Use these questions to help you through the readings. Write a one-to-two page (2 pages double-spaced tops) essay based on some aspects of these readings, and be prepared to discuss the readings and your reactions to them in class. Be sure to include comments on all three readings in your essay.
Abraham David,"A Hebrew Chronicle from Prague" c. 1615.
1. a. Does the chronicler seem equally distraught about happenings in far-off Portugal and Spain, as in his own city, Prague? Why? What about time? The author lived in the late 16th-early 17th centuries. But he writes also about 15th century and 1st century events among Jews. What is his mind-set? time-frame?
2. What kinds of violence did the Jews suffer? What crimes predominate overall? What kinds of events did the expulsions and riots coincide with?
3. Why does the author link these crimes to Jewish sins (81, 84)? "our inequities"
4. Why does the author speak kindly of the ruler after he has expelled the Jews (87, 88, n. 5 and 6 on p. 88)? How do these examples illustrate the Jews' dependence on the state? Why might the author have singled out one ruler only as "of accursed memory" (80)?
5. What other side of Jewish life in Prague does one see in this chronicler's account from 1583 on?
6. From this chronicle fragment how would you characterize Jewish life in Central Europe?
Bernard Weinryb,"The Jews of Poland: Immigration & Settlement" (15) 17-32
1. Are there real historical sources to tell us why, when, how Jews arrived in Poland?
2. What is the difference between "documentary evidence" and legends (about the Jews' coming to Poland)?
3. Is there complete agreement about the origin of East Europe's Jews? What kinds of theories exist about the origins of East European Jews?
4. What is Weinryb's own interpretation of how/when the Jews arrived in Poland?
5. What is Weinryb's own interpretation of where these Jews came from ? How does his argument run?
Daniel Elazar, "The Sunset of Balkan Jewry"
1. What does Elazar tell us about the vintage of the Balkan Jewish communities, and the different ìlayersî of Jews and non-Jews in the area? What imperial powers dominated the area? Were Balkan Jews better off under the Ottoman Empire or under the national states that succeeded it?
2. What are Sephardic Jews and what brought them to the Balkans? What is Ladino?
Familiarize yourself with maps 1, 17, 21, 23, 30, 31, 45, 46 in Gilbert (coursepack)