Conversion

This chapter examines a unique fourteenth-century Hebrew manuscript copied by a woman, Hannah bat Menaḥem Ẓion of Cologne. I claim that the manuscript, and in particular its illustrations, reflect Hannah’s attempt to reclaim her female Jewish identity after a forced conversion.

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.