THE ATTIRE OF THE JEWISH DOCTOR IN MEDIEVAL AND MODERN EUROPE IDENTITY, STATUS AND RELIGION

Clothing expresses cultural world, beliefs, and plays a role in gender, social and identity. The current study focuses on the attire of Jewish physicians in Europe in the Middle Ages and Modern Era. The clothes of Jewish physicians reflected the tension inherent in their status. They were supposed to reflect on one hand their dignified status and affiliation with an elite professional group, and on the other their belonging to an inferior group. In Christian Europe with its practice of discrimination against Jews, physicians normally had to bear a mark of ignominy on their clothes similar to all other Jews. Some historical sources attest to physicians who were exempt from wearing the pointed Jews’ hat or a badge. However, these were rare individual cases of physicians who were permitted to treat non-Jews and operated with much success among general society or physicians who treated rulers and key figures and were granted special dispensations. Some halakhic authorities from the fifteenth century until recent generations discuss the question of whether Jewish physicians are permitted to dress as their non-Jewish colleagues or whether this transgresses the prohibition against following non-Jewish laws. Over time, Maharik’s fundamental permit became a legal precedent utilized by various halakhic decisors in Jewish communities in Italy, Poland, and Germany. Several modern halakhic decisors claimed that there is no prohibition against wearing the modern doctor’s coat although it was designed in the general secular world, as it is used only for professional purposes.