Jewish Identity in Early Modern Germany: Memory, Power and Community (review)

Dean Bell’s work has been characterized by a comparative approach. In Sacred Communities (2001), he postulated contrasts between late medieval Christian and Jewish notions of communities that underlay and enhanced their religious conflicts. In Jews in the Early Modern World (2007), he provides the first broad comparative and synthetic treatment of that periods’ worldwide Jewish communities. In the monograph under review, his comparative interests move him to a courageous twofold approach: first, he challenges the current consensus that premodern Jews, who lacked a specific historiographical tradition, did not think historically or utilize historical thinking, and then, on the basis of the sources in which he locates this awareness, Bell attempts to provide a basis for a broad comparative view of Jewish and non-Jewish notions of the past. The scope of his argumentation is always suggestive, if its promise is not always entirely fulfilled.

Initial chapters locate his own work in the scholarship on memory and identity and on Jewish historical thinking; here Bell establishes that Jewish narrations of history were often exemplified in other genres of writing such as law codes, community ledges, legal decisions, responsa, and customs books. Two middle chapters treat the ways in which the narrations of the past in such sources were used inside Jewish communities both as ways of justifying and challenging current community practices. Jewish historical consciousness in these chapters is shown to have a dynamic potential for reconstituting or rethinking tradition both conservatively and progressively. Bell also treats Jewish memory books in comparison to Christian necrologies and considers some of the more well-known autobiographical texts of the period, devoting extensive attention to a thoughtful and intriguing rereading of Glikhl of Hameln’s memoir in light of the role he establishes for honor and prestige as elements of community consciousness. In the final chapters, Bell considers the role of Jewish historical consciousness in interactions with external authorities. He hints that the Reformation, with its biblicist reconception of the role of the Christian faithful, provided a renewed challenge to Jewish conceptions of chosenness and shows how Jewish historical thinking bolstered communal self-conceptions. This chapter includes a fascinating comparative reading of histories by Josel of Rosheim and David Gans. Bell also treats Jewish discussions of the past as means of resituating Jewish communities in the early modern German context, on the basis of legal decisions and myths and tales of Jewish redemption in the face of Christian persecution.

Judging the book by its two projects, one concludes that the first is more effectively achieved than the second. Bell convincingly establishes a Jewish historical consciousness and sense of temporality in a number of hard-to-understand sources where a less intrepid scholar might not have looked. Particularly innovative are his reading of fantastic tales in this sense, and his highly nuanced analysis of the trope in Jewish narratives of punishment for sin and divine redemption. His placing of historical narrative in the social space of the Jewish community is also convincing. Some of the discussions of specific debates may be opaque to readers with less background on Jewish thought; for example, his discussion of the “third meal” on the Sabbath assumes reader awareness of the position and meaning of this practice. Readers interested in the comparative aspect of this book will also sometimes find it projected or asserted rather than fully executed. Comparison to Christian genres of the period is often limited in scope. While memory books and necrologies are comparable sources in content, for instance, their social location is slightly different, and I would have appreciated more discussion of the divergence between the Jewish and cloister communities, as well as more consideration of the concrete liturgical performances associated with the texts. The discussion of Jewish legal sources as a source of historical thinking is excellent, but might have been improved by discussion of the origin of some Reformation narratives in legal-confessional disputes...