SAMPLE (c) Wayne AFAR - NOT B ROfrom T H E R S State FOR UniversityDISTRIBUTION Press SAMPLE (c) Wayne - NOT State FOR UniversityDISTRIBUTION Press SAMPLE (c) Wayne AFAR - NOT B ROfrom T H E R S State FOR Rabbinic Approaches to Apostasy and Reversion in Medieval Europe UniversityDISTRIBUTION EPHRAIM KANARFOGEL Detroit Press Wayne State University Press SAMPLE (c) Wayne - NOT State FOR © 2020 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be Universityreproduced withoutDISTRIBUTION formal permission. Manufactured in the United States of America. ISBN 978- 0- 8143- 4028- 8 (hardback); ISBN 978- 0- 8143- 4029- 5 (ebook) Library of Congress Control Number:{~?~TK: LCCN} Wayne State University Press Leonard N. Simons Building Press 4809 Woodward Avenue Detroit, Michigan 48201- 1309 Visit us online at wsupress .wayne .edu לז״נ SAMPLE אבי מורי ואמי מורתי ע״ה (c) ומרת הינדא לאה ע״ה בת ר׳ מנחם מענדל הי״ו Wayne - NOT State FOR UniversityDISTRIBUTION Press SAMPLE (c) Wayne - NOT State FOR UniversityDISTRIBUTION Press CONTENTS SAMPLE (c) Preface and Acknowledgments ix Wayne1. Assessing the Ashkenazic Context 1 - 2. EstablishingNOT Boundaries: Immersion, Repentance, Verification 000 3. The Effectiveness of Marriage and Participation in Ḥaliẓah 000 4. EconomicState Issues and theFOR Implications for Other Areas of Jewish Law: Money- Lending at Interest 000 5. Between Jews and Christians:University DoctrinalDISTRIBUTION and Societal Changes 000 6. Reverting Apostates in Christian Spain: Sources and Strategies 000 7. The Responsa and Rulings of Israel Isserlein and His Contemporaries 000 Conclusion 000 Press Appendix: Rabbinic Scholars in Europe during the High Middle Ages 000 Index 000 SAMPLE (c) Wayne - NOT State FOR UniversityDISTRIBUTION Press SAMPLE PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (c) The genesis of this book goes back to an invitation to speak at a conference Wayneheld in 2005 at the Center for Jewish History in New York City, on the larger theme of Jewish-- Chri stian relations in the medieval and early modern peri- ods. In discussing possibleNOT paper topics with one of the conveners, my friend and colleague Professor Elisheva Carlebach of Columbia University, I men- tioned that I had recently come across a published passage attributed to the German TosafistSimḥah State of Speyer (d. c. 1230), in which he suggests that re- verting apostates must undergo FORa ritual immersion at the time of their return. This struck me as rather unusual, in light of the strongly held and well- known thesis of my doctorvater, the late Professor Jacob Katz of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ProfessorUniversity Katz maintainedDISTRIBUTION (in Exclusiveness and Toler- ance, which first appeared in 1961, and in other publications from around the same time) that those who apostatized and later returned to the Jewish commu- nity during the medieval period in northern Europe were encouraged by rab- binic authorities, following Rashi’s adaptation of the talmudic phrase, ’af ‘al pi she- ḥata Yisra’el hu (a Jew, even if has sinned grievously, remains a Jew), to once again take their places within the community without thePress need for any special ceremony or act that signified or verified the genuineness of their reversion. Moreover, while reading through medieval Jewish manuscripts for completely different topics, I had come across additional evidence which suggested that northern French Tosafists from the mid-thirt eenth century also mandated this immersion, and I succeeded in locating some earlier material as well. The published version of that paper, “Returning to the Jewish Community in Medieval Ashkenaz: History and Halakhah,” appeared in 2007. From that point on, I began to gather all kinds of additional sources, mainly in manuscript but also from published texts, which seemed to support what I had initially argued, even as these materials led me in a number of new directions as well. Another central aspect of Rashi’s approach is that apostates to Christianity SAMPLEwho had not returned to the Jewish community were still to be treated by the community as Jews. Money could not be lent to them at interest, bills of divorce that apostate husbands gave their Jewish wives were seen as fully effective, and (c)so on, even as certain aspects of socialization were perforce discouraged. Here too, however, I came across Tosafist texts that challenged these guidelines in significantWayne ways. An article on these- issues appeared in 2012 (in a volume that was co- edited by Professor Carlebach),NOT and the die was cast. Although there are elements from both of these articles in the present book, the thinking and the specifics behind the larger investigation have been significantly expanded and at times modifiedState along conceptual, geographic, and chronological lines. Professor Katz was a sensitive yet demandingFOR doctorvater, who always had us carefully question our fundamental research assumptions. I asked myself why, given his tremendous gifts as a scholar, he had gone in one direction in researching these issues and I was nowUniversity going in quiteDISTRIBUTION another. Time and time again, I came back to the same conclusion. The manuscript texts, which are barely reflected in most instances within the published texts, and the rereading of the published materials in light of what is found in manuscript, make all the difference. I firmly believe that my conclusions are correct, although the reader will be the judge. This book is not a complete treatment of the presencePress of apostates (or reverting apostates) in medieval Europe by any means. Although individ- ual apostates and their particular situations will be noted and discussed, at times in detail, this book looks at how rabbinic figures considered apostasy and reversion as phenomena about which they needed to make halakhic and even meta- halakhic rulings and judgments, and how these views developed and changed. In many ways, this is a book about the history of halakhah as it relates to apostasy and reversion. As was their wont, leading rabbinic scholars x - Preface and Acknowledgments and halakhists tended to look beyond the confines of the specific cases and behaviors before them, to provide guidance and leadership for the Jewish community as a whole. This book will also not offer a systematic survey of every issue involving SAMPLEapostasy that attracted rabbinic rulings or discussion. It is focused on the larger components and trends that underlie rabbinic thought (and practice) in these matters, as they emerge from a myriad of details. For those who may (c) already be wondering, reversion is defined in this study simply as “to return to a previous practice or belief”— in this instance, Judaism. A more detailed Wayneoutline of the chapters of the book will be provided in the course of chapter 1. Managing all- the details that are contained in the rich rabbinic texts and other types of NOTmedieval Jewish (and Christian) literature treated by this study, and identifying and defining the larger patterns that emerge, have been exhilarating and at times daunting tasks. Given what amounts to a fairly wide historical andState geographic scope, across a range of topical foci, I asked a number of distinguished colleaguesFOR to read and comment on my work, and they graciously acceded to my request: Professors David Berger, Edward Fram, David Malkiel, Ivan Marcus, Marc Saperstein, and Moshe Sokolow, and Rabbi Abraham Lieberman. Needless Universityto say, I aloneDISTRIBUTION am responsible for any errors that remain; but also needless to say, these experts have saved me from many errors, and have improved the final product immensely. To all of them go my deepest thanks. I am privileged and truly blessed to serve as the E. Billi Ivry University Professor of Jewish History, Literature and Law at Yeshiva University. As always, I tried out some of my findings and arguments Presson my graduate stu- dents at Yeshiva’s Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies and on my honors students at Stern College for Women. And as always, both groups made a number of helpful comments about what seemed to work (and what did not), causing me to make several important changes and adjustments in the presentation of my arguments and materials. Many thanks to Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University (and a fellow medievalist), for his unflagging support and interest in my Preface and Acknowledgments - xi work, and to Dr. Selma Botman, our current provost (and a distinguished modernist), for the same; and to Dr. Mort Lowengrub, who bestowed upon me a series of very meaningful academic appointments and honors over his nearly two decades as provost, which have made my scholarly achievements SAMPLEpossible. Deans Karen Bacon and David Berger, good friends and colleagues both, have always done their utmost to ensure that my research and writing could be accomplished productively, and that our students in Jewish Studies, (c)graduate and undergraduate, would have everything they needed. The staffs of the Mendel Gottesman Library at Yeshiva University in New York and the NationalWayne Library of Israel in Jerusalem (and especially the Institute for Micro- filmed Hebrew Manuscripts),- both of which I consider my “home” libraries, have outdone themselvesNOT in providing me with necessary (and often hard to get) literary materials of all types. My frequent research travels to Israel are always enhanced by colleagues from the Hebrew UniversityState of Jerusalem, Bar- Ilan University, and Ben- Gurion University of the Negev. TheyFOR have been of great assistance over these many years in scholarship and friendship. I sorely miss several Israeli mentors: Professor Israel Ta- Shma z”l, Rav Reuven Aberman z”l, Mr. Victor Geller z”l, and Rav Binyamin Tabory z”l. Nonetheless,University the DISTRIBUTIONmeaningful friendships that I have made with my Israeli academic colleagues sustain me not only during the research trips to Israel, but as I work in the States as well.