1 - The Jewish Quarters in German Towns during the Late Middle Ages

Summary

[In memoriam Daniel Cohen] In this essay I shall avoid the central theme of this volume, namely “ghetto,” and resort instead to the more neutral concept of “Jewish quarter.” This concept means no more than a rather large, spatially concentrated Jewish settlement. In this way I wish to avoid a long-standing confusion that is still apparent, even in recent research. This confusion manifests itself, for example, in the Encyclopaedia Judaica under the entries “Jewish Quarter” and “Ghetto.” The first asserts that the “ghetto did not appear as a permanent institution until its introduction in Venice in 1516.” It is, however, conceded that the “idea of the ghetto in its restricted sense resulted from the tendency of Christianity from the fourth and fifth centuries to isolate the Jews and to humiliate them.” The further use of the term “ghetto” for “quarters, neighborhoods, and areas throughout the Diaspora, which became places of residence for numerous Jews,” is rejected as “erroneous.” In the same encyclopedia, however, we find under the heading of “Ghetto,” and without any visible critical distance, that “it has come to indicate not only the legally established, coercive ghetto, but also the voluntary gathering of Jews in a secluded quarter, a process known in the Diaspora time as well, before compulsion was exercised.” In this wider sense, therefore, “ghetto” means any Jewish settlement “in a secluded quarter.”