Sara Lipton is a medieval historian; she is a professor of history at

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York syste ...

. Lipton is noted for her work on the medieval origins of the

iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

. According to

Howard Jacobson Howard Eric Jacobson (born 25 August 1942) is a British novelist and journalist. He is known for writing comic novels that often revolve around the dilemmas of British Jewish characters.Ragi, K. R., "Howard Jacobson's ''The Finkler Question'' a ...

, Lipton argues that the medieval artistic convention of depicting Jews with a

Roman nose Roman Nose ( – September 17, 1868), also known as Hook Nose ( chy, Vóhko'xénéhe, also spelled Woqini and Woquini), was a Native American of the Northern Cheyenne. He is considered to be one of, if not the greatest and most influential war ...

, 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."

''Dark Mirror''

''Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography'' (2014) traces the development of antisemitic imagery from the 1000s through the 1400s.

References

Living people American medievalists Scholars of antisemitism Women medievalists American women historians 21st-century American historians 21st-century American women writers Stony Brook University faculty Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-historian-stub