Abstract
Abstract Historians often address knowledge transfer in two ways: as an extension and continuation of an established tradition, or as the tradition’s modification in an act of individual reception. This article explores the tension between the two approaches through a case study of Eliezer Eilburg. It traces the footsteps of a sixteenth-century German Jew and his study of the late medieval Hebrew medical and mystical literature composed in the wider Mediterranean. As it uncovers the cultural, political, and social processes shaping knowledge transfer between various Jewish cultures and geographies, the article highlights the receiver’s individual agency. Under the thickly described intellectual traditions, it is the receiver’s lived experience that allows historians to grasp the impact of knowledge on the lives of premodern people—the impact on their body and its relation to the world and to God. Building this argument, this article problematizes the relationship between theory and practice.
Highlights
This article explores the tension between the two approaches through a case study of Eliezer Eilburg
This article problematizes the relationship between theory and practice
Not long after his return from Italy, around the autumn of 1553, Eliezer Eilburg, a Central European Jew born in Lower Saxony, was detained in the Silesian town of Oleśnica (Oels).[2]
Summary
Eilburg’s life is a telling example of how the Jews of Central Europe adapted to the changing political, economic, and social developments of the sixteenth century. Its outcome altered their strategy of resettlement.[22] Instead of returning to Braunschweig, they sought new residencies in neighboring towns, as well as in distant locations His uncle Jorden and his sons-in-law settled in Münden, where they found protection under Duchess Elisabeth of Calenberg.[23] Eilburg’s widowed mother and his brother moved to Safed.[24] Eilburg, his wife, and children settled in the Crown of Poland.[25] According to the document penned by the Polish royal chancery, the Jews of Poznań supported his plea for protection.[26] Eilburg likely followed his more distant business partners to a new town, in a new jurisdiction, hoping to continue his former mercantile activities.
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