Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate by Marina Rustow (review)

REVIEWS 330 no mention of Lollard iconoclasm. Nor does a discussion of Nativity images refer to Bridget of Sweden’s contribution to popular iconography. Despite these flaws, most easily corrected in a second edition, Medieval Wall Paintings offers a real wealth of visual information, compiled by a clearly devoted author. The book’s organizational strongpoint is in its second half: the Gazetteer (225–306) and the Subject Guide (307–348). The Gazetteer’s geographical compilation is a fine aid for both traveler and researcher; the subject guide makes iconographic comparison among the images collected here extremely straightforward. Between these fine tools and the hundreds of beautiful images, the volume is a fine contribution to our understanding of medieval English visual culture. STEVEN ROZENSKI, JR., Harvard University Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2008) xxxv + 435 pp., ill. The dominant narrative of medieval Jewish history casts the Qaraites as sectarians who not only rejected rabbinic claims to exclusive authority over the community, but cut ties with the Rabbanite establishment altogether. In this model, the Qaraites and Rabbanites were autonomous communities whose ideological fervor precluded social or political interaction. Marina Rustow’s Heresy and the Politics of Community tells a different story of Jewish communal organization in the tenth- and eleventh-century eastern Mediterranean region . Rustow analyzes nearly 350 personal letters, petitions, marriage contracts, and court documents from the Cairo Geniza. These documents depict a “tripartite community” in which the Rabbanite institutions of Palestine and Iraq and the diffuse Qaraite community were “equal competitors for Jewish loyalties” (34). The historical record indicates that these groups considered each other madhahib, legitimate “schools” of Jewish thought and practice rather than sects. In a series of fascinating thoroughly researched case studies, Rustow shows that a culture of interdependence permeated medieval Rabbanite-Qaraite relations . Qaraites provided indispensible services to Rabbanite leaders (ge’onim) in exchange for public recognition. The ge’onim of Iraq trusted their official correspondence to Qaraite businessmen, who conveyed letters and funds along established trade routes (chap. 5), while the ge’onim of Palestine relied on Qaraite courtiers to secure Fatimid approval of their investiture (chap. 6). This Qaraite entrenchment in Rabbanite affairs extended to all levels of society. In crisis situations, even Rabbanite congregations petitioned Qaraite notables for financial assistance (chap. 7). Qaraites had the reputation of reliable and generous donors in times of Rabbanite distress because, in the words of one Jerusalem ga’on, “our affairs are [their] responsibility as much as anyone else’s” (195). Rabbanite judges in Tyre produced legal documents according to either the Qaraite or the Rabbanite formulary to suit the needs of their clientele (chap. 10). Mixed marriages—in which pre-nuptial negotiations provided for both spouses to maintain their scholastic affiliations—were not uncommon (chap. 9).In this “transscholastic community,” in which personal loyalties and shared responsibility for the Jewish community trumped institutional boundaries, ac- REVIEWS 331 cusations of heresy were few and far between. Rustow finds just four episodes in which the discourse of heresy was directed against Qaraites; the most public —and most misunderstood—incidents occurred during the annual pilgrimage to the Mount of Olives in 1029 and 1038 (chaps. 8, 11). In each case, “Rabbanites accused Qaraites of heresy to challenge or restrict the power they wielded within the Jewish community” and not to correct improper religious belief or behavior. Qaraites responded to these charges by “representing themselves as victims of the powerful” (133) and exploiting their government connections in order to curb Rabbanite privileges. The political motivations behind rituals of excommunication suggest the need for a more nuanced and contextual theory of heresy in medieval Judaism. For Rustow, such a theory must acknowledge that, “the moments in which heresy was declared were … discreet and contingent, even if religious invective thrived on the illusion of continuity among them” (348). Scholars must distinguish between the evocation of heresy in religious and literary works on the one hand, and in political and social discourse on the other. Rustow’s explanation of heresy is convincing precisely because she incorporates both literary and documentary sources into her research, and proposes a model of heresy...