Jews in East Norse Literature

What did Danes and Swedes in the Middle Ages imagine and write about Jews and Judaism? This book draws on over 100 medieval Danish and Swedish manuscripts and incunabula as well as runic inscriptions and religious art (c. 1200–1515) to answer this question. There were no resident Jews in Scandinavia before the modern period, yet as this book shows ideas and fantasies about them appear to have been widespread and an integral part of life and culture in the medieval North. Volume 1 investigates the possibility of encounters between Scandinavians and Jews, the terminology used to write about Jews, Judaism, and Hebrew, and how Christian writers imagined the Jewish body. The (mis)use of Jews in different texts, especially miracle tales, exempla, sermons, and Passion treaties, is examined to show how writers employed the figure of the Jew to address doubts concerning doctrine and heresy, fears of violence and mass death, and questions of emotions and sexuality. Volume 2 contains diplomatic editions of 54 texts in Old Danish and Swedish together with translations into English that make these sources available to an international audience for the first time and demonstrate how the image of the Jew was created in medieval Scandinavia.

"He [the author] provides his readers with several examples from the last few years that show that the medieval stereotypical anti-Judaic topoi are still, time and time again, being used in creating the other, sometimes in an openly racist manner, sometimes in a more subtle way. Therefore, knowing the history and development of these topoi is of essential importance in today's world and Jonathan Adam's book certainly is a major step forward in this respect concerning Sweden and Denmark. For scholars interested in the preaching and/or Jewish history, it is simply a sine qua non read."

Jussi Hanska (2023) Jews in East Norse Literature: A Study of Othering in Medieval Denmark and Sweden, Medieval Sermon Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13660691.2023.2269068

"Dette imponerende værk udspringer af mange års forskning i antisemitismens historie i Skandinavien […] Det giver et meget komplet billede af synet på jøder i middelalderens Danmark og Sverige indtil 1515, sådan som det kommer til udtryk i både den sekulære og den religiøse litteratur på henholdsvis gammeldansk og -svensk (østnordisk)."
[This impressive work is the result of many years of research on the history of antisemitism in Scandinavia […] It provides a very complete picture of how Jews were viewed in Denmark and Sweden before 1515 as expressed in both secular and religious literature in Old Danish and Old Swedish respectively (East Norse).]

Janus Møller Jensen (2023), Historisk Tidsskrift, 123:1, 252–255.

"I strongly recommend Adams’s masterful two-volume set for those interested in medieval, early modern, modern, or contemporary periods. It is a text filled with priceless gems likely to fascinate scholars and students of Jewish Studies, Religious Studies, Holocaust Studies, Postcolonial Studies, as well as Norse Studies. In particular, Adams unpacks antisemitic 'stereotypes . . . in the East Norse material' (I:20), and readers are likely to gain a deeper understanding of the antisemitism introduced by the forms of Christianity that filled the spaces vacated by the cherished Norse gods."

Miriamne Ara Krummel (2023), Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations, vol. 18, no. 1, DOI: 10.6017/scjr.v18i1.17241.