The jews and the cross in the middle ages: Towards a reappraisal

Jacob Katz, as rector of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, conferred upon Parkes an honorary fellowship in 1970. A decade earlier Jacob Katz had written with admirable frankness in his now classic study Exclusiveness and Tolerance of the repulsion with which the visible signs of Christianity were regarded by medieval European Jews. This chapter reviews Katz's pioneering remarks both by examining the specific forms, especially non-verbal, which such repudiation took, and also by looking into the (paradoxically) related issue of the cross's attraction to medieval Jews, by whom it could be regarded, the author argues, not only as an idolatrous object, but also as one of illicit desire. These two dimensions could dovetail in such brazen actions as urinating or rudely exposing oneself in the presence of the cross, actions which, not surprisingly, were often followed by martyrdom.