Law, Boundaries, and City Life in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania

The dynamics of relations within cities thus are shaped not only by class or religious or ethnic membership but also by the legal framework. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, divisions between the private and royal domains within cities disrupted not only their legal coherence but also that of Jewish communities themselves, sharpening economic competition and often also conflict. This is what the 1711 decree of the Lithuanian Tribunal against the kahal of Minsk highlights--legal distinctions sometimes exacerbated urban tensions. This presentation is for the following text(s): Decree of the Lithuanian Tribunal against the Kahal of Minsk (1711) Click here to view the vide

Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland

Jews and Heretics in Catholic Poland takes issue with historians' common contention that the Catholic Church triumphed in Counter-reformation Poland. In fact, the Church's own sources show that the story is far more complex. From the rise of the Reformation and the rapid dissemination of these new ideas through printing, the Catholic Church was overcome with a strong sense of insecurity. The 'infidel Jews, enemies of Christianity' became symbols of the Church's weakness and, simultaneously, instruments of its defence against all of its other adversaries. This process helped form a Polish identity that led, in the case of Jews, to racial anti-Semitism and to the exclusion of Jews from the category of Poles. This book portrays Jews not only as victims of Church persecution but as active participants in Polish society who as allies of the nobles, placed in positions of power, had more influence than has been recognised. </jats:p

Welcome Address at EMW 2006

Welcome address to the third Early Modern Workshop that took place in August 2006 on the topic of Gender, Family, and Social Structures

Blood Libel ::on the trail of an antisemitic myth /

Drawing on sources in eight countries and ten languages, Magda Teter tells the history of the antisemitic blood libel myth, whose long shadow extends from premodern monastic chronicles to Facebook. The vocabulary and images that crystallized and spread with the invention of the printing press are still with us, as are their pernicious consequences

Rethinking the “Golden Age”: Jewish-Christian Relations in Pre-Modern Poland

This paper addresses the question of the “golden age” present in Polish and Jewish historiographies.  It demonstrates that though the idea of the “golden age” was embraced by both Polish Christian and Jewish historians, they never applied it to Jewish-Christian relations.  This paper looks at the myths of the golden age and the age of decline in both historiographies by juxtaposing them with archival documents that complicate both the idea of the “zenith” or “golden age” of the 16th century and that of the decline and crisis of the 17th century

Volume 14: Cultures of Record Keeping: Creation, Preservation, and Use in the Early Modern Period

The 2017 Early Modern Workshop\u27s theme was Cultures of Record Keeping: Creation, Preservation, and Use in the Early Modern Period. The workshop focused on the creation, preservation, organization, collection, translation, and use of records, evidence, and information. It also examined continuities and change between chronological periods --including medieval and modern, and different cultures and settings--Jewish and non-Jewish. Among themes addressed were: official record keeping, personal records, collection and organization of information. Even more than in our previous topic--history of emotions/emotions in history--there is such an abundance of work on records, and record keeping in non-Jewish historiography, but exceedingly little on Jewish record keeping. The workshop was a culmination of a year of reading and discussions, a bibliography of the readings is appended at the end of the workshop’s reader. The keynote speaker was Randolph Head, who spoke of “Regimes of Archival Authenticity: Treasuries, Sovereigns and Communities in The Formation and Ordering of Archival Records since The Middle Ages.” The EMW was co-sponsored by: American Academy of Jewish Research, Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies at Columbia University, Center for Jewish Studies at CUNY-Graduate Center, Jewish Studies at Fordham University, and Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at the UNC-Chapel Hill. The organizing committee: Francesca Bregoli, CUNY, Queens College, and Graduate Center Elisheva Carlebach, Columbia University Debra Glasberg, New York University Joshua Teplitsky, SUNY Stony Brook Magda Teter, Fordham Universit