Popis: |
This chapter discusses the reconstruction of the history of pre-Ashkenazic Jewish settlement patterns in the Slavic lands. It first surveys briefly the insights of historians on early Jewish settlement history in the Slavic lands, and then explores some linguistic data which raise some tantalizing questions for the historian. The examples provided constitute a small fraction of the extant materials that could attest to non-Ashkenazic Jewish settlement on the Slavic territories eventually occupied by the Ashkenazic Jews. If these examples do not prove beyond doubt the existence of Turkic or Iranian Jewries in the German- and West Slavic-speaking lands, they certainly do suggest a certain amount of cultural and linguistic impact — probably through an intermediary Judeo-Slavic community in the West and possibly East Slavic lands. The impact of Slavic Jewries on Ashkenazic Jewry has so far been speculative. |