Customer Reviews

Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World)

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The thesis of this book is that medieval Jewish Ashkanazi groups living in northern France and Germany were affected by the Christian communities and culture in which they lived (as one might expect), although they adapted such influences in ways suitable to their own religious sensitivies. One example of this effect is the increase of restrictions upon women in the 12th and 13th centuries. The focus on women as mothers allows the author to explore areas formerly quite thinly covered.

The documentation in the notes is impressive; the bibliography is extensive, providing the usual citations as well as European and Hebrew sources. The heuristic and pedological device of telling what you are going to do, doing it, and saying what you have done made the introductory, interim, and concluding comments to each chapter seem rather mechanical and somewhat stilted. A bit more editorial assistance to eliminate repeated use of words such as "quotidian" would also have been helpful, but taken as a whole, the book is well organized and well written, holding one's interest to the very end. I would emphatically recommend this book.