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An educational initiation ceremony that appears to have been in vogue throughout medieval Ashkenaz (Franco-Germany) mandates that a young boy aged five or six is to be brought to the synagogue (in many instances, on the festival of Shavuot), to be welcomed into the study of Torah. The child was instructed to recite certain letters and verses that were written on a tablet or cake and covered with honey, and then to eat the letters, symbolizing the Torah that would become part of the child (Marcus 1996). The educational process itself took place in informal settings. Tutors were con…

Detecting audiences of the Jewish book during the Middle Ages must proceed along several simultaneous paths: explicit evidence from the books themselves; the contents of the books; the question of literacy; and the books' genre. All of these issues will be addressed within this essay, which is organized along chronological and geographic lines, in addition to distinguishing between various disciplines and subject areas. ⸙In addition to taking into account the wide geographic and chronological scope of medieval Jewry, detecting audiences of the Jewish book d…

[German Version] I. Concept – II. Philosophy – III. Greco-Roman Antiquity – IV. Bible – V. Church History – VI. Ethics – VII. Practical Theology and Pedagogy – VIII. Judaism – IX. Islam I. Concept Traditionally, “education” has denoted the intentional interaction of adults with the younger generation in order-usually-to influence them positively; whether it makes sense to speak of education when negative goals are deliberately pursued is …