Crossing the Jabbok: Illness and Death in Ashkenzai Judaism in Sixteenth- through Nineteenth-Century Prague

Abstract

To date, remarkably little research attention has been paid to the development of Jewish beliefs and rituals about illness and death. Crossing the Jabbok presents an illuminating study of such views and practices among Ashkenazi Jews (1500s-1800s) and is one of the first works to apply history of mentalites methods to a topic in Jewish cultural studies. Focusing on Prague, then the center of Central and Western European Jewry, the author draws on a rich array of materials to explore what was distinctively Jewish about the approach of Jews to sickness and dying. Her discoveries shed new light on the institution of the hevra kaddisha, or burial society, and many existing customs.