The Reconstruction of Pre-Ashkenazic Jewish Settlements in the Slavic Lands in the Light of Linguistic Sources

Summary

The historian naturally favours written documentation over all other sources in reconstructing the history of both literary and pre-literary periods; when written documentation is sparse or unavailable, he has traditionally sought out the assistance of the archaeologist. Rarely does the historian turn to the linguist - though the latter often has much to contribute to the historian. The task of reconstructing the history of pre-Ashkenazic Jewish settlement patterns in the Slavic lands forcefully illustrates the usefulness of collaboration between historian and linguist. In this paper, the present writer, a linguist, will first survey briefly the insights of historians on early Jewish settlement history in the Slavic lands, and then explore some linguistic data which raise some tantalizing questions for the historian.

The student wishing to reconstruct the early history of Jewish settlement in Europe during the first millenium AD can turn to a small number of historical documents, but rarely from the lands occupied by the Slavs. The written sources can be supplemented by a fair number of archaeological remains; for example, epigraphical materials from synagogue ruins and occasionally from gravestones attest to a Jewish presence in territories adjoining the northern Mediterranean and Black Sea littorals. However, the further north one proceeds, away from the Greco-Roman cultural orbit, the more difficult it becomes to reconstruct Jewish settlement history - for both textual and archaeological remains are lacking. The penetration of the Jews into the Slavic lands prior to the year 1200 has long been written off by historians as a topic barely accessible to description. The documentation for this early period consists of scraps of textual evidence - most of which is preserved in documents recorded many centuries after the events transpired, and often by scribes ignorant of the language of the original documents.