Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz
JEWISH CULTURE AND CONTEXTS
Published in association with the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania
David B. Ruderman, Series Editor
Advisory Board
Richard I. Cohen
Moshe Idel
Alan Mintz
Deborah Dash Moore
Ada Rapoport-Albert
Michael D. Swartz
PRACTICING PIETY IN MEDIEVAL ASHKENAZ
Men, Women, and Everyday Religious Observance
Elisheva Baumgarten
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from the Herbert D. Katz Publications Fund of the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.
Copyright © 2014 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Baumgarten, Elisheva.
Practicing piety in medieval Ashkenaz : men, women, and everyday religious observance / Elisheva Baumgarten. — First edition.
pages cm. — (Jewish culture and contexts)
ISBN 978-0-8122-4640-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Judaism—Europe—History—To 1500. 2. Jewish way of life—History—To 1500. 3. Ashkenazim—History—To 1500. 4. Hasidism, Medieval. 5. Jews—Europe—Social life and customs—To 1500. 6. Jews—France—Social life and customs—History—To 1500. 7. Jews—Germany—Social life and customs—History—To 1500. 8. Judaism—Relations—Christianity—History—To 1500. 9. Christianity and other religions—Judaism—History—To 1500. I. Title.
BM290.B38 2014
296.7094'0902—dc23
2014006034
Dedicated to the memory of our grandmothers:
Frances Feder Karp (1906–1970)
Ella Fischer Deutsch Williams (1909–1994)
Sabina Baumgarten Berkowitz (1909–2004)
Margot Darmstädter Seeligmann (1916–2010)
CONTENTS
Chapter 1. Standing Before God: Purity and Impurity in the Synagogue
Chapter 2. Jewish Fasting and Atonement in a Christian Context
Chapter 3. Communal Charity: Evidence from Medieval Nürnberg
Chapter 4. Positive Time-Bound Commandments: Class, Gender, and Transformation
Chapter 5. Conspicuous in the City: Medieval Jews in Urban Centers
Chapter 6. Feigning Piety: Tracing Two Tales of Pious Pretenders
Chapter 7. Practicing Piety: Social and Comparative Perspectives
Figure 1. A stork in her nest. From North French Miscellany. © The British Library Board. Ms Add. 11639, fol. 325v, detail. Northern France, late thirteenth century.
Introduction
R. Judah said: The hasidah is a white stork. And why is she called hasidah? Because she shows kindness (hasidut) to her companions.
—BT Hullin 63a
This is a white bird, cygonia,1 and why is she called hasidah? Because she acts with kindness (hasidut) unto her friends with food.
—Rashi, Leviticus 11:19, s.v. “hasidah”
The talmudic passage above offers an etymological explanation of the Hebrew term for stork (hasidah) by connecting the stork’s behavior to the word hesed (kindness) and its derivative, hasidut (piety).2 During the Middle Ages, the famous French commentator Rashi (Solomon b. Isaac of Troyes, d. 1105) understood the stork’s kindness through her custom of voluntarily distributing food to her friends, an act of sharing that was in no way obligatory (see
