Jewish Folklore in the Middle Ages

The science of Folk-lore tries to explain in a scientific way the origin, growth and development of popular literature; it discovers the sources from which the popular fancy has drawn its materials and follows out the development and ramifications of every phenomenon throughout the whole circle of mankind. Thanks to this science we now recognize as mere legends matters which were considered as facts for centuries, and on the other hand, many a poetical fiction, a symbolical picture aspersed in the Middle Ages is reinstated in its rights.

We look with other eyes on the heaped up treasures of Jewish aggadah [legend], on the diamonds which oriental fancy made brilliant by a fiery inspiration. Brought under this new light cast on them they glitter and gleam in a thousand colours like the dew in the flower when lighted by the sun.

We value as a poetical story, or picturesque image, legends like the following: “In the time when the Lord remembers His children, and sees them dwelling in sorrow and grief amongst the nations, He sheds two tears, and they drop into the great ocean, and their noise is heard from one end of the world to the other. Hence the earthquake.” What a wonderful picture to express, the sympathy of heaven and earth with the heartstricken grief of the people!

Or take another: “In the same day when King Solomon married the daughter of Necho, the Egyptian king, the angel Michael descended from heaven and planted a reed in the great ocean; and there came up loam, and upon that Rome was afterwards built.” And further: “On the day when Jeroboam first established the two golden calves to be worshipped by Israel, Romulus and Remus erected their tents.” Only ill-will, or prejudiced misunderstanding could not see the historical truth in the symbolical explanation of the relation which exists between the fall of Judah and the rise of Rome. Under the form of an allegory, they said that the power of the Jewish nation is intimately connected with true and unchanged religious belief, and a change in such belief necessarily brings about an unavoidable decline.

In the curious tales of Rabbah bar-bar Channah, we recognize further, now-a-days, Indian sailor and travellers’ tales, and in some of them Buddhistic legends, as for instance, the story of the gigantic fish, which destroys sixty towns, and out of whose bones the sixty towns are rebuilt. A similar story Buddha himself tells, relating to his pupils one of his former existences.

Innumerable are the examples on which our feet stumble as we tread through the forest thousands of years old, called Jewish literature, where palms and hyssop, trees and bushes, flowers and thorns are often inextricably intertwined.

On the other hand, we have learned to-day to recognize only as legends, the absurd accusations hurled against the Jews during the middle-ages: such as the use of blood in their ceremonials, the poisoning of wells, the piercing of the host, so that it bled, even the accusations that the Jews have been usurers to so great an extent as it was presumed. All these, and similar accusations, are the outcome of prejudice, they are cobwebs spun by poisonous spiders, which hide the true light, and render the approach to the Ghetto disgusting and obnoxious. But we sweep them away, we know that they are only floating material to be found everywhere in the air, waiting only for the right time and the right men to appropriate and make use of them. They are for us nothing more than one of those numerous legends, devoid of every internal truth, and interesting only for the student of folk-psychology and folk-lore.

One more legend refers to the seclusion of the Jews within the walls of their houses, who are said to care nothing for the movement of the times, and who let the waves of the rolling sea pass over their shelter. But be the walls as high as towers and the prejudice as powerful as ever, they never form a real barrier against the spirit, which pours in through a thousand invisible channels. “The sun shines for the righteous as well as for the sinner,” and the light and bliss of poetry penetrates into every heart accessible to it. The Jews proved their high sense and their keen appreciation of everything that was grand and beautiful, they were always ready to accept with eagerness all the productions of poetical fancy, with the simple restriction that it should not be in contradiction to their moral and ethical principles. In the same natural unaffected way in which the tales and legends were told, they were also received without being put first in the Procrustes-bed of a religious dogmatism. They did not seek in the gentle flowers of the human soul deep mysteries—this has been reserved for another less poetical and more rigid period—but they enjoyed their sweet smell, the perfume of human paradise, innocence and beauty. Surrounded with legends and tales their heroes appeared to them with a halo, like the heroes of the fairy-tale. The past was adorned by poetical creations, the future was seen in a magical light, and this helped them to forget the sad present, and lifted them above the miseries and vicissitudes of the moment. [ . . . ]

There is the well-spring from which almost all the poets of Europe have drawn the waters of “eternal youth” (the eau de jouvency); Shakespeare, to begin with, the giant of dramatic poetry, Chaucer, Dante, Tasso, Boccaccio, the founder of the modern novel-literature, Cervantes, Voltaire, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Longfellow, Tennyson, and all such men who have given the highest expression to human sentiments. They all are indebted to Folk-lore, and we find in their works we admire, frequent evidence that theirs is only the form, the polishing of the diamond, whilst the contents, the diamond itself, is the property of the people.

Had the Jews any part in it? Did they also contribute in one way or another to the accumulation of the actual spiritual wealth of Europe?

When eating honey we never ask how many bees have been at work, and out of how many flowers did they gather the elements of the honey? This is the task left to the student to answer.

The student of Folk-lore has also to answer how many bees have been at work to produce the honey of romantic literature? And he answers that amongst all others the Jews have been most prominent and active workers in that field. It is proved to-day beyond any doubt that they have been the foremost propagators, if not always the originators of the tales, and especially to their mediation is due the spreading of Oriental literature amongst the European nations. They have been the translators and compilers and not a little of the popular literature of the Middle Ages, including some of the romances of chivalry, are based upon and imbued with Jewish legends and Jewish traditions.

The activity of the Jews was a double one: they originated some legends and accepted others. There has been constant giving and taking, a living interchange between the nations, which did not cease even in times of deep persecution, of depression and sorrow. The Jews have not only coined silver and gold, they coined also the spirit and brought it into wide circulation. No wonder, therefore, that we find in the Jewish literature an ample representation of the universal popular literature, and especially that of the Orient. [ . . . ]

Instead of Latin or Hebrew, preserved only as the language of science and the language of the Church, the vernacular took its place in the literature of fiction. This is the origin of European popular literature. So it happened also with all the treasures heaped up during centuries, of which we had but a fleeting glance; they passed on enlarged and enriched, but this time they appear in the new language acquired by the Jews, namely in the peculiar German dialect, as it is known in the present day, and which is falsely called Jargon [i.e., Yiddish].

One essential difference between Jewish and other literatures must be pointed out. It is characteristic and shows up under the very light in which it ought to be seen. From the Latin the translations into the vernacular were made for the entire people; the translation from Hebrew into the vernacular was made only for the “women and damsels.” It was the women’s literature of the middle-ages. Every man knew at least the Bible and the prayers, and was always capable of reading a light book in the original. Therefore all the works in Jewish-German address themselves to the fair sex, many of them being made at their special request and we number among the authors not a few women as the famous Litte [of Regensburg], the author of a versified translation of a book of the Bible. So you see lady authors are not at all a modern institution, even among the Jewesses!

Out of this literature they drew instruction, enlightenment, and enthusiasm, it kindled in their hearts the fire of love and devotion to their holy religion. This was their belletristic and romantic literature. In this German-popular language they expressed their hope and grief, their joy and anger; their elegy and hymn. In this they told the fairy tales to the children, and sang the lullaby songs.

One single glance informs us of the unexpected richness of this branch of Jewish literature. No other reflects more clearly all that inner life of the Ghetto which withdraws itself from the scrutinizing eye. We all know that shyness, proper to the internal life, which shrinks from an attempt to free itself unveiled before a strange eye, which might profane it. We fear even the smile or the laugh of the beholder, who is not able to identify himself entirely with our feeling, and attaches no importance to what we cherish most. The value is not always the object itself; but the reminiscences that linger about it endear it to us. Thus it is with the Cinderella of Jewish literature, with the outcast child of the Jewish family.

To speak of the Jewish-German dialect is a daring undertaking; to show the importance it has for the history of Jewish culture in particular, and the history of Folk-lore in general, is no doubt an act of great temerity. And yet there are only a few prejudices to be removed, and Cinderella will occupy the place due to her.