Paola Tartakoff

Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies

Ph.D., Columbia

B.A., Harvard

At Rutgers since 2007

Miller Hall - Room 116
14 College Ave
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RESEARCH INTERESTS

Paola Tartakoff studies the social and cultural history of Jews and Christians in medieval and early modern Europe.  She is particularly interested in conversion to and from Judaism and in the medieval and Spanish inquisitions. Her work is grounded in archival research conducted in Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia, but it also explores the Mediterranean region more broadly, as well as northern Europe.

COURSES REGULARLY TAUGHT

• 506:271/563:201/685:208 Jewish Society and Culture I: The Ancient and Medieval Experience
• 510:101 The Development of Europe, Part I
• 510:388/563:388 Jewish-Christian Relations through the Ages
• 563:314/510:314 Jews, Heretics, and the Inquisition
• 563:464/506:402 Jewish Identities in the Medieval Mediterranean

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Books

• Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Medieval Crown of Aragon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, Middle Ages Series, 2012).

Articles

• "Of Purity, Piety, and Plunder: Reflections on Medieval Jewish Converts and Poverty," in Converts and Conversion to and from Judaism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, Jewish Culture and Contexts Series), forthcoming.
• “The Toledot Yeshu and the Jewish-Christian Controversy in the Medieval Crown of Aragon,” in Toledot Yeshu Reconsidered, ed. Peter Schaefer et al. (Berlin: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 297-309.
• “Christian Kings and Jewish Conversion in the Medieval Crown of Aragon,” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 3 (2011): 27-39.
• “Jewish Women and Apostasy in the Medieval Crown of Aragon, c.1300-1391,” Jewish History 24.1 (2010), 7-32.

Reviews

• Review of Jonathan Ray, ed., The Jew in Medieval Iberia 1100-1500 (Boston, 2012), in The Medieval Review, September 2012
• Review of Robin Vose, Dominicans, Muslims, and Jews in the Medieval Crown of Aragon (Cambridge, 2009), in Sefarad 70 (2010): 512-14.
• Review of Nina Caputo, Nahmanides in Medieval Catalonia: History, Community, and Messianism (Notre Dame, IN, 2008), in The Medieval Review, August 2008.

AWARDS

• Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence, Rutgers University
• Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship
• Fulbright Scholarship to Spain
• Richard Hofstadter Fellowship
• Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

• American Historical Association
• Association for Jewish Studies
• Medieval Academy of America
• Phi Beta Kappa
• Society of Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies