Medieval Jewish History
Alanna E. Cooper
Fall 2012
Session 8
A Diaspora People: Far-Reaching Community Ties
READING
1. Glueckel of Hameln's Memoirs, p.1-5 and Book Four.
2. If you have time - "Mediterranean Society" (Ch. 10 in Sacred Trash)
NOTES ON READING
In this class we will discuss some of the strategies Jews drew upon to build secure, dignified lives in the midst of the uncertainty and vulnerability they faced during the Middle Ages. In addition to creating strong local communal institutions, they also nurtured powerful far-reaching social networks.
How do we learn about these networks? What sorts of information about them have been left behind?
Glueckel of Hamlen's writings are among the few memoirs that provide a window into the contours of a Jewish life that stretched across distant locales. We will focus on the geographic coordinates of Glueckel's social life (How far did the edges of her "community" extend), on the boundaries that separated those who were "in" from those who were "out," and on the ways in which kinship ties, social life, and economic relationship were intertwined.
S. D. Goitein, who wrote Mediterranean Society, focused on a very different time and place. Yet, his interest in the ties that joined together a far-flung Jewish community have much relevance for our discussion about Glueckel. If you have a chance to read Chapter 10 of Sacred Trash, you will get some insight into how Goitein did his research, the types of documents that were at his disposal, how he organized them, and what drew him to study them.
1. Glueckel of Hameln's Memoirs, p.1-5 and Book Four.
2. If you have time - "Mediterranean Society" (Ch. 10 in Sacred Trash)
NOTES ON READING
In this class we will discuss some of the strategies Jews drew upon to build secure, dignified lives in the midst of the uncertainty and vulnerability they faced during the Middle Ages. In addition to creating strong local communal institutions, they also nurtured powerful far-reaching social networks.
How do we learn about these networks? What sorts of information about them have been left behind?
Glueckel of Hamlen's writings are among the few memoirs that provide a window into the contours of a Jewish life that stretched across distant locales. We will focus on the geographic coordinates of Glueckel's social life (How far did the edges of her "community" extend), on the boundaries that separated those who were "in" from those who were "out," and on the ways in which kinship ties, social life, and economic relationship were intertwined.
S. D. Goitein, who wrote Mediterranean Society, focused on a very different time and place. Yet, his interest in the ties that joined together a far-flung Jewish community have much relevance for our discussion about Glueckel. If you have a chance to read Chapter 10 of Sacred Trash, you will get some insight into how Goitein did his research, the types of documents that were at his disposal, how he organized them, and what drew him to study them.