Identități construite, identități atribuite: fizionomia identitară a evreității (Evul Mediu, Epoca Modernă)
Built Identities, Rendered Identities: The Jewish Identitary Physiognomy (Middle Ages, Modern Era)

Summary/Abstract: The identity, a currently global concept in the social and human sciences, has always been defined in the most various ways. Nowadays, it is usually understood as an expression of “subconsciousness”, in relation to which the body occupies a secondary place. However, this was not always the case. For a very long time, until mid-twentieth century, the identity was regarded as closely related to the body and manifesting itself through its aspect, gestures and movement. It was not only what a person said, acted or behaved like that indicated who that person was and how they were identified, but also their appearance, their face and features, as well as those of their entire body. The body was an indicator of the soul and, unquestionably, a “marker” of membership. Translating the first and establishing the latter were conducted through physiognomy.The Jewish identity is, from this perspective, one of the most relevant examples. Starting with the 12th–13th centuries, the Jews began to be recognised in the Western medieval societies not only by their clothing, but also by a series of psychological “peculiarities”, inferred from the sacred texts and especially from certain facial (eyes, nose, hair) and body features (darker skin colour) that were considered unique. The tradition of body “interpretation” (as revealing for one’s soul) is very old in the European culture, going back to Aristotle (384–322). His treaty, “On Soul” (Peri Psyches / De Anima), provides the basics of translating the soul through the body. Later associated to Galen of Pergamon’s theory of temperaments, the principle of physiognomic lecture founded by Aristotle was taken further in the next centuries by all authors and passed on to the Middle Ages by the Arabs. In the Modern Era (18th–19th centuries), physiognomy did not disappear, but it evolved by being incorporated into several sciences (such as phrenology). This explains the steadiness of body categorising, through which Jewish people were identified, but now set up in a different ideological and (bio-) political mechanism: the theory of races that resulted in the well-known tragic events of the 20th century.

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