At 12:34 AM 12/20/00 -0500, you wrote:
>In a message dated 12/19/00 10:17:35 PM Eastern Standard Time, [log in to unmask]
>writes:
>
> > the early 11th cn seems (to some of us, at least), to be a time of great
> > religious and social creativity in western europe. indeed, i wd go so far
> > as to say that it marks the beginning of modern europe, and certainly of
> > the "high middle ages" with its romanesque and gothic architecture and
> art,
> > its pilgrimages, universities, crusades, heresies and inquisitions...
> >
> > curiously, in the same place and the same time (western europe, ca. 1000)
> > ashkenazic jewry becomes a major center of jewish culture. up until that
> > time, we have virtually no rabbinic writings from the area, and lots of
> > evidence that jews sent their children and their questions to rabbis half
> > way around the world for authoritative results. starting with rabenu
> > gershom of mainz "the light of the exile" (died 1028), northern european
> > jewry become one of the major cultural centers of world jewry.
> >
> > any ideas on what this might mean beyond mere coincidence?
>
>In art history, the year 1000 is usually regarded as the beginning of the
>Romanesque period, with much attention to millennial ideas that were in the
>air at the time.
any references? because the "regular" historians have so much trouble
imagining apocalyptic expectations that i had to write a piece called "the
fear of an apocalyptic year 1000" with reference not to the contemporaries,
but modern (augustinian) historians.
>I'd assume that Jews too could have been caught up in the
>question of whether the millenial year of the Christians would be "special,"
>and if so how.
not likely, altho they may have responded to changes in xn behavior -- for
better or for worse from their point of view.
>Granted, it was well past the year 1000 in the Jewish
>calendar.
4760 for them
>But minority populations that use their own calendars for religious
>purposes--e.g., Jews and Muslims--have always had to be aware of the
>Christian calendar as well, not least of all because in the west it's been
>the calendar used by the tax collector.
not clear. that strikes me as an anachronistic projection backward. i
don't think -- open to correction here -- that the chronology was impt for
tax collection purposes. and didn't the year of indiction cycle of 15 years
still serve ca. 1000?
>On your area of interest, you might want to look into the Karaites, Jews who
>rejected the authority of the rabbis and the Talmud entirely.
there is evidence of apoc expectation among karaites in this period, but
that is among the "mourners of zion" who lived in palestine. they'd have
nothing to do with the birth of ashkenaz.
more generally, let's say that apocalyptic and millennial ideas are a
factor, how do you think they'd work. in 1096 they were a major factor
(pace the jewish [chazan] and xn [riley-smith et al.] scholars who work on
the crusades and, for reasons that continue to escape me continue to ignore
the issue), and they cd hardly be cited as contributing to twin cultural
creativity.
[snip a passage on gender... might try to respond to that separately]
>By "Ashkenazic Jewry" I assume you mean Jews living in and around Germany,
>rather than Jews of German descent (who might be living anywhere). Correct
>me if I'm wrong, but I don't think of their being as central as you make them
>sound. Were I asked to pick one singular "major center of jewish culture,"
>I'd probably think first of Venice.
i mean the franco-german jews. gershom of mainz and koln, rashi of troyes,
his sons. this produces a large school of commentators on the bible and
the talmud which remains to this day the core of talmudic study, even among
sephardim. there is no venitian school of commentary as far as i know
(soncino, a printing house in the 16th and 17th cns), and i am unaware of
jews sending their children to the yeshivas of venice. my point cd be
stated simply in the notion that in 950 a northern european jew who wanted
his son to become a rabbi wd send him either east (byzantium, palestine,
babylon) or south (north africa). by 1050, he'd send him to study with the
students of gershom in a variety of northern european (lotharingian)
cities. so in under a cn, northern european jewry goes from being a
marginal frontier settlement to being a cultural center.
>pat sloane
richard
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