Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages

 (6 customer reviews)

Cohen's book provides a good comparison of the situation of Jews living in Muslim and Christian lands in the Middle Ages. What makes his comparison particularly interesting is the wide range of arenas to which his applies his comparison. After a survey of the historic-theological and legal backgrounds to Christian treatment of Jews and Islamic treatment of Jews, there is a series of discrete chapters on a variety of overlapping aspects of social intercourse. These include economic relations, urbanization, social relations, inter-religious dialogue and dispute, and collective memory.

Cohen's analysis is scholarly, dispassionate, and generally apolitical (unlike some of the reviews of his book!). Moreover, with the exception of an introductory chapter to situate the book in modern debates, Cohen limits his examination to the Middle Ages. So, those readers who complain that he ignores trends in modern (since 1750s) or early modern (1500s-1700s) Christianity and Islam are...Read more

Mark Cohen's comparative study of the status of Jews under Christendom and Islam during the Middle Ages is the most sophisticated, nuanced, meticulous, and persuasively-argued study of its kind. The extremely negative customer review on this page betrays the bias of its author. Citing from Bat Ye'or to demonstrate that the Jewish position in Islam has always been wretched is an exercise in futility. Bat Ye'or is anti-Muslim to an extreme. She thanks "Judeo-Christian" values for the positive treatment Jews currently receive at the hands of the post-Holocaust Western world. As if the previous 1800 years of expulsions, libels, massacres, burnings at the stake, forced conversions, and genocidal attacks pursued in various periods by elements (i.e. states or populaces) loyal to the Catholic Church, the various Eastern Orthodox Churches and, in its first two hundred years, the Protestant Churches as well, never occurred or are somehow irrelevant. It was rather the separation of church and...Read more

An interesting and scholarly read on the large scale socio-political relationship of Jews in the middle ages. Cohen holds that whereas animosity towards Jews in Christian countries was directed specifically and theologically towards Jews, in the case of the Muslim world Jews generally enjoyed (or suffered) similar treatment to other other dhimmi groups, usually Christians.

Chapter 1 compares modern mythologies. The first is that of the shiny happy dhimmi who was both protected and prospered under Islam. Cohen argues that this originated from 19th century Jews hoping to challenge Christian societies to support political emancipation. This gets picked up in 20th century polemics as a statement that Jews and Muslims co-existed as brothers until the advent of modern Zionism.

The contrasting myth is that Jews were always second class citizens, victims of a specific intolerance. This serves to give a deeper rational for 20th century Arab and Iranian...Read more