Bøker av Robert Chazan

This story is significant for all who are fascinated by the capacity of human groups to respond and adapt creatively to a hostile and limiting environment.

This book examines the history of Jewish education from the Biblical period to the present.

Although closely focused on the remarkable Hebrew First-Crusade narratives, Robert Chazan's new interpretation of these texts is anything but narrow, as his title, God, Humanity, and History, strongly suggests. The three surviving Hebrew accounts of the crusaders' devastating assaults on Rhineland Jewish communities during the spring of 1096 have been examined at length, but only now can we appreciate the extent to which they represent their turbulent times. After a close analysis of the texts themselves, Chazan addresses the objectives of the three narratives. He compares these accounts with earlier Jewish history writing and with contemporary crusade historiography. It is in their disjuncture with past forms of Jewish historical narration and their amazing parallels with Latin crusade narratives that the Hebrew narratives are most revealing. We see how they reflect the embeddedness of early Ashkenazic Jewry in the vibrant atmosphere of late-eleventh- and early-twelfth-century northern Europe.

One of the unanticipated results of the First Crusade in 1095 was a series of violent assaults on major Jewish communities in the Rhineland. The author offers a detailed analysis of these events, illuminating the attitudes that triggered the assaults as well as the beliefs that informed Jewish reactions to them.

This work shows how damaging 12th-century stereotypes developed and goes on to chart the powerful, lasting role of the new anti-Jewish imagery in the historical development of antisemitism.

Reconstructs the Barcelona disputation from the Christian and Jewish sources and sets it in its historical context, emphasizing post-disputation manoeuvres on both sides. This title focuses on Rabbi ben Nahman's efforts to reassure his fellow Jews in the face of new missionizing pressures.