historyDeanna Roberts
HST 346
Essay #1
2.1.08
What’s the Big Picture?
No matter what kind of writing you are doing it takes time, and historical writing is no different. When you start writing about history you have to take many things into consideration. Not only is history about the events that happen through time, but it is also about the cultural, religious, political and personal accounts that help to create the history of a people. In the case of the Jews, compiling a collective history has been a challenge that is still being found. As a minority group in Europe during the Middle Ages, with great spans of distance between themselves, the Jews have been written mostly as a side note to the other happenings of the time. So far, there has been no complete history that tells the stories of all of the Jews throughout the world.
In many cases Medieval history has been written based around the masses or the majority, meaning that the history has been shaped around the biggest groups of people with similar ties. When I have been taught about the Middle Ages I have learned about the foundation of Christianity as the religion of the Holy Roman Empire, the Crusades, the fall of the Roman Empire, the Bubonic Plague and the English Conquest of 1066. Within many of these historical accounts, people of the Christian faith are the masses, and all others are in the minority. In Western history we rarely see long accounts about Jews, Gypsies, Muslims or other minority groups. If we do learn about them it is for one of two reasons 1) they are not extremely important to the understanding of history and 2) they are to blame. Firstly, for example,
“…the postbiblical Jews always appeared in the story as aliens who had not properly participated in the achievements of the people. In the twentieth century, history has gradually become less national and more comparative and specialized, but to a remarkable extent it has remained the history of the majority, and the Jews have continued to be viewed as an alien element of little importance” (Langmuir 39).
Personally, to ignore a people based on the fact that they are different seems kind of immature and impractical if wanting to fully cover the history of any given nation. However, during the Middle Ages, especially after Constantine, the religious aspects of the Catholic faith governed much of the political aspects of life. I can see here, how not paying attention to an older religion could happen. Christianity was a new religion, especially in the Holy Roman Empire. In order to make this religious movement progress, I can see why the histories of the Jews, who were around before Christians, and were a minority in each town, and city, could be ignored to help Christianity out. Secondly as Langmuir says, “In the north by about 1200, Jews had become and ideal focus for all those individuals whose personal need to displace and project guilt and hatred sought a socially acceptable outlet” (61). However, this is not a full explanation as to why a history of the Jews is so hard to complete.
Langmuir explains before “After the emergence of Christianity, a reprobation falls on the Jews, and a dark night of ignorance conceals their activities from the historical consciousness of most of Western Society until the Dreyfus, the Balfour Declaration, or Hitler once more draws historical attention to the Jews” (21). This can help to further explain why the Jews are often only seen in small bits and pieces of most western history.
The author Langmuir also gives a little more insight as to why the Jews were hardly ever included in the histories of the major nations of the Middle Ages.
“That so little attention has been paid to the Jews may be, in part, a reflection of the tendency of historians until recently, to stress actions more than attitudes, to divide ideas under convenient categories rather than to search for their underlying basis, to avoid the shadowy area of social psychology” (Langmuir 41).
I think that Langmuir makes a good point here. When I have read the many history textbooks that have been required during high school and college, everything seems to be based around the actions that happen. Not about the attitudes that are formed before the certain actions or the ones that come about after the stated actions. Langmuir also suggests that it is a good bet that more attention will be paid to the history if the Jews as the influences of social sciences on the writing of history increase. This also makes a lot of sense. Because anti-Semitism or anti-Judaism is a mentally controlled emotion, maybe when historians pay closer attention to why the people who attacked or caused problems for the Jews did so, a more complete history of the Jewish people within a non- Jewish historical perspective will not show the Jews as an inferior or less important aspect of human history.
As we discussed in class, when Christianity took hold on Western Europe, the Jewish people were never banned from being Jewish, but were seen as different. There was never a time when the Jews were not allowed to practice their religion or continue their culture. However, they were always the ones that deviated from the norm. For example, within the Roman Period, the Jews did not have to participate in the sacrifices to the polytheistic gods that the Romans believed in. Although there was no direct attack on the Jewish religion, rebellions still occurred and Jews were eventually pushed out of the city of Jerusalem. Yet another example is found during the 4th century. When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the theology began to show up in the laws, laws that eventually prevented Jews from participating in the economy, etc. Although there is no overall governmental attack against the Jews in any given area of the Roman Empire, in many places there is also no direct governmental protection. When Christianity starts to penetrate the political structure of the Empire it cramped impeded the ability of the Jewish religion to advance or progress at the rate of Christianity. For instance, Jews were not supposed to be in power over Christians and they were banned from building new synagogues. By the Early Middle Ages Jews were banned from holding land, and were forced into commercial economic activities.
As I have stated before, the Jews were never banned from being Jews, their lives were just made more challenging. When Charlemagne came into power, he stabilized everything. He standardized and stabilized the laws. Jews were given some exemptions, such as the exemption from trials of guilt and innocence. However, they were also excluded from all legal rights and benefits that the Christians received. From now on, they had a constitutional “otherness”. It is interesting that the Jews are expelled from every major country, and eventually invited back. However, they were not expelled from Rome until WWII.
When the Jewish religion was first attacked it became a portable religion. It became one of study and prayer. This is one of the reasons why the religion and culture survived through the Middle Ages and why today there are still people that are Jewish. As I have learned in my Jewish-American Fiction class, there is a sense that being Jewish is not only a religion but also a culture. When the Jews were forced into cities many times they congregated together to form some type of community. It is interesting that in some cities the Jewish neighborhoods were near the residence of the Bishop. I found it very interesting that in some towns in Europe the Jews were a majority of the people there, due to their heavy involvement in trade. It is odd that if this is the case, why they were not heavily included in the histories of trading and the trade routes. After all, the Jewish merchants did cross more linguistic boundaries than any other group of people. This was because of the constant use of Hebrew as the vernacular in Jewish communities throughout Europe. Personally, if I had been writing a history about Europe, I would have applauded the Jews for greatly expanding the scope of trade. However, another approach suggests that the “Jews were also maintaining a lower profile. They seem to have turned inward to consolidate their own communities and to establish strict guidelines governing contacts with the outside world “ (Stow, 39). This alone can perpetuate confusion as to whose fault the lack of inclusion of the Jews in majority histories was. Was it the Christian writers fault, or the fact that the Jews just didn’t leave enough behind for the outside world to lap up?
As I have alluded to, it is difficult to write a complete history of the Jews. This is because the Jews lived in so many different places. The Jews of the Middle East were and still are much different from European Jews. Even further, Spanish Jewish history is very different that the rest of European Jews histories.
“In many different spheres, medieval Christian society was far removed from that of the Jews. Jews did not have warrior nobility, at least not outside Spain, where possibly some Jews did live by the sword. Jews also did not base their power structures, whether political or intellectual, on the possession of land or on physical strength” (Stow 2).
This is a key point in the argument that a full history of the Jews as a whole package is a great challenge, yet not impossible. Stow suggests that in order to fully understand what it was like to be a medieval Jew we must study, not only the interactions of Jews and Christians, but also the Jews’ internal world, the areas that were intrinsically theirs and theirs alone. We want to know how Jews governed themselves and what theories of governance they developed (3). Hopefully once this is done, a complete history of the Jewish people can be created.
It is amazing that there is a Jewish religion and culture is thriving after all of the indirect attempts to convert them all to Christianity. One thing that Langmuir said in his writing really made me start to battle the reason why anti-Semitism is still in existence. Langmuir writes that “The failure of majority historiography, for whatever reasons, to deal responsibly with the history of the Jews is certainly one, if only one, of the factors contributing to the perpetuation of antisemitism” (40). Honestly, I’m not quite sure how I feel about this statement. Part of me thinks, “ Oh! If a full history of the Jews is written, anti-Semitism as we know it will stop!” The other part realizes that even if a history of the Jews were compiled, some people would still be anti-Semitic. It is all based on preconceived notions and prejudice. You can’t really change someone’s mind about something just by writing about it. They have to want to change. Writing can help to inform people, which will help some, but not all. One other thing that Langmuir writes that stirs emotion within me is, “A problem that yet remains to be solved is how Christians can remain Christians and avoid anti-Judaism” (62). This is very mind boggling to me. I am a Christian and I have nothing against the Jewish religion or culture. Perhaps it is because I have many friends that are Jewish and I have grown up with the morals of treating others as I wish to be treated. I don’t believe that just writing a complete history of the Jews will decrease levels of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism. People need to be less ignorant about people that are different from them.
Overall, it is challenging to write a full history of the Jews because of the countless lands that Jews call home. On top of that, with the new sects of Judaism that formed in the United States (Conservatism and Reform), instead of just Orthodoxy, there are different belief sets to keep track of. The areas in which historians study, limit their scope of writing. As Langmuir suggested, I think it will be helpful to all historians to use all of the different social sciences when writing histories. Then they will be able to better grasp the cultural, religious, and the personal accounts that are needed to form complete histories. As I feel, a complete history of the Jews needs to include all of those little known personal accounts that have been written down and shared within the Jewish communities of the world. Historians need to be objective and learn to walk in the same shoes as the Jews so as to honorably and correctly speak of them in the history of the human race.
HST 346
Essay #1
2.1.08
What’s the Big Picture?
No matter what kind of writing you are doing it takes time, and historical writing is no different. When you start writing about history you have to take many things into consideration. Not only is history about the events that happen through time, but it is also about the cultural, religious, political and personal accounts that help to create the history of a people. In the case of the Jews, compiling a collective history has been a challenge that is still being found. As a minority group in Europe during the Middle Ages, with great spans of distance between themselves, the Jews have been written mostly as a side note to the other happenings of the time. So far, there has been no complete history that tells the stories of all of the Jews throughout the world.
In many cases Medieval history has been written based around the masses or the majority, meaning that the history has been shaped around the biggest groups of people with similar ties. When I have been taught about the Middle Ages I have learned about the foundation of Christianity as the religion of the Holy Roman Empire, the Crusades, the fall of the Roman Empire, the Bubonic Plague and the English Conquest of 1066. Within many of these historical accounts, people of the Christian faith are the masses, and all others are in the minority. In Western history we rarely see long accounts about Jews, Gypsies, Muslims or other minority groups. If we do learn about them it is for one of two reasons 1) they are not extremely important to the understanding of history and 2) they are to blame. Firstly, for example,
“…the postbiblical Jews always appeared in the story as aliens who had not properly participated in the achievements of the people. In the twentieth century, history has gradually become less national and more comparative and specialized, but to a remarkable extent it has remained the history of the majority, and the Jews have continued to be viewed as an alien element of little importance” (Langmuir 39).
Personally, to ignore a people based on the fact that they are different seems kind of immature and impractical if wanting to fully cover the history of any given nation. However, during the Middle Ages, especially after Constantine, the religious aspects of the Catholic faith governed much of the political aspects of life. I can see here, how not paying attention to an older religion could happen. Christianity was a new religion, especially in the Holy Roman Empire. In order to make this religious movement progress, I can see why the histories of the Jews, who were around before Christians, and were a minority in each town, and city, could be ignored to help Christianity out. Secondly as Langmuir says, “In the north by about 1200, Jews had become and ideal focus for all those individuals whose personal need to displace and project guilt and hatred sought a socially acceptable outlet” (61). However, this is not a full explanation as to why a history of the Jews is so hard to complete.
Langmuir explains before “After the emergence of Christianity, a reprobation falls on the Jews, and a dark night of ignorance conceals their activities from the historical consciousness of most of Western Society until the Dreyfus, the Balfour Declaration, or Hitler once more draws historical attention to the Jews” (21). This can help to further explain why the Jews are often only seen in small bits and pieces of most western history.
The author Langmuir also gives a little more insight as to why the Jews were hardly ever included in the histories of the major nations of the Middle Ages.
“That so little attention has been paid to the Jews may be, in part, a reflection of the tendency of historians until recently, to stress actions more than attitudes, to divide ideas under convenient categories rather than to search for their underlying basis, to avoid the shadowy area of social psychology” (Langmuir 41).
I think that Langmuir makes a good point here. When I have read the many history textbooks that have been required during high school and college, everything seems to be based around the actions that happen. Not about the attitudes that are formed before the certain actions or the ones that come about after the stated actions. Langmuir also suggests that it is a good bet that more attention will be paid to the history if the Jews as the influences of social sciences on the writing of history increase. This also makes a lot of sense. Because anti-Semitism or anti-Judaism is a mentally controlled emotion, maybe when historians pay closer attention to why the people who attacked or caused problems for the Jews did so, a more complete history of the Jewish people within a non- Jewish historical perspective will not show the Jews as an inferior or less important aspect of human history.
As we discussed in class, when Christianity took hold on Western Europe, the Jewish people were never banned from being Jewish, but were seen as different. There was never a time when the Jews were not allowed to practice their religion or continue their culture. However, they were always the ones that deviated from the norm. For example, within the Roman Period, the Jews did not have to participate in the sacrifices to the polytheistic gods that the Romans believed in. Although there was no direct attack on the Jewish religion, rebellions still occurred and Jews were eventually pushed out of the city of Jerusalem. Yet another example is found during the 4th century. When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the theology began to show up in the laws, laws that eventually prevented Jews from participating in the economy, etc. Although there is no overall governmental attack against the Jews in any given area of the Roman Empire, in many places there is also no direct governmental protection. When Christianity starts to penetrate the political structure of the Empire it cramped impeded the ability of the Jewish religion to advance or progress at the rate of Christianity. For instance, Jews were not supposed to be in power over Christians and they were banned from building new synagogues. By the Early Middle Ages Jews were banned from holding land, and were forced into commercial economic activities.
As I have stated before, the Jews were never banned from being Jews, their lives were just made more challenging. When Charlemagne came into power, he stabilized everything. He standardized and stabilized the laws. Jews were given some exemptions, such as the exemption from trials of guilt and innocence. However, they were also excluded from all legal rights and benefits that the Christians received. From now on, they had a constitutional “otherness”. It is interesting that the Jews are expelled from every major country, and eventually invited back. However, they were not expelled from Rome until WWII.
When the Jewish religion was first attacked it became a portable religion. It became one of study and prayer. This is one of the reasons why the religion and culture survived through the Middle Ages and why today there are still people that are Jewish. As I have learned in my Jewish-American Fiction class, there is a sense that being Jewish is not only a religion but also a culture. When the Jews were forced into cities many times they congregated together to form some type of community. It is interesting that in some cities the Jewish neighborhoods were near the residence of the Bishop. I found it very interesting that in some towns in Europe the Jews were a majority of the people there, due to their heavy involvement in trade. It is odd that if this is the case, why they were not heavily included in the histories of trading and the trade routes. After all, the Jewish merchants did cross more linguistic boundaries than any other group of people. This was because of the constant use of Hebrew as the vernacular in Jewish communities throughout Europe. Personally, if I had been writing a history about Europe, I would have applauded the Jews for greatly expanding the scope of trade. However, another approach suggests that the “Jews were also maintaining a lower profile. They seem to have turned inward to consolidate their own communities and to establish strict guidelines governing contacts with the outside world “ (Stow, 39). This alone can perpetuate confusion as to whose fault the lack of inclusion of the Jews in majority histories was. Was it the Christian writers fault, or the fact that the Jews just didn’t leave enough behind for the outside world to lap up?
As I have alluded to, it is difficult to write a complete history of the Jews. This is because the Jews lived in so many different places. The Jews of the Middle East were and still are much different from European Jews. Even further, Spanish Jewish history is very different that the rest of European Jews histories.
“In many different spheres, medieval Christian society was far removed from that of the Jews. Jews did not have warrior nobility, at least not outside Spain, where possibly some Jews did live by the sword. Jews also did not base their power structures, whether political or intellectual, on the possession of land or on physical strength” (Stow 2).
This is a key point in the argument that a full history of the Jews as a whole package is a great challenge, yet not impossible. Stow suggests that in order to fully understand what it was like to be a medieval Jew we must study, not only the interactions of Jews and Christians, but also the Jews’ internal world, the areas that were intrinsically theirs and theirs alone. We want to know how Jews governed themselves and what theories of governance they developed (3). Hopefully once this is done, a complete history of the Jewish people can be created.
It is amazing that there is a Jewish religion and culture is thriving after all of the indirect attempts to convert them all to Christianity. One thing that Langmuir said in his writing really made me start to battle the reason why anti-Semitism is still in existence. Langmuir writes that “The failure of majority historiography, for whatever reasons, to deal responsibly with the history of the Jews is certainly one, if only one, of the factors contributing to the perpetuation of antisemitism” (40). Honestly, I’m not quite sure how I feel about this statement. Part of me thinks, “ Oh! If a full history of the Jews is written, anti-Semitism as we know it will stop!” The other part realizes that even if a history of the Jews were compiled, some people would still be anti-Semitic. It is all based on preconceived notions and prejudice. You can’t really change someone’s mind about something just by writing about it. They have to want to change. Writing can help to inform people, which will help some, but not all. One other thing that Langmuir writes that stirs emotion within me is, “A problem that yet remains to be solved is how Christians can remain Christians and avoid anti-Judaism” (62). This is very mind boggling to me. I am a Christian and I have nothing against the Jewish religion or culture. Perhaps it is because I have many friends that are Jewish and I have grown up with the morals of treating others as I wish to be treated. I don’t believe that just writing a complete history of the Jews will decrease levels of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism. People need to be less ignorant about people that are different from them.
Overall, it is challenging to write a full history of the Jews because of the countless lands that Jews call home. On top of that, with the new sects of Judaism that formed in the United States (Conservatism and Reform), instead of just Orthodoxy, there are different belief sets to keep track of. The areas in which historians study, limit their scope of writing. As Langmuir suggested, I think it will be helpful to all historians to use all of the different social sciences when writing histories. Then they will be able to better grasp the cultural, religious, and the personal accounts that are needed to form complete histories. As I feel, a complete history of the Jews needs to include all of those little known personal accounts that have been written down and shared within the Jewish communities of the world. Historians need to be objective and learn to walk in the same shoes as the Jews so as to honorably and correctly speak of them in the history of the human race.
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