Sylvie-Anne Goldberg Crossing the Jabbok: Illness and Death in Askenazi Judaism in Sixteenth - through Nineteenth-Century Prague. University of California Press, 1996. Contraversions: Critical Studies in Jewish Literature, Culture, and Society, volume 3. First printing. Translation by Carol Cosman of “Deux rives du Yabbok: la maladie et la mort dans le judaïsme ashkénaze - Prague XVIe-XIXe siècle” (Cerf, 1988).  0520081498 xvii/303 pages. Volume, measuring approximately 6.25” x 9.5”, is bound in quarter black cloth and mustard paper-covered boards, with stamped gilt lettering to spine. Book is in fine condition, with firm binding, clean and bright interior. Dust jacket displays light wear and is preserved in mylar cover. “In “Crossing the Jabbok,” Sylvie-Anne Goldberg presents an ambitious study of the views of sickness and death among Ashkenazi Jews from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century. Focusing on Prague, in those years the center of Central and Western European Jewry, Goldberg describes the evolution of attitudes, beliefs, and practices concerning illness and death among Ashkenazi Jews throughout the German lands. Goldberg draws on a rich array of materials - including secular and religious texts, community records and charters, the Halakhah, writings of famous rabbis, and accounts of Jewish-Christian interrelations - to explore that culture. In particular, she seeks to discover the distinctively Jewish aspects of customs and beliefs surrounding illness and dying.”