Banned Books discussion

I am currently reading a novel called The Fruit of Her Hands: The Story of Shira of Ashkenaz by Michelle Cameron. It takes place in medieval France and it deals with book burning.

The first book burning was actually instigated by Jewish Rabbis. They had condemned the work of the Jewish physician and scholar Maimonides as heresy and asked the Church authorities to burn it. A year later the Jewish Talmud was put on trial and was later burned. I am currently reading about the trial.

I found out that these events actually took place historically. Here's a You Tube video about it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_pnL...

Really? That's so disturbing. That kind of blew up in their faces...

Wow, that sounds interesting, kind of like poetic justice, but still ...

It just goes to show that when people think it's acceptable to burn books, the books they love may be next.

I think Maimonides was too much of a scientific rationalist for medieval Ashkenazi Jews. There were some deep cultural divisions between the Ashkenazi Jews of France and Germany, and the Jews who lived in Islamic countries. Yet Maimonides was the sort who would write about disagreements. It would never have occurred to him that Jewish books should be burned.