This new book marks his 11th publication.

Highlighting: “Brothers From Afar: Rabbinic Approaches to Apostasy and Reversion in Medieval Europe” by Dr. Ephraim Kanarfogel. Wayne State University Press. 2020. Paperback. English. 260 pages. ISBN-13: 978-081434824.

(Courtesy of Yeshiva University) Dr. Ephraim Kanarfogel, E. Billi Ivry University Professor of Jewish History, Literature, and Law at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, has published “Brothers from Afar: Rabbinic Approaches to Apostasy and Reversion in Medieval Europe” with Wayne State University Press.

In this new book, Kanarfogel challenges a long-held view that those who had renounced their Judaic faith and later returned to the Jewish community in northern medieval Europe resumed their places without ceremonies or acts that confirmed their reversion.

However, his evidence suggests that from the late 12th century onward, those who returned had to undergo ritual immersion and other rites of contrition. He also identifies changes in rabbinic positions in the Jewish law about these returnees that he believes were “developed largely in response to changing Christian perceptions of Jews.”

Dr. Paola Tartakoff at Rutgers University foundthat “‘Brothers from Afar’ opens new avenues for research in medieval Jewish-Christian relations,” and Dr. Edward Fram at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev praised Kanarfogel for shedding “a whole new light on the place of repentant apostates in medieval Jewish societies.”

Dr. David Berger, former dean of Revel, was impressed by the “unprecedented detail” of Kanarfogel’s research, and Dr. Karen Bacon, the Mordecai D. Katz and Dr. Monique C. Katz Dean of the Undergraduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yeshiva University, felt that Kanarfogel had outdone himself with this new publication. “Even for someone as remarkable as Dr. Kanarfogel, this new achievement is ‘off the charts’!”