Perception and Reception of Repentant Apostates in Medieval Ashkenaz and Premodern Poland

AJS Review

Volumn 21, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 299-339

  Fram, Edward ^a  

^a BEN GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV   (Israel)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85012565598     PISSN: 03640094     EISSN: 14754541     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0364009400008540     Document Type: Article

References (122)

1. Regarding converts, see, for example, the famous quip of Rabbi Helbo, B.T., Yebamot 47b, that converts are like a scab to Israel. The tanna Rabbi Isaac, for one, was willing to posit that apostates were the enemy referred to in Exodus 23:4, “If you meet your enemy's ox or donkey going astray, you must return it to him” (Mikilta’ de-Rabbi Yishma’ ‘el, H. Horovitz and I. Rabin, eds., 2d ed. [Jerusalem: Bamberger & Wahrman, 1960], Mishpatim 20, p. 324).
2. Codex Theodosianus 16.8.19, cited and translated by Amnon Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), p. 258. While the Theodosian Code was abandoned in 529, the sixteenth book of the Code was accepted by the Church as an authoritative source of canon law (Linder, p. 33). Under points out that “general prohibitions against conversion” of Christians to Judaism existed from the fourth century (p. 81).
3. Linder, pp. 258 and 261, nn. 7, 9.
4. See Edward Syrian, The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages (New York: Macmillan, 1965), pp. 55, 58.
5. Teshubot ha-ge'onim, Y. Musafia, ed. (1924; reprint, Jerusalem: Ha'emunim, 1967), no. 23. The responsum, which was sent to Spain, has appeared in various recensions, some greatly abbreviated, that have been collected in O%ar ha-ge ‘onim, B. M. Lewin, ed. (Jerusalem: Central, 1939), vol. 9 (Qiddushin), pp. 30-35, nos. 78-88. On this responsum, also see Ya'aqob Blidstein, “Ma'amadan ha-ishi shel nashim shebuyot u-meshumadot be-halakah shel yemey ha-beynayim,” Shanaton ha-mishpat ha-'ibri 3-4 (1976-77): 56-57, who in addition cites a similar ruling of Naturnai with respect to a husband inheriting his apostate wife (O?ar ha-ge'onim, vol. 8 [Ketubbot], p. 356, no. 790). Oded Ir-Shai, “Mumar ke-yoresh be-teshubot ha-ge'onim-yesodotehah shel pesiqah u-maqabbiloteyha ba-mishpat ha-nokri,” Shanaton hamishpat ha-'ibri 11-12 (1984-86): 438-455, discusses the possible social-economic basis of Naturnai's position, his successors’ views, and their critics.
6. See Gerald Blidstein, “Who Is Not a Jew?-The Medieval Discussion,” Israel Law Review 11 (1976): 374-378.
7. Louis Finkelstein, Jewish Self-Government in the Middle Ages, 2d ed. (New York: Philipp Feldheim, 1964), pp. 30-31, and Avraham Grossman, Hakmey Ashkenaz ha-ri'shonim, 2d ed. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1989), pp. 122-123 and n. 68. The “mey ha-shemad” referred to by Rashi in his responsum (see Teshubot hakmey Zarfat u-Lotir, Joel Mailer, ed. [1881; reprint, Jerusalem: n.p., 1967], p. 1 lb, no. 21), cited by Finkelstein and Grossman, may best be translated as “the waters of baptism.” On such a meaning of the word shemad, see Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Millon ha-lashon ha-‘ibrit, N. Tur-Sinai, ed. (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959), s.v. shamad, second definition and the sources cited.
8. Also see Grossman, Hakmey Ashkenaz ha-ri'sohnim, p. 406. There were limits to R. Gershom's permissive attitude toward repentant apostates. While R. Gershom generally allowed repentant apostates to perform the priestly blessing in the synagogue, he would not allow a Jew who had apostatized of his own volition and become a Christian teacher (priest?) to bless the community. R. Eleazar ben Isaac, a younger contemporary, did not concur with R. Gershom's view. See Shlomo Eidelberg, “Teshubah lo’ noda'at me-Rabbeynu Gershom me'or ha-golah,” ra/pw/6.1-2(March 1953): 153-155.
9. Jacob Katz, “Yisra'el af ‘al pi she-hata’-Yisra'el hu\” reprinted in his Halakah ve-qabbalah (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1984), p. 264.
10. Katz, “Yisra'el af ‘al pi she-hata’,” p. 266. As Katz points out, from the Jewish perspective, Rashi's position left an ongoing burden of repentance on the Jew who had tried to leave the fold.
11. The tenet that baptism must be voluntary appeared already in the late fourth century in a law barring the acceptance into the Church of Jews who wished to convert to escape their debts or prosecution for crimes that they might have committed (Under, Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation, pp. 199-200). In 416 the Church permitted converts who were lax in their observance of Christianity to return to Judaism if their conversions were known to have been motivated by something other than devotion to the Christian faith (Linder, pp. 275-276), but this was not repeated in Alaric H's Breviarium (promulgated 506), nor was it accepted by the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633, whose position was endorsed by Adrian I (see Jean Juster, “The Legal Condition of the Jews under the Visigothic Kings,” translated and annotated by Alfredo M. Rabello, Israel Law Review 11 [July 1976]: 409-410, and Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the Xlllth Century, vol. 1, 2d ed. [New York: Hermon, 1966], p. 15, n. 14).
12. Avraham Grossman, “Shorashav shel qiddush ha-Shem be-Ashkenaz ha-qeddumah,” in Qiddushat ha-hayyim ve-hiruf ha-nefesh, qobez ma'amarim le-zikro shel Amir Yequti'el, Isaiah Garni and Aviezer Ravitzky, eds. (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1992), p. 125, has argued that apostasy was one of the central legal issues of the eleventh and twelfth centuries for Franco-German Jewry. Also see Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 68, 73. The scope of the problem is difficult, if not impossible, to gauge (see Katz, pp. 67-68). Clearly, apostasy/martyrdom was the significant legal problem for Jews dining the Crusades. Prior to and after the Crusades, the matter is less certain. One does not get the impression from the sources that in the pre-and post-Crusade era in Franco-Germany apostasies ever reached the proportions that they did in England in the 1240s and 1250s where there were concerted efforts at converting the Jews and perhaps up to ten percent of the Jewish population of 3,000 apostatized (see Robert Stacey, “The Conversion of Jews to Christianity in Thirteenth Century England,” Speculum 67, no. 2 [April 1992]: p 269).
13. Solomon Katz, The Jews in the Visigothic and Frankish Kingdoms of Spain and Gaul (1937; reprint, New York: Kraus, 1970), pp. 13, 15; Solomon Grayzel, “Popes, Jews, and Inquisition from ‘Sicut’ to ‘Turbato,’ reprinted in his The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, vol. 2, Kenneth Stow, ed. (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1989), p. 4 and nn. 12 and 13.
14. On the First Crusades and Henry IV's position, see Julius Aronius, Regesten zur Geschichte derJuden (1902; reprint, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1970), pp. 93-94, nos. 203,204. The chronicler states that “through his [R. Moses'] efforts all the forced converts who remained scattered about in Henry's kingdom returned [to Judaism]” (A. M. Habermann, Sefer gezerot Ashkenaz u-Zarfat [Jerusalem: Tarshish, 1946], p. 94). The Latin report of Henry's decision makes no reference to any request from the Jewish community. Regarding papal reaction, see Grayzel, “Popes, Jews, and Inquisition,” p. 12.
15. Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, Leopold Delisle, ed., new edition (1878; reprint, Famborough: Gregg International Publishers, 1968), vol. 16, p. 8, no. 19.
16. Habermann, Sefer gezerot Ashkenaz u-Zarfat, p. 145.
17. According to one version, those who had been forcibly apostatized during the First Crusade had never acknowledged Christianity and had tried to observe the commandments to the best of their abilities while within the reach of the Church. For this the chronicler Solomon ben Simon deemed them praiseworthy and said that “he who speaks evil of them, it is as if he speaks [against] the Holy Presence” (Habermann, Sefer gezerot Ashkenaz u-Zarfat, p. 57).
18. Cited in Ephraim Urbach, Ba ‘aley ha-tosafot, 4th ed. (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1980), p. 82.
19. See Urbach, Ba'aley ha-tosafot, p. 407, a citation of Rabbi Eleazar ben Judah of Worms's prescriptions by Rabbi Isaac ben Abraham. However, Yedidya Dinari, Hakmey Ashkenaz be-shalhey yemey ha-beynayim (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1984), p. 86, n. 74, has noted that in R. Eleazar of Worms's own writings there are long penances for the repentant apostate. Also see Judah he-hasid, Sefer hasidim, Yehudah Wistinetzki, ed., with introduction by Aron Freimann, 2d ed., (1924; reprint, Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1969), nos. 208, 209, a product of the same school as R. Eleazar, where some form of penance is expected of the returning apostate.
20. Simhah Goldin, “Ha-yahasim beyn ha-yahid ve-haqebuzah be-qebillah ha-Yehudit be-zafon Zarfat ve-Germanyah (1100-1300)” (Ph.D. diss., Tel Aviv University, 1991, p. 147), has argued that in German lands there was a harsher attitude toward the returning apostate, requiring penances and rejecting Rabbi Jacob Tarn's allowance with respect to the continuing relationship between the married woman and her previous non-Jewish paramour. Nevertheless, in at least one case, German communities made efforts to bring repentant apostates back into the community (see, for example, Hayyim ben Isaac, Sefer she ‘elot u-teshubot moreynu ha-rab Hayyim or zaru'a [Leipzig, 1865], no. 103, a case of a voluntary apostate who was extricated from Christian society by the Jewish community and who was allowed to return to her husband).
21. For the text (with English translation), background to, and significance of Sicut Judeis, see Solomon Grayzel, “The Papal Bull Sicut Judeis,” reprinted in Essential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict, Jeremy Cohen, ed. (New York: New York University Press, 1991), pp. 231-259. Grayzel suggests the possibility that Sicut Judeis was connected with the episodes of forced conversion of Jews during the First Crusade (pp. 233, 235-236).
22. Cited and translated in Grayzel, “Popes, Jews, and Inquisition,” p. 7. Even churchmen could falter in observing Gratian's statute. When, on the day after his baptism in September 1189, the badly wounded Benedict of York stood before Richard I and was asked to identify himself, he responded, “Ego sum Benedictus Judaeus tuus de Eboraco.” Incensed, the archbishop of Canterbury lashed back, “Ille Christianus esse non vult,(homo Diaboli sit,” seemingly giving Benedict leave to return to Judaism. According to Roger of Howden, Benedict died soon thereafter. The Jewish community, however, would not accept his body for burial because he had apostatized. See Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, William Stubbs, ed., vol. 3 (1870; reprint, Wiesbaden: Kraus, 1964), pp. 12-13, as well as R. B. Dobson, The Jews of Medieval York, Borthwick Papers, no. 45 (York: St. Anthony's, 1974), pp. 24-25.
23. Cited and translated in Grayzel, Church and the Jews, vol. 1, pp. 101-103. The position was repeated by Nicholas III in 1277 and incorporated into canon law by the end of the century (see Solomon Grayzel, “The Confession of a Medieval Jewish Convert,” Historia Judaica 17, no. 2 [October 1955] 92-93).
24. Concerning the place, or lack thereof, of Hasidey Ashkenaz in the German Jewish community of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, see Haym Soloveitchik, “Three Themes in the Sefer Hasidim” AJS Review 1 (1976): 336-338.
25. On the dating of Sefer hasidim, see Haym Soloveitchik, “Le-ta'arik hibburo shel ‘Sefer hasidim’,” in Tarbut ve-hebrah be-toledot Yisra'el be-yemey ha-beynayim, qobez ma'amarim le-zikro shel Hayyim Hillel Ben-Sasson, Menahem Ben-Sasson et al., eds. (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1989), pp. 383-388, who is able to establish that sections dealing with economic practices (and perhaps charity) predate 1225. Ivan Marcus, Piety and Society (Leiden: Brill, 1981), pp. 136-137, 153 n. 88, asserts “that aside from obvious interpolations” Sefer hasidim (after section 16) predates 1217.
26. Sefer hasidim, no. 201.
27. While the apostate remained in the Christian community, the hasid called on Jews to insult him (Sefer hasidim, no. 192), although the hasid did allow Jews to pray that God would lighten the punishment of an apostate who did good things for Jews (no. 1571). The hasid was not just reticent about helping apostates who physically endangered the Jewish community; spiritual danger was also a concern (no. 183).
28. The attack was ostensibly the result of local Jews not allowing a boy to apostatize (see I. Kracauer, Geschichte der Juden in Frankfurt a.M., vol 1 [Frankfurt: I. Kauffmann, 1925], p. 7). On the number of martyrs and the size of the community, see Germania Judaica, Zvi Avneri, ed., vol. 2.1 (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1968), p. 239 and the sources cited in n. 6.
29. Hayyim ben Isaac, Responsa,, no. 221 with comparison to 103. The Christian residents of Frankfurt acted illegally in attacking the Jews and were forced to seek a royal pardon for their actions (see Germania Judaica, p. 239).
30. Isaac ben Moses, Sefer or zaru'a, vol. 1 (1862; reprint, n.p.: Ma'or ha-gadol, 1976), no. 747. R. Isaac was not alone in praising the girls. See the comments of R. Isaac's teachers R. Judah ben Moses of Friedberg, R. Meshulam ben David, and R. David ben Sha'alti'el in Hayyim ben Isaac, Responsa, nos. 103, 221. Blidstein, “Ma'amadan ha-ishi shel nashim shebuyot,” p. 92, correctly notes, however, that R. Isaac's acclaim of the girls did not match his praise of the martyrs.
31. Asher ben Yehi'el, She'elot u-teshubot ha-R'osh (1881; reprint, n.p., n.d.), no. 32.8, wrote, “it is true that they did something terrible and they must be remorseful and repent and accept sufferings more than those who apostatized in peaceful times because they apostatized in public.”
32. See Blidstein, “Ma'amadan ha-ishi shel nashim shebuyot,” pp. 98-99, regarding the general trend to allow these women to return to their husbands. If, however, the women lingered in the Christian community when they had the opportunity to escape, rabbis were quite willing to prohibit them from returning to their conjugal relationships. See the opinion of Rabbi Abraham Katz cited in Jacob Mollin, She'elot u-teshubot Maharil, Yitzchok Satz, ed. (Jerusalem: Machon Yerushalayim, 1979), no. 72, p. 92 and the sources cited in n. 35.
33. Cited and translated in Synan, Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages, p. 118.
34. See Joseph Shatzmiller, “L'inquisition et les juifs de Provence au Xllle s.,” Provence Historique 93-94 (1973): 328. Also see Yosef Yerushalmi, “The Inquisition and the Jews of France in the Time of Bernard Gui,” Harvard Theological Review 63, no.3 (July 1970): 340, n. 55.
35. See Grayzel, “Popes, Jews, and Inquisition,” pp. 15-16. Shatzmiller, “L'inquisition et les juifs de Provence au XIHe s.,” p. 328, points out that Nicholas IV used the same language when he reissued the bull in 1288.
36. The Third Lateran Council (March 1179) approved the use of secular power against heretics. Innocent III went further by threatening nobles who did not help in the battle against heresy with excommunication and interdictions. Previously there was little occasion for the collaboration of church and state against religious dissenters, since there was no consensus on how to deal with such people. See Walter Wakefield, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France, 1100-1250 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 82, 85, 88.
37. On relapsing into Judaism and heresy in the Schwabenspiegel and the work's subsequent influence, see Guido Kisch, The Jews in Medieval Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), pp. 39, 203-204.
38. Henry C. Lea, in his classic A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (1888; reprint, New York: Russell and Russell, 1955), argued that local German authorities opposed the Inquisition on political grounds and therefore prevented it from establishing itself (vol. 1, p. 332; vol. 2, p. 388). When Charles IV finally supported the Inquisition in 1369, its activities were aimed at beghards and beguines but even these limited efforts elicited local opposition (vol. 2, pp. 393-395). Richard Kieckhefer, Repression of Heresy in Medieval Germany (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979), challenged Lea's contentions and suggested that the reason for the Inquisition's weakness in Germany lay in its own institutional structure. Inquisitors lacked the institutional mechanisms for interregional cooperation and, unlike their counterparts in southern Europe, inquisitors in Germany were appointed over regions too large to administer effectively (p. 26).
39. Shatzmiller, “L'inquisition et les juifs,” pp. 330-331,335, as well as his Recherches sur la Communite juive de Manosque au Moyen Age 1241-1329 (Paris: Mouton, 1973), pp. 58-62.
40. Joshua Starr, “The Mass Conversion of Jews in Southern Italy (1290-1293),” Speculum 21, no. 2 (April 1946): 206. Such apostates were not forcibly baptized but rather forced into apostasy by excessive taxation (p. 208).
41. On the conversion of such Jews during the expulsion, see Yom Tov Assis, “Juifs de France refugies en Aragon (Xlle-XIVe siecles),” Revue des etudes juives 142 (1983): 291-292, 299; Yerushalmi, “Inquisition and the Jews of France,” pp. 322-323; Robert Chazan, Medieval Jewry in Northern France (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), pp. 195-196; William Chester Jordan, The French Monarchy and the Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), p. 236.
42. See Joseph Shatzmiller, “Converts and Judaizers in the Early Fourteenth Century,” Harvard Theological Review 74, no. 1 (January 1981): 63-66,69; Yerushalmi, “Inquisition and the Jews of France,” pp. 363-374; Goldin, “Ha-yahasim beyn ha-yahid,” p. 174. The notion of washing away the effects of an earlier religious rite of passage was not without parallel in the Christian community. Esther Cohen, The Crossroads of Justice (Leiden: Brill, 1993), p. 184, describing how the fingers of two condemned monks “were scrubbed to remove the chrism used at their ordination and they were declared devoid of all ecclesiastical authority.”
43. See Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, Louis Schoflman et al., trans., vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1966), p. 9.
44. See Assis, “Juifs de France refugies en Aragon (XIIe-XIVe siecles),” pp. 299-302.
45. Yerushalmi, “Inquisition and the Jews of France,” p. 323.
46. Baer, History of the Jews in Christian Spain, vol. 2, p. 10.
47. See History of the Jews in Christian Spain.
48. See Assis, “Juifs de France refugies,” p. 313.
49. See Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 48, and Starr, “Mass Conversion of Jews in Southern Italy (1290-1293),” p. 203.
50. Baer, History of the Jews in Christian Spain, vol. 2, pp. 13-14.
51. See History of the Jews in Christian Spain. pp. 295-299, 384-389; Yerushalmi, “Inquisition and the Jews of Fiance,” pp. 369-370.
52. Teshubot Maymoniyyot,, Nashim 10; also cited in Israel Isserlein, Terumat ha-deshen, Pesaqim u-ketabim (Bene Beraq: n.p., 1971), no. 230. A shorter version of R. Me'ir of Rothenburg's responsum appears in Mordecai ben Hillel, Ketubbot 306. The text seems to indicate that R. Me'ir thought that these people would steal and fulfill their base desires while feigning to be Jews. A late-fourteenth-century Jewish vagrant in France did exactly that, exploiting hospitality to steal from his Jewish hosts (see Esther Cohen, “Posh'im Yehudim be-Zarfat be-shalhey ha-me'ah ha-14,” Zion 46, no. 2 [1981]: 151-152).
53. Solomon ben Abraham Adret, She ‘elot u-teshubot ha-Rashba ‘(1868; reprint, Jerusalem: n.p., 1958), vol. 7, no. 179. The French scholars believed that such Jews pretended to be Christians only to indulge their evil inclinations but did not really believe in Christianity.
54. Isserlein, Pesaqim u-ketabim, no. 138. In Isserlein's case the “waffling” apostate seems to have tried to avoid Jews who might have recognized him, running from a town when he found out that people who knew him were coming. The Church certainly did not approve of apostates mingling with Jews, let alone acting as Jews. See Felix Vernet, “Le Pape Martin V et les Juifs,” Revue des questions historiques 51 (1892): 405.
55. See Rapahel Straus, Urkunden und Aktenstucke zur Geschichte derJuden in Regensburg 1453-1738 (Munich: Beck'sche, 1960), no. 211, pp. 64-66. The material is cited and the importance of the accusations regarding the host are put in their proper historical perspective by R. Po-chia Hsia, The Myth of Ritual Murder (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 70.
56. The Jewish element among the vagrant population was not insignificant. It influenced the language of the vagrants and thieves both in Germany (Rotwelsch) and France (see the fifteenth-century Liber Vagatorum [Strasbourg, 1858], glossary, pp. 55-57; my thanks to Professor Esther Cohen for bringing the work to my attention).
57. R. Asher was willing to accept the testimony of repentant apostates with respect to whether women could remarry (i.e., were their husbands dead). Concluding a responsum R. Asher noted, “and his testimony appears to me to be valid because he repented. And so we did in Germany at the time of the decrees (imnn rova), we allowed women [to remarry] based on the testimony of those who repented and I wrote a lengthy responsum on this” (no. 54.5). As for the lengthy responsum, like many of R. Asher's responsa written in Germany, it has, to the best of my knowledge, yet to be located (see Israel Ta-Shema, “Rabbenu Asher u-beno R. Ya'aqob ba'al ha-Turim: beyn Ashkenaz le-Sefarad,” Pe'amim 46-47 [Spring 1991]: 80-82, 88).
58. Teshubot ba'aley ha-tosafot, Irving Agus, ed. (New York: Talpioth, 1954), p. 238, a source kindly brought to my attention by Professor Blidstein. There is no doubt that these observations were made in the course of a prejudiced response. If the testimony under question was disqualified, the money at issue would be used to redeem children taken by the Christians and forcibly converted. However, R. Yedidyah's social comments, even if somewhat exaggerated, remain indicative of common perceptions.
59. Jacob Mollin, Responsa, no. 100, pp. 192-193. Mollin believed that since some of these apostates were “merciful” (i.e., essentially good husbands), it may have been better for a Jewish woman to have remained married to such an apostate in the hope that he might return than be divorced and free of him.
60. See Isserlein, Terumat ha-deshen, Responsa, no. 241. Also Mollin, Responsa, no. 72, pp. 89-104. Even R. Asher had found the pious who had been forcibly converted and who returned as soon as possible quite acceptable (Asher ben Yebi'el, Responsa, no. 54.1).
61. On the Edict of Vienna in general, see Samuel Krauss, Die Wiener Geserah vom Jahre 1421 (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumuller, 1920). Krauss asserts that Maitin V's bull, “Licet Judaeorum omnium” issued on December 23,1420, which threatened to excommunicate anyone baptizing Jewish children under the age of twelve against their parents’ wishes, was issued to the Jews of Austria and the Venetian territories in response to the Edict of Vienna (p. 107). R. Jacob Mollin certainly believed that the papal response was aimed at head of the Viennese community (Responsa, p. 102, no. 72). One is left with the impression that Krauss believed that Martin V would have allowed all forced converts to return to Judaism dejure but, bound by Christian theology, could not do so, so the Church simply turned a blind eye. The dating of “Licet Judaeorum,” however, remains problematic. See Vernet, “Le Pape Martin V,” p. 422, no. 81.
62. Isserlein, Responsa, no. 241, was asked about the permissibility of these women to their husbands.
63. Isserlein believed that the women could not be charged because they had originally been detained on other pretenses. Whether Isserlein's assumption was correct or not remains unclear.
64. On the decline of heresy in fifteenth-century Germany, see Kieckhefer, Repression of Heresy, p. 83.
65. Isserlein, Responsa, no. 86, notes that while according to the letter of the law the repenter could fully participate in Jewish life without immersion, the “custom of our fathers” demanded ritual immersion before a male repenter could be included in a quorum or any “holy matter.”
66. Isserlein, Responsa, no. 198. On the apparent contradiction between Isserlein's lenient ruling here and the stringent traditon cited in his name two generations later by Joseph ben Moses, Sefer leqet yosher, Jacob Freimann, ed. (1904; reprint, Jerusalem: n.p., 1964), p. 49, see the very questionable suggestion of Dinari, Hakmey Ashkenaz be-shalhey yemey ha-beynayim, p. 91, n. 102. Jacob Elbaum, Teshubat ha-leb u-qabbalat yesurim (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1993), p. 28, nn. 21-22, maintains that Isserlein's responsa best reflect bis position, but it is difficult to draw any conclusions about Isserlein's general view without knowing the circumstances of each case and without solving the long standing question regarding the nature of Isserlein's responsa (i.e., were the questions actually asked of him).
67. See Ignacy Schipper, “Zydzi neofici i prozelici w Polsce do r. 1569,” Kwartalnik posawieocony badaniom historii Zydow w Polsce 2 (1912): 66.1 thank Professor Carlebach for sending me a copy of Schipper's article.
68. A number of Jews chose to convert rather than leave their homes during the expulsion of Jews from neighboring Lithuania in 1495. See Teodor Jeske-Cholnski, Neofici Polscy (Warsaw: Piotr Laskauer, 1904), pp. 11-13, a polemical work that should be used with some caution.
69. The few who converted to Lutheranism were more likely to have done so out of conviction, for there was little profit in becoming a Lutheran in Poland. See Jacob Goldberg, Ha-mumarim be-mamelket Polin-Lita’ (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1985), pp. 9, 20.
70. On the ennoblement of converts to Catholicism in Poland and Lithuania in the sixteenth century, see Andrzej Ciechanowiecki, “A Footnote to the History of the Integration of Converts into the Ranks of the Szlachta in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,” in The Jews in Poland, Chimen Abramsky et al., eds. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), pp. 64-65. On attempts to use apostasy as a means to escape punishment, see, for example, Abraham Rapoport, She'elot u-teshubot eytan ha-ezrahi (1796; reprint, Jerusalem: n.p., 1986), end no. 45, who noted that priests “always” tried to tempt Jews awaiting punishment to convert with the promise that their sentences would be commuted. In the second half of the seventeenth century, a number of condemned Jewish criminals who withstood the temptation to convert were considered martyrs by the Jewish community (see Chone Shmeruk, “Ha-qadosh R. Shakna’, Qera'qa’ 1682-rishum be-pinqas shel ha-hebrah qaddisha’ le-'umat ‘Shir histori,’” Gal-Ed 7-8 [1985]: 63 and the source cited in n. 15).
71. Roman Szewczyk, Ludnosca Lublina w latach 1583-1650 (Lublin: KUL, 1947), p. 107. Among the converts were two children, one aged about five, the other around twelve (p. 109, n. 3).
72. There were sixty-nine Jewish homes in the Jewish suburb of Lublin in 1570, which, according to Bella Mandelsberg-Schildkraut, Mehqarim le-toledot Yehudey Lublin (Tel Aviv: Circle of Friends of the Late Bella Mandelsberg-Schildkraut, 1965), p. 66, represented about 1,035 Jews. Even if one assumes that the Jewish population of Lublin replaced itself but once during the sixty-seven-year period of the records, twelve represents less than 1 percent of the Jews who lived in Lublin during those years.
73. See Majer Baiaban, Historja Zydow w Krakowie i na Kazimierzu 1304-1868, vol. 1 (1912; reprint, Cracow: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1985), pp. 426-428.
74. See Majer Balaban, Zydzi Lwowscy na przelomie XVIgo i XVIIgo wieku (1906; reprint, Cracow: Orbita, n.d.), p. 527, n. 2. On the Jewish community in Nawaria, see Pinqas ha-qehillot, Poland, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Yad ve-shem, 1980), s.v. Nawaria. It is, of course, possible that potential apostates from Nawaria may have left the town for a more prestigious center in which to undergo baptism.
75. Joel Sirkes, Bayit hadash (Cracow, 1635), Yoreh de'ah 268, wrote that “everyone now knows that most apostates convert only so that their appetites may be satiated, to allow them to steal, to have illicit sexual relationships, and to eat forbidden foods in public without having the rabbinic court of the Jews chastise them for it” (also see 340 [end]). Sirkes's view was not surprising considering that he believed that it was the “way of most apostates that all their actions are to trouble and irritate” the Jewish community (She ‘elot u-teshubot ha-bayit hadash [Frankfurt, 1697], no. 102). Sirkes's contention that apostates were seeking physical pleasures reflects a much earlier tradition (see Luria, Yam shel Shelomoh, Yebamot [Altona, 1740], chap. 1, no. 6) as well as Judah Rosenthal, “Marcin Czechowic and Jacob of Beizyce Arian-Jewish Encounters in 16th Century Poland,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 34 [1966]: 87.
76. Even the German pietist was faced with parents who wanted to bribe their apostate son to return to the Jewish community (Sefer hasidim, no. 183).
77. Luria, Yam shel Shelomoh, Yebamot, chap. 1, no. 6.
78. According to a number of Muslim legalists, dimmis could only convert from Christianity or Judaism to Islam. The Ottoman school of law (madhab), however, followed the view of AbO Hanlfa al-Nu'man (d. 767) that allowed dimmis to convert to any tolerated religion. See Antoine Fattal, Le statut legal des non-Musulmans en pays d'Islam (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 19S8), p. 165, and Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964), pp. 89-90.
79. See A. M. Habermann, “Ha-madpisim beney Hayyim Ha'liz,” Qiryat sefer 33 (September 1958): 509-511, who notes that Samuel Halicz published his first work in Constantinople in 1550, and Majer Balaban, “Zur Gescbichte der Hebraischen Druckereien in Polen,” Soncino-Bldtter 3, no. 1 (July 1929): 2-3, 7-9. On the date of publication of the Judeo-German New Testament, see Balaban, n. 44. In describing his travels through Turkey in 1553-55, Hans Dernschwamm, an agent of the Fugger bank, reported meeting Samuel from Cracow, who, he said, had left Poland for the Ottoman Empire after converting to Judaism (cited in Mateusz Mieses, “Judaizanci we wschodniej Europie,” Miesicznik Zydowski 4 [1934]: 157, 254). Demschwamm described Samuel as an apprentice, but, given the small number of converts, one wonders whether the convert he met was none other than Samuel Halicz.
80. See Hava Frankel-Goldschmidt, “Be-shuley ha-hebrah ha-yehudit-mumarim Yehudiyim be-Gennanyah be-tequfat ha-reforma'ziyah,” in Tarbut ve-hebrah be-toledot Yisra'el be-yemey ha-beynayim, qobez ma ‘amarim le-zikro shel Hayyim Hillel Ben Sasson, Menahem Ben-Sasson et al., eds. (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1989), pp. 638, 639-640.
81. Nathan Hanover, Yeven mezulah (Venice, 1653), pp. lOa-b. The flight of Jews who had been forcibly converted from the Ukraine and their subsequent return to Judaism is corroborated by at least one Ukrainian source. See Yoel Raba, Beyn zikkaron le-hakhashah (Tel Aviv: Diaspora Research Institute, 1994), p. 163.
82. An English translation of King Jan Kazimierz's edict of May 5, 1649 as recorded in Pinsk (1650) can be found in Mordekhai Nadav, “The Jewish Community of Nemyriv in 1648: Their Massacre and Loyalty Oath to the Cossacks,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 8, nos. 3-4 (December 1984): 394-395. The king's pronouncement must have emboldened Jews, for Hanover continued, “And in all the places where killings took place there remained a few hundred young children and babies who had [been] apostatized. And the Jews took them back by force from the hands of the Gentiles” (p. 10b).
83. Menahem Mendel Krochmal, She ‘elot u-teshubot ?emah zedeq (Amsterdam, 1675), no. 70. Soon after writing his responsum Krochmal was informed that the woman was alive and well, had indeed never apostatized, had been held as a prisoner, redeemed in Constantinople, and had returned to Lublin from where she made contact with her husband and joyously rejoined him.
84. According to one mid-fifteenth-century German halakhist, if a child was forcibly converted but failed to repent when it reached the age of legal majority, his status changed to that of a willing apostate. See Shelomoh Spitzer, “Teshubah me'et Rabbeynu Natan Igra’ be-din meshumad im yoresh et abiyv,” Moriah 7, no. 1 (Fall 1977): 6.
85. See Isserles, Shulhan ‘aruk, Yoreh de'ah 157.1. Also see the comments of Yosef Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 28.
86. If, for example, the husband had been murdered first, then the wife's father would inherit her instead of the husband's family.
87. R. Hanoch, She'elot u-teshubot harerey qedem, no. 95, pp. 407-408. On the attack on Jewish communities in Great Poland in 1656, see Gershon Hundert, The Jews in a Polish Private Town (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1992), pp. 27-28.
88. Sefer hut ha-shani, Ya'ir Bachrach, ed. (Frankfurt, 1679), no. 75.
89. Bachrach was certainly not unique in following in the tradition of leniency. Rabbi Mordecai Jaffe, one of the important Polish halakhists of the late sixteenth century, ruled that one must be lenient with an apostate who comes to repent {Sefer ‘ateret zahab [1825; reprint, New York: Gross Brothers, n.d.], 158.2).
90. A similar notion appears in Midrash Rabbah (Exodus) 31.1, but based on a verse in Ezekiel 33, not this particular verse.
91. Discussing the Italian milieu, Kenneth Stow, “A Tale of Uncertainties: Converts in the Roman Ghetto,” in Sholomo Simonsohn Jubilee Volume, Ahron Oppenheimer et al., eds. (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1993), pp. 258-259, notes that the Christian world trusted converts little more than the Jews did, often abandoning them financially once they had been baptized. Frankel-Goldschmidt, “Be-shuley ha-hebrah ha-yehudit,” pp. 635-637, adds that the Jewish apostate was an object of derision in sixteenth-century Germany, perhaps no less than the Jew himself. In seventeenth-century France, an anonymous poet reminded a descendant of Marranos that he still reeked of thefoetor iudaicus (see Gilbert Dahan, “Contre un Juif,” Archives Juives 16, no. 1 [1980]: 6, 7). There is little reason to suspect that attitudes were significantly different in eastern Europe.
92. Solomon Luria, Yam shel Shelomoh, Baba’ Qamma’ (Prague, 1606-08), chap. 8, no. 55.
93. See the sources cited by Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance, pp. 73-74. Sefer hasidim, no. 193, found a biblical proof text (Psalms 115:8) demanding such name-calling. Haym Soloveitchik, “Beyn hevel ‘arab le-hevel Edom,” in Qiddushat ha-hayyim ve-hiruf ha-nefesh, qobez ma'amarim le-zikro shel Amir Yequti'el, Isaiah Gafni and Aviezer Ravitzky, eds. (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1992), p. 151, n. 9, draws attention to the fact that the curses so commonly heaped on apostates in the Ashkenazic world were not pervasive in the Muslim world.
94. Nathan Kahana, She'elot u-teshubot dibrey renanah, I. Herskovitz, ed. (Brooklyn, N.Y.: n.p., 1984), no. 54. Some biographical information on Kahana is provided in the first few pages of Herskovitz's unpaginated introduction.
95. On the meaning of Kahana's phrase “DT1? vrorw TS DH7S3 1K3 Vna 3331” see Psalms 105:18.
96. The question, reformulated by Kahana, states that many Jews were held. In his response Kahana refers to a Jew being killed if the repentant runaway was not returned to the Christian community.
97. When Rabbi Shabbetai ha-Kohen published his commentary on a portion of Joseph Karo's Shulhan ‘aruk (Cracow, 1646), he badly needed the approbations of contemporary rabbinic authorities to assure both the publication and purchase of the work of such a young scholar. Kahana was the third signatory, after the rabbi and rabbinic judge of Cracow, among the eighteen to sign.
98. J.T., Terumot 5.10; 46b. On Sheva ben Bikri, see 2 Samuel 20.
99. Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Yesodey ha-Torah 5.5. Joseph Karo, in his Kesef mishneh, a supercommentary to Maimonides’ code, and in his Beyt Yosef, Yoreh de'ah 157, attempts to explain Maimonides’ rejection of R. Yohanan.
100. See Rabbi Me'ir ha-Kohen, Hagahot Maymoniyyot, Yesodey ha-Torah 5.5, n. 6. In the Venice, 1524 edition, as well as the Bragadini (Venice, 1551) edition of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, R. Me'ir adds that his teacher, R. Me'ir of Rothenburg, explained to him why the law was like Reish Laqish while R. Me'ir of Rothenburg was himself being held hostage in Ensisheim (Germany). This information is missing, however, from the Guiustiniani (Venice, 1551) edition. The entire gloss does not appear in the Constantinople, 1509 edition of the Mishneh Torah. Authorities who ruled like R. Yohanan are cited by Sirkes, Bayit hadash, Yoreh de'ah 157. Isserles's failure to give an unequivocal ruling on the matter (Shulhan ‘aruk, Yoreh de'ah 157.1) only left the matter open for further, albeit limited, discussion.
101. On the rabbinic understanding of the biblical rationale for killing a rodef, see B.T., Sanhedrin 73a. HI. Even if, based on the Jerusalem Talmud, the Jew demanded by the non-Jews was deserving of death, R. David ben Samuel ha-Levi did not believe that a sage should become involved but should simply let the masses do as they please, which he believed would be to save themselves by turning over the individual. See David ben Samuel ha-Levi, Jurey zahab, Yorehde'ahl57,n. 7.
102. In 1620, Rabbi Joel Sirkes, R. David ben Samuel ha-Levi's father-in-law, was faced with a case in which the king's ministers ruled that the Jewish community must turn over the sexton of Kalisz to stand trial before the wojewoda court on charges connected to a host If the sexton was not surrendered, the leaders of the Jewish community would stand trial in his place. See Joel Sirkes, She'elot u-teshubot ha-bayit ha-hadash (Frankfurt, 1697), no. 43, an English translation and commentary of which has been prepared by Elijah Schochet, A Responsum of Surrender (Los Angeles: University of Judaism Press, 1973), as well as Sirkes's Bayit hadash, Yoreh de'ah 157. Although some of Sirkes's rationales anticipated those proposed by Kahana, Kahana quotes neither of Sirkes's works.
103. Although the church had already in the thirteenth century prohibited the involuntary baptism of Jewish children as a violation of Jewish parental rights as well as the belief that baptism must be accepted voluntarily, the legal debate among canonists and theologians over the issue continued well into the fifteenth century (see Walter Pakter, Medieval Canon Law and the Jews [Ebelsbach: Rolf Gremer, 1988], pp. 322-330, and R. Po-chia Hsia, The Myth of Ritual Murder, pp. 112-118).
104. According to information added by R. Isaac ben Abraham of Poznan, the source of the community's information about the woman's oath and intentions came from the Christians. See Isaac ben Abraham of Poznan, She'elot u-teshubot Rabbeynu Yizhaq me-Pozna’, Ya'aqob Aharonfeld, et al., eds. (Jerusalem: Machon Yerushalayim, 1982), no. 38, p. 56.
105. Whether the ruler was himself aggravated by the actions of the Jews or whether he was prodded into action by the local clergy is not specified in the responsum.
106. Isaac ben Abraham of Poznan, Responsa, no. 37, p. 53. Rabbi Samuel's decision to send the letter to “the rabbi from Sielec” as well as to R. Isaac of Poznan, who, before assuming bis position in Poznan in 1667, served in Grodno and Luck (prior to 1664) and Vilnius (1664-67), suggests, but does not demand, a Lithuanian provenance.
107. See B.T., Sanhedrin 60b.
108. Isaac ben Abraham, Responsa,, no. 38, pp. 55-59.
109. The rorfe/defense is not simply a legal excuse for the victim (or bystanders) to kill the aggressor but is legally required of them if stopping the aggressor by some other means (e.g., wounding) is not possible. For a brief discussion of this particular aspect of the laws of rodef in the parlance of American jurisprudence, see Marilyn Finkelman, “Self-Defense and Defense of Others in Jewish Law: The /We/Defense,” Wayne Law Review 33 (1987): 1262-1263.
110. Ohalot 7.6 reads the “majority” of the child had left the womb; B.T., Sanhedrin 72b reads “his head” had emerged. I have followed R. Isaac in citing the Babylonian Talmud's version.
111. It is not clear whether the case occurred in Jaroslaw, which hosted a very small Jewish population prior to the mid-seventeenth century (see Mojzesz Steinberg, Zydzi w Jarostawiu od czasow najdawniejszych do polowy XIXwieku [Jaroslaw: Littman, 1933], pp. 9, 10, 12), or whether Schor was referring to a case that had taken place elsewhere and was discussed by the Polish rabbinic leadership during their regular gatherings at the Jarostaw fair. Jacob Schor was a prominent signatory to decrees of the Lithuanian rabbinic leadership from at least 1649 to 1662. See Pinqas ha-medinah, Simon Dubnow, ed. (Berlin: Ajanoth, 1925), person index, s.v. Ya'aqob ben Efrayim Zalman Schor.
112. R. Isaac's conclusion smacks of the necessity defense (i.e., the choice of the lesser evil in cases of conflicting values), a defense not usually admitted in halakhah. George Fletcher, “Self-Defense as a Justification for Punishment,” Cardozo Law Review 12 (1991): 863, has correctly noticed that “Absent a general theory of necessity, Jewish law has revealed certain tendencies to expand the law of ‘pursuit’ well beyond the core cases of aggression analyzed in the Talmud.”
113. Hayyim ben Isaac, Responsa, no. 142. J. Wellesz, “Hayyim b. Isaac Or Zaroua,” Revue des etudes juives 53 (1907): 77, n. 2, maintained this to be a responsum of R. Me'ir of Rothenburg, but the conclusion of this responsum, “and the case is written in Or zaru ‘a and I have already written about it,” points to a work that postdates R. Isaac ben Moses of Vienna and certainly R. Me'ir. I have been unable to locate any such reference either in Or zaru ‘a or in R. Hayyim's own work.
114. B.T., Baba’ Qamma’ 117a; Mordecai ben Hillel, Sefer Mordekay, Baba’ Qamma’ 195; Teshubot Maymoniyyot, Neziqin, no. 15. Also see R. Me'ir ben Baruch, Sefer she'elot u-teshubot Maharam bar Barukh, M. Bloch, ed. (1895; reprint, Tel Aviv: n.p., 1969), no. 485 and Sefer she ‘elot u-teshubot Rabbi Me ‘ir (Cremona, 1557; reprint, Jerusalem: n.p., 1969), no. 232.
115. See Saul Liberman, Tosefta’ ke-feshufa’, Commentary to Zera'im, pt. 1, 2d ed. (Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1992), p. 420.
116. Sefer hasidim, no. 253, with comparison to parallel text in Sefer hasidim, Reuben Margoliot, ed. (Jerusalem: Mossad ha-Rav Kook, 1957), no. 700, concludes that he could be surrendered “because he put both himself and everyone in danger.”
117. R. Hayyim's work was unknown to most authorities until the mid-nineteenth century; R. Menahem's work was known to authorities in fifteenth-century Germany, but much of it was eventually lost An abbreviated form of his work, entitled Nimuqey moreynu ha-rab Menahem mi-Rezburq, appears at the end of most editions of the responsa of R. Jacob Weil. On R. Menahem's influence, see Yizhaq Zimmer, “R. Menahem me-Mirzeburq ve-nimuqab,” Sinai 78 (1976): 76.
118. Moses Isserles, Shulhan ‘aruk, Hoshen mishpat 425.1. See also his gloss to 388.12.
119. See Fletcher, “Self-Defense as a Justification,” p. 864.
120. See Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto, p. 25.
121. Cited in Simhah Assaf, “Anusey Sefarad u-Portuga'l be-safrut ha-teshubot,” reprinted in his Be-ohaley Ya ‘aqob (Jerusalem: Mossad Ha-Rav Rook, 1943), pp. 164-165.
122. No less a figure than the great Iberian Hebrew poet Judah ha-Levi was apprehended by Muslim authorities in Alexandria in 1141 for trying to convince an apostate to travel with him to the Land of Israel, where, under Christian rule, he could safely return to Judaism. It was ha-Levi's great fortune to be saved from possible execution by his fame; a fellow Jew engaged in similar activities in contemporary Egypt was not as fortunate. See S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 5 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 236-237, 461.