Jewish Piety in Islamic Jerusalem: The Lamentations Commentary of Salmon ben Yeruhim (AAR Religion in Translation)

Jewish Piety in Islamic Jerusalem: The Lamentations Commentary of Salmon ben Yeruhim (AAR Religion in Translation) by Andruss, Jessica. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780197639559.

The first Jewish Bible commentaries were written in Arabic, in medieval Islamic cities like Baghdad and Jerusalem. Jewish Piety in Islamic Jerusalem explores the construction of a new Jewish spirituality within these texts, focusing on the Lamentations commentary of Salmon ben Yeruhim. Salmon considers Lamentations to be a source of pious and ritual instruction for the Jewish community in exile. He reinterprets the Bible and traditional rabbinic teachings with the scholarly tools of his era--Arabic-Islamic models of exegesis, homily, and historiography--and develops distinctively Jewish practices of biblical scholarship, asceticism, and penitential mourning.