IMC 2014: Sessions

Session 138: Jewish-Christian Polemics

Monday 7 July 2014, 11.15-12.45

Moderator/Chair:	Eva Frojmovic, Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Leeds
Paper 138-a	A Priest and a Rabbi Walk into a Mikveh: A Cardinal's Question on Purity and 'Exile' as Rabbi Isaac Tyrna's Reply (Language: English) Liat Sivek, Department of Jewish History, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva Index terms: Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Religious Life
Paper 138-b	'Smiting a cake': Preparing and Cooking Christ in the Croxton Play of the Sacrament (Language: English) Daisy Emma Black, School of Arts, Languages & Cultures, University of Manchester Index terms: Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Performance Arts - Drama, Theology
Abstract	Paper -a: In the 1520's Rabbi Isaac Tyrna wrote Teshuvat HaMinim, an anti-Christian work of polemics, while residing in the town of Brno, Moravia. His work is comprised of 55 sections, mostly devoted to refuting Christological reading of the Bible and Christian dogma. In section 54, Tyrna presents a question, allegedly posed by a cardinal, who remains anonymous. The cardinal wonders why Jews no longer adhere to the Mosaic laws of purity. This paper will discuss Rabbi Isaac's reply, in light of the Judeo-Christian relations in Bohemia and Moravia at his time, along with the possible effects of the Hussite reformation on Jewish thought and ideology. Paper -b In the Croxton Play of the Sacrament, five Jews torture a host to test the Christian belief that the body of Christ was present in the transubstantiated bread. Criticism has traditionally read the torture scenes as re-enactments of the Passion, yet this paper contends that they also engage with the rather more troubling culinary implications of the Eucharist, as links between the bodily and the edible are explored and the desecration narrative encounters kitchen implements and cooking processes which both prepare Christ for crucifixion and a meal for consumption. It traces medieval discourses linking Jews with an international 'other', including spice trading patterns, encounters with Saracens and spectres of cannibalism, as well as drawing upon Marian literature using food (particularly ovens) to link Judaism to carnality. Yet this paper finds that what the play ultimately 'proves' is the embodiment of Christ in the Eucharist: an enthusiastic testimony to Christian, not Jewish, spiritual cannibalism.