2009
ISSUE 72 | 71
EXCERPTS OF NEW BOOKS BY HUC-JIR FACULTY | EXCERPTS OF NEW BOOKS BY HUC-JIR FACULTY
the female spirit, which has been forced to aban-
don the treatment of “its sorrows, joys, hopes, and
wishes” to others.
I know and recognize also the impediments
and obstacles that have been placed [before
women] both intentionally and unintentionally
on the path of literature, in general; and I am
aware of the weakness and relative smallness of
our literature, in particular. Nevertheless, all of
the guiles of the niggardly will not deplete my
strength nor distance me from my position.
Artistic perfection is my aspiration and my
ultimate goal.
Now, in publishing this Collection of Sketches I
am filled with confidence that it will be received
as a bold attempt to tread on new ground.
No Place of Rest: Jewish Literature,
Expulsion, and the Memory of
Medieval France
Susan L. Einbinder,
University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2009
W
hen King Philip VI expelled the Jews in
1306,
some 100,000 men, women, and
children were driven from royal France into the
neighboring lands of Spain, Provence, Italy, and
North Africa. The great expulsion of 1306 was
arguably one of the most traumatic moments of
medieval Jewish history and would prove to be
the harbinger of a series of recalls and expul-
sions, local and general, culminating in King
Charles VI’s expulsion decree of 1394. Despite
the upheavals of the fourteenth century, the
literary productivity of Jews was astonishing.
Yet there are few direct references to the
catastrophic events of 1306, even in Jewish
liturgical and historical texts, where one would
expect to find them. In this book, Susan
Einbinder coaxes out the literary traces of this
traumatic expulsion.Why did the memory of this
proud and vibrant Jewish community fade from
historical memory? Where do its remnants
reside among later communities and readers?
From the lyrics of the supposed “Jewish trouba-
dour” Isaac HaGorni to medical texts and
astronomical charts, Einbinder studies a range
of writings she reveals to be commemorative.
Her careful readings uncover the ways in which
medieval Jews asserted their identity in exile
and, perhaps more important, helped to pre-
serve or efface their history.
“
In order to remember what we lost of them
through their sin, let every one pay heed.”
Cincinnati HUC MS 2000, fol. 87v
In the rare book and manuscript collec-
tion of the HUC-JIR Library in Cincinnati,
a small liturgical codex tells a story of wander-
ing. It is a variation on the story told by all the
manuscripts I have cited in this book. Most of
HUCMS 2000 is written in a Provençal hand
that has been dated to the fourteenth century,
but a later writer has come along to fill in miss-
ing sections in a French-style script. The liturgy
is replete with
piyyutim,
many of them favorites
of Provençal Jews and a number, presumably
local, unknown. Although the codex itself was
lovingly produced and illuminated, the open-
ing
Haggadah
contains a blistering curse that
suggested, according to one paleographer,
“
a period of severe persecution.” From this end
of history, we know how that period ended.
Between then and now, this small codex jour-
neyed. By the seventeenth century at the latest,
HUC MS 2000 was in Islamic lands, perhaps
far to the east; additional prayers with eastern
vocalization and an owner’s entry in Arabic
conclude the volume. From its birthplace, the
title page preceding the
Haggadah
still pro-
claims that it follows the rite of R. Amram and
“
the French
gaonim
.”
HUC MS 2000 is only one illustration
of a neglected source on the medieval Jews
of France and Provence. Another, Vat. Heb.
MS 553, is found among the vast collection of
Hebrew manuscripts in the Vatican library; this
manuscript consists of two Provençal fast-day
liturgies joined together to form a whole. The
first section has been bound haphazardly so
that some of the folios are upside down and
out of order. The scribe, Simon b. Samuel, in-
serted his colophon on what is now folio 87v,
indicating that he copied and finished his
work in the imperial principality of Orange
in 1389. That was two years before anti-
Jewish violence would sweep across Aragon,
killing thousands of Jews and leading to the
conversion of thousands of others, and five
years before the final expulsion from France.…
These are just two examples of forgotten
clues to the life and literature of medieval Jews
who traced their origins to France, and con-
tinued to cling to some notion of Frenchness –
first in Provence and the Comtat Venaissin, and
later in places like Orange, Italy, Spain, North
Africa, and farther east.… Cincinnati’s Klau
is Professor of Hebrew Literature
at HUC-JIR in Cincinnati. She is
the author of
Beautiful Death: Jewish Poetry and Martyrdom from Medieval France
and
No Place of Rest: Jewish Literature, Expulsion, and the Memory of Medieval
France,
and the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the In-
stitute for Advanced Study, the American Philosophical Society, the National
Humanities Center, the Shelby Collum Davis Center of Princeton University, and the
Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.
Dr. Susan L. Einbinder
