A Frog Under the Tongue - (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization) by Marek Tuszewicki (Paperback)

About the Book

Jews have been active participants in shaping the healing practices of eastern Europe. This wide-ranging survey of sources in Yiddish, Hebrew, and many other languages fills a gap in the study of folk medicine in eastern Europe while also shedding light on little-known aspects of Ashkenazi culture and on cross-cultural contacts between Jews and their neighbours.

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2021 Gierowski-Shmeruk Prize
Shortlisted for the Folklore Society's Katharine Briggs Award 2021
Jews have been active participants in shaping the healing practices of the communities of eastern Europe. Their approach largely combined the ideas of traditional Ashkenazi culture with the heritage of medieval and early modern medicine. Holy rabbis and faith healers, as well as Jewish barbers, innkeepers, and pedlars, all dispensed cures, purveyed folk remedies for different ailments, and gave hope to the sick and their families based on kabbalah, numerology, prayer, and magical Hebrew formulas. Nevertheless, as new sources of knowledge penetrated the traditional world, modern medical ideas gained widespread support. Jews became court physicians to the nobility, and when the universities were opened up to them many also qualified as doctors. At every stage, medicine proved an important field for cross-cultural contacts.

Jewish historians and scholars of folk medicine alike will discover here fascinating sources never previously explored--manuscripts, printed publications, and memoirs in Yiddish and Hebrew but also in Polish, English, German, Russian, and Ukrainian. Marek Tuszewicki's careful study of these documents has teased out therapeutic advice, recipes, magical incantations, kabbalistic methods, and practical techniques, together with the ethical considerations that such approaches entailed. His research fills a gap in the study of folk medicine in eastern Europe, shedding light on little-known aspects of Ashkenazi culture, and on how the need to treat sickness brought Jews and their neighbours together.

Review Quotes

'Marek Tuszewicki's new book, translated by Jessica Taylor Kucia (2021), opens a window into the colorful world of folk medicine among eastern European Ashkenazi Jews, representing a unique way to study the stories that are part of the emerging new field of Medical Humanities. This is a welcome addition to studies in traditional Jewish medicine, as little research has been done in eastern Europe's Jewish folk medicine field. As the author informs us, other than ethnographic literature written in Polish in the 1880s and 1890s, virtually no work has been available until now for English readers... A Frog Under the Tongue is an excellent resource to use in the classroom, easy to understand, and rich in a variety of educational sources.' Deborah Kaye, Religious Studies Review

'Tuszewicki's nuanced approach to the analysis of his data is evident. Rather than rigidly evaluating rituals or beliefs according to one or another interpretive system, he allows the sources to speak for themselves, it is a testament to his intimate familiarity with the inner world of Ashkenazic Jewry that he is able to shape a huge corpus of sources into a work as legible and authoritative this one.' Natan M. Meir, The Polish Review

'A Frog Under the Tongue is a triumph of archival excavation and academic interpretation. It is a work of clear interest not only to folklorists, but also to scholars of religious practice and of linguistics, and to researchers across the broad field of medical humanities ... Tuszewicki shows how important a knowledge of medical beliefs is in understanding how a society and culture functions -- and what role folklore can play in discovering this.'
Ross MacFarlane, Folklore

'[A]n erudite cataloging of the varied ways Eastern European Jews dealt with treating and warding off illness... Tuszewicki provides a highly documented, rich glimpse into a remarkable aspect of a lost world.' S. V. Greenberg, Choice

'Marek Tuszewicki's book is impressive in its broad scope and ambition . . . written in an engaging manner, it offers a synthetic picture while not stinting on detail.'
Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, Central Europe

'This is a meticulous study of the traditional Jewish medical practices of eastern Europe. The source base in Polish and Yiddish is impressive, as is the comprehensive survey of secondary literature. The approach is very original, combining nineteenth-century ethnography with modern anthropological interpretative methods. This makes the book rich with material, but analytical and interpretative at the same time.'
Marcin Wodziński, University of Wroclaw

'When people's health is on the line, what people do is a very good indication of what they think. Behaviour related to health gives exceptional insights into the thought world of otherwise inarticulate, 'simple' Jews, as well of the more educated strata of society. The cures Jews used in nineteenth-century eastern Europe demonstrate how they understood the material world, while the frequent exchange of ideas and methods with non-Jews shows their openness to different perspectives when they felt it was necessary to achieve vital goals. Marek Tuszewicki's study should be required reading for anyone dealing seriously with east European Jewish social history and the history of modernization, especially the relations between Jews and non-Jews and how world-views change. By the way, it is also fascinating.'
Shaul Stampfer, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Reviews

'A brilliant resource and an inevitable point of reference for further studies of Jewish medical customs and beliefs in late Ashkenaz. The author has compiled a wide range of material and presents it as an enthralling story about a world that is no more . . . a fascinating book, certainly a recommended read not only for academics but for anyone with an interest in eastern European Jewry.'
Agata Paluch, The Polish Review

About the Author

Marek Tuszewicki received his MA and Ph.D. degrees from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and is now deputy director of its Institute of Jewish Studies. His publications include scholarly articles in Polish and English on Jewish folklore as well as Polish translations of Yiddish literature and his own Yiddish-language poetry. This is his first book-length publication in English; the Polish edition was published in 2015.