SummaryThis article focuses on a chapter in a manual on circumcision written in Worms in the thirteenth century by Jacob and Gershom haGozrim (the circumcisers). The third chapter of the manual contains medical instruction on how to attend to women in labour and other gynaecological conditions. Whereas the first two chapters of the manual were published in the late nineteenth century, the midwifery chapter has only been recently examined. This article is comprised of a translation of the midwifery text(s) along with an introduction to the text and the community practices it reflects. It outlines the cooperation between medical practitioners, male and female, Jewish and Christian, and discusses the medical remedies recommended and some practices current in thirteenth-century Germany.

This article discusses the ways scholars have outlined the process of Jewish adaptation (or lack of it) from their Christian surroundings in northern Europe during the High Middle Ages. Using the example of penitential fasting, the first two sections of the article describe medieval Jewish practices and some of the approaches that have been used to explain the similarity between medieval Jewish and contemporary Christian customs. The last two sections of the article suggest that in addition to looking for texts that connect between Jewish and Christian thought and beliefs behind these customs, it is useful to examine what medieval Jews and Christians saw of each other’s customs living in close urban quarters. Finally, the article suggests that when shaping medieval Jewish and Christian identity, the differences emphasized in shared everyday actions and visible practice were no less important than theological distinctions. As part of the discussion throughout the article, the terminology used by scholars to describe the process of Jewish appropriation from the local surroundings is described, focusing on terms such as “influence” and “inward acculturation,” as well as “appropriation.”

The English version of this issue is published thanks to the support of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la ShoahFrom Egypt under the Fatimid Caliphate to medieval Germany, from the Iberian peninsula to the Ottoman Empire, from Tsarist Russia to contemporary Ethiopia, from New York to Berlin or Paris, this issue of Clio FGH constitutes an itinerary through the history of Judaism in relation to gender. The “Jewish religious tradition” assigns entirely different roles, obligations and rights to women and men. The Scriptures and their interpretations, everyday actions and ritual feasts, as well as customs and Rabbinic law (halakha) all combine to produce a number of rules, concepts and representations of relations between the sexes. But this tradition has also developed within multiple historical context, allowing room to be created for evolution, influences and challenges: it is this diversity of “gender arrangements” within Judaism that is restored to prominence in this issue. Editors for this issue: Leora AUSLANDER & Sylvie STEINBERG Editor for the English online edition: Siân REYNOLDS