Category Archives: Publications

Moshe Yagur, Crossing the Line: Jewish Identity in Medieval Egypt (Jerusalem: Shazar, 2025), is winner of the “Am ve’Olam” Book Prize of the Israeli Historical Society.

This book examines the question of Jewish identity in and around Egypt in the Middle Ages based on an analysis of cases where community boundaries were crossed by means of conversion. The book discusses many cases of Jews who converted to other religions, mainly to Islam, and of non-Jewish enslaved men and women who were owned by Jewish masters and mistresses, whose manumission was in fact their conversion, thus giving them an entry ticket into the Jewish community in which they lived.

Kollektivintentionalität u. Kollektivkommunikation im Mittelalter. Das Judenpogrom und der Einzug der Pest in Straßburg im Jahr 1349

You can now read the new article by Harald Haferland about “Kollektivintentionalität u. Kollektivkommunikation im Mittelalter. Das Judenpogrom und der Einzug der Pest in Straßburg im Jahr 1349” in the new issue of Das Mittelalter. Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung. Beihefte focussing on Fake News im Mittelalter? Zur kulturellen Aushandlung von Falschheit in politischen, religiösen und literarischen Diskursen, ed. Marcel Bubert and Pia Claudia Doering.

Three New Studies About the Simon of Trient Case, a Ritual Murder Accusation

There are three new studies about the Simon of Trient Case, a Ritual Murder Accusation from the 15th century.

  1. Hannah Heinrichs writes about “Zwischen Märtyrerkult und antijüdischen Feindbildern. Eine Untersuchung des Ritualmordkonstrukts in Text und Bild der Historie von Simon zu Trient (1475)”
  2. Kevin Reinardy writes about “Kein Märtyrer ohne Ritualmord. Die Historie von Simon zu Trient als Verschwörungstheorie?”
  3. Marco Heiles writes about “Die Historie von Simon zu Trient – eine judenfeindliche Verschwörungserzählung aus dem Jahre 1475”