Images of the Jewish community in medieval Iberia
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Ray, Jonathan [1]
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[1] Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Estados Unidos
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- Localización: Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, ISSN-e 1754-6567, ISSN 1754-6559, Vol. 1, Nº. 2, 2009, págs. 195-211
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
For medieval Jewish intellectuals, the term “Sephardi” denoted more than just a geographic association. It was meant to assert their membership in an elite cultural community distinguished from the rest of the Jewish world. Contrary to this notion of an identifiable and cohesive Sephardi society presented by medieval rabbinic literature, recent studies have yielded a competing image of the organization and boundaries of the Hispano‐Jewish community. Archival sources reveal the Jews of Christian Iberia to have formed a highly ramified society in which individuals were as much motivated by their pursuit of power, social stature, and economic opportunities as by religious affiliation. This paper will attempt to bridge the gap between these disparate portraits of Hispano‐Jewish society, and discuss the way in which Iberian Jews created a variety of communal rubrics, both real and imagined.
