Jewish Place and Placelessness: Historical and Academic Challenges (or "What the Study of Jewish Space and Place Suggests to Me about the Aztecs")

This article explores ways in which insights developed within the field of Jewish geography raise important challenges both for the general history of religions and for more tightly focused studies of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sacred space and architecture. Of particular concern are the ways in which Jonathan Z. Smith's exposure of the serious limitations of applying Mircea Eliade's famous model of sacred space to the specifics of Jewish sacred geography give Americanist scholars pause to reconsider the application of those familiar Eliadean categories to the case of the Aztecs' main temple and ceremonial precinct.