Moshe Taube (1) (1947–)

Mention "Eastern European Jewry" to most people and they will presume that you are talking about Ashkenazi Jews. However in The Cultural Legacy of the Pre-Ashkenazic Jews in Eastern Europe, Moshe Taube looks at the evidence for Jews and their cultural activities in the region before the arrival of the Ashkenazim in substantial numbers from central Europe from the mid-to-late fourteenth century onwards. The evidence is sparse indeed, and Taube casts a very wide net to bring together what fragmentary sources there are about the Jews of Kyivan Rus' and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, whose ancestors are probably to be found among the Romaniote Jews of the Black Sea. The extensive appendices to the book, which contain it seems all the primary sources referenced in both transcription and modern English translation, will undoubtedly be a boon to anyone working on this topic. Much of the body of the work is a fairly technical look at some manuscript histories, however; while necessary to the argument that Taube is making, I think it takes the book out of the realm of being accessible to the general reader.… (plus d'informations)