France

Jews were a small but important presence in France—the northern part of which was, with the adjacent Rhineland, the original “Ashkenaz—in the Middle Ages and beyond. And despite cyclical hardships, which often took the shape of repeated expulsions followed quickly by invitations to return, Jews in France managed to make essential, central contributions to Jewish culture far beyond their borders. Rashi, who spent his adult life in Troyes (today a suburb of Paris) wrote the most important Talmud and Torah commentaries ever composed. And his followers, the Tosafot (= “additions”) took the methods of the “new textuality” of the 12th century and applied them to the critical study of Talmud. French Jews, while remaining Jews, often viewed themselves as fully French, speaking the same language and admiring many of the same values as their neighbors. The works French Jews produced attest to the breadth of Jewish interests in France through the ages. 

This richness is reflected in the works assembled in this case, which include obviously Jewish works like prayer books and legal treatises, as well as Hebrew versions of works of general interest. Of particular importance is the Mahzor Vitry manuscript, which is the earliest surviving record of the emerging practices of Ashkenazi Jewry.