdens. Such practices were sharply denounced by Jewish leaders, including Gerondi, who chided Jews for attempting to hide their religious identity from gentiles in order to avoid paying special taxes. Christian legislation aimed at regu- lating Jewish dress was only loosely enforced, and decrees such as the one issued at the Castilian Cortes of 1268 that prohibited Jews from assuming Christian names reflects Jewish interests in acculturation and integration as much as it does a Christian campaign to exclude them.28 Another significant way in which Jews were able to approximate the status of conquering Christians was their ownership of Muslims slaves. Christian victories and their later success in quelling Muslim rebellions greatly increased both the number of Muslims who became enslaved and the involvement of Jews in the trade and ownership of these slaves.29 In contrast, the Jews themselves were protected under royal de- cree from being enslaved by the conquering Christians.30 The rapid expansion of Christian society during the high Recon- quest also undermined efforts by both Christian and Jewish leaders to maintain separate residential neighborhoods for members of the different faiths. Many of the Jews who migrated to the newly conquered territories settled outside the limits of the official Jewish quarter, main- taining only the most tenuous ties to the Jewish community. Through- out the peninsula, leaders of Jewish communities repeatedly ordered their members not to move their homes or businesses outside of the quarter, and not to sell land within it to Christians, though to little avail.31 The nature of Jewish landownership also mirrored that of many Christians. Not only were Iberian Jews permitted to own land, but the types of lands they owned, as well as the social and economic status they derived from these properties, closely paralleled the experiences of other urban groups on the peninsula. Under Muslim rule, urban property had been tied to gardens, vine- yards, and orchards located outside of the town walls, and the transition to Christian rule did little to alter this basic urban landscape. It was thus commonplace that Jews who settled the cities of southern Iberia were also involved in the cultivation of small plots of land and came to own a variety of urban and rural properties in much the same way as other settlers. Additionally, some Jewish settlers possessed larger tracts of farm- land beyond the municipal sphere and others participated directly in the [11] exploitation of rural lands as did their Christian and Muslim counterparts. Aharon Abinaffia, courtier to Pedro III of Aragon, was granted Medieval ownership of two entire villages in the kingdom of Valencia, whose in- “Convivencia” habitants were mostly Muslim.32 Indeed, the Castilian legal code Las • Siete Partidas prohibited Jews from employing Christians as domestic Jonathan Ray servants but allowed Jews to engage them as agricultural laborers, and a contemporary letter by Pope Gregory X complained of “possessions that the Jews and Saracens cultivate or that they give to others to cultivate.”33 In 1297, an Aragonese royal privilege protected the rights of Jewish laborers who had migrated to the rural district near Alicante, in Valencia, in order to participate in the harvest there.34 In addition to owning large estates, some Jews were granted rights to own and operate mills, saltworks, and olive presses. The ownership of flour mills is particularly interesting, because it has ramifications that extend beyond economic opportunity and utility. In medieval society, the ability to control such mills was generally a sign of seigneurial power and gave Jews a small entry into a feudal (or, at least, quasi- feudal) system from which they were typically excluded.35 The avail- ability in some rural areas of a large Muslim labor force even allowed Jews to act as landlords in a style analogous to that of Christian caballeros villanos, or urban non-noble knights, whose rise to prominence is one of the hallmarks of social change in thirteenth-century Castile.36 Ini- tially, the caballeros villanos derived their social rank from demonstra- tions of military prowess, a quality for which there was no parallel among the Jews. However, as the battles of conquest became fewer and farther between, these urban knights continued to cling to their hard- won status and honor as a hereditary distinction and vigorously attempted to blur the lines between themselves and the lower nobility. In this respect, they are indeed comparable to their wealthy and ambi- tious Jewish neighbors. The Jews’ attempts to assume features of Christian identity and the corresponding efforts by Jewish (and to a lesser extent Christian) officials to prohibit such behavior were part and parcel of a broader Iberian phenomenon. The pan-peninsular movement to resettle the new territories increased the already peripatetic nature of Iberian society, and the opportunities for military glory and economic advancement opened by the conquest of these regions also helped to challenge the existing social order. Jewish merchants and wealthy landholders were as affected by these sweeping social changes as were their Christian counterparts, and many joined these upwardly mobile Christians in imitating the dress and customs of their social superiors.37 [12] Here we see something approaching a true example of convivencia. Not only did Jews show a greater concern for personal advancement than Jewish for religious or communal solidarity, but in doing so they demon- Social strated their identities to be as much a product of the prevailing histor- Studies ical processes and social dynamics of the age as they were of the discrete traditions of the Jewish community.

Conclusion

Thomas Glick has argued that, both in Muslim and in Christian Iberia, inherent tensions between members of the three faiths were created by the “dominant caste” that sought to restrict groups religiously yet not economically. Glick, whose studies on the subject of convivencia are among the most insightful and cogent work in this field, seems here to overestimate the degree of control that both the crown and the Jewish kahal (communal government) had over the actions of individual Jews during this period. To my mind, the inherent tensions that Glick correctly identifies arose not from official policies (which were always subject to suspension for Jews with money or connections) but from the ability and willingness of Iberian Jews to construct identities that transcended the limits of their religious communities.38 In this article I have sought to redirect the current discussion of convivencia in medieval Iberia and to move beyond the questions of tolerance and persecution. First, I have suggested that we reexamine some of the traditional hallmarks of convivencia by focusing on the attitudes and actions of medieval Jews themselves, rather than on per- ceptions of the Jews held by the majority culture. In doing so, we see that Jewish spiritual leaders and communal officials viewed the accessibility of gentile culture as one of the primary challenges to Jewish religious piety, social cohesion, and political autonomy. Second, the subject of convivencia has heretofore always been viewed as a product of group dynamics—that is, the “coexistence” of different groups constructed by religion or ethnicity. What I am sug- gesting is that, though Jews do retain an important identity qua Jews, in their own eyes and in the eyes of their contemporaries, it is nonetheless important to recognize that they also possessed a number of other characteristics and associations that contributed to their overall identity. As with periodization, we use groups as a way of studying history while understanding that there is a certain arbitrary quality to the way we set the limits of our subject. Just as we know that there is no great difference between 1399 and 1401, we also understand that the various members of subject groups (such as peasants, nobles, monks) [13] maintained other identities as well (such as women, siblings, crimi- nals) and could be viewed in a different context. Following such logic, “Medieval part of my argument has been that we need not only view Jews qua “Convivencia” Jews. This position is somewhat counterintuitive for those of us who • are scholars of Judaica, as it goes against our very raison d’être. None- Jonathan Ray theless, by looking at the individual rather than at the interaction of the peninsula’s three confessional groups, I hope to draw greater attention to the question of identity formation in medieval Iberian society. In addition to taking advantage of royal incentives and charters that granted them a legal status on par with that of their Christian counterparts, Jews availed themselves of opportunities for economic advancement and social mobility that further obscured the lines between them and their gentile neighbors. The former can be explained as royal desires to privilege a group over which it had certain posses- sory rights; the latter gives us much greater insight into the attitudes of the individual Jews themselves.39 The resurgence in popularity of medieval Spanish civilization and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East will, no doubt, continue to sustain interest in the subject of convivencia as well as to distort its inter- pretation. I nonetheless believe that the history of Iberian Jewry, and of medieval Spain in general, holds relevance beyond the search for utopian models of interfaith harmony or the roots of modern anti- semitism. I propose that if, as both Christian and Jewish sources seem to suggest, medieval Spanish Jews continually pursued associations and social positions that closely resembled those of their Christian counterparts, then perhaps we have to revise our notion of convivencia as merely a measurement of tolerance. Rather than continue to discuss this society in terms of religious communities, it might be more profitable to view it as a product of a variety of contending identities and social, cultural, and religious tensions that existed between the individual and a number of possible groups.

Notes

1 In 1995, the International Cen- lingual collection of course syl- ter for University Teaching of labi, edited by Jane Gerber, Jewish Civilization published an entitled Sephardic Studies in the interdisciplinary and multi- University (Madison, N.J., 1995). Since 1998, a separate caucus of in the Early Middle Ages (Prince- scholars affiliated with the Asso- ton, 1979), 6–13. [14] ciation for Jewish Studies has 6 M. R. Cohen, “The Neo-Lachry- continued to promote the devel- mose Conception of Jewish Arab Jewish opment of university courses in History,” Tikkun 6 (1991): 55– Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewry. 60, and the article by E. Roth- Social 2 These include O. R. Constable, stein, “Was the Islam of Old Studies Medieval Iberia: Readings from Spain Truly Tolerant?” New York Christian Muslim and Jewish Times, Sept. 27, 2003, p. 9. Sources (Philadelphia, 1997); C. 7 A. Meyuas Ginio, “øConvivencia Smith, ed., Christians and Moors o coexistencia? Acotaciones al in Spain, 3 vols. (Warminster, pensamiento de Américo Cas- 1988–92); and E. R. Dixson, ed. tro,” in Creencias y culturas, ed. A. The Crusades: A Reader (Toronto, Meyuas Ginio and C. Carrete 2003), which includes a section Parrondo (Salamanca, 1998), on the “Conflict and Coexist- 147–58; E. W. Monter, “The ence in Spain.” A fine collection Death of Coexistence: Jews and of articles can be found in T. Moslems in Christian Spain,” in Glick, V. Mann, and J. Dodds, The Expulsion of the Jews, 1492 and eds., Convivencia, Jews, Muslims, After, ed. R. Waddington and A. and Christians in Medieval Spain Williamson (New York, 1994), (New York, 1992) 15–17; M. González Jiménez, “El 3 See Américo Castro’s classic Fracaso de la convivencia de study, España en su historia moros y judíos en Andalucía (ss. (Madrid, 1948), 200–209. The XIII–XV),” in Proyección histórica term was originally employed by de España, vol. 1, ed. E. L. Sanz Castro’s teacher, Ramón (Valladolid, 1993), 129–49. Menéndez Pidal, to describe lin- More generally, see R. I. Moore, guistic development. Formation of a Persecuting Society 4 On the importance of medieval (Oxford, 1987), and David Sepharad to the German-Jewish Nirenberg’s thoughtful refuta- academics of the nineteenth tion Communities of Violence: Per- century, see I. Schorsch, “The secution of Minorities in the Middle Myth of Sephardic Supremacy,” Ages (Princeton, 1996). Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 34 8 For recent examples, see Maria (1989): 47–66. Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of 5 Sánchez Albornoz’ polemic the World: How Muslims, Jews, and against Castro and his view of Christians Created a Culture of Tol- convivencia is contained within erance in Medieval Spain (Boston, his monumental España: Un 2002), and the editorial by po- enigma histórico, 2 vols. (Buenos litical scientist Seyla Benhabib Aires, 1956), and in his El drama in response to the attacks on de la formación de España y los es- Turkish Synagogues, in the New pañoles (Barcelona, 1973). For York Times, Nov. 18, 2003. See an overview of this debate, see T. also the comments of Norman Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain Stillman, “Myth, Counter-myth, and Distortion,” Tikkun 6 ists of the period and their at- (1991): 60–64, in response to tack on the courtier elite, see the work of Mark Cohen. Yizhak Baer’s treatment of the [15] 9 J. Tayler, “Long Live Conviven- Raaya mehemanah in his A History cia!” Condé Nast Traveler (July of the Jews in Christian Spain, 2 “Medieval 2004): 86–93. On Chile, see G. vols. (Philadelphia, 1961), 1: “Convivencia” Wells, “Looking for Pablo,” Condé 270–77. • Nast Traveler (Feb. 2004): 180. 14 See M. Saperstein, “The Preach- Jonathan Ray 10 For the comparative approach, ing of Repentance and the Re- see M. R. Cohen, Under Crescent forms in Toledo of 1281,” in and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Models of Holiness in Medieval Ser- Ages (Princeton, 1994). mons, ed. B. M. Kienzle (Louvain- 11 For a treatment of similar issues la-Neuve, 1996), 157–74. in medieval Ashkenaz, see Ivan 15 On the impact of the political Marcus, “A Jewish-Christian tensions of the period on Symbiosis: The Culture of Earl Toledan Jewry, see Baer, Jews in Ashkenaz,” in Cultures of the Jews, Christian Spain, 1: 129–30, 257– ed. D. Biale (New York, 2002), 61. See also A. Ballesteros, 449–516. “Burgos y la rebellion de Infante 12 Alfonso X, Cantigas de Santa Don Sancho,” Boletín de la Real María, ed. W. Mettmann (Coim- Academia de la Historia 119 bra, 1959–72). On the portrayal (1946): 93–191. of Jews in these and other works 16 Moses ben Jacob de Coucy, Sefer of the era, see L. Mirrer, “The Mitsvot Gadol, Negative Com- Jew’s Body in Medieval Literary mandment 112. Moses de Leon, Portraits and Miniatures: Ex- author of the mystical treatise amples from the Cantigas de Sefer ha-Zohar also fulminated Santa María and the Cantar de against the practice of taking mio Cid,” Shofar 12 (1994): 17– Muslim concubines. Such rela- 30; E. Aizenberg, “Una judía muy tions were portrayed as a viola- fermosa: The Jewess as Sex Object tion of Jewish holiness. Zohar, in Medieval Spanish Literature II:3b, 7a, 87b. and Lore,” La Corónica 12 17 N. Roth, “Jewish Conversos in (1984): 187–94; and D. Carpen- Medieval Spain: Some Miscon- ter, “Social Perception and Lit- ceptions and New Information,” erary Portrayal: Jews and in Marginated Groups in Spanish Muslims in Medieval Spanish and Portuguese History, ed. W. D. Literature,” in Glick et al., Con- Phillips, Jr., and C. R. Phillips vivencia, 61–81. (Minneapolis, 1986), 23–52. 13 Jonah Gerondi, Shaarei tshuvah 18 E. Lawee, “Changing Jewish Atti- (Jerusalem, 1967), chap. 3, sec- tudes Towards Christian Society: tions 131–33. Abulafia’s sermon The Case of Spain in the Late can be found in the responsa Middle Ages,” in Facing In and collection of Judah ben Asher, Facing Out: Gentiles in the Eyes of Zikheron yehudah (Berlin, 1946), Jewish Traditionalists, ed. M. 43a–45b. On the Jewish moral- Brown (Toronto, 2001), 1–15. In this vein, see also C. Carrete salem, 1989), 399–430. On the Parrondo, “Fraternization Be- problem of informers and the [16] tween Jews and Christians in response of Sephardic authori- Spain before 1492,” American ties, see Asher ben Yehiel, Re- Jewish Sephardi 9 (1978): 15–21. sponsa, section XVII, nos. 1, 6, 8; 19 Solomon Alami, Igeret musar, o, Solomon ben Abraham ibn Social Igeret ha-tokhehah veha-emunah, Adret, Sheelot u-tshuvot ha-rashba Studies ed. A. M. Habermann (Jerusa- (Responsa) ( Jerusalem, 1996), lem, 1946). Translation taken section V, nos. 287–89; Ben from Baer, Jews in Christian Asher, Zikheron yehudah, no. 63; Spain, 2: 239–42. D. Kauffman, “Jewish Informers 20 The translation is taken from in the Middle Ages,” The Jewish Benjamin Gampel, “A Letter to Quarterly Review, o.s. 8 (1896): a Wayward Teacher,” in Biale, 217–38; I. Epstein, The “Re- Cultures of the Jews, 391. sponsa” of Rabbi Solomon Adret of 21 Asher ben Yehiel, Sheelot u- Barcelona 1235–1310 as a Source tshuvot (Responsa) (Jerusalem, of the History of Spain (London, 1965), section XVIII, no. 13. Al- 1923), 48–53; Baer, Jews in Chris- though some editions of the text tian Spain, 1: 232–33, 285; and E. refer to the gentile as a Muslim Lourie, “Mafiosi and Malsines: (ha-Ismaeli), this appears to be a Violence, Fear, and Faction in form of self-censorship per- the Jewish Aljamas of Valencia formed by Jewish printers living in the Fourteenth Century,” in in Christian lands during the Congreso Internacional “Encuentro early modern period. The lack de las tres Culturas,” vol. 4, ed. C. of a significant Muslim popula- Carrete Parrondo (Toledo, tion in northern Castile at this 1988), 69–102. time and the involvement of the 24 For Christian Iberia, see Assis, Infante Don Juan both point to “Yehudei sefarad be-arkaot ha- the man in question being a goyim.” For the Muslim period, Christian. see M. Lehmann, “Islamic Legal 22 On the distinction between rab- Consultation and the Jewish- binic and lay authorities in me- Muslim ‘Convivencia’: Al- dieval Iberia, see Jonathan Ray, Wansharisi’s Fatwa Collection as “Royal Authority and the Jewish a Source for Jewish Social His- Community: The Crown Rabbi tory in ‘al-Andalus’ and the in Medieval Spain and Portu- Maghrib,” Jewish Studies Quarterly gal,” in Jewish Religious Leader- 6 (1999): 25–54. ship: From Biblical Models Through 25 Ibn Adret, Sheelot u-tshuvot, sec- the Middle Ages, ed. J. Wert- tion VI, no. 254. heimer (New York, 2004). 26 Recent examples include N. 23 Yom Tov Assis, “Yehudei sefarad Roth, “The Civic Status of the Jew be-arkaot ha-goyim,” in Tarbut in Medieval Spain,” in Iberia and ve-hevrah be-toldot yisrael bi-ymei- the Mediterranean World of the Mid- ha-benayim, ed. M. Ben Sasson, dle Ages, vol. 2, ed. P. E. Cheved- R. Bonfil, and Y. Hacker ( Jeru- den, D. J. Kagay, and P. G. Padilla (Leiden, 1996), 139–61, and D. 30 See Jaime I’s prohibition against Nirenberg, “Religious and Sex- taking Jews as slaves in J. Villa- ual Boundaries in the Medieval nueva, Viatge Literario a las igle- [17] Crown of Aragon,” in Christians, sias de España, vol. 22 (Madrid, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval and 1852), 314. “Medieval Early Modern Spain, ed. M. Meyer- 31 E. Gutwirth, “Hispano-Jewish At- “Convivencia” son and E. English (Notre Dame, titudes to the Moors in the Fif- • Ind., 1999), 141–60. For similar teenth Century,” Sefarad 49 Jonathan Ray treatments of other regions, see (1989): 249. The same prohibi- N. Berend, At the Gates of Christen- tions were often issued by lead- dom: Jews, Muslims and “Pagans” ers of Muslim communities. in Medieval Hungary, c. 1000–c. 32 Archivo de la Corona de Ara- 1300 (Cambridge, Engl., 2001), gon, reg. 37, fol. 93. and Maria Georgopoulou, “Map- 33 Alfonso X, Las Siete Partidas, ping Religious and Ethnic Iden- 7.24.8. For Gregory X’s letter, tities in the Venetian Colonial see Biblioteca de la Catedral de Empire,” Journal of Medieval and Córdoba, ms. 125, fol. 34r, cited Early Modern Studies 26 (1996): in Corpus mediaevale cordubense, 467–97, here 470. vol. 1, ed. M. Nieto Cumplido 27 See Cohen, Under Crescent and (Córdoba, 1979), 80–81. Cross, chap. 1, and Stillman, 34 J. M. de Estal, Alicante, de villa a “Myth, Counter-myth.” ciudad (1252–1490) (Alicante, 28 M. Colmeiro, ed., Cortes de los an- 1990), 210–11. tiguos reinos de León y de Castilla, 3 35 For Jewish ownership of mills, vols. (Madrid, 1884), 1: art. 7, see Archivo Zaida de Valencia, 68; Jonah ben Abraham caja III, perg. 17; Archivo de la Gerondi, Sefer ha-yirah (Jerusa- Catedral de Sevilla, caja 4, no. lem, 1975), 5b. 45/1, S. A. 1-7-83; and Y. T. Assis, 29 For the medieval slave trade on Jewish Economy in the Medieval the Iberian Peninsula, see C. Crown of Aragon (Leiden, 1997), Verlinden, “L’esclavage dans la 79. péninsula Ibérique au XIVe 36 On the caballeros villanos, see siècle,” Anuario de Estudios Medi- T. Ruiz, Crisis and Continuity, evales 7 (1970–71): 577–91, and Land and Town in Late Medieval S. Bensch, “From Prizes of War Castile (Philadelphia, 1994), to Domestic Merchandise: The 237–48, and C. Pescador, “La Changing Face of Slavery in Cat- Caballería popular en León y alonia and Aragon, 1000–1300,” Castilla,” Cuadernos de historia de Viator 25 (1994): 63–93. On the España 33–34 (1961): 101–238, Jewish role, see L. Simon, 35–36 (1962): 56–201, 37–38 “Muslim-Jewish Relations in Cru- (1963): 88–198, and 39–40 sader Majorca in the Thirteenth (1964): 169–260. Century: An Inquiry Based on 37 For royal attempts to curtail Patrimony Register 342,” in Mey- such excesses through the pro- erson and English, Christians, mulgation of various sumptuary Muslims, and Jews, 125–40. laws, see T. F. Ruiz, “Expansion et changement: La conquete de Roth, “The Civic Status.” For the Séville et la société castillane somewhat anomalous view that [18] (1248–1350),” Annales Economies Alfonso X’s legal reforms mark Sociétés et Civilisations 34 (1979): the beginning of the end of con- Jewish 548–65, and J. D. González Arce, vivencia, see R. Rosenstein, Apariencia y Poder: La legislación “Convivencia and Outsiderhood Social suntuaria castellana en los siglos in the Galician-Portuguese Can- Studies XIII y XIV (Jaén, 1998). cioneros: The Place of the ‘Mus- 38 T. Glick, “Convivencia: An Intro- lim, Jew or Heretic’ (Siete ductory Note,” in Glick et al., Partidas),” in Toleranz und Intol- Convivencia, 5. eranz im Mittelalter: VIII. Jahresta- 39 For royal legislation and Jewish gung der Reineke-Gesellschaft status during this period, see N. (Greifswald, 1997), 83–91.