The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and Its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism - Paperback

by Joshua Trachtenberg (Author), Marc Saperstein (Foreword by)

A JPS bestseller, this is the definitive work of scholarship on the medieval conception of the Jew as devil--literally and figuratively. Through documents, analysis, and illustrations, the book exposes the full spectrum of the Jew's demonization as devil, sorcerer, and ritual murderer. The author reveals how these myths, many with origins traced to Christian Europe in the late Middle Ages, still exist in transmuted form in the modern era.

Back Jacket

The Devil and the Jews presents the medieval conception of the Jew as devil-literally and figuratively. Through documents, analysis, and illustrations, the book exposes the full spectrum of the Jew's demonization as devil, sorcerer, blasphemer, and ritual murderer; as desecrator and heretic; as usurer infidel. Trachtenberg reveals, in a chilling study, how these myths, peculiar to Christian Europe in the late Middle Ages, still exist transmuted form today.