Leading scholars reflect on the 1492 expulsions of the Jews from Spain.

Examines the origins of the En Yaaqov in the tumultuous medieval period and the motivations of its creator, exiled Spanish rabbi Jacob ibn Habib. After his expulsion from Spain in 1492, Jacob ibn Habib created the En Yaaqov, a collection of Talmudic aggadah (non-legal material), by removing the majority of the Talmud’s legal portions but preserving the chapter order of the remaining material and adding his own introduction and running commentary. In The En Yaaqov: Jacob ibn Habib’s Search for Faith in the Talmudic Corpus author Marjorie Lehman argues that the En Yaaqov’s anthologizer, Jacob ibn Habib, purposely sought to create a Talmud "look-alike" in order to prove that Judaism’s foundational legal tract could also be seen as a theological document. By considering the factors that influenced ibn Habib, Lehman argues that his En Yaaqov was a reaction to the way that the Talmud was perceived and studied during the late medieval period among Spanish Jewry. In four chapters, Lehman explores the first printed edition of the En Yaaqov, delving into the intellectual culture and theological intricacies surrounding its creation and elaborating on the contributions of the En Yaaqov to the development of faith. Chapter 1 considers the political turmoil and challenges of resettlement that ibn Habib encountered after expulsion and that prompted him to produce the En Yaaqov. Chapter 2 focuses on the intellectual framework within which ibn Habib’s attitude toward Talmudic aggadah developed and explains why few running commentaries on the aggadot of the Talmud existed prior to his work. Chapter 3 discusses ibn Habib’s editorial decisions in choosing to construct the En Yaaqov as a Talmud "look-alike." In Chapter 4, Lehman analyzes key passages in ibn Habib’s commentary to the En Yaaqov to examine how he integrated text and context to provide a resource that Jews could utilize for spiritual growth and continuity of faith. In her conclusion, Lehman addresses the evolving printing history of the collection, which was quite different from that of the Talmud. Lehman argues that ibn Habib’s experiences as a Spanish Jew who was forced to flee Spain prompted him to make decisions not only about how the Talmud should be studied in the name of spiritual restoration but also about how Jews could survive future expulsions by cultivating a sustainable faithful relationship with God. This insightfully researched book will be informative to scholars of Talmud and Rabbinic Literature, late-medieval intellectual history and culture, Sephardic history, and the history of the Jewish book as well as to readers interested in the still-popular En Yaaqov.

Sephardic and Ashkenazic Judaism have long been studied separately. Yet, scholars are becoming ever more aware of the need to merge them into a single field of Jewish Studies. This volume opens new perspectives and bridges traditional gaps. The authors are not simply contributing to their respective fields of Sephardic or Ashkenazic Studies. Rather, they all include both Sephardic and Ashkenazic perspectives as they reflect on different aspects of encounters and reconsider traditional narratives. Subjects range from medieval and early modern Sephardic and Ashkenazic constructions of identities, influences, and entanglements in the fields of religious art, halakhah, kabbalah, messianism, and charity to modern Ashkenazic Sephardism and Sephardic admiration for Ashkenazic culture. For reasons of coherency, the contributions all focus on European contexts between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries.

Today Portuguese is the seventh most widely spoken language in the world and Brazil is a new economic powerhouse. Both phenomena result from the Portuguese 'Discoveries' of the 15th and 16th centuries, and the Catholic missions that planted Portuguese communities in every continent. Some were part of the Portuguese empire but many survived independently under other rulers with their own Creole languages and indigenized Portuguese culture. In the 19th and 20th centuries these were joined by millions of economic migrants who established Portuguese settlements in Europe, North America, Venezuela and South Africa - and in less likely places, including Bermuda, Guyana and Hawaii. Interwoven within this global history of the diaspora are stories of the Portuguese who left mainland Portugal and the islands, the lives of the Sephardic Jews, the African slaves imported into the Atlantic Islands and Brazil and the Goans who later spread along the imperial highways of Portugal and Britain. Much of Portugal's contribution to science and the arts, as well as its influence in the modern world, can be attributed to the members of these widely scattered Portuguese communities, and these are given their due in Newitt's engrossing volume

"Modified and updated version of a book that first appeared in Paris in 1993 under the title Juifs des Balkans ... (Editions La Decouverte)"--Acknowledgments, p. [xi].

Early Modern Jewry boldly offers a new history of the early modern Jewish experience. From Krakow and Venice to Amsterdam and Smyrna, David Ruderman examines the historical and cultural factors unique to Jewish communities throughout Europe, and how these distinctions played out amidst the rest of society. Looking at how Jewish settlements in the early modern period were linked to one another in fascinating ways, he shows how Jews were communicating with each other and were more aware of their economic, social, and religious connections than ever before. Ruderman explores five crucial and powerful characteristics uniting Jewish communities: a mobility leading to enhanced contacts between Jews of differing backgrounds, traditions, and languages, as well as between Jews and non-Jews; a heightened sense of communal cohesion throughout all Jewish settlements that revealed the rising power of lay oligarchies; a knowledge explosion brought about by the printing press, the growing interest in Jewish books by Christian readers, an expanded curriculum of Jewish learning, and the entrance of Jewish elites into universities; a crisis of rabbinic authority expressed through active messianism, mystical prophecy, radical enthusiasm, and heresy; and the blurring of religious identities, impacting such groups as conversos, Sabbateans, individual converts to Christianity, and Christian Hebraists. In describing an early modern Jewish culture, Early Modern Jewry reconstructs a distinct epoch in history and provides essential background for understanding the modern Jewish experience.