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Executing Jewish Informers in Medieval Spain: History and Literature in Yitzhak Aboab's Menorat Ha-Maor

  • 14th-century manuscript illumination of a menorah from the Duke of Sussex's Catalan Bible
  • Event Date: February 22, 2022
  • Event Start Time: 10:30 AM
  • Event Location: Miller Hall (14 College Ave); Room 115

Composed amid social tensions in fourteenth-century Castile, the anthology of ethical literature known as the Menorat Ha-Maor (“The Lamp of Enlightenment”) by the talmudist Yitzhak Aboab includes three talmudic stories about Jewish sages executing Jewish informers. By analyzing the compilation
process of the Menorat Ha-Maor and comparing these stories to contemporaneous rabbinic responsa, Ron Lasri will show that these stories are vital to understanding Jewish culture in medieval Castile. More broadly, Lasri will reflect on the ways literary anthologies can serve as key primary sources for the
study of cultural history.