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The latter part of the thirteenth century is regarded as a key period in the history of Italian Jewry. During that time many Jewish communities sprang up in the regions of central and northern Italy. Their appearance marked a turning-point in the history of Jews in the Italian peninsula as the Jewish presence had previously been focused on Rome and the south. This acclaimed study, originally published in Italian, captures all the intricacies of everyday life in the medieval Jewish communities of Umbria. The book characterizes in detail the defining features of Jewish life in the region at that time and shows clearly how the common stereotype of a single, undifferentiated Jewish community does not reflect the reality. Instead, the book presents a picture of a complex society that contributed greatly to contemporary society and played a significant role in shaping it, while at the same time also being influenced by the surrounding Christian society. The book elaborates contemporary Jewish traditions and practices associated with love, marriage, food, work, sickness, and death in the context of everyday social relations between Christians and Jews. In so doing it presents a reconstruction of the Jewish life of the period that faithfully reflects the links and divides between the two communities. The book will be of interest to the general reader, while its detailed references to archival documentation make it a particularly valuable source for students of medieval Jewish history and specialists in the social history of medieval and Renaissance Italy.

This book grapples with much-disputed topics in medieval Jewish history and takes issue with a number of reigning views. The book provides a searching analysis of oft-cited halakhic texts of Ashkenaz, frequently with conclusions that differ from the current consensus. Part I questions the scholarly consensus that the roots of Ashkenaz lie deep in Palestinian soil. It challenges the widespread notion that it was immemorial custom that primarily governed Early Ashkenaz. It similarly rejects the theory that it was only towards the middle of the eleventh century that the Babylonian Talmud came to be regarded as fully authoritative. It is shown that the scholars of Early Ashkenaz displayed an astonishing command of the complex corpus of the Babylonian Talmud and viewed it at all times as the touchstone of the permissible and the forbidden. The section concludes with a radical proposal as to the source of Ashkenazi culture and the stamp it left upon the Jews of northern Europe for close to a millennium. Part II treats the issue of martyrdom as perceived and practised by Jews under Islam and Christianity. It claims that Maimonides' problematic Iggeret ha-Shemad is a work of rhetoric, not halakhah. This is followed by a comprehensive study of kiddush ha-shem in Ashkenaz. The book concludes with two chapters on Mishneh torah, which argue that that famed code must also be viewed as a work of art which sustains, as masterpieces do, multiple conflicting interpretations.