What Can Medieval Spain Teach Us about Muslim-Jewish Relations? David Nirenberg Ever since te emergence of Jewish history as a discipline during the Hasklah Oewish Enlightenent), the topic of Jewish-Muslim relations has been one of central interest. The reasons for that inter est, however, have varied greatly. For example, when German Jewish hstorians first tok up the queston (untl the mid-twenti et century, professional historical resarch was mostly the prov ince of Ashenazic Jews), tey did so with an eye to the history of teir own homelands. Against a European taditon of ant-Smt ism, Jewish historians posed an Islamic traditon of tolerance. Such contrasts were strategic, even educatonal, intended to help Chris tian Europeans see the injustice of their teatent of Jews. They invoked the relative tolerance of ''backward Orientals" in order to critcize and combat the prejudice of "moder Europeans." In the late nnetenth and early twentiet centries, under the pressure of mounting anti-Smitism, this contast betwen an idealized expe rience under medieval Islam and a progression of tagedies under Christendom gained the status of unquestonable tuth. It became, as a nuber of historians have recently put it, a historical myth, an important part of the standard narratves through which European Jews uderstood their history. Today, the topic of Muslim-Jewish relatons is still of central iportance, but for very different reasons. In the latter half of the twentieth century, as the long conflict between the state of Israel and the Arab world became a cental axis of Jewish consciousness, Tis ey was frst presnted as the 201 Daniel E. Koshland Memorial Lcture at the Congrgaton Emanu El, Sn Francisco. I am grateful to Rabbi Stephen Pearce, Ph.D. fr te invitaton and for helpf commet that have improved the argumet. • DAVID NIRENBERG i Charlotte Blomberg Professor of the Humanities Dpart- ment of History, Te John Hopkins University. Sprig / Sumer 20 17