The Fate of the Jews of the Early Islamic Near East, 2022
In this book, I revisit one of the foundational narratives of medieval Jewish history--that the r... more In this book, I revisit one of the foundational narratives of medieval Jewish history--that the rise of Islam led the Jews of Babylonia, the largest Jewish community prior to the rise of Islam, to abandon a livelihood based on agriculture and move into urban crafts and long-distance trade.
The Jews of the medieval Islamicate world were avid consumers and producers of history. In this a... more The Jews of the medieval Islamicate world were avid consumers and producers of history. In this article, I discuss the major modes of historical writing among the Jews of the period and introduce the question of how that historical writing was used by those Jews. In considering the Sitz im Leben of historical writing, I explore the role of internal communal apologetic, anti-sectarian polemic, inter-religious attack, political support and challenge, entertainment, the contextualizing of philosophy, consolation after adversity, and preparation for eschatological redemption. I pay particular attention to the rewriting of Others' histories-Christian, Islamic, and Jewish sectarian-and the role these often-popular rewritten histories played in medieval Jewish society. This panoply of historical writing challenges an important scholarly view that Jewish consumption of history was minimal and served a limited range of "religious" needs within the medieval Jewish community.
Using evidence from the Cairo Geniza, I revisit the oft-cited view of Jewish marriage as the "pur... more Using evidence from the Cairo Geniza, I revisit the oft-cited view of Jewish marriage as the "purchase" of a bride. Relying on the work of those who connect "partnership" and "marriage", I argue that the term "qinyan"--often translated as "acquisition"--should be understood as effecting a change in legal status between individuals that denotes them as marital partners rather than as acquirer and acquired.
Goitein's Mediterranean Society is remarkable and paved the way for a generation-indeed, generati... more Goitein's Mediterranean Society is remarkable and paved the way for a generation-indeed, generations-of scholars. In this brief note, I discuss some of the fundamental questions Goitein left unanswered.
Jewish law has long faced the problem of individual litigants seeking multiple answers to a singl... more Jewish law has long faced the problem of individual litigants seeking multiple answers to a single halakhic question in order to select what they found to be the most favorable ruling. In this article, I examine the role that forum shopping for legal opinions played in the Jewish community of the medieval Islamic world. Individuals often made recourse to multiple juristic authorities, whether those authorities were leaders serving the geonic academies of Babylonia and the land of Israel or local jurists. I discuss some of the strategies the geonim and local jurists used to reduce competition between judicial rulings and how local judges utilized the various responsa composed on their behalf by these authorities or presented to them by litigants to bolster their case before the Jewish court. In so doing, I aim to refine our understanding of the social and legal role of rabbinic responsa in the medieval Islamic world by suggesting that this literature served as expert testimony to support one side or the other in a particular case rather than as the definitive record of the court's ruling in that case.
Do formal Arabic legal terms which have been appropriated into Judeo-Arabic maintain their Arabic... more Do formal Arabic legal terms which have been appropriated into Judeo-Arabic maintain their Arabic meanings and serve as loanwords, or do they take on a specific Jewish valence and serve as loan shifts? In this paper, I examine a number of such terms and their usage in the documentary sources of the Cairo Geniza and conclude the latter.
Conventional wisdom holds that judges ought to be emotionless. Occasional counterclaims, however,... more Conventional wisdom holds that judges ought to be emotionless. Occasional counterclaims, however, have posited compassion as an essential element of judicial wisdom. When compassion is thus privileged, it is understood as uniquely parental. We use as our lens two examples, one ancient and one modern: the disqualification, in the Babylonian Talmud, of childless men from judging capital cases on the ground that they are “devoid of paternal tenderness,” and Judge Julian Mack’s vision of the early 20th century juvenile court judge as a “wise and merciful father.” In both narratives judges are asked to have the capacity for empathy, which is believed to spark compassion, which in turn is predicted to manifest in mercy. In neither narrative, however, is this empathic arc seen as critical for judging in the ordinary case. A contemporary study showing the jurisprudential impact of fathering daughters represents a modern iteration of the judge-as-caring-parent meme.
The Fate of the Jews of the Early Islamic Near East, 2022
In this book, I revisit one of the foundational narratives of medieval Jewish history--that the r... more In this book, I revisit one of the foundational narratives of medieval Jewish history--that the rise of Islam led the Jews of Babylonia, the largest Jewish community prior to the rise of Islam, to abandon a livelihood based on agriculture and move into urban crafts and long-distance trade.
The Jews of the medieval Islamicate world were avid consumers and producers of history. In this a... more The Jews of the medieval Islamicate world were avid consumers and producers of history. In this article, I discuss the major modes of historical writing among the Jews of the period and introduce the question of how that historical writing was used by those Jews. In considering the Sitz im Leben of historical writing, I explore the role of internal communal apologetic, anti-sectarian polemic, inter-religious attack, political support and challenge, entertainment, the contextualizing of philosophy, consolation after adversity, and preparation for eschatological redemption. I pay particular attention to the rewriting of Others' histories-Christian, Islamic, and Jewish sectarian-and the role these often-popular rewritten histories played in medieval Jewish society. This panoply of historical writing challenges an important scholarly view that Jewish consumption of history was minimal and served a limited range of "religious" needs within the medieval Jewish community.
Using evidence from the Cairo Geniza, I revisit the oft-cited view of Jewish marriage as the "pur... more Using evidence from the Cairo Geniza, I revisit the oft-cited view of Jewish marriage as the "purchase" of a bride. Relying on the work of those who connect "partnership" and "marriage", I argue that the term "qinyan"--often translated as "acquisition"--should be understood as effecting a change in legal status between individuals that denotes them as marital partners rather than as acquirer and acquired.
Goitein's Mediterranean Society is remarkable and paved the way for a generation-indeed, generati... more Goitein's Mediterranean Society is remarkable and paved the way for a generation-indeed, generations-of scholars. In this brief note, I discuss some of the fundamental questions Goitein left unanswered.
Jewish law has long faced the problem of individual litigants seeking multiple answers to a singl... more Jewish law has long faced the problem of individual litigants seeking multiple answers to a single halakhic question in order to select what they found to be the most favorable ruling. In this article, I examine the role that forum shopping for legal opinions played in the Jewish community of the medieval Islamic world. Individuals often made recourse to multiple juristic authorities, whether those authorities were leaders serving the geonic academies of Babylonia and the land of Israel or local jurists. I discuss some of the strategies the geonim and local jurists used to reduce competition between judicial rulings and how local judges utilized the various responsa composed on their behalf by these authorities or presented to them by litigants to bolster their case before the Jewish court. In so doing, I aim to refine our understanding of the social and legal role of rabbinic responsa in the medieval Islamic world by suggesting that this literature served as expert testimony to support one side or the other in a particular case rather than as the definitive record of the court's ruling in that case.
Do formal Arabic legal terms which have been appropriated into Judeo-Arabic maintain their Arabic... more Do formal Arabic legal terms which have been appropriated into Judeo-Arabic maintain their Arabic meanings and serve as loanwords, or do they take on a specific Jewish valence and serve as loan shifts? In this paper, I examine a number of such terms and their usage in the documentary sources of the Cairo Geniza and conclude the latter.
Conventional wisdom holds that judges ought to be emotionless. Occasional counterclaims, however,... more Conventional wisdom holds that judges ought to be emotionless. Occasional counterclaims, however, have posited compassion as an essential element of judicial wisdom. When compassion is thus privileged, it is understood as uniquely parental. We use as our lens two examples, one ancient and one modern: the disqualification, in the Babylonian Talmud, of childless men from judging capital cases on the ground that they are “devoid of paternal tenderness,” and Judge Julian Mack’s vision of the early 20th century juvenile court judge as a “wise and merciful father.” In both narratives judges are asked to have the capacity for empathy, which is believed to spark compassion, which in turn is predicted to manifest in mercy. In neither narrative, however, is this empathic arc seen as critical for judging in the ordinary case. A contemporary study showing the jurisprudential impact of fathering daughters represents a modern iteration of the judge-as-caring-parent meme.
Do magical recipes work? I begin with a story. A number of years ago I gave a graduate seminar in... more Do magical recipes work? I begin with a story. A number of years ago I gave a graduate seminar in Islamic law at New York University. One of my students was earning her master's degree part time and worked the rest of the time as an editor for Glamour magazine, a publication whose articles provide advice in the areas of fashion and beauty. I proposed to her that I write an article for Glamour on magical recipes from the Cairo Genizah. Magic focuses on harnessing superhuman powers and transcending the laws of nature for one's own ends; since Glamour was devoted to harnessing extraordinary powers to find one's 'soulmate', I thought the perpetual nature of the magazine's concerns would be of interest to its readers. Gideon Bohak, scholar of ancient Jewish magic, identifies a number of domains in which Jewish magic has sought to intervene across the millennia-'to heal the sick, harm the healthy, make a woman love a man, make a newly wed man impotent or release him from such impotence, and perform other real changes in the world around them' 1and some of these very areas are regularly the subject of articles in Glamour. So I thought the magazine might like an article on medieval magical recipes for doing the same. Ultimately the editors at Glamour did not like my suggestion, perhaps because in the article I wished to focus on what happens when 'magical' remedies do not work. Magazines whose advertisers sell products designed to help 'make a woman love a man' or the reverse probably do not even want to consider the possibility that such products might not work. However, just because a product is ineffective in a particular instance does not mean that it 'does not work'. Humans and their relationships are extremely complex, and as the saying goes, 'your mileage may vary'.
Surveys the daily life of the Jews of the medieval Islamic world from roughly the rise of Islam t... more Surveys the daily life of the Jews of the medieval Islamic world from roughly the rise of Islam to the turn of the millennium.
A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations : From the Origins to the Present Day, 2013
Despite many differences in detail, Judaism and Islam have much in common in their reliance on la... more Despite many differences in detail, Judaism and Islam have much in common in their reliance on law as an organizing framework. Both legal systems turn to canonical textual sources (both scriptural and nonscriptural), as well as the interpretation of these texts, for the foundations of practice. Questions of legal method animated much early debate within each tradition; in Islamic law, distinctive legal schools persist to this day, which maintain such debate. Over time, narrative codes emerged in each tradition that established communal norms; these codes negotiated and at times vindicated local customary practice. As Judaism and Islam encountered modernity, both legal systems were transformed by both progressive and reactionary reform movements.
In this article, I discuss Passover celebrations in the White House and what these celebrations c... more In this article, I discuss Passover celebrations in the White House and what these celebrations can tell us about the relationship of the American Jewish community to the executive.
In this talk, I discuss Passover celebrations in the White House and what it can tell us about th... more In this talk, I discuss Passover celebrations in the White House and what it can tell us about the relationship between the executive and the American Jewish community.
In this talk, on the Jewish Drinking Show, I discuss the production and consumption of wine and o... more In this talk, on the Jewish Drinking Show, I discuss the production and consumption of wine and other beverages in the Geonic period in Iraq.
Here's an introduction to Maimonides' life and the Guide to the Perplexed, part of a series at my... more Here's an introduction to Maimonides' life and the Guide to the Perplexed, part of a series at myjewishlearning.com
The Torah’s prohibition against loaning money with interest addresses a culture of subsistence fa... more The Torah’s prohibition against loaning money with interest addresses a culture of subsistence farmers. Later Jews devised halakhic loopholes to enable them to make use of credit instruments such as the suftaja and to participate in market economies.
Call for papers for joint conference of the Jewish Law Association and Concordia University (Mont... more Call for papers for joint conference of the Jewish Law Association and Concordia University (Montreal) on the topic of Judaism and Gender, to be held Oct 30, 2019
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When compassion is thus privileged, it is understood as uniquely parental. We use as our lens two examples, one ancient and one modern: the disqualification, in the Babylonian Talmud, of childless men from judging capital cases on the ground that they are “devoid of paternal tenderness,” and Judge Julian Mack’s vision of the early 20th century juvenile court judge as a “wise and merciful father.” In both narratives
judges are asked to have the capacity for empathy, which is believed to spark compassion, which in turn is predicted to manifest in mercy. In neither narrative, however, is this empathic arc seen as critical for judging in the ordinary case. A contemporary study showing the jurisprudential impact of fathering daughters represents a modern iteration of the judge-as-caring-parent meme.
When compassion is thus privileged, it is understood as uniquely parental. We use as our lens two examples, one ancient and one modern: the disqualification, in the Babylonian Talmud, of childless men from judging capital cases on the ground that they are “devoid of paternal tenderness,” and Judge Julian Mack’s vision of the early 20th century juvenile court judge as a “wise and merciful father.” In both narratives
judges are asked to have the capacity for empathy, which is believed to spark compassion, which in turn is predicted to manifest in mercy. In neither narrative, however, is this empathic arc seen as critical for judging in the ordinary case. A contemporary study showing the jurisprudential impact of fathering daughters represents a modern iteration of the judge-as-caring-parent meme.