1. This volume is a timely look into how religious stereotypes have influenced cultural perceptions of an individual's of trustworthiness throughout the past. It explores when and how Jews become viewed to be reliable in the fields of medicine, politics, academia, culture, business, and finance.

2. The editors of this collection are seasoned scholars in Jewish studies and as such they've put together a strong line up exceptional scholarship for this volume.

3. Taken together these essays are a deep exploration of Jewish/Christian relations and views of Jews through history.

What, if anything, does religion have to do with how reliable we perceive one another to be? When and how did religious difference matter in the past when it came to trusting the word of another? In today's world, we take for granted that being Jewish should not matter when it comes to acting or engaging in the public realm, but this was not always the case. The essays in this volume look at how and when Jews were recognized as reliable and trustworthy in the areas of jurisprudence, medicine, politics, academia, culture, business, and finance. As they explore issues of trust and mistrust, the authors reveal how caricatures of Jews move through religious, political, and legal systems. While the volume is framed as an exploration of Jewish and Christian relations, it grapples with perceptions of Jews and Jewishness from the biblical period to today, from the Middle East to North America, and in Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions. Taken together these essays reflect on the mechanics of trust, and sometimes mistrust, in everyday interactions involving Jews.

Introduction: On the Word of a Jew, or Trusting Jewish History / Nina Caputo and Mitchell B. Hart

1. Oaths, Vows, and Trust in the Bible / Robert S. Kawashima

2. "And in most of their business transactions they rely on this": Some Reflections on Jews and Oaths in the Commercial Arena in Medieval Europe / Ephraim Shoham-Steiner

3. The Oath of a Jew in the Thirteenth Century English Legal Context / Joshua Curk

4. What is an Infidel?: Jewish Oaths and Jewish History in the Making of English Trust and Tolerance / Mitchell B. Hart

5. Trusting Adolphe Crémieux: Jews and Republicans in Nineteenth-Century France / Lisa Leff

6. "A kind of republic and neutral nation:" Commerce, Credit, and Conspiracy in Early Modern Europe / Joshua Teplitsky

7. Jewish Peddlers and Non-Jewish Customers in the New World: Between Profit and Trust / Hasia Diner

8. Belonging and Trustworthiness: Jewish Businessmen in the Public Rhetoric around the "Trustworthy Businessman" in Post-World War I Germany / Stefanie Fischer

9. The Voice of a Jew? Petrus Alfonsi's Dialogi contra judaeos and the Question of True Conversion / Nina Caputo

10. A Return to Credibility? The Rehabilitation of Repentant Apostates in Medieval Ashkenaz / Rachel Furst

11. The Jewish Physician as Respondent, Confidant, and Proxy: The Case of Marcus Herz and Immanuel Kant / Robert Leventhal

12. Perspectives from the Periphery: The East India Company's Jewish Sepoys, Anglo-Jewry, and the Image of "the Jew" / Mitch Numark

13. Between Honor and Authenticity: Zionism as Theodor Herzl's Life-Project / Derek Jonathan Penslar

14. The Most Trusted Jew in America: Jon Stewart's Earnestness / Shaina Hammerman