Mishlè Shu'alim

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{{Short description|Collection of fables}}

{{History of the Jews in England}}

Mishlè Shu'alim ({{langx|he|משלי שועלים}}, "Fox fables") is a collection of mashal as fable, including fables about foxes, written, translated, and compiled by the English Jewish writer Berechiah ha-Nakdan in the 12th–13th century.{{cite journal |title=The Fox in World Literature: Reflections on a 'Fictional Animal' |first=Hans-Jörg |last=Uther |journal=Asian Folklore Studies |volume=65 |issue=2 |year=2006 |pages=133–160 |jstor=30030396 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30030396}} Its title reflects an older Talmudic tradition of fox fables (משלות שועלים); for example Rabbi Meir was supposed to have known 300 of them, and it has appeared in modern Israeli popular culture through the Foxy Fables series.

Berechiah was a French native but lived in England. For his collection, which in the edition by A. M. Haberman has 119 fables, he relied in part on the Ysopet collection translated by Marie de France. One of the fables in the collection was appended by the French Jewish grammarian Cresben (or Cresbien) le Ponctateur, an acquaintance of Moses ben Jacob of Coucy.{{cite journal |title=The Significance of Form: R. Moses of Coucy's Reading Audience and His Sefer ha-Miẓvot |first=Judah D. |last=Galinsky |journal=AJS Review |year=2011 |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=293–321 |doi=10.1017/S0364009411000407 |jstor=41310619 |s2cid=163080619 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41310619|url-access=subscription }}

One of the fables, "The Elephant and the Man of the Field", is to be read in the ongoing dispute between Jews and Christians about the role of the Torah. A hunter attempts to catch the Torah; the hunter, as is clear from the biblical references, represents Esau (who stands for Christian Rome), whereas the elephant stands for the Torah. A group of scholars helps the hunter; they represent the Christian polemic against Judaism.{{cite journal |title='The Ways of Truth Are Curtailed and Hidden': A Medieval Hebrew Fable As a Vehicle for Covert Polemic |first=Marc Michael |last=Epstein |journal=Prooftexts |year=1994 |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=205–31 |jstor=20689395 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20689395}} The hunter captures the elephant and symbolically terrorises the local population, that is, the Jews.{{cite journal |title=The Elephant and the Law: The Medieval Jewish Minority Adapts a Christian Motif |first=Marc Michael |last=Epstein |journal=The Art Bulletin |year=1994 |volume=76 |issue=3 |pages=465–78 |doi=10.2307/3046039 |jstor=3046039 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3046039|url-access=subscription }} Another fable, "The Camel and the Flea", derives from Genesis Rabbah.{{cite journal |title=Gnats, Fleas, Flies, and a Camel |first=Benjamin |last=Williams |journal=The Jewish Quarterly Review |year=2017 |volume=107 |issue=2 |pages=157–81 |doi=10.1353/jqr.2017.0011 |jstor=90006284 |s2cid=164469707 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/90006284|url-access=subscription }}