Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Reflecting on German-Jewish History
- Part I The Legacy of the Middle Ages: Jewish Cultural Identity and the Price of Exclusiveness
- Part II The Social and Economic Structure of German Jewry from the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Centuries
- Part III Jewish-Gentile Contacts and Relations in the Pre-Emancipation Period
- 8 Languages in Contact: The Case of Rotwelsch and the Two “Yiddishes”
- 9 Meeting on the Road: Encounters between German Jews and Christians on the Margins of Society
- 10 Contacts at the Bedside: Jewish Physicians and their Christian Patients
- 11 Contacts and Relations in the Pre-Emancipation Period - A Comment
- Part IV Representations of German Jewry Images, Prejudices, and Ideas
- Part V The Pattern of Authority and the Limits of Toleration: The Case of German Jewry
- Part VI Through the Looking Glass: Four Perspectives on German-Jewish History
- Index
10 - Contacts at the Bedside: Jewish Physicians and their Christian Patients
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2013
- Frontmatter
- Reflecting on German-Jewish History
- Part I The Legacy of the Middle Ages: Jewish Cultural Identity and the Price of Exclusiveness
- Part II The Social and Economic Structure of German Jewry from the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Centuries
- Part III Jewish-Gentile Contacts and Relations in the Pre-Emancipation Period
- 8 Languages in Contact: The Case of Rotwelsch and the Two “Yiddishes”
- 9 Meeting on the Road: Encounters between German Jews and Christians on the Margins of Society
- 10 Contacts at the Bedside: Jewish Physicians and their Christian Patients
- 11 Contacts and Relations in the Pre-Emancipation Period - A Comment
- Part IV Representations of German Jewry Images, Prejudices, and Ideas
- Part V The Pattern of Authority and the Limits of Toleration: The Case of German Jewry
- Part VI Through the Looking Glass: Four Perspectives on German-Jewish History
- Index
Summary
When Jews still lived in a closed Jewish quarter and had to seek the protection of the holders of political power, every encounter between Jews and Gentiles had its well-defined aim. According to Jacob Katz, the “transaction of business, the teaching of Jew by Gentile or vice versa, the treatment by doctors of a patient from the other community, are the recurrent patterns of social encounters between Jews and Gentiles.” Although historians have dealt extensively with the medieval Jewish moneylender and the early modern court Jew, they have seldom taken into account the relationship between Jews and non-Jews that was not governed primarily by the immediate purpose of commerce. The few (mostly Jewish) scholars who have taken an interest in the history of Jewish medicine write about great Jewish physicians, their medical works, and their achievements. But historians have left out the most important aspect, namely, that the medical practice of the rank-and-file Jewish physician brought him into close contact with Gentiles of varying social status. The picture of the Jew waiting at home for the Gentile to bring him his urine is certainly a realistic one. But the details of this picture are blurred, because of the lack of sources.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- In and out of the GhettoJewish-Gentile Relations in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany, pp. 137 - 150Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995
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