The Role of Targum Samuel in European Jewish Liturgy

The basic choice in Rabbinic Judaism for the use of a concomitant translation to Aramaic in Jewish liturgy became a model as well as a challenge for Judaism in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages. While in the Orient in Late Antiquity, the translation into Aramaic could have a function as part of the liturgy by elaborating the matter of the day for the Aramaic-speaking audience and as such have an influence on its co-texts such as liturgical poetry, in Christian Europe performing the Targum of the haftarah was reduced by the twelfth century to a ceremonial embellishment for the services of Pesach and Shavuot. At this time they were preceded, especially in the Western Ashkenaziand the French rite-in what seems to have been a rearguard battle by a halakhic literary elite-by proems, some of which were even newly written in Aramaic. However, in general, it seems that the Targum had changed its place from the synagogue to the house of study or to the home of the learned as early as the 13th century, especially if we consider the evidence of its very problematic text transmission in those liturgical manuscripts intended for use among the smaller communities as in Italy.