Maimonides in Cordoba
Jewish life in Europe in the Middle Ages was often precarious. Medieval Jews were expelled from England, France, Spain and Portugal. They were forced to participate in public disputations that were usually rigged – they had to defend Judaism without being accused of blasphemy against Christian doctrines. They were accused of and punished for such fabricated crimes as ritual murder and host desecration. Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land to kill Muslim “infidels” often practised on Jewish infidels along the way, decimating a number of Jewish communities.
But on a day-to-day basis, Jews, the only tolerated minority in medieval Christendom, had many rights, including the right of self-government. In recent generations scholars, have also highlighted the intellectual connections between medieval Jews and Christians, especially in the area of Bible commentary.
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