Hybridity in the Fourteenth-century Esther Poems of Israel Caslari

349 Pages·2014·2.3 MB·English

by  Jaclyn Tzvia Piudik

Hybridity in the Fourteenth-Century Esther Poems of Israel
Caslari
by
Jaclyn Tzvia Piudik
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Centre for Medieval Studies
University of Toronto
© Copyright by Jaclyn Tzvia Piudik, 2014
Hybridity in the Fourteenth-Century Esther Poems of Israel Caslari
Jaclyn Tzvia Piudik
Doctor of Philosophy
Centre for Medieval Studies
University of Toronto
2014
Abstract
The Scroll of Esther, one of the quintessential texts of post-exilic Jewish salvation, was
particularly beloved in the European Middle Ages, when the narrative served as a model for
redemption from persecution and as a reminder of the threat of expulsion which was part of
everyday Jewish life. Among its many medieval adaptations is a pair of texts written by
Israel ben Joseph Caslari, a fourteenth-century Jewish physician, living in Papal-ruled
Avignon. Israel’s retellings of the Purim story are expanded and heavily embellished with
material from talmudic and apocryphal sources, medieval medicine and philosophy, and
references to popular culture. He composed his first version composed in Judéo-Provençal,
the southern French vernacular written in Hebrew characters; the second in Hebrew, not a
translation, but an adaptation of its predecessor. As individual works, each is a rich
intertextual landscape which offers a view into its socio-religious setting and reflects the
meeting and melding of cultural influences. If one considers them together, this encounter
becomes even more pronounced: the two versions come into conversation, embodying the
tensions of their milieu, and of their author, a Jewish intellectual in a Christian-dominated
society.

ii
The texts are a tapestry of ancient religious legacy and medieval thought, woven from
threads of Jewish tradition and secular learning, from medieval belletristic conventions,
midrashic literature and medical writings. This dissertation explores issues of biculturalism
and religious identity through Israel’s compositional strategies and his modifications to the
biblical story. It considers first the notion of hybridity in the works through the convergence
of their author’s professional and religious concerns, in his treatment of gender and language
as a representation of cultural boundaries and their transgression. It then examines the
multiplicity of literary genres, both religious and secular, that inhabit and inform the texts,
while engaging the question of their audiences as the Hebrew version prescribes.

iii
Acknowledgments
To thank all of those who have in some way been a part of this dissertation would take many
pages! I have been fortunate in finding mentors and teachers, friends, colleagues and
supports at every turn. I am grateful to each and every individual who has been with me on
this journey and here extend my thanks to the most significant of these.
My doctoral supervisor, Professor Jill Ross, for her wisdom and guidance, her unwavering
commitment to this project and for nurturing my growth as a scholar for so many years. My
dissertation and defense committee: Professor Dorothea Kullmann, Professor Mark
Meyerson and Professor Hindy Najman, who were a font of knowledge and inspiration, and
without whose direction this thesis could not have been written; Professor Libby Garshowitz
for her ongoing generosity, her love of learning and her passion for teaching; Professor
David Wacks, my external reader, for his insightful comments and invaluable suggestions.
The Centre for Medieval Studies and the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of
Toronto, whose support of my research was indispensible and whose faculty and staff were
always attentive and professional.
Nellie Perret and Victoria Littman, whose compassionate mentoring and steady
encouragement helped me to navigate the many challenges of being a graduate student.
The staff of the PIMS (Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies) Library, who watched this
dissertation unfold on an almost daily basis, for assisting with my academic research and
providing me with a professional and convivial work environment.
My peers, partners, colleagues in various graduate working groups for providing structure,
stability and camaraderie at times when they were most needed.
The myriad of friends who gave me a hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on, an ear to listen,
sage advice and an infinite supply of kindness. My deepest gratitude to Laura Wiseman,
Noelle H.K. Lee, Judy Farquharson and Giselle Gos, whose friendship and belief in me
helped me to persevere.
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Ruth Harvey for her warmth, erudition and generosity…and our feline family: Galahad,
Polydactyl, Quintus, Balthazar, Phoebe and Tasha.
My poetry community and my spiritual community for nourishing my creativity and faith.
Peter Ykelenstam, for his love, good humor and patience during the intensive final year of
this work.
Laurie Savlov, who has been a pillar of strength and whose support and dedication - from the
moment I began my research until the last word was written and beyond - has been
instrumental in helping me to bring this project to fruition.

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Table of Contents

Abstract .............................................................................................................................. ii

Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ iv

Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. vi

List of Appendices .......................................................................................................... viii

Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1

Methodology ................................................................................................................. 1

Historical Context ....................................................................................................... 15
Georaphical Notes .................................................................................................. 15
General Map of the Region .................................................................................... 17
Biographical Notes on the Author ......................................................................... 17
Historical Background. .......................................................................................... 21
Israel’s World......................................................................................................... 24

Review of Scholarship ................................................................................................ 28

Limitations of the Present Study ................................................................................. 31

On the Texts Used for the Present Study .................................................................... 32

Notes on Transcription and Transliteration ................................................................ 34
Translation .............................................................................................................. 34
Lineation ................................................................................................................ 34
Transliteration ......................................................................................................... 34

The Manuscripts.......................................................................................................... 35
Hebrew ................................................................................................................... 35
Ms. Bodleian heb. e. 10. .................................................................................... 35
Ms. HUC 396 ..................................................................................................... 40
Judéo-Provençal ..................................................................................................... 41
Ms. JTS 3740 .................................................................................................... 41

Chapter One

Medicine, Midrash and Miracles ...................................................................................... 47
The State of Medicine and Israel’s Milieu .................................................................. 51
Israel, Author and Physician ....................................................................................... 56
Miracles....................................................................................................................... 63
Medicine and Midrash in Israel’s Texts ...................................................................... 73
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Chapter Two

Esther's Issues [or The Blood of Others] ........................................................................... 91

Chapter Three

We Are What We Speak: Language and Identity ........................................................... 143

Chapter Four

A Poem by Many Other Names: On the Mixing of Genres ............................................ 191
Piyyut (Liturgical or Sacred Poetry) ......................................................................... 201
Wisdom Literature .................................................................................................... 205
Nova, Fabliau, Romance ........................................................................................... 224
Parody ....................................................................................................................... 243

Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 251

Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 256

Appendix A

Lineated Transcription of Israel ben Joseph Caslari’s Mi Kamokha Poem .................... 281

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List of Appendices

Appendix A Lineated transcription of Israel ben Joseph Caslari’s
Hebrew Mi Kamokha poem from the 1402 Manuscript
Oxford, Bodleian heb. e. 10 with variants from the 1447-
1455 Manuscript Cincinnati, HUC (Hebrew Union
College) 396

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1
Introduction
The Scroll of Esther or Megillat Esther, one of the quintessential texts of post-exilic Jewish
salvation, has seen many incarnations over the centuries. It was particularly beloved in the
European Middle Ages, when the narrative served as a model for redemption from
persecution and as a reminder of the threat of expulsion which were part of everyday Jewish
life. Among the many medieval adaptations, and the focus of this thesis, is a pair of texts
written by Israel ben Joseph Caslari, a 14th-century physician, living in Avignon, under the
rule of the papacy. The texts are retellings of the Purim story, expanded and heavily
embellished with material from talmudic and apocryphal sources, contemporary medieval
medicine and philosophy, and references to popular culture. Although the object of
relatively little attention, either in scholarly or in lay circles, these lengthy sister texts are
something of a literary phenomenon. Israel fashioned the first version of these works in
Judéo-Provençal, the Occitan vernacular written in Hebrew characters, and it is one of the
rare examples of such a linguistic instance. He then went on to write a second version in
Hebrew, not a translation, but an adaptation of its predecessor, thus heightening the
uniqueness of this composition. As individual works, each is a rich textual landscape,
offering a view into the socio-religious and cultural setting; each in its own right also reflects
the meeting and melding of cultural influences. Taken as a unit, moreover, this encounter
becomes even more pronounced, and the texts come into conversation with one another,
embodying the tensions of their milieu, and of their author. The works are hybrids of ancient
religious legacy and medieval thought, a tapestry delicately woven from threads of Jewish
tradition and secular learning, from medieval belletristic conventions, midrashic literature
and medical writings, as we will see, layered with history and innovation, and ultimately
giving rise to the kinds of questions that are still relevant in today’s world.
Methodology

The methodological orientation of this project has for the most part been empirical, grounded
in close reading of the texts. The theoretical questions with which I engage grew out of an
extensive textual analysis. To some extent, my reading is informed by “new historicism” or
2
“cultural poetics,” where the texts are located in their social and cultural constellations and
examined as documentary witnesses of the setting in which they were created.1 The text,
according to this approach, cannot be viewed as autonomous, nor can it be divorced from its
external context. While my work does not strictly adhere to Stephen Greenblatt’s economic
or political metaphor, as set out in his “Poetics of Culture,” it is indeed concerned with the
notion that texts “contribute to [a] distribution of social energy,” and “the intensities of
experience that give value and meaning to life and that are also indispensible to the
construction of self awareness and identity.”2 It is this notion of the text as an agent of
ideology3 and an articulation of socio-cultural forces which motivates much of my
interpretation of Israel’s Esther poems. I see them as representative of a negotiation and
exchange between the text and its context, which in turn can teach us about both.

In undertaking the analysis of a medieval work, questions necessarily arise about the modern
reader’s ability to receive the text as it might have been consumed by one of Israel’s
contemporaries. The risk of anachronistic interpretation is ever-present. Here, too, I
embrace the “New Historical” perspective whereby my objective in critical interpretation is
“the recovery of the original ideology which gave birth to the text, and which the text in turn
helped to disseminate throughout a culture.”4 Thus, while I cannot hope to reproduce the
experience of one of the original audience members, I can indeed, attempt to re-create some
understanding of its socio-cultural implications.

Indeed, this reasoning underlies much of what my study argues, at the same time accepting
the fact that no literary artifact can be wholly mimetic of its milieu. Israel himself was not a
commoner, but rather belonged to an elite class of intellectuals, and his composition

1 “New Historicism” grew out of the field of Renaissance Studies in the 1980’s and takes a multidisciplinary
approach to literary criticism. Stephen Greenblatt, one of the primary proponents of the movement also calls it
“Poetics of Culture.” His theoretical model is set out in such works as “Towards a Poetics of Culture,” in The
New Historicism, ed. H. Aram Veeser, (New York: Routledge, 1989), 1-14; “The Forms of Power and the
Power of Forms in the Renaissance,” Genre (1982), 1-4; Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social
Energies in Renaissance England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
2 Jan R. Veenstra, “The New Historicism of Stephen Greenblatt: On Poetics of Culture and the Interpretation of
Shakespeare,” History and Theory 34, no 3 (Oct. 1995): 174.
3 I use the term “ideology” in Louis Althusser’s definition referring to the system of beliefs and values that
influence the behaviour of a given society. Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” in
Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. Ben Brewster, (London: New Left Books, 1971): 121-73.
4 D.G. Myers, “The New Historicism in Literary Studies,” Academic Questions 2, no 1(1989): 30.