Beyond the Elite: Everyday Jewish Lives in Medieval Northern Europe

Beyond the Elite focuses on the everyday social history of Jews in medieval northern and central Europe using four interpretive lenses: people, space, objects, and rituals. Contributors to this innovative volume discuss aspects of daily life through which non-elite Jews interacted with their Christian neighbors, while at the same time creating and affirming their own religious, social, and cultural identities. This volume makes possible a multifaceted understanding of different perspectives on Jewish life, demonstrating the extent to which medieval Jews were simultaneously integral to majority-Christian communities and also strangers within them.

Based on scholarship conducted during a multiyear, team-conducted research project, Beyond the Elite addresses topics such as orphanhood, social exclusion, travel by river, local power struggles, architectural styles, pawnbroking, wedding customs, and religious rituals. More broadly, in detailing the rhythms of daily life during times of relative calm for Jewish communities, it becomes clear that anti-Jewish persecution and violence from the late thirteenth century was both manifested within and a rupture of existing social orders.

Contributors: Tzafrir Barzilay, Elisheva Baumgarten, Neta Bodner, Nureet Dermer, Aviya Doron, Albert Evan Kohn, Miri Fenton, Annika Funke, Ariella Lehmann, Andreas Lehnertz, Eyal Levinson, Ido Noy, Erez Rochman, Miri Rubin, Hannah Teddy Schachter, Amit Shafran.