The Dai­ly Life series looks at how ordi­nary peo­ple lived — what they wore, what they ate, what their fam­i­ly life was like — as well as their over­all cul­ture — edu­ca­tion, lit­er­a­ture and art, occu­pa­tions and com­mu­nal life. On all these counts, the Mid­dle Ages was by and large a com­fort­able and intel­lec­tu­al­ly rich peri­od for Jews. There were no ghet­toes; Jews lived with their Chris­t­ian and Mus­lim neigh­bors even if they did not exact­ly love one anoth­er; and Jews played sub­stan­tial parts in com­mer­cial and civic life. Vivid accounts of forced con­ver­sion, mar­tyr­dom and pogroms are not entire­ly accu­rate, although there were def­i­nite­ly peri­ods of hor­rif­ic per­se­cu­tion, much begin­ning with the Cru­sades, and peri­od­ic expul­sions from var­i­ous communities. 

Aimed at the gen­er­al read­er, the book cov­ers mate­r­i­al that may be famil­iar to some, but the con­clud­ing chap­ters present a less famil­iar pic­ture, con­vinc­ing­ly doc­u­ment­ed. Illus­tra­tions, exten­sive notes, glos­sary, bib­li­og­ra­phy, index.