In the context of 1632, for example, it is quite likely that Rebecca Abrabanel would have been quite reluctant to say much about the depth of her own allegiance to Judaism to Michael Stearns for several years after she married him. He might not even notice small observances she maintains while living with him, and when he does, he may completely misunderstand their significance.
Jewish Dress
In general, in every age, Jews have dressed more or less like their neighbors. Examination of medieval illuminated manuscripts makes this quite clear, as does examination of the works of several seventeenth-century artists. There are, however, some distinctively Jewish elements to clothing.
The first of these is the response to the commandment to wear "tassels on the corners of your garments" (Numbers 15:37). This has led to the universal Jewish custom of men wearing a tallus or prayer shawl during morning prayers. In the Sephardic dialect, this was pronounced tallit. Medieval persecution and pietism combined to lead Jews of the medieval Ashkenazic community to convert this to an undergarment that could be worn all day without being obvious. The big tallus gadol was still worn during morning prayers. Only the four tzitzis, or tassels of the little tallus katan undergarment hung out into public view. To any Jew or to any Gentile who came in regular contact with Jews, these fringes served as a badge that the wearer was Jewish. German Jews frequently referred to the talus katan undergarment as a tzitzis, after the fringes it carried.
By the seventeenth century, the Ashkenazic tradition was that all men, starting in cheder or elementary school, wore tzitzis, but only married men wore the tallus gadol. The story in the Sephardic world is less clear; Jews in the Ottoman Empire were wearing the talit katan, but it is difficult to identify evidence that the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam wore this undergarment. Certainly, "secret Jews" living in Spain or Portugal would be risking their lives to wear such a garment.
In 1434, imperial law required German Jews to wear a Jew badge, in keeping with the papal bull of 1425. The requirement that Jews wear the Jew badge was rigorously enforced, although some exceptions were made by noble decree, usually for court Jews or physicians and sometimes for their families. In rare cases, the badge laws were abolished for an entire community; for example, in 1541 Charles V annulled them in the county of Öttingen. Generally, though, badge laws remained in effect until the Emperor Joseph II abolished them in 1781.
The most common form for the Jew badge was a yellow ring two to three inches in diameter worn on the left breast of the outer garment. Some illustrations show a ring that looks like it might have been a brass hoop, perhaps pinned onto the garment, but the instructions that have survived for making the badge describe a yellow cloth ring that was to be sewn on.
By the late seventeenth century, when ruffed collars were in vogue, a yellow collar, or a collar with a yellow edge, became a common form for the badge, but the legal requirement of a yellow ring remained in force to the end of the century in much of the Holy Roman Empire. In many cases, women wore the same badge, but Jewish women's headdresses were also distinctive and served the same purpose in many communities.
During prayer, all Jewish men have traditionally covered their heads with a hat, although this is generally agreed to be a matter of tradition and not law. In the Sephardic community, some Jews only wore hats during prayer, but the Ashkenazic tradition was to wear head coverings at all times. By the seventeenth century, as several portraits by Rembrandt make clear, many of the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam were wearing an essentially modern yarmulke at all times, and wearing it under other, more fashionable hats when out in public. There is no reason to believe that the Ashkenazic tradition was any different, as this certainly conforms to the practices of Eastern European Jews into the twentieth century.
During the middle ages, Ashkenazic Jews developed the custom of wearing peaked felt hats that came to be known as "Jews' hats." For two centuries prior to 1425, German Jews were required to wear such hats, and they remained in occasional use even after the enactment of the badge laws. There is no evidence, however, that these hats were worn in the seventeenth century, and one apparent reason for the introduction of the Jew badge was the decline in popularity of the distinctive Jew's hat.
Broadly speaking, Jewish law forbids shaving, although the use of scissors to cut the hair very closely is permitted. More detailed analysis of Jewish law shows that shaving of parts of the head and face are permitted, but not the sideburns, chin or upper lip. Generally, prior to modern times, few Jews would have shaved except secret Jews, who would have followed the shaving customs of their Christian neighbors. In the Ashkenazic world of the seventeenth century, many men would have trimmed their facial hair closely with scissors, while others, particularly rabbis, would grow full beards. The tradition of growing long peyos—sidelocks—as a sign of piety was distinctly Ashkenazic, with medieval origins. Sidelocks could be pushed behind the ear or allowed to hang free. Documentation of the age of these traditions is found in illuminated manuscripts.
The modesty code of Jewish law has generally been interpreted as requiring Jewish women to cover their arms and legs, and also requiring that married women cover their hair. This was not materially different from the conventions of the Christian world of the seventeenth century, but it is noteworthy that Jewish women of seventeenth-century Germany frequently wore a headdress that took a two-horned or two-paddled form, possibly supported by a pair of combs set into a single bun at the rear, or possibly covering a "double bun" hairdo similar to that worn by Princess Leia of Star Wars fame. The veil worn over the buns and hair combs was frequently marked by two blue stripes, and the badge laws of some regions recognized such a veil as a variant Jew badge.
Remember that the folk costumes of European women frequently involved elaborate headdresses that clearly identified their regional or ethnic origins; the distinctive Jewish women's headdress fit into this more general pattern. In sixteenth-century Italy, Jewish women began to wear wigs as head coverings, but this fashion spread slowly, and it was only centuries later that most Ashkenazic women began to wear wigs in order to technically cover their hair while following bareheaded fashions of the era.
Finally, note that the modesty code of Jewish law was generally interpreted as forbidding men and women from touching in public. As an example, for a Jewish man to shake hands with a Jewish woman would have been considered quite improper in the seventeenth century. To use modern terminology, initiating such contact would have been seen as sexual harassment. There was also a tradition that a Jewish man should not give something directly into the hands of a Jewish woman other than his wife; instead, men would set things down where the woman could pick it up. This tradition avoided the risk of touching and it avoided coming close to the marriage ritual, since one way to create a legally binding marriage involved the groom giving an item of even nominal value into the bride's hand. Similarly, for a man and a woman other than his wife to enter a room and close the door behind them could create the impression of sexual impropriety, so this too was prohibited.
Jewish Travel
Jewish law forbids work and travel on Shabbos, the Sabbath or Saturday; Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; the two-day holy days of Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, Shavuos, Pentecost; and the first and last two days of each of the eight-day festivals of Succos and Pesach, Passover). The dates of the festivals are fixed in the Jewish lunar calendar, and Shabbos and all of the festivals run from sunset the night before to nightfall of the final day. Authors interested in writing historical fiction that involves Jewish characters should use a perpetual calendar to locate the dates of the festivals for the year in question. The resources section at the end of this essay lists several good perpetual calendars available on the Web.
The travel restrictions for the Sabbath allow walking 2000 amos (cubits) beyond the border of the city walls, and they forbid carrying anything, even something as small as a housekey, outside the border of the eruv or walled Jewish district. Many modern commentators arbitrarily
define 2000 amos as one kilometer, although 3000 feet would be more accurate. The restrictions on travel and carrying during the festivals are only slightly less restrictive.
The complexities of the general requirements for observing the spring festival of Pesach are such that Jews of the seventeenth century would not begin a long trip until Pesach was over. Where Easter falls after Pesach, it would generally not be safe to begin the trip until after Easter, as a matter of self-protection. Long trips during the winter would be unlikely because of the weather and lack of all-weather roads, but if a Jew set out on such a trip, he would generally attempt to return home at least a week before Pesach in order to have the time to prepare for the festival.
Similar constraints surround the fall holiday season, which for Jews, runs from Rosh Hashana through the Days of Awe to the fast day of Yom Kippur and then through the festival of Succos, which ends with Simchas Torah. Jews on a long trip would generally plan to reach their destination before Rosh Hashana, and they would rarely start a major trip until after Simchas Torah. Long distance travel after these fall holidays would be rare because of the weather.
As a result, except in the case where war or expulsion forced Jews onto the road involuntarily, the Jewish travel season would have been from the end of Pesach or Easter, whichever came later, until Rosh Hashana.
In general, long-distance travelers would hope to reach the safety of the Jewish quarter of a town by Friday of each week, and they would almost certainly avoid travel on Sunday because of the threat of persecution. The gates of many Jewish quarters were locked on Sundays. Thus, a typical traveler would have five days per week available for travel, and there are typically 109 days available for travel between Pesach and Rosh Hashana. Because Shavuos fell in midweek in 1632, long-distance travelers might well elect not to travel that week, and many travelers would not travel during the fast day of Tisha Bav in August, because travel on an empty stomach is uncomfortable.
Thus, a typical Jewish merchant would plan on about a hundred days of travel per summer. If we assume that this is done on foot with a loaded pack at about fifteen miles a day, this gives the traveler a range of fifteen hundred miles per year. As the crow flies, it is about five hundred miles from Frankfurt to Lodz, Poland, but it is dangerous to measure distances that way. On foot along the roads of the seventeenth century, the path could easily have been twice this long. A round trip to Lodz would thus be unlikely in a year, but a one-way trip could easily be planned. Any traveler planning such a trip would be well advised to leave soon after Pesach in order to allow for difficulties along the way, but such a traveler would not worry overly about the loss of a week here or there along the road. A well-to-do traveler on horseback or traveling by carriage could easily double this travel radius, planning on a visit to Poland and return in one summer with time to spare.
The biggest special financial difficulty faced by Jewish travelers was paying the Jew taxes required for entry or temporary residence in various communities along the way. This tax varied; sometimes Jews entering a city paid the same head tax as livestock. Foreign Jews in the county of Öttingen were required to pay an eighteen kreuzen daily poll tax set in 1623. The annual rate was eight thalers in eighteenth-century Berlin, seven gulden in late seventeenth-century Oldersum. In addition to their use as a source of revenue, Jews taxes were used to prevent entry of Jewish refugees into a community and to discourage them from staying if they were passing through, although there were occasions when these taxes were waived on humanitarian grounds.
Jobs in the Jewish community
Whatever the source of income for the Jewish community as a whole, the internal economy of the community generally created a number of jobs. There were teachers, or malmuds, in the cheder—elementary school, and rabbis for the yeshivah—secondary school or seminary. Only the more important communities had yeshivos. In general, all Jewish communities dating back to Roman times had an established system of public education. The obligation to provide for schooling is placed squarely on the community in the Talmud, and there is ample evidence of public funding for schools in both the Ashkenazic and Sephardic worlds.
It is worth noting here that the Talmud, which is written in Aramaic, was the central subject of study in the yeshivah, so any yeshivah graduate was literate in both Hebrew and Aramaic. In general, yeshivah graduates are entitled to be addressed as rabbi, although not all of them are entitled to sit as judges on a rabbinical court. Not all yeshivos were organized formally, and some rabbis of the seventeenth century took on individual students for private study leading to ordination.
Because of the need for kosher meat, any Jewish community, even a small one, would have someone who was trained as a shochet, a specialist in kosher slaughter and butchering; the Yiddish word shechter, from the same Hebrew root, is also used, and it eventually became a family name. The training required for a shochet centered around study of the laws of kosher slaughter in the yeshivah, but of course, it also included practical training in the care and use of the specialized tools of kosher slaughter, how to properly salt the blood out of the meat, and other aspects of the butcher's art. The most notable tool of the shochet is the knife used for slaughtering cattle; this has a 2-foot square-ended razor-edged blade that must be perfectly sharp and free of defects before each use.
The laws of kashrus generally place no restrictions on whole fruits and vegetables, but there are very strong prohibitions about drinking wine (or other grape products) that have been made with the intent that it be used by idolaters. This prohibition dates back to the times of the cult of Bacchus, but the use of wine as a Christian sacrament guaranteed the extension of this prohibition to the present day. Because of this, Jews generally have used kosher wines, that is, wines made by Jews. Kosher wine could be made by the individual homeowner, starting with whole grapes or raisins. However, there were many kosher winemakers in Europe; the great Torah commentator Rashi supported himself as a winemaker, and the better kosher wines were shipped over fairly long distances.
The laws of kashrus also forbid the eating of bread baked by a non-Jew, and they forbid cooking over a fire lit by a non-Jew. The concern about bread is that the bread may have been baked using lard or non-kosher tallow and that the oven itself may have been non-kosher because of contamination with food residues from non-kosher cooking. While anyone can bake bread at home, home ovens were still uncommon in the seventeenth century, so most communities relied on Jewish bakers or communal ovens. It was not uncommon for the communal ovens to be part of the synagogue complex.
The torah scroll required for a public worship service and the smaller scrolls enclosed in mezuzot and tefillin, to be discussed in a moment, were all required to be handwritten on parchment prepared from the skin of a kosher animal, usually calfskin velum. Every Jewish community of any significant size would have a sofer, a scribe trained in the copying of these texts. The sofer was generally a yeshivah graduate, and his practical training included the making of pens, ink, parchment and hide glue, as well as the copying of texts. With the advent of printing, it is highly likely that the first typesetters and proofreaders involved with Hebrew printing were soferim. A Jewish marriage contract, a ketubah, generally required the services of a sofer, as did divorce papers.
Every Jew is commanded "to write these words on the doorposts of your house" (Deuteronomy 11:21), and this commandment has been taken almost literally since biblical times by affixing a small handwritten parchment scroll containing Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21 to the doorpost of the entrance to a Jewish house. The case containing this scroll is called a mezuzah, and the most visible sign that a house is occupied by Jews is generally the presence of a mezuzah on the doorpost. On passing through a door marked by a mezuzah, essentially all seventeenth-century Jews would give it a symbolic kiss, touching it with their fingers and kissing their fingertips.
As mentioned previously, all Jewish men would wear some form of talus, or prayer shawl during daily morning prayers. In addition, essent
ially all adult Jewish men of the seventeenth century would wear tefillin on weekdays but not on Shabbos or the festivals. Some writers prefer to translate the word tefillin as phylacteries; the latter is technically an English word, but it is so rare that there is no good reason to prefer it to the Hebrew.
Tefillin are cubical leather cases containing small parchment scrolls with the texts of Exodus 13:1-10, 11-16, Deuteronomy 6:4-9, and 11:13-21, in fulfillment of the commandment to "Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a frontlet between your eyes." The tefillin worn on the forehead is held on by a leather strap with a complex quatrefoil knot at the back, while the tefillin worn on the upper arm is held in place by a long leather strap that is wound around the arm, hand and fingers in a complex way.
The Synagogue and Jewish Community
By the middle ages, all Jewish communities in Europe had fairly well-defined communal structures. Communities were generally led by an elected council, and the head of this council, the Parnas, could properly be called the president of the community. Under Jewish law, the community was responsible for providing schools, a synagogue, a cemetery, a burial society, a bath house or mikvah, and financial support for widows and orphans. Ovens were also frequently constructed by the community since it was difficult for individual families to afford the large brick ovens of the pre-modern era. The community had the legal mandate under Jewish law to tax its members to support these institutions. These obligations were reinforced by the Christian authorities, who frequently demanded that the Jewish community administer the Jew taxes and provide for the Jewish poor so that they would never burden Christian charities.