Bohemian Reformation

This paper examines the polemical arguments with Christianity in Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen’s Sefer ha-Niẓaḥon. Focusing on Lipman’s attack on Christian image worship in his account of a disputation with the convert Peter (Pesaḥ), I argue that Lipman’s anti-Christian rhetoric drew on the vocabulary of contemporary Christian reform preachers in order to reshape Christian perceptions of the Jews while reinforcing his readers’ Jewish identity.

This paper examines the 1389 Easter attack on the Jewish community of Prague and the ways in which it was given meaning in contemporary Christian and Jewish writing.