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The Jews in Italy: Their Contribution to the Development and Difusion of Jewish Heritage

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The Jews in Italy: Their Contribution to the Development and Difusion of Jewish Heritage Yaron Harel, Mauro Perani, eds. The Jews in Italy: Their Contribution to the Development and Difusion of Jewish Heritage. Brookline: Academic Studies Press, 2019. 444 pp. $129.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-64469-026-0. Reviewed by Howard Adelman (Queen's University) Published on H-Judaic (June, 2020) Commissioned by Barbara Krawcowicz (Jagiellonian University) This collection of articles presents the pro‐ and early on had a presence in the south of the ceedings of a conference on the Jews of Italy held peninsula, where, according to Yaron Silverstein, it in 2011 at Bologna University, in conjunction with flourished under the influence of Jewish traditions Bar Ilan University and the Italian Association for from Palestine and Babylonia. There it would con‐ the Study of Judaism. Most of the twenty-two arti‐ tinue to be impacted by Arab, Spanish, and French cles represent new voices in the study of Italian culture. Jewry from Italy and Israel. The articles and their The Italian Jewish communities in the north notes provide a good opportunity to survey the re‐ developed in the course of the fifteenth and six‐ cent scholarship on Italian Jewry, despite the fact teenth centuries after the forced conversions, in‐ —or maybe due to the fact—that several of the ar‐ quisition, and expulsions of the Jews of the Iberian ticles are very technical and present untranslated peninsula and Spanish foreign holdings, including passages and terms. Although the articles do not territories in the south of the Italian peninsula, es‐ reflect consistency in editing and translation, indi‐ pecially Naples. Italian Jewry continued to expand vidually and collectively they provide valuable in‐ after the expulsions and exoduses of Jews from formation and analysis about the current state of French territories, the northern Tzorfatim, and the research of Italian Jewry in particular and in the southern Provencalim, as described by Shimon context of Jewish studies in general. Schwarzfuchs, and from the Germanic lands, the The main title of this book, The Jews in Italy, Ashkenazim, whose diet and family structures are immediately raises two significant questions presented by Zahava Weishouse. about Jewish history in Italy that are more than se‐ The life of Abraham de Balmes (1440-1523), as mantic: What are “Jews,” and what is “Italy?” Tak‐ described by Dror ben-Ariè is an example of the en in reverse order, the answer to the question of migrations of Jews in Italy: his family was from what is Italy involves many independent and Spain, he was born in southern Italy, studied in semi-dependent, cooperating and conflicting polit‐ Naples, and moved to northern Italy, where he died ical, cultural, and linguistic entities occupying in Venice. In the northern and central communi‐ what might better be called the Italian peninsula, ties, such as those of Venice, Florence, the Papal which, after 1861, was unified as the Kingdom of States, Mantua, Milan, Modena, and Ferrara, as Italy. Following Miriam Ben Zeev’s article, Jewish well as so many small towns and even villages, life in the Italian peninsula began in Roman times during the Renaissance and Baroque periods Ital‐ H-Net Reviews ian Jewish culture made, in the words of the subti‐ and Christians. He studied philosophy and tle of the book, a “Contribution to the Develop‐ medicine at the university in Naples, served as the ment and Diffusion of Jewish Heritage.” Despite personal physician to a cardinal, lectured at the the rivalries between the individual city states and university in Padua, maintained relations with duchies, the balance among these entities was fur‐ Christian humanists, translated philosophical ther disrupted as Italy became the battlefield for works from Latin to Hebrew, and, influenced by forces outside the peninsula, including France, trends in the study of Latin grammar, wrote a Spain/Holy Roman Empire, and Turks. Neverthe‐ bilingual Hebrew-Latin grammar of Hebrew. less, a sense of Italianness, Italianità, emerged and Michael Ryzhik’s study of the Hebrew transla‐ became the framework for Italian culture and Ital‐ tion of Giordano Ruffo’s equine medical treatise il‐ ian Jewish culture. lustrates some of the same trends. Although the The second question raised by the title of the translation is anonymous, factors point to a south‐ book concerns the words “Jews” and “Jewish.” This ern Italian origin, probably from the fifteenth cen‐ is a historical question and not a halakhic one. tury. Some of the illustrative features of the work Several of the authors inadvertently raised the that highlight the range of cultural influences on question by referring to “normative” (pp. 38, 44, the translator are that at times the Hebrew reflects 287),“Orthodox Judaism” (p. 164), “halakhah” (p. Arabic influence and includes Italian words, and 221), “halakhic” (p. 292), “uniform code binding on sometimes the translator will start to write a word all Jewish communities” (p. 301), and other expres‐ in Latin, delete it, and put in a Hebrew word. Ora sions of universally prescribed behaviors and be‐ (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald’s study of Ladino transla‐ liefs for all Jews. Nevertheless, the book does deal tions of traditional Hebrew texts raises other ques‐ with crypto-Jews and kabbalists, which highlights tions of cross-cultural influences on Italian Jewry. some of the range of Jewish life in Italy. The Ladino translations, however, present a para‐ Furthermore, a monolithic Jewish culture, sep‐ dox. While other translations into Judeo-Italian arated by the ghetto walls, did not exist, despite show the influence of outside cultures on Jewish one author’s description of ritual as something vernacular translations, the Ladino texts, although that, “deepened the religious consciousness and es‐ originally based on the openness of Spanish Jews tablished the foundation of a Jewish society that to the surrounding language, in Italy they repre‐ could withstand the antisemitic pressures that sented a closure for some Jews to both traditional were waiting at the walls outside the ghetto” (p. Hebrew texts and to the local Judeo-Italian di‐ 164). One of the most obvious aspects of Italian alects. The theme of Italian influences on Jewish Jewish culture presented in this book that defies culture is further demonstrated in Carmela the division between Jews and others is the lan‐ Saranga’s essay on Jossipon and the Book of Jash‐ guages that Jews used. A significant measure of the er; both anonymous works probably originated in interaction between Jewish and Italian culture is southern Italy during the Middle Ages. While these the various Judeo-Italian calques, words, and books present reworked biblical tales and Jewish phrases brought in from other languages, and the historiography, they also integrate material from eventual adoption of Italian in Jewish life. These Italian history, including from Plutarch and Livy, phenomena undermine the notion of a lack of thereby highlighting the influence of other cultures communication and cultural exchange between in Italy on Jews. In his very useful summary of Jewish and non-Jewish culture. Kabbalah in Italy, Moshe Hallamish, however, avoids the question of the sources of sixteenth-cen‐ The life of Abraham de Balmes further illus‐ tury Cordoverian and Lurianic Kabbalah in Safed. trates the blurring of boundaries between Jews Were these new trends brought to Safed by Iberian 2 H-Net Reviews refugees or was there something unique to Safed In addition to most of the philosophical and that influenced the development of Kabbalah kabbalistic articles, Yoel Shiloh wrote an impor‐ there, perhaps Sufism, a subject that has received tant article for understanding family dynamics by much attention from scholars lately? Similarly, following the paper trail of marriage negotiations. Yaniv Goldberg’s essay on dybbuk exorcisms strug‐ Having just published a book on the subject, I read gles with the question of external influence or in‐ this piece with great interest. The main argument ternal developments in Jewish culture, particularly is spot-on: the writing of the marriage contract, the in aspects of Kabbalah. In his survey of possession ketubah, was preceded by private financial negoti‐ (dybbuk, ibbur, impregnation; gilgul, transmigra‐ ations recorded in ancillary Hebrew or Italian tion of souls) in Jewish life, he struggles whether to documents, which were not always mentioned in consider such beliefs and exorcisms as part of a the ketubot, which were not always standard, and tradition going back to the ancient world, me‐ which were not always preserved. In my own dieval Iberia, and the Ottoman Empire, despite be‐ study, I found that ketubot documents obscure ing banned by the church, or to explain them as an more than they reveal often in order to mask the essentially Jewish phenomenon among sixteenth- social status and financial contributions of the century Safed kabbalists, although ultimately the families to protect the honor of all involved. essay concludes by placing the belief in possession The modern period brought changes to Italian and exorcism in the context of the shared culture Jewry, but not like the denominations that of Jews and Catholics in eighteenth-century Italy. emerged in western Europe and the United States, The issue of Jewish influence on Catholic cul‐ and many long-standing aspects of traditional ture is presented by Maria Portmann in her study Italian Jewish life remained intact. Alessandro of depictions of Jesus’ circumcision in paintings by Grazi presents Freemasonry, however exclusion‐ Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516), Andrea Mantegna ary at its inception and fragmented as it devel‐ (1431-1506), and Titian (1488-1576). The question is, oped, as an agent of enlightenment and democra‐ if Catholics were, at least in legislation of 1368, for‐ cy that enabled some change for Jews, as it had in bidden from attending Jewish feasts, how did they other countries, despite continued legal restric‐ know about circumcision rites? Vernacular Jewish tions on Jews imposed by governments and social ritual guides, like Leon Modena’s Riti, were only limitations maintained among the populace.
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