Monsters and Monstrosity in Jewish History

An erudite and timely book. Emphasizing how the monster works within Jewish texts and images, how Jews themselves have often been made to function as monsters, and how the Jewish monster stares back , this is a landmark work of scholarship. * Jeffrey J. Cohen, Dean of Humanities, Arizona State University, USA * Idelson-Shein and Wiese - along with the volume's many other intrepid contributors - are the field's Van Helsings: monster-hunters, who, instead of proceeding with stakes and garlic, use the tools of cutting-edge scholarship to track down the traces of Jewish monstrosity in all its protean and subtle forms, and bring them into brilliant light. An endlessly stimulating volume. * Jeremy Dauber, Atran Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture and Director of Columbia's Institute of Israel and Jewish Studies, Columbia University, USA * Reading the diverse collection of essays in Monsters and Monstrosity in Jewish History: From the Middle Ages to Modernity, I found myself at once educated, entertained...and alarmed. If the essays, taken together, show monsters and monstrosity to have been fluid categories over a millennium of Jewish history, they also show that the monster was not quite an empty signifier. Indeed, menacing monsters are today being empowered the world over by naive electorates. Despite the astounding popularity of Frankenstein and The Golem, their shared message seems unheeded: those who believe that a monster will serve its creators' interests are tragically mistaken. This is my takeaway for today, but I would be remiss were I not to emphasize that the great achievement of this volume is its demonstration that by looking at the seemingly marginal topic of monsters and monstrosity in Jewish history, central and essential features of the historical landscape are illuminated-albeit in black light! * Yossi Chajes, Senior Lecturer in Jewish History, University of Haifa, Israel. *