On the Word of a Jew: Religion, Reliability, and the Dynamics of Trust, Paperback

What, if anything, does religion have to do with how reliable we perceive one another to be? When and how did religious difference matter in the past when it came to trusting the word of another? In today's world, we take for granted that being Jewish should not matter when it comes to acting or engaging in the public realm, but this was not always the case. The essays in this volume look at how and when Jews were recognized as reliable and trustworthy in the areas of jurisprudence, medicine, politics, academia, culture, business, and finance. As they explore issues of trust and mistrust, the authors reveal how caricatures of Jews move through religious, political, and legal systems. While the volume is framed as an exploration of Jewish and Christian relations, it grapples with perceptions of Jews and Jewishness from the biblical period to today, from the Middle East to North America, and in Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions. Taken together these essays reflect on the mechanics of trust, and sometimes mistrust, in everyday interactions involving Jews.

About the Author:

Nina Caputo is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Florida. She is author of Nahmanides in Medieval Catalonia: History, Community, and Messianism and Debating Truth: The Barcelona Disputation of 1263, a Graphic History and editor (with Andrea Sterk) of Faithful Narratives: Historians, Religion, and the Challenge of Objectivity.

Mitchell B. Hart is Professor of History and the Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish History at the University of Florida. He is editor (with Tony Michels) of The Modern World, 1815-2000, Volume 8 of The Cambridge History of Judaism.