Ivan G. Marcus. “Sefer Hasidim” and the Ashkenazic Book in Medieval Europe.

Abstract

Ivan G. Marcus’s “Sefer Hasidim” and the Ashkenazic Book in Medieval Europe is a rather unique book about a rather unique Jewish book from the Middle Ages. The Book of the Pietists [Sefer Hasidim], “written anonymously [in the thirteenth century] but attributed to Rabbi Judah b. Samuel he-hasid (the pietist) of Regensburg (d.1217),” has long been studied for its insights into the Jewish spirituality of a small circle of medieval rabbis and their students, and more recently for what the book reveals about contemporary social interaction between Jews and Christians in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Rhineland cities (1). Marcus himself has contributed significantly to scholarship on this latter aspect of the book. After efficiently recounting the evolving interest in Sefer Hasidim, Marcus heads in a new direction. This ability to see problems from a new angle is a characteristic feature of his scholarship; he has marked out new areas of research on Jewish education in the Middle Ages as well as Jewish reactions to Christian culture.