Living Together, Living Apart: Rethinking Jewish-Christian Relations in the Middle Ages. By Jonathan Elukin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2007. Pp. xii+193. Cloth $25.95. ISBN 10: 0-691-11487-0. ISBN 13: 978-0-691-11487-3.

摘要

The theme of Jonathan Elukin’s elegant and well-argued book isnJewish-Christian coexistence in medieval Europe—how was it possible givennChristian prejudice and anti-Jewish violence? Older medieval Jewish historynstressed the themes of “scholars and suffering,” embodying what the late SalonBaron termed a “lachrymose” view of Jewish history. In recent years historiansnhave stressed how medieval Europe became a “persecuting society,” followingnthe work of R. I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society (1987), andnDavid Nirenberg, Communities of Violence (1996). Elukin argues for a differentnapproach to medieval Jewish experience, eschewing a “one-dimensionalnnarrative of victimization” (p. 4) for a more nuanced inquiry that explores thensocial and political ties that bound Jews to medieval society. While other me-ndieval Jewish historians such as Robert Chazan and Ivan Marcus have madensome of the same points in the past, Elukin is the first to write a sustainednbook-length argument along these lines.