Book Reviews: On the Margins of a Minority: Leprosy, Madness, and Disability among the Jews of Medieval Europe

The author gestures toward these theoretical questions (e.g. on pp. 121, 135), but does not delve into them in detail, and at times accepts uncritically the sources' own claims that efforts to control women's bodies and sexuality resulted from women's "honored" and "protected" status. [...]a brief discussion of the link between "madness" and conversion (86-88) that could have been considerably strengthened through reference to the sources on suicide comes across as fragmentary. (Some of this missing material has appeared in English-language articles that Shoham-Steiner has published in other forums--but the book's notes and bibliography do not always reference these studies.) To be fair, decisions about what to include or exclude from the translation were no doubt impacted at least in part by the Wayne State University Press's desire to produce a more concise and streamlined volume.