Rowan Dorin, Stanford University

Thanks to the many decades of work by many wonderful scholars, we know a great deal about the recurring expulsions of Jews that scar the history of late medieval Europe. Several monographs have been devoted to the circumstances and aftermaths of particular expulsions, while other fine studies have explored the dynamics of the successive expulsions within the kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire. Historians studying the Jewish diaspora have meticulously retraced the pathways of exile and the destinations of refugees, while specialists in literature and liturgy—here I’m thinking especially of the work of Susan Einbinder—have movingly evoked the impact of these forced dislocations on the shared rituals and cultural life of Europe’s Jewish communities.
Continue reading Toward a Comparative (and Connected) History of Expulsion