Sara Lipton Explained

Sara Lipton is a medieval historian; she is Professor of History at Stony Brook University, where she has been appointed as Department Chair for 2023-26. She has been elected to serve as the 100th President of the Medieval Academy of America (2024-25).

Lipton is noted for her work on the medieval origins of the iconography of antisemitism.^{[1] [2]} According to Howard Jacobson, Lipton argues that the medieval artistic convention of depicting Jews with a Roman nose, dark skin, and scraggly or pointy beard originated in the 1200s, and were commissioned by Christian authorities as works of art depicting the sinfulness of greed in order to set the pious on a righteous (non-greedy) path to heaven. Jacobson notes that even if the Church's motivation was to discourage sin rather than to promote Jew-hatred, it was "a hard distinction to maintain."^[3]

Books authored

• Book: Lipton, Sara. Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt. New York. 2014. 978-0805079104. The book traces the development of antisemitic imagery from the 1000s through the 1400s.^{[4] [5] [6] [7]} It was awarded the John Nicholas Brown Book Prize for Best First Book from the Medieval Academy of America.
• Book: Lipton, Sara. Images of Intolerance: The Representation of Jews and Judaism in the Bible moralisée. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1999. 978-0520215511. The book won the 2015 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award for Cultural Studies and Media Studies from the Association for Jewish Studies.

Notes and References

1. News: Kahn . Eve . Not All Medieval Sacred Art Was Anti-Semitic . 22 May 2019 . New York Times . 30 October 2014.
2. News: Pearl . Sharrona . The Myth of the Jewish Nose . 22 May 2019 . . 8 February 2009.
3. News: Jacobson . Howard . Jews and the money myth From Judas to the Brick Lane mural, how the malicious libel about Jewish greed gripped the global imagination . 21 May 2019 . . 17 April 2019.
4. News: Roth . Michael . 'Dark Mirror,' on origins of anti-Jewish iconography (book review) . 22 May 2019 . Washington Post . 19 December 2014.
5. News: Chazan . Robert . When Did Christian Art Begin Singling Out Jews? (book review) . 22 May 2019 . . 5 April 2015.
6. News: Dark Mirror (brief review) . 22 May 2019 . 9 February 2015 . The New Yorker.
7. News: Christiansen . Eric . Two Cheers for the Middle Ages! (book review) . 22 May 2019 . . 9 July 2015.