Reconstructing Ashkenaz: The Human Face of Franco-German Jewry, 1000-1250

Reconstructing Ashkenaz shows that, contrary to traditional accounts, the Jews of Western Europe in the High Middle Ages were not a society of saints and martyrs. David Malkiel offers provocative revisions of commonly held interpretations of Jewish martyrdom in the First Crusade massacres, the level of obedience to rabbinic authority, and relations with apostates and with Christians. In the process, he also reexamines and radically revises the view that Ashkenazic Jewry was more pious than its Sephardic counterpart.

Author: David Malkiel
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 10/10/2008
Pages: 376
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9780804759502

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 01/09/2009 pg. 17
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2009 pg. 20

About the Author
David Malkiel teaches in the Department of Jewish History, Bar-Ilan University, in Israel.