Volume 26, Issue 1

The term ›Abrahamitic religions‹ is often heard within the dialog of the three religions, which seems to indicate that Abraham is an identification figure for all of them. In fact, Abraham has entirely different, and unrelated, roles to play in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. What really connects the three religions is that they are monotheistic. In spite of the fact that Jews and Muslims have a critical view of the Christian trinity, monotheism is the true connecting element between them. One should therefore no longer speak of ›Abrahamitic religions‹ but rather of the three ›monotheistic religions‹.

Judaism is seen as the archetypal monotheistic religion. And yet, the history of the Jewish faith seems to contradict this view: there were other gods besides the God of Israel, later superior angels, Metatron; in speaking of a tenfold deity the Kabbala goes against the philosophical doctrine of oneness to which it also adheres. These seeming contradictions can only be explained if one considers that the various creeds of oneness stem from very different religious and philosophical ways of thinking and concerns, which do not always endeavour to describe God’s existence, but are rooted in a human longing for happiness, the wish to refer to a God, to liturgical accessibility etc. The creed of the one God is ontology for some, for others it is epistemology, liturgical performance, emotional expression or sociological or historical reflection. Monotheism figures in various »linguistic games« and with various meanings.

Based on the debate about the murals in the Jewish house »Zum Brunnenhof« in Zurich this essay discusses whether or not Christian participation in Jewish festivals was unusual and prohibited or normal in the Middle Ages. Following an outline of the relevant legal aspects – there were, up to the High Middle Ages, only occasional decrees from provincial councils that banned Christians from eating and celebrating with Jews; only from the twelfth century onwards were such bans included in the general canon law, while they were never part of secular legislation – the main part of this investigation focuses on actual reports of Christians attending Jewish festivals. These were mainly weddings, but there are also reports of Christians participating in Purim or other celebrations. Most relevant descriptions come from Germany, one from England, where the Bishop of Hereford 1286 took exception to the participation of Christians in a Jewish wedding, threatening with excommunication in an attempt to stop such behaviour. In Germany it was mostly a matter of municipal authorities punishing the dancing of Christians on days of fasting or religious holidays for moral reasons. But even in the increasingly anti-Jewish late Middle Ages, and in spite of the restrictions imposed by the church, nobody really minded the participation of Christians in Jewish festivals as such. In conclusion, various questions are being discussed which arise for the historian in connection with the participation of Christians in Jewish festivals and vice versa.

A manuscript register of late-medieval real-estate and mortgage contracts in Trier, which was offered for sale by a Jewish antiquarian bookseller in 1918, has only recently been rediscovered. This study gives a first impression of its contents, concentrating on two aspects: firstly, the inception of the register is situated in the context of the urban discord between the Archbishop and the citizens of Trier in 1350. Secondly, the new evidence on the post-1349 Jewish community in the city is related to what was previously known of its history. The new source underlines the importance of Jewish women entrepreneurs in this period.

Following the Black Death persecutions which started in 1348, the Jewish spiritual centres shifted from the Rhine eastwards. There was an important Yeshiva, for instance, in the Silesian town of Świdnica, where famous scholars learned and taught. Świdnica belonged to the Piast Duchy of Świdnica-Jawor, where – after the death of Bolko II in 1368 – his widow, Agnes of Austria, ruled up until her own death in 1392. In 1370 Agnes decreed a peace settlement for the Jews in her duchy, which can be seen as one of the first such arrangements. It impacted at various levels on internal Jewish affairs, for instance in stipulating that the community was to elect its »bishop«. This strengthened the parish council against the local scholars. The Jewish court, which, in accordance with Jewish law, decided on questions concerning marital and inheritance law and in civil process orders between Jewish parties, also answered to the Jewish »bishop« and his advisors. What was new in Duchess Agnes’ »Jewish Charter« was that the congregation could determine the level of taxes they would pay the Duchess.

No area of Christian-Jewish co-existence during the medieval Ashkenazi period produced more personal contacts than the business sphere. During loan transactions, Jews and Jewesses interacted with Christian men and women from all social classes, from rulers and nobility to townspeople, farmers, craftsmen, and servants. Therefore, German-Hebrew business contracts are not only material cultural goods in their own right, they also serve as media of cultural transfer and as a shared legal, linguistic, and general cultural zone between Jews and Christians in the field of economics and of business practices. This paper not only deals with legal and linguistic topics, but also with the rather hidden and neglected aspects of polemics and humour.

In 1495 Philipp the Upright, Elector Palatine of the Rhine, had a large number of Jews arrested in the wine-growing village of Münster near Bingen. The Jews had gathered there to celebrate the wedding of a Jew’s daughter from Friedberg with David of Münster, son of the Jewish physician Salman and brother of the Jewish physician Josef of Münster. In medieval history, such weddings repeatedly resulted in dangerous allegations towards the Jews involved, accusing them of conspiring to commit ritual murders or host desecrations. Or they were accused of displaying indecently luxurious attires at these festivities. In addition, they often celebrated in the presence of Christians, a fact that the church might consider scandalous. It appears, however, that the Elector Philipp was not driven to his actions in Münster by such accusations. His actions must rather be discussed in the context of the contemporary Geleitrecht (right of escort) and the customs dispute between Münster and Bingen, which lasted from 1491 to 1495. This part of the study is complemented by a closer look at the history of the family of the bridegroom, David of Münster: the activities of David’s physician brother and of his father are relatively well documented since both resided in Frankfurt am Main for several years.

Litanies, which are sung in great variety also today, especially on pilgrimages, have been popular for centuries in the Catholic Church, as a form of prayer that creates a sense of community and makes people forget their everyday problems. But these kinds of function hold many dangers: they can arise also from ›unholy‹ causes and ›unholy‹ aims can be achieved with them. The »Deggendorfer Gnad«, a pilgrimage in memory of a host desecration in Lower Bavaria, allegedly committed by Jews, and the pilgrimage to Andreas of Rinn near Innsbruck, alleged victim of a ritual murder committed by Jews, may serve as examples of the effects and consequences the traditional but questionable litanies can have for the Christian-Jewish relationship.

This article deals with conversions to Christianity in the Jewish families Mendel, Haller and Oppenheimer (and related families like Heine and Heckscher) in early nineteenth century Hamburg. The focus of interest is the connection between acculturation and conversion in these families who belonged to the small elite of wealthy merchants and bankers in the Jewish community of Hamburg. Born in the 1770s, the parent generation of these families was obviously educated according to bourgeois standards. They shaped their own family life in the same way, attaching, great importance, for example, to an acculturated education for their children. Although highly alienated from Judaism, no members of the parent generation converted in order to gain for themselves the advantage of emancipation; some remained true to Judaism and some converted in later periods of their lives. But most of the children of these families converted, frequently in order to marry a born or newly-converted Christian.

This contribution dwells on Jewish aspects in Alfred Döblin’s novel »Wallenstein«, which was written between 1916 and 1920. It refers, on the one hand, to the close financial connection between the Prague merchant and »court Jew« Jacob Bassevi and Wallenstein and the novel’s real protagonist, Emperor Ferdinand II, and, on the other hand, to a scene that stretches over several pages, depicting in a hyper-naturalistic manner the torture and burning of a Jewish couple. Similar to the witch trials, the scene documents the total cultural decline at the time of the Thirty Years’ War. Döblin’s historical novel is also a plea against the barbarism of World War I and against wars in general.

This article discusses the attitude, prior to as well as after 1945, of both the former Hessian State Library (Landesbibliothek) and the academic library (Hochschulbibliothek) at Darmstadt towards books confiscated by the Nazis. Since most of the records as well as books have vanished in the bombings of the year 1944, only few items looted from victims of persecution could be identified. After 1948, the now united State and University Library (Landes- und Hochschulbibliothek) was given several thousand confiscated books that have not subsequently been restituted by the German and Allied public authorities. Among them, parts of the former Lodges’ libraries in Mainz (Rhenus-Loge) and Darmstadt (Starkenburg-Loge) give an impression of the intellectual life of the B’nai B’rith Order in pre-war Germany.