A Mahzor from Worms: Art and Religion in a Medieval Jewish Community

Awards:   Commended for National Jewish Book Award (Scholarship) 2012 Commended for National Jewish Book Awards 2012 Nominated for Grawemeyer Award in Religion 2014 Nominated for Jordan Schnitzer Book Award 2012 Nominated for Otto Gründler Book Prize 2014
Author:   Katrin Kogman-Appel
Publisher:   Harvard University Press
ISBN:  

9780674064546


Pages:   308
Publication Date:   17 April 2012
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

Our Price $172.95 Quantity:  
Add to Cart

Share |

A Mahzor from Worms: Art and Religion in a Medieval Jewish Community


Add your own review!

Awards

  • Commended for National Jewish Book Award (Scholarship) 2012
  • Commended for National Jewish Book Awards 2012
  • Nominated for Grawemeyer Award in Religion 2014
  • Nominated for Jordan Schnitzer Book Award 2012
  • Nominated for Otto Gründler Book Prize 2014

Overview

"The Leipzig Mahzor is one of the most lavish Hebrew illuminated manuscripts of all time. A prayer book used during Jewish holidays, it was produced in the Middle Ages for the Jewish community of Worms in the German Rhineland. Though Worms was a vibrant center of Judaism in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and drew celebrated rabbis, little is known about the city's Jews in the later Middle Ages. In the pages of its famous book, Katrin Kogman-Appel discovers a portal into the life of this fourteenth-century community. Medieval mahzorim were used only for special services in the synagogue and ""belonged"" to the whole congregation, so their visual imagery reflected the local cultural associations and beliefs. The Leipzig Mahzor pays homage to one of Worms's most illustrious scholars, Eleazar ben Judah. Its imagery reveals how his Ashkenazi Pietist worldview and involvement in mysticism shaped the community's religious practice. Kogman-Appel draws attention to the Mahzor's innovations, including its strategy for avoiding visual representation of God and its depiction of customs such as the washing of dishes before Passover, something less common in other mahzorim. In addition to decoding its iconography, Kogman-Appel approaches the manuscript as a ritual object that preserved a sense of identity and cohesion within a community facing a wide range of threats to its stability and security."

Full Product Details

Author:   Katrin Kogman-Appel
Publisher:   Harvard University Press
Imprint:   Harvard University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.666kg
ISBN:  

9780674064546


ISBN 10:   0674064542
Pages:   308
Publication Date:   17 April 2012
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

Table of Contents

Reviews

A Mahzor from Worms offers a notably learned and thoughtful examination of a fascinating manuscript that has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. Conceptually sophisticated and thoroughly interdisciplinary, it convincingly reads the Mahzor as a kind of self-portrait created by and for the Worms Jewish community. The sensitive analysis reveals a still vibrant but increasingly pressured community struggling to honor sometimes-conflicting traditions and reconcile a proud heritage with contemporary needs. It is a significant contribution to cultural history as well as art history and Judaic Studies.--Sara Lipton, State University Of New York At Stony Brook


Katrin Kogman-Appel has established herself as perhaps the foremost expositor of medieval illuminated Hebrew manuscripts today. Her treatment of the Leipzig Mahzor demonstrates once again that she is a scholar of formidable erudition who peels away the layers of these magnificent manuscripts to reveal the rich complexity of medieval society and the important role that visual culture plays in it. -- Adam S. Cohen, University of Toronto An authoritative study of a stunning manuscript, Katrin Kogman-Appel’s A Mahzor from Worms illuminates one of the great masterpieces of medieval Hebrew book painting. With great learning and historical imagination, Kogman-Appel unravels the Mahzor’s intricate integration of ritual and pietistic practice in Worms, one of the great centers of medieval Ashkenazi culture. -- Jeffrey Hamburger, Harvard University A Mahzor from Worms offers a notably learned and thoughtful examination of a fascinating manuscript that has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. Conceptually sophisticated and thoroughly interdisciplinary, it convincingly reads the Mahzor as a kind of self-portrait created by and for the Worms Jewish community. The sensitive analysis reveals a still vibrant but increasingly pressured community struggling to honor sometimes-conflicting traditions and reconcile a proud heritage with contemporary needs. It is a significant contribution to cultural history as well as art history and Judaic Studies. -- Sara Lipton, State University of New York at Stony Brook In this meticulously researched book, Kogman-Appel casts new light on the religious concepts, ideas, rituals, and values in 14th-century Worms and in Ashkenaz in general. Her work provides us with historical insights about one of the important Jewish communities of medieval Europe about which we still know too little. We learn how the Jews of Worms ‘saw’ the Mahzor, how they saw themselves, and how they perceived their community in a time of decline. -- Shmuel Shepkaru, University of Oklahoma


Author Information

Katrin Kogman-Appel is Evelyn Metz Memorial Research Chair in Art, Department of the Arts, at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions
Latest Reading Guide

Aorrng

Shopping Cart
Your cart is empty
Shopping cart
Mailing List