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Praise for Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe
“In Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe, Ephraim Shoham-S teiner has
painstakingly gathered and incisively analyzed an impressive array
of sources to treat the incidence and conceptualization of criminality
within Jewish society from a variety of perspectives. Offering a series of
suggestive comparisons along geographic, chronological, and societal
lines, Shoham-S teiner has produced a strikingly new and fascinating
work that will undoubtedly spawn additional discussion and reflection
by students and scholars of medieval social and intellectual history.”
— Ephraim Kanarfogel, E. Billi Ivry University Professor of Jewish
History, Literature and Law, Yeshiva University
“This is an eye-o pening study of the largely neglected subject of Jew-
ish crime and criminals in medieval Christian Europe. For too long,
apologists have ignored or denied a police blotter of cases—t hievery,
fencing, assault, and murder, perpetrated by and on Jewish men and
women in pre- modern Europe. Shoham- Steiner documents that Jews
were more like their Christian neighbors than we thought possible,
even while they struggled to rise above the moral chaos of the violent
society in which they lived.”
— Ivan G. Marcus, Frederick P. Rose Professor of Jewish History, and
professor of history and of religious studies, Yale University
“In this meticulously argued book, Shoham-S teiner draws on a range
of religious and legal sources to explore a fascinating and almost
entirely neglected topic. He reveals that alongside the rabbis and mar-
tyrs so revered in Jewish memory, medieval Jewish communities also
encompassed thieves, brawlers, murderers, and wife-b eaters. In illu-
minating these darker corners of Jewish life, Jews and Crime in Medi-
eval Europe restores medieval Jews to their full humanity, showing
them to be subject to the same passions and drives as (and sometimes
conspiring with) their Christian neighbors, even as they grappled with
unique challenges and restrictions.”
— Sara Lipton, professor of history, State University
of New York at Stony Brook
“Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe is an exceptionally rich work of
impeccable scholarship. With his eye on a wide range of crimes that
encompassed violence, economic wrongdoings, and sexual transgres-
sions, Ephraim Shoham- Steiner offers an important new perspective
on medieval Jewish society. This erudite study of criminal activity,
undertaken within the broad context of history, culture, and mental-
ités, combines methodological sophistication, interdisciplinary schol-
arship, and highly accessible writing. This work will justly appeal to a
wide audience of scholars, general readers, and students.”
— Jay R. Berkovitz, Distinguished Professor (Emeritus of) Judaic and
Near Eastern Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst
J E W S C R I M E
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J E W S C R I M E
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WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
DETROIT
Copyright © 2021 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without formal
permission. Manufactured in the United States of America.
ISBN (hardcover): 978- 0- 8143- 4559- 7
ISBN (ebook): 978- 0- 8143- 4560- 3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020943887
Wayne State University Press
Leonard N. Simons Building
4809 Woodward Avenue
Detroit, Michigan 48201- 1309
Visit us online at wsupress .wayne .edu
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
What Is Crime? 5
Why Crime? 6
Methodology and Methodological Issues 8
Historical Context 11
The Concepts of Crime and Punishment in Medieval Europe 12
Temporal and Geographical Scope 19
The Scarcity of Historical Information 22
The History of Medieval Crime 25
The History of Jewish Medieval Crime 27
The Sources 28
The Plan of This Book 31
1. “The Thieves That Go from House to House”:
Jewish Thieves in Medieval Europe 35
A Time of Great Risk, Opportunity, and Change:
The Late Tenth and Early to Mid- Eleventh Century 37
A Guilty Conscience Needs No Accuser? 71
For We Can Do No Wrong: Jewish Communal Regulations
on Theft 77
Stealing from Jews 81
vi Contents
Using Magic to Steal 90
People of the Book: The Rough Waters and the Solemn
Banks of the Stolen Hebrew Book Market 92
Battling Theft by Preaching 103
Theft within and from the Community 108
2. “Be Gone Thou Man of Blood”:
Murder and Murderers in Medieval European
Jewish Society 115
An Israelite and a Levi on the Edge of Tzarfat: A Case
from Limoges, Late Tenth Century 120
The Status of a Murderer: What’s in a Gaze? 128
“He Who Kills in Our Times”: From the Gaonic Period to
Fifteenth- Century Europe 131
Lethal Inclinations, Gentiles, and Exile: The Homilies of
Rabbi Judah the Pious 136
A Murderer in Our Midst: Addressing Extreme Violence
in the Community 149
3. Women and Crime 191
Methodological Problems 194
Prostitution 197
Violence in the Domestic Sphere 244
Conclusion 257
Appendix 1: “Lest She Go Astray” 265
Appendix 2: The Plundered Goods Caravan 267
Appendix 3: The Renegade Cleric 269
Appendix 4: Letter of Deliverance 271
Appendix 5: The Case from Poland 275
Appendix 6: The Manual of Penance 277
Appendix 7: A Ḥazan Who Has Killed a Soul 283
Appendix 8: A Responsum by Meir of Rothenburg 285
Appendix 9: The Death of the Wife of Milo 289
Appendix 10: A Responsum by Rabbi Haim Eliezer Or Zarua‘ 291
Appendix 11: The Case of Isaac and Sara 295
Contents vii
Notes 299
Bibliography 391
Citations Index 427
General Index 431
