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No Place of Rest: Jewish Literature, Expulsion, and the Memory of Medieval France (The Middle Ages Series)
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About No Place Of Rest: Jewish Literature, Expulsion, And
Product Description When 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 expulsions, 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 historiographic texts, where one would expect to find them. In No Place of Rest, 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 troubadour" 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 preserve or efface their history. Review "A sophisticated and beautifully written book. With it, Einbinder arguably becomes the leading literary scholar of medieval French Jews. What is unique about her contribution is that it easily transcends literary historical study per se. Her work embodies what is critical to the success of the new medievalism: Einbinder negotiates or, more precisely, ignores the conventional boundaries between discourses and the modern disciplines to which they gave rise."—Ross Brann, Cornell University "[Einbinder's] book is a pleasure to read, it provides a generous bibliography, introduces hardly known or unfamiliar literary works, and provides intriguing analysis. No Place to Rest places Einbinder among the leading scholars of medieval French Jewish literature."—The Medieval Review About the Author Susan L. Einbinder is Professor of Hebrew Literature at Hebrew Union College. She is author of Beautiful Death: Jewish Poetry and Martyrdom in Medieval France. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the ground; but the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark. —Gen. 9:8-9 Your inheritance languishes,Your dove goes from devastation to devastation.The dove does not findA place of rest.—Reuben b. Isaac, "Adonai, ro'ced ve-h'ared" The expulsion of the Jews from France in 1306 was neither the first nor the last time a Christian ruler ordered the departure of Jews from his land. As far back as the twelfth century, the kings of France—to be sure, a much smaller France than now—had experimented with expulsion. Toward the end of the thirteenth century, however, expulsion signaled the failure of policies that had achieved ever greater isolation of the Jews within Christian society, not the conversion that was ostensibly their aim. In hindsight, a series of small expulsions from territories west of the royal kingdom were an ominous harbinger of things to come: Gascony (1287), Anjou (1289), and Maine (1289) all expelled their Jews early. The small Jewish communities of these territories disappeared over neighboring borders with barely a trace, and they are unremembered today. In 1290, Edward I expelled the Jews of England, and a Jewish population of approximately 2,000 debarked, in a more or less orderly fashion, from English ports for the Normandy of their ancestors, some moving on to Paris and other parts of royal France. Those who lived another sixteen years would take the roads into exile again, a small minority among the 100,000 men, women, and children who fled following a surprise mass arre
