The fifteenth century was one of the most tragic and fateful centuries in the history of the Jewish people. It was the century which not only sealed the fate of Sephardic Jewry in the Iberian Peninsula, but also marked the turning point in the historical development of Ashkenazic Jewry from its centre in Germany to Poland and eastern Europe.

Rabbi Dr. Bernard Rosensweig utilizes the life and times and works of Rabbi Jacob Weil and his contemporaries in order to give us an intimate picture of Ashkenazic Jewry in this age of transition. Through these original sources, we are exposed to the social, cultural, economic and political structure of the Jewish community, and its relationship to the civil authority and the Church.