A Frog Under the Tongue: Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)

Winner of the 2021 Gierowski-Shmeruk PrizeShortlisted for the Folklore Society's Katharine Briggs Award 2021Jews have been active participants in shaping the healing practices of the communities of eastern Europe.Their approach largely combined the ideas of traditional Ashkenazi culture with the heritage of medieval and early modern medicine.Holy rabbis and faith healers, as well as Jewish barbers, innkeepers, and pedlars, all dispensed cures, purveyed folk remedies for different ailments, and gave hope to the sick and their families based on kabbalah, numerology, prayer, and magical Hebrew formulas.Nevertheless, as new sources of knowledge penetrated the traditional world, modern medical ideas gained widespread support.Jews became court physicians to the nobility, and when the universities were opened up to them many also qualified as doctors.At every stage, medicine proved an important field for cross-cultural contacts. Jewish historians and scholars of folk medicine alike will disco