The Jews in Legal Sources of the Early Middle Ages (review)

Book Reviews t','" "': ",', ' 183 installations. It is the directness, the confrontationality; and the specificity of these works mat he seems to find most effective. Regrettably, he views traditional approaches and the use of traditional religious iconography not only to be uninteresting to the present generation but, more fundamentally, incapable ofthe more intense expressivity demanded by the subject itself. In the final chapter, "Expressing the Inexpressible," Baigell is at his most moving as well as his most brilliant. Here he lets the artists, most ofwhom he has corresponded with and interviewed, do much of the talking. However, he also permits himself to analyze more works ofart at closer range, and what follows is a virtuoso performance. Despite limited text space and often lacking an illustration (a shortcoming throughout the book), he compresses and concentrates words in such a way that the work of art is suddenly revealed to the reader in its richness and complexity. One can learn much from this book, most of all that there are more artists than we might ever have thought-the canonical, the famous, the not so well known, the short, the tall-who have responded with hand, mind, and amazing generosity of spirit to the forbidding challenge ofthe Holocaust. They have produced impressive art that shocks, moves, inspires. They remind. Some bear witness. They mourn. They try to heal their own pain as well as the cosmic pain of such a "primal wound." They even seek to repair, to recreate (a concept stunningly developed in the chapter"Tikkun Olam"). Some even celebrate-that life is ultimately stronger than death. Jewish-American Artists and the Holocaust is not perfect. One can of course find fault; one disagrees with various points. But it is a fine book, an important book. Others will come along that will perhaps be more comprehensive, extend the range, present entirely different arguments and interpretations, etc. That is as it should be. At this moment, however, one can only be deeply grateful that Matthew Baigell, so well grounded in his knowledge of art, so rooted in his heritage, has given us this book. Patricia M. Burnham American Studies and Art History University of Texas The Jews in Legal Sources of the Early Middle Ages, by Arnnon Linder. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998. nopp. $65.00. This finely-crafted and extremely valuable book is a worthy follow-up to Linder's earlier book The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit, 1987). In this book Linder presents a broad array of Jewry law from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. For Linder Jewry law is a corpus oflegal texts and practices that regulated the life of Jews in their relations with medieval Christian society. Throughout this work Linder is solely 184 SHOFAR Fall1999 Vol. 18, No. I interested in the written texts (i.e., ideological legal considerations) generated by both ecclesiastical and secular texts, as opposed to the more practical customary law, which was not typically directed specifically at the Jews. Linder argues that the definition of law was rather fluid in the early Middle Ages; he has, therefore, chosen texts based upon early medieval definitions oflegal sources. Linder presents a very comprehensive selection of sources, many of which repeat earlier legislation or insert and integrate older legislation within different historical and legal contexts. He has extracted clauses that deal specifically with Jews but has also, where appropriate, been careful to keep the clauses within their original contexts when they are part of a logical or ordered structure. Several documents, for example, deal with Christian heretics or pagans, but form part of a larger discussion into which Jews must be placed. The book is divided into five sections: Byzantine Texts; Western Secular Texts; Papal Decretals; Conciliar Canons; and Canonical Collections. Linder has collected 142 separate written legal sources, which he has divided into 1,016 selections. Each of the separate legal sources is prefaced by an introduction tracing the history and transmission ofthe source; additionally, each text selection is offered in the original language (Greek, Latin, and several sources in Arabic) as well as an English translation. Linder also provides exact references, original incipits, rubrics, and translations of inscriptions. Frequently bibliographical materials are...