Articles by Natalie Zemon Davis ז״ל
In 1960, I heard a radio interview with an extraordinary man. He was a mathematician and was also... more In 1960, I heard a radio interview with an extraordinary man. He was a mathematician and was also a science fiction writer. He was about to be imprisoned because of his
ELLIOTT HOROWITZ FIRST ENTERED my life with his characteristic brilliance and brio at the 1980 me... more ELLIOTT HOROWITZ FIRST ENTERED my life with his characteristic brilliance and brio at the 1980 meeting of the Association of Jewish Studies. Mark Cohen, Theodore Rabb, and I were presenting our Princeton course on the Jews in Early Modern Europe, into which we had introduced topics from the new social history within a comparative European perspective. A distinguished elder scholar from Jerusalem rose from the audience to state that the course disfigured Jewish history and, eyeing me, that the field did not need contributions from outsiders. Whereupon a student from the Yale doctoral program came forward and defended our course as the wave of the future. Elliott Horowitz saved the day for us, as many of the younger listeners took copies of our syllabus.
Medical pluralism flourished in the 18 th century in the Dutch colony of Suriname. White physicia... more Medical pluralism flourished in the 18 th century in the Dutch colony of Suriname. White physicians and surgeons, trained in European medicine, existed along with Indigenous priest/healers and herbalists, slave priest/diviners, and healers of African origin, their diverse practices played out on the plantation itself. While decrying the ''superstition'' of slave healers, physicians began to take note of their plant remedies, such as the local bark used to reduce fever discovered by the celebrated diviner Quassie. Some slave healers were trained in European surgical practices. The Suriname government acted against the slave ''poisoners,'' who were feared by slaves as well, but they did not act against other non-European healers.
Through the person of the ex-converso David Nassy, "Regaining Jerusalem" asks how seventeenth-cen... more Through the person of the ex-converso David Nassy, "Regaining Jerusalem" asks how seventeenth-century Portuguese Jews could seek their own religious liberty at the same time they were enslaving Africans in the plantation economies of the Caribbean and the Guyana coast. Living in Amsterdam by the 1630s, Nassy was part of the Jewish community in Dutch Brazil, and then in the 1660s led the Jewish settlement in Dutch Suriname. Nassy was moved in part by eschatological hopes shared with other ex-conversos freed from Catholic tyranny, in part by his interest in plants and geography, and in part by entrepreneurial desire for profit. Nassy and his fellow Jews distinguished their own biblical exodus out of slavery from the destiny of their African captives, incorporating their slaves into the patriarchal Abrahamic household. This paper describes patterns of Jewish culture on the sugar plantations and the varied reactions of African men and women to it.
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Articles by Natalie Zemon Davis ז״ל