His objective is to uncover the way "crimes of a violent, economic and sexual nature are depicted in medieval literary works, primarily rabbinic sources, but also other medieval narratives." By doing so, he adds, he gleans information about what crimes were committed, to what extent the perpetrators knew they were beaching norms, and how the transgressors were treated by their respective communities.
~Sheldon Kirshner
This work of importance analyzes a subject rarely considered in the study of medieval Jewish history, eruditely considering the span of literature and archival records relevant to a wide-ranging understanding of this topic.
~S. T. Katz
Jews and Crime serves as a window onto these complex dynamics thanks to Shoham-Steiner’s intrepid curiosity, his rootedness in medieval Jewish sources, and his incisive and insightful readings of these sources. His approach should serve as a model for scholars of the Jewish past.
~Paola Tartakoff
In Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe, Ephraim Shoham-Steiner 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-Steiner 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
In this meticulously argued book, Shoham-Steiner 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 martyrs so revered in Jewish memory, medieval Jewish communities also encompassed thieves, brawlers, murderers, and wife-beaters. In illuminating these darker corners of Jewish life, Jews and Crime in Medieval 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
This is an eye-opening study of the largely neglected subject of Jewish crime and criminals in medieval Christian Europe. For too long, apologists have ignored or denied a police blotter of cases—thievery, 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
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 transgressions, 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 mentalités, combines methodological sophistication, interdisciplinary scholarship, and highly accessible writing. This work will justly appeal to a wide audience of scholars, general readers, and students.
~Jay R. Berkovitz
His objective is to uncover the way crimes of a violent, economic and sexual nature are depicted in medieval literary works, primarily rabbinic sources, but also other medieval narratives. By doing so, he adds, he gleans information about what crimes were committed, to what extent the perpetrators knew they were beaching norms, and how the transgressors were treated by their respective communities.
~Sheldon Kirshner
In his fascinating new book, Jews and Crime in Medieval Europe, Shoham-Steiner notes that past historians ignored certain sources out of self-censorship and a "long tradition of apologetics." .... He includes some of these as appendices and the book is worth it alone just for these accessible translations of medieval primary sources and the extremely salty tales they tell.
~ROKHL KAFRISSEN
