Updates & A Short Summer Break

🏖️ Book preview and updates, a new way to support my work, and I'll see you on August 15th for the rest of the Geonim series!

Hello, dear readers! I’ve taken to calling you my medieval-loving friends, because, as you know, “my medieval friends” was already taken, in reference to literal medieval people. You are now legion and your emails, DMs, comments, and engagement of all sorts continue to amaze me, make me smile, and keep me going. It has also caused me to reflect more deeply on what it means that, as humanities are dying (you may have heard), so many people are eager to access information about the Jewish past and bring it into conversation with our learning and our lives today. I think, as a community, there is lots to be done to keep creating access to scholarship and honoring robust lifelong learning. I’m honored to be able to contribute to that. Thank you for being here with me and continuing to read and respond.

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Book Update

My summer writing goal, outside of the weekly and monthly writing I do for the newsletter and a few other writing commitments I had lined up, was to finish Chapter One of the book, which is tentatively titled The Worlds of the Rishonim: A Cultural History, 500-1600. I keep toying with the upper date because 1571 seems oddly specific (it’s not!!), but rounding it up to 1600 just feels too late. Right now I’m hanging out right around the years 500 to 750, with paytanim and Geonim and also Byzantines and Visigoths and Umayyads. It’s not a boring time, let me tell you.

I thought it would be fun to give you a peek into the structure of the book:

• Chapter 1 - In the East: The Byzantine and Geonic Periods (c. 500-c. 1000)

• Chapter 2 - Moving West: Sages of North Africa and al-Andalus (“Golden Age” Spain) (c. 950-c. 1200)

• Chapter 3 - Northward to Ashkenaz: Sages of the Rhineland Valley and Tzarfat (c. 1000-1250)

• Chapter 4 - At the Crossroads: The Sages of Provence (c. 1100-1306)

• Chapter 5 - Synthesis and Dissolution: Christian Iberia up to the Expulsions (c. 1200-1500)

• Chapter 6 - On the Cusp of Modernity: The Ottoman Empire, Italy, and Central Europe (c. 1450-c. 1600)

You’ll notice that the dates don’t dovetail precisely; that’s by design. I’m going largely but not exactly chronologically: in other words, telling a story.

Anything surprise you? Missing? Wish list items here? Tell me what you think!

A New Way to Donate (in any amount)

With gratitude to those who asked, I’m offering a new, simple way to support my work in any amount, as a one-time payment or a monthly pledge. If the Substack subscription doesn’t work for you, I hope this will be more flexible. It’s on a platform called Ko-fi (as in “buy me a coffee,” which is appropriate, since I am usually drinking one; the word snob has occasionally been lobbed in my general direction).

Thank you so much. It truly makes my work possible.

A (Short) Summer Break

I’m taking the next two weeks off from the newsletter to work intensively on finishing Chapter One. I’m still working on recording audio for the first Rishonim Series, too. I’ll be back on August 15 with more Geonim. We have lots of good stuff to cover, including the famous and fascinating Geonim R. Yehudai, R. Natronai, R. Amram, R. Saadia, R. Shmuel ben Chofni, R. Sherira, and R. Hai and their influential works.

Subscribers, don’t forget to get your Hebrew Manuscripts eBook (here) and look out for an Elul newsletter around the 15th as well.

See you guys soon!