Material Culture and Literary Culture in Middle Age Iberia: Fragments of a Sephardi Identity in Persia, Palestine and Hispania

Abstract

On the interface of the fields of material culture history and medieval literature, we propose to analyze the levels of Jewish interaction between East and West, as evidenced in the universes of practices, behaviors and organizations of the Iberian aljamas, the Jewish neighborhoods from the 5th to the 8th century. These exchanges were present in the daily lives of Iberian Jewish people even during the mandatory conversions to Christianity in the 7th century, and the consolidation of the Caliphate of Al-Andalus, in the 8th century.