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staging the blindfolded bRide: between medieval dRama

and piyyut illumination in the Levy Maḥzor

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In viewing an illuminated figure for the first time, we employ a mode of identification that enables us to apprehend the character’s basic traits from conventional attributes, using an intuitive mechanism based on prior knowledge. Thus, when some features seem out of place, that very recognition sets off an alarm in the subconscious. In the Levy Maḥzor, a Hebrew liturgical book made in Germany in the mid-fourteenth century, an unusual illumination sets off just such an alarm (Fig. 1, Plate 45).2 The full-page illustration for the piyyut (liturgical poem) “Come with Me from Lebanon, My Bride”3 portrays the bride as blindfolded. Written by Benjamin ben Zerah around 1050, in Germany or Italy, this poem

Fig. 1. Levy Maḥzor, Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Cod. Levy 37, fol. 169r (Photo: Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Hamburg).

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is chanted in the synagogue by the hazzan on Shabbat HaGadol (the Great Sabbath), the Sabbath before Passover.4 We have little information on the melodic aspects of piyyutim, but we do know that they were sung to different melodies. For example, in a maḥzor also written in fourteenth-century Ashkenaz, we find instructions to the reader to render a certain piyyut with the same melody as another piyyut.5 The illustrated maḥzor enhanced the performative aspect of the chant – while the hazzan was chanting and looking at its illumination, as Katrin Kogman-Appel noted regarding another maḥzor: “The image was certainly conceived by those who ‘staged’ the ritual of piyyut recitation, and it stresses the symbolic meaning of the sheliah tsibur [i.e., the prayer leader] and the acts he performed.” 6 The sounding dimension of the piyyut heightens the meaning of the blindfolded bride image in liturgical performance.

The beginning of the piyyut “Come with Me from Lebanon, My Bride” is based on Song of Songs 4:8 and continues with a series of paraphrases of scriptural verses:

[Come] to me from Lebanon, my bride. Trip down from Amana’s peak (cf. Song of Songs 4:8). Clothed in ornaments of purity (cf. Isaiah 49:18). Minister and adorn yourself with (the finest) blended fragrances. Perfume yourself with myrrh and burn frankincense (cf. Song of Songs 3:6). Time has come — the hour has arrived for you to trip down to the king (cf. Isaiah 57:9).7

Traditionally, the rabbis interpreted the Song of Songs as an allegory of the relationship between God and Israel, with God as the groom and Israel as the bride. However, the exegetical innovations of the twelfth century had a major influence on Song of Songs commentary, and influenced the way in which ben Zerah’s piyyut, and thus the image accompanying it, were understood.

In the Levy Maḥzor, the full page scene is set in a rectangular frame where the blindfolded bride, representing Knesset Israel (the People of Israel), is sitting on the right; the groom, who is kneeling in front of her in a chivalric posture, is wearing a pointed white hat, as Jewish men in Ashkenaz (the German Lands and parts of France) were required to do after 1215 in order to distinguish themselves from Christians.8 The couple is seated in a blooming garden, representing the closed garden mentioned in the Song of Songs (4:12, 5:1). The enlarged first word of the piyyut, (Itti “with me”) is written above their heads over the two treetops surrounding the couple. The next two words of the piyyut are written between the couple: “From Lebanon, My Bride.” The second verse is written below the rectangular frame and the rest of the text is written on the next three pages. On the frame’s four corners are four red roses, meant not only as a decorative motif but also referring to the “Lily of the Valley” symbolic of the people of Israel, as mentioned in the Midrash Song of Songs Rabbah 2:1.9

Most scholars agree that the portrayal of the bride as blindfolded is reminiscent of the image of Synagoga, a figure that represents the Jews in Christian art.10 Synagoga and Ecclesia are opposing symbolic personifications representing Judaism and the Church, as can be seen for example at the south façade of Strasbourg cathedral, sculpted in the 1220s – 1235 (Figs. 2 – 2a),11 and discussed at length by Wolfgang Seiferth and Nina Rowe.12 Synagoga’s blindfold suggests the blindness of the Jews, who refuse to see the Christian truth. The Synagoga image was first seen in Christian art and literature in the Carolingian period, and its appearance reached a peak in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; examples of the image can be found in every artistic medium. In this article the relationship between the double meaning of the bride as Knesset Israel and Synagoga in the Levy Maḥzor is seen against the background of the contemporary textual and artistic evidence, and in connection with liturgical plays portraying Synagoga. On the basis of this analysis, I argue that the manuscript’s patron ordered a

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Fig. 2. Strasbourg cathedral south façade, 1220s–1235 (Photo: Sara Offenberg).

Fig. 2a. Strasbourg cathedral south façade, 1220s–1235 (Photo: Sara Offenberg).

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deliberate image of the bride/Synagoga to convey a Jewish stance against conversion, as the message of the performed piyyut as a sounding poem is enhanced by the visual display where we see the groom’s chivalric gesture of loyalty.13

The Piyyut “Come with Me from Lebanon, My Bride” in Late-Medieval Art and Thought

Both Jewish and Christian commentators interpreted the Song of Songs as referring to God’s union with his chosen bride.14 The Jews understood it as alluding to the union between God and the People of Israel.15 This interpretation invoked an immediate polemic with the Christian reading of the same text, since Christian exegesis interpreted the groom as Jesus and his bride as either Ecclesia or Mary.16 Mary was the subject of a great deal of attention in the twelfth century and was venerated in Christian literature, theology, and art, especially in the exegesis on the Song of Songs,17 a biblical book represented in all media of Christian art, as well as in some illuminated Hebrew manuscripts.18 Each scene is placed in its own religious interpretative context. For example, the notion suggested by Christian artists in their depictions of the bride and groom is that of Jesus standing or seated near Ecclesia or Mary and usually crowning her, as can be seen, for example, at Strasbourg (Fig. 3).19 The Christian interpretation of the book attempts to demonstrate that God rejected the Jews and their ways and that the Church/Ecclesia was the chosen one. Ashkenazic Jews defended themselves spiritually by believing that they, the Jews, were the Chosen People and that God would not forsake them. The Jewish interpretation, as evident in ben Zerah’s piyyut, insists that the Jews remain the Chosen People and that God will avenge them on nations that do them harm.

It is common for a piyyut’s illustration to embody the meanings of the entire holiday and not to be

Fig. 3. Strasbourg cathedral south façade, 1220s–1235 (Photo: Sara Offenberg).

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understood as merely an illustration for one specific piyyut. Our scene is the only one in this manuscript to portray figurative characters, as the rest of the decorative program is based on floral decorations. Moreover, this is the only full-page illumination, which suggests that the image had great importance and thus emphasizes the meaning of the message portrayed in this illumination. Of all the possible iconographical settings the patron could choose from (such as in other maḥzorim), he deliberately ordered this scene to illustrate only this piyyut, thus we could assume that it may also have affected the hazzan while chanting it. The medieval maḥzor was a communal prayer book, so the community would have had an opportunity to see the illustrations (although not while the hazzan conducted the service), not only to listen to the hazzan chanting from it on the Sabbath before Passover. Viewing the image while chanting could enhance the hazzan’s experience and elevate his imaginative understanding of the piyyut, deepening the meaning of its lived context. As noted above, the text of the piyyut includes biblical verses, mainly from the Song of Songs, and as appropriate for a piyyut recited before Passover, it would have connected those verses to the Jews’ slavery in Egypt in the minds of the listeners.

There are three main characters in the piyyut: the bride, who represents Knesset Israel/the People of Israel; the groom, who represents the Divine Presence; and the couple’s enemy, the Egyptian king. The bride is called to prepare herself for the coming of her groom, but although the couple is willing to unite, the union is delayed. The groom sends a message to the bride in which he recalls the vow that he made at their engagement. The bride is willing to keep the groom’s law (i.e., the law of the Torah) and asks him to remember the kindness of her youth and to hurry to redeem her from her captivity in Egypt. We can understand that the bride, the groom, and their enemy are allegories for these characters only from biblical exegetical texts and commentaries on piyyutim (the specific character being referred to is not identified as such in the piyyut). While the piyyut has been edited and published, there are still some piyyut commentaries that remain in unpublished manuscripts, and they can assist us in striving to grasp the way the piyyut was understood during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by learned Jewish people (it is not yet clear when piyyut commentaries were read and by whom). The need for piyyut commentary emerged, according to Elisabeth Hollender, from the difficulty of understanding words and phrases in the piyyutim. Although in most cases we know the names of the payettanim (writers of piyyutim), there are few piyyut commentaries for which we can identify the authors’ name, so that most of these authors remain anonymous.20

Some of the commentaries explicate each character in detail. For example, a manuscript from 138621 (Parma, Biblioteca Palatina Cod. Parm. 3507, fol. 33a) explains: “Come with me from Lebanon my bride. Similarity to Knesset Israel. Which was the beloved of the holy blessed be he as a bride to a groom. And imagines the holy blessed be he to a groom and Israel to a bride and speaks to her.”22 In a later passage the commentary explains one of the piyyut’s strophes referring to the bride being captive among the asses: “[She] asked to hurry and redeem her from among the asses. From among Egyptians, who are allegorized to asses. ‘Whose members were like those of asses.’ (Ezek. 23:20). King So enslaving her this is Pharaoh.”23 Among the piyyut’s many references to Egypt, we find one that refers to the bride as suffering under Egyptian slavery. For thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Ashkenazic Jews, the term “slaves” might have been an allusion to the status of the Jews in Christian lands, where they were called Servi camerae regis (“servants of the royal chamber”).24 In the piyyut, the Egyptian king tries to make the bride forget her groom, but the latter rushes to her rescue. Because this piyyut was recited before Passover, a holiday in which every Jew is commanded to feel as if he or she has been redeemed from Egypt, for the medieval Jew, the meaning of the piyyut was that God would rescue him from the hands of the Gentiles.

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Christian Art and its Impact on the Jewish Artistic Tradition

According to Sarit Shalev-Eyni, this piyyut was illustrated interpretively in a group of illuminated maḥzorim produced in Ashkenaz in the second half of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century. 25 In all but one of these prayer books, the text is illustrated by a scene of a couple seated side by side. The artists generally portrayed a scene similar to one found in Christian art, for Jews were familiar with the Christian commentary on the Song of Songs, especially in light of the popularity of portrayals of the Coronation of the Virgin in monumental sculpture, stained glass windows, and manuscripts.26 The imitation of Christian art is a common feature of Hebrew manuscript illumination, owing not only to the desire of the Jews to follow the latest fashion, but also for polemical reasons, as seen below.27

We find a similar adaptation in an Ashkenazic polemical book, the Nizzahon Vetus, written in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century.28 The anonymous author argued against this very notion of Mary as the bride and Jesus as the groom, and he chose to prove his point by contrasting it with the idea of the Coronation of the Virgin:

The heretics speak defiantly concerning the verse, “Go forth, O daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon with the crown where-with his mother crowned him in the day of his wedding…” [Song of Songs 3:11]. They say that every “Solomon” is sacred and that

Fig. 4. Leipzig Maḥzor, Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek Vollers 1102-2, fol. 26v, Worms c. 1310 (Photo: Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig).

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this verse refers to the mother of Jesus. This is how you should answer them: What was the crown with which his mother crowned him? If anything, Jesus crowned his mother and not she him.29

The corresponding illustration in the Leipzig Maḥzor, made in Worms around 1310, is a good example of the way in which Jews adopted Christian iconography and changed its meaning (Fig. 4, Plate 46). The scene shows the couple seated side by side, as in the Christian manuscript Codex Manesse30 or the sculpture portraying the Coronation of the Virgin (Fig. 3). The scene is set within an architectural frame of a Gothic arch that suggests a further connection to Christian sculpture. Most scholars understand the bride in the Leipzig Maḥzor as Knesset Israel (the People of Israel) and the groom as the Lord.31 Using such familiar Christian iconography and giving it a Jewish context positions this image as a polemic against the Christian notion of Mary as the bride with Jesus as her groom. On the basis of the writings of Hasidei Ashkenaz (German pietists), Katrin Kogman-Appel identifies the groom in the scene rather as the People of Israel and the bride as the Shekhinah, the feminine aspect of God.32 For our purpose, both interpretations contest the Christian iconography and challenge the allegory of the Lord’s chosen one. The scene from the Leipzig Maḥzor not only reflects Jewish commentary, but also argues with that of the Christians by virtue of its use of this iconography.

The implication here is not that the illumination was necessarily made by a Jewish illuminator, but only that the patron or a person acting on his behalf directed the artist to design and illustrate the scenes in a particular way.33 Thus it is no coincidence that the artist/patron chose to use such a controversial image, especially in this context; not only was the image of Ecclesia replaced by Knesset Israel, but its place was taken by Synagoga herself, and this was done intentionally. In other words, the Jewish patron choose to adopt the Christian image representing the People of Israel and use it to represent the chosen bride in his view, i.e. not Ecclesia but Knesset Israel/Synagoga. 34

The Levy Maḥzor’s Knesset Israel and Resistance to Conversion

We may say that, in a way, the scene in the Levy Maḥzor stages the spectacle in a similar setting to Synagoga in Christian art, one that was familiar to Jews from all the artistic media surrounding them. I would like to sharpen the focus on this idea and relate it to the Jewish resistance to conversion.35 One of the purposes of the mendicant orders was to Christianize the Jews,36 and the latter were aware of their position as targets, as evidence of Christian intentions surrounded them throughout the urban space.37 The Levy Maḥzor image stands in opposition not only to Ecclesia as the Lord’s bride, but also to the Christian understanding of the Song of Songs, which concludes with the aftermath of Synagoga converting to Christianity, thus I suggest we see this image as a polemic against the attempt to convert the Jews.

We find this idea, that is, the notion of Synagoga’s conversion, in medieval drama.38 The first play to bring Ecclesia and Synagoga together on stage was The Play of Antichrist (Ludus de Antichristo), a Latin text written in the mid-twelfth century for Frederick Barbarossa by an anonymous German author and based on earlier works.39 The play describes the eschatological events that will occur when the Antichrist conquers the world with the false claim of being the Messiah. After that conquest, Synagoga and the Jews approach him and recognize him as the Messiah they have been expecting from the biblical prophecy. The Antichrist says that he will restore the Promised Land to Synagoga and marks

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her forehead. The only one who can still resist the Antichrist is Elijah, who, along with Enoch, removes Synagoga’s blindfold, thus allowing her to see the truth and understand the meaning of the sign on her forehead.40 After Synagoga sees the Christian truth, she and Elijah are killed as martyrs for Jesus, the Antichrist is killed by lightning, and all humanity is united under Ecclesia.

Line 359 of The Play of Antichrist describes the stripping of the veil: “Tunc tollunt ei velum.”41 The line’s meaning is ambiguous, and John Wright translated it in two ways; in the main text he wrote: “Then they strip off Antichrist’s mask,” but in the footnote he suggested that it should be translated as: “Then they strip off Synagoga’s mask” or “blindfold.”42 Wolfgang Seiferth and Deborah Strickland argue that the phrase should be translated as in Wright’s footnote, that is, the removal of Synagoga’s mask or blindfold; and in at least one script of the play we find stage directions describing Synagoga removing her blindfold.43 As mentioned by Seiferth, Strickland and others, there is a connection between works of art and medieval drama, especially regarding Synagoga. Additionally, Nina Rowe has recently demonstrated an association between the Play of Antichrist and sculptures on Bamberg Cathedral.44

The removal of Synagoga’s blindfold is a dramatic moment symbolizing her conversion in both the theater and the plastic arts, and it appears as early as in the twelfth century in the window in the abbey church of St. Denis.45 Jews living in Western Europe were very much aware of the symbol of Synagoga’s blindfold and also understood the meaning of its removal. Thus, I contend that the image in the Levy Maḥzor can be interpreted as an expression of resistance to the Christian attempt to convert the Jews: by portraying the bride blindfolded the artist was suggesting her refusal to receive the Christian faith and thus proving her loyalty to her groom (the Lord).

This notion is emphasized against the background of the twelfth-century exegesis of the Song of Songs by Honorius of Autun,46 and the illustrations of his commentary in a fourteenth-century manuscript, which has been studied by Jeremy Cohen.47 In Honorius’ commentary, written in the spiritual and intellectual climate exemplified in the The Play of Antichrist, Synagoga is given a prominent place as she converts to Christianity, even before the time of the Antichrist. In Synagoga-Conversa Honorius stood in opposition to other commentators who envisioned Synagoga’s conversion only after the arrival of the Antichrist – at the End of Days. We have eight illuminated manuscripts of Honorius’ commentary, all produced in the southern German lands. Six date from the second half of the twelfth century,48 and the other two were made at the beginning of the fourteenth century.49 Most of the illuminations portray Synagoga riding in Aminadav’s chariot without her blindfold.50 I noted earlier that in The Play of Antichrist Synagoga and the Jews convert only after the Antichrist comes and is received as the Messiah. In contrast, in Honorius’ commentary, she removes her blindfold, converts, and fights against the Antichrist from the very beginning. According to this notion, Synagoga not only has an active part in the apocalyptic vision, but her conversion, and that of the Jews, is an important step for the coming of the Apocalypse. From a Jewish perspective, Honorius’ commentary was much more problematic than that recounted in the drama, as the Jews’ acceptance of Christianity was expected even before the End of Days, so there was greater pressure on them to convert.

Synagoga, “Public” Art and the Levy Maḥzor

Otto von Simson suggested that Honorius’ commentary was used in the design of the portal at Strasbourg, and according to him it is especially visible in the character of Synagoga seen on her way to conversion;51 Bernd Nicolai continued this line of research.52 Rowe agrees with their conclusions, but argues that both

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of their studies failed to understand Synagoga’s relationship to contemporary Jews, which her research elaborates.53 Rowe suggests that the sculptures were targeted to be seen by the Jews as well by Christians living in the city,54 and thus Honorius’ commentary was displayed not only in illuminated manuscripts, but also in a much more public art (a sculptural program), which was seen by all, including the Jews. We should mention that some of the plays were performed outdoors,55 and the drama was probably one of the things that affected Honorius’ commentary and the later art; but for us what is more important is the “final product” introduced in the medieval urban space, where the Jews were able to view it. It is less important whether the Jews were actually present during the plays.56

According to Natascha Bremer, the image of the Jew in medieval German art mirrored the deterioration of the Jew’s place in German lands and moreover not only reflected his position, but also shaped public opinion regarding the Jews.57 This change is visible especially at the beginning of the fourteenth century in the Passion plays and the Play of Antichrist that she examines.58 One of the differences between twelfth- and fourteenth-century portrayals of Synagoga is that in some of the later depictions Synagoga loses her ability to remove her blindfold as Satan is the one blinding her (also, at times, a snake is playing the part of her blindfold), and thus she and the Jews are condemned to hell and will not be admitted to the afterlife.59 The statue of Synagoga on the southern façade of Erfurt cathedral from the 1330’s, for example, portrays a different type of the symbol (fig. 5); here Synagoga appears without her blindfold, as a defeated elderly woman holding a goat’s head in her right hand,60 thus connecting her to the Devil.61 Honorius’ commentary and its fourteenth-century illustrations offer Synagoga Christian redemption, so the image of the bride in the Levy Maḥzor could relate to Honorius’ commentary, and his emphasis on removing Synagoga’s blindfold might well be read as a sign of her becoming a Christian. In the Jewish illumination, the implication is that Synagoga refuses to accept Christianity, and that is the reason she is portrayed blindfolded.

The viewer of this scene might well have discerned a very different meaning in the image of Synagoga in front of him in the medieval urban space, however, whether in Christian art, in liturgical

Fig. 5. Erfurt cathedral south façade, 1330s (Photo: Kolossos, Creative Commons).

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dramas performed outside the cathedrals, in processions, or in carnivals. The next suggestion is meant to complement the previous one. According to Madeline Caviness, the educated medieval viewer was supposed to see and understand iconography as multivalent, and thus an image had multiple, overlapping meanings.62 An additional explanation for this appearance of the blindfolded bride could allude to Isa. 33:15: “He who walks in righteousness, speaks uprightly…shuts his eyes against looking at evil.” Hence, blindfolding the bride or closing her eyes could also be interpreted as an act intended to enhance Jewish belief and keep her from seeing evil or, in this case, Christianity.63 We may find support to this notion in another section of the Nizzahon Vetus:

“He put the veil over his face” [Exod. 34:33]. The Heretics say that this alludes to the curtain hung over our face, i.e., to the fact that we do not understand the commandments of God. They are mistaken, however, because its real purpose is to serve as an indication that one should not believe in the hanged one. For if as a result of a face-to-face conversation with God the face of Moses, who was flesh and blood, shone to the point where people were afraid to approach him, then the divine presence itself would certainly do so. Jesus’ face, then, should have shone from one end of the earth to the other. In fact, however, no light radiated from his face any more than it does from anyone else, so that one ought not to believe in him, for it was all sorcery.64

Here we see not only Jewish awareness of the Christian claim that the Jews are blind, but also an explanation for this “blindness” that concludes with a direct polemic against the Christian believer and conversion.65

In sum, for members of the congregation, hearing the hazzan chanting the piyyut could well have given rise to imagery that would have led the believer to see himself or herself as one of the Chosen People, while the groom (God) sends a message to the bride (the People of Israel) recalling the vow he made at their engagement. Following the Song of Songs, the piyyut is formed in first person singular, thus when the hazzan is chanting, it could sound as a personal approach to each member of the congregation. The members of the synagogue listening to the hazzan chant the poem were to derive inspiration from these words, which, taken together with the polemical message of the illustration, would give them the fortitude to resist the propaganda designed to convert them.

NOTES

1. Research for this paper was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), grant no. 326/13.

2. Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Levy 37, fol. 169r. Ernst Roth and Hans Striedl, Hebraeische Handschriften: Die Handschriften der Sammlung H. B. Levy Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1984), 3, no. 50, 69-73, esp. 72-3.

אתי מלבנון כלה .3

4. Israel Davidson, עד הקדש כתבי חתימת מזמן והפיוט השירה אוצר ההשכלה תקופת Thesaurus of Mediaeval Hebrew) ראשית Poetry), 4 vols. (New York: Hebrew Union College, 1970) I: 8891; Leopold Zunz, Literaturgeschichte der synagogalen Poesie (Berlin: L. Gerschel, Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1865; repr. Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1966), 120-1. For annotated versions of the piyyut see Isaac Seligman Baer,

סדר עם השנה לכל והברכות התפלות כולל ישראל: עבודת סדר Seder Avodat) ... המעמדות והיוצרות לשבתות והסליחות לתעניותYisrael) (Rödelheim: n.p., 1901), 706-8; Sara Offenberg, ובספרות“ באמנות הנוצרית הסביבה עם להתמודדות ביטויים הביניים בימי Expressions of Meeting the“)”היהודית Challenges of the Christian Milieu in Medieval Jewish Art and Literature”) (PhD diss., Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2008), 56-9. Since the destruction of the Temple, words (prayers) take the place of animal sacrifices, following the verse from Hos. 14:3: “So will we render for bullocks the offering of our lips,” which explains that uttering the words is equal to the sacrifice. Elliot R. Wolfson, “Sacred Space and Mental Iconography: Imago Templi and Contemplation in Rhineland Jewish Pietism,” in Ki Baruch Hu: Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Judaic Studies in Honor of Baruch A. Levine, ed. Robert Chazan, William W. Hallo, and Lawrence H. Schiffman (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999), 593-

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634. On a similar notion in Christian prayers see Susan Boynton, “Prayer as Liturgical Performance in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Monastic Psalters,” Speculum 82 (2007): 896-931. For more on the use of words for ritual and magical practices see John Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1975); Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 37-46.

5. Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. hebr. 233, fol. 24v; see Moritz Steinschneider, Catalog der hebraeischen Handschriften in der Stadtbibliothek zu Hamburg (Hamburg: O. Meissner, 1878), no. 129. I thank Gabriel Wasserman for this reference.

6. Katrin Kogman-Appel, A Mahzor from Worms: Art and Religion in a Medieval Jewish Community (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 92. See also Eric Werner, A Voice Still Heard: The Sacred Songs of the Ashkenazic Jews (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976), 9-13.

7. Biblical references in parentheses indicate the passage that inspired the preceding phrase. I thank Leor Jacoby for

assisting me with this translation.

8. Raphael Aaronstein, “הכובע היהודי,” (“The Jews’ Hat”) Zion 13 (1948): 33-42; Bernhard Blumenkranz, Le Juif médiéval au miroir de l’art chrétien (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1966), 22, 28-9; Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth century, 2 vols. (New York: Hermon Press, 1966), 1:326-7; Guido Kisch, “The Yellow Badge in History,” Historia Judaica 19 (1957): 89-146 esp. 106-7, 132-3; Raphael Straus, “The ‘Jewish Hat’ as an Aspect of Social History,” Jewish Social Studies 4 (1942): 59-72. On the genre of the piyyut in general and its liturgical use see Shalev-Eyni’s contribution in this volume.

9. Sarit Shalev-Eyni, “Iconography of Love: Illustrations of Bride and Bridegroom in Ashkenazi Prayerbooks of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century,” Studies in Iconography 26 (2005): 27-57, esp. 39-42; Gabrielle Sed-Rejna, Le Mahzor enluminé: les voies de formation d’un programme iconographique (Leiden: Brill, 1983), 21.

10. Naomi Feuchtwanger, “The Coronation of the Virgin and of the Bride,” Jewish Art 12/13 (1987): 213-24, esp. 214; Joseph Gutmann, “Wedding Customs and Ceremonies in Art,” in Beauty in Holiness, ed. Joseph Gutmann (New York: Ktav, 1970), 313-39, esp. 314; Ivan G. Marcus, “A Jewish-Christian Symbiosis: The Culture of Early Ashkenaz,” in Cultures of the Jews: A New History, ed. David Biale, 2 vols. (New York: Schocken, 2002), 2:147-214, esp. 194-7; Bezalel Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts (Jerusalem: Keter, 1984), 52-3 (first published in English in 1969; the Hebrew edition is an elaborated version); Tzahi Weiss, “Who Is a Beautiful Maiden without Eyes?: The Metamorphosis of a Zoharic Image from a Christian Allegory to a Kabbalistic Metaphor,” The Journal of Religion 93 (2013): 60-76. As opposed to these studies, Ruth Bartal claims that this is not an illustration of Synagoga, but rather an illumination for the word tzama (braid), which may be interpreted as a veil, according to Rashi’s commentary on Song of Songs 4.1. See Ruth Bartal, Earthly Love – Divine Love: The Biblical Couple as Reflected in Western Art (Jerusalem: Magnes,

2009), 122-3; Ruth Bartal, “Medieval Images of ‘Sacred Love’: Jewish and Christian Perceptions,” Asaph B2 (1996): 93-110, esp. 100, 106 n. 41.

11. The sculptures now displayed outside the cathedral are replicas, while the original sculptures are housed at the Strasbourg’s Musée de l’Œuvre de Notre-Dame. On the sculptures in the museum see Cécile Dupeux, The Œuvre Notre-Dame Museum (Paris: Editions Scala, 1999), 29-35.

12. Nina Rowe, The Jew, the Cathedral and the Medieval City: Synagoga and Ecclesia in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Nina Rowe, “Idealization and Subjection at the South Façade of Strasbourg Cathedral,” in Beyond the Yellow Badge: Anti-Judaism and Antisemitism in Medieval and Early Modern Visual Culture, ed. Mitchell B. Merback (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008), 179-202; Nina Rowe, “Rethinking Ecclesia and Synagoga in the Thirteenth Century,” in Gothic Art & Thought in the Later Medieval Period: Essays in Honor of Willibald Sauerländer, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton: Index of Christian Art, Princeton University in association with University of Pennsylvania Press; University Park, Pennsylvania, 2011), 265-91; Nina Rowe, “Synagoga Tumbles, a Rider Triumphs: Clerical Views and the Fürstenportal of Bamberg Cathedral,” Gesta 45:1 (2006): 15-42; Wolfgang S. Seiferth, Synagogue and Church in the Middle Ages (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1970); first published in German as Synagoge und Kirche im Mittelalter (München: Kösel, 1964). On the relation between the sculptures and illuminated manuscripts see Annette Weber, “Glaube und Wissen — Ecclesia et Synagoga,” in Wissenspopularisierung: Konzepte der Wissensverbreitung im Wandel, ed. Carsten Kretschmann (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2003), 89-126.

13. As the image stood in polemic against the Christian portrayal, perhaps we may assume that the poem itself and the vocal way it was chanted stood in opposition to the Christian melodies and reciting of the Song of Songs. On the polemic regarding sound see Ruth HaCohen, The Music Libel against the Jews (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 19-42.

14. Bartal, Earthly Love – Divine Love, 112-54; Arthur Green, “Shekhinah, the Virgin Mary, and the Song of Songs,” AJS Review 26 (2002): 1-52; Offenberg, “Expressions of Meeting the Challenges,” 38-55; Peter Schäfer, Mirror of His Beauty (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); Sarit Shalev-Eyni, Jews among Christians: Hebrew Book Illumination from Lake Constance (London: Harvey Miller, 2010), 53-66.

15. For a selected bibliography see Gerson D. Cohen, “The Song of Songs and the Jewish Religious Mentality,” in Gerson D. Cohen, Studies in the Variety of Rabbinic Cultures (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 1-17; Arthur Green, “The Song of Songs in Early Jewish Mysticism,” Orim 2 (1987): 49-63; Sarah Kamin, בין Jews and Christians Interpret) יהודים לנוצרים בפרשנות המקראthe Bible) (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2008); Ivan G. Marcus, “The Song of Songs in German Hasidism and the School of Rashi: A Preliminary Comparison,” in The Frank Talmage Memorial Volume, ed. Barry Wallfish (Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1993), 181-9; Michael A. Signer, “God’s Love for Israel: Apologetic and Hermeneutical Strategies in Twelfth-Century Biblical Exegesis,” in Jews and Christians in Twelfth­Century Europe, ed. Michael A. Signer and John Van Engen (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), 123-49.

אתי מלבנון כלה מראש אמנה תשורי בטוהר עדיי לובש התכהני והתפארי בושם ריקוח התבשמי מור

.ולבנה התקטרי כי בא עת והגיע שעה אשר למלך תשורי

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16. On Jewish polemic concerning Mary in recent studies see Daniel Abrams, “The Virgin Mary as the Moon that Lacks the Sun: A Zoharic Polemic against the Veneration of Mary,” Kabbalah 21 (2010): 7-56; Sara Offenberg, Illuminated Piety: Pietistic Texts and Images in the North French Hebrew Miscellany (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 2013), 92-100; Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, “The Virgin Mary, Miriam, and Jewish Reactions to Marian Devotion in the High Middle Ages,” AJS Review 37 (2013): 75-91.

17. Ann W. Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990); Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002); Rachel Fulton, “Mimetic Devotion, Marian Exegesis, and the Historical Sense of the Song of Songs,” Viator 27 (1996): 86-116; Jean Leclercq, Monks and Love in Twelfth-Century France: Psycho-Historical Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 9-15; Rachel Fulton, “The Virgin Mary and the Song of Songs in the High Middle Ages” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1994); Susan Boynton, “From the Lament of Rachel to the Lament of Mary: A Transformation in the History of Drama and Spirituality,” in Signs of Change: Transformations of Christian Traditions and their Representation in the Arts, 1000-2000, ed. Nils Holger Petersen, Claus Clüver, and Nicolas Bell (Amsterdam: Petersen; New York: Rodopi, 2004), 319-40; Diane Reilly, “Picturing the Monastic Drama: Romanesque Bible Illustrations of the Song of Songs,” Word & Image 17 (2001): 389-400; Denis Renevey, Language, Self and Love: Hermeneutics in the Writings of Richard Rolle and the Commentaries on the Song of Songs (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2001), 23-40.

18. Bartal, Earthly Love – Divine Love, 112-54; Shalev-Eyni, Jews among Christians, 53-66.

19. There is a vast bibliography on textual and visual portrayals of the Coronation of the Virgin, including Judith Glatzer Wechsler, “A Change in the Iconography of the Song of Songs in 12th and 13th Century Latin Bibles,” in Texts and Responses: Studies Presented to Nahum N. Glatzer on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday by his Students, ed. Michael A. Fishbane and Paul R. Mendes-Flohr (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 75-80; Henry Mayr-Harting, “The Idea of the Assumption of Mary in the West, 800-1200,” in The Church and Mary, ed. Robert N. Swanson (Rochester, NY: Published for the Ecclesiastical History Society by the Boydell Press, 2004), 86-111; Stephen J. Shoemaker, Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Laura Spitzer, “The Cult of the Virgin and Gothic Sculpture: Evaluating Opposition in the Chartres West Façade Capital Frieze,” Gesta 33 (1994): 132-50; Antoine Wenger, L’assomption de la T. S. Vierge dans la tradition byzantine du VIe au Xe siècle (Paris: Institut français d’études byzantines, 1955).

20. Elisabeth Hollender, “Narrative Exegesis in Ashkenas and Zarfat: The Case of Piyyut-Commentary,” in Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century; Proceedings of the 6th EAJS Congress, Toledo, July 1998. Vols. 1-2, ed. Judit Targarona Borrás and Angel Sáenz-Badillos (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 429-35, esp. 430; Elisabeth Hollender, Piyyut Commentary in Medieval Ashkenaz (Berlin Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 2-6. Hollender listed the eleven manuscripts containing commentary to this piyyut, all written in

Ashkenaz. Elisabeth Hollender, Clavis Commentariorum of Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in Manuscript (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 528. This piyyut’s commentaries are very short (even shorter than the actual piyyut).

21. Although this is a somewhat late manuscript, it cites the writings of R. Judah the Pious (d. 1217) the founder of the Hasidei Ashkenaz (German Pietists) movement. Even if we can doubt its authenticity, in other fourteenth century manuscripts, also related to Hasidei Ashkenaz, we find a similar text. See, for instance, the Nuremberg Maḥzor, Jerusalem, Schocken Institute 24100 (formerly), fol. 69b; Zurich, Zentralbibliothek, Heid. 139, fols. 12b-13a.

22. I used bold letters to emphasize the piyyut’s text and to differentiate it from the commentary. The sentences’ construction in Hebrew is quite awkward, but it is in line with the writing of the period in Ashkenaz. My translation.

23. My translation.

24. Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2nd ed., 18 vols. (New York: Columbia Univer- sity Press, 1965), 9: 133-92; Salo Wittmayer Baron, הביניים‘“ בימי היהודים‘ ו‘שעבוד האפוסטולית‘ הריבונות ”,מלוא (“Plenitude of Apostolic Powers” and “Medieval Jewish Serfdom”) in Yitzhak F. Baer Jubilee Volume: On the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, ed. Salomon Ettinger, Salo Baron, Ben Zion Dinur, and Israel Halpern (Jerusalem: The Historical Society of Israel, 1960), 102-124; Samuel Krauss, The Jewish-Christian Controversy: From the Earliest Times to 1789, ed. William Horbury (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1995), 22-3; Guido Kisch, The Jews in Medieval Germany: A Study of their Legal and Social Status (New York: Ktav, 1970), 145-53 (First published Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949); Gavin Langmuir, Toward a Definition of Antisemitism (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 167-94.

25. Shalev-Eyni, “Iconography of Love”; Offenberg, “Expressions of Meeting the Challenges,” 63-89. The principal manuscripts are: Laud Maḥzor, Franconia c. 1240-1260, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Laud Or. 321, fol. 61v; Worms Maḥzor, Würzburg? 1272, Jerusalem, Jewish National Library, Ms. Heb. 4°781/I, fol. 34v. See the full manuscript online: http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/mss-pr/mahzor-nuremberg/index.html; Leipzig Maḥzor, Worms c. 1310, Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. V 1102/I, fol. 64v; Tripartite Maḥzor, Lake Constance region, c. 1320, Budapest, Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Kaufmann Collection, MS A 384, fol. 103v. See the full manuscript online: http://kaufmann.mtak.hu/en/ms384/ms384-coll1.html; Darmstadt Mahzor, Hammelburg 1348, Darmstadt, Hessische Landes- und Hochbibliothek, Cod. Or. 13, fol. 65v.

26. Bartal, “Medieval Images of ‘Sacred Love’;” Feuchtwan-ger, “The Coronation of the Virgin”; Irmi Dubrau, (“Iconographic Images of Lovers in Illuminated Ashkenazi Mahzorim: Toward an Interpretative Reading of Medieval German Esotericism”) Kabbalah 24 (2011): 209-40; Penny Schine Gold, The Lady and the Virgin: Image, Attitude, and Experience in Twelfth-Century France (Chicago: University

אתי מלבנון כלה. דימיון לכנסת ישראל. שהיתה אהובה להקב“ה ככלה.לחתן. ומדמה הקב“ה לחתן וישר‘ לכלה ומדבר עמה

בקשה למהר לפדותה מבין חמורים. מבין מצרים.המשולים לחמורים. אשר בשר חמורים בשרם. סוא מפריכה זה פרעה

מוטיב איקונוגראפי של רעים אהובים במחזורים אשכנזיים מבעד לדרכי.הפרשנות של תורת הסוד באשכנז בימי הביניים

293

STAGING THE BLINDFOLDED BRIDE: BETWEEN MEDIEVAL DRAMA AND PIYYUT ILLUMINATION IN THE LEVY MAḤZOR

of Chicago Press, 1985), 56-7; Joseph Gutmann, “Wedding Customs and Ceremonies in Art,” in Joseph Gutmann, Beauty in Holiness (New York: Ktav, 1970), 313-325; Offenberg, “Expressions of Meeting the Challenges,” 48-89.

27. On this issue see Katrin Kogman-Appel, “Coping with Christian Pictorial Sources: What Did Jewish Miniaturists Not Paint?” Speculum 75 (2000): 816-858.

28. David Berger, The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages: a Critical Edition of the Nizzahon Vetus with an Introduction, Translation and Commentary, ed. David Berger, Judaica, Texts and Translations 4 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979).

29. Berger, The Jewish­Christian Debate, 166.30. Codex Manesse, Heidelberg Universitätsbibliothek, Cod.

Pal. Germ 848, fol. 311r. For a facsimile edition see Codex Manesse: Die Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift, Kommentar zum Faksimile des Cod. Pal. Germ. 848 der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, ed. Walter Koschorreck and Wilfried Werner (Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1981). The manuscript is available online: http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/cpg848.

31. Bezalel Narkiss, “Introduction to the Mahzor Lipsiae,” in Machsor Lipsiae, ed. Elias Katz (Vaduz: Société pour le Commerce Intercontinental Trust Reg., 1964), 85-110, esp. 95; Shalev-Eyni, “Iconography of Love”; Sed-Rejna, Le Mahzor enluminé, 27-8.

32. Kogman-Appel, A Mahzor from Worms, 145-75. 33. Shalev-Eyni, “Iconography of Love,” 39. On the advisors

inside the atelier see Jonathan Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 53-54, 63-64.

34. It is interesting to see here a Jewish adaptation of the way Jews were perceived by Christians. In the Nizzahon Vetus the Jewish author acknowledges the Christian claim that the Jews are ugly and proposes a suitable response for the Jewish reader, while acknowledging the importance of Christian art to this issue. Berger, The Jewish­Christian Debate, 224.

35. On Jewish response to conversion attempts in other illuminated maḥzorim see Sara Offenberg, “Resisting Conversion or the True Aristocrat: Jews Imagining Themselves in Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts,” in Sefer ha-Yovel for Burton D. Morris, ed. Menachem Butler (forthcoming).

36. David Berger, “Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts in the Polemical Literature of the High Middle Ages,” The American Historical Review 91 (1986): 576-91; Robert Chazan, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-Century Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), 30-7; Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), 226-30; Harvey J. Hames, “Approaches to Conversion in the Late 13th Century Church,” Studia Lulliana 35 (1995): 75-84; Harvey J. Hames, “Reason and Faith: Inter-Religious Polemic and Christian Identity in the Thirteenth Century,” in Religious Apologetics – Philosophical Argumentation, ed. Yossef Schwartz and Volkhard Krech (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 267-84.

37. Offenberg, “Resisting Conversion or the True Aristocrat.”

38. On medieval plays and their audience see Catherine Emerson, Adrian P. Tudor, and Mario Longtin, “Performance, Drama, Spectacle and the Medieval City,” in Performance, Drama and Spectacle in the Medieval City: Essays in Honour of Alan Hindley, ed. Catherine Emerson, Adrian P. Tudor, and Mario Longtin (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), XXIII-XXXIX; Erika Fischer-Lichte, “The Medieval Religious Plays: Ritual or Theater?” in Visualizing Medieval Performance: Perspectives, Histories, Contexts, ed. Elina Gertsman (Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 249-61. On the Jew in German medieval plays see John D. Martin, Representations of Jews in Late Medieval and Early Modern German Literature, Studies in German Jewish History 5 (New York : Peter Lang, 2006); Klaus Wolf, “Das Judenbild in mittelalterlichen Dramen aus Worms, Mainz und Erfurt,” in Erfurter Schriften zur jüdischen Geschichte 1 (2012): 150-156.

39. Edmund K. Chambers, The Medieval Stage, 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1903), 1:62-7; Jeremy Cohen, “Synagoga Conversa: Honorius Augustodunensis, the Song of Songs, and Christianity’s ‘Eschatological Jew,’” Speculum 79 (2004): 330-1; Richard Emmerson, Antichrist in the Middle Ages: A Study of Medieval Apocalypticism, Art, and Literature (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981); William C. Jordan, “The Last Tormentor of Christ: An Image of the Jew in Ancient and Medieval Exegesis, Art, and Drama,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 78 (1987): 21-47; Moshe Lazar, “The Lamb and the Scapegoat: The Dehumanization of the Jews in Medieval Propaganda Imagery,” in Anti-Semitism in Times of Crisis, ed. Sander L. Gilman, and Steven T. Katz (New York: New York University Press, 1991), 38-80; Seiferth, Synagogue and Church, 79-89; Debra H. Strickland, Saracens, Demons, and Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 101-2, 214; Kyle A. Thomas, “The ‘Ludus De Antichristo’: Playing Power in the Medieval Public Sphere” (MA thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 2012); John Wright, The Play of Antichrist (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1967), 57-61, 92-6; Karl Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), 2:369-96.

40. A similar plot is found in the fourteenth-century mystery play Mystere dou jour dou jugement, found in a manuscript with musical notation and illustrations of scenes alongside the text: Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale [M] 579. Grace Frank, The Medieval French Drama (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), 132-3.

41. Wright, The Play of Antichrist, 95.42. Wright, The Play of Antichrist, 95, n. 72.43. On stage directions in The Play of the Antichrist see Dunbar

H. Ogden, The Staging of Drama in the Medieval Church (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press; London; Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2002), 87-89.

44. Rowe, The Jew, the Cathedral and the Medieval City, 187-89; Nina Rowe, “Idealization and Subjection”; Nina Rowe, “Rethinking Ecclesia and Synagoga”; Nina Rowe, “Synagoga Tumbles, a Rider Triumphs”; Seiferth, Synagogue and Church, 142-3; Strickland, Saracens, Demons, and Jews, 101-2, 214.

45. Lisa Lampert, Gender and Jewish Difference from Paul to Shakespeare (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,

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2004), 43-48; Elizabeth Monroe, “’Fair and Friendly, Sweet and Beautiful’: Hopes for Jewish Conversion in Synagoga’s Song of Songs Imagery,” in Beyond the Yellow Badge, 33-61; Conrad Rudolph, Artistic Change at St-Denis: Abbot Suger’s Program and the Early Twelfth-Century Controversy over Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).

46. Honorius of Autun (Honorius Augustodunensis), in J. P. Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, 221 vols. (Paris: J. P. Migne, 1844-1864) 172:347-518.

47. Cohen, “Synagoga Conversa”; Michael Curschmann, “Imagined Exegesis: Text and Picture in the Exegetical Works of Rupert of Deutz, Honorius Augustodunensis, and Gerhoch of Reichersberg,” Traditio 44 (1988): 145-69; Monroe, “‘Fair and Friendly, Sweet and Beautiful.’” See the image from the fourteenth-century Codex San-Florianensis XI, 80 (dated 1301) on the website: http://cdm.csbsju.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/HMMLClrMicr/id/5472.

48. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. Lat. 4550 (from Benediktbeurn); Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. Lat. 18125 (from Tegernsee); Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, lat. 942 (from Salzburg?); Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery 29 (from Lambach); Augsburg, Universitätsbibliothek, I 22˚ 13 (southwest German lands).

49. Sankt Florian, Stiftsbibliothek, XI, 80 (dated 1301); Benediktinerstift St. Paul im Lavanttal, cod. 44/1 (formerly 25.3.5; originally from St. Blasien).

50. Cohen, “Synagoga Conversa,” 321-3; Curschmann, “Imag-ined Exegesis,” 155-9; Monroe, “’Fair and Friendly, Sweet and Beautiful,’” 44.

51. Otto von Simson, “Ecclesia und Synagoge am Südlichen Querhausportal des Straßburger Münsters,” in Wenn der Messias kommt: Das jüdisch-christliche Verhältnis im Spiegel mittelalterlicher Kunst, ed. Lieselotte Kötzsche and Peter von der Osten-Sacken (Berlin: Selbstverlag Institut Kirche und Judentum, 1984), 104-25.

52. Bernd Nicolai, “Orders in Stone: Social Reality and Artistic Approach. The Case of the Strasbourg South Portal,” Gesta 41 (2002): 111-28. See also Helga Sciurie, “Ecclesia und Synagoge an den Domen zu Straßburg, Bamberg, Magdeburg, und Erfurt: Körpersprachliche Wandlungen im gestalterischen Kontex,” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 46/47 (1993/1994): 679-87.

53. Rowe, The Jew, the Cathedral and the Medieval City, 217-8; Rowe, “Idealization and Subjection at the South Façade,” 185-7.

54. Rowe, The Jew, the Cathedral and the Medieval City, 216-232; Rowe, “Idealization and Subjection at the South Façade,” esp. 191-202. For a study of the importance of Jewish gaze and witness in Christian art see Sara Lipton, “Unfeigned Witness: Jews, Matter, and Vision in Twelfth-Century Art,” in Judaism and Christian Art: Aesthetic Anxieties from the Catacombs to Colonialism, ed. Herbert L. Kessler and David Nirenberg (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 45-74. On the relationship between sculptures and illuminated manuscripts from Germany and France see Weber, “Glaube und Wissen — Ecclesia et Synagoga”;

Weber, “The Hanged Judas of Freiburg Cathedral: Sources and Interpretation,” in Imagining the Self, Imagining the Other: Visual Representation and Jewish-Christian Dynamics in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, ed. Eva Frojmovic (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 173-81.

55. Ogden, The Staging of Drama, 87.56. We can find a source of knowledge regarding Jews being

able to view the processions in the Fourth Lateran Council from 1215; Jews are banned from walking in public during the last three days of the Holy Week for fear that they would mock the faithful Christians, therefore we can understand that some Jews in fact did view some of the processions. Grayzel, The Church and the Jews, 309; Ivan G. Marcus, “Jews and Christians Imagining the Other in Medieval Europe,” Prooftexts 15 (1995): 209-26, esp. 218-20.

57. Natascha Bremer, Das Bild der Juden in den Passionsspielen und in der bildenden Kunst des deutschen Mittelalters (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1986), 37-55.

58. Bremer, Das Bild der Juden, 167-192, esp. 179-92.59. Seiferth, Synagogue and Church, 99-100.60. In Mézières’ 1372 play Presentation of the Blessed Virgin

Mary in the Temple, the description of Synagoga’s costume emphasizes her portrayal as an old woman. Ogden, The Staging of Drama, 135, 137.

61. Sciurie, “Ecclesia und Synagoge”; Maria Stürzebecher, “Das Judenbild in der Christlichen Kunst in Erfurt,” in Erfurter Schriften zur jüdischen Geschichte 1 (2012): 130-135, esp. 132-3. The head of Synagoga was replaced in the nineteenth century and this could be the reason she is portrayed without her blindfold. Here what is important is to find her holding one of the symbols connecting the Jews with the devil, and thus she can no longer be redeemed. On the relationship between the Jews, the goat and the devil see Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943), 46-8; Eric Zafran, “Saturn and the Jews,” JWCI 42 (1979): 16-27.

62. Madeline Harrison Caviness, “Reception of Images by Medieval Viewers,” in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 65-85, esp. 71-72.

63. On kabbalistic notions concerning this idea see Weiss, “Who Is a Beautiful Maiden without Eyes?”; Daniel Abrams, “Knowing the Maiden without Eyes: Reading the Sexual Reconstruction of the Jewish Mystic in a Zoharic Parable,” Da’at 50-52 (2003): lix-lxxxiii; Daniel Abrams, The Female Body of God in Kabbalistic) הגוף האלהי הנשי בקבלהLiterature) (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2004), 41-3; Elliot R. Wolfson, “Beautiful Maiden without Eyes: ‘Peshat’ and ‘Sod’ in Zoharic Hermeneutics,” in The Midrashic Imagination: Jewish Exegesis, Thought, and History, ed. Michael Fishbane (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 155-203.

64. Berger, The Jewish­Christian Debate, 68.65. Moshe Barasch, Blindness: The History of a Mental Image in

Western Thought (New York: Routledge, 2001), 77-128.