Mutual perceptions and attitudes

Date

2018

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Cambridge UP

YU Faculty Profile

Abstract

Medieval Jews and Christians lived in an environment where the Other mattered profoundly. That Christians were a source of concern for Jews hardly needs to be noted, let alone demonstrated. The legal and political dimensions of the Jewish condition were virtually determined by the dominant society, the social life of the minority was profoundly affected by the majority, and cultural influences were deeper and more pervasive than historians imagined less than a half-century ago. That Jews were a source of concern for Christians is more striking and, for an observer who comes to the subject with expectations formed by an abstract analysis based on the “objective” importance of Jews in medieval Christian Europe, nothing less than startling. (from Introduction)

Description

Scholarly book chapter

Keywords

Medieval Jewry, Medieval Christians, medieval Christian Europe

Citation

Berger, B. (2018). Mutual perceptions and attitudes. In R. Chazan, (Ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 6: The Middle Ages: The Christian World (pp. 54-75). Cambridge UP.