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Book Reviews 109 material pertaining to her four main themes is virtually endless, and there seems little rationale for selecting these particular non-polemical texts. On the other hand, explicitly polemical works are overlooked: Crescas's Bittut Ikkarei ha-Notsrim, Profiat Duran's Kelimat ha-Goyim, Simon ben Zemah Duran's Keshet u-Magen, Abravanel's Yeshu-ot Meshil;o, and others. While the last two were not written on Spanish soil, their view of Christianity clearly reflects the Spanish experience. The translation of the passages selected is on the whole adequate, although some lapses are not explained by the claim to provide "literal translations"; it is not clear whether the problem lies in recasting the Danish original into English or in a misunderstanding of the Hebrew text. "Mezuzah" is rendered as "the Prayer Wallet" (p. 142); "ki ha-Yotserguf' is rendered as "that the Creator was human" rather than "corporeal" (p. 146); "ha-I;akirah ha-gedotah is rendered as "the great survey" rather than "InqUisition" (p. 136). Although this work will not be the final word on the medieval Jewish polemics against Christianity, its presentation of selected passages in Hebrew and English will be useful for students desiring a general exposure to this literature. I was seriously considering using it as a text for a seminar on Christians and Jews in the Middle Ages, until I discovered how much it costs. Marc Saperstein Jewish & Near Eastern Studies Washington University, St. Louis Alienated Minority: The Jews· of Medieval Latin Europe, by Kenneth Stow. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. 346 pp. $45.00. Medieval man believed that the world existed in a perpetual balance. Theologically speaking, the scales swung precariously between good (truth) and evil (ignorance). In the Latin west this balance was often represented as the contest between Ecclesia and Synagoga, that is, between the Christians and the Jews. In terms of this balance metaphor the Jews were a necessary part of the medieval Christian world view. They served as the "proof' of Christian truth, representing ignorance and evil, while their eventual conversion to the "true" religion was believed to herald the second coming. Although the Jews occupied this necessary place in the world balance, they were also execrated as deicides and were subjected to the wrath of the Christian majority. Thus in both theory and 110 SHOFAR Winter 1995 Vol. 13, No.2 practice, the metaphor of the· balance made the Jews an "alienated minority" within Latin Christendom, teetering precariously between toleration and persecution. Medieval studies often treats Jews and Christians in isolation. Stow, conversely, seeks to examine Jewish-Christian interaction, as well as the Jews' own "internal world." Stow's particular focus is "howJews coped in medieval Christian society and how medieval Christian society coped with Jews" (p. 1). Although examining in detail how the medievalJewish family, its intellectual development, and its social life differed from that of the Christians, Stow also wants the reader to understand where Christians and Jews had the potential for common understanding. Mter all, bothJews and Christians emphasized exegetical interpretations of many of the same books, e.g., biblical texts, and used this exegesis for justiJying contemporary life. Problems, of course, develop when this exegesis reached very different conclusions. For example, the positive attitude towards sexuality amongst the Jews during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries enraged some religious authorities. In particular the newly emergent evangelical religious orders, such as the Dominicans, used Jewish attitudes towards sexuality as "proor' of Jewish depravity. It was such divergent attitudes that "provoked" some of the more ugly aspects of medieval anti-Judaism. Traditionally, historians have argued that until the eleventh century C.E. the Jews were treated well as the allies of secular rulers. The intensification of religiosity in the eleventh century witnessed a deterioration in the legal position of the Jews throughout Europe. Stow rejects this traditional interpretation and sees instead the key to Jewish security in the "firmly defined legal and constitutional status" that was a legacy of the Roman empire. As Stow argues: "[s]o long as that status endured, the Jews flourished ..." (p. 4). The disappearance of Roman law during the tenth century doomed the Jews to a precarious legal status that...

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