Miri Fenton

PhD Candidate
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Supervisor: Prof. Elisheva Baumgarten

“My PhD explores the ways in which communal identity was built through complex, nuanced social and legal practices of affiliation. Drawing on my background in philosophy and social theory, I look at medieval everyday life through the prism of collective identity and affiliation and study the variegated ways in which Jewish communities were instantiated in practice. I do this by focusing on non-elite practices rather than institutions or legal mandates for establishing communities.

My PhD focuses on three case studies: 1) what happened in local communities when a corpse was present in the vicinity, 2) how women used legal and social strategies to navigate intra-familial or intra-communal conflict (usually financial) that jeopardised their communal affiliation, and 3) how people responded to being excommunicated from the community. These examples capture moments of how communal identity and affiliation was lived out in practice. My PhD also includes a geographical comparison, each case study exploring practices in Ashkenaz and in the Crown of Aragon. By understanding of Jewish everyday life in each region, my research demonstrates the importance of local legal, social, and political context to the ways in which Jewish communal life functioned, even in areas presumed to be ‘internal’ Jewish affairs, like death, divorce and excommunication. I also provide concrete evidence for thinking about Jewish communities not as fixed or totalising aspects of peoples’ lives, but rather as mutable and dynamic aspects of medieval identity. “

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