ABSTRACT

This essay considers how the experience of being a Jewish heritage traveler inflects the author’s approach to reading and teaching medieval literature. For the author, Jewish heritage travel, whether medieval or modern, tells alternative histories which rely upon alternative ways of seeing and interpreting in the face of ongoing, chronic crisis. Just as the medieval travel narrative of Benjamin of Tudela lists Jewish monuments in Rome alongside Christian ones, modern heritage tours intersect with and deviate from mainstream historical narratives, highlighting the achievements — and suffering — of the Jewish minority. To examine medieval literature from this vantage point leads the author not only to construct a parallel archive of Jewish-authored narratives, but also to find surprising examples of collective identity, borne of trauma and the shared experience of crisis, in Christian anti-Semitic sources.

摘要

本文探讨了作为犹太遗产旅行者的经历如何影响作者阅读和教授中世纪文学的方法。对作者而言，无论是中世纪的还是现代的，犹太遗产旅行都讲述了另类的历史，这些历史依赖于面对持续的长期危机时的另一种观察和解释方式。正如图德拉的本杰明的中世纪旅行叙述将罗马的犹太古迹与基督教古迹一起列出一样，现代遗产之旅与主流历史叙述相交并偏离，突出了犹太少数群体的成就和苦难。从这个有利的角度审视中世纪文学，不仅使作者构建了一个犹太人创作叙事的平行档案，而且还发现了令人惊讶的集体身份的例子，