ABSTRACT
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. Muslim domination of Palestine is divided into four periods: Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid and SeljukTurk. The Jews of Palestine maintained their allegiance to the Jerusalem (so-called Palestinian) Talmud as their legal authority, in contrast to Jews in the diaspora, where the Jerusalem Talmud was certainly utilized by scholars, but the Babylonian Talmud was considered more authoritative. Jewish communities in Palestine and pursued his "enemy" at Tyre, and thus Eviatar and other members of the academy fled to Damascus. Jews in the Diaspora, particularly Italy and Germany, maintained strong ties with the scholars of Palestine. From the Hellenistic period, at least, when Jews came into contact with Greek culture, they were interested to a greater or lesser degree in Greek philosophy.
