Jews and the Wine Trade in
Medieval Europe: Principles and Pressures (Littman Library of Jewish
Civilization, 2024), by Haym Soloveitchik
Reviewed by Rabbi Reuven Chaim
Klein (Rachack Review)
Rabbi Dr. Haym
Soloveitchik's Jews and the Wine Trade in Medieval Europe: Principles
and Pressures offers a fascinating and top-notch exploration of a
critical Halakhic and economic challenge faced by Medieval Ashkenazi Jewry. By
Pentateuchal law, wine libated as part of idolatry (yayn nesech) is
utterly forbidden. The rabbis further instituted a general prohibition, stam
yeinam, forbidding all gentile wine as though it were yayn nesech,
driven by concern over habitual pagan libations. As the author makes clear, the
rabbis instituted this prohibition because of a concern that gentiles might
habitually dabble or flick wine as an idolatrous tribute to their deity. This
concern was only in play in a pagan milieu, wherein such habitual libations or
libation-like acts of devotion were de regur.
But for the burgeoning Ashkenazi
community in Lotharingia (Lotir), the ambient religion was not pagan, but
rather Christian, and Christians did not engage in this sort of habitual libation.
As Soloveitchik meticulously makes clear, this reality leads to the following puzzle:
One might have expected this new reality to lead to a relaxation of the stam
yeinam prohibition, especially given the importance and lucrativeness
of the wine industry in regions like Germany and France. Instead, the author
shows with exceptional clarity that Ashkenazi Jews embraced only minimal
leniencies – notably, post facto acceptance of gentile wine as debt payment.
Crucially, they refused any leniency allowing a priori engagement in the trade
of Christian wine or the employment of gentile workers in Jewish wine
production. The big question is why did Ashkenazi Jews in the High
Middle Ages not avail themselves of this chance to relax the restrictions of stam
yeinam due to the reality that the concerns that led to the original
prohibition were no longer in play.
In setting up this question, Soloveitchik
demonstrates a clear mastery of Medieval Ashkenazi texts, both printed and
manuscript, providing close analysis of Tosafistic and pre-Tosafist sources.
This analysis reveals that the early Ashkenazi community consistently adopted
the aforementioned stringent position at extreme financial cost, readily
sacrificing lucrative economic opportunities.
Dr. Soloveitchik finds their stance
perplexing and counterintuitive. This leads to the book's central thesis: the
early Ashkenazi Jews’ deep-seated revulsion towards gentile wine can be chalked
up to gentile anti-Semitism and the Jews' response to that wretched phenomenon.
Drawing on scholar Gavin Langmuir's research tracing the evolution of German
anti-Semitism from a "rational" form to an intense, irrational form
where Jews themselves were reviled as disgusting, Soloveitchik posits a similar
phenomenon occurred in Jewish attitudes. The refusal to relax stam
yeinam is understood not as a purely legal position, but as an
emotional/social reaction to gentile treatment.
As this book makes clear, the
discussion at hand can be viewed as a sort of case study that uses the Soloveitchik's
innovative methodology that looks for an "angle of deflection" in the
rulings of Jewish jurists before arguing that their conclusions are not purely
based on legal reasoning but on other, extralegal factors. In our case, in the
author's estimation, the Ashkenazi Jewry's illogical refusal to relax the laws
of stam yeinam are understood to not be based on any real legal position
but on an emotional/social reaction to how the gentiles treated them. The book
is a fascinating case study of this innovative methodology.
In this book, characters like
Rashi, Rivan, Rabbeinu Tam, and the Ri of Dampierre come alive as their relevant
Talmudic comments and Halakhic responsa are analyzed and broken down.
Soloveitchik also discusses the introduction of the idea of stam yeinam as
a hedge against intermarriage, how the story of Jewish participation in wine
trade directly led to their later roles as moneylenders, and the reception of
Geonic rulings in Ashkenaz.
While some parts of this study had
been available in English before, this compilation of a lifetime of
Soloveitchik's studies is invaluable for the English-reading audience. As can
be expected of a scholar of Soloveitchik's renown and lineage, the research is
top-notch — thorough and wide-reaching. Some sections are somewhat repetitive,
and parts translated from the author's Hebrew originals lack the elegant
English prose characteristic of his signature style. Helpful maps illustrate
the extent of wine production in the Rhine area and the early cradles of
Ashkenaz civilization. Overall, this book is a significant and compelling work
illuminating a crucial aspect of Medieval Jewish life and law.
