KatherineAron‐Beller: Christian Images and their Jewish Desecrators. The History of an Allegation, 400–1700. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024; pp. 426

Abstract

<p>There are books that experts in a field of research will welcome because they fill a glaring gap in the existing scholarly literature. Katherine Aron-Beller's excellent <i>Christian Images and their Jewish Desecrators</i> is just such a work. Building on her previous research on inquisitorial trials of Jews in Italy (<i>Jews on trial: The Papal Inquisition in Modena, 1598–1638 (2011)</i>), Katherine Aron-Beller offers readers an authoritative examination of the origin and development of the allegation that individual Jews and Jewish communities deliberately sought to desecrate Christian sacred images. This accusation can be traced back to Late Antiquity but it is in the central medieval period — the twelfth and thirteenth centuries more precisely — that the Anti-Jewish narrative of image desecration trans-formed itself into an anti-Jewish trope due to a number of factors clearly outlined in this nuanced, meticulously researched and thought-provoking work.</p>