The present volume offers a broad and highly nuanced picture of Christian–Jewish relations in the age of the Reformation. In fact, its scope is much broader than the title might initially suggest. Encompassing most of the early modern period and vast territories in West and Central Europe, Kenneth Austin's book takes us on a journey that begins with the expulsion of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula and their ghettoization in Italy during the late fifteenth and the early-sixteenth centuries and ends with the Jewish settlement in Amsterdam and the readmission of the Jews to England during the seventeenth century. Along the way, we are introduced to the attitudes of greater and lesser Reformers toward Jews and Judaism, the various attempts of secular rulers to control and regulate the Jewish minority in their territories, the flourishing of Christian Hebraism and the constant fear of “Judaization,” and the entanglement of Jewish Messianism and Christian Millenarianism. All these events, trends, and developments, the author asserts, are interrelated, and must be jointly considered in any attempt to narrate a full and comprehensive history of Christian–Jewish relations in the Reformation era.

The book focuses on Christian attitudes toward the Jews on three different, yet closely intertwined levels. Christians from all confessions—Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed—were concerned with the Jews living in their midst and with the question how to deal with this minority. But they were also concerned with the Jews of the past—the Old Testament people of Israel—as well as with the Jews of the future, whose role at the end of time and their expected conversion to Christianity became a significant issue. As the author argues, “[i]t is only by considering the different Christian confessions, as represented in different territories, alongside each other and by considering ‘the Jews’ in a broadly construed way (incorporating not just contemporary Jews, but also their language, learning and their symbolic value) that we can properly understand their significance to the Reformation” (xvii). Furthermore, in examining how the Reformation, in its various forms, affected the Jews of Europe and Christian–Jewish relations more broadly, the book goes beyond strictly theological considerations and gives considerable attention also to the political, economic, and social factors which shaped Christian behaviors and policies toward the Jews. Finally, while the book presents an important contribution to the history of Christian–Jewish relations, it also contributes to the field of Reformation history. As the author convincingly argues, “[t]he relationship with Judaism was a fundamental component of Christian identity” (213). A study such as this, therefore, can advance our understanding of the new confessions' self-perception, their priorities, and their anxieties in an age of religious transformation.

The book is divided into eight chapters. The first chapter provides a useful survey of the long history of Christian attitudes toward Jews and Judaism, from Paulus and Augustine to the eve of the Reformation. As the author indicates, “The Reformation inherited a wide range of contradictory and ambivalent attitudes from the ancient and medieval periods” (3), which are indispensable for understanding the place of the Jews in Christian thinking and society at the beginning of the Reformation. The second chapter leads us to the dramatic upheavals undergone by the Jews on the eve of the Reformation and during its initial stages, beginning with the expulsion from Spain in 1492 and the start of ghettoization in Italy in 1516. The new impetus that the Protestant Reformation and its principle of sola scriptura gave to the Christian engagement with Hebrew and Jewish learning is also discussed, and finally so is the more “classic” topic of Martin Luther's early deliberations on Jews and Judaism. The third chapter explores the changing attitudes toward the Jews as the Reformation continued to evolve over the years. The most prominent example is, of course, the “Older Luther” and his virulent anti-Jewish writings of the late 1530s and 1540s. However, as Austin asserts, “despite both his significance to the Reformation movement, and the notoriety of his opinions on the Jews in particular, Luther does not speak for the Reformation as a whole” (xiii). True to this assertion, the author also pays considerable attention to other Lutheran Reformers as well as to different groups of the radical Reformation.

The same goal of demonstrating that “‘Reformation’ attitudes were much more diverse and multi-dimensional than the conventional picture has tended to suggest” (xviii) is also evident in chapters four and five, where the author discusses the various attitudes and policies toward the Jews in the Calvinist/Reformed Church and in the Catholic Reformation, respectively. Austin emphasizes the devout Biblicism that characterized the Reformed church and its deep identification with the people of Israel and shows how attitudes and measures toward the Jews in the Catholic territories were influenced by the general context of the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent (1545–1563). The new religious pluralism in Europe in the last decades of the sixteenth century and its impact on the Jewish minority are discussed in chapter six, whereas chapter seven explores Christian–Jewish relations in the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), the last great episode of the religious struggles in Europe in the wake of the Reformation. Finally, the parallel as well as related phenomena of Jewish Messianism and Christian Millenarianism, which gained momentum during this period, are the focus of chapter eight. Special attention is given here to the Puritans and their role in the readmission of the Jews to England in the mid-seventeenth century. Thus, the sweeping narrative that started with the expulsions of the Jews in one part of Europe ended—somewhat more optimistically—with their readmission into another.

This book is a thorough and comprehensive survey, extremely rich in information on numerous aspects of Reformation-era Christian–Jewish relations. Such a broad overview necessarily has its shortcomings, including a certain lack of coherence and occasional repetition. One might also question some of the author's choices of which topics to elaborate on and where to be concise. Yet the merits of this volume by far exceed its weaknesses. In clear and fluent writing, the book provides an excellent and much-needed synthesis of current scholarship in the field. The compelling narrative is balanced and insightful and does justice to the great complexity of the topic. It makes for worthwhile reading for scholars and lay readers alike.