In Brothers from Afar, Ephraim Kanarfogel challenges a long-held view that those who had apostatized and later returned to the Jewish community in northern medieval Europe were encouraged to resume their places without the need for special ceremony or act that verified their reversion. Kanarfogel's evidence suggests that from the late twelfth century onward, leading rabbinic authorities held that returning apostates had to undergo ritual immersion and other rites of contrition. He also argues that the shift in rabbinic positions during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was fundamentally a response to changing Christian perceptions of Jews and was not simply an internal halakhic or rabbinic development. Brothers from Afar is divided into seven chapters. Kanarfogel begins the book with Rashi (1040-1105), the pre-eminent European rabbinic authority, who favored an approach which sought to smooth the return of penitent apostates. He then goes on to explain that although Jacob Katz, a leading Jewish social historian, maintains that this more lenient approach held sway in Ashkenazic society, a series of manuscript passages indicate that Rashi's view was challenged in several significant ways by northern French Tosafists in the mid-twelfth century. German Tosafists mandated immersion for a returning apostate as a means of atonement, akin to the procedure required of a new convert. In addition, several prominent tosafists sought to downgrade the status of apostates from Judaisim who did not return, in both marital and economic issues, well beyond the place assigned to them by Rashi and others who supported his approach. Although these mandates were formulated along textual and juridical lines, considerations of how to protect the Jewish communities from the inroads of increased anti-Judaism and the outright hatred expressed for the Jews as unrivaled enemies of Christianity, played a large role. Indeed, medieval Christian sources that describe how Jews dealt with those who relapsed from Christianity to Judaism are based not only on popular practices and culture but also reflect concepts and practices that had the approbation of the rabbinic elite in northern Europe. Brothers from Afar belongs in the library of every scholar of Jewish and medieval studies.

In The Intellectual History and Rabbinic Culture of Medieval Ashkenaz, author Ephraim Kanarfogel challenges the dominant perception that medieval Ashkenazic rabbinic scholarship was lacking in intellectualism or broad scholarly interests. While cultural interaction between Jews and Christians in western Europe was less than that of Sephardic Jews, Kanarfogel's study shows that the intellectual interests of Ashkenazic rabbinic figures were much broader than Talmudic studies alone. Kanarfogel begins by highlighting several factors that have contributed to relatively narrow perceptions of Ashkenazic rabbinic culture and argues that the Tosafists, and Ashkenazic rabbinic scholarship more generally, advocated a wide definition of the truths that could be discovered through Torah study. He explores differences in talmudic and halakhic studies between the Tosafist centers of northern France and Germany, delves into aspects of biblical interpretation in each region, and identifies important Tosafists and rabbinic figures. Kanarfogel also examines the composition of liturgical poetry (piyyut) by Tosafists, interest in forms of (white) magic and mysticism on the part of a number of northern French Tosafists, and a spectrum of views on the question of anthropomorphism and messianism. Overall, Kanarfogel demonstrates that the approach taken by Tosafists was broader, more open, and more multi-disciplinary than previously considered. Medieval and Jewish history scholars will appreciate Kanarfogel's volume, which is the culmination of several decades of research on the subject.

Though the existence of Jewish regional cultures is widely known, the origins of the most prominent groups, Ashkenaz and Sepharad, are poorly understood, and the rich variety of other regional Jewish identities is often overlooked. Yet all these subcultures emerged in the Middle Ages. Scholars contributing to the present study were invited to consider how such regional identities were fashioned, propagated, reinforced, contested, and reshaped—and to reflect on the developments, events, or encounters that made these identities manifest. They were asked to identify how subcultural identities proved to be useful, and the circumstances in which they were deployed. The resulting volume spans the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, and explores Jewish cultural developments in western Europe, the Balkans, North Africa, and Asia Minor. In its own way, each contribution considers factors—demographic, geographical, historical, economic, political, institutional, legal, intellectual, theological, cultural, and even biological—that led medieval Jews to conceive of themselves, or to be perceived by others, as bearers of a discrete Jewish regional identity. Notwithstanding the singularity of each essay, they collectively attest to the inherent dynamism of Jewish regional identities.

During the high Middle Ages, the tosafists flourished in northern Europe and revolutionized the study of the Talmud. These Jewish scholars did not participate in the philosophical and religious thought that concerned Christendom, and today they are seen as having played a limited role in mystical or esoteric studies. Ephraim Kanarfogel now challenges this conventional view of the tosafists, showing that many individuals were influenced by ascetic and pietistic practices and were involved with mystical and magical doctrines. He traces the presence of these disciplines in the pre-Crusade period, shows how they are intertwined, and suggests that the widely available Hekhalot literature was an important conduit for this material. He also demonstrates that the asceticism and esotericism of the German Pietists were an integral part of Ashkenazic rabbinic culture after the failure of Rashbam and other early tosafists to suppress these aspects of pre-Crusade thinking. The identification of these various forms of spirituality places the tosafists among those medieval rabbinic thinkers who sought to supplement their Talmudism with other areas of knowledge such as philosophy and kabbalah, demonstrating the compatibility of rabbinic culture and mysticism. These interests, argues Kanarfogel, explain both references to medieval Ashkenazic rabbinic figures in kabbalistic literature and the acceptance of certain ascetic and mystical practices by later Ashkenazic scholars. Drawing on original manuscript research, Kanarfogel makes available for the first time many passages produced by lesser known tosafists and rabbinic figures and integrates the findings of earlier and contemporary scholarship, much of it published only in Hebrew. "Peering through the Lattices" provides a greater appreciation for these texts and opens up new opportunities for scholarhship in Jewish history and thought.

Though the existence of Jewish regional cultures is widely known, the origins of the most prominent groups, Ashkenaz and Sepharad, are poorly understood, and the rich variety of other regional Jewish identities is often overlooked. Yet all these subcultures emerged in the Middle Ages. Scholars contributing to the present study were invited to consider how such regional identities were fashioned, propagated, reinforced, contested, and reshaped-and to reflect on the developments, events, or encounters that made these identities manifest. They were asked to identify how subcultural identities proved to be useful, and the circumstances in which they were deployed. The resulting volume spans the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, and explores Jewish cultural developments in western Europe, the Balkans, North Africa, and Asia Minor. In its own way, each contribution considers factors-demographic, geographical, historical, economic, political, institutional, legal, intellectual, theological, cultural, and even biological-that led medieval Jews to conceive of themselves, or to be perceived by others, as bearers of a discrete Jewish regional identity. Notwithstanding the singularity of each essay, they collectively attest to the inherent dynamism of Jewish regional identities.

The Jews of northern France, Germany, and England, known collectively as Ashkenazic Jewry, have commanded the attention of scholars since the beginnings of modern Jewish historiography. Over the past century, historians have produced significant studies about Jewish society in medieval Ashkenaz that have revealed them as a well-organized, creative, and steadfast community. Indeed, the Franco-Russian Jewry withstood a variety of physical, political, and religious attacks in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to produce an impressive corpus of Talmudic and halakhic compositions, known collectively as Tosafot, that revolutionized the study of rabbinic literature. Although the literary creativity of the Tosafists has been documented and analyzed, and the scope and policies of communal government in Ashkenaz have been fixed and compared, no sustained attempt has been made to integrate these crucial dimensions. Jewish Education and Society in the High Middle Ages considers these relationships by examining the degree of communal involvement in the educational process, as well as the economic theories and communal structures that affected the process from the most elementary level to the production of the Tosafist corpus. By drawing parallels and highlighting differences to pre-Crusade Ashkenaz, the period following the Black Death, Spanish and Provencal Jewish society, and general medieval society, Ephraim Kanarfogel creates an insightful and compelling portrait of Ashkenazic society. Available in paperback for the first time with a new preface included, Jewish Education and Society in the High Middle Ages will be a welcome addition to the libraries of Jewish studies scholars and students of medieval religious literature.

In Brothers from Afar, Ephraim Kanarfogel challenges a long-held view that those who had apostatized and later returned to the Jewish community in northern medieval Europe were encouraged to resume their places without the need for special ceremony or act that verified their reversion. Kanarfogel's evidence suggests that from the late twelfth century onward, leading rabbinic authorities held that returning apostates had to undergo ritual immersion and other rites of contrition. He also argues that the shift in rabbinic positions during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was fundamentally a response to changing Christian perceptions of Jews and was not simply an internal halakhic or rabbinic development. Brothers from Afar is divided into seven chapters. Kanarfogel begins the book with Rashi (1040-1105), the pre-eminent European rabbinic authority, who favored an approach which sought to smooth the return of penitent apostates. He then goes on to explain that although Jacob Katz, a leading Jewish social historian, maintains that this more lenient approach held sway in Ashkenazic society, a series of manuscript passages indicate that Rashi's view was challenged in several significant ways by northern French Tosafists in the mid-twelfth century. German Tosafists mandated immersion for a returning apostate as a means of atonement, akin to the procedure required of a new convert. In addition, several prominent tosafists sought to downgrade the status of apostates from Judaisim who did not return, in both marital and economic issues, well beyond the place assigned to them by Rashi and others who supported his approach. Although these mandates were formulated along textual and juridical lines, considerations of how to protect the Jewish communities from the inroads of increased anti-Judaism and the outright hatred expressed for the Jews as unrivaled enemies of Christianity, played a large role. Indeed, medieval Christian sources that describe how Jews dealt with those who relapsed from Christianity to Judaism are based not only on popular practices and culture but also reflect concepts and practices that had the approbation of the rabbinic elite in northern Europe. Brothers from Afar belongs in the library of every scholar of Jewish and medieval studies.