Jewish Physicians In Medieval Christian Europe: Professional Knowledge as a Cultural Change

[RG # 129] Jewish Physicians in Medieval Christian Europe: Professional Knowledge as an Agent for Cultural Change

March 1, 2012 - August 31, 2012

Organizers:

Gad Freudenthal (CNRS Paris, University of Geneva)
Reimund Leicht (The Hebrew University)

During the Middle Ages, in Christian Europe, the religious and linguistic borders between Jews and the surrounding Christian culture always remained less permeable than those in Muslim countries, and very little knowledge was appropriated from the neighbouring Scholastic Christian culture. in the Midi (the southern area of contemporary France) hardly any philosophical or scientific works were translated from Latin into Hebrew. One could perhaps even go so far as to speak of a "Latino-phobic attitude on the part of medieval Jews of the Midi in general.

However, the field of medicine is an exception to this generalization. As far back as the 12th century, and again in the 14th and the 15th, scores of medical works were translated from Latin into Hebrew. Jewish and Christian doctors frequently cooperated with each other and treated patients together. Our research group is focusing on the macro-phenomenon of the role played by medieval doctors in bringing about a cultural transfer from Latin into Hebrew cultures, or from Christians to Jews.

Doctors hold a singular position within the social system of knowledge, since all members of all religions and cultures have similarly constructed human bodes, and all human beings, regardless of their religious and cultural backgrounds, suffer from similar illnesses and seek to be healed from these illnesses. Patients always attempt to seek out the best possible medical treatment, thus putting the Jewish doctors in constant and direct competition with the environing non-Jewish health system. Therefore, medicine was usually a unified knowledge system in which Jewish doctors were compelled to keep up with the tendencies of medicine in the host societies and "modernize".

The study of the history of "Medicine and the Jews" as part of the development of Jewish culture in its Christian European environment is much more than the study of the appropriation of professional and scientific knowledge by one specific socio-religious group. It is rather a comprehensive enquiry into the catalytic role Jewish physicians played in the processes of change which Jewish cultures underwent in southern Europe during the Middle Ages.

2011-2012 Research Groups 2011-2012 Humanities

Members

Michal Altbauer-Rudnik

FELLOW

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Michal is a professor in the Department of History at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research interests are the social history of medicine, cultural psychiatry, the history of emotions, and early modern European social history.

Cyril Aslanov

FELLOW

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Cyril is a professor in the Department of Romance and Latin American Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests are historical linguistics, comparitive linguistics, language in contact, Jewish languages, and poetics.

Tovi Bibring

FELLOW

Bar-Ilan University

Tovi is a professor in the Department of French Culture at Bar-Ilan University. Her research interests are medieval literatures and medieval studies.

Gad Freudenthal

FELLOW

CNRS

Gad Freudenthal is Senior Research Fellow Emeritus with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris. He has written on the reception of science and philosophy in Jewish cultures, mainly in the Middle Ages and in the eighteenth century, and has focused his research on Greek philosophies of matter.

He is the editor of the journal Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism.

2018-2019 Fellow: The Reception and Impact of Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture

Reimund Leicht

FELLOW

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Reimund is a professor in the Department of Jewish Thought at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests are Jewish philosophy and science in the Middle Ages, Jewish cultural history in late Antiquity, Johannes Reuchlin, and Christian Kabbala.

Joseph Shatzmiller

FELLOW

Duke University

Joseph is a professor in the History Department at Duke University, USA. His research interest is medieval history.

Tamás Visi

FELLOW

Palacký University Olomouc

Tamás is a professor in the Kurt and Ursula Schubert Centre for Jewish Studies at Palacký University of Olomouc, Czech Republic. His research interests are medieval Jewish philosophy and Jewish intellectual history.

David Wirmer

FELLOW

University of Cologne

David is a professor in the Thomas-Institut at the University of Cologne, Germany. His research interests are Arabic and Hebrew philosophy, medieval psychology and philosophy of nature, and the relation of medical and physical knowledge.