The tension between the "book" and the "body" has in recent years attracted the attention of scholars interested in the perception of the body in Judaism and the impact of religious law and performance on the body. The fifteen contributions in this volume deal with perceptions of the "Jewish body" in a broad range of legal, poetic, mystical, philosophical and polemical early modern Jewish sources. The first part of the book examines the construction of the body in specific historical and social contexts. Part two discusses normative texts and the notion of an "ideal Jewish body." Part three explores body, mind and soul in Jewish philosophy and mysticism. The last section of the book discusses body issues in Jewish-Christian discourse. The volume includes contributions by Howard Tzvi Adelman, Ruth Berger, Saverio Campanini, Maria Diemling, Eleazar Gutwirth, Don HarrAn, Moshe Idel, Sergius Kodera, Arthur M. Lesley, Gianfranco Miletto, Giuseppe Veltri, Roni Weinstein, Elliot R. Wolfson, Jeffrey R. Woolf and Nimrod Zinger.

Maria Diemling, Dr. Phil. (1999) in History, University of Vienna, is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent, United Kingdom. She has published on Jewish-Christian relations in the Early Modern Period with a particular interest in conversions and images of the body.
Giuseppe Veltri, PhD. (1991), Free University of Berlin is professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Halle (Germany) and Director of the Zunz Centre. He has published on Jewish hermeneutics, philosophy, magic, folklore, Renaissance studies including Eine Tora für den König Talmai (1994), Magie und Halakha (1997), Gegenwart der Tradition (2002), Cultural Intermediaries (2004 with David Ruderman), Library, Translations, and "Canonic" Texts (2006).