I think I'm talking about the tasks that history ought to set itself if it's
going to ever be remotely accurate. To regard the Jewry of the Middle Ages
( and even of today) as undifferentiate from David will give one a
historical perspective that, at the very least, will be confused about the
complexities of the Anti-Judaism (sic) of the Middle Ages. To have, or at
least to attempt, a more accurate view, looking at, for example, the origins
of both Xianity and its response, which was also a response to the Jewish
War etc., at Javneh and, later, the manner in which the 'Ebionites' and
others ( presumed by Chadwick to be survivals of the Jacobean Jerusalemite
Church) were viewed by the early Fathers - all the while examining the
Anti-Judaism present in Roman society and its differences and convergences
from the Greeks ( who, as far as I can make out, gave Jews a place separate
both from the 'barbarois' and the 'Greek') - can only, all of it, better
one's knowledge of what came after.
To think I spent those years learning Hebrew, and now Aramaic ( and hope to
do some work on Immanuel of Rome) all for an artifact is, at the least,
interesting. Anyhow, that doesn't deflect my statement ( and it would be sad
if something so obvious was offensive) that the Middle Ages was c o m p l e
x, and that the Jews were a part of that complexity, and ought to be
understood in their many interactions with the wider community ( to do this
one n e e d s to see that this wider community was complex itself and,
even in its parts ( such as the Magisterium), more complex still - one could
also remark the complexities of the Judaisms ( those of Spain as against
those of Germany as against those to the East as against those in Italy as
against etc. etc.) extant at the time, not only in their geographical spread
but also in their v a r i o u s reactions to the culture which surrounded
and implied them ( as also the variousness of Rabbinic Schools and what
influence they had throughout world Jewry.)
And yes, they were Rabbinic Jews, seeing as you ask - if one's asking a
question of definition ( implying, as that would have
to, the historical and social)
Yours all
ColinGHughes
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