Q

This chapter focuses exclusively on medieval Jewish civilization, from the fall of the Roman Empire to about 1492. It includes alphabetically organized entries, written by scholars from around the world, include biographies, countries, events, social history, and religious concepts. One of the most misunderstood and romanticized aspects of Jewish culture is that branch of mysticism known as qabalah, a word that means simply "tradition". In the fifteenth century there was a decline, quantitatively and qualitatively, in qabbalistic writing, no doubt attributable in part to the mass conversions of Jews that took place. Joseph Alcastiel in 1482 wrote responsa on some qabbalistic questions sent to him by Judah Hayyat. The Qaraite sect emerged on the stage of Jewish history in the period of the Geonim. The very core of its credo was the return to the Bible and to the law dictated by it.