Between Cross and Crescent: Jewish Civilization From Mohammed to Spinoza, Books 1 and 2 [Lecture Transcript and Course Guidebook]

by David B. Ruderman

What is it like to practice your faith in an environment dominated by another? To evolve as a people when all of the world around you moves to religious and cultural rhythms very different from your own? To maintain your unity as a living community—and always to be aware of that sense of community—even when
your numbers have been scattered across many lands, without a common government, a common country, or even a common language?

Moreover, how might these circumstances affect not only your own history, but also the history of those other cultures through which you move? What might you take from them? What might you give them?

For 10 formative centuries, the answers to questions like these helped define a developing Judaism, whose history was forever affected by its encounters with the surrounding social, economic, political, and intellectual environments of both medieval Islam and Christendom. As a result of those encounters, new pathways of philosophical inquiry and religious spirituality would be formed. The Hebrew language would find new ways of artistic expression. And the role of Jews in the life of the surrounding community would be changed forever, sometimes even increased, as was the paradoxical case in Italy, by the very ghettoization meant to keep them isolated.

Between Cross and Crescent: Jewish Civilization from Mohammed to Spinoza presents an overview of Jewish culture and society from its rabbinic foundations in late antiquity until the dawn of modernity in the 17th century.

In so doing, it places a special focus on Judaism's creative encounter with Christianity and Islam, giving us a unique perspective from which to examine the three major Western religions as they interact over time, and noting especially their ability or inability to tolerate and even appreciate the "other," as viewed from the vantage point of the Jewish minority.

Genres: History, Religion, Judaism, Nonfiction, Jewish, Audiobook, Medieval

Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

David B. Ruderman is the Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History at the University of Pennsylvania, Emeritus. From 1994 to 2014 he was the Ella Darivoff Director of Penn's Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, where he also held a fellowship from 2017 to 2018. He was trained at the City College of New York, the Teacher's Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and Columbia University. He earned rabbinical ordination from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York and his doctorate in Jewish History from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Prior to taking his position at the University of Pennsylvania, he held teaching positions at Yale University and the University of Maryland.

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This course gave a more in depth look at Jewish history in the "Medieval" period. In response to some of the other negative reviews, it is not an intro to Judaism course and assumes you already have a basic understanding of Jewish culture. The Teaching Company has several other intro courses that would be more appropriate if that's what you were looking for. As a Jew, I appreciated the way this course was laid out and the information given. I like to consider myself a decently educated person, especially when it comes to Jewish culture and history since it's very important to me, but I learned some things I didn't know about my own ancestry. This course felt exactly as advertised and was well done. I like the teacher a lot and plan to also take his modern Jewish history course.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not for the general reader.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

this isn't a book it is an audiobook but it was pretty sweet
thanks man
i learned a lot. this is tight because even though I'm Christian and Jewish, my grandma is Muslim so this is tight thanks!

[Simon Eskildsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recently, someone Jewish joined my team and I realized how little I knew about Jewish culture and history. In particular, I wanted to understand more about Jewish history in the "middle." I felt I had a bit of an understanding of the beginnings, and of the last 100 years—however, what happened between the beginning and now was opaque to me. I thought this course (as an Audiobook) gave a decent walk-through, but I would've expected to have walked away with a stronger model of Jewish history from a 16-hour course.

The course walks us through The Jewish diaspora from the beginning of Christianity, the relationship with Islam, the emigration to Spain, and later the expulsion from Spain in 1492. The "eastern frontier" of Ashkenazi Jewry, and important Jewish philosophy throughout times. It goes into great depth with how the Jews interacted with the societies around them and trace anti-semitism far, far back to the first expulsion of Jews from England in 1290.

[Skuli Saeland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruderman fjallar um rúmlega 10. alda sögu menningar gyðinga á umbrotatímum fram á árnútímann. Sem gefur að skilja er þetta ákaflega sundurleit saga því hann fylgir þjóðflutningunum um veldi Múhameðstrúarmanna, Íberíuskaga og um alla Evrópu. Athyglivert er að sjá hvernig viðhorf múslima var öðruvísi en kristinna og ekki síst hvernig viðhorfin breytast í aldanna rás. Ruderman gefur engar skýringar á þessum atriðum en dregur fram helstu áhrifavaldanna. Það er líka kostur að hann fjallar örlítið um kynjasögu gyðinga á þessum tímum en lætur þess þó getið að hún sé of lítið rannsökuð til að hægt sé að skoða hana fullnægjandi.

[Hayden Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruderman is a great lecturer and this series taught me a lot about Jewish culture and civilization and how it interacted with the early Christian and Islamic worlds.

I decided to listen to this because I'm taking a Spinoza seminar and was hoping this could provide some cultural context for Spinoza's work.

[Kitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lecture series about Jewish history. Very intense but well done. I learned a lot.

[Skylar Burris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't hold my interest. Didn't finish the entire series.

[Yitzchok]

2 Dvd's, Course Guidebook and 2 Course Transcripts