Pinchas Roth

Bar Ilan University | BIU · Department of Talmud and Oral Law

Analysis of a legal ruling by Yehiel of Paris (d. ca. 1260) in a rental dispute between two Jewish men sheds light on aspects of Jewish life in a major medieval European city. Two Jews rented an apartment from a Christian owner, and a dispute arose when one of the tenants left mid-term and his replacement, also a Jewish man, tried to renew the leas...

En 1346 estalló una disputa entre los líderes comunales judíos de Gerona y Perpiñán. La disputa giraba en torno a una rica familia judía (llamada «Rubén» y sus hijos) que había emigrado de la región de Gerona a Perpiñán tras la conquista del Reino de Mallorca por Pedro IV de Aragón. Lo que estaba en juego era la participación de la familia en la ca...

This article explores aspects of literacy and written culture in the Jewish community in England during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Jews of medieval England lived in a multilingual world and created their own multilingual culture. They deployed their spoken language of French (or Anglo-Norman) and their written language of Hebrew with...

In This Land Jewish communities existed across the county of Provence throughout the Middle Ages. In This Land reveals the changes that those communities underwent during the late-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and the social and cultural tensions that shaped their identity. Legal responsa and other genres of rabbinic literature produced in Pr...

Fragments of a Hebrew manuscript in thirteenth-century Sephardic script were recently discovered in the binding of a fourteenth-century notarial manual in Perpignan. These fragments are identified here as originating in a copy of Tosafot redacted by a disciple of Isaac ben Samuel of Dampierre. It is suggested that the redactor was Samson ben Abraha...

A Hebrew manuscript in the Parma Palatinate Library, produced in the fourteenth century, probably in Provence, contains adaptations from Latin/Romance texts, including two that originate in the Christian crusading tradition. These two sections consist mainly of historical and geographical data relating to the Levant. The Hebrew adaptations, althoug...

Basing their conclusions on Latin documents, historians have painted the Jewish courts of medieval England as limited and haphazard affairs, their jurisdiction limited mostly to family law. They have also assumed that rabbinic courts ceased their activity in England after 1242. Hebrew rabbinic sources from the same period—some of which have never b...

The divorce case between David Bonjorn and Esther Caravita, which took place in Girona and Perpignan in 1337, is extraordinarily well documented. Hebrew and Latin documents shed light on the stages of the controversy, the wide range of personalities involved in the case and, most notably, the strategies mobilised by the two sides in their attempt t...

Posing a Halakhic query to a rabbi is often taken for granted, as the backdrop to a legal process that begins with the rabbi composing his responsum. At times, however, the question itself is the product of a calculated decision on the part of a layperson to become involved in the Halakhic process. Focusing on responsa from medieval Provence, this...

Since antiquity, many people have believed that the length of human gestation is variable, ranging from seven months to ten or even twelve months. The significance of this belief is not confined to the medical sphere, since it has important legal ramifications. If pregnancy could last for an extended period, a mother could claim that her offspring...

The medieval Jewish communities of Catalonia and Southern France lived in geographic proximity to each other. They were also quite similar culturally, and maintained ties with each other for centuries. However, the opinions of some historians notwithstanding, the two communities were not identical to each other and they perceived themselves as dist...

From the mid-thirteenth century onwards, the rabbinic courts of southern France (Provence and Languedoc) found themselves dealing with an increasing number of cases in which plaintiffs were using the court as leverage in a struggle that was taking place outside the court. This period also saw the first legal advocates appearing in Jewish courts. Th...

Introduction The study of medieval law occupies a unique niche within traditional academic discourse. A concentration on philological precision, challenges pertaining to manuscript study, and the ‘internal language’ of jurisprudence have at times over-shadowed the consideration of the wider societal implications of medieval law and curtailed its us...

Shoham-SteinerEphraim. Ḥarigim be‘al korḥam: Meshuga‘im u-metsora‘im ba-ḥevrah ha-Yehudit be-Eropah bi-Yeme ha-benayim. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2008. 299 pp. - Volume 33 Issue 1 - Pinchas Roth