Remnants of Israel

Abstract

This chapter examines Jewish sacred spaces in medieval and Early Modern Europe by looking at case studies. As its point of departure, it affirms that sacred spaces are socially constructed, dynamic, and often multifunctional products of human creation that respond to the changing needs of the communities they serve. These ideas are addressed through the examination not only of spatial arrangements or ornamental programs of Jewish sacred space, but also of the ways in which it created, claimed, or negotiated sacred loci within the built environment. In this way, this chapter presents a complex and historically grounded picture of Jewish life and religious practice from the onset of the European Middle Ages, when Jews lost the opportunity for citizenship, to the beginning of their emancipation from these restrictions in the early nineteenth century.