Language:
Hebrew
Year of publication:
2020
Titel der Quelle:
תרביץ
Angaben zur Quelle:
פח,א (תשף) 109-132
Keywords:
Jewish converts History
;
Jewish converts from Christianity History
;
Judaism Customs and practices
;
History
;
Haircutting Religious aspects
;
Judaism
Abstract:
Scholars have already discussed the custom of shaving hair and paring nails in the Jewish communities of Christian Europe, during the Middle Ages and the Early-Modern Period. However, an identical custom in the laws of conversion (giyyūr) in Geonic literature from the early-Muslim period, has mostly evaded scholarly attention. This article surveys Geonic sources which mandate this custom to proselytes, both male and female. The same is required by Anan Ben David, who came to be considered as the founder of Karaism. An early Islamic tradition from the same period mandates the custom for female captives of Muslim warriors. In the appendix, a heretofore unpublished Geniza manuscript of the Geonic composition halakhōt pesuqōt, which includes a tri-lingual – Hebrew, Aramaic, and Judaeo-Arabic – discussion of this custom, is transcribed and translated. The author argues that this custom originates in the biblical commandment concerning a ʻbeautiful female captiveʼ desired by an Israelite warrior. However, while the biblical custom is gender-based and details the procedure by which sexual desires towards non-Israelite subordinate women can be regulated, in the Geonic sources the custom of shaving hair and paring nails becomes a requirement for male and female proselytes. This custom gave the classical rabbinic ceremony of conversion a physical and visible aspect, giving the ceremony a more stable structure. However, the original gendered logic of the custom persisted, as can be concluded from its mention mostly in contexts of domination, slavery, concubinage, and illicit sexual relations, or suspicion thereof. Analyzing the social meanings of this custom in the early-Medieval Islamic Middle East, with an eye to its transmutations in Late-Medieval Christian Europe, provides a better understanding of the issues that were most important to the Jewish communities of medieval Islam, concerning religious identity, communal norms and ways by which socio-religious boundaries could be crossed and re-crossed.
URL:
אתר את הפרסום בקטלוג המאוחד של ספריות ישראל
