Struggling with Tradition

The phenomenon of active martyrdom, including the slaughter of children and suicide, was practiced, admired and hailed since the persecutions of the First Crusade and mainly in the Ashkenazic cultural sphere. We find it also in Iberia during the 14th-15th centuries. This monograph highlights the opposition to this practice within Jewish society, emphasizing its continuity from its inception in various social and rabbinical circles.

Abraham Gross Ph.D. (1982) Harvard University, is Associate Professor of Medieval Jewish History, specializing in Medieval Jewish History and Literature. He is member of the staff of Ben-Gurion University since 1982. Major areas of research until the mid 1990s were the history of culture of Iberian Jewry, on which he published two books and scores of articles. In the last decade he focused on the history of Jewish martyrdom, spanning 2,200 years. He is former head of Jewish History Track and presently a member of the academic committee of the Ben-Gurion University Publishing House.