Medieval Jewish History

Medieval Jews found religious tolerance and economic opportunity in Poland

The accumulation of disasters in the Middle Ages--expulsions, crusades, and the Black Death, to name a few--inspired a steady stream of Jewish immigration to the Holy Land.

Jews living under Islamic and Christian rule.

Jews got entangled in the Christian quest to recapture the Holy Land from Muslims.

Scholar Norman Roth questions whether the idea of the medieval Church makes sense as a category of analysis for Jewish history.

In Muslim and Christian lands.

Jews in the Medieval Islamic Empire

The complex political situation in Muslim Spain impacted Jewish social and cultural life there.

How Jews fleeing Spain and Portugal transformed the region.

Art as text.