religions Article The Lulav: Early Modern Polemical Ethnographies and the Art of Fencing Ahuvia Goren Department of Jewish History, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 8410501, Israel;
[email protected] Abstract: In recent years, scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to the history of scholarship in general and, more specifically, to the emergence of critical historical and anthropological litera- ture from and within ecclesiastical scholarship. However, few studies have discussed the Jewish figures who took part in this process. This paper analyzes the role played by historiographical and ethnographical writing in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italian Jewish–Christian polemics. Tracing various Christian polemical ethnographical depictions of the Jewish rite of shaking the lulav (sacramental palm leaves used by Jews during the festival of Sukkot), it discusses the variety of ways in which Jewish scholars responded to these depictions or circumvented them. These responses reflect the Jewish scholars’ familiarity with prevailing contemporary scholarship and the key role of translation and cultural transfers in their own attempts to create parallel works. Furthermore, this paper presents new Jewish polemical manuscript material within the relevant contexts, exam- ines Jewish attempts to compose polemical and apologetic ethnographies, and argues that Jewish engagement with critical scholarship began earlier than scholars of this period usually suggest Keywords: early modern history; Jewish–Christian polemics; history of scholarship; Italy Citation: Goren, Ahuvia. 2021. The Lulav: Early Modern Polemical Ethnographies and the Art of Fencing. 1. Introduction Religions 12: 493. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/rel12070493 A compilation of historical works by Jewish scholar Elijah Capsali includes the follow- ing story: Academic Editors: Yossef Schwartz, At first, Maimonides was living in Cordova, working as the respected royal doctor.