Anthonius Margaritha And The Jewish Faith

A biography of Anthonius Margaritha, convert to Christianity and reporter on Jewish life and religious practices. Born in the 1490s, Anthonius Margaritha was the grandson, son, and brother of noted rabbis and was perhaps the best-known Jew of his generation in Germany to convert to Christianity. When he became a Christian in 1521, he began a series of writings that were built on his Jewish life and learning but were intended to reveal the defects of his former faith. These writings, including a translation of the Hebrew prayer book into German and a refutation of the faith, The Entire Jewish Faith (Der gantz Jüdisch glaub), are well known to scholars, but Margaritha himself has been studied largely as an ethnographic type. In Anthonius Margaritha and the Jewish Faith: Jewish Life and Conversion in Sixteenth-Century Germany, author Michael T. Walton looks more closely at Margaritha's life with the help of archival research and Margaritha's own writings. To present a full picture of Margaritha, Walton examines his life both before and after conversion. Walton details Margaritha's family history and Jewish life in a Christian Germany, including social customs and worship practices. After conversion, Walton examines Margaritha's time spent as a Hebrew teacher, polemicist, and paterfamilias and analyzes Margaritha's various works for their ethnographic and scholarly-polemical content. One thread that runs through Margaritha's life and writings, detailed here, is the importance to him of his debate with noted rabbi Joseph of Rosheim. Margaritha lost the debate and was imprisoned, but he continually referred to the issues raised and defended the correctness of his position in his treatises. Ultimately, this biography reveals Margaritha as a man who converted out of genuine conviction, but whose life thereafter must have been much different from what he anticipated. Scholars of Jewish and Christian history as well as those interested in German history, Hebrew pedagogy, and religious conversion will appreciate this thorough study.

The Yudisher Theriak [Jewish Theriac] by Zalman Zvi of Aufhausen, first published in Hanau, in 1615, was a response to an anti-Jewish work titled Jüdischer abgestreiffter Schlangenbalg [Jewish Shed Snakeskin], written by a Jewish convert to Chistianity, Samuel Friedrich Brenz, and published in Nürnberg and Augsburg in 1614. Brenz’s work was part of a genre of anti-Jewish books and pamphlets written in German and addressed to Christians that purported to reveal how Jews mocked and blasphemed against the Christian religion, cursed their Christian neighbors, and engaged in magic and witchcraft in order to inflict damage to their possessions and livelihoods. The name of Zalman Zvi’s book is a direct allusion to Brenz’s title, but it also hints at a larger purpose. Theriac is a Greek and Latin term that means “the antidote to the bite of a venomous snake.” Perhaps Zvi hoped that his book would also serve as a theriac for the scourge of anti-Judaism, which was prevalent in his generation. The Yudisher Theriak presents an interesting picture of how a learned Jew might respond to the many accusations against Jews and Judaism that became standardized and were repeated from author to author. The Yudisher Theriak makes a passing appearance in most scholarly books and many articles written about Christian-Jewish relations. Its existence is acknowledged and occasionally a fact or idea is cited from it, but its arguments and ideas have not been integrated into the scholarly literature on this subject. One reason that it has not received the attention it deserves is its language. It is written in a form of Early Modern Yiddish, more influenced by German and less familiar than its contemporary eastern European variant. In addition, Zalman Zvi was a learned Jew who interspersed Hebrew phrases, rabbinic terminology, and allusions to rabbinic literature in his work. Morris Faierstein’s goal in this work is not to respond to all the references and allusions in the scholarly literature that the original text touches on, but rather to make the work available in an annotated translation that can be a useful tool in the study of Jewish-Christian relations in the Early Modern period and, more broadly, for Early Modern Jewish historical and cultural studies. The analysis and clarification of the many issues raised in the Yudisher Theriak await further studies. Faierstein has taken the first step by making the work available to an audience wider than the very narrow band of specialists in Early Modern Yiddish literature. Scholars and students of Jewish-Christian relations and Early Modern Jewish historical and cultural studies will appreciate the availability of this previously inaccessible text.

This volume brings together important research on the reception and representation of Jews and Judaism in late medieval German thought, the works of major Reformation-era theologians, scholars, and movements, and in popular literature and the visual arts. It also explores social, intellectual, and cultural developments within Judaism and Jewish responses to the Reformation in sixteenth-century Germany.

This book presents the most recent scholarship on the sixteenth-century convert Johannes Pfefferkorn and his context. Pfefferkorn is the most (in)famous of the converts from Judaism who wrote descriptions of Jewish ceremonial life and shaped both Christian ideas about Judaism and the course of anti-Jewish polemics in the early modern period. Rather than just rehearsing the better-known aspects of Pfefferkorn’s life and the controversy with Johannes Reuchlin, this volume re-evaluates the motives behind his activities and writings as well as his role and success in the context of Dominican anti-Jewish polemics and Imperial German politics. Furthermore, it discusses other converts, who similarly "revealed the secrets of the Jews", and contains detailed studies of the campaigns against the Talmud and other Jewish books as well as the diffusion of Pfefferkorn's books and other anti-Jewish writings throughout early modern Europe. Revealing the Secrets of the Jews thus presents new perspectives on Jewish-Christian relations, the study of religion and Christian Hebraism, and the history of anthropology and ethnography.

Jewish and Christian messianic thought and activism in the Reformation era in the Ashkenazic world.

This volume (volume 5) features Luther's writings that intesect church and state, faith and life lived as a follower of Christ. His insights regarding marriage, trade, public education, war and are articulated. His theological and biblical insights also colored the way he spoke of the "Jews" and Turks, as well his admonition to the German peasants in their uprisings against the established powers.

The book sheds light on various chapters in the long history of Protestant-Jewish relations, from the Reformation to the present. Going beyond questions of antisemitism and religious animosity, it aims to disentangle some of the intricate perceptions, interpretations, and emotions that have characterized contacts between Protestantism and Judaism, and between Jews and Protestants. While some papers in the book address Luther’s antisemitism and the NS-Zeit, most papers broaden the scope of the investigation: Protestant-Jewish theological encounters shaped not only antisemitism but also the Jewish Reform movement and Protestant philosemitic post-Holocaust theology; interactions between Jews and Protestants took place not only in the German lands but also in the wider Protestant universe; theology was crucial for the articulation of attitudes toward Jews, but music and philosophy were additional spheres of creativity that enabled the process of thinking through the relations between Judaism and Protestantism. By bringing together various contributions on these and other aspects, the book opens up directions for future research on this intricate topic, which bears both historical significance and evident relevance to our own time.

Eight different historical-theological studies are assembled here under the title Respect for the Jews. They focus primarily on positive Catholic attitudes toward Jews during the turbulent years of the first half of the sixteenth century. The number of authors and texts are relatively small, but need to be brought out into the open. For the first time, a speech in praise of the language of the Jews by the early ecumenist, Georg Witzel (1501-1573), is made available in English. Other Catholic Hebraists who are featured include Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), Matthaeus Adrianus (ca. 1470-1521), Robert Wakefield (died 1537), and Nicolaus Winmann (ca. 1500-1550). Their brilliant works are presented in front of the sinister backdrop of the vicious attacks against the Jews by the well-educated Catholic convert of Jewish descent, Johann Pfefferkorn (ca. 1469-1521), a self-appointed Catholic missionary to the Jews, and also against the background of the scandalous outbursts of the Grobian Reformer, Martin Luther (1483-1546). Volume 4 of the author's Collected Works fosters the idea that Jews and Christians are "study partners," rather than antagonists--as visualized in the new statue "Synagogue and Church in Our Time" (as shown on the cover).