Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. PRINCETON READINGS IN RELIGIONS vii
3. NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
4. CONTENTS xi
5. CONTRIBUTORS xv
6. INTRODUCTION 1
7. Rituals of Daily and Festival Practice
8. 1 Communal Prayer and Liturgical Poetry 37
9. 2 Italian Jewish Women at Prayer 52
10. 3 Measuring Graves and Laying Wicks 61
11. 4 Adorning the "Bride" on the Eve of the Feast of Weeks 74
12. 5 New Year's Day for Fruit of the Tree 81
13. Rituals of the Life Cycle
14. 6 The Role of Women at Rituals of Their Infant Children 97
15. 7 Honey Cakes and Torah: A Jewish Boy Learns His Letters 115
16. 8 Women and Ritual Immersion in Medieval Ashkenaz: The Sexual Politics of Piety 131
17. 9 Life-Cycle Rituals of Spanish Crypto-Jewish Women 143
18. 10 Ritualizing Death and Dying: The Ethical Will of Naphtali Ha-Kohen Katz 155
19. Torah, Learning, and Ethics
20. 11 Moses Maimonides' Laws of the Study of Torah 169
21. 12 An Egyptian Woman Seeks to Rescue Her Husband from a Sufi Monastery 186
22. 13 A Monastic-like Setting for the Study of Torah 191
23. 14 Religious Practice among Italian Jewish Women 203
24. 15 A Mystical Fellowship in Jerusalem 210
25. 16 The Love of Learning among Polish Jews 215
26. Religious Sectarianism and Communities on the Margins
27. 17 Jewish Sectarianism in the Near East: A Muslim's Account 227
28. 18 Travel in the Land of Israel 237
29. 19 Karaite Ritual 248
30. 20 Living Judaism in Confucian Culture: Being Jewish and Being Chinese 265
31. Art and Aesthetics
32. 21 Defending, Enjoying, and Regulating the Visual 279
33. 22 Illustrating History and Illuminating Identity in the Art of the Passover Haggadah 298
34. 23 The Arts of Calligraphy and Composition, and the Love of Books 318
35. 24 Jewish Preaching in Fifteenth-Century Spain 325
36. Magic and Mysticism
37. 25 The Book of the Great Name 339
38. 26 Visionary Experiences among Spanish Crypto-Jewish Women 348
39. 27 Mystical Eating and Food Practices in the Zohar 353
40. 28 Devotional Rites in a Sufi Mode 364
41. 29 Pietistic Customs from Safed 375
42. 30 Jewish Exorcism: Early Modern Traditions and Transformations 386
43. 31 Rabbi Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl: Personal Practices of a Hasidic Master 399
44. Remarkable Lives
45. 32 The Life of Moses ben Maimon 411
46. 33 Dolce of Worms: The Lives and Deaths of an Exemplary Medieval Jewish Woman and Her Daughters 429
47. 34 The Earliest Hebrew First-Crusade Narrative 438
48. 35 Leon Modena's Autobiography 453
49. 36 The Early Messianic Career of Shabbatai Zvi 470
50. 37 The Life of Glikl of Hameln 483
51. 38 Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov 498
52. 39 The Scholarly Life of the Gaon of Vilna 513
53. APPENDIX The Jewish Festivals 521
54. INDEX 523