Series: Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought

History:

10 - 15th Centuries CE 

Collections: Twice Blest: Exploring Shakespeare and the Hebrew Bible

Description

In this episode, Dr. Susan Weissman, Chair of Judaic Studies and Associate Professor at Lander College for Women, a division of Touro College, shares her extensive research and expertise on death and the afterlife in medieval Europe. Through a detailed analysis of ghost tales in the Talmud and Sefer Hasidim, a religious-ethical work by an elitist group of medieval Jewish German Pietists, Weissman shows how many beliefs and rituals of the period reflected in Shakespeare’s Hamlet were cross-culturally shared by neighbors, Jews and Christians alike.