Yiddish in Italia: Yiddish Manuscripts and Printed Books from the 15th to the 17th Century (review)

Shofar ♦ An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies We are very far here from Bede’s balanced assessment, and much closer to the antisemitism that fueled the violence consequent upon the First Crusade. Scheil succeeds in his aim of revealing the complexities of Anglo-Saxon views of Jews, their history, and their culture. The image of Jews as an elder people, ancestors of Christians, honorable and worthy of a place in Christian history, took root in the more thoughtful expressions of English writers. Before long, however, those tender shoots would be replaced by harsher and unfortunately more hardy plants with the poisonous flowers of hatred for the Other. Lorraine Attreed College of the Holy Cross